Day 9

Up late today for pictures with the skulls and skins, then pack for the trip to Lemco. We buy a few items from Trisha in her gift shop. They have been great hosts and fun to talk with and learn from. Jimmy is a bit sullen, but a good guy and generally up beat. He is honestly rooting for us as we chased the buff and sable.

The plane shows up, this time a twin engine with the older guy as the pilot. Lauren gets to be the co-pilot and sees Zimbabwe from the cockpit and at 5000’. A 90 minute flight puts us down on a nice, long runway in the middle of what looks like an old cattle plantation-ranch. Wow!!! What a nice place! We are met by Julia, the outgoing 40 year old wife of the camp manager. She has a nice truck full of helpers to gather our stuff and to camp. We stop at the headquarters and see quite an operation. The main house was at least 8000 square feet and looked like a plantation house; the guest houses were about 2000 square feet and looked lovely. The offices were nice and well done with full time electricity.

We had flown from the very northern most boundary of Zimbabwe to the far south about 60 miles from the South African border. Things were greener here, less thick and seemingly better watered. The camp roads were bladed and not nearly as rough as we had been on for the past week. Julia introduced us to a guy named Pongo, who looked to be about 100 years old. He was born on this ranch and never left – he is a legend and apparently is very articulate about his history. He reminds me of Satchel Paige, the ancient Negro baseball player, who never knew how old he was. Turns out, Pongo is Julia’s helper and scout as she drives this 800,000 acre ranch. He knows ever road and every hill. She takes us on a tour of the area as we head to the Ripple Creek Camp.

On leaving the airstrip, we see several herds/groups/coveys of impala. Not just 2 or 3 but bunches of up to 20. We see more impala in 10 minutes than we see in a week in Dande. We bump into giraffe and zebra as well – not knowing that this combination will play havoc on our stalks tomorrow. We see warthogs, we see black rhino sign, we see waterbuck, we see lots of critters.

The drive to camp was about 15-20 minutes, all inside the Ripple Creek area of the Lemco Conservancy. The Lemco area is made up of 5 or 6 ranches that have been merged or consolidated into one large contiguous tract. This is private land and owned by whites. It has not been appropriated by the government, yet. Julia tells us that the owners have an agreement with government to allow this to remain a wildlife conservancy and off limits to war veterans. So far so good on that. It pays to know the right people, I guess.

We get to the camp, what a camp. This is luxury, fixed buildings, elegant bedrooms and bathrooms, all set on a large lawn looking down to a 200 acre lake. This is nice and a much needed break from Dande and the dust and bumps. There is a dining room, a nice outdoor bar and TV room loaded with hunting videos. It takes us no time to get settled in. Julia tells us that there a few hippos in the lake and they graze in the yard an night, be careful, do not stir them up as they run into things and do considerable damage to the place.

I grab my bird book and walk the 150 yards to lake to have a look around. On the way to the lake, I see impala, warthogs and waterbuck. On the far side of the lake, I see bush pigs and warthogs through my bino’s. Lots of birds, mostly cormorants, ibis, heron and a spoonbill. I see a 4’ long water monitor lizard swimming near the boat dock, looking for eggs or birds or whatever they eat. He sees me and dives.

Back to the lodge/cottage, there is a herd of warthogs on the lawn. I cannot get over the number of critters we see in the first hour there. I imagine that tomorrow, when we go out to hunt, we will be whacking and stacking big time.

We take another drive around and see kudu, steenbok, duikers, zebra, giraffes, waterbuck, impala, and warthogs. We are tempted at this point. Later, when we get in, Julia goes over the list of what we can hunt – everything we want to except bushbuck. Apparently, the bushbuck population is low here. She saws she would like for us to take out 200 giraffe as they have that many to cull if hunters don’t take them. That is what I like, a challenge! Conor volunteers to take one. I have a hard time getting excited about such a large and slow target. Later, I would change my mind and wish I had the time and ammo to waste about 500 of the beasts.

The PH’s make it in late with their guys. It was a long dusty trip and they are beat. A good meal, a shower and they get recharged for the next day. The cook in the camp is super. He is skilled and prepares an appetizer of soup or salad or pate or whatever – it all tastes great and there is plenty of it. My boys like that part the best.

Day 10

Eager and ready to go as we are headed to hunters paradise. At breakfast, we learn that Dean has not hunted this area before, Ben hunted it several years ago and Maurius has been here several times. We each have a local spotter that knows the area to go with our regular guys. The extra guy is not a game scout, just a guide. We all discuss what to hunt. Conor and Maurius are after giraffe first, Sean and Ben are after waterbuck, and Dean and I are after whatever. We take Lauren and Sean takes Diane with him.

We all head out together to a road about a mile from the lodge to re-check the guns. The rifles are fine and we decide to have a .22 mag shooting contest with the boys. I have heard that the regular African is a lousy shot. That rumor is now fact and well confirmed by what I saw. The boys shot about 150 rounds at hats, rocks, targets and rarely connected at distances of 10 to 50 yards. We picked up Witness, Clemons the tracker’s son, as a driver. He had been in Dande but was helping out at the camp and was driving. He is a tracker in training and a bright kid. He looked 15 but was 26. I mention him here in that he was the only one to actually hit the various targets. Not bad. Bongoni, the spotter, shot about 10 times at a ball cap at 20 steps. He connected maybe twice. Diane got into the act and shot several targets as well. Lauren made several good shots as well and now wants to hunt with her .300.

Maurius and Dean each took turns shooting at .375 cases and hit them regularly – putting a .22 hole through the empty case. These guys are good.

We scatter after a bunch of laughs and head out, in search of whatever we find.

Lauren decides that a zebra skin would be a great gift for our friend, Mama Wolfe. So off we go. We quickly spot some and make a stalk and promptly get busted. What? Zebra busting us? Come on?!! Dean proceeds to tell us that he usually has more trouble with zebra than anything. They have the eyes and ears to sense us and they are alert. Great, we pick a tough one for Lauren’s first big game hunt. We soon learn that zebras are not going to be easy and that they use the giraffes as sentries to spy us out. Every stalk we make, we bump giraffes and they in turn spook/warn the Mr. Stripes. I am getting pissed by the minute and am ready brain every long legged spy I see. Overall, we try 5 long stalks, get busted every time and come home empty handed. Here we are, in the proverbial zoo, and we come up empty.

We broke for lunch and found that Conor had taken a bull giraffe about 30 minutes after the shooting contest. We had heard shots but did not know he took one. His first shot spined it and over it went, face first in the dirt, only to stay alive. Six more .375 shots and he died. Darn they are tough, and even tougher to skin. What a stinking mess. The head looks 2 feet long and the hide is big enough to make a hot air balloon. The skinners were not smiling when I came by the skinning shed.

They head back out for kudu or eland.

The big shooter of the day was Sean. He comes in with a monster waterbuck, a bush pig and warthog. On top of that they see two aardvarks in the daylight hours. They chase them and one of the aardvarks drops over like he was dead. He passed out and looked bad but recovered and got up to amble off. What a sight to see!

Sean tells the waterbuck tale and he truly makes a great shot on it. He needed a pick-me-up after the fruitless days on bushbuck. Basically, he and Ben cut waterbuck tracks and waterbuck as they cruised around. They stalked several different groups only to not see a good bull. This goes on all morning without success. They break for lunch and are heading in when Claudius spots a shape in the bush. They stop, make a short stalk when Ben sees this is one big bull, all alone, no cows to spook him. They see a shape in the thick mopane brush about 75 yards ahead looking directly at them. All freeze and Sean takes a hard look as does Ben. No sign of horns or body at first look, but through bino’s horns take shape as well as an unprotected part of the chest. Ben says to aim for the center of the exposed part. Sean takes aim with his .300 and doof!, down goes the waterbuck with a neck shot. Massive horns about 28†long with bases too big to get your hands around. This was a goal of Sean’s since the trip to the RSA two years ago. There, he took a superb nyala after going after it for three evenings. In South Africa, the waterbuck are transplants and raised on ranches to be shot. Here, they are free ranging and in the natural habitat.



Sean and I had hunted Red Lechwe in RSA but upon arriving at the “ranch†to hunt them, we saw that there were about 300 animals in a 600 acre paddock. The land was stripped clean of browse up to the reach of the Lechwe. We see them everywhere and the “guide†on this ranch us telling us to shoot, shoot, shoot. Sean and I look at each other and say “no way Jose, this is not hunting and we are out of hereâ€. We leave this area with a bad taste in our mouth and I tell our RSA host that we are not ‘pen raised animal shooters’ and won’t do this type of “huntingâ€. He gets my point and agrees. Sean, Conor and I decide right then and there that we do not hunt over feeders, in fenced in paddocks for transplanted game. No more canned hunts for us. We had been to a 2500 acres deer ranch in central Texas in their early years and taken whitetails and an elk-red deer cross. This was when they were young and we needed to see some game to make the hunting interesting. However, now that the boys are older and understand the ethics of hunting and the thrill of the chase – no more canned hunts on dumb game

I do not see the waterbuck until it was skinned, but it is a dandy. Ben says that is one of the bigger ones you will see. All of the PH’s feel as we do about canned hunts. Ranch hunting is part of hunting today, but not shooting animals in small areas out of the natural habitat. The high fence around the 800,000 acres at Lemco is more to keep people out than to keep the animals in. It is slightly unnatural due to the number of man-made water holes, and dams but these were holdovers from cattle ranching days. Further, the water helps balance out the fluctuations in carrying capacity of the land during the dry and wet seasons. We do not hunt the water holes, as most PH's do not hunt water holes. We check for tracks and at times, followed game that left the water hole.

Later, Sean and Ben take a bush pig and warthog while hunting kudu. This is the beauty of hunting in Africa. Many times, we are out hunting a specific animal and stumble into something else, change our plans and hunt that animal. A bush pig is relatively rare to see in mid-day. They came on an old boar and Ben said it was a good one, take it. Sean did. Same with the warthog. We had been stymied with warthog in South Africa as we were a bit too far south in the Eastern Cape to find them in abundance. Here, there are warthogs in plentiful numbers. We saw them many times each day. The trick was to see a good boar and get a shot. Conor and Sean both walked up on their pigs and made good shots.



Seeing a big smile on Sean perks Lauren and me up as we were dog tired and frustrated by the giraffes. Dean says this is normal and to expect more of the same but that sooner or later we would find the zebra looking the other way. Dean relates a story to us about a hunter who shot a zebra in the shoulder, breaking a leg but not hitting a lung. They tracked it for 2 days and 20 miles before catching up to it. He says they are tough and that we have a worth opponent. Thanks for the encouragement.

Digression again for PH client stories

Dinner was great, almost gourmet style with appetizers and homemade breads. As we have gotten to know the PH’s they open up to us with more and more funny stories about clients. I will relate three that I liked –

Dean tells us about two sisters, 70 years or older, who came to hunt on several occasions but decided to hunt elephant. Having heard all of the tales about elephant hunting – the many miles walked, the sweat, the thirst, the climbing, the flies, the inconvenience – I was surprised Dean would take this on. Basically, the hunt went like this. Dean, Claudius and Bongoni would scout and track all day from the place they hit tracks. The sisters would wait at the truck with an umbrella, a couple of books and soft drinks. Dean and group would return with good or bad news depending on the outcome of the tracking. The ladies sat and snoozed, read and visited while elephants were looked for. When Dean found one, he high-tailed it to the truck and gathered up the ladies to hike to the last sighting. If lucky, they would find the tusker somewhere close and get a shot. This goes on several days and they finally get up on one, but it required crossing a muddy stream bed. The ladies had custom Italian leather hunting boots and did not want to get their boots scuffed or muddy. Dean had to carry the ladies across the offending ground piggyback style and place them on dry ground – all the while keeping a sharp eye out for elephant or other problem. He said they each killed elephants in the 25 to 30 lb range and had great fun. At dinner each evening, the sisters appeared in semiformal sporting wear and looked like they had just stepped out of the Orvis catalogue. Dean said they were good sports, good shots and did not complain. Good clients.

Second story was about elephant hunting. We heard many tales of walking up and down for miles and miles and making good or bad shots on elephant. Two tales jumped out to me. First was an elephant that Maurius had put a client on only to that the head shot not kill the beast. The elephant took off for parts unknown with Maurius and client in hot pursuit. They see the beast climbing up a hill about 700 yards ahead of them in the clear. The client or Maurius decide to try a shot, anything to slow him down. The shot with a .375 H&H at that distance would drop a bunch. A guess on hold over is made, the shot taken with no apparent affect. The make a beeline to the ridge the elephant crossed over and find the beast standing just over the ridge on three legs. Seems the shot caught the elephant in the back foot in the ankle area. Now, an elephant cannot walk or run on three legs due to its size and weight, a fact I did not know. They finished the elephant with a brain shot and examined the foot. Seems the bullet barely penetrated the foot but hit a tendon in the ankle, incapacitating the elephant. Some kind of luck.

The other story was about an elephant that was killed near a village. When this happens, the locals turn out in scores to get some free meat. Protein is in short supply and any meat is consumed by the locals. The game scout or a local official tried to take control of the situation as the PH’s knew things would get wild with 200 people trying to butcher an elephant and sort the meat. These officials got on top of the carcass, told the people to line up and each would get a fair piece. They were to line up by ages and sexes – old woman first, young woman second, old men third and so on. This went fine for about the first 3 people, and then some in the back decided that they would get shorted, so a melee broke out. The officials had hippo hide whips and were flogging the people to get them in line to no avail. The men were overwhelmed by 50 men with axes and knives carving up the elephant and flinging meat out to family and friends. The carcass was swarmed and the officials gave up.

When the elephant was opened up, guts out, men went inside the chest cavity up to their knees in blood and gore, hacking away at any meat and the ribs. On the outside, men and women were on top of the carcass chopping away with axes and adzes coming within inches of each other and those inside the carcass. Finally, one errant adze hit an old man in the calf, shredding his muscle and causing a 30 second stop in the action while he was carried off. No telling what happened to him. Another old woman caught the pointy end of pick in the forehead, bleeding profusely from an arterial bleed. She grabs a handful of dirt and gore, rolls it in her hand and slaps it on her forehead to stop the bleeding and continue gathering up meat scraps. A third old woman is having a hard time getting close to the carcass to get what her men-folk hand out. She is handed the end of the intestines and is being mauled by others trying to grab them away from her. She grabs the intestine in both hands and starts pirouetting (spinning) around and around wrapping herself like thread on a spindle with elephant guts. When she was about twice as big as when she started, someone cut her loose and she ran for the bushes to drop her load with the family.

In less than 2 hours, the 10,000 pound elephant was reduced to a puddle of slim. The gore, blood, bones, eye balls, tail and toenails were gone. The PH’s said it was a miracle no one was decapitated by the swinging axes.

End of Digression and Back to the Story

Too keyed up to go to bed, we sat up and watched hunting videos of various hunters taking bongo, lion, lechwe, buffalo and topi. We watched a couple of Mark Sullivan’s notorious – Black Death! Eaten by Lions! Charged by Horned Devils! – videos of him and clients wounding buff or lion to induce a charge, then shoot to drop the animal at their feet. The PH’s knew him and felt he should be banned from the business due to his ethics and antics. I tend to agree. Wounding an animal on purpose to induce it to charge is shameless and creates a false reality by the viewers. The unsuspecting hunting public would think that all buffalo charge, that all lions charge and that all elephants drop with a frontal brain shot only to rise up and charge. There is always a dark side to something good.

Day 10

No malaria issues here, so no netting and Di does not have to sleep completed covered. However, we were told about the hippos in the yard, so I woke up to check out. Sure enough, there were two in the yard about 20 steps behind our chalet. I shined a light on them and was impressed by the distance between the red eyes looking back at me, about 14 to 16 inches was my guess. Tracks and munched grass were evident when we got up for breakfast. Di never woke up and is not afraid of hippos, at least not as afraid of them as lions, leopards and mosquitoes.

Revenge is the word for the day. Death to Giraffes! Death to zebras! At least, death to a zebra if we could sneak up on one. Sean sleeps in as he did the serious shooting yesterday. Conor is out after eland with Maurius.

We head out and see a pair of Steenbok on a grassy hillside. We had seen one here the day before and now there are two. They stay in pairs in a fairly localized territory, so we may see them again. They are the size of jackrabbits and quicker. So, seeing and shooting the male is a little bit of a quick decision. We go on.

Lo, Dean and I head out and spot Mr. Z fairly early in the day, just lounging around in an opening. We sneak them, they move off slightly stirred up. We take great pleasure in the fact we see no giraffes anywhere. They must sleep in on cool mornings. Anyway, the z’s head toward a more open area, cross it, then head to the bush. Clemons and Bongoni track them and we see bits and pieces as they graze ahead of us. Dean signals and Lauren creeps forward on here hands and knees. He is squatting and looking under the brush at striped legs about 125 yards ahead. He shows them to Lauren and the wiggle into a possible shooting stance and aim at an opening in front of the grazing zebras. There is a nice stallion in the group, solid looking, no phantom stripes on this Burchell’s zebra. The trackers and I hold back about 30 yards. I can barely make out some stripes but not idea what part of the animal I am looking at. Bongoni likely sees every whisker and eyelash. The gun goes up, no shot. The gun goes down. Back up, no shot. Back down. Up, slowing looking at them – Boom!!!

Zebra’s scatter like racehorses, except one running with his head down, like he is running downhill. We watch as he goes about 40 yards, disappears and we hear a crash into a tree. A real collision and the trackers are high- fiving. They say – Dead zebra!!!. I can’t see it but they judge based on the noise. The other members of the group run off but stop somewhere and whinny back. No answer. That means dead zebra.

I catch up with Lauren, she is shaking, knees knocking, and she tells me she made a good shot – just like what we had practiced. Dean says she hit him right on the chevron on the shoulder, the spot where the stripes go from horizontal to vertical. This makes a little triangle looking chevron stripe and is a good target. Dean says – dead zebra. Lo gets hugs from everyone.



As we walk to the zebra, a bull wildebeest trots out, look at us – says – “shoot me if you can†then walks into the brush. Dean says to take him is we see him again. We weren’t hunting wildebeest but had seen a few. Dean says they are hard to hunt and hard to take a nice one. From our trip to the RSA, Sean had taken a blue and black wildebeest without much trouble. I was under the impression that they stand around in large groups waiting for lions, leopards, cheetahs, wild dogs and crocs to eat them. They don’t look too smart and don’t seem too wary. Wrong. I come to find out that they are tough, travel in large groups and are rarely outsmarted. Lions, leopards and other carnivores have a tough time catching them and prefer impala and less robust game. Anyway, we think he is long gone, then he walks out again. I am ready, got on the sticks for a 125 yard shot; squeeze the trigger at the same time he turns to run. I miss. First time on this trip, but a clean miss. Good shot, but he turned while I was squeezing and he dodged certain death from the Hammer of Thor. Off he goes and off we go to track him. We go about ¼ mile and quit. He is trotting and not likely to stop according to Dean and the boys.

Back to the zebra – we find him piled up against a tree. Lauren made a perfect heart-lung shot and he went down quickly, for a zebra. Lots of pics. Lo names the zebra, same thing she did on the last one in South Africa. Lots of smiles and we load up. A real fine first trophy for my gun slinging daughter.

On the way to the skinning shed, we cross herd after herd of impala. Must be Impala Day at Wal-Mart. Anyway, after about 5 groups, I say- â€Dean, any good ones?â€

Dean – “Yes, but most of them only get so big here, about 21 inches. Look for spread and thickness to tell which one is big and which is not.â€

Me – “Ok, how about that one over there?â€

Dean- “Shoot the big one on the left.â€

Me- “Are you sure?†By then, they run, jump, dance away. Bongoni gets of the truck and he and I put on an improvised stalk. We follow them and see the ram I am after. He ducks into the bushes emerges on the other side with girl impala and another ram. They are milling around looking at us, but not totally alarmed. The big one and his nephew cross back and forth, the girls do the same. They stop and all I can see are torsos and legs.

Bongoni says –“Shoot the dark oneâ€.

I say – “All I see is a chest, is that him?â€

Bongoni says – “Yesâ€

I say – “Are you sure?â€

He says – “Shooot him!â€

I say – “Are you sure?†They hear or see us and bound off. Yep, he was the one we were after. Ooops, my bad. Now I am the goat in this scene. All is quiet back to the truck.

Dean says that it is ok not to shoot if you are not sure. I think he is saying that to make me feel better. Anyway, I decide to shoot a little quicker next time.

We see warthogs, we see more impala. At every warthog sighting, I am ready to shoot but Dean says he has not seen a real good one yet. They all look good to me. We bump more impala on the trip in. This time, we see a real good one – heavy, curving out from the head. Dean stops and we stalk. This one goes about 100 yards, stops quartering away from me and I take the shot offhand. He jumps up, drops and doesn’t move no mo’. Good shot the boys say – they always say that when the animal is down, but I accept the congratulations. Sometimes it is good to have the ego stroked.

Nice impala, heavy, older, flaring out horns. Shot was perfect shoulder-heart-lung shot with a .300 win mag. Great pictures and lots of fun on this one. Impala are the cheapest trophy except for baboons, so I have fun with these. Into the truck with him and home for lunch.



We drop off the zebra and impala and find that Conor has been in. He and Maurius are missing the eland but have taken a big bush pig. Dean says that it is odd that our group has taken two in the daylight as most groups rarely see one, let along shoot one. They go right back out for eland.

Sean and Ben were in as evidenced by the kudu horns lying in the skinning shed. What a start to the day. The kudu is 50†+ and a nice. Diane was with Sean on this and saw the stalk and hunt. The kudu was spotted along a semi-dry river bed, a short stalk was made and Sean made a perfect 100 yard shoulder shot. Down he went with out a problem. The kudu here are bigger than in South Africa and just as fun to hunt. I will hunt them if I have time on this trip as I took a nice one in South Africa two years ago.



Diane has stayed in while Ben and Sean went back out. She joins us for the afternoon. Most days, we rest from noon to about 2:30 as the animals seem to bed down during that time and it is very hard to find anything moving then. If the weather is cool and cloudy, they may stay up and about a little longer. Bushbuck tend to be up at noon and in the late afternoon, resting in the morning and mid-afternoon.

Lo is still with me and we are after warthog enroute to a place to hunt kudu. Apparently the kudu in the area live near some hills above a semi-dry river. That is where Ben and Sean are hunting today. Conor and Maurius are on foot and after eland.

We head slowly toward the hills and pass the spot where we saw the steenbok earlier. Bongoni taps on the truck and points to the bushes. Mr. Steenbok has come back and is not running like a rabbit this time. We stalk him for about 50 yards, he takes off but stops – big mistake – I take him with a shot that nearly turns him inside out. The .300 is a bit much for a 5 pound Steenbok. The horns are nice, about 5â€. We take pics and talk about how little they are. I took one in South Africa after a long stake out and the jump and run shot. I made the shot of my life on that one – running flat out dead away and I snap shoot him in the neck with my .280. Great fun. There is a widowed steenbok looking for company now.



We head on out looking for kudu. After a couple of hours a looking at dozens of pigs, Dean sees one he says is a great one. I do not ask – are you sure? - I start after him with Bongoni. We tiptoe through the brush playing hide and seek trying to head him off before he finds a hole. He is with a female and a few little pigs. As he is headed into thick stuff, I take a 40 yard shot offhand and catch him in the neck. No spine shot, but caught the jugular vein and he “bled like a stuck hogâ€. He dropped after a few steps.



Seeing him confirmed the long tusks. What we did not know was that he was ancient. His teeth were worn, he was scarred and his skin hung in folds on him. He was losing weight and losing the battle with life. Dean and the boys were stunned at his condition. They felt he was due to go soon. Good one to take and a real nice set of tusks. I finally had the top trophy on my list – a dandy warthog. Into the truck and off for kudu. That is the best part about Lemco. Take one species and keep right on hunting with the chance to take several more. The best part of the day was that we did not see any giraffes.

About an hour later, we jump another group of impala. Again, a nice ram was in the bunch and I decided to take him. Out I go, stalk about 100 yards, and throw up the rifle – bam! No impala. What, a miss at 50 yards? Yes, embarrassingly yeeees! What happened to ol’ Dead Eye?! Too casual and too confident. I did not take my time, squeeze and shoot. I just shot as if I were shooting a clay pigeon. Oh well, this impala is at least a little smarter. And so am I.

Darned if we don’t keep seeing wildebeest while looking for kudu. Well, the heck with kudu, let’s for after wildebeest. We stalk them several times, once to within about 20 yards when neither of us knows the other was there. We hear a snort and hoof steps. We had tracked him for a couple of miles and walked right up on a bull and did not know it. Blown stalk. This happened a couple of times until we found a bunch that were with zebra’s. This time, I told Dean that if I get a shot at a zebra I will take it – made no difference to me – zebra or wildebeest. Well, as if on cue, the wildebeest got nervous and wandered off but the zebra did not. Bad for them, good for me. We stalked and snuck up on them until I had a 100 yard quartering shot. Sticks go up, steady rest and a zebra takes one in the shoulder. He runs about 50 yards and drops. Okay, the daddy can still shoot after a blow up on the impala earlier. Load him up and head in.

We stop several times to take shots at francolin and let the boys take shots. There are few near misses, but no hits. At one stop, I am about to shoot at a francolin and a jackal runs for cover at about 80 yards. I shoot quickly with the .22 mag with open sites and miss. Jackals are vermin to the locals and we are to shoot them on sight.

We all get in at dusk. Conor and Maurius are discussing a missed eland. Conor had a shot but missed. Not sure why, but they worked very hard to get up on a group of 5, one a nice bull. They played tag or hide and go seek all afternoon but never got a clear view. Con’s shot was through the brush but not blood was found. They decide to pick up the tracks tomorrow.

Most of the time, if a track is abandoned at dusk, the trackers can go back to the spot and resume the tracking the next day. I am amazed that they can do this. The PH’s all hunt the same way. Tracking is the key and they prefer tracking to spotting/stalking. They have more success locating the track, then following it to the animal or herd. They can tell the age of the track as well as if the animal is walking or running or trotting or milling around. I have no clue.

P.S. – No news from the lion hunters. I am glad I do not hunt lions.

Day 11 – the last full day –July 4, 2005

Now what? After yesterday, I am full up on animals except for kudu or wildebeest. Sean says he is done and has taken everything he is interested in. Lauren says she is done. Conor is still after eland. Me? I am here to hunt. Whatever is fine at this point. I am ready for bear (well, maybe not).

At this point, I have now landed on Life List Bird number 497. I started birding in July 1990 and started recording sightings, drawings, lists and whatever about birds in a notebook. I had traveled the world in my business and had the good luck to see unusual birds in places like Papua New Guinea, Colombia, Ecuador, Israel, Kazakhstan, England, Australia, New Zealand, Bolivia, Nigeria, South Africa, and now Zimbabwe. I have spotted about 80 new birds during the hunt. I will list them at the end of this narrative, but suffice it to say – I did not expect to add so many to my life list. Well, now, I am almost to No. 500. Dean is keen to help me get that one. For number 497, we see a Southern White Crowned Shrike, one of the many shrikes we have seen. N. 498 was a Red-billed Buffalo Weaver we saw in camp in one of the flowering trees, checking out the flowers for bugs. No. 499 was Groundscraper Thrush – a robin sized bird that has what look like black tear drops on its breast, mostly brown with the unusual spotting. As we rounded a corner and started down onto a low water dam, we spotted several birds in the backed up water, a Hammerkop, a Green Backed Heron, a Grey Heron, then we spotted no. 500 – a huge, gorgeous Saddlebill Stork. A solitary sighting, a stunning bird for No. 500 – the big bill with the yellow and red saddle across it. This was most appropriate for our family. When the kids were little, I used to read to them from a book of birds. The birds were from everywhere and we practiced identifying them. Most of them were birds from outside the USA, so I doubted they nor I would ever actually see Hoopoe’s or Egyptian Geese, let alone a Saddlebill Stork. Now we have seen one. Bird number 500 for me and on the 4th of July to boot. What a day!!!!!!!!!!!

As it turns out, I end up at number 504 before the end of the day. I had started at number 418. Now at 504. My bird watching buddies will be envious.

Big weather change today – cloudy, drizzly and cool – temp in the 50’s. A little nippy for shorts but I keep them on. The boys and Dean are freezing. They are not used to weather much below 65 degrees. The drizzle does not help. We decide to head to a new area to look for kudu, not far from where Maurius and Conor are looking for eland. Sean and Di come with me with Lauren going with Conor.

The cool weather has the animals up and about. We see lots of waterbuck, impala, warthogs, kudu cows, one eland, zebra, wildebeest, giraffe, duiker and steenbok. As we are moving to look for kudu, we make a couple of stalks on wildebeest without success. They are tough and I have no luck with them. We come onto some impala, a bachelor herd with about 10 rams; one is a dandy with slightly deformed horns. He is old, the horns are heavy and one turns out at an odd angle. I decide to go after it. Bongoni and I stalk it across several open areas before he bunches up with his buddies. Bongoni sees him and positions me to shoot. Again, all I can see is chest and legs on about 5 of them. He says – “shoot that dark one on the rightâ€. This time, finally, I just do what they say – bam!!! Down he goes with a neck shot. I never see him fall, just about 10 others jumping in twenty directions. Bongoni smiles and says he is down. Everyone comes up and we take pictures. The horn is odd but still looks good to me. Another nice, old male – much like the warthog, the sable and the bushbuck. I like hunting impala. They are fun, not to hard and remind me of whitetail deer. Lots of action and nice animal.

Into the truck and off again. We come up on a watering station for cattle and see Maurius truck parked and one of his guys skinning something. We stop and find that Conor has killed a very large Klipspringer – about 5 ½â€. Dean again says this is a dandy and we should be happy about it. I had never seen one, but they are a little bigger than a Steenbok and weigh maybe 10 pounds. They hang around rocky places and are very agile climbers. They had odd fur meaning the fur is more like that of a porcupine – the hair is hollow and falls out easily. The hair is very course and stiff also.



We build a fire in an empty concrete watering tank to warm up the boys and decide to have some lunch. Earlier, Witness had killed a francolin with a frontal brain shot (right between the eyes) and Bongoni and had killed one as well. I shot a dove and the boys took the liver out of the impala. The roasted all of this over the coals of the fire for lunch. We had our normal box lunch that we heated up on the fire as well. While eating, Dean had the boys pronounce some of the local words/names for the animals and other things. Most of them sounded funny to us as the pronunciations often included clicks and clucks. Diane taped Bongoni and Clemons as they pronounced the various words. We had a great laugh and lots of fun.

Then, a shot rang out close to us.

Then two more, then three more.

Conor and Maurius must have been closer than we thought. We had been shooting at francolin and doves with the .22 mag off and on for the past hour during lunch. Had we busted their stalk on eland? What happened? We started off in the direction of the shots after about 30 minutes to let things quiet down. We walked about ¼ mile and saw Maurius and a tracker standing in a road about 600 yards from us. They waved and we knew something was up. We sent two guys back to get the trucks and continued walking to catch up. Maurius had come to the road as well and everyone was all smiles. They had caught up to the eland from the day before finding the bull they were after. A careful stalk put Conor at 50 yards with a tight shot. He made it, the first one we heard, and the bull went off into the brush with a broken shoulder. Conor and Maurius ran after it and Conor made two more quick shots – all hitting the shoulder or just back of the shoulder. The bull kept going. Maurius took a shot followed by two more by Conor. Conor follows the Murphy Shooting Rule, shoot until it stops moving. Maurius tells us the story as we hike into the bush to the site.

Conor is sitting by the bull with one of the trackers all smiles and tired. He had hunted eland in South Africa without success and now, had success on the last day of the hunt. All of us were there to share the moment and take pictures. An eland is bigger than a buffalo, longer and more massive. What a massive animal. Another old one, horns worn down, a long hairy “ruff†on his forehead between the horns. We rolled it slightly to get pictures but it took all 6 men to get it moved. It took an hour to get it loaded/folded/crammed into the back of the Landcruiser. That truck groaned as it started out of the bush with an eland in the back. What a day for Conor!!! Klipspringer (little guy) and Eland (big guy). On this safari, Conor takes the prize for the most “pounds†of meat – a buff, giraffe, eland and sable. That is a lot of meat.



Conor and Maurius head in with the eland. Di goes as well. Sean and I decide to hunt out the last day looking for kudu or wildebeest. We cover a lot of ground but have no luck. We see wildebeest but no shootable kudu bulls. While passing a water hole, we see a black rhino heading into the deep bush.

Di and Sean had bumped one the first day at Lemco. The rhino had a baby and started moving toward the truck. Ben decided to back up, but the rhino was coming on anyway. Diane tells Sean to roll up the window. Sean looks at her – what, a rhino being kept out by a window or do you think the rhino will say – ‘ma’am, please roll down the window so I can gore youâ€. We all a big laugh at the thought of a window holding a rhino at bay or a rhino asking to roll down the window. Oh well, we thought it was pretty funny.

We call it a day and head to the barn. On the way, we see an aardvark. The third one Sean has seen and the first for Dean in 15 years. We get out and chase it. Seems they have lousy eyesight but a great nose. We get up close, it runs, not too fast, and is looking for a warthog hole to hide in. While running, it gives off a very strong, nasty odor that we run into a couple of times while chasing it. It was strong enough to cause us to take a breath and stop for a second. It was like a musky skunk smell and powerful. Mr. Aa found a hole but not a deep one. I reach in and grab him by the tail and give him a pull. He does not like that that digs in with all four feet. I let go and he commences to dig like a tied up gopher trying to get underground and away from us. He succeeds and I consider it a plus that I “counted coup†on an aardvark.

Day is done, we clean up, have a great dinner and retell all of the stories we can, hating to leave yet needing to leave. Ben has left as he has another client coming in tomorrow to Dande. Maurius and Dean have more clients later in the week. We have a long plane ride home to look forward to.

Final Score – Ross & Sons - 5 Baboons-2
The baboons have asked for a rematch in the future. No problem.

Day 12

Up to catch the charter to Harare. Pack, say our goodbyes to the boys and the camp staff. Leave tips for everyone. Go to the gift shop that Julia runs and buy the usual stuff – a skin map of Africa, coffee cups, coasters, a wooden bowl, a cane. We are not much on trinkets but like to have a couple of things from wherever we go.

The charter is the same plane the brought us down, same pilot. No problems on flight back, Di was the co-pilot. Saw lots of fallow farmland on the flight out, lots of dams to hold water, lots of highways but very few cars. At the airport, we cleared customs, checked bags with no problems. They check the guns this time.

Di and Lo traveled to Jo-berg with us, then went home via Zurich-London-Toronto-Chicago-Tulsa. We go Jo-berg-Atlanta-Tulsa, about 30 hours in all. The only surprise we had was when we cleared customs in Atlanta, the customs official wanted to see all of the guns. When mine was opened, it was loaded. Damn, I thought I unloaded it and the boys unloaded and we all checked and double checked our guns in Zimbabwe, but somehow, this one got by us. What a surprise on the lady customs officer face. I expected to be arrested or tortured and but in Guantanimo Bay prison. I acted totally pissed at the boys, blamed them and the Zimbabwe officials, begged forgiveness from the officer and kept on talking until the guns were re-packed and re-checked onto the next flight. So much for Homeland Security.

Got to Tulsa tired, Mama Wolfe picked us up. We lost a bag somewhere and it showed up two days later. No big deal and not problem. We took 3 days to unpack anyway.

P.S. Never heard on the success or failure of the lion hunters. All I know is that we were successful and I am glad I am not a lion hunter.



Post Script or Thoughts after the Fact

I just re-read an article I first saw in American Hunter magazine, July 2005 issue, about hunting in Africa. There were several sub-articles with one being about a buffalo hunt in Dande North. The main characters in the article were the author/hunter, Ben the PH, Bongoni the spotter, and Claudious – strikingly familiar names to us as we just returned from hunting with these guys. The story paralleled our hunt with similar descriptions and similar feelings. He was successful as well on a hard bossed bull in Dande North. I urge you to read that article for your own benefit.

***This report is in 5 parts, here is a link to Part 1 which has direct links to all 5 parts.