Here are a couple more of Forrest and his buff:




To get the buffalo into the truck they look for the nearest tree, drag the buffalo over and then hoist it with block and tackle.

Wink...Nice photo of Forrest and the Buffalo.
Enjoying this report very much.
Thanks

Before this hunt I had never seen a Roan up close. It is a very big, beautiful and tough animal and while Forrest's is a very good, mature example, there are still some even bigger ones in this block. Forrest's Roan has a magnificent coat.


Forrest's 9.3 is the best handling, best looking rifle I have ever had the opportunity to put my hands on. Since he's now got the prototype I don't know how he's going to resist not having some more made. I didn't get a chance to switch the baggage tags at check-in to allow it to come to a new home in Rambouillet.












I'm probably going to have to go back for a big one.

It took a couple of fretful days but Toufic convinced the authorities to issue a second roan license for me. I was worried that my poor shooting had permanently ruined my chance at bringing home a roan. Finally, Toufic gave me the green light. I'll be eternally grateful for this.

Some days we saw lots of roan, other days not so many. Generally, we would either drive and spot or we would check waterholes for tracks. We were able to look over plenty of good trophy bulls.

Wink translated my wishes to Idrissa; I wanted an old bull...old and heavy were much more important than horn length. Idrissa worked hard to deliver.

We were stalking a herd trying to get a closer look at a good herd bull. One of our trackers then saw a second loner bull several hundred yards away across a burn. He looked promising, so we shifted our focus and went after this new target.

We slowly trudged across a large open area trying not to spook the koba but he knew we were following him. He got into some high grass and we could finally use some cover to close the gap. The koba was acting strange and constantly dropping and shaking his head in the grass. This forced us to get closer to be able to see him, but at the same time made it possible for us to get closer.

At about 60 yards, I could see the koba and I had an easy side-on shoulder shot. The koba dropped at the shot and this time we wasted no time putting an (unneeded) finishing shot into the animal.

This time my long quest really was over.

It turned out that the reason for this koba's strange behavior was that he had an infected wound at the base of his right horn. He was shaking his head in the grass to brush the flies off of his face.

I don't know how long koba live but this one showed all the battle scars of an old bull. It appeared he had lost the battle to retain his herd and was out on his own.

Good Stuff!

Congrats to both of you!

On that day when both Forrest and I lost two very nice Koba, I felt that some heavily negative juju was swirling in the ether. In Africa you can cure this, with rituals. Around 7PM every evening we did something like this:

Me: "Rachel, please bring me a bucket of chipped ice, a tonic, some limes and Forrest's bottle of Bombay gin."
Rachel: "You owe 12 tickets."
Me: "What are you talking about?"
Rachel: "From the lunch box."

(Forrest shows up with his Herf-a-Dor and starts rummaging around for cigars, fancy clipping gizmos, NASA stabilizer humidifiers and looking for a lighter.)

Me: "Forrest, Rachel here says we owe 12 tickets. If we don't cough 'em up, no tonic, no limes."
Forrest: "What are you talking about?"
Me: "I think it has something to do with that Coke you drank at lunch, and maybe even the beers I drank."

(When we start speaking English Rachel leaves.)

Forrest: "No way we owe 12 tickets."

(Rachel comes back with the gin, the ice and the tonic. Aisha shows up with the limes.)

Rachel: "Now you owe 13 tickets."

(Gabriel, the surgeon from Epernay, shows up with a couple of Cuban cigars and tries to speak English. Forrest and Gabriel trade cigars. Tango slobbers all over my pants. The evening wears on, I translate jokes barely comprehensible in any language. Jean-Pierre shows up and says he didn't see any lions (he came to hunt lion). Toufic shows up to provide some adult supervision. Most of the world's problems are correctly analyzed and solved. Have perfectly cooked francolin for dinner; birds Guy brought back from his afternoon shoot.)

Repeat nightly for 12 days running. The fact is, we did vary once or twice. For dinner we had different game meat almost every night. Forrest taught Aisha how to make and drink a boilermaker with a Flag beer and the bottle of Makers Mark bourbon we brought.


Rachel. Behind that smile she's wondering if she'll lose her soul to my Nikon and never get those tickets.



Aisha in her daytime uniform. Evening wear tended to be more formal.


Rachel brings me peanuts, gives Tango a wide berth.

I have no photographs of our evening ritual, which is probably just as well; I don't do night photography.

Wink and Forrest,

What a wonderful experience you guys shared. The pictures and stories make me wish I was there....what a great time!

fantastic report... keep it coming!!!!

What an incredible adventure. Great culture, animals, rifles ... A trip I'd really like to do soon.

Here is an interesting link about Koba:

http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/10167/0

Things to know before you go.

For almost all hunters but certainly for an American hunter, there are some important things you should know before you book a trip to Burkina Faso. These are my thoughts and I'm sure Wink will have others he will share.

Even with a translator, the language barrier created difficulties at times. My trip could have been a disaster without Wink along. How would I have communicated with Toufic about the license for the second koba? It's very difficult for a first timer to judge trophy quality on the buffalo...without a translator things would get confusing to say the least. It was confusing at times even with a translator and I'm pretty familiar with the buffalo hunting drill. I can't imagine lion hunting here without a knowledgeable hunter acting as translator.

As we said in the opening posts hunting in Burkina is just very different than elsewhere in Africa. Not always different in a bad way but certainly different. For example the rule is one big game animal per day, period...if you shoot a roan at 8 am you are done for the day. If you are hunting 2 on 1 then both of you are done for the day. You can hunt birds or small game but no big game. A hunter can only kill 3 big game animals in any 7 day period. There are several unique and desirable big game animals there but it's not a place where two guys can hunt 2 on 1 for a week or ten days and kill 5 animals each. The law and the application of the law might cause cause some frustration.

Toufic runs a great operation; it may well be the only decent operation in Burkina. For sure, there are a lot of unscrupulous operators there. Burkina Faso has a bad reputation even amongst the French hunters who go there regularly. This is not a place to throw darts or book based on price alone.

More things to know before you go.

Toufic's camp is not in the hunting block. It's about 20 km from the hunting block. This enables him to offer a very comfortable camp but when you're in camp it doesn't feel like wild Africa. If your dream of Africa is sitting by the fire with Harry Selby and listening to the lions roar, you won't find it here. When in the hunting block, there are all the crocs and lions and elephants that make you know you're in a very wild place but you leave that place every evening.

The best hunting time is limited. We went a little too early and the grass was still too high and mostly unburnt. We burned everyday and there was a marked increase in the amount of game we saw later in our trip. Idrissa said the single best month for hunting is February but sometimes February can be dusty and windy for weeks at a time. The animals don't move much in those conditions and hunting can be uncomfortable to say the least. Google "harmartten winds". By mid-March it starts to get uncomfortably warm. Based on the little I know, I'd book between Jan 15 and Feb 15. If I were lion hunting, I'd look into the Jan 20 to Mar 15 time frame.

For the American hunter, I'd call Burkina Faso a specialty destination probably not suited for the first time hunter. JudgeG did his first safari in Burkina so I'd like to hear his thoughts on this.

Burkina gets very few western visitors. Eco-tourism is almost nonexistent. A few aid workers and missionaries travel to the back country but a visiting hunter is a warmly welcomed oddity for the most part.

Last thoughts...

Guy (the French farmer who has been hunting BF for 20 years) has probably the best idea on how to handle things in Burkina. He arrives in camp and relaxes for a day or two. He does some morning and evening bird shooting for a few days. Then he does some big game hunting but only on those days when it's not too dusty or windy and is suitably warm. If it's not a perfect day for big game he doesn't push it...he just relaxes or goes bird shooting. Toufic will price a safari like this where the daily rate varies by activity (within reason). Guy killed a monsterous buffalo while we were there...the second largest ever killed from Toufic's camp. It made Wink's buffalo look like a youngster and mine like a nursing baby. Guy looked fresh and rested every day while Wink and I dragged in like dusty stray dogs.

Great report and fantastic pics


Torbjorn

Thank you gentlemen.

I enjoyed reading this report.

I am with Saeed on this. You are hereby named - "REPORT OF THE YEAR"

by all the powers bestowed on me, you are hereby crowned "Hemingway in Spirit"

I concur with Forrest's observations on hunting in Burkina Faso. It's a different set-up. But then, having a swimming pool on those really hot days might appeal to some, especially if you are taking a significant other or a non-hunter with you. Neither Forrest nor I used it, but it's there. If you want to go to the market in Namoungou on Friday, buy some fabric and have some tailored clothes made in 48 hours, you can do it. In other words you can, if you so desire, interact with Africans in their day-to-day environment, far from tourists. I have spent almost my entire adult life doing this, but for most this will be a different Africa than what they've known before.

Gabriel, the surgeon from Epernay, does pro-bono work at a local clinic when he comes to Camp Yentangou. Toufic, the camp and the staff are local, and the hunters become part of the local environment if they so wish. This can be very satisfying if you have curiosity and an open mind.

The camp staff (especially the women) fell in love with Forrest almost immediately. While he may think it's due to his good looks, it's not. His open and gentle manner, his boundless generosity and his innate curiosity are immediately detected by Africans. He can't hide it from us and he definitely can't hide it from them. I only say this because a lot of what you get from a safari comes from what you bring to it.

I, on the other hand, am viewed with a whole lot of circumspection. They suspect that I know more than I let on, and sometimes that's true.

This has been a most interesting & entertaining report.
The only thing missing was ME.
Congratulations fellows, I admire your sense of adventure.

He's rugged, broad shouldered, and so handsome . . . the roan, that is.

And, she's so dark, curvatious, and beautiful . . . the rifle, of course.

Very nicely done. Thanks for sharing.

Nice report!! Looks like great time was had.

Great report, you two obviously rolled with the punches and made the best out of some tough circumstances- it sounds like the limes helped.

Question: had you been hunting lion, do you feel like you would have had an opportunity at a shootable male? I realize that's pretty hypothetical but since the two of you were there on the ground it's worth asking.

I agree with everyone else, great report, photos, memories.

Wink mentioned that Burkina Faso was my first African safari and wanted to know my thoughts about the same.

My deciding on Burkina was somewhat luck, somewhat fate and a heck-of-a-lot a blessing.

It was about 25 years ago when I finally decided to fulfill my desire to go to Africa. I had just enough guilt to not feel comfortable spending lots of money just on me so I began looking at ways that I could assauge my conscience with a dual purpose trip, some hunting and some medical or mission purpose.

The more I investigaged where my efforts would do "good" I began to focus on West Africa. I just couldn't justify not taking the $50,000 of medical supplies I'd had contributed by various donors unless it was where most needed and all signs pointed to Burkina Faso. I had no idea that any hunting was allowed there though. I'd about decided to just take med supplies to the Baptist medical folks in Burkina and forego the hunting when I got a call from a missionary who had heard that I really wanted a safari.... and he had a friend who was a P.H.... so, much to my surprise, I discovered that the French had always hunted West Africa and that some concessions were actually pretty darn good. A two for one and concience salved. Whoopee! For once, a good intent was rewarded with a good result.

Would I do it again as my first safari? In a word, "no".

Whould I go again? In a heartbeat.

Why to the above? I think Wink and Forrest pretty well explained it. It just ain't East Africa. There is nothing "posh" about it. In all Africa, you need to be able to "roll with the punches" and Burkina will test that resolution. I went two days without toilet paper, for instance. We ran out of diesel for the generator twice. I had to clean up my quarters before I felt comfortable therein and found a couple of spitters in the crap under my bunk. Many times during the trip, I thought it an ordeal instead of a pleasure... but a large bit of patience fixed that. Game was there. I killed a buffalo (biggest ever in the concession), a waterbuck, a hartebeest and a bushbuck in 10 days of hunting. Hard hunting with not much driving around.

Language can be a real problem, but my 2 years of high school French and 2 more in college were sufficient (most of the time). You won't have the camp to yourself most probably... and when some clients brought in whores, it wasn't pleasant. Make sure you can converse with whomever you hunt. I could, but many would not have been able to. BTW, when the whores showed up, I moved to another camp with no running water and witnessed a poacher shootout.

Heat is a problem in March, but the hunting was good. The Harmattan is vicious (I was glad that I was from South Georgia and used to 100 degree days). Safari cars were old and beat up.... and I could go on.

But.. if you really want to see a different culture, fine folks who literally will give you the shirt off of their backs and see a safari with Black leadership, instead of the traditional vestages of colonialism, Burkina is the place to go. I'll be back.

For instance, I was bowhunting some. I had a traditional recurve. I'd shot it in camp a lot and the word got around to the locals. On the next to last day of my safari, I killed a buffalo with my .404 and decided to just rest in camp. I told the P.H. the same at breakfast and he about cried. He said that about 50 locals had come to see me shoot something with the bow. He said he'd pay the daily rate and a trophy fee if I'd just go out.

What could I say to that. We went to find a warthog or something with a few dozen folks trotting behind the car. What a hoot. I saw a few guineas run across the road and asked if I could shoot (at) them. Dang if I didn't hit the first with a judo point on the rise. After that, I killed about 6 more in 300 shots and it was a scramble by all the people to retrieve my arrows and kills. We would set up and the locals then made a sweep driving birds before them. I'd wait until the guineas passed and then shoot so I wouldn't hit anyone. We did it all day and when we returned to the camp, I presented the guineas to the head man with no little ceremony. That day was about as much fun as any I've had in Africa... and the locals' joy in participating made it so. I thought I was the MVP of the Super Bowl.

Go to Burkina Faso. One thing I can guarentee you is that it will be an adventure. Just plan for the enjoyment to be in the overall experience and not the bumps. It's been almost a quarter of a century since I've been, but I think about it almost every day.

Hey.... who wants to go with me, say in 2015?

I'm just p.o.'ed that Wink didn't invite me this time.

Great photography and report; thanks!

Toufic's camp is a hunter's oasis; his own private paradise. He has gardens, citrus trees, a bunch of peacocks, generators for electricity of course and, because he's not too far from civilization, cell phone coverage.



There is all sorts of "stuff" around camp.



I discovered that Forrest really likes tortoises.



The soil in the hunting area is frequently swelling clay. This becomes rock hard when dried out, so you need some boots with very good ankle support. Rule out Courteney Selous.




The End? I'm on a plane to Libreville this weekend, so probably won't be looking at AR for a few days. Thank all of you for your compliments on the photography. Mostly I used a Nikon D7000 with an AF-S Nikkor 10-24mm DX lens for the trophy and scenery photos. The camp photos were with an AF-S Nikkor 17-55mm f2.8 DX lens and when a little reach was needed for portraits and live animals I used an AF-S Nikkor 28-300mm VR lens. I post-processed with DxO and Capture NX2 software. Some, but not all, of the photos are geo-tagged for those who know how to get the pic locations placed on a map. I sure don't.



Thank you Saeed for having created this site and allowing us to share our experience.

Guys, really a nice report - thank you!

These tag team hunt reports are cool!

quote:

Originally posted by Woodhits:
Question: had you been hunting lion, do you feel like you would have had an opportunity at a shootable male? I realize that's pretty hypothetical but since the two of you were there on the ground it's worth asking.

The answer is quite a bit more complicated than the question. There's no baiting allowed in Burkina so it's basicly a tracking/stalking affair. I don't know the rules or customs on calling lions there.

There was one hunter in camp, JP, who didn't get a lion in the two weeks we were there. It was a strange deal though. It was either the most lackadaisical lion hunt I've ever seen or either the client, the PH, or Toufic didn't really want a lion to be found. The client had hunted with Toufic many times before...he knew the area and the general drill but had never hunted lion before.

In simple terms, I think that if we (with Idrissa) could call the shots we could have found a shootable male in our time there. We would have had two good opportunities without really trying.

First, was the wounded roan that Wink killed. We checked on the dead roan the next day and found the tracks of one female and one very big male. The lions had eaten about half the roan and were probably sleeping within 200 yards of where we were. I think we would have better than even odds of finding them. JP and his PH knew about the roan kill and tracks but never even went to check on it.

Second, we saw vultures in a tree and went to investigate. It looked like two male lions had made a kill and the tracks were smoking hot. We didn't hang around and certainly didn't go looking for trouble but I think we could have found those lions pretty quickly. JP and Toufic knew about this find but JP and his PH never went back to check it out.

Idrissa and his #1 tracker could track a lion in that sandy soil for sure. The high grass would have complicated matters and that's why I said I would book a lion hunt to start no earlier than late January. When it's that hot and there's limited shade I don't think a lion is going to stray far from it's kill for an afternoon nap.

We saw fresh lion tracks on the road virtually every day. We only saw one live lion...a female staking out a waterhole...but we didn't go looking for them either.

Toufic gets 2 lion permits per year. They get killed every year for all I know. I don't know what the success rate is for a given hunter.

I know this answer probably raises more questions than it answers for you. I came away with a lot of puzzling questions about the lion hunt as well. This is the best response I can offer.

JudgeG, thanks for sharing your experiences. While our exact experiences differed, we shared a lot of the same circumstances and sometimes frustrations. At least we had top notch camp accomdations and food.

On my first bird shoot, it was like hunting in a city park with so many kids running around. We weren't hunting in the big game area but there weren't any villages around that I knew of. However when the shooting started, kids started appearing out of the woodwork. It was so distracting and unsafe, I had to just put the gun away. It was a very fun evening with all the kids though...I wouldn't have traded it for another 20 or 30 doves that's for sure.

Judge, I think you would have no problem in Toufic's camp. You have the right language skills and the right attitude. I think you'd have a grand time there.

I may well be back there before too long myself.

I have a few more miscellaneous photos to share:

My best elephant photo. Note it looks even better than Wink's and my camera is 1/20th the size and 1/100th the cost of Wink's equipment...



The lion-wounded roan before Wink put it out of it's misery. It's testicles and part of it's shoulder had already been eaten. These are incredibly tough animals.



Wink's buffalo as we found it. It's easy to see why the trackers thought he missed ...



Idrissa and the trackers pointing to their respective bullet holes as we checked the results of the shooting contest...



Our hosts, Toufic and his wife Eugenie. Behind them is my cigar smoking friend from Epernay. Wink keeps referring to him as Daniel but I'm pretty sure his name is Gabriel. Gabriel spent three weeks being tortured in a Syrian prison before making his way to France and medical school.



If they would just stay on the road, I could be a tracker too...

Great report.......found it entertaining and educational.

Forrest these pictures are a lot better than those you were showing me on your cell phone.

Congrats again guys... a fine and different approach to a hunting report.

Did you have any issues with the flights or travel through France to western Africa seeing that Burkina is bordered by Mali?

Thoroughly enjoyable report.
Thanks.

quote:

Originally posted by ForrestB:

Our hosts, Toufic and his wife Eugenie. Behind them is my cigar smoking friend from Epernay. Wink keeps referring to him as Daniel but I'm pretty sure his name is Gabriel.

It's definitely Gabriel, so I went back and corrected my earlier posts. I did get my name right however. There was another observer/non-hunter and retired rocket scientist in camp named Maurice. I called him Marcel for most of the two weeks. Please try to keep this all in context: while Forrest was making friends, smoking cigars and remembering names, I was translating.

quote:

Originally posted by bwanamrm:
Did you have any issues with the flights or travel through France to western Africa seeing that Burkina is bordered by Mali?

Oh, we had issues all right, but Mali had nothing to do with it. In Paris we had to resolve the now to be expected Air France snafu of saying your rifle approval is in the system but not your ammo. After boarding in Paris the pilot decided he didn't like something about the windshield and we disembarked and reembarked on another plane. One thing led to another and we arrived three hours later than scheduled.
Just a day or two before our return, Paris was the site of a rare natural disaster: it got cold and snowed. The national weather services were only able to predict this event about 48 hours before it actually occurred. While this does happen almost every year, this is sufficiently rare enough to cause general mayhem at Charles DeGaulle airport. So we left Ouaga 6 hours later than scheduled since our plane hadn't arrived. Ouaga's got a new airport with an Air France lounge and we got upgraded. But it did provide for a little tension upon arrival in Paris; no way to know what was happening with Forrest's connection. We split at that point and Forrest texted me when he got on his plane. I waited an hour and a half for my bags; rifle and remaining ammo made it no problem.

To predict if you will have problems with Air France it is really quite simple. Will it be snowing in Paris? then yes you will have a problem for about one week after the snow, until everything gets back to normal. Unfortunately, things don't get back to normal because of (take your pick) 1) Labor union activity or 2) there's another rare natural disaster (I include clouds, fog, rain and wind in this category). If it's not one thing, it's another.

Hey.... who wants to go with me, say in 2015?

I'm just p.o.'ed that Wink didn't invite me this time.[/QUOTE]

Judge....I am in for 2015.

Fantastic Safari. We missed you in Dallas Wink..

In response to Forrest's charging elephant photo, I'll second the notion that Burkina Faso has some cheeky tuskless ladies that rival anything on the Zambezi. Note the bow in the foreground... I took this picture while running to get in the safari car. Too close for comfort, for sure.

Dang. In the picture with the buffalo, I had brown hair and my mustache was not snowy white. I told you it was a long time ago!

First safari... not my choice if I had to do it again, but I'll be dadgummed if I won't go back to Burkina before I croak.



Here's a picture of the buffalo I killed with my .404. It weighed 50 kilos more than the prior biggest at the Nazinga concession.

...one of the best articles / threads I have ever seen in over 50 forums.
:-)

GREAT !!!!

quote:

Originally posted by Steve416:
Hey.... who wants to go with me, say in 2015?

I'm just p.o.'ed that Wink didn't invite me this time.

I would be sorely tempted.