Folks,

Here is a late and short hunting report for a trip I did this September with Mokore in Coutada 9 in western Mozambique. This was a short notice affair set up by Mark Young, with just 10 days between my signing the safari contract and getting on the plane. Kathi at Wild Travel was invaluable getting the flights figured out.

There was no hope of getting rifle permits in the time available, so I used Mokore’s Ruger Alaskan in .375 Ruger. Mokore’s camp is about what you’d expect from a good new permanent camp in the middle of nowhere. It’s a well sited mix of comfortable tents, thatch and brick. There were oribi and warthogs around the tents every night. Warthogs are noisy when you are trying to sleep, so I was happy when a pair of lions stalked past my tent to nail one of the buggers. The food was excellent, especially the sable kabobs which might have been the best venison meal I’ve ever had.

I had considered booking a hunt with Mokore for 2008 and have been sort of keeping tabs on their Moz operation since then. When Mokore et al took over C9, the wildlife was very thin on the ground. Both of the warring factions in the civil war had hunted the area to supply their forces. (We actually had lunch one day at the site of RENAMO’s hunting camp.) As you might expect, the game was well and truly hammered and there was little more than warthog and bush pig left by the time the war was over. Mokore and the other partners in Coutada 9 have done a great job protecting and developing the wildlife in the area. Just before I left for Zambia in 2008, Mark put me in touch with a client of his who helped keep a small problem from turning into a disaster. After we sorted out my issue, we talked about the hunt he’d had in Coutada 9 a couple of months earlier. He was happy and successful, but still considered the game to be re-building. I thought things had continued to improve and now think that in the last 3 years or so the game numbers have reached a tipping point and have exploded on Coutada 9 (at least the portion being managed for hunting). Old animals are the norm in the skinning shed and none of the hunters in camp while I was there had any real problem finding the animals we were wanting to hunt. Getting them in the salt was sometimes another story though .

One of the things I worried about when booking a last minute hunt was just what kind of tracker and PH they were going to scrape up on short notice in the middle of the season. They scraped up Barrie Duckworth, who brought Eric to track with him. Well, nothing like being lucky. Barrie rates Eric as one of the 2 or 3 best trackers he has ever worked with. Eric is a genius but he hasn’t entirely left his poaching days behind. As for Barrie, he is semi-retired now (meaning he has slowed down to what would be a normal pace for most of us). He hunts because he likes to, he gets bored very easily and to help his sons. Barrie has been earning a living through hunting since joining Parks about 45 years ago. He is very old school, has a famously short fuse and was wonderful to hunt with. The work ethic, skill and professionalism of Barrie and Mokore’s hunting crew and camp staff was very evident. I am thankful to have hunted with them.

I could have done a lot more shooting, but this was a limited hunt with limited objectives. We did pretty well I think.


Lichenstein’s hartebeest. He is a bit of unfinished business from the Selous in 2005.


Warthog. This may be the smallest warthog they take all year in Coutada 9. Certainly not the biggest hog I saw that day, let alone on the entire hunt. We had a really fun hunt to get on this guy and I didn’t think twice about shooting though I’m not sure Barrie thought it was a good choice.


Bushpig. He was taken at last light, after we had loaded the warthog in the truck. He had lost most of his right front hoof to a gin trap.


Eland. Everything finally went right at 3:15 on day 7 of a 7 day hunt. I was starting to get worried. We’d tracked this lone bull most of the morning, stopped for lunch and got him after only 30 mins of tracking as he stood up out of his bed. I told Barrie that felt too easy and that we should walk back to camp to make things right. The bull may have broken the right horn tip that day as there were a few chips just barely attached to the horn and there were fresh scrapes on his neck.

I had some difficulty closing the deal with eland, but that was not because we weren’t finding mature bulls to track every day. Sometimes we lost the tracks, sometimes we were busted by other animals and other times I passed on the shot for one reason or another. A couple of times my shooting let us down. (Anyone got a good excuse I can borrow?) Once my eland was down, we figured we’d averaged 6 hours of walking every day for the 7 days we hunted. Some days were much longer. Even the trackers were limping the day after one particularly long walk. My bull was worth it. We got close enough to smell the eland a couple of times. Rutting eland bulls smell like rutting mule deer with an undercurrent of cattle. Who knew?

I left Mozambique with a few regrets. There are some would’ve, could’ve, should’ve things that are a part of hunting. They basically give me an excuse to go back to C9 one day and don’t really count. My real regrets are about unwritten books of all things. Being as this hunt was in Moz, I naturally wish Taylor had gotten around to writing his witchcraft book and Jameson’s biography. Those opportunities are long gone, but there are two more books I’d love to buy that may never be written but still can be. The first is Barrie’s memoirs. You can bet that a guy who shot his 1000th elephant before he was 30 (my numbers, he didn’t actually say) fought in the Bush War and has been a ph for decades has some stories worth telling. Maybe one of his book writing cronies will get the chance to talk him into it over sun downers one day. I’d also love to see a collection of stories from the old Rhodesian/Zim Parks Dept. I find it hard to think of a more remarkable group of hunters from the modern era. Along with high end hunters, combat trackers, conservationists and rogues various and sundry, this fascinating group has produced more than its fair share of good authors. Maybe one of those folks, who have the skill, knowledge and respect of those whose stories would fill the book, will take on the project while it can still be done up right.

All in all, I couldn’t have asked for much more. It was a memorable hunt with memorable people. The country was interesting, the animals abundant and mature. I’d be happy to make it back there one day.

Dean

big congrats...love that old eland

Great hunt. I've never seen a warthog with that much mane!

Dean,

Nice write up and trophies. Coutada 9 continues to improve under the Duckworth's stewardship. Thanks for letting me assist you on this adventure. I do think you should have paid more to be chastised by Barrie.

Mark

SBT,

The warthogs are basically all like that on Coutada 9 with long flowing manes and on average far larger in body and tusk than I've ever seen elsewhere. I have a pick up that's 15.5'x16.5 from there and have had clients shoot honest 17" on Coutada 9.

Mark

Dean,
I enjoyed sharing camp with you at C9. It's a special place. Barrie was really interesting to be around. You got a vey good eland after a tough week.
Tom

Beautiful ruff on the bull.

I agree with Frank, love the ruff on the eland. Congratulations. I wish I could jump on deals and be gone in ten days, I envy you for having that flexibility.

maki,

Enjoyed the report! Yeah I would say they found a pretty fair hand for your Ph!

I to hope that Barrie will put down on paper his story. It would be a very interesting read.

Many Thanks

HBH

Great write up and safari. The hartebeest is not too shabby either.

quote:

Originally posted by MARK H. YOUNG:

I do think you should have paid more to be chastised by Barrie.

Mark

+1

Love the eland ! Good job

Great old eland!

quote:

Originally posted by africa1sttimer:
Dean,
I enjoyed sharing camp with you at C9. It's a special place. Barrie was really interesting to be around. You got a vey good eland after a tough week.
Tom

Tom,

Good to hear from you. As the days ticked by without an eland in the salt, I was glad you guys were around. I enjoyed your company and your highs and lows were a welcome distraction around the fire. How did the rest of your hunt go?

Dean

Thanks for the comments guys. I'm still a bit in love with that eland and sometimes just stare at the pictures. We ended up having to sweat a bit to get him, which makes it all the sweeter.

It took me a couple days to figure out how Barrie and Eric hunted. Barrie would often leave the trackers and walk parallel to them 50-70 yds away and I had a choice of who to follow. Eventually, I figured there were 2 basic circumstances when this happenned. When the tracking got tough because of terrain or other tracks, Barrie would head out on his own. He'd try to pick up the tracks past the difficult area while Eric sorted through the complicated stuff. Other times, Barrie would branch off to the downwind side of the track once the eland started to meander looking for food or a bed. Once I figured out the pattern, I'd go with the guy I guessed had the best chance of making contact first. When we got the eland, I'd gone with Barrie to the down wind side of the track once it started to meander. Barrie spotted the bull in his bed and I shot him at ~80 yds when he stood up to look at us. We had the wind in our favour and he was unsure if running away was worth the effort. Had we all just followed along the track, the eland would have gotten our wind as he had bedded down 50 yds downwind of his trail. Classic and fairly basic hunting tactic, but it was neat to watch it work out that smoothly.

Barrie is an interesting guy and I would pay a bit of a premium to hunt with him. After all these years, he has seen a lot of silly stuff from clients and guiding guys without his experience or skill wears on him a bit. Despite that, he hasn't lost his love of the bush or respect for the clients. He still understands why most guys go hunting in foreign lands. In his own way, he made sure I had the chance to learn about that little patch of Africa and to experience the magic of the bush on my own terms. He didn't mind if my learning curve caused a couple of blisters. (Seeing Barrie's wife give him a hard time about getting a blister or two was priceless).

On another topic, do animals know when you have filled your tag? After we got the hartebeeste, a real big old hartebeeste watched us follow eland tracks for 10 minutes without moving, even though we got to within 70 yds of him. We also almost ran over a decent sized sounder of bush pig 5 mins after loading mine into the truck. How do they know?

Cheers,
Dean

see I really love that hartebeest! bud all are nice and good report.

cheers
Rasmus

Dean,

Your writeup of the hunt was very interesting. Mick and I had a good hunt. I believe we took 11 trophies between us and I'd love to go back some day for the big kudu and nyala. I may get around to posting it one of these days but we're about to move so it will have to wait.

Tom

Yes, the nyala....

Congrats! Lovely place that is.
I hope to visit again one day.

Very nice!

quote:

Originally posted by maki:
Barrie would often leave the trackers and walk parallel to them 50-70 yds away and I had a choice of who to follow. Eventually, I figured there were 2 basic circumstances when this happenned. When the tracking got tough because of terrain or other tracks, Barrie would head out on his own. He'd try to pick up the tracks past the difficult area while Eric sorted through the complicated stuff. Other times, Barrie would branch off to the downwind side of the track once the eland started to meander looking for food or a bed. Once I figured out the pattern, I'd go with the guy I guessed had the best chance of making contact first. When we got the eland, I'd gone with Barrie to the down wind side of the track once it started to meander. Barrie spotted the bull in his bed and I shot him at ~80 yds when he stood up to look at us. We had the wind in our favour and he was unsure if running away was worth the effort. Had we all just followed along the track, the eland would have gotten our wind as he had bedded down 50 yds downwind of his trail. Classic and fairly basic hunting tactic, but it was neat to watch it work out that smoothly.
Cheers,
Dean

Sounds like the typical Eland tracking hunt that is just great sport. All the way to spotting them at 80m about to flee.

Wow, what an Eland! They don't really get too much better than that.

Outstanding Eland and a pretty nice Hartebeast as well.

Congratulations.

I got a question about the quality of warthog in C9 the other day. I figure a photo is the easiest way to answer. Below are some pick ups at the camp of one of the partners in C9. Should I ever make it back there (for nyala and bush buck), I'll try to get a hog in the salt early, then look hard for one of these.



Cheers,
Dean

This is another pick up from Coutada 9 in '07. 15.5"x16.5".

Mark

Yo, Dean ! I just read this thread. Good on you! I really got to make it to Mozambique sooner than later ..

Scruffy,

You mean there is some place you haven't been yet ? I thought it was worth the trip. You coming up for the Africa show this weekend?

Dean

Yes, of course. I have even booked a room at the Carriage House. We must get together and share some tales and perhaps a cold drink ...

It is a pleasure to look at mature animals. A busy forehead on an eland says it all.

Mike

quote:

Originally posted by Fjold:
Beautiful ruff on the bull.

+1

Maki;

Great trophies all around...although the eland was a wonderful old bull, the mane on the warthog was amazing!

I recently read a old book, "Hold My Hand I'm Dying" by John Gordon-Davis. If you can get a copy, although a novel, it is a spell binding account of Rhodesia in the 1960's! I highly recommend it.

Best regards, D. Nelson