Dates hunted: May 5th-20th, 2010

Area hunted: South end of Save Conservancy, Senuko Ranch

Outfitter: Shangaan Hunters

PH: Glen Stockil

Species hunted: Lion

Species seen: Elephant, buffalo, lion, sable, blue wildebeest, duiker, zebra, giraffe, impala, etc., etc.

Rifle: Kimber Caprivi 375 H&H with 300g Barnes Triple Shok, CZ 505 Gibbs wit 600g Woodleigh Solids

I am going to start the detailed part of the report on May 12th which was the first night we sat in a blind. The 7 days before were spent checking roads and pans for tracks, hanging baits, checking baits and freshening drags. Before you get to far into the report I would like to extend my thanks to Glen Stockil for the memories of a lifetime. He was a true Gentleman and runs as professional an operation as I have seen or hunted in. This was by far the hardest hunt I have ever been on which made it that much more rewarding when it was all said and done. 1 – 6 hour night in a blind and 5 – 14 hour nights in a blind can be strenuous mentally to say the least, but to be as close as we were to the lions and see their behavior first hand is something that I will never forget.

May 12th: We start out the morning at Tsondzo, we find where 2 females and a male have hit the bait, mane hairs are 5”-10”, best sign we
have seen so far. Later in the day we decide that we ought to sit at Tsondzo this evening to try to get a look at this male. We are in the blind by 4pm, I am restless as this is my first time in the lion blind. About 8pm we hear a lion drinking at the water in front of us. It is overcast and dark so we cannot see the lion even though it is only 10 yards in front of us. The lion moves off towards the bait and once we hear it eating, Glen turns on the spotlight with the red filter, we quickly see that it is a lioness. He pans the light to the right and directly in front of us at about 50 yards we catch a glimpse of a lion as it turns and disappears into the brush. We turn out the light and sit in the darkness for 15-20 minutes, we hear the lioness continuing to feed and decide to have another look. Glen turns the light on the bait and we see that it is still the lone lioness, he immediatel shines the light in front of us just to see the ass of the other lion disappearing into the bush again. We turn out the light and sit for another 30 minutes until we hear what sounds like a second lion on the bait. Glen turns on the light and I catch just a flash of a larger lion as it dives off of the bait and disappears into the tree line, the lioness does not seem to be concerned with the light. Glen asks if I got a look at him and I answer no. We sit for 20-30 minutes and it seems as though the lions have stopped feeding. Glen turns the light on the bait and you can see the lioness laying in the grass to the right of the bait, he quickly scans to the right and we see the lion is back in front of us where he was before. This time I am ready, I am following the light with my binoculars and I see the lion standing looking at us for a brief second before he turns and walks into the bush. I can see that he has a very developed dark bib, but I can clearly see the outline of his ears and he doesn’t seem to have much mane on top. Glen asks me what I think and I tell him what I thought I saw, but it was just for a brief second. We sit in the darkness for another 30-40 minutes, we cannot hear anything on the bait, Glen turns the light on the bait and the lioness is gone, we quickly scan and cannot see either of the lions anymore. We sit for another hour before scanning the area again with the light, nothing. We make the decision to go back to camp and leave them for the night.

May 13th: First thing we drive to Tsondzo to see if the lions came back after we left the blind, it appears that the lionesses returned but the male did not. We head over to the bait by the powerlines to check there. Upon arrival we see that the bait has been hit, upon inspection we find a larger track and a few mane hairs that are 7”-10”. We recover the bait and head over to Banyin, the bait there has been devoured by the lionesses again.

May 14th: We start the morning by checking the bait by the powerline where he fed the night before, nothing has touched it. We head over to Banyin, hoping that he has taken the females from here to join up with the females that have been feeding over there. We arrive and see that the bait has been completely consumed. We find 6-7 mane hairs on the ground from 5-10 inches long, the camera is where we left it, we take it and head to the camp to check the pics. The camera took 15-20 pics of lions, there are a couple where a lioness is standing halfway between the camera and the bait and you can see her fairly well. The ones of the cats at the bait show that the camera is a little too far away, so they are not very clear. There are 2 pics though of the bait that show a lion that is significantly larger than the lionesses, you can clearly see that he has a mane, but not very good detail. We decide that we definitely want to sit tonight to try to get a better look at this cat. We climb in the tree around 4:00, Glen and I both are lying prone on a slab of Mopane poles running between 2 branches. About 5:30 a string of 3-4 lionesses with cubs in tow come walking into the water hole, they drink and then 2 of the lionesses walk over to the bait. One lies down patiently while the other begins to feed. A third lioness walks under the tree we are in and stops and looks straight up at me, we make eye contact and I freeze. We sit perfectly still, staring at each other for probably 5 minutes. She slowly walks out to the road on the other side of the tree and looks directly at me from that angle, she stands and we stare at each other for probably another 5 minutes before she walks down the road away from the bait. We spend all night listening to the cats eat, drink and piss. Every 30 minutes or so we slowly turn on the rheostat just to find that it is still a lioness, or a lioness with her cubs still on the bait. The lions feed until after light in the morning, they do not leave until they hear the cruiser approaching to pick us up. The male never came in.

May 15th: We exit the tree at 7:30am, inspect the bait, confirm that the male didn’t sneak in, and start searching the roads for answers to where he may have gone. About 9:30 we find his tracks on the powerline headed North towards the main road. We follow his tracks to the main road were he turns and heads East, a km or so down the road we find where he bumped into a porcupine and shredded it, there is nothing but quills spread all over the road. He exited the road and about 200yds further East comes back out on the road. He continues East, passes the compound, exits the road on the North side just before the airstrip and continues East. We follow his tracks as he takes the shortest route he can take via the road system, straight to the bait at Tsondzo. WTF? We are now probably 6-7 miles from Banyin, and the male we were hunting there is now at the bait where the other male is. The trackers begin jabbering about what is going on, Glen is scratching his head, we drive all the roads in the area and cannot find anywhere he exited, he must have bedded down up in one of the gomo’s. We decide to put up the trail cam to try to get a better look at him.

May 16th: We checked Banyin, the females fed, but no sign of the male. We returned to Tsondzo and worked all of the roads in the blocks surrounding it, no signs where he left unless he snuck out through the grass somewhere. We check the bait and the females definitely fed, just as we feared, the camera is gone. We spend 20-30 minutes looking before we find it crushed and in pieces lying in the grass. The guys find one 5-7 inch mane hair at the very top of the bait, he must have been here, we take the chip back to the lodge to check the pics. The chip produces 10-15 pics of the bait and finally the side of a lions paw just before he “fixed” the trail cam, damn, we are cursed with these cameras. We decide to sit at Tsondzo tonight, enter the pit at 4:00, I settle in and get comfortable, little do I know it is going to be a long night. The hours creep by, there are 2 frogs in the water croaking at each other, it reminds me of when I was a kid and would argue with my brother, “are to” “are not” “are to” “are not”, this is going to get old. We sit all night and nothing comes.

May 17th: We went by Banyin, the male hasn’t returned, he is obviously over at Tsondzo, we climb in the pit at 4:00. It is overcast and dark at 6, by 7 there is no hope of seeing anything without a light. The frogs are back, there is 3 of them now, the two that argue and one that is tone deaf. 8, 9, 10, 11, 11:30 I sit in the darkness, enjoying the silence between bouts of frogs croaking. The silence is broken by the sounds of a lioness sucking in and swallowing water. Glen whispers “The lions are here”, we strain to see the lions at the water, they can’t be more than 10 yards away but it is so dark you cannot see anything. We lean forward straining to see, suddenly we both realize there is a lioness standing broadside right at the edge of the thorns, not more than 2 yards in front of us. We freeze, I hold my breath as the lion slowly walks out of sight down to the water. Moments later, one of the most memorable moments of my life occurs, a lioness standing right next to the window of the blind begins shouting, another lioness standing by the water directly facing us (probably 15 yards away) begins shouting back at her, the male 60-70 yards away in the trees begins shouting as well, this continues for probably 5 minutes, it is so loud it shakes the entire blind. I can honestly say, for whatever reason, there was not an ounce of fear in my mind, but every muscle in my body was trembling. I mean think about how your body shakes when you are frigid cold and that is exactly what it was like. I was having trouble controlling my breathing, all I could think was “I hope Glen cannot tell what my body is doing right now”. The lions stopped shouting and went to the bait, I spent the next 30 minutes doing breathing exercises and trying to get my body under control. Glen slowly turns on the rheostat by the bait as I look through my glasses, there are 2 lionesses at the bait. He turns the rheostat out and we continue checking every 15 minutes or so. About 1am the lions begin shouting at the bait again, they are 50 yards away now and it is still deafening, you can definitely make out by the sound that one of them is a male, but he sounds like he is further away behind the bait. We check the bait every 15-30 minutes but it appears the male never comes. About 3am one of the lionesses comes to the water to drink and begins shouting again, a lioness answers her from the bait and it sounds like the male is shouting to her from the gomo behind us. The lionesses feed until about 4:30, we never get a look at the male, the last time we hear them they are shouting at each other from one of the gomo’s behind us. We crawl out of the blind around 7:30am, check the bait, it has been completely consumed. We find where the male was laying about 20 yards directly behind the tree, where we would never be able to see him, there is no way that this is an accident, he has to know exactly where we are. It appears he never came to the bait.

May 18th: We went by Banyin, the females fed, ate another ¼ giraffe, but no male. Looks like we are hunting Tsondzo again. Climb in the pit at 4:30, get situated and begin the wait, dark at 6, it is overcast, by 7 you can’t see 10 yards in front of the blind. The frogs are back, they have multiplied now and their song is nerve racking to say the least. 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 1, 2, 2:30, maybe I will just close my eyes for a second, I open my eyes, It’s 4:30, shit, I fell asleep, “Glen, are you awake, did I miss anything?”. “A Brown Hyena came to the bait and then to the water, but there is a chunk missing up high on the bait, a lioness must have come and I didn’t see her”. I look through my glasses and see the piece missing up high on the bait, I am disappointed in myself that I slipped. I am convinced that at daylight we will walk up to the bait to find a big track and mane hairs. 7:30 finally comes and we exit the blind, we walk up to the bait just to find the piece we thought was missing is the bend in the shoulder and the only thing that has been touched is the bottom by the hyena. I don’t let Glen know but I feel relief and swear not to slip again.

May 19th: Getting down to the wire, I can tell Glen is getting nervous, our options are non-existent, only one bait we have any indication a mature male is coming to. I am determined to sit in this blind until the end, Glen knows it and we are both exhausted. Got in the blind at 4:00, settled in for another long night, trying to prepare myself to stay awake. Glen and I have decided we are going to take turns sleeping, not taking any chances on what almost happened last night. Dark at 6, no cloud cover tonight and about 1/3 moon, Man, the frogs are back, there is a whole herd of those fuckers now, I may eat the business end of my 375 if I have to listen to these things all night. 7:00 I can still see the dam in front of me and the silhoette of the tree with the bait in it 50yds to my left. Pick up my glasses and can see the light on the mopane pole in front of the bait as well as the giraffe quarter in fairly good detail. I should be so lucky that sneaky cat comes in tonight when I can see him. 7:45 a silent dark figure walks by the dam in front of the blind, the lions are here early tonight. As quickly as I realize a lion is here, I hear something tearing at the bait, I slowly pick up my glasses and look at the bait and my heart stops. Even in the dark, there is no doubt what I see, a huge muscular figure is standing on his hind legs with both paws holding the bait while he tears at it, all I can see is a dark mass around his head, neck and shoulders. I slowly lower my glasses and squeeze Glen’s arm, “Glen, the male is on the bait, take my glasses, I am going to pick up my rifle”. I silently stick my rifle out the window and position myself for the shot. Glen grabs my arm and whispers “in front”, I look 10 yards in front of the blind at the waters edge and see a lioness laying on all 4 paws looking right at us. She silently rises and deliberately walks right towards us, she is not stopping, I instinctively extend my right arm, backing away from the window while still holding my rifle with my finger on the trigger. She stops at the thorns as if on Glens command, lowers her head and stares right at us though the window of the blind. It seems like an eternity she stands staring at us at 3 feet, but couldn’t have been longer than a minute. Then, as if she is bored, she turns and walks away, man, my balls are up in my stomach somewhere. The lion is still up on the bait, there is a lioness standing to his right tearing at the bottom of the shoulder, I am looking through the scope, waiting for my eyes to adjust, desperately trying to see my crosshairs. Glen is looking through the binos and whispers for me to take the shot if I can. My worst nightmare is coming true, I cannot make out my crosshairs, I never knew that you can get a Charlie horse in your eyeball, but you can. I am straining so hard to see my crosshairs that my eye actually hurts. I whisper to Glen, “I can’t see my crosshairs, we are going to have to try the light”, Glen tells me to get ready, he is going to turn it on just enough to light the filament and the second I can see to take the shot. He reaches up and turns the knob, and before I can even see the light come on, the lion pushes off the bait and walks about 15 yards to the left and lays down in the grass. “Did you turn it on?”, “I think so, something scared him”. We sit in silence, I can see the dark halo of his mane sticking up above the grass, time passes in slow motion, 5 minutes, the lioness is feeding again, 10 minutes, he hasn’t moved, 15 minutes, quit thinking about the lion and focus on finding your crosshairs, 20 minutes, there is a light patch of grass in front of the bait that should offer some contrast, 25 minutes, I think I can see my windage crosshair, or at least the broad portion of it, 30 minutes, I can now distinguish the bottom portion of my windage crosshair and the left portion of my elevation crosshair, I just can’t tell where they meet. “Glen, I can see my crosshairs, if he comes back to the bait I think I can get a shot”. “Maybe I should turn out the light”, “What? I thought you turned it out when he left?” We had discussed the possibility earlier in the hunt of trying to leave the light on it’s lowest setting hoping the cat would get used to it and return and then we could slowly increase the light without scaring him. This will tell you how dim this bulb was, at 50 yards in the dark with a 6x scope, you could not tell that the bulb was on. Glen reached up and turned off the light and immediately the lion stood up and walked back to the bait, I just did not feel comfortable with where I needed to put the shot. I could see his full side, I just could not tell exactly where his shoulder was, I didn’t know how far back his mane went. Then he made a fatal mistake, he picked up his right paw to grab the bait, I could tell exactly where I needed to hit. I whispered, “I am going to shoot”, Glen answered “I am going to put the spotlight on him as soon as you shoot”. I estimated where my bottom and left crosshairs met, put it 4 inches behind his shoulder, held a breath and gently squeezed. The night exploded in a flash and the concussion of the 375, Glen immediately hit the spotlight and you could see nothing, just a cloud of dust from shooting at ground level and the sound of a wounded lion grunting everytime his running paws hit the ground, getting louder and louder, in a flash I cycle the action and the dust clears enough to see a lion running on three legs, biting at his own shoulder, crossing 40 yards in front of us, running to the right. And just as soon as we can see him he disappears. And when I say “disappears”, I mean this lion was running broadside to us and vanishes into complete silence like he got raptured. “Where did he go?” I can hear the panic in Glen’s voice, “I don’t know, he just disappeared”. Glen shines the spotlight back and forth, searching for any sign of him, the lionesses have moved in 40 or 50 yards behind where we last saw him. “If you see him, don’t wait for me, just put another hole in him”. The lionesses are visably aggravated and are pacing back and forth, Glen scans the light back and forth and nothing. “The Lionesses aren’t going anywhere, he must be laying somewhere in front of us”. We sat and watched for 30 minutes, and nothing, just the 2 lionesses pacing back and forth in the background. Glen turns on the radio and calls the guys to come in the cruiser, we sit for another 30 minutes, waiting, watching. The cruiser pulls up, we unload the blind and set the spotlight up in the truck, I climb in the rack and Jason get’s beside me with the spotlight, we slowly drive out in front of the blind, the lionesses are pushing back into the brush, we get 20 yards in front of the blind and see what happened, the lion fell in a hole and is lying in the bottom dead. Glen chunks a water bottle that hits the lion and nothing, he chunks another and nothing. We turn around, back up to the hole, the guys nervously jump out of the truck while Jason holds the spotlight and I cover the lionesses with the rifle. About the time they get the tailgate off and try to pick up the lion, the spotlight shorts out and we are in the darkness, in the blink of your eye, everyone is in the truck. It is decided that we need more guys to pick up the cat and we head back to the shop to get help and fix the spotlight. We return with 9 guys and a working spotlight, the lionesses are still there, but offer little resistance while we load Shumba and head out.

May 20th: Slept late (7am), had a big breakfast, drove around and dropped any baits that were still up, picked up all of Glen’s chains. We put Glen’s “appy” Jason and his head tracker Webster up in the tree at Banyin to let them get a taste of the “blind life”. Also, neither of them had ever been that close to lions, and Glen felt it would be a good opportunity. We put them in the blind at 4:30 and told them we would pick them up around 9pm. Glen and I went back to the camp, sat around the fire, smoked a cigar, drank a couple of “scottish’s” and waited for the crying to start. About 7:00 a whisper came over the radio, “Glen, are you coming to get us?”, “Man, it’s only 7, give the lions a chance to show up”, “Their here, there’s lions everywhere, Webster wants you to pick us up”. With that, Glen turned of the radio, told me to start a fresh cigar and asked if I wanted another whisky while we laughed about those guys shitting their pants up in the tree.

The lion was 9'7" / 503lbs

Unreal, Brad..
Congrats on the trophy of a lifetime.

Awesome cat, congratulations

Great hunt and even better shot, well done. I enjoyed your report, it reminded me of my father's hunt, he was using a rifle scope with a illuminated dot, that sure did help. Good lion too, congratulations and thanks for sharing.

Congratulations on a beautiful lion! Was this the discount hunt they were offering earlier this year?

Brett

Super Cat.Congratulation !

quote:

Was this the discount hunt they were offering earlier this year?

Brett, My brother knows Glen and told me about this opportunity. Shangaan had 1 lion tag this year, so if one was offered by them here for this year it had to be the same hunt.

Superb specimen and extremely large bodied. The ultimate trophy.

Brad, Congratulations on the Lion!!!

Way to go!!Super trophy.
I will be hunting Buffalo with Glen in August
can't wait.

quote:

he was using a rifle scope with a illuminated dot, that sure did help.

I told Glen over and over that he should tell his clients that if they are going to be cat hunting, an illuminated reticle is an absolute necessity. If that night had been overcast like all of the other nights, I would not have gotten my lion.

Magnificent trophy but even better hunt report.
I'm going to have to "single finger" type a report or two one of these days as I enjoy reading everybody else's so much.
JCHB

Brad:

Awesome report. I've been watching the board for two weeks waiting for this report. It was like I was right there with you.

I shot my leopard in the dark with no light and no lighted reticle. What you accomplished is the most pressure packed shot in the hunting business. From the pics and story, I'd say you done good.

Congratulations and welcome home.

505

You had my ass riveted. That was a great story and very well written. Definitely a trophy well earned. Magnificent lion!

Big Congrats.

Mark

Here is a game cam pic of a young male that came to the bait at Eland Pan, around day 4. He also crunched the game cam shortly after it took this pic, I don't know what it was with these lions and the game cams, but the males do not like them.

Gibbs:

Congrats on a great cat. I really enjoyed the report. Can't wait to see it mounted.

Awesome read and a beautiful cat...CONGRATS, well done...

A great read about a wonderful hunt. Congratulations on the hunt and the trophy.

That is one big cat!

465H&H

Wow! What an awesome adventure. Congrats on your trophy.

Good job

Nice lion. Well written report.

I hunted the adjoining property last year when they had the fire. Sounds like Senuko must have recovered from that massive fire.

Interestingly, my lion was also a little thin on top. Must be genetics.

i loved your story and the cat. thanks

Great report, thanks for posting it.

quote:

I hunted the adjoining property last year when they had the fire.

Larry, did you hunt Humani or with Zambezi?

505,

Beauty of a lion well done.

Steve

damn, Brad, you done good!! i guess this means you got to get an ele to round out your big 4( i don't count a farmed rhino) for dangerous game. Carolyn(sp??) has got to be pleased with this guy.

Great cat and compelling tale! Indeed, the most intense exhausting type of hunting I've experienced. All the hours,days and nights and you just pray you,ll be awake and able to make that one perfect shot under the least favorable conditions;well,you did all of that. Jim

505

I went with ZH. Going back in October.

We saw your PH several times in the course of our hunt. One time they were looking for a PH and the client. The client had wounded a buff with long bow. They followed it for days. They had lost contact with the PH and was out looking for him.

We saw lots of game on the Senuko boundary. Brother, that fire was unbelievable.

I didn't have those long waits like you did. We hadn't been in the blind 30 minutes when the lion walked in in broad daylight. I was lucky.

Congrats again. Very nice lion.

Superb trophy lion... well done!

Larry, post a pic of your lion on here. Jerry, I was inches from going on an ele hunt with Buzz right after the lion hunt but just couldn't get everything coordinated. I left you a message on the fishing forum, wanted to see pics of your Costa Rica trip, especially the "nightlife", haha. I leave Thursday for CR, not much fishing, mostly payback for the family and being gone for most of a month.

http://forums.accuratereloadin...6321043/m/2671063911

Here is my report with pictures.

Beauty! Well done.

the trophy of the lifetime. Congratulations

Congratulations!!!!!! Wonderful lion and report! And great shooting!

Regards,D.Nelson

Brad

Great Lion congratulations buddy, you could not have wished for a better one

Thanks Walter, how are things in Moz?

What a brute!

An illuminated reticle is worth every extra penny it costs when chasing the big cats - or any other game animal that you may have to shoot in very poor light.

Your story is a case in point.

Congrats!

Brad - Nice cat my friend! Glad to hear Glenn showed you a good hunt. Ironically, the lion I shot with him in 2008 weighed exactly 503lbs as well.

Nice cat. He hung around the buffet too much. Good thing you got him he needed weight watchers. Very nice thread.