10 November 2005, 11:36
ozhunterozhunters Zambezi Lion Hunt report
Here are some of my photos and details of my October 2005 Chewore North Hunt.
“2005, 14 Day Lion hunt in the Zambezi valley of Zimbabweâ€
The lion opportunity came around when I was pricing for a Tuskless Ele and buff hunt in the valley. As it was a last minute decision the company's I was interested in booking with had none left, Ian of BIG5 SAFARIS did offer a buff cow but I said I would leave this animal until I needed bait, with this I asked the big question,Ian's answer was; "yes we do have a lion left over will send you a price". oops now I’ve done it.
The flight to Harare went smooth with luggage arriving on my flight much to my relief .
The charter flight the next day was delayed a couple hours so on flying over Doma Safari area it was clear we didn’t have enough light to make it to camp, so a decision was made to land at Dande South camp where we landed with the assistance of a hunters car headlights and spent the night there with a great crowd, many thanks to Ingwe Safaris and staff.
Early the next day we left for the Zambezi camp, on arrival we unloaded the supplies and got acquainted with Ian and staff including trackers Robert and Bernard and Game Scout or Ranger Karonda, these guys were great. The trackers were superb at their job and the G/Scout always stayed back and wasn’t in the way at all.
We quickly checked the 9.3x62 and went off to hang a Ele leg at a bait site, then went looking for spoor. Ian explained that there were many prides but few large male Lion at the moment which was unusual for this area, he pointed out that we would only hang baits in popular areas where big Lions were seen from time to time and in front of fresh spoor as the baits wouldn’t last long in the heat, which during the day was above 40 deg Celsius .
At this time of the year most of the time is spent tracking for Lion, which sounded good to me.
The rest of day one was spent checking spoor and shooting some Bait in the form of a hippo.
On day four we awoke early to check a bait that we thought might have a Hyena on it, luck was on our side, the Schmidt & Bender 1.5-6 Illuminated scope worked great in the low light.
By seven am we were back on the Chewore river checking some promising spoor of two Lions, some people say lions are lazy animals doing not much at all, these two had us tracking them from 7am until 6pm, they made their way to a spring twenty plus kilometers east of the river in the Chikusa Water shed.
After leaving the spring we found that they rested in the shade of a Baobab tree, as we found their tracks going away from the tree Ian was slightly ahead when he sank to the ground, from where I was I could not see what he was looking at until it broke. A Lion was eating a freshly killed Warthog fifty meters from us.
A bit further on we saw his larger friend but no shot was possible. This was a great big day..
Day five had us checking on the Ele leg bait, with bare feet we silently approached the blind to find a pride on it, after a while they moved off into the Jesse so we made our way down towards the bait to see if a Male had been there, at about seventy meters from the tree we were greeted with growls of anger, then a Lioness broke cover in a charge with tail flicking around and growling. She stopped at about sixty meters so we slowly moved away with rifles ready.
What a great way to start the day.. but what an angry bitch!!
We then drove up to where we saw the lions the previous evening and recommenced following their foot prints moving down into a valley then up and into another and up to a beautiful spring, it was about mid day so we laid down for a short kip.
After about twenty minutes we started tracking again only to get a couple hundred meters up to a Baobab when Robert thought he could see a lion behind the tree as I approached I saw a movement off to my right, it was a Lion, by the time I got Ian’s attention it moved off and gave me no shot. I received some flack that night over two missed opportunities but I was having a ball.
As we set a bait in the next valley to try to stop him we saw an old dagga boy in the creek, Ian asked if I wanted to try for him but I declined as it was only day five and it could spoil the opportunity on these Lion, back to camp for a sun downer on the river plus some Tiger fish including a lovely fourteen pound one.
PH Buzz Charlton had set a bait down stream for leopard and set it low enough for lion.
It had some lion feeding on it so on the morning of hunt day six we boated down river to the bait to see two Lioness on it and a young male on a flood plain.
Later that morning while driving to the bait set the previous day we were contacted on the HF radio by PH Derk Du Plooy, his tracker had seen a nice Lion in the creek were we were expecting our lions to be, we let him know we were on our way to the area. We found the spoor on a sand bank on the creek and followed it up. We tracked it for a few hours until it crossed the creek a couple kilometers from the vehicle so we stopped for lunch, a swim and a sleep.
We then resumed tracking, we found fresh cat shit the size of dinner plates then a dead elephant that had tooth marks to the neck and its stomach puled out, we were close. As we approached the creek again Bernard frantically caught our attention, the Lion was on the creek bed below us, I moved in for the shot, the Woodleigh soft went in behind the shoulder into its chest followed by some solids to the chest, one solid was later found half way up the tail.
This happened at ten meters! In the 4pm heat we made haste for camp so not to ruin the skin.
For the next eight day’s we hunted hard for Dagger Boys amongst the Jesse, the wind gave us no favors.
During this time we saw Buff, wild Dog, two Leopard, ran from angry Elephants, shot a Klipspringer and a Kudu and also tried twice for a leopard another hunter had feeding.
On the last evening we decided to walk to three springs hoping that a big spoored Dagger Boy we had tracked previously was resting at one. One hour from dark and at the last spring we found very fresh spoor, fifty meters further there he was amongst the Jesse bush, as he spun around to take off he was hit with two solids from the 470NE and he fell forty meters on.
The next day after checking a leopard bait we packed the Cessna 206 for the flight back to Harare as the first rain fell.
Another great trip to Africa comes to a end.
10 November 2005, 13:39
AndersThat`s some nice animals you got there, ozhunter!
I like that double as well! Not many guys who have shot a klipspringer with an open-sighted heavy double, I guess...
Thanks for sharing!
23 November 2005, 23:24
Bill CMan, there have been a lot of excellent hunting reports in the last few weeks! Great hunt, pict's & report ozhunter.
While at Big5, I was told by my PH that "Gibson is the luckiest professional hunter alive". I think we make our own luck, as evidenced by your report, but whatever...Ian does deliver the goods!
06 January 2006, 08:33
308SakoOzhunter, I don't know how I missed this wonderful post! What super memories you bring back for me. I had the privildge of hunting Chewore North in May of 1991. 2 Big Buff (best 43"), Leopard 7'3", Kudu 57", Klipspringer (made Roland Ward top 20), Impala, Bushbuck... but no lion! Had a lioness on license, but never saw a female! This was one of lifes great treats. I hope you get to do it again.
Free 500grains 
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