This is posted for Thomas, he is a member on AR.


In January I attended the SCI Convention in Reno to look into booking a leopard, sable, and cape buffalo hunt. I had been doing some corresponding with a booking agent and he highly recommended Martin Pieters. I met Martin and his wife Candy a day before the show opened because he had three leopard tags left. I wanted one badly and I wanted to hunt this year. When the show opened the next day we sat down and discussed the hunt, the dates that were available, and where I was going to hunt. My hunt would be two separate hunts. The first five days I would be hunting at the Cawston Ranch owned by Peter Johnstone. This was where I was going to hunt sable and blue wildebeest. The second part of the hunt would be in the Omay South area called the Chifudze camp. Here I would be hunting leopard and cape buffalo. This hunt would last thirteen days. The Cawston Ranch is about forty-five minutes from Bulawayo. It was here at the airport that my PH Alan Van Rensburg met me and took me to the ranch. I would be the only hunter on the ranch for the entire five days. The ranch encompasses 32,000 acres. The first order of business was to check both my rifles. On the Cawston Ranch I would be shooting a 300 Jarrett. In the Omay South I would be shooting a 375 H & H Kimber of Oregon. My hunt would be from May 16 to June 3. It was very thich everywhere we hunted and the grass was high. It reminded me of hunting in Texas. We were up early the first morning, had a light breakfast, and left camp. As we were driving down the road early we spotted a nice sable bull off to our right in some tall grass. Alan said that it was a really nice bull. We stopped and proceeded to back down the road the way we came for about a hundred yards because the bull did not see us. Alan, myself, and the tracker got out of the land cruiser and quietly walked down the road. The sable bull was still there and still feeding. We were within fifty yards of him. The shooting sticks were set up and I positioned my rifle on him and fired. The sable was shot through the shoulder. It was a beautiful sable measuring almost forty-one inches. Who would believe that getting a sable was going to be this easy.




I was shooting 200 grain Nosler Partition bullets in the Jarrett. For the next day and a half we chased lots of blue wildebeest around but nothing big. The third morning we found a nice blue wildebeest bull all by himself. We made a nice stalk on him and shot him through the shoulder at one hundred and fifty yards.




For the next two days we spent time at waterholes watching game and looking for a big kudu. We didn't see any monster bulls to shoot. The Cawston Ranch provided me with excellent accomodations, the food was excellent, the hospitality was great, and I saw lots of animals. With me being the only hunter on the ranch for five days I was spoiled rotten. My PH Alan knew the ranch like the back of his hand. He was well versed in the habits of the animals that we saw while we were hunting. Finishing second was not an option. We hunted hard all day. After my hunt at the Cawston Ranch I was taken back to Bulawayo where I was picked up by an apprentice PH who hunts the Omay North area. He was to take me part way in and then I was to be met by my PH Boet Van Aarde who would take me the rest of the way to the Chifudze camp in the Omay South. The total time was about eight hours. Once in camp my first order of business was to shoot some bait to use for a leopard. The first day of the hunt we decided to hunt for a cape buffalo. Since the grass was so high shooting impalas for bait was not going to work. Near where we hunt is a game park where buffalo roam out of. Once they leave the park they can be hunted in our hunting area. We chased buffalo around for about three days but could not catch a break. We were busted several times by the wind changing, impalas, and birds. Finally on the fourth day we got into some buffalo early in the morning and I got a shot at about forty yards. He was rocked but did not go down. We tracked him for over two hours. He and the herd he was with went into the park. I had lost the buffalo. Now I really needed some bait for my leopard. My next choice was to see if their was any cow buffalo on quota. There was and I shot one that afternoon. We then proceeded to put out about seven baits. Four of our baits had been hit by females. May is the breeding season for leopards. We heard a female calling from camp everyday. Finally after about four days of setting out baits we got a male to hit one of our baits. We then proceeded to build or blind. It was a two man popup blind covered wtih grass. It was thirty yards from the tree. The first night in the blind we had two cats in the tree at separate times, but we could not determine if the larger one was a male. When we did he was going down the tree and I didn't want to take a bad shot. The next day we moved the blind to the other side of the tree and we were now twenty yards from the bait tree. That night the female came in at 4:25 P.M. She crossed in front of our blind at about fifteen yards. Her companion came in after dark and again we had a hard time of determining the sex of the larger cat. Females cannot be shot in Zimbabwe. The third night both cats came in right at dark. The female went up the tree first and after her came the larger of the two. This time we were able to determine the sex of the male and I shot him through both shoulders with the 375 H & H. He was dead on impact. What a rush. I was shooting Barnes Triple Shock 300 grain bullets. The cat had a beautiful hide, its teeth were all intact, and I now had my leopard.



My PH Boet Van Aarde knew the area well, he also knew the habits of the animals that I was hunting, and he wasn't afraid to take control of things if it needed to be done. The Chifudze camp was a great camp. Again we had excellent food, the accomodations were nice, everyone looked after you, and I had no problems with either place that I hunted. I hope to book another buffalo hunt with Martin in 2013 in the Omay South.

Awesome! Leopard, Buffalo and Sable are on my hitlist. I may have to contact Martin. Very nice animals. You did well!!!!!!

Love the sable and Mr. Spots!

Nicely done!

Great hunt, sorry about your buffalo. I hunted from the same camp in Omay, very good area for Leopard.

Beautiful Sable....

Congrats on a couple beautiful animals...

Thomas,

That is an awesome sable, congratulations on the hunt.

Thomas, great shooting and memories of a lifetime.

Mike

Very nice bag! Makes me wish for sable!

Congrats on a great leopard and a superb sable bull. I was at Cawston in April and really enjoyed myself on the property as well... I love tented camps!

Super sable, I'm jealous!

Boet is a nice guy and knows the Chifudze area and leopards. He was in camp guiding for JaegerFrank when we were in the Chafudze.

you mentioned you shot your leopard right at dark but the pictures were taken the next day. were you concerned about hair slippage/spoiling by letting it lay around overnight with the guts in? i would have been pretty scared shitless that something bad would happen! regardless, congratulations on some beautiful trophies.

Congratulations! Nice trophies!

Congrats!!! Nice sable and interesting hunt on Mr. Spot.

What a great hunt!

Very nice.

Great report and pics....congratulations Thomas!

Great Sable great leopard congratulation. I have hunted with Boet twice he is a great PH

fantastic trophies. thanks for sharing.