Lukwika, Tanzania Hunt 2012

Dates 10/16/2012- 11/6/2012
Agent: Adam Clements at Adam Clements Safari Trackers
PH: Brian Van Blerk
Flights arranged by Gracy Travel on Delta and KLM.
Guns:
.375 H&H Dakota 76 using factory Federal Cape Shock 300 grain TBSS and Barnes TSX
.416 Rigby Dakota 76 using factory Federal Cape Shok 400 grain TSX and hand loaded 400 grain Barnes solids (94 gr H4350)
.470 NE Merkel 140-2 using Hand loaded 500 grain Northfork Cup Point and Flat point solids.

After my rather spectacular success in Tanzania last year, I was really itching to get back there as quickly as I could. Adam at Adam Clements Safari Trackers had a hunting opportunity that he needed to get some people in for and wanted to see how things would work out there. I had read about the success that some folks were having on Elephant over the years at Lukwika, and its location on the Tanzanian border with Mozambique and the fact that it was adjacent to the famed Niassa reserve made it sound like it was a great spot to hunt Elephant for the first time. Since Tanzania has a rather unique way of licensing hunting, by getting the 21 day Full Bag license, I was set to get anything that was available on quota there. There are some rather unusual species found here, such as the Harvey's Red Duiker and Roosevelt Sable, in addition to the more common African species. Of course, this was an exploratory hunt, as Adam had heard that there was some issues with poaching; nevertheless, this concession had a good reputation of producing some very large Elephant.

I was able to team up with my PH from my last hunt in Tanzania, Brian Van Blerk, and I had great expectations of this trip. Unfortunately, there were some SNAFU's right from the beginning. Brian was going to be hunting out at Lukwika for a couple hunts earlier in the year, so that he would know the territory. Unfortunately, those hunts cancelled out, so he came in without that experience. Another, more significant development was the acceleration of poaching in this area. It was an accepted fact that there was some poaching, but the question was how bad. Well, it has gotten very bad. So bad that the game scouts tend to patrol in groups of 5 or more. So bad that the camp staff and trackers did not feel safe going off in the bush without armed escort. Of course, the situation was felt to be mostly caused by folks coming across the border from Mozambique, and it turns out that the Northern Mozambique concessions have been getting hammered as well. I also found out on arrival that I did not have a chance of shooting the local rarity of the Harvey's Red Duiker due to the government deciding that they would not grant licenses to hunt them in July.

I left Minnesota on 10/14/2012 flying out of Minneapolis on Delta. Check in was uneventful, unlike last year, and I got on the plane with no real issues. The flight was smooth and I had no issues other than fatigue in Amsterdam. At Dar Es Salaam, everything was there, I was met by Adam's "Man in Dar" Spero, and I had the usual "fast and furious" drive through town, to the Sea Cliff Hotel. I checked in and after a much needed shower went to bed. I woke up somewhat early on the 16th, and went and looked around a bit. Brian showed up and we went to a local steak house called the Spur and got caught up.

Room



View of the Indian Ocean



We then went out to the airport and put all our gear through the Xray machine (they are doing this now for the charter planes as well) and met up with Brian's tracker and right hand man, Albert. We all flew out to Lukwika on a Cessna Caravan. The first part of the flight was pretty uneventful, but as we got closer to the hunting areas the terrain started being more rugged. You could see these hills pretty much anywhere on the concession, and the concession ran right up to them. I did not see any game from the plane, though. As we buzzed the field to make sure there was no obstructions, we saw quite a crowd of folks at the runway- Brian said "Now you know what its like to be a Rock Star"-- not really, they were all there to see the plane, and there was quite a bit of pushing to get their pictures with the plane. The game warden was there to have me sign the book to allow entry to the reserve.

Hills near Lukwika






Now I had my first of many "This is Africa" events on this trip. Someone at the charter company had forgotten to put my briefcase with the small camera and my hunting journal on the plane. Brian was worried that I had left money in it (no...) but it was promptly located by Spero and they sent it down with a guy on the bus. I got it on the 3rd day of the hunt. we got settled in the tents and oriented to camp. At about 5 PM we went out and checked the zero on my rifles. All seemed right were they were supposed to be. With everything on the up and up, we went back to camp, and had supper for a 5:30 wake up.

Lukwika Sign



Tent



Camp Dining Area



Sunrise



The first day was greeted by the house boy stating "knock knock" repeatedly. With my bad hearing, apparently he was doing this for quite a while, and Brian told me later it was quite amusing. Breakfast is made to order, although you do order it the night before. We got going around 6, and after this day, unless we were headed out for a blind, we got going at 5 AM from this point on, to try and gain the use of as much coolness as possible. Sunrise was about 5:30, and sunset right around 7:15 PM. The weather was pretty much the same the whole time. We did have a couple of cloudy days and a couple of light rain showers, but otherwise, it was uniformly sunny and hot. The thermometer that I had recorded noontime temps of around 102-104 F in my tent. It was usually warmer outside, and I was glad I packed a bunch of Gatoraid powder. We spent the first day driving around trying to get the trackers and Brian oriented with the lay of the land. Personally, I felt the roads were mostly like that old Zork line "Twisty little passages that look all alike..." but by the end I was differentiating the stuff a bit more. Our first day did get us out and stalking a decent warthog for a while, but he scented us and I did not get on him quickly enough. In the end, it turned out that all the warthogs were pretty much of a likeness, and getting one was not that hard. We did see lots of baby warthogs, which ended up up being part of the issue with getting a leopard. We pretty much went at it all day and by the end of it, Brian and company announced that we were good to go. We had seen a lot of sign, and Brian felt good about Leopard, stating that he felt with 21 days that it was a sure thing ( well he said that later after events proved us wrong...) and that Lion might be good, but with the rules in place, that is never a given.

The following day we ended up having at the hunting in earnest. We were hoping to find some good elephant tracks, or failing that, Buffalo so that we could get some baits up for the cats that we had seen good evidence of. We ended up finding the tracks of some Dagga Boys (a small bachelor group of male buffalo) and followed them. After about 30 minutes of pursuit, we caught up with them. The group had one facing us, and the others scattered around him. The one facing was a good bull, and Brian had the sticks up. I used the .416 on this one, as I wanted to get bait up as soon as possible. we had discussed using the double for some buffalo, and the plan was to do so if possible, but the .416 was buffalo medicine if not. This one staggered at the shot, and ran in to one of his fellows, they both fell, and then he got back up and ran. we started walking after them and within a couple of minutes we heard death bellows. I did get the bullet back on this guy, given the frontal shot. Everyone was happy as we now had some Lion bait, and the first animal was in the salt. This buffalo is a pretty good one, with 41" spread and really nice heavy solid bosses.





Brian is beginning to understand that I don't need a bunch of shoulder mounted buffalo, or maybe he just remembered that I didn't have a 45" buff caped. In any case, he told the guys "skull mount only" without giving me any disbelieving looks this time.

We continue back to camp to have the skinners do their work and since it's early, head back out for looking for some elephant sign. On the way, we don't see much from the elephant end, but we see a Kudu out there. We get out and look at him, but he's a little small. At the same time we notice a number of Zebra... What the heck? I was told they were not found here... While looking at them, Brian says, "don't bother," then stops. Albert starts clicking, and they are busy looking at a different spot. "Sable. Get ready. " Up go the sticks, and there he is. He is not quite behaving like most sable that I read about. He seems pretty nervous and is moving around quite a bit. I am on him, and then he steps behind a tree. He comes out, but does not give me a look at his front end. He keeps moving around, then finally stops with a broadside view. I shoot him at a bit over 100 yards, and he drops to the shot with a spine hit. We get up to him, and I am asked to put another in him because of the fact that he was not expiring very quickly. He is a very good example of the breed. The Sable here are the Roosevelt species, which tend to run a bit smaller and tend to have a bit lighter color in the face. He has a lot of secondary type horn growth, indicating he's quite old. He is also wearing down his left horn a bit. This guy is very good, and Brian is quite pleased by him. Rather notably, we have our first indication of how much poaching is going on here, as he has a cable snare around his hoof. Its not bad enough to cause him to lose the foot, but probably explains his skittishness.





That afternoon, we set out a pair of Lion baits in an area where we had seen some lionesses, and get back after dark.

The following day we set out a bunch of Leopard baits made out of the sable. One of them is near this really large termite mound, which is about the biggest one I have seen. We did find one of our lion baits had been hit by the lionesses we had seen. I also get a chance at Bushpig, but I am just too pain slow to get on him. We also checked a river bed, and saw a elephant. We then made a stalk on it, and saw the only mature elephant of the whole trip, a tuskless cow with a couple of juvenile and a baby. We back off and leave her alone.

Termite mound



The fourth day saw us checking baits again, and finding a long mane hair on the one that the lionesses did not hit. We set up a game cam, but also make plans to sit on the bait. We refresh it with the buffalo that the lionesses had been on, as there is no value in feeding the females and cubs. That evening, we sit on the bait, but while I don't see him, Brian does. He says that he's got a good mane, but we need to see him better to know for sure. We will go out in the morning. He should be very visible on the river bed, and Brian has a bit of a talk with me about what to expect. We get out, and don't see him, although there is evidence he's around. Once we have full daylight, we go and check the camera. Multiple issues come up with this. Firstly, he looks young. His mane is thin on top, and furthermore, his muscular development is pretty light. Add to that that he is there with the lionesses and dependent cubs and we have a young pride holding lion and thus we cannot shoot him. Brian does tell me that there have been some changes in how Tanzania is dealing with Lion now. While the law says 6, they have now decided that if it is 6, everything is good. If it is less than 6, but older than 5, the Lion is exportable, but they will fine the PH and reduce the quota the following year. 4 and under lions remain unacceptable and now not only will not be exported, but also invoke fines and loss of quota. Needless to say, after my fine Lion last year, I am not worried about passing on this guy- its obvious that he is not a lion to take.

We want to put out another couple baits for leopard, and decide we will take an Impala for that. The first group we find does not stand still, and we continue on. A warthog with a death wish stands looking at me for several minutes all of 10 yards away. Brian turns him down, but then a flurry of Swahili between him and Albert and as the pig runs off he decides we will shoot him. Apparently, this warthog is the same size as all of the bigger males we have seen and there is no reason not to shoot him, especially since we need bait. The pig is now 100 yards out, feeding, and I shoot him through the shoulder/neck area dropping him immediately. Later on, we followed more Buffalo, but they were soft bossed and we passed on them. That afternoon, we see a Waterbuck with very odd looking horns. Brian states that he is small, but when I state that odd stuff is interesting, we decide to try and get him. After playing hide and seek with him for 30 minutes, we concede the match for the time being.



On the morning of the sixth day, we find several tracks of a male lion. Later on, we decide that it is just the pride male doing a walkabout, but at this point, we think its a new lion. We decide we need some more bait. This begins another bad situation. Given the way I had been shooting to this point, I think this was where my rifles got messed up somewhere. The Warthog went down fine, but from this point on, the shooting was bad. We went to a deep pool to get a hippo for bait. We found the male, and I aimed right below his right eye. The rifle went off, and down the hippo went. Brian knew instantly that it was not a good shot. The bull would come up for a second to breathe and blood would spray out, ant then he would go down again. For the rest of the hunt, we kept coming back to the pool to see if we could get him. Later on that afternoon, I would miss a shot at a big Kudu and also a Hyena. All 3 of these felt good to me, but I did not make that big of an issue of it at the time, as I have had this happen before last year, and it was me, not the gun that time. We did leave the hippo alone for a 2 days and then went back. Brian could tell which one he was, although I could not. Since I was not seeing it, Brian used my rifle and shot at him 3 times, and then shot him once with his 416. We did see him briefly for 2 days after that, and then he disappeared. Near as I can tell, after getting shot at and his nose being perforated a bunch, the fact that there was constant human activity at that pool drove him off. In any case, the fact is that I didn't kill the hippo and we didn't get him later. Later on that day, I would miss a very good Kudu and a Hyena, all by shooting over them. A few days later, it became obvious that I couldn't hit much of anything, and was consistently shooting high.

Lion tracks



The following day we finally see a set of elephant tracks that seem to be worth following. While not what the PH thought of as "good" tracks, they were substantially larger than anything else I had seen to that point, and very distinctive, so they were not getting confused with other or older tracks. We then started pursuit. I was able to keep up for about 5 hours, and then the heat got to me. I basically was in the initial phases of heat exhaustion and was quite dehydrated. I went back to camp and drank gallons of fluids, and just took it easy for the rest of the day. At evening, we did go out for another game drive, and we came across what for the area was a monster common Waterbuck. Given our continued need for meat, this then became another of our project animals. That first day, while I got on him, I was rather shaky and was not willing to risk a shot with him moving. This delayed getting bait, but given a Waterbuck's territorial nature, we were pretty sure we could get him in the coming days. On the 8th day, we once again tried to see the elephant. This time there was 29 km of walking in high heat and humidity, that I did skip out of some of the walking and did the "diesel stalking" option on. We never did see him that day.

On the 25th, there was more evidence of the problem with my rifle. While we did not see anything that good to shoot, the Game Scout was interested in getting some meat. He asked us if we minded shooting him an Impala, or otherwise he would have to do it himself (with an AK 47). Brian found an appropriate old impala ram, and I shot it; we were maybe 150-200 yards out, and I just barely clipped it with a high lung shot that took one lung. We promptly followed it, and I put a shot over its back. The 3rd shot we got the sticks up, and Brian tried to talk me through jitters- "Do you see him?" Yes... "OK, this is a ration animal, I want you to shoot him in the head. Wait for him to look at something then shoot." OK... BANG! "You missed him!" (not really...) "There he is again, shoot him in the shoulder!" BANG! "What are you doing???!! Give me the Bundooki!" and the trackers hand him his .500, and he shoots once and basically guts the poor thing. When we get him, it becomes obvious in retrospect. The first shot was a little to the right and high and only got one lung. The second was over his back, the third blew his right horn off 3" over the top of his head, and the 4th burned the top of his shoulder. All were between 6" and 12" high. The Game Scout got his meat, but it was pretty mangled up. Brian at this point says that we should check zero at some point, but that gets forgotten in the rush to get baits up.

The next day we again are working on the Elephant, the Hippo, the Kudu and the Waterbuck. While looking for the elephant, we see a bunch of vultures circling. While we have seen numerous sets of elephant bones, this is the first fresh elephant kill we find. While I document these, I was sick enough after that and I could not really stomach taking pictures of all the kills we find.

Vultures



Poached juvenile Elephant. Maybe 8 years old.



They cut them up like that to attract the vultures and dispose of the evidence. Ordinarily, the patrols are on vehicle, and they will not see it if its not on the road. We are all over the place, and it becomes obvious to our game scout that there is a bigger issue than they thought there was. We find 4 like this over the 3 weeks. This particular little guy we had seen just 2 days before with 2 other juveniles, and he had tusks that if they weighed 1.5 pounds apiece we would have been surprised.

All in all, we find about 20 different elephant kills that are just bones as we go along. You can tell a poached kill by the fact that the front of the elephant's skull has been chopped out with an axe to get the tusks. Ivory goes for about 100,000 TSh/kg (Tanzanian Schillings, more or less $20/pound) and is being wholesale shipped over via illicit trade routes to China and Vietnam. If these pictures disturb you, reconsider your patronage of Wal Mart and any other place that sells cheap far eastern imports. Their prosperity is paying for this and Rhino poaching.

Elephant skull (chopped) (my foot is visible to give a size reference. This is probably a 12-15 year old juvenile's skull.)



We also see some evidence of poaching that is alive. One morning we see a adolescent cow that has taken a burst of machinegun fire from an AK 47 about a week ago. She is limping badly and her shoulder is obviously abscessed. The game scout asks that we put her down. This is the only Elephant I get to shoot with the .470. I try for a side brain shot and drop her, but it was not fully successful, so I also shoot her in the heart and put her out of her misery. Elephant release tears when they die, so it was a heart rending sight. I would not take pictures of this elephant, although the game scout did and cut her tail off (this claims ownership in the old African tradition) and called the Warden to get some people out to get the ivory and take the meat to the local villagers. At this point, I quit taking pictures of poached elephant, as I was just getting angrier about the whole situation, not a good thing for folks carrying guns around to be.

We also see evidence of baby elephant that lost their lives due to their mothers and herds being killed- Lion will certainly take elephant calves when they can, but its very rare in normal situations because the mother and herd matriarchs defend the calves so fiercely. we found several lion kills, and really it would have been easy to camp out on one and shoot the lion. However, as before, this concession is not big enough for more than one pride, and all the kills were from the resident pride headed by a 3.5 year old male. I tried to take pictures of the Lionesses and cubs a few times, but all I have is blurry backgrounds... I'm not ready to work for National Geographic...

Lion Kill baby Elephant.



We also saw a live baby elephant that was obviously on his last legs. He is not old enough to be weaned, and while he was trying to eat leaves and grass, he was not doing well at all. We stopped seeing him 1-2 days after these pictures. We chased him a bit to get the photos, and he did have spunk, in that he came at us in a mock charge.





Anyhow, back to the hunting...

On day 10, I get a chance to shoot a trophy Impala. The impala here at Lukwika are genetically the "Southern" Impala race. So, if you want to shoot a decent mature ram, they are all over here, but nothing that will even get close to the record book is here; nevertheless, they all eat really good, and are an iconic species, and are the usual prey for Leopard, so they are shot for non trophy purposes. Mine here is 19", which is typical for this area, but nothing unusual. I knew I was hitting high, so I made a special effort to shoot for a low heart shot. The bullet hit him high and to the right, and took out his spine.



Interestingly, I had never seen the Baobabs in bloom. They were flowering and had seed pods on some of them. This was the first place that I had seen small Baobab trees as well.



Later on that afternoon, we decided that the Bushbuck had been giving us the slip too often. Albert comes up with a plan, and tells the everybody what to do. He had seen a Bushbuck in this same place every day of the hunt, so he felt that we would need to use its behavior against it. He had Brian and I get out and take a strategic position in the riverbed where the buck usually crossed behind us, while he sent the truck off on the road; meanwhile, the trackers would form a line to make sure it went towards us, as opposed to sneaking off some other way. His plan worked as Albert's plans usually do, and the Bushbuck appeared right where Albert thought he would. Fortunately, he was facing me, so when I made a low heart shot, when the gun shot high, it hit him right in the neck and he dropped to the shot. He's an old thick buck, and is the 3rd species of Bushbuck I have taken (Chobe, Limpopo, and now, East African)

Bushbuck



After that, we are heading back to camp when our big waterbuck shows up again. We dismount and begin a hurried stalk. After several slips and then reacquisitions, he stands clear and still long enough for a shot. I shoot high yet again, and spine him. I then have to shoot him again (with a solid) in the chest. As it's a solid, he doesn't seem to be dying very quickly, so I shoot him a third time and he finally gives up the ghost. He is 27" on each horn, but his horns are rather thin compared to Waterbuck I have shot elsewhere.

Waterbuck



The next day, we end up finally unraveling the elephant tracks. The Elephant in Lukwika classically live in the Niassa Reserve in Mozambique and come over to Tanzania when the fruit trees are laden with fruit. Brian called the fruit "African Apple" but I don't think that is what they really are. The trees are about the size of an apple tree with red or yellow fruit attached to a blossom. They are very juicy and sweet. The locals use the juice of this fruit to make a local beer. We would cut the elephant's tracks near the trees and follow him. At first, we thought the bull was scared or wary, but today we found him, and it became obvious. He was lonely. He was wandering around looking for some cows, but while they would tolerate him for a short time, he was a late adolescent male, and they did not want to keep him around. He was carrying maybe 25# of Ivory a tusk, and given the legal minimum for Tanzania is 35#, he was not a legal target even if I was inclined to shoot a smaller elephant. Brian said that he was no where near adult body sized, and that the only reason his tracks stood out was we were comparing him to juveniles.

Fruit Trees



We then spend a fair amount of time refreshing Leopard baits with a different approach with the meat lower in the trees. While this does get one hit, it is by a lioness later on. We still can only guess why we cannot get even one feeding, and are considering that while the moon phase is wrong (its pretty much full) and there is all kinds of baby animals being born now, especially Warthogs, they just are not behaving right, and the only thing we can figure is that locals are putting poisoned meat in the trees to keep the cats away from their livestock. We have found a couple of Poacher's bags that have had packages of insecticide or herbicide, and the evidence has been that they dump it in waterholes and pick up the animals that drink it and eat them. Mostly birds, but some mammals as well. The bigger stuff would be sickened, but not likely killed by what we see, and we can only guess that the leopard have learned to leave anything they don't kill themselves alone.

Moon over the large termite mound (near a leopard bait...)



Return to Camp



At this point we are past the halfway point and while we see Red Duiker with startling regularity, we are still not allowed to shoot them due to the government's change of heart about them. I am still not sure why they gave out a quota for Red Duiker at the beginning of the year, only in July to decide not to give out any licenses for them. Rather strangely to me, Duiker seem to be small game, but the Tanzanian government only allows hunting them on the expensive 21 day license, and even then you were allowed only one of any type, now you are only allowed one common duiker. On day 12, I get a really nice shot at a duiker, and given the fits that the .375 has given me, elect to take it with the .416. I miss again, this time by shooting several feet over him and hitting a tree that he was standing in front of. That afternoon, we stalked down a nice Dagga boy. Again, we got a nice shot and this time, I proceeded to miss an entire buffalo by shooting over him. The guys are beginning to give me really strange looks. Albert knows that I can shoot after last year, and Brian states that its time we see what's up. He has one of the trackers put a blaze on a tree. I shoot at 100 yards, and call it a good shot. I missed the entire tree with the .416. I insist it was a good shot. I tell them to put the sticks up at 50, and try again. The gun is shooting almost 3' high at 50. Brian looks at me incredulously, and I ask him to try and show that it is not "just me" and his shot touches my 3' high shot. We go back to the car, as I am out of ammo in the gun, and we get the .375 out and do the same thing. Its shooting about 2' high at 100. I spend 6 rounds of my rapidly diminishing supply and get it dead on at 100. The .416 I only have 10 rounds left of, so we don't even try and reset that- what shooting I do from now on is the .375 or the double. While I am upset that I have missed and messed up so many shots (and should have listened to myself when I thought something was off) at least I now know the "missitis" was not me doing something that I could not figure out. Near as I can figure out in retrospect, we were driving over some old elephant wallows at speed early on, and could have knocked the guns out there, or else the fact that I took the scopes off and they then settled in after we sighted in are my two leading theories about what happened. The .416 and the .375 have always been very accurate and solid, and I have never had any problems with the Swarovski scopes before, so I have no solid idea- they seem fine now... In any case, this is exactly the reason why I always said that my light gun should be able to work for the tasks of the heavy.

On the 29th, we see a really good Bushbuck. This one is at least 2" bigger in each horn than the one I shot, and is probably more typical of the type of Bushbuck that Lukwika will produce for someone really hunting them. We continue what I start calling the great Kudu quest. From day one we were seeing lots of bulls, and most are in the mid 50's. The one I missed on was high 50's, and we have seen lots of them. This day we see another upper 50's Kudu and stalk him for an hour before we acknowledge that he has beaten us. This is also another day of chasing buffalo. Today we went after one of the herds, and eventually got a good look at them. I felt a couple were good, including a really nice mid 40's with excellent drop, but when I looked more closely he was obviously soft. Brian was complimentary of him, saying that "In a few years, that is going to be a BUFFALO!" There were 2 bulls that could have been shot, but neither excited Brian at all. One was a small "scrub bull" with a 35-36" spread, the other had no drop whatsoever. We had time, and really, this was looking like a 21 day buffalo and plains game hunt even at this point.

On Halloween, we ended up pursuing Dagga boys again. We followed them for an hour or so, and then bumped in to a herd of buffalo while on the track. The herd was nothing special, and the tracks didn't join them, so we continued for a while longer. We bumped these bulls a couple times, not seriously, but enough so that we did not think that we would get close enough for a shot with the double. Around the 3rd bumping, we tried to get around them. That didn't work, but two came around the thick miombo grove and were trying to sneak off towards us. The first was a hard bossed small buffalo, but the second was much bigger than him, in all respects. Brian whispered get him, quick before he runs. All I had was the frontal shot, and he was raising his nose trying to smell us. I shot him with the .375 right where you are supposed to on a frontal, and he ran off. Brian said he staggered, and this buffalo made absolutely no noise. We started to follow, and I switched to the .470. After maybe 10 minutes of tracking, we saw him facing his back track lying down. I shot him with the .470 and he straightened out, but that was it. He was dead before that shot.

Buffalo #2



This buffalo was kind of the beginning of the end of the hunt. He was a good buffalo, 40" spread, good bosses, and good drop. That evening, we managed to get a shot at a relatively common animal here, but relatively rare to have shot animal, namely the bushpig. We had seen them several times, but usually they ran off quickly or I would startle them with a sound and off they would go. This time, we saw them and got started stalking them. Brian spent a few minutes looking them over to see which one was the male and then threw up the sticks. As soon as I was in place they started to mill off. Brian stayed on the binoculars and told me that the one on the right was the male, and if I wanted to shoot one, I was going to have to do it offhand and quickly. I was looking at them, and they stepped behind some bushes, but I could still see the outline. I waited until he cleared the bush and shot. This ended up being a little far back, as I didn't swing with him properly, yet he still was down. A unusual trophy in Tanzania, where you have to shoot during daylight. Usually, they are shot in Zim or South Africa with spotlights and bait.

Bushpig



The following day was a real slow one, in fact the slowest one of the trip. I did not take a rifle out of its case the whole day this time. We saw Elephant, Kudu, Impala, Waterbuck and Baboon, but nothing special enough to try and stalk.

On the second, it was substantially cooler than it had been for some time. The high was only in the mid 80's and it rained lightly most of the day. We did some abortive stalks on buffalo and looked over some kudu that did not make the grade.

The 3rd was a bit different. I commented to Brian that it was deer hunting opener back home. Maybe its how common they are, maybe its the danger, but buffalo are something I never get tired of hunting. we were chasing some dagga boys in the morning, and briefly broke off our stalk to change gears when we saw a decent kudu. We lost him, and then ran in to the dagga boys. well, I had thought dagga boys... it actually was a herd from the north part of the concession. We got a decent look at them and tried the run at them thing that Boddington talks about. Obviously, I am no track star. We (well, actually, me) could not keep up with them and lost the herd. Brian told me that he didn't think there was anything good in there anyhow. We would go back and look at a different herd that afternoon. That afternoon we followed another herd and ended up pushing them a bit. I saw a soft bossed bull and some cows and calves, and they ran. We were letting them settle, then started following again. Albert made that clicking sound that means "I see something, freeze" and I kept peering ahead trying to see the buffalo. He and Brian start whispering and all of the sudden I see 2 kudu way out in the distance. Brian and Albert keep looking at them, and it seems like we are going to ignore them, and go back to the buffalo, but Brian takes a few steps and then takes his sunglasses off and starts to study one of the two bulls. After a few minutes, he gets the sticks and says that they are about 350 yards out there, and the one on the right is a good bull. We set the sticks up so that I can support my elbow with a tree and I turn the magnification all the way up to 10x. Right on the top of his back. OK. I think that the guys must have been thinking "this guy missed a Hyena at 25 yards, a Duiker at 40 yards and couldn't hit a kudu at 100, how does he expect to get THIS one.... " The gun goes off, the Kudu jumps, and runs 25-30 feet and collapses. Perfect heart shot.

We scramble along through some relatively rocky but thin cover that precluded a closer approach. I'm thinking I shot a 55" or so Kudu. as we get closer, Brian says "He's big." Then we get up to him, and "he's a monster" The sweat bees are making things a bit difficult to see well, but we can tell he's big. We send some of the guys to go get the truck, which takes almost an hour to get back to us. Later on, Brian tells me that this is the biggest East African Greater Kudu he's ever shot. He's almost 60" on his bigger horn. Not a bad "opening day deer"...



Albert dealing with the sweat bees the best way...



I had trouble with the sweat bees here. I could not keep my eyes open for a set of photos as they kept swarming so bad. I ended up chopping a branch of leaves off and using it like a fly whisk between every photo. When I got back to camp I was digging them out of my ears and blowing them out of my nose still. They don't bite, and are taking your sweat to make honey. Nevertheless, they are really annoying little pests.

On the 5th, it was the next to last day. We knew that the last day we had to quit hunting around noon, as we flew out at 2 PM on the charter. We had one buffalo left, as well as the impossible Lion, Leopard, and Elephant. We spent the morning following Dagga boy tracks, and came up on them almost perfectly, except the cover was absolutely choking thick. The evaluation part was difficult. Brian was lying on his belly looking under bush, and trying to find a hole to look through. Finally we got one that he could tell was hard bossed to stand behind a small hole in the trees. This was the only shot we would get, they would either bed down in thicker stuff, or they would scent us and run. As much as I wanted to use the double, and the range here was only 35 yards or so, the only way to be sure of making the shot was with the scope. Given that these beasties are dangerous if you screw up, the .375 was selected again. I executed a heart lung shot correctly and the bull ran off, crashed into a tree maybe 75 yards later and gave 2 death bellows. We did not need to put a second round in him. He was the smallest horn wise, but still a huge bodied bull. 37" with 15-16" bosses. A very good bull.



We went out afterwards in the afternoon looking for elephant sign and Duiker, but found neither. However, we did find the waterbuck that had the damaged horns. Brian saw him and asked if I would still be interested in him. You get 2 waterbuck on a 21 day license. I am not sure why they are that way, but they also have a low trophy fee which is barely over that of an Impala. Onward... He didn't get too far, maybe 150 yards out. Heart shot, and he ran maybe 50 yards. Brian noted that he probably was older than the other waterbuck, but his horns were damaged and he was not growing anymore, but wearing down and probably was smaller due to that event in his life stunting him.





That evening I told Brian that a curious thing happens every other 6th of November. All of us Americans forget our principles, hold our noses and do something we otherwise wouldn't do, namely vote for some idiot in the hope that he won't screw the country up too badly. In this tradition, I would do something that I ordinarily would not do; on election day, I would kill a Baboon. (Brian called them an Obama voter) So, we went off looking for the wily Duiker, a Baboon, or a deranged elephant.

The first order of business was baboon. They were all over the place, but with the handicap of using an iron sighted elephant gun, finding a big dog baboon that would stand still long enough to ID then shoot was a bit of a challenge. We had to go through 3 troops. Unlike when I could care less about them, as soon as I wanted to find one, they became very wary. It would have been no problem to bust a dozen with the .375 at 200 yards, but the 30 yard limit seemed to give them the edge. Nevertheless, we finally found one.

I basically gutted the beast with the .470. I am not sure why, but the black staff members had more fun pointing at the male anatomy and laughing at the baboon than anything else. The baboon is the only animal I have seen trackers laugh at. They were also quite happy with me when I told them all I wanted was the skull- I suppose skinning the mess (and the smell of the thing) made hacking the head off a minimal issue comparatively.

Baboon



We then spent the rest of the morning looking for Duiker or elephant. We did find a few common duiker, but nothing that would stand still long enough to get a good look at, much less a shot. We did not see any elephant. We got in a bit early, as not much was moving and we still had to pack up for the charter. I put all my stuff away for the most part, and we sat down and did the tips and ate lunch. As we got done the charter plane was heard coming in, but we were supposed to get another couple hours... Well, if we had been on a track, he would have had to wait. As it was, the staff put all my trophies up on the bank of the river and we waded over and took some photos of the collection with me and the camp staff.



The Ruha river was very warm- Probably 85-90 degrees. Yet, unlike here, the fish tolerate it quite well. When I got back, my feet were covered with sand, and I was going to go back to the tent and rinse it off and dry my feet before we left. Brian had other ideas- he told the staff to give me a soda, sat me down in a chair and had the staff clean my feet. Then he had to get pictures of it... Well, the best defense is to go along with the silliness....




We had a rather uneventful charter ride back to Dar Es Salaam, which is what everybody likes. Since my plane left at midnight, Brian decides that we should go to the Sea Cliff where he gets a room and we hang out at the bar with several of his PH friends until Spero comes to haul me off to the airport.

Brian and Friends



I have to thank Brian for another great hunt, and while we had some difficulties, there were a lot of laughs and good times as well!

Thanks for the report.

Thanks for exposing the ugly truth about how bad the elephant situation really is in that region. You can scratch TZ off the list of countries for elephant unfortunately. Just like in the late 80's...IF they can get it under control it will be 10 years before those areas start producung legal bulls again...what a shame!

Nce hunt report. Did you ever figure out what the problem was with the .416?
Some nice buff, and great sable.

Very well done report. Thanks for taking the time to put it together. Sorry about the elephant, lion and leopard... tough sledding when you book a 21 day hunt and strike out on all three. You did get some nice consolation prizes, especially the kudu! But that is hunting and Tanzania. That country always seems feast or famine.

Nice hunt report and pics.
A tough 21 day safari but nice buffs, excellent kudu, sable, waterbuck, etc. good job!

Sounds like poachers have devastated the place especially the elephant population really bad!

Wish you better on your next safari

It wasn't that bad except for the Elephant as far as poaching goes. Game quality otherwise was good, and we had no trouble finding an example of any species most any day.

I'm not sure why some of the pics are small and some are normal sized. Maybe one of the computer gurus can figure that out?

Well done!
Love the Trophy collection photo

Nice report. Thanks

Great hunt report. Really nice looking animals.

Great report, and it's always a great hunt, and a great time with Brian. Congrats, Butch

Having trouble with rifles is definitely disconcerting. I couldn't get my .416 on paper at the beginning of a safari and I thought my PH wasn't going to let me hunt elephant! Had to have it rebarreled when I got home.

Horrible news about the elephant! Glad you made the best of a difficult situation! Congratulations on "hangin' in"!

Best regards, D. Nelson

Congratulations on a great hunt. Very pretty area. Fine trophies. Thanks for sharing.

Well, its too cold for me to sit and blaze away with the .416 out here right now, so I will probably look in to the issue in the spring.

I don't know what the problem is really, as its shooting a nice group right now, its just 3 feet high.

Brian got back to me today and said he thinks the Kudu is a top 10 animal, so I may have if anything understated his size...

Great report and beautiful pictures.

Great report and some very nice trophies. I had heard that poaching was getting rampant down there. Your report certainly confirms that.

Great report and pics, thanks for sharing.

I enjoyed your very detailed report. Some wonderful pics to go along with it. Its a bloody shame that concession is being hit so hard by poachers.

Charles,

Sometimes the best trophy of the safari is the one you might have given little thought to before the safari. I bet you never thought your best trophy would be a kudu. A 60" EA kudu is a tremendous trophy and one your not likely to ever top. Big Congrats!

Mark

quote:

Originally posted by bwanajay:
...... Its a bloody shame that concession is being hit so hard by poachers.

Its a bloody shame that the new concession holder did not continue deploying proper anti poaching units as the original owners.

As much as I hate to bring this up it seems like the "New Big Four" in Tanzania (especially Selous/South TZ) has become
Buffalo, Leopard, Hippo & Croc.

Anybody else make this observation based on recent hunting reports?

quote:

Originally posted by fujotupu:

quote:

Originally posted by bwanajay:
...... Its a bloody shame that concession is being hit so hard by poachers.

Its a bloody shame that the new concession holder did not continue deploying proper anti poaching units as the original owners.

Please note I never said that.

The same owner still owns it; its just that ACST was running the hunting. Its my understanding that they (Miombo) will go back to running the hunting now again also. If you have different info, please give the specifics.

I saw the anti poaching unit out regularly, moreso than I have ever seen it before at any other concession in Zim, Zambia or Tanzania.

It is my understanding that Tanzania called out the army to work on antipoaching in the Selous while I was there. Are you saying that all the operators in the Selous are delinquent on antipoaching?

In my discussions with the folks on the ground there were several issues that are the cause of the poaching problem.

First is the "invaders" from Mozambique. I don't know about that one, although we saw people crossing (wading) across the river and fishing every day.

Second is the central government's unwillingness to address the issue. As our game scout said, they arrest folks and send them to court. The court releases them before trial and then they never go before the magistrate.

Third is economics. The world economy is a mess. As bad as it is here, I suppose that there are not that many economic activities that are as lucrative as poaching, especially as the asian rim countries are the ones doing well and they have an ancient and cultural lust for ivory objects.

Fourth is local profits. Its my understanding that the local folks in Tanzania by and large see no money from the hunting operations- the money goes to the central government, and the overall tribal level. If its your goats that get eaten, and the national government is getting the money without compensating you, I can see why they would just as soon poison the carnivores and shoot the elephants eating "their" cashew trees.

If all it needed was antipoaching patrols, I'm sure that would be arranged. No one makes money with the game being poached out.

Lukwika-Lumesule Game Reserve is a tiny concession by comparison to other hunting blocks and not that difficult to monitor and the suggested 'invaders' are not from neighbouring Mozambique but home-grown Tanzanian residents.
Why on earth would Mozambican poachers come to TZ when the elephants are permanently resident on their side, hop across to raid the cashew trees at night, only to hop back across the river in the morning? When the cashew season is over there are very few elephants on the Tanzanian side. There are hardly any villages on the Mozambican side of the Ruvuma and those people seen wading across are more likely to be "gemstone poachers" working the large deposits of coloured stones across the river on the Mozambican side; there are small groups of alluvial miners to be found on both sides of the river.
That there may have been an anti-poaching unit regularly present does not mean it is doing what it was designed to do. From what has been described in terms of poached elephant carcasses leads one to believe the anti poaching might even have facilitated or even perpetrated the killings. Some outfitters will spend the money on anti-poaching activities throughout the year and not only during the hunting season.
Units of the Tanzanian army (FFU) were indeed called in to assist in purging areas of the Selous 2/3 years ago and it has nothing to do with concession holders being 'delinquent' on anti-poaching; there are those who contribute more and others less. AnotherAZwriter was able to witness the FFU presence while on his hunt in the Selous.
At this point it might be well worth remembering that hunting areas like the Selous Game and other designated hunting Reserves are void of human encroachment hence no villages, cattle, goats or subsistence farming which equates to no need for compensation to crop damage or loss of livestock which applies ONLY to 'open areas' and yes, the authorities are not good paymasters in this respect.
However, back to Lukwika which is the only affected village in the close proximity to the Ruvuma (the other village further West was 'dismantled" long ago)- Lukwika village and all other similar villages in other hunting areas, DO benefit from the outfitters in terms of monetary contributions, which are part and parcel of the hunting regulations AND social assistance (food, wells, schools, medical dispensaries, salaries for teachers and medical staff, etc.) To state that they gain nothing from the hunting industry is not entirely true.
To suggest that Lukwika has seen better days in terms of anti poaching is more in line.

typical African bullshit- someone up the food chain is getting paid off and business continues as usual. glad you did as well as you did under ADVERSE CIRCUMSTANCES.

quote:

Originally posted by fujotupu:

quote:

Originally posted by bwanajay:
...... Its a bloody shame that concession is being hit so hard by poachers.

Its a bloody shame that the new concession holder did not continue deploying proper anti poaching units as the original owners.

by the way CRbutler, Lukwika is indeed still leased by Miombo safaris........... that hasn't changed. The owners of Miombo have changed

Thanks for sharing. Enjoyed reading the report.
Nice trophies in tough conditions.

quote:

Originally posted by Safari2:
As much as I hate to bring this up it seems like the "New Big Four" in Tanzania (especially Selous/South TZ) has become
Buffalo, Leopard, Hippo & Croc.

Anybody else make this observation based on recent hunting reports?

Just looked at a total of 56 hunting photos recently posted by 2 different operators in Selous 2012. Some nice trophies to be sure but not an elephant or a lion among them.

Very nice report and some excellent trophies.
Super nice buffalo.