Date: 16 JUNE – 29 JUNE 2015
PH - Pierre Hundermark
Operator: MArtin Pieters Safaris
Blog: www.intothejesse.com

My clients, a husband and wife team came on safari to hunt Leopard, hippo and crocodile. The safari took place in the Omay where we were based out of the Chifudzi camp in the South concession.

My clients and their agent arrived by air charter in the Omay on the 15 of June. After getting them settled in to camp we went off to the shooting range to check the husband's rifle. After a few shots and a few adjustments we were ready to go.

Our plan of action over the first few days of the safari was to buy a few goats and cows from the local villages for bait. After getting up our leopard baits we would make our way down to Lake Kariba which is in the northern part of our concession for hippo. The husband wanted a trophy hippo while the meat would serve as good bait for leopard as well.

We spent day one and two getting our leopard baits out in areas where I knew there was big leopard. By the end of day two we had eight baits out so we were in good shape. We decided to move down to the lake three hours from Chifudzi camp to hunt hippo. We would fly camp on the lake in an area that was not hunted often. Our plan was to get a hippo as soon as possible and then return and get the hippo meat out for bait as well as check the eight baits we had put up already.

We made our day down to the fly camp on day three and immediately set out looking at different hippo pods trying to locate a good bull. With the lake being unusually low we had some difficult stalks trying to get close to the hippo with the flood plains being so big and void of any cover to hide .



We spent the next two days stalking hippos and on day five the husband took a very nice bull. After recovering the skins, skull and meat we made our way back to Chifudzi Camp to check our baits and to put the hippo meat out as new baits if we did not have any leopard feeding.



Day six found us back in the south of the concession checking our baits. We found that three of our baits had female leopard feeding but no males on bait. We refreshed some of the baits which had females in hopes of the female calling in the mate. We then put up new baits using the hippo meat.

We spent the next five days checking our baits, refreshing baits and putting up new baits in potential areas with no luck of any big males. We got a male leopard feeding on one of our baits but after looking at the trail camera pictures of him I decided he was a young cat.

While Checking baits on our twelfth day we found that a big male leopard had fed on one of our baits. We straight away got stuck in to building our blind and set up a trail camera to get pictures of the male. We decided to leave it to feed one more night before we sit so that the cat settled in to its new surroundings.The next day our day thirteen we all left camp excited to have the big male feeding and to see the trail cam pictures of the male. We got to our bait site and our excitement turned to disappointment as we saw that our bait was completely finished and there were big lion tracks around the bait tree. On checking the trail cam pictures the pictures told us the story of the night. Two male lions had arrived at the bait after seven pm and had spent the whole night feeding on our hippo leg we had put there for leopard bait. When you hear a rumor that lions cannot climb trees don’t be mistaken because they can.



At four thirty am the lions left the bait and soon after they left the leopard male climbed the tree and finished what was left of the bait. The male leopard eventually left just before sun rise. Between the lion and the leopard the bait was completely finished. We decided to put new bait and sit in the blind that night hoping the leopard would return. Getting in to the blind at 4.00pm we were settled waiting and hoping the male leopard would return. Using the double blind method the husband, his agent and I were on mattress in our second blind. Having a cordless listening device I would be able to hear when the leopard came in. Soon after dark some hyena arrived at the bait tree. They spent the whole night pacing back and forth getting agitated that they could not get to the meat. Unfortunately our leopard male did not show up. We spent the whole night in the blind until sun rise.After spending the whole night in the blind I decided to drop them all off in camp to catch up on some rest while I would go and check our baits. With it being our last day of the safari I was not confident that I would be able to get the husband his leopard.

Setting out to check our baits I arrived at our last bait at 12.00pm and with great astonishment I found that a big male leopard had fed. I left the trackers to build the blind while I raced back to camp to get my client. He was very excited when I got to camp and told him we had another big male hit one of our baits. Quickly getting all our gear together we raced back to the bait. We arrived at the bait just before 4.00pm just in time to get in the blind. By 4.30pm we were settled in our blind and began the wait with great anticipation. At 6.05 I heard something walking up to the bait tree through my listening device. With my heart in my throat I waited to hear what it was. After ten intense minutes I heard the leopard clawing his way up the tree. I whispered to my client that the leopard had just climbed the tree. We slowly got up from our mattresses and made our way quietly to our shooting blind. After getting him set up behind his rifle I whispered to the agent who was manning the spot light to hit the light. As the light came on I saw the leopard standing on the branch eating the bait. The cat looked at the light and I could immediately tell that it was a big leopard. I told my client to shoot. At the sound of the shot the leopard folded and dropped straight out the tree. We slowly approached the tree and found the leopard dead under the bait. It was clear to see that it was truly a great big male leopard. We were all very happy. We had got our leopard on the last night of our safari. This shows that you never give up until the hunt is completely over.



The next day I put my clients on their charter flight where they would fly to Victoria Falls and then catch their connecting flights back home. I was happy that I had made some new friends and that he had got a beautiful leopard.

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Nice leopard, well done!

Congratulations very nice Leopard got mine on the day after the last day of my fifth leopard hunt

Congrats on a great hunt and trophies.

Nice Tom and a great hunt, thanks for sharing.

Was there a particular reason for buying goats and cows for initial baits? The reason I am asking this is usually it is Impalas and Zebras that fill in this requirement.

Hi Ahmed the reason for them using goats is to get a head start if they can't find Impala or zebra.

Well done guys looks like you had a great safari.

Nice. Congratulations.

Fantastic Leopard! Well done for persevering

How does one go about killing/slaughtering the goats and cows and do you skin them out and treat them as you would any other bait? I have never used them as bait and am genuinely interested. What was the bait you eventually shot the leopard off and got hits on?

Well done. Good looking cat.

Fantastic safari. Congrats and thanks for sharing!

Outstanding!

Congratulations to all! Well done!

Best regards, D. Nelson

Nice cat

EDIT:

I see that it is Pierre doing the posting! Nice to see you online.

Serious Leopard. Well done.

Where is the croc?

Thanks for the comments.

Manyathelo to answer your question. We use the goats and cows to support the locals as its a campfire area as well as any other meat available from other trophies shot by the client. Because my clients priority was leopard and he did not want to shoot any other game other than hippo and crocodile we used goat and beef. As many of you readers know when on a leopard hunt, time is very important. You want to get baits out as soon as possible in order to have better chances of getting a good male on bait. As you can see on my write up we only got our male on the last night. We did shoot him off a Beef Bait.
In some areas the leopards will not feed on anything other than the game they hunt.Impala, warthog etc especially the ranch cats that have been persecuted for decades. The valley cats on the other hand will eat just about anything.

Pierre@intothejesse

Unfortunately we did not have time to hunt the crocodile due to concentrating on baiting. I am going to post the hunt report of my leopard hunt i did straight after this hunt were we got our leopard on day two of the safari.Therefore the client was able to take numerous other species of game as well as a huge crocodile.

Pierre@intothejesse

Great report and hunt. Thank you

Good hunting
Carl Frederik

Hi Pierre, how is the A-team? The penga bull still running around the omay south? Good work, I expect nothing less my friend.

Great Leopard!

Hippo and a cat. Successful safari I'd say.

Thanks for sharing.

Great report Pierre,thanks fore sharing:-)

great hunt

That is a very nice cat and during the last night to boot! Congratulations and thanks for sharing.

Outstanding!

Pierre, you are doing great on those cats. I wonder......did you have as much fun gathering up this fellas goats as you did with mine last year. Man, that was a funny story!!!!

Jim

.

Very nice trophy!

Looking forward to see you next year :-)



Best regards,
Rinat

What a Leopard!! Well done!