11 July 2016, 13:19
Doug DuckworthMay June –A Few Buffalo, Leopard and Plainsgame with Mokore Safaris.
Areas – Sengwa Research and Mokore RanchPH – Doug Duckworth
Clients – Jerry, Sam, Meg, Dave and Dan
May/June in Zimbabwe is a great time of year, brisk mornings and warm days make for some exceptional hunting. Here are a couple of the hunts that have happened so far, this is probably going to be top heavy with pictures but ill add a few words for a few of the trophies so you have an idea of how the hunt went down.
Jerry was the first hunt of the year and he took some exceptional animals. The buffalo was shot at close quarters in the long grass needless to say it was very exciting, later measuring a touch more than 40”. Other animals taken was this old 16.5” bushbuck, a great reedbuck, warthog, impala and a nice zebra. There is more detail on this hunt in a report I posted last month.
Jerry Left and Dan arrived. His target was a big old buffalo bull and a nice Tom leopard. The buffalo we got on last light on the second day, after spotting him early in the morning and having our first stalk foiled by a herd of elephant that came running through which meant we had to make a hasty “dignified” retreat. The second attempt at closing the gap was foiled by the notorious Sengwa wind. Anyway at last light we got in amongst the herd, the bulls were always just out of shot range even though the closest cow was less the 20 feet away from us. As a last resort Doug gave a few calls and this very nice old Dagga boy came right towards Dan and at 50 yards he placed a good shot in the middle of his chest.
Here are a few of the Leopard we saw - some feeding as late as 11am. We sat in a couple of these blinds and saw a few decent Toms and many cats however the really big guy we were holding out for and had feeding proved he didn’t get to the size he is by being dumb. Here are a couple other animals that Dan took.
Next it was to Mokore Ranch in the Save Valley Conservancy. Scott and Sam (Father and Son) were picked up in Harare and driven to Mokore. Sam, wanted a few of the plainsgame species on Mokore. His father had hunted with Doug a few years ago. On the Second day, whist stalking some impala we saw the South end of a few North bound Eland bulls, we followed them for a good distance finally catching them a hours or two later in a bit of a valley. We managed to get in nice and close and then Sam put a good shot into the heart of the biggest eland, the big eland bull ran less the 30 yards before coming to a stop. A nice warthog, impala and zebra were also taken.
It was then back to Sengwa for Doug, where myself and my cousin Gary Duckworth would be hunting with a family group. A great hunt was had by all and along with it some great looking trophies. Unfortunately I don’t have pictures of the buffalo taken, but it was a really nice 41” Dagga Boy. We knew of a big Kudu bull that had been seen a few times on one of the major rivers in the area. Doug planned to walk there right on last light and catch the big bull feeding. The plan worked to perfection – well almost. Walking along the ridge line the hunters heard the Impala ahead sounding very unsettled, Doug checked the wind several times and it hadn’t changed and we were sure that the impala hadn’t seen us. A couple hundred yards later we came across the reason for the impalas’ unease – a pride of lions had made a kill. We only managed a quick look at them before they ran off but it was a very nice experience, especially for the two members in the group who had not seen Lions in the wild. Cautiously we approached the area where the lions were to find that the very Kudu bull (Easily identified by a brimmed off horn) we were after had fallen a few hours earlier to the Lions. We managed to find a nice wide Kudu bull a few days later – between the whole family a – Ration Elephant, Buffalo 41”, Kudu 54”, Waterbuck 28.5”, Zebra, Bushbuck 14”, Warthog 14” and Impala 22” were taken. For the members of the group that were not hunting good pictures of the big 4 were taken along with spectacular scenes of a herd of 150+ Elephant in one of the big open vleis.
On behalf of Mokore Safaris, Thanks and Congrats to everyone on some great looking trophies and some good hunting.
