The Gift of Africa- An Unexpected Hunting Adventure

[MTpubliclander]

Awesome so far! Keep it up!!!

 

[KipCarson]

Hunt Day 3


Sun rising over the landing strip just outside of camp.

Before we headed out for the day I took some time to shoot my bow after the previous days miss. As it turns out, everything was fine with the bow and apparently I just sucked. I try not to spend too much time making excuses for my failures and shortcomings. Its pretty obvious to me that people can see right through the bull when you blame everything but yourself…

We followed the same pattern and same route as we did on day 1. We stopped to check out a few warthogs, one of which was really nice but also smart enough to vacate to area he was feeding when we started to stalk his direction. I tried a couple of different times to get on that pig and never did get clear for a shot.

As we moved along looking at different wildlife looking for something big enough to stalk Vasco tapped my shoulder and pointed to the right of the cruiser. Bush Pigs! Usually they are mostly nocturnal so I did not expect to see any but here they were, 3 of them happily rooting in the mud! I didn’t get a picture but that was species #16, I think.

We saw this sable multiple days in the same spot. He would let us drive by extremely close, acting as dumb as a brick. We started referring to him as “Sammy, the Special Sable” Obviously he knew I didn’t have the money to pay for him in my pocket!


A little farther down the trail Vasco spotted something, I don’t know what, but he and Bredger were looking at it to the right side of the cruiser, I was looking in different directions because just about anywhere you looked there was some sort of game species. I noticed about 70 yards ahead to the left side a reedbuck standing against a palm thicket watching us intently. He looked pretty good to me. As Bredger was about to take off again I pointed him out to Vasco and Bredger. After only looking a few seconds Bredger said “Get your bow” and off we went. The reedbuck had lost interest in the cruiser and had gone back to feeding, so with the wind perfect we quickly closed the distance to 40 yards with a little bit of duck walking. Then we dropped to our knees and started crawling. The last cover from him left me with only a 30 yard shot. I eased out to the edge of the palm bunch and rolled back up to sit on my heels. As soon as I drew back he stepped a few steps around to the back of the palms. How do they know just when to move? I moved to the opposite side of the palms I was hiding behind and started easing out looking for a shot. As I got him in the clear, he once again started walking away. It wasn’t until this point that we realized something was wrong with this reedbuck. His walk was more like a hobbling limp as he worked his way straight away from us. Quickly using the brush he had originally been standing beside as cover we closed the distance as he continued to walk straight away. Now he was at 40 yards and this time he had caught our movement and looked back. I’ll be honest, at this point a perfectly healthy reedbuck would have probably bolted for the next zip code but this one was in bad enough shape he just kept up his shuffling walk straight away to evade us. Bredger turned around and motioned for Vasco to go back to the cruiser and grab the rifle. If I was not able to get an arrow off on this old boy, he was going to be put out of his misery, one way or another. After a few more moves, I was able to close the distance to around 28 yards and he checked his pace and looked back at us. I was already at full draw when Bridger called the range and I sent an arrow in a perfect shot straight through the heart. He was dead in seconds. So there it was, my first African animal was a sick ol’ reedbuck that was so weak and scrawny that he could barely run away. Not exactly how I saw this trip going lol. I doubt it would have been too many more days before the Lions had found him and finished him off quickly. Everything has to die sometime and it was just this poor fellas time.
This guy should have weighed about 40 pounds more than he did, he was skin wrapped around bones in terrible shape. There’s no telling what was wrong with him.

As we drove out along the edge of the flood plane, looking at all of the animals I saw something moving in the grass a few hundred yards out. I pointed towards it and asked Vasco “what is that?” He responded “waterbuck.” Now I may be new to Africa but I am not so green that I can’t tell a waterbuck from a warthog. I said “No, not the waterbuck, lower in the grass. It’s moving like a cat.” After a few more seconds of looking he exclaimed, “Cheetah!” And sure enough it was, the long graceful feline was gliding along through the grass at a casual walk. When I got my binos on him, I could see that it was radio collared. We pointed it out to Bredger and as we sat there watching it it was spotted an oribi bedded down straight in its path. A warthog had also stood up close by and was watching the cheetah with great interest. For a minute, we all thought the cheetah was headed for the Oribi and we were fixing to get to see some discovery channel action live, and in the flesh! This time I was for sure rooting for the cheetah, but alas, I was disappointed. He was neither hungry nor interested in the oribi. Passing close by the Oribi and just beyond where the warthog stood watching the scene, he faded off into the grass never to be seen again. Except for the fact that cheetahs are not nocturnal the odds of seeing one of them was about as low as seeing the Jaguar we saw on the first day. Cheetahs had been completely extirpated from the region and have only been brought back and reintroduced recently, thanks to funding from the Cabela family foundation. Later, talking to one of the biologist of Coutada 11, she told me that us seeing that cat was pretty special and there was only four collared cheetahs in the entire flood plane, which is hundreds of square miles. Not a game species, but being what it was I’ll just count that as species #17 nonetheless.

 

[KipCarson]

As we made our way back toward camp to drop my reedbuck off at the skinning shed we came across another shooter reedbuck. This one was bedded on the side of a termite mound in the shade of a mahogany tree. We drove past him at a mere 23 yards and he never moved. Now don’t judge us for what comes next, Africa is a far cry from the good ol USA and our ideas of fair chase are not universal. They don’t make a habit of shooting from the cruiser, but in a situation like that they see it as picking low hanging fruit. Take a gimme when you get it I guess. Since I already had my reedbuck dad was up. Bredger said I’m going to keep on driving and turn around and come back. If he’s still laying there I’ll ease to a stop, and let you take the shot from the rack of the cruiser. The reedbuck was still there unconcerned and we already knew he was 23 yards. As we eased to a stop dad drew his bow, aimed, and then somehow missed a chip shot. Like I said earlier, I was really concerned with what was going on in dad’s head space to make his shooting fall apart like it did. We looked a little bit to verify the miss and found the arrow and headed back to camp. This was concerning. Dad had a few more stalks on reedbuck but no more shot opportunities for the rest of the day.

The skinning shed was pretty cool, as we backed up to unload the reedbuck there was already a hartebeest that had just been brought in by another hunter waiting to be skinned. There were hides in the salt rack drying and rows upon rows of skulls drying from previous safaris, waiting to be prepared for shipping. It was a great look at some exceptional trophies. The smell of the place was quite…unique. Now time for lunch and a short nap before heading out to look for a trophy Nyala this afternoon.


After nap, I shot my bow again before heading out. I was doing my best to stay prepared and hopefully not have another miss. Misses may not hurt the animal, but good grief they sure hurt me. We headed off deep into the sand forests into an area that I can’t call anything less than a jungle. It was thick as could be, with giant old trees and vines hanging everywhere. The road cut through the thicket was barely big enough to get the cruiser through and I was simply beautiful! Duiker scattered in front of us as we slowly picked our way through. After traveling through the thickets for a long time the cruiser came to a stop and we all quietly got out. With the Vasco in the lead we headed out on a walk into the forest. Bredger told me there was a pan we were heading to check out that usually had Nyala feeding in it every evening. A pan is what they call any large bowl-like naturally clear area in the forest that’s characterized by tall grasses and often wet or marshy in the middle. Flying overhead you can see the forest are pock marked with these large oval shaped natural clearings. As we eased up to see the opening I immediately spotted Nyala cows. A lot of them. On the side of the pan we were looking into there were at least 100 Nyala. I never knew they would run in such large numbers. This place was absolutely crawling with them. No trophy size bulls were present though. Wouldn’t have mattered anyway because I’m not sure how we would’ve gotten into bow range without an extreme amount of luck. After carefully looking over the pan we backed off into the forests again to move on to the next spot.

Throughout the afternoon we made a few more stalks on a couple more good bulls but never got close enough. Just before dark there was a good bull that stood off in the brush watching us pass. I was able to slip down out of the cruiser without spooking him and got to 35 yards and once again he bolted just before I could shoot him. Good grief this place is fun!

Supper that night was king mackerel and homemade fries. Did I mention you could gain weight here?! Unfortunately I could barely eat, something was wrong with my stomach and it felt like I might have picked up something unpleasant, not what you want to happen in a place this remote. What was Africa about to do to me I wondered as I tried to go to sleep feeling miserable. What would tomorrow hold?

 

[KipCarson]

Day 4

I woke up feeling pretty good, the night before had me worried. That’s good too because we had big plans for today! Today we were heading way out to the swamps specifically in search of a buffalo! There are large parts of Coutada 11 that are inaccessible by land cruisers or any other wheeled vehicle. This creates a challenge because that’s where the buffalo like to spend most of their time. To overcome the obstacles of getting to them to hunt, and even harder retrieving them from the swamps, ZDS has come up with a great solution. Introducing the Swedish made Hägglunds BV206, aka the Bandvagn 206. At ZDS they’re simply called the BVs. It’s an articulating tracked amphibious vehicle that tackles swamps of the Zambeze delta with ease… when they’re all working properly. We heard horror stories about things that have happened and mechanical failures etc, but my experience with them was smooth as could be! Without them our hunt would have been exponentially more difficult. They are slow and cumbersome so they keep them parked way out at a separate camp near the edge of the floodplain. A 24 guard is kept on sight there who do maintenance and protect them from abuse, theft or vandalism by the poachers that sometimes infiltrate the area.

Once you are at the BV camp, it can still take forever to find the herds of buffalo. You’d be surprised how well hundreds of 1,500 lb critters can disappear onto the tall grass and papyrus thickets of the delta. To expedite the process Bredger had one of the Anti-Poaching patrol choppers meet us there to let him take a look around and get us pointed in the right direction. This ain’t Alaska and there aren’t any no hunting on flight day rules. As difficult as they can be to find in this vast landscape I can promise you it didn’t feel unfair in the slightest.

The chopper wasn’t gone but about 10 minutes before it cam back and dropped Bredger off. Today there were a few herds relatively close in to where we were. We loaded up in the BVs and took off, but not until after some leaky hydraulic hoses were tightened. I could see this unnerving some people, but it seemed like another day on the farm to me. To my figuring if something isn’t leaking hydraulic oil it’s not being used much, or maybe I just get to work with old junk all the time…



One of the anti-poaching crews that we passed patrolling on the dirt bikes.



The first water we came to was an old river course that wasn’t flowing but was still full of water, and pretty deep in places. As we eased our way across it and came to the other side Bredger and I were watching ahead at some reedbuck in front of us, when I heard excited talking from Dad Joseph and Vasco in the back seat. Apparently our crossing had disturbed a hippo that went crashing across our back path into the next deep pool of water. He was gone in just a few seconds with nothing to be seen but a wake in his path. Species #18.


We kept on driving until we got to about a half mile from where Bredger thought the buffalo would be and then gathered our gear and took off walking with the wind in our faces. If you’re afraid of swamp water full of leaches, potential crocs, and God only knows what else, this might not be the hunt for you. But to this Louisiana boy it just felt like home! Well not even close actually, but wading in the quagmire wasn’t troubling in the slightest. A few times we were thigh deep with much of the time ankle deep water for a lot of our hike. It wasn’t too long before we spotted the buffalo moving through the palms ahead. At this point Bredger had Dad and Joseph stop and him, me and Vasco got low and started crawling, and duck walking, and crawling, and crawling some more. The wind was very steady and in the perfect direction so we were going to get in close. Like I may have mentioned before, I wasn’t interested in shooting a cow way off in the back of the pasture.

Not usually doing this much crawling I miscalculated a couple of things. One is just how much my bino harness would get in the way and slow me down. It was hanging a bit too loose and kept frustrating me as I kept having to free it from the vegetation. I would fall a few feet behind Bredger and then scramble to get back up to him. This became extremely tiresome. People don’t typically talk about this when getting in shape for a hunt, but don’t overlook your potential need to do a bunch of crawling. And I mean low crawling, abdominal muscle burning type crawling. And wear knee pads. I had the knee pads, but keeping up with someone who is used to belly crawling for the entire safari season was definitely a challenge I wasn’t expecting. Usually I’m the pacesetter, and that’s because when hunting in the U.S., I would never decide that 3 of us should all crawl up together to get into distances that are typically considered bow range. So here we were, crawling ever closer to a large herd of Black Death. I’m crawling like my life depends on it, most of the time within a few scant feet of the PHs boots. Vasco the tracker was keeping up with me reluctantly. Not reluctantly because he wanted to zoom ahead, but because he didn’t really want to be there in the first place. I found out later Vasco, with all of his skills, is not a fan of buffalo hunting. A couple months before I got there a buffalo got tangled in a poachers snare and understandably became very angry with the world and everything in it. The anti-poaching team member who first came upon the old boy ended up being flown out in a helicopter for emergency medical attention. (Thankfully he survived and is doing well) Vasco is intelligent enough to want to avoid buffalo on general principle because he is averse to bodily harm and doesn’t like situations like that.

At one point when we were almost to the position we needed to be at to look them over and get a shot, I was passing between a couple of palms when I see a cow buffalo step out at only 60 yards away and look intently in my direction. I was completely exposed to her vision since the grass was short here. Treating it like any other stalk when an animal looks my direction I froze until she looked away and kept walking. Bridger was already behind cover before she got to where she could see us and he had kept moving. So as soon as the cow left, I was in scramble mode, trying to catch up to him. Bridger was rightly keeping his attention forward towards the herd that was inching ever closer, and since for the past several days, I had been stuck to him like a shadow and was always in the exact right spot I needed to be, I don’t think he ever thought that I was anywhere but a foot or two away.

As he got to the last group of palms the tail end of the herd was passing by in front of him. Several old bulls were bringing up the rear, with a couple being definite shooter material and they were only 35 yards away. When he turned over his shoulder to point out to me which one to shoot was the first time he realized that I was still about 12 yards behind him. And by the time I had scrambled up to close that distance, the last Buffalo had passed into the tall grass, and there was no shot opportunity left. The opportunity had been right there, but I had failed to get in position in enough time. I think he was frustrated, but he was very gracious and just said well, let’s go try to make a loop and get on them again. I could promise you he was not more frustrated with me than I was with myself. In hindsight, I should have never stopped crawling when the cow Buffalo spotted me. If they could not smell me, they would have ignored anything that small going through the grass. I would find out shortly just how little regard they gave a person, until they saw you not only with their eyes, but most importantly you were seen with their nose.

 

[KipCarson]

We went back to the guys who had waited behind and regrouped and started making a loop. It wasn’t long until we picked up the fresh sign from the herd. Try as we may, we could not get ahead of them. But the wind was good and we were close on their trail. Hopefully, we would catch up and get a shot at one of the bulls. It wasn’t too much longer when I started to hear them. It was much noisier than I expected. First, just a few grunts and soft lowing, but as we got closer, the volume picked up and it wasn’t long until it sounded like a bunch of agitated cows in a west Texas feed lot. Using the sound we got up to within 50 yards of the herd but found ourselves on the bank of a river. Most of the herd had already crossed, and I watched as several cows and calves swam across about 60 yards upstream. This river was the boundary between Coutada 11 and Coutada 14 so we had to stop there. It was deep enough that it would’ve been difficult to cross anyway. Now, up until this point I had not been taking any photos. When Buffalo hunting is first and foremost, and a shot could come at any second I was not about to have my phone out playing tourist. But with us stuck at the edge of the river and the Buffalo being close by just on the opposite bank, I took out my phone to film the scene. I am very glad I did because what I was able to capture was apparently very uncommon. Like I mentioned before the Buffalo were making all sorts of noise. I did not know this at the time, but that is extremely uncommon. None of the PHs at camp had heard them do that to that extent. Usually, they are pretty quiet from what I understand. I wish I could post video clips easily here but if you want to hear it, you can hop over to the Zambezi Delta Safari Facebook page where they posted the video clip a few weeks ago. We sat there taking in the scene for a little bit before backing up into the tall grass and reads to retrace our steps. There would be no shot opportunities on this herd today. Here is a screenshot from that video:

I was feeling pretty dejected and on cloud nine all at the same time. By now, it was getting later in the morning, and we started making our way back toward the BV. Based on where the Buffalo had been seen from the helicopter and what their daily movement patterns were it was very unlikely that any more Buffalo action would happen today so we would head out to look for water Buck. As we were talking quietly amongst ourselves, all of a sudden, Bridger held up his hand for everyone to stop and said “Buffalo!” it was at this second that I see a massive wall of black bodies bearing straight down on us through the tall grass. Well, it seemed like a massive wall for just a second, but it was only about 10 of them. They were going to pass by to our right just a little bit so Bredger said “come on, we gotta move” and I took off on his heels. He paused just a second to tell everyone else to stay put, but we found as we glanced behind us everyone else had vanished! The tracker with the spare backup gun, my dad, and Joseph, all assumed discretion was the better part of valor and had already gotten behind cover!

We ran about 40 yards to an area they would cross where the grass was short and got in position about the same time they hit the opening. The only problem was now the wind was dead wrong. For a few seconds, they kept coming across the opening straight towards us unbothered by the two human figures standing before them. At less than 50 yards they had all caught our scent enough to stop dead in their tracks. The small group was flanked on either side by big old bulls with a group of cows standing between them. We only had a few moments to look them over as they faced us in a frontal position, staring eye to eye before they turned on their heels, ninety degrees charging back into the grass. We took off running again in the opposite direction this time trying to flank them and hopefully get a shot at one of the big bulls but it was a futile effort. I never felt even remotely scared, maybe that’s because I’m just too dumb, but it was an exhilarating experience to be that close to Cape Buffalo looking them in the eye. After some mild harassment of the rest of the guys wondering why they had all vanished instead of standing their ground with us we kept on moving towards the BV.

It was only a few minutes when almost the same thing happened again. We look ahead and there is another Buffalo coming right toward us this time on a much more direct path. We rush forward to a slight clearing in the grass he would have to pass and a few seconds later he presents him himself to us only 30 yards away! Once again, however, the wind was wrong, and as he catches a whiff of us instead of turning on his heels, he turned straight towards us and squared off, giving us that old Robert Ruark “he looks at you like you owe him money” stare. We just stared back from 30 yards away, those few seconds of time will be etched in my memory for as long as I draw breath. After deciding his nose and his eyes agreed that we were up to no good. He did immediately wheeled and ran without presenting a shot. Bridger said he was old enough to shoot, but as I had noticed as we were facing off he was extremely narrow. I just wanted an old bull, not necessarily a giant. But this one looked much smaller than all the other bulls we had seen, so I was happy he did not present the perfect shot. In hindsight, I am very glad. The first stalk of the day was a failure because had I shot that last big bowl in the herd it would have been over too soon and I would have never really gotten to know the full range of joy and emotion that can come with Buffalo hunting. By the time we got back to the BV‘s, we were soaked to our waist, covered in black slimy mud and smelling like buffalo. But I think there were smiles on everyone’s faces. I know they certainly was on mine!

Walking back:

 

[KipCarson]

It was too late in the morning to pursue any more of the Buffalo. All of the ones that we could get to had crossed the river into the next Coutada. So we continued on in the BV in search of a trophy waterbuck. As big noisy and cumbersome as the BV is, it does not seem to disturb the animals an extreme amount and driving to a distance under 60 yards was common. Since most of the waterbuck spent their time out on the open short grass areas of the floodplain they were usually in places you couldn’t stalk up close on. We would use this to our advantage. Waterbuck were everywhere, but most of them were nervous enough that they did not let us drive up to within bow range.

As we passed one of the few remaining clumps of palms, a nice reedbuck stood up from his bed in their shade. We stopped the BV and Bredger ranged it at 48 yards. I had already killed mine, so Bredger told Dad “If you think you can do it go ahead and try.” I had assured Bridger that Dad actually could shoot, and I guess that with hundreds of yards of open plain scattered around, if a bad shot was made, we could put the situation to bed with the .300 before it was lost. Dad questioned the range and I told him, “It’s 48 yards, don’t overthink it, just use your 50 Pin Dead Center top to bottom and let her rip!” And that’s exactly what he did. I was holding my breath in an anxious anticipation as he released and sent the arrow on its path. The shot was absolutely textbook perfect! As the buck took off across the plain on an 80 yard final dash we could see the blood pumping out both side, it was a wonderful sight for me and dad with the way his shooting had started on this trip. All I could say was “Happy learned how to putt!” I don’t think anyone got the reference. The monkey was off Dad’s back and we were all as excited as we could be as we walked over to recover it.

We continued on and within 30 minutes we had one nice waterbuck, about 28 inches in length, standing broadside at 49 yards. Dad wanted me to shoot it, but I insisted that he shoot. There were thousands of waterbuck around and I was not concerned about not finding one. While his confidence was high, I figured I would just let him stay on a roll. And sure enough he did with another perfect double lung shot! The waterbuck made his last final dash across the plain and tipped over. After three very frustrating days for Dad he has had a really good 30 minutes!


Getting set up for some pics before loading him into the BV.

We found the shade of some fever trees and had a nice bush lunch with more jaffles and then continued on to find another waterbuck. It didn’t take long before we found just what we were looking for. This time he stopped broadside 52 yards away. 50 yards has been my average practice distance for the last month and I was confident as I could be. Coming to full draw, settling my anchor and carefully taking aim all felt good. When I released, however, the world crumbled around me. It looked like my arrow fishtailed up and down passing through three different zip codes before it got to the water Buck. The arrows final resting place was 3 feet low in the dirt before his feet. WHAT THE HECK?! I had shot, and shot, and shot the last several months leading up to this trip without any bow problems. This thing was paper tuning a perfect bullet hole, and I even filmed it in slow motion, several times just to admire the beautiful arrow flight. Something was bad wrong. Everyone watching could see that something was wrong too, that was more than just a terrible shot. We did not have a bow target with us so I had Bredger drive over to a termite mound. I swapped out to my field tips that I had in the bow case with me and took a practice shot. This time at 20 yards. At 20 yards I missed the mark by about 20 inches. The next shot was in the total opposite direction. Even at 20 yards I could barely keep a 3 foot group. After some tinkering around and filming up close using the slow motion feature on the iPhone camera I found the problem. My drop away rest had started malfunctioning. It was not dropping in time and the arrow was being kicked up when the fletching hit it, which then made the fletching crash into the bottom of my sight ring. At 50 yards it’s a wonder my arrow hit as close as it did. In this case, I was extremely thankful it was a complete miss. Even had I hit it in a good area, when your arrow flight is that bad it completely messes up the ability to penetrate properly. If I could not get this fixed this bow hunt was going to have to turn into a rifle hunt. I tried shooting Dad‘s bow a little bit and his anchor point and peep site is so drastically different from mine that I never could hit consistently enough to be comfortable shooting at an animal.

I know most of you here are rifle hunters, and likely may not even get why finishing out with a rifle was a problem for me, but it had me feeling about ready to puke. I had come here to get these animals I wanted with a bow, it is what I had been preparing for for the last year. Whatever happened I was going to make the most of it, but each of us kind of has our own personal set of rules when we are hunting and running around shooting everything with a rifle just isn’t that appealing to me. In a place like this, quite frankly regardless of who this offends, it’s just too easy. With a gun the only way to make this hunt become difficult was simply to be extremely extremely selective in what you choose to shoot. We headed back to camp early today so we could get the meat cared for and I could try to fix my equipment issues.

Loading the critters from the BV to the Land Cruiser.

Going over my equipment at camp it became pretty clear that something had messed up my timing cable on the rest. I am guessing that during one of the many stalks we had gone on, since the morning before when I had last shot my bow, some piece of brush had yanked on it pulling it out of time.
They found some rem oil at the camp and after I had lubed the mechanism up and got the timing cable adjusted correctly again I thought I had it shooting pretty good. out of all of the possibilities of things that could happen on this trip from Black mambas, scorpion in your boots, to Buffalo charges, there were only two fears that I had. One was my bow, not making it over on the flight, and the second was getting here and having a major equipment malfunction. Check and check. Maybe I could redeem myself tomorrow…

 

[KipCarson]

Hunt Day 5:

I think I’m getting spoiled a bit here. Waking up to this setting outside the tent at 5:30 every morning is kinda nice. Today is going to be a good day, I just feel it in my bones. As we set off after breakfast the bush seemed alive with animals. Especially with warthogs. They were around every turn. But then again that’s everyday in Coutada 11 I guess. We stopped and looked over 3 different shooters in the first hour and a half that we tried to get close on but never could get under 40 yards on. Action packed morning for sure. I’m not sure where we were headed today, I just know it wasn’t going to be an extreme distance because we were planning to be back at camp by lunch time.

Of all the animals we were seeing I had noticed that one was almost absent from
the list. In fact, by this point I was regretting putting it out list of animals to hunt. We were seeing hundreds of everything but in the past 4 days I think we had only seen 3 total bushbuck. And those had been rusty brown streaks bounding away for the safety of the tall and uncut. I intuitively knew that if I got one of them at all it wouldn’t be with a bow. The day before, even before my bow trouble, I had told Bredger about my concerns. I said, “If we see a bushbuck that’s not already spooked and running, let’s not even try it with a bow. When you say Bushbuck, I’m pulling out the 300!” Momma drowned all the dumb babies. When we’re seeing an average of 1 a day, and half of them are females, and we have 2 to kill between us, the odds are we could easily go home without one. Even though I had only killed one animal in the first 4 days I wasn’t worried yet, except for the bushbuck. Bushbuck hunting is serious HUNTING. He didn’t argue, come to find out he has never had one killed with a bow by himself or a client. The stars will have to seriously align for that. They’ve got a quota of only 20 a year, and we showed up not realizing how tough they were to just see. After the warthog stalks we were driving along and I’m looking across a large pan mostly covered in 5-6 foot tall grass but with a wet marshy area in the center. At the far back corner I see a deer sized animal that at first glance I assume was reedbuck, then I realize the coloration was wrong. I was still about 300 yards away and I was about to point it out to Vasco when he raises his hand and goes to point it out to me. “Bushbuck” is all he says, then he motions Bredger to stop. Bredger stops and hops up on the side step to get a look through his binos, after only a second, he hops to the ground as he looks at me with a serious expression and says, “Get the rifle!” I don’t know how good of a bushbuck it is, and quite frankly, I don’t care. This is the first bush buck we have seen that has not been running for cover. We get in the old familiar line formation and start walking through the grass heading in the direction of my quarry. Like I said earlier, the grass is 5-6 feet tall and the ground is very moist making for quiet walking. When we get to about 130 yards from him, we spot him on the edge of the marshy opening. Bredger quickly set up the sticks and I put the rifle across them. Instantly I have the bushbuck in the scope, as he immediately disappears behind some grass. “He moved behind the grass I need to get to the left.” And as if we had been rehearsing the move for years I raise the rifle and Bredger slides over the sticks. Within seconds, he is in the scope again, but once again he is disappearing into the grass, heading to the right. “I gotta move to the left again quick, he’s gone behind the grass again!” The same quick maneuver is repeated, but this time as I look through the scope, he is nowhere to be found. The sea of tall grass has swallowed the small 110 lb. animal up as if he never existed. My gut immediately feels the disappointment, so close, yet my opportunity seems to have slipped away. As Bredger keeps scanning with his binos, I stay down on the scope, looking for movement in the grass. And then I see it, he is a tad further out, but moving back to the left through a small opening between two clumps of tall grass. “ I see him!” Bredger said, “Hit him on the shoulder!” And before he barely got the words out of his mouth the rifle barked! The little bushbuck leaped into the air with his front legs flailing in a violent reaction and disappeared into the grass.

This is a screen grab from the video Joseph took for me, you can see him leaping above the grass on the right side.
“I think you smoke him dude!” Bredger exclaimed, as he ranged the spot. It was 140 yards away. We set off on a walk around the edge of the marsh opening to keep from having to wade through any of the deeper water, but we made it to where the bushbuck had been standing in just a few minutes.


There was no blood, no sign of a hit, no bushbuck to be found anywhere. I had expected him to be lying within just a few feet from the impact, but he was nowhere to be found. There were five of us, and we started searching through the tall grass with no one finding any sign, including Vasco. I thought these African trackers could find anything with almost supernatural ability. And with every passing minute that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach grew worse. It was obvious from his reaction I had hit him, and hit him hard. Also shooting a suppressed rifle you could clearly hear the impact of the bullet as it smacked into him. What was going on here? We kept looking for what seemed like an eternity, zigzagging and circling around looking for something, anything. The I heard those beautiful words, “Got him!” as I look up and see Bridger standing 10 yards away smiling! The little guy had only gone 40 yards, but that seems like a long way when you are dealing with an ocean of 6 foot tall grass. High fives, hugs and backslaps were had all around while Bredger joked with Vasco about how he was taking the title of “Number 1 Tracker” away from him since he had to do his job for him. He was a nice looking bushbuck too! I never took a look at his horns before I pulled the trigger, because I didn’t care. As few as we had seen, any bushbuck was a good bushbuck!



After a few pictures we quickly made our way back toward camp and the skinning shed to get this taken care of, this is one of the animals that you can’t afford to be slow getting in the salt. There are so few taken every year that it’s impossible just to get a replacement cape if one should spoil. Also, this is the Chobe Bushbuck subspecies. It’s got more of a rusty red hue to its cape than the other bushbucks which are more chocolate colored. I guess we’ll let Vasco keep his #1 Tracker title since he insisted on hauling him back to the cruiser with no help.


As we headed back we came across a warthog that needed my attention. He was rooting around in a fresh roadside burn and the wind was good so I grabbed my bow and we stalked in on him. He was very active and at one point caught us moving and took off. But we saw where he went and circled around and were shortly back in the game. Even with the dry crunchy burned ground under our feet Bredger and I were able to get to within 30 yards. As he turned broadside I raised my bow arm level and started making my draw. That ol fella had been watching me from the corner of his eye apparently and with my slight movement he exploded into action. Once again he only went a hundred yards before going back to feeding. We never could get closer than 45 yards again and couldn’t get a clear shot so we finally gave up. So much for that one…

Now on to the skinning shed and lunchtime.

 

[kansasdad]

Enjoying your recounting of your adventure @KipCarson

I love the spiral horned ones especially well when the tips turn pale ivory color

PS: the ice in your glass is giving me a bit of trouble...I imagine it is made from purified water in your camp, but not something I'd routinely trust in lots of corners of Africa.

 

[KipCarson]

Enjoying your recounting of your adventure @KipCarson

I love the spiral horned ones especially well when the tips turn pale ivory color

PS: the ice in your glass is giving me a bit of trouble...I imagine it is made from purified water in your camp, but not something I'd routinely trust in lots of corners of Africa.

They have some source of clean purified water they make it with, and drinking water that is safe too. My PH, who is a native Texan, assured me he’s been drinking it there for years with no problems. No digestive issues for us so far!

 

[KipCarson]

This is where my story takes a momentary turn towards the terrible. I’m committed to telling the unvarnished truth, the good, bad and the ugly, etc. Thats just how I am and this whole saga would be incomplete if I left the following event out of the narrative. So as much as it pains me personally, here we go.

After lunch we headed back out in the direction of the flood plain, even though that wasn’t our final destination. We were headed out wherever the game would lead us. Most of the afternoon we were in game but nothing of note happened for the first few hours after lunch. It was about an hour and a half before dark as we were looking over a number of animals that a really nice Nyala stepped out of the palms and started calmly feeding a few hundred yards away. I grabbed my now functioning bow and took off with Bredger in a loop to get downwind of the bull and close the distance. He slowly was feeding with his nose toward the wind and we were able to ease right in behind him and close the distance. As we got in really close he turned to his right and started walking across an opening at only 30 yards broadside. Bredger called the yardage and I came to full draw and anchored. Lining up my sight picture only took a second and I settled the middle pin tight against his shoulder. Just like with the horrible waterbuck miss, it all felt good up until this point as I squeezed off the trigger. I didn’t see the arrow go where I wanted. I actually didn’t see where the arrow went at all which is confusing to me still. I was convinced I had missed completely. The Nyala took off on a run acting completely untouched and we watched as he covered about 200 yards of ground before disappearing completely into the scattered palms. As I walked to where he had been standing I was baffled. I usually know when I’ve choked and just made a bad shot. You know the buck fever feeling when your brain sort of short circuits and you nearly black out and barely remember shooting? I’ve been there in the past and this was not that, I felt completely in control and simply didn’t know what happened. A minute later Vasco finds my arrow and to my surprise it has a light smear of blood on all 3 fletching. I hadn’t missed after all. But based on the arrow, and what we had seen as he ran off, he wasn’t going to die anytime soon, certainly not from wherever that arrow hit. We grouped up, me feeling dejected as could be, and dutifully took up the trail. There was only the smallest splatter of blood early on and then nothing. All I could think of as we fanned out searching for sign was the “you break it, you buy it” policy that most outfitters in Africa work off of. I had most definitely drawn blood, and from the 25 years I’ve been shooting stuff with a bow I can tell you for a fact that that Nyala would never be found. It looked to me as if I had wounded the one animal I wanted the most and I would most likely be heading home without it.

A while later as we crept along looking for sign fanning out in the general direction he had disappeared, he jumped from a bed about 50 yards in front of us. It happened too fast to bring a rifle to bear and the way he was running there wasn’t much chance of getting a hit on him anyway. Going to where he had lain down, all we found was about 2 quarter sized spots of clean red blood. To me it looked like the sign from a very minor muscle cut. Maybe low across the front of the brisket or a slice through the leg. We knew my hit had not been a high one.

We followed on his direction a while longer but the sun was setting fast and the light was fading. Bredger made the pronouncement that we should head back to the truck and that there was no chance we’d ever catch up to the Nyala. As we headed back to camp everyone was quiet and I was feeling about as low as an earthworm.

Maybe it was something still not right with my bow setup, maybe it was just me. I don’t know, but I did know that this trip to Africa wasn’t the place to figure it out. Every shot I took at an animal had several thousand dollars on the line. I just couldn’t see pushing my luck and having my benefactor paying a bunch of trophy fees for animals I didn’t even get to bring back because they were wounded. By the time we got to camp I had made a decision. I wasn’t going to keep pushing my luck with a bow that was having issues. (or maybe this time was me?) I could work out my kinks at the house. The responsible thing to do was to finish this hunt with a rifle. I truly hated having to make that decision.

I knew the Nyala was going to be fine but the loss of a bucket list animal was weighing heavy on me. At the fire pit just before supper I did get some news to lift my spirits. Bredger and Mark had talked about the situation and decided to give me a mulligan since it seemed clear he was going to be just fine. That’s not something that’s typically done, and likely they wouldn’t want me to write about it because the last thing they would want is people showing up there thinking they could go about willy nilly wounding stuff with no consequences. But here it was, I was being given a second chance at a Nyala, the bow would go up and the rifles would come out and be my constant companion for the next 5 days. That is one advantage bow hunting has over rifles. In marginal shots there are usually clean cuts resulting in much less tissue damage than is left by a mushrooming bullet. And when you can look at your arrow, which is most cases, you can get a really good idea of how lethal and what type tissue was hit. Not trying to start a debate on all the nuances that go into that, but I do believe had I lost that animal with a rifle there would be no second chance. Anyway, tomorrow is day 6 and we are getting up early to head to the swamps in the BVs in search of a second chance on a buffalo. The hunt is halfway over and we’ve only collected 4/11 trophies. Time to make things happen…

 

[KipCarson]

Hunt Day 6:

We were up and at em a tad earlier today because it’s a long way out to the Buffalo and since they have a tendency to move deeper into the swamp later in the day we would try to get on em quick. Hamish, another of the PHs at ZDS, was between clients at the moment and had the day free to tag along just to help out. When your job is to hunt every day, and you get a day off and still choose to go hunting, you might be cut out for the PH life. That’s definitely how all the guys at ZDS are. As far as I was concerned an extra set of eyes, and extra hands were more than welcome while hunting buffalo. We followed mostly the same MO as a couple days before with the Helicopter meeting us at the BV camp.
This is where the guardians of the BVs lived. Except for the tent it was primitive as could be.
Bredger hopped in and took off for a little aerial recon while the rest of us hopped in and headed off toward the swamp in the BV. The chopper would drop Bredger off to us further up the road at a predetermined spot. We got to the place to pick him up and they were still gone looking for buffalo. As we talked I began to wonder what was taking so long. About that time Hamish gave voice to my concerns. “If they’ve been gone this long the buffalo must not be anywhere close by, this could turn into a very long day, “ he said with a rye chuckle. It was several more minutes before we heard the distant thwop of the rotors heading our direction. As we sat there, even after 5 days of immersive experience in Coutada 11, I was still in awe of the wildlife around us. From my perch on the BV I could count 8 different species at once dotted across the floodplain. Warthogs, waterbuck, reedbucks, hartebeest, Zebra, impala, sable, and oribi. Truly an amazing place.

The chopper landed and dropped of Bredger, who hopped in the drivers seat and confirmed Hamish’s prediction. All the herds were pretty far out and it would take a while to even get in the ballpark. As we drove off I was saying a silent prayer in my head, “Lord, please help us out with an easy win today, it would sure be nice to find a few dagga boys closer in than the big herds” Say what you want, but I’ve had far too many prayers answered to ever have the thought that God isn’t listening and doesn’t care. As we dropped off into the first swampy riverbed I was on the lookout for the hippo from day 4 but he didn’t reappear. We crossed on into another area of dried out flood plain that we would cross for a while before hitting more swamp. The dry areas were plenty good for the Land Cruiser, but it was the ribbon like riverbeds that braided their way across the landscape that created the impenetrable barriers to anything except the amphibious BVs. We had probably not covered a half mile since we had picked up Bridger from the helicopter when Hamish, sitting up beside me on the high rack, let out an exclamation, “Stop quick, Dagga boys!” I looked in the direction of his outstretched hand and about 400 yards away in the next river bed I could see the black backs two of the horned behemoths. Bridger climbed up top and after about 30 seconds of consulting with Hamish as they stared through the binoculars, he said “let’s go!” I grabbed the .416 Rigby, and he grabbed his double rifle, and we set off again in the now familiar snake like line in single file. The wind was not perfect, but it wasn’t completely wrong either. Moving from palm to palm crept closer. Vasco, in the lead, raised his hand and pointed ahead of us “People! I see fisherman boss!” As we paused and scanned ahead none of us white guys could see a thing! Was he really seeing people or was he trying to come up with some reason to keep us from getting close to those buffalo?! We continued ahead, crawling now as fast as we could to close up the distance into shooting range, as we got to the last suitable palms we could tell the 2 Buffalo were getting nervous. They had stopped feeding and had thier heads up looking around. Bredger set up the sticks low in the grass where I would only need to ease up on my knees to shoot from a low kneeling position. One of the buffalo had started heading up out of the river bed toward a patch of trees further up the bank. As I got them in my scope Bredger said “Shoot the lead one. Hit him square in the shoulder.” He was 120 yards out and looked ready to take off as I settled the crosshairs square onto his shoulder. Maybe there were some other people making them nervous over there? This is a screen grab from the cellphone video. You can see him looking out direction between the two palms in front of us if you zoom in.

BOOM went the .416 and the buffalo took off on a mad sprint toward the trees. As fast as I could I bolted in another shell into the chamber and tried to get back on him but he had already crossed the 30 yards of open ground and was in the thicket. “That shot look good?” I asked, as everyone who could see what happened started to respond in unison. “You hammered him” “He’s hit hard!” “Good hit, he was pouring blood!” About that time we heard a death bellow, then another, as he breathed his last, just out of sight in the cover of the thicket.

We headed back the few hundred yards to the BV before going to get a look at him. They had been on the other side of the river bed, which was full of at least waist deep water so we needed the BV to cross. But the PHs also thought the BV was the safest bet as a deterrent in case his Dagga Buddy was insistent on not leaving his side. We crossed the river uneventfully and no angry Dagga boy met our approach with menace. He had apparently decided flight was the best option, and less than a minute later after the crossing we were looking a my bull, stone dead laying in the shade on totally dry ground. What had started to be a long day searching for buffalo way off in the depths of the Zambeze delta swamps quickly turned into about the most simple and straight forward buff hunt you could ask for. Thank you God for answering my prayers! I thought it was funny how easy it turned out compared to the experience from a few days before. Today we never even got our feet wet! Bredger said the way thee were acting there probably were some of the local Sena fisherman out there and they had likely already spooked the buffalo out from the cover of another thicket. The buffalo weren’t there a little while before when a chopper had flown right over that area looking.

I sat in awe of the bull for a little bit as they rigged up a tow strap to pull him out onto some open ground for pictures and butchering. My bullet had center punched his shoulder angling back through his lungs and stopping just below the skin near the center of his body by the last ribs. He had barely gone more than 40 yards. Bredger and Hamish looked him over good and it was their assessment that he was likely at least 10 years old. He wasn’t the widest at only around 35” but he had good hard bosses and all the signs of advancing age. I never did measure his width, quite frankly I really didn’t care about the numbers. His ears were a mangled mess of scars and tears from a decade of fights and close calls. I was just happy to be here and happy to get to hunt a Cape buffalo in Africa! There is a biologist who checks every buffalo killed and ages them. After he has done that they will let me know how old he was.

After taking pics the work began. Skinning and breaking down a Cape buffalo is a bit more labor intensive than an elk, but many hands made for light work. In the African way they tried to make me sit back while the trackers and PHs did the work but I couldn’t stand for that. As soon as the cape was skinned off his shoulders and his head was removed I started caping it out for a mount. Being a part time taxidermist I was right in my element. Meat care is not high on the priority list of the African trackers. All of this meat would go to the people of the Sena villages in the Coutada. Much to my chagrin as they would detach a quarter they would just set it aside in the dirt before hauling it to stack up in the back of the BV. All that was saved for the camp’s consumption was the toungue and the tail which they make into a sort of OxTail soup. Upon getting loaded and driving away, the only thing left on the ground for the giant white backed vultures to fight over was the hooves, small intestines and contents of the stomach. All the organs along with the stomach would be consumed to the last bite. As we drove away the vultures had already descended onto the remains before we were 50 yards away. It was a good morning for everyone. We headed back to the BV camp where we would load the buffalo onto the Land Cruiser where Hamish volunteered to take the meat back in so we could continue hunting.

 

[Dave N]

That's awesome! Nice way to recover after the bow mishap.

 

[kansasdad]

Sweet!

I wonder if your buffalo has a somewhat shorter face than normal ? It would be interesting to ask the taxidermist (you??) who will be doing the mount if they used a standard form.

 

[KipCarson]

Sweet!

I wonder if your buffalo has a somewhat shorter face than normal ? It would be interesting to ask the taxidermist (you??) who will be doing the mount if they used a standard form.

I plan to do all the taxidermy, I’m on the fence as to whether I will mount him or just do the skull though. I’ll have to take measurements on the cape but the head didn’t really look any shorter than the other mounted buffalo I saw on the trip, or the half dozen I was looking at the other day in my bosses trophy room. I saved the buffalo cape to be sent back here to the tannery but I really don’t have any room for one. Lol, I don’t really have room for hardly any of this. The non negotiable mounts are the bushbuck and the Nyala (spoiler alert:coming soon!) I’ll probably mount the reedbuck too, since it’s no bigger than a small whitetail.

 

[KipCarson]

After another bush lunch in the shade of the fever trees we set off. There wasn’t hardly a place you could go that you didn’t have some game within sight. It certainly makes for interesting days afield. We hadn’t gone far when we spotted a nice warthog the was taking a mid day snooze in a stalkable location. Since dad was still bowhunting and I had just spent the morning getting a buffalo he was up to bat. I sat with Joseph watching from the top of the BV while dad, Bredger and Vasco closed the distance. I could see them but couldn’t see the pig, and when they got in range I was close enough I could hear the shot. We quickly jumped down and headed over to see what the outcome was.

The warthog had been laying down and it was a steep quartering shot. They found the arrow and were inspecting it when I walked up, it was bloody, but not extremely so, with no bubbles. We took up the trail with Vasco and the extra tracker that had joined us for the day in the lead. The blood was steady but not abundant and nothing to make us believe it was hit in the lungs, or the guts, or anything else vital for that matter. I kept thinking the blood would peter out soon but it never did. Dad had put up his bow and was carrying the 300 in case he needed to finish it off and Bredger was carrying his double.

After about 300 yards on the track we were passing a large clump of palms and the extra tracker circled to the opposite side to pick up any sign there. About that time I heard a repeated furious grunting and all the vegetation started shaking. Something wasn’t happy and it sounded like it was heading my way. You know how the barrel of a gun suddenly looks much bigger when someone points it in your direction? Well the same affect happens when a warthog is busting out of the brush in your direction full charge! Joesph and I were unarmed in the back of the group as the pig broke from the cover coming straight for us. Now look, I’m entirely too white to dance, but let me tell you, I found my groove for those few seconds! We both went to hopping and jumping as the boar came streaking by barely missing us at no further than a couple of feet away. Honestly, I was trying to stay behind Joseph, let the intern get plastered, I wasn’t trying to be a hero! As the pig streaked by I realized it wasn’t dad’s pig, just another boar that was irritated his nap had been disturbed. He wasn’t charging, he was just trying to get away and we were in the exit path. I looked over and see dad bringing the 300 to bear on the running pig and saw what was about to happen. “DONT SHOOT DONT SHOOT!! That’s not your pig!!” Thankfully, he stopped before making a terrible mistake. In the aftermath of those 5 terrifying seconds Joseph looked at his Apple Watch and his heart rate had instantly jumped to 112. With all of the crocs, black mambas, and Black Death running around, I would have never thought my closest call in Africa would be being run over by a warthog!

We continued on the track which led further to the overgrown bank of one of the river beds. Thankfully, instead of crossing, he hit the bank and skirted through the brush, making a hard right turn. We weren’t really sure about the shot because he was still bleeding so well, usually simple flesh wounds would have dried up by now. At first, I was concerned we would not find him, but I was starting to believe that we would come upon him soon, but I was also convinced he would most likely be alive when we did. And I was exactly right. Not too far up the riverbank we hear the brush exploding in front of us and Bridger makes a sprint forward to see what was taking off. Two seconds later I heard the boom of the double. Followed two seconds later by a second shot. Unfortunately, being in the back of the group, I did not get to see the action. As Bridger had gone around the brush, the wounded warthog was bearing straight down toward him. One shot from the double stopped him, but he was still on his feet staggering when he put the second shot through the shoulder. It was quite the rodeo!

It turns out dads shot had hit tiny bit to the left and then opened the pigs side running down the outside of his ribs, if it had been a touch over it to the right it would’ve gone right behind the ribs into the lungs. People whine about a cut on their finger but an animal can be partially eviscerated and take it like a champ. Seeing the wound it’s no wonder this dude wouldn’t stop bleeding! Bredger’s first shot creased the center of the pigs skull dead center, knocking him senseless, and the shoulder shot put him down for good. It’ll make for an interesting skull mount and tell the story along with it. This was turning into a very eventful day and we still had several hours left.

 

[KipCarson]

As we continued on the plan was to go to a likely area for bushbuck the last few hours of the day. We hadn’t seen one since I had killed mine. There was a more than decent chance that dad might go home without one. He had also easily agreed to pick up the 300 if a shot at a bushbuck became a possibility. Cruising along from one likely spot to another we hadn’t seen a bushbuck but we were seeing piles of nice waterbuck and reedbuck. We were passing waterbuck by the score that would have been dreams in many other African places. At one point I was looking over at a reedbuck and even to my inexperienced eye I could tell he was a good one. “That’s a really nice reedbuck!” I said. “Yeah he is! Let’s go shoot him” responded Bredger! Now if you remember from a long way back in this overly long recounting of my story, the first thing I had shot was a sick scrawny reedbuck. It was in such bad shape that Bridger insisted we should get a replacement cape for him. Also, with reedbuck and waterbuck in such abundance there is a large number that the outfitter is required to shoot to fulfill their community meat quota. We were allotted some extra critters to help out with said quotas. All of the extra animals we would shoot later were young animals, or animals that lacked real trophy potential and were non export as trophies. This one we took for the cape, and if he was much better I could choose the one to keep. As long as the meat all went to the quota and only one was exported we were good to go, not a bad deal! We continued driving past until we were out of sight before stopping. Quietly we walked back the few hundred yards and were able to ease up to within 50 yards. He set up the sticks, I positioned the rifle, and with a squeeze of the trigger and a 15 yards run. It was all over. He really was a good reedbuck too. I don’t know how big they get but this one’s horns were just under 15”. Almost 2 inches longer than my other one.

Now on to find that Bushbuck. We looked for several more hours to no avail. One female bushbuck was spotted, but nothing with horns. As we rounded a corner I did a double take, standing a couple hundred yards away was a new species I hadn’t seen yet. “Am I seeing things or are those eland?” Yes they were, what’s that now, species #19 or #20? I can’t keep track! They’re pretty migratory so by the time October rolls around they are apparently plentiful, but in July they’re almost nonexistent except for a few cows. This was a small group with a few cows and 2 juvenile bulls. I was certainly glad to see them. At this point I think I had laid eyes on every big game animal the area had to offer except for the lions.

We continued on looping back toward where we came from. After several hours of hunting the sun was sinking low and still no bushbuck had been seen. We came through a thicket onto a new part of the plain and a warthog caught our eye. At a glance Bredger said he was a good one so we hopped out and grabbed the sticks. A short walk, and an easy 150 yard shot later I had my warthog too. Punching him right through the back of the shoulder he ran hard for about 60 yards in a straight line and died running full speed! I never got a good look at his tusks before I shot, I was just taking their word for it. I’m glad I didn’t second guess the guide because this one was nice!

We took the opportunity to unload dad‘s from earlier in the afternoon and take a picture of the pair together.


The African sunset was brilliant as we cruised back to camp. Everyone was happy, it had truly been a blessed day.

 

[kansasdad]

Did you get to hear lions roaring? Or hyenas yipping it up?
I'm feeling "homesick" seeing the photos.

 

[KipCarson]

Did you get to hear lions roaring? Or hyenas yipping it up?
I'm feeling "homesick" seeing the photos.

Unfortunately no, the week before we arrived there was a hyena that had been hanging near enough to camp to be heard, but he was absent or silent during our tenure. I did see his tracks one day though. They just released some more to augment the genetic pool there because the numbers are low. The original 24 lions reintroduced, that have grown to well over 100 lions now, were also silent during our visit, or too far away to hear. We did see the tracks of lions quite often.

 

[Salmonchaser]

Seeing lions was the highlight of my first trip. Sat and watched a pride on a kill. My PH was amazed at my reaction, but then reckoned he would be the same watching grizzlies out on the Peninsula.

 

[KipCarson]

Day 7:

After getting 4 animals the day before it was nice to sleep in a little longer. We had a different plan on tap for today. All of the meat from the buffalo and the reedbuck I shot the evening before had to be delivered to the village close to camp. I had been looking forward to going into the village all week long. ZDS has done a tremendous amount to enrich the lives of the local Sena people and endeavors to work with them instead of pushing them out of the area. They have built a school, a medical clinic, and the chief a real block house. They have a tractor that they use to plow a big community ag field a few times a year and provide fertilizers so they can grow corn, wheat, rice etc. They have a mobile grain mill to grind the crops into flour once the harvest is in. In addition to that, they have a community bee keeping project that has taught them how to keep bees and harvest honey that is sold far and wide through the help of ZDS. Plus there are large community meat quotas that they fill, keeping fresh protien available to all the people of the area. This all has combined together to be the greatest anti-poaching incentive there is. Many of the tribe have become trackers, cooks, skinners etc. and work for the safari company. Overall the quality of life for the native population is far improved over what it could be under different management.

As we got close to the village we started passing through areas with mud huts that all had a small corn field close adjacent to it. There were few men about, but women with babies tied to their backs and bundles on their heads started appearing. The kids heard the cruiser coming and came quickly chasing behind down the road in our wake like so many dogs do back home.

This lil dude cracked me up, he must be related to Hussein Bolt because he left all his buddies in the dust and never seemed to tire out. You had to smile watching him.
There was lots of joyful laughter as they ran barefooted free as a bird, never recognizing all they lacked, just happy to be getting some fresh meat. The bolder ones of the group had to be scolded by Vasco as they would jump up on the bumper and try to sneak a ride. Not that we cared, he just didn’t want any of them to get hurt. Real medical attention is a very long way in the distance.

They had one little store there, this was basically Dollar General. It had a few supplies and soft drinks and candy for anyone who had money to buy something.

As we rounded the last bend in the road I could hear chanting and the beat of drums. A few mean were beating plastic buckets with sticks and the women were all singing as they took turns coming out into the hard packed circle of bare ground to show off the dance of the Sena people. The tumultuous noise continued as we were introduced to a man with a ZDS shirt named William. He was basically the community liaison officer and HR department of ZDS all rolled into one. Part of his job was to make sure all of the meat was distributed evenly in fairly around the villages and he also kept up with who needed work, who was the best with a particular skill, how long everyone had been working, who needed to retire, etc. etc. he had showed up with the meat in a separate cruiser before we got there. At least this time the people had chopped down a bed of fresh green leaves to lay the meat on instead of just throwing it on the dirt. As the singing and dancing continued, the men that were there started chopping the quarters into manageable pieces with machetes and homemade axes, forged from the leaf spring of an old trailer. After what seemed like an eternity the music stopped and they all waited in line with their dirty plastic buckets waiting to get their share of the meat.



Anyone with a lick of sense knows how good we have it in most of the western world but seeing the contrast firsthand with how much of the rest of the world lives is quite perspective altering. I’d love to bring every ungrateful American and drop them off amongst these people for a day, not that it would do any good. It’s hard to change a selfish entitled frame of mind. The truth is compared to much of their countrymen these folks, with the improvements from the safari industry, had become downright middle class. There is a lot I could rant about but I won’t, I’ll just let the pictures tell the story. I will say at this experience impacted me deeply. It’ll take a little time before I can complain about having a bad day or take too many of my blessings for granted.



Speaking of blessings, I got married again! As the dancers were doing their thing a few of them kept dancing up much to close to me for comfort. I was trying to keep a respectful distance without appearing rude, but I was definitely out of my comfort zone. Bredger was getting a kick out of it and he told me, “You thought this was a meat drop? Man, this was a ceremony and you just got married! Take as many back home as you’d like!” No thank you, one wife back home is quite enough! My real wife found this to be very funny.