Dates: July 12th-August 2nd, 2012
Areas: R2 Block, Selous Game Reserve
Travel Agent: Steve Turner www.travelwithguns.com
Operator: Pierre van Tonder http://www.pvt.co.za/
PH: Pierre van Tonder
Rifles: CZ/AHR .416 Rigby, Whitworth Mauser .375 H&H
Optics: Swarovski Z6i 1-6x24 (until the Talley rings failed... story later on in the report), Leupold 1.5-5x20 (conetrol rings and bases)
Ammo: North Fork 370 gr solids and softs in the .416, Barnes 300 gr Solids and Triple Shocks in the .375
Hunt History and Overview
Traditionally me and my male family members take hunting trips every year together. Most of them around the western US states. The crew is usually myself, my brother Albert, my Dad (Bob), and my grandpa Gene. Grandpa is 85, but can usually keep up with us. Even if he can't he loves to be around camp, and just be a part of the experience. So early 2011, I figured he wasn't getting any younger and we should do something big before he isn't able to come with us anymore. So being that me and my dad have always dreamed of going to Africa, I figured all four of us should go and hunt some of the big stuff and just go all out for what might be one of the last big hunts we could all do together. My dad had been to Zimbabwe in 1988 to hunt plains game, but he's always dreamed of hunting dangerous game. Giving me books on Africa to read ever since I can remember. Explorations of the Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia was one of the first that I can recall.
It started out as maybe a leopard and buffalo hunt, then after crunching numbers maybe go for elephant as well. First thoughts were Zimbabwe, always thinking Tanzania was out of our league. Then after doing the math and looking at what could be hunted, it just made more sense to go big and just do a 21-day hunt in Tanzania. Like I said before, I wanted to make this as big as an adventure as I could for us, so I figured what the hell it's only money. Mike Podwika (reetrever) suggested I look into Pierre van Tonder http://www.pvt.co.za/ and what he could offer in Tanzania. I knew he had a couple great hunts, and I knew results would vary but I liked Pierre's attitude and the fact that he didn't seem to nickel and dime you at every turn. After researching other companies, and calling and emailing dozens of references, it was time to make a decision and pull the trigger. Sent the deposit, went to my parent's house that night and told my dad "Hey we are going to Tanzania, so you better start getting ready." The hunt was setup for my dad to have the full 21 day license, I would be his backup with the .375 and also shoot some plains game if time permitted. My brother Albert would run the video camera, and grandpa would come along for the ride and take notes of all of our activities as he normally does on our trips. Me and him both love to document everything, must be the German in us lol. Went to see my grandparents and dropped the news on him as well. At first he couldn't really comprehend how we were going from hunting antelope in Wyoming to hunting elephant in Tanzania, but he quickly realized it was really going to happen and got pretty excited. My grandmother kept telling me "You know grandpa doesn't really like to talk about things he's going to do until he actually does them, but he can't stop talking about Africa to everyone!" They live in a small town called Clarksburg (a few miles south of Sacramento) and of course he's known by everyone in town. He used to work for the local gas company, and once retired he was the guy people called up if they needed something fixed at their house, so needless to say he was friends with 99% of the surrounding community. I think everyone was really excited for Gene and his big trip to Africa.
Travel
Once again thru suggestions from other hunters online, I found Steve Turner (www.travelwithguns.com), and started talking to him about my plans. He responded to me within an hour or two with a detailed response and options for me. Right away I knew he was the right choice. After going over options and looking into the paperwork required, etc... I figured we would go the usual KLM route thru Amsterdam and just hope for the best. I hadn't booked anything yet, and I get an email from Steve saying I should consider going thru Istanbul. The layover was originally very tight, and didn't sit too well. Then after thinking about it, and getting some more info from Steve, it seemed like the perfect choice as long as we stayed a couple nights in Istanbul before going onto Dar. It made perfect sense to me: Stop over for a coupe nights in a city that we would like to see any ways, also being that it was in the same time zone as Tanzania, we could get a jump on getting over the jet lag and time change. Turkish Airlines was also offering comfort class seating, which seemed very reasonably priced. (it ended up being worth every penny BTW) Steve would arrange rifle storage with a rep from Shikar Safaris (http://www.shikarsafaris.com/) who also offered transportation to and from the airport as well as tour of the city if we wanted. I decided just to have them store the rifles, we would probably be jet lagged so I didn't want to commit to any touring of the city.
Fast forward to July 8th 2012... The three of us arrive in Istanbul, no problems. Turkish Airlines seems firearms friendly and the people we dealt with at LAX were quite pleasant. My brother Albert's flight would arrive about 10 minutes before ours. He was coming from Madrid. He lives in Spain (where I was born and my mother's family is all from) about half of the year, where he runs track and holds hands with his girlfriend. He was waiting for us at the exit along with the rep from Shikar. We take a stroll to the police station, 20 minutes, some paperwork, and a few handshakes later we are done and on our way. The president or manager of Shikar Safaris arrives at the airport and talks with us for a bit, he then offers to have one of his guys show us around the city at no cost at all. We say sure, what the heck, it would be almost rude to refuse this offer. We make a plan for the next day, and we are off to our hotel. Our hotel was the Sirkeci Konak, http://www.sirkecikonak.com/, a hotel I booked directly after reading reviews on Trip Advisor (which I use for about 99% of my travel choices and hasn't failed me once) Its a nice small hotel in a great area of the city. Walking distance from all the top attractions. Not to mention its restaurant comes highly recommended as well as its sister restaurants. They did not disappoint, amazing food as reasonable pricing. The tours were great, even though they were considered "on the house" I tipped the guide a decent stack because I was very appreciative of what they did for us. The day came to fly onto Dar so the airport rep, Shenol, was at our hotel right on time to take us to catch our flight. We had a few extra hours to kill so he took us to a great restaurant, and to have some tea in an amazing cafe overlooking the city and the water. Needless to say Shikar Safaris is top notch in my book, and I'll be looking to them if hunting the area in the future. We caught our flight and rifles arrived in Dar with no problems. What a relief to see those cases brought out and all luggage arriving. We went onto the Sea Cliff and checked in at about 4:45 AM, we checked out at 6AM, showered and grabbed breakfast. Needless to say, most expensive shower I ever took ha ha. At that point it didn't matter, the fun would now begin...
Here are a few photos before we entered the bush
Comfort Class on Turkish Airlines. Highly recommended! Lots of leg room, seats were nice and wide. I'm 6'2" 190 lbs and my dad is 6' and about 230, both of us were very comfortable and had lots of leg room to spare. Also had USB and electrical outlets for laptop, as well as wi-fi. Food was excellent. Made a 13 hour flight go by with the quickness. Seats reclined a good bit and they had a foot rest that flipped up. If I were to change one thing I would recommend the footrest be able to be lifted higher, for better chances at getting a comfortable sleeping position.
The Sirkeci Konak Hotel
The Sea Cliff Hotel, Dar Es Salaam. The free breakfast was worth its weight in gold that morning. Large selection and everything tasted great.
My brother Albert, Dad, and Grandpa.
After arriving in camp, its like all worries disappear. Felt great. Here are a few pics of camp situated on the banks of the Ruaha River.
A view of camp from the river.
Me and my brother's tent.
The table where we ate breakfast and dinner everyday.
A view inside the tent. Shower and toilet attached in the back. These beds are right up there with my tempurpedic at home. Very comfortable and sturdy.
the shower was such a welcome sight after a full day of hunting. Hot water was added every night and morning.
The kitchen and the man behind the marvelousness, Moses.
This guy is a champ. Everything we ate was downright delicious. I figured our game meat would have some game taste to it, but I was dead wrong. It tasted as good or better than any steak or other meat I've ordered in various fancy restaurants. Just amazing, night after night.
One of the few days we actually had lunch in camp. I believe these were zebra filets.
The actual hunt begins... The photos aren't necessarily in chronological order, but pretty close. Also remember I am the guy behind the still camera, but also hunting as well. Lots of the good stuff we captured on video. I've got about 40 hours of footage to edit down. I plan on sharing and posting everything here once I am done with that. Any ways here are some of the shots I took. I'm not much of a writer, so I'll keep it pretty simple and to the point. The animals with more of a story to them will come later in the report.
Sunrise on the Ruaha
Finding a nice large lion track. We hung bait at this site, and would have some action in the couple of days at this spot.
First animal to fall. Lichtenstein's Hartebeest. (please note, I am not a big smiler. So this right here is about a 7.5 on the smile scale for me)
My Dad's Impala
The bonus hippo. We were ambushing hippo one morning, when this old girl came out of her bed. She was pulling herself along by her chin because of the snare you see on her leg. I think we did the right thing taking her out. We proceeded to use her for lion, leopard, and croc bait.
The storks and vultures took care of the rest.
A very nice impala. Kill shot on video as well.
A decent warthog. We saw dozens everyday, almost all females and young ones. This was about the best one we saw, so we had to plan him a trip to the states.
My dad and his bushbuck. This was one of the animals that was high on his list as well. Very excited when we walked up and saw he was a very fine trophy.
Another great day in the Selous. No photoshop or tweaking here. All the smoke in the air from the burns made for this dramatic sunset.
My zebra. Damn these things are alert. 99% of the time all you see are asses and dust. This one was ambushed by pure luck really. Saw a young one in the road up ahead that cut thru some thick brush. Sat and waited for the rest to filter thru, once I heard "that one" I let it go and it piled up about 30 yards away. Kill shot on video.
A nice hyena, this was one of those extras I was hoping to take on the trip.
Hippo
Hippos were everywhere on the river. We would see hundreds daily. So we kind of kept the hippo in our back pocket for some fun later on in the hunt. Especially if we ended up needed bait quickly, we could always count on a hippo. So one day we decide its time. We had noticed a pod of hippos just down river from the area we had hung the first leopard bait. We had also seen some large crocs in the area, so the plan was find a nice male. Come early in the morning, pop him, chop him up and leave the rest for croc bait. Easy enough... So we find a big old male late that evening. Knowing I wanted to get good photos and we might be cutting it close time wise knowing it would be a mission in itself to pull him out of the river. So we planned to come back nice and early the next day. Oh this also entailed crossing about half way across the river to a sand bar to take the shot. A little nerve racking to cross a river waist high in water where hippos abound and where the big crocs we wanted to shoot pass as well... We ended up crossing the river about 10 times by the end of the hunt, after the first time it was no big deal. I figure hey, it will be a great story to tell the grand kids. Even though I knew it was unlikely, I just told me brother each time "just keep the camera rolling, you never know haha"
Ok so any ways, we find the pod just at first light. The big boy is smack in the middle. Once again I was backing up my dad. He was now on the .375 and I was on the .416 with open sights (explanation later on in the report), once we both are 100% we are on the correct hippo, he lets it fly. It hits the water about 4" low (we figured the reason why later as well) but enough to get decent penetration because he started spewing blood and thrashing around like crazy. I didn't have time to shoot until about 10 seconds later when he emerged for a split second. I let one fly and again just a little low, but a good hit. We see a lot of blood coming up and a lot of commotion underwater. No shot for another 20 seconds or so, then all of a sudden he takes off full speed down river. All I can think of is "if he gets passed this shallow water, we are all screwed" so I put the bead of the .416 about 6" above his balloon knot and let it fly. He drops like a rock and starts to roll. He's still thrashing but I had hit him in the spine so he wasn't going very far after that. At that point Pierre tells me to wade across and get right up to him to finish him. My brother is still recording and the video is pretty funny. I wade out onto some rocks, Pierre tells me "OK that close enough" but for some reason I felt like man vs. beast at that moment and felt the need to get really close. I get to about 10 yards and as far as I can go before going into deep water. I then give him about 4 more right in the coconut each time it presents itself. A few seconds later, he's done and everyone is relieved. It wasn't pretty, and I wish he had died instantly on the first shot, but he didn't and everything else that happened after was pretty exciting. The video is pretty good, can't wait to share it with you guys.
So then the work begins, dragging and rolling this beast to shore was no easy task.
As soon as Sinjore the Masai tracker opened his mouth and smiled and said "kuba sana!" I knew he was going to have some teeth on him.
The photo doesn't do him justice, he had 2x4s for tusks. What an amazing animal. Grandpa had witnessed the whole thing from about 200 yards down river. When he finally caught up with us and saw the hippo all he said was "holy jumpin!" haha
Crocodile
With an excellent hippo off the list, we now focused on the other river dweller, the crocodile... We left a large part of the carcass tied up right on the same sand bank. We had seen large crocs in the area almost every day. We even had a chance at one early in the hunt, but due to some technical difficulties we couldn't make the shot. Which leads me into the short story of how I became known as "Click"
So early in the hunt while hanging leopard bait, Pierre spots a very nice croc just a bit out of the water. Only about 200 yards from where we were parked. He was fairly close to the near bank, so we figured lets give it a shot. The plan worked perfectly, we ended up I'd say 25 yards away in the reeds. Dad is on the sticks with the .416, I use the camera tripod and have a nice rest for the .375, so agree to shoot on 3. So Pierre counts, 1....2.... "wait wait wait" I said, just wasn't steady enough. OK 1....2....wait wait wait, gotta get a better rest. OK now I am ready, at this point is almost kind of funny, but here goes the real deal. 1.....2.....3....BOOOM! I feel myself pull the trigger and I hear the crack of A rifle, just not mine. I had forgot to load a round in the chamber in all the excitement. So all I got was a CLICK... LOL
My dad's shot was off (once again there is a pattern here, and will be explain in the buffalo segment below...) and all we saw was a round skipping across the water hundreds of yards up river, among dozens of hippos to boot. I am busting up laughing cuz I am the only one who knows what happened, plus I am busting up at the thought of my dad's stray bullet killing some other hippo 400 yards up river. You know an hour later seeing one float past camp or something. ha ha ha. So any ways we all had a good laugh at what had happened, a clean miss, and a click... So from then on I was known as Click. I learned my lesson though, checked every few minutes to make sure that round was in the chamber when we were on a stalk.
Any ways... fast forward to later in the hunt. The crocs are feeding on the bait, but no big boys. We check periodically but nothing worth going for. Until one day we spot a couple smaller crocs on the same sand bar about 100 yards down from the old bait (almost gone at this point) As everyone is busy hanging a new leopard bait, I see a nose, a back, and a tail, and the total length is pretty damn long. Pierre and my dad can't see it too well until a few minutes later when he brings out his whole head. Then its on... We creep through the reeds to a point across the river (where we usually waded across to check for hippos). We can only see his nose sticking out but looks good so far. We wait silently at about 100 yards for about 45 minutes. Finally he lifts his head out onto the sand. We can see right away he's got severe overbite and a fat head. Unless he's a freak, his body will match the head and he'd be a nice croc. So 10, 20, 30 minutes go by and he isn't moving, he's probably not coming out any further. So its decided that if he can get a good solid rest he'll take the shot. After a bit of maneuvering the rest is nice and steady, here we go... BOOM. I'm on the camera since I have a better angle, so from the LCD screen I can see it was a good hit and the croc throws his head back and starts to roll. We all jump out and cross the river as quick as possible. We walk up and see a large disturbance in the water... He briefly shows his head again at about 5 yards away. Me and my dad both shoot at the exact same time, he never heard my shot and I never heard his. We both hit him square on the top of the head (we later recovered all 3 bullets, my dads last shot had gone almost straight down his head and the first time we opened his mouth the barnes triple shock was perfectly mushroomed and laying right on top of his tongue!)
So Pierre starts poking around with the sticks to try and figure out where he is. We can see his tail, and a large amount of blood from where his head should be. We figure we will just wait. the trackers arrive, find him right there, and pull him out. Same story as with the hippo, as soon as they get a hold of his tail they say "kuba sana!" and we are all excited as hell. This old boy was 14.5 feet long, missing a foot, and estimated to be about 80 years old.
Got the kill shot, and the good stuff after on video as well. Another excellent trophy to add to the list. My dad was very excited.
Leopard
This was high on my dad's list. After seeing photos of Pierre's clients from 2011, we had high hopes of a nice cat coming home with us. Pierre did not disappoint. He had started pre-baiting days before we arrived, and had one cat on bait, and another possibly on another. Luckily I brought a couple trail cameras with me, Pierre had a few but were on the fritz. We hung a camera that night and had photos of a nice leopard on bait the morning of the 1st day!
You know what comes next. Time to build a blind.
Leopard did not show up that night. We drove around for plains game, and also hung another camera at another bait site about 1.5 hours from camp. Two days later we would have photos of a very large cat on that bait as well. We will call this leopard #2 for story telling sake. So here we are in the 2nd blind that was built.
Leopard #2 was very nice, but so was the first one we had on bait. Being that #2 seemed to have more of a set schedule, we focused on him the next few days. We divided our time up between checking baits, and looking for buffalo and random plains game during the day. After getting leopard #2 on camera at about 7pm for a couple days in a row, we figured we would sit that evening and he was sure to come in.
That night was my brother's turn in the blind, so I stayed with the trackers and grandpa about a km away to listen for a shot. We also happened to have a zebra or hippo leg, can't remember, in the back in case that we needed to refresh a bait. That would end up costing us the shot at this leopard I believe. Come to find out where we were parked, was right in the leopard's path to the bait. Hearing him get closer and closer to the truck in the pitch darkness was something else. Our theory was that his attention went from the bait in the tree to the smell of the bait in the cruiser that night, and after leaving the scene that night we weren't sure if he would change his pattern or not. He continued to show up on the camera. So we sat morning and night for this guy. He was a smart one, it seemed he would show up shortly after we left each night... Pretty amazing to think he was possibly watching us the whole time, waiting for us to leave. Then one morning we check the camera to see this
This lion had climbed the tree and cleaned the bait up completely. So much for leopard #2. His smart ass is still out there somewhere.
No worries, our leopard #1 was back, and now deciding to show up in the daylight! Around 7-8am, and also just before sundown...
A slightly smaller cat than #2, but still large and with beautiful coloring. The plan was made to sit that evening...
We were waiting about a kilometer away in the cruiser, time was passing. It was getting later the leopard's usual dinner time. Then... the boom broke the silence. The game scout yells "good hit!" The game scout cocks his AK-47, the driver jumps in and we race off to the blind. The excitement at that moment in the cruiser was electrifying, get chills just thinking about it. We show up and Pierre, my dad, and brother are all waiting for the backups to arrive. Everyone jumps out with flash lights, guns, and knives ready. We climb up the small platform below the blind, I'm behind a little ways, to let the pros do their job with plenty of space. I see Pierre's barrel mounted light swinging around the dense brush, and I'm getting a little nervous thinking of all the possibilities if this cat wasn't well. All of a sudden I hear the trackers start talking really fast and I hear the best sound in the world... My dad's laugh. He isn't high on the scale of showing emotion, but when I hear him laugh I know its something really good. I knew right then the leopard was dead. Square right under the bait. From being completely tense and nervous, to complete elation. I've never seen my dad so happy as I did that moment. We did not hold back our excitement either as you'll see on the video. After about 20 hours in a blind, some ups and downs, it had all worked out.
Moments after.
Back at camp
That was one of the best nights that I can remember. The pay off of all the hard work, seeing my dad so damn happy and excited, the relief of one of the main animals in the salt.
My dad tells me "I'm done hunting leopard Bobby, that was everything I could ever want." Which in turn made me very happy to hear, not only because it was so fulfilling to him, but also I could focus on my own leopard on future hunts haha.
Needless to say, we drank some scotch, and fell asleep smiling that night.
Side note: I have a new respect for those who sit in blinds for hours on end, day after day after day. It is not easy, and downright torture at times. Me and my brother took turns on the camera, and it still was not easy. One night we sat until 10pm, got back to camp and ate at almost midnight, then left again at 3 to sit that morning until about 8am...
Areas: R2 Block, Selous Game Reserve
Travel Agent: Steve Turner www.travelwithguns.com
Operator: Pierre van Tonder http://www.pvt.co.za/
PH: Pierre van Tonder
Rifles: CZ/AHR .416 Rigby, Whitworth Mauser .375 H&H
Optics: Swarovski Z6i 1-6x24 (until the Talley rings failed... story later on in the report), Leupold 1.5-5x20 (conetrol rings and bases)
Ammo: North Fork 370 gr solids and softs in the .416, Barnes 300 gr Solids and Triple Shocks in the .375
Hunt History and Overview
Traditionally me and my male family members take hunting trips every year together. Most of them around the western US states. The crew is usually myself, my brother Albert, my Dad (Bob), and my grandpa Gene. Grandpa is 85, but can usually keep up with us. Even if he can't he loves to be around camp, and just be a part of the experience. So early 2011, I figured he wasn't getting any younger and we should do something big before he isn't able to come with us anymore. So being that me and my dad have always dreamed of going to Africa, I figured all four of us should go and hunt some of the big stuff and just go all out for what might be one of the last big hunts we could all do together. My dad had been to Zimbabwe in 1988 to hunt plains game, but he's always dreamed of hunting dangerous game. Giving me books on Africa to read ever since I can remember. Explorations of the Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia was one of the first that I can recall.
It started out as maybe a leopard and buffalo hunt, then after crunching numbers maybe go for elephant as well. First thoughts were Zimbabwe, always thinking Tanzania was out of our league. Then after doing the math and looking at what could be hunted, it just made more sense to go big and just do a 21-day hunt in Tanzania. Like I said before, I wanted to make this as big as an adventure as I could for us, so I figured what the hell it's only money. Mike Podwika (reetrever) suggested I look into Pierre van Tonder http://www.pvt.co.za/ and what he could offer in Tanzania. I knew he had a couple great hunts, and I knew results would vary but I liked Pierre's attitude and the fact that he didn't seem to nickel and dime you at every turn. After researching other companies, and calling and emailing dozens of references, it was time to make a decision and pull the trigger. Sent the deposit, went to my parent's house that night and told my dad "Hey we are going to Tanzania, so you better start getting ready." The hunt was setup for my dad to have the full 21 day license, I would be his backup with the .375 and also shoot some plains game if time permitted. My brother Albert would run the video camera, and grandpa would come along for the ride and take notes of all of our activities as he normally does on our trips. Me and him both love to document everything, must be the German in us lol. Went to see my grandparents and dropped the news on him as well. At first he couldn't really comprehend how we were going from hunting antelope in Wyoming to hunting elephant in Tanzania, but he quickly realized it was really going to happen and got pretty excited. My grandmother kept telling me "You know grandpa doesn't really like to talk about things he's going to do until he actually does them, but he can't stop talking about Africa to everyone!" They live in a small town called Clarksburg (a few miles south of Sacramento) and of course he's known by everyone in town. He used to work for the local gas company, and once retired he was the guy people called up if they needed something fixed at their house, so needless to say he was friends with 99% of the surrounding community. I think everyone was really excited for Gene and his big trip to Africa.
Travel
Once again thru suggestions from other hunters online, I found Steve Turner (www.travelwithguns.com), and started talking to him about my plans. He responded to me within an hour or two with a detailed response and options for me. Right away I knew he was the right choice. After going over options and looking into the paperwork required, etc... I figured we would go the usual KLM route thru Amsterdam and just hope for the best. I hadn't booked anything yet, and I get an email from Steve saying I should consider going thru Istanbul. The layover was originally very tight, and didn't sit too well. Then after thinking about it, and getting some more info from Steve, it seemed like the perfect choice as long as we stayed a couple nights in Istanbul before going onto Dar. It made perfect sense to me: Stop over for a coupe nights in a city that we would like to see any ways, also being that it was in the same time zone as Tanzania, we could get a jump on getting over the jet lag and time change. Turkish Airlines was also offering comfort class seating, which seemed very reasonably priced. (it ended up being worth every penny BTW) Steve would arrange rifle storage with a rep from Shikar Safaris (http://www.shikarsafaris.com/) who also offered transportation to and from the airport as well as tour of the city if we wanted. I decided just to have them store the rifles, we would probably be jet lagged so I didn't want to commit to any touring of the city.
Fast forward to July 8th 2012... The three of us arrive in Istanbul, no problems. Turkish Airlines seems firearms friendly and the people we dealt with at LAX were quite pleasant. My brother Albert's flight would arrive about 10 minutes before ours. He was coming from Madrid. He lives in Spain (where I was born and my mother's family is all from) about half of the year, where he runs track and holds hands with his girlfriend. He was waiting for us at the exit along with the rep from Shikar. We take a stroll to the police station, 20 minutes, some paperwork, and a few handshakes later we are done and on our way. The president or manager of Shikar Safaris arrives at the airport and talks with us for a bit, he then offers to have one of his guys show us around the city at no cost at all. We say sure, what the heck, it would be almost rude to refuse this offer. We make a plan for the next day, and we are off to our hotel. Our hotel was the Sirkeci Konak, http://www.sirkecikonak.com/, a hotel I booked directly after reading reviews on Trip Advisor (which I use for about 99% of my travel choices and hasn't failed me once) Its a nice small hotel in a great area of the city. Walking distance from all the top attractions. Not to mention its restaurant comes highly recommended as well as its sister restaurants. They did not disappoint, amazing food as reasonable pricing. The tours were great, even though they were considered "on the house" I tipped the guide a decent stack because I was very appreciative of what they did for us. The day came to fly onto Dar so the airport rep, Shenol, was at our hotel right on time to take us to catch our flight. We had a few extra hours to kill so he took us to a great restaurant, and to have some tea in an amazing cafe overlooking the city and the water. Needless to say Shikar Safaris is top notch in my book, and I'll be looking to them if hunting the area in the future. We caught our flight and rifles arrived in Dar with no problems. What a relief to see those cases brought out and all luggage arriving. We went onto the Sea Cliff and checked in at about 4:45 AM, we checked out at 6AM, showered and grabbed breakfast. Needless to say, most expensive shower I ever took ha ha. At that point it didn't matter, the fun would now begin...
Here are a few photos before we entered the bush
Comfort Class on Turkish Airlines. Highly recommended! Lots of leg room, seats were nice and wide. I'm 6'2" 190 lbs and my dad is 6' and about 230, both of us were very comfortable and had lots of leg room to spare. Also had USB and electrical outlets for laptop, as well as wi-fi. Food was excellent. Made a 13 hour flight go by with the quickness. Seats reclined a good bit and they had a foot rest that flipped up. If I were to change one thing I would recommend the footrest be able to be lifted higher, for better chances at getting a comfortable sleeping position.
The Sirkeci Konak Hotel
The Sea Cliff Hotel, Dar Es Salaam. The free breakfast was worth its weight in gold that morning. Large selection and everything tasted great.
My brother Albert, Dad, and Grandpa.
After arriving in camp, its like all worries disappear. Felt great. Here are a few pics of camp situated on the banks of the Ruaha River.
A view of camp from the river.
Me and my brother's tent.
The table where we ate breakfast and dinner everyday.
A view inside the tent. Shower and toilet attached in the back. These beds are right up there with my tempurpedic at home. Very comfortable and sturdy.
the shower was such a welcome sight after a full day of hunting. Hot water was added every night and morning.
The kitchen and the man behind the marvelousness, Moses.
This guy is a champ. Everything we ate was downright delicious. I figured our game meat would have some game taste to it, but I was dead wrong. It tasted as good or better than any steak or other meat I've ordered in various fancy restaurants. Just amazing, night after night.
One of the few days we actually had lunch in camp. I believe these were zebra filets.
The actual hunt begins... The photos aren't necessarily in chronological order, but pretty close. Also remember I am the guy behind the still camera, but also hunting as well. Lots of the good stuff we captured on video. I've got about 40 hours of footage to edit down. I plan on sharing and posting everything here once I am done with that. Any ways here are some of the shots I took. I'm not much of a writer, so I'll keep it pretty simple and to the point. The animals with more of a story to them will come later in the report.
Sunrise on the Ruaha
Finding a nice large lion track. We hung bait at this site, and would have some action in the couple of days at this spot.
First animal to fall. Lichtenstein's Hartebeest. (please note, I am not a big smiler. So this right here is about a 7.5 on the smile scale for me)
My Dad's Impala
The bonus hippo. We were ambushing hippo one morning, when this old girl came out of her bed. She was pulling herself along by her chin because of the snare you see on her leg. I think we did the right thing taking her out. We proceeded to use her for lion, leopard, and croc bait.
The storks and vultures took care of the rest.
A very nice impala. Kill shot on video as well.
A decent warthog. We saw dozens everyday, almost all females and young ones. This was about the best one we saw, so we had to plan him a trip to the states.
My dad and his bushbuck. This was one of the animals that was high on his list as well. Very excited when we walked up and saw he was a very fine trophy.
Another great day in the Selous. No photoshop or tweaking here. All the smoke in the air from the burns made for this dramatic sunset.
My zebra. Damn these things are alert. 99% of the time all you see are asses and dust. This one was ambushed by pure luck really. Saw a young one in the road up ahead that cut thru some thick brush. Sat and waited for the rest to filter thru, once I heard "that one" I let it go and it piled up about 30 yards away. Kill shot on video.
A nice hyena, this was one of those extras I was hoping to take on the trip.
Hippo
Hippos were everywhere on the river. We would see hundreds daily. So we kind of kept the hippo in our back pocket for some fun later on in the hunt. Especially if we ended up needed bait quickly, we could always count on a hippo. So one day we decide its time. We had noticed a pod of hippos just down river from the area we had hung the first leopard bait. We had also seen some large crocs in the area, so the plan was find a nice male. Come early in the morning, pop him, chop him up and leave the rest for croc bait. Easy enough... So we find a big old male late that evening. Knowing I wanted to get good photos and we might be cutting it close time wise knowing it would be a mission in itself to pull him out of the river. So we planned to come back nice and early the next day. Oh this also entailed crossing about half way across the river to a sand bar to take the shot. A little nerve racking to cross a river waist high in water where hippos abound and where the big crocs we wanted to shoot pass as well... We ended up crossing the river about 10 times by the end of the hunt, after the first time it was no big deal. I figure hey, it will be a great story to tell the grand kids. Even though I knew it was unlikely, I just told me brother each time "just keep the camera rolling, you never know haha"
Ok so any ways, we find the pod just at first light. The big boy is smack in the middle. Once again I was backing up my dad. He was now on the .375 and I was on the .416 with open sights (explanation later on in the report), once we both are 100% we are on the correct hippo, he lets it fly. It hits the water about 4" low (we figured the reason why later as well) but enough to get decent penetration because he started spewing blood and thrashing around like crazy. I didn't have time to shoot until about 10 seconds later when he emerged for a split second. I let one fly and again just a little low, but a good hit. We see a lot of blood coming up and a lot of commotion underwater. No shot for another 20 seconds or so, then all of a sudden he takes off full speed down river. All I can think of is "if he gets passed this shallow water, we are all screwed" so I put the bead of the .416 about 6" above his balloon knot and let it fly. He drops like a rock and starts to roll. He's still thrashing but I had hit him in the spine so he wasn't going very far after that. At that point Pierre tells me to wade across and get right up to him to finish him. My brother is still recording and the video is pretty funny. I wade out onto some rocks, Pierre tells me "OK that close enough" but for some reason I felt like man vs. beast at that moment and felt the need to get really close. I get to about 10 yards and as far as I can go before going into deep water. I then give him about 4 more right in the coconut each time it presents itself. A few seconds later, he's done and everyone is relieved. It wasn't pretty, and I wish he had died instantly on the first shot, but he didn't and everything else that happened after was pretty exciting. The video is pretty good, can't wait to share it with you guys.
So then the work begins, dragging and rolling this beast to shore was no easy task.
As soon as Sinjore the Masai tracker opened his mouth and smiled and said "kuba sana!" I knew he was going to have some teeth on him.
The photo doesn't do him justice, he had 2x4s for tusks. What an amazing animal. Grandpa had witnessed the whole thing from about 200 yards down river. When he finally caught up with us and saw the hippo all he said was "holy jumpin!" haha
Crocodile
With an excellent hippo off the list, we now focused on the other river dweller, the crocodile... We left a large part of the carcass tied up right on the same sand bank. We had seen large crocs in the area almost every day. We even had a chance at one early in the hunt, but due to some technical difficulties we couldn't make the shot. Which leads me into the short story of how I became known as "Click"
So early in the hunt while hanging leopard bait, Pierre spots a very nice croc just a bit out of the water. Only about 200 yards from where we were parked. He was fairly close to the near bank, so we figured lets give it a shot. The plan worked perfectly, we ended up I'd say 25 yards away in the reeds. Dad is on the sticks with the .416, I use the camera tripod and have a nice rest for the .375, so agree to shoot on 3. So Pierre counts, 1....2.... "wait wait wait" I said, just wasn't steady enough. OK 1....2....wait wait wait, gotta get a better rest. OK now I am ready, at this point is almost kind of funny, but here goes the real deal. 1.....2.....3....BOOOM! I feel myself pull the trigger and I hear the crack of A rifle, just not mine. I had forgot to load a round in the chamber in all the excitement. So all I got was a CLICK... LOL
My dad's shot was off (once again there is a pattern here, and will be explain in the buffalo segment below...) and all we saw was a round skipping across the water hundreds of yards up river, among dozens of hippos to boot. I am busting up laughing cuz I am the only one who knows what happened, plus I am busting up at the thought of my dad's stray bullet killing some other hippo 400 yards up river. You know an hour later seeing one float past camp or something. ha ha ha. So any ways we all had a good laugh at what had happened, a clean miss, and a click... So from then on I was known as Click. I learned my lesson though, checked every few minutes to make sure that round was in the chamber when we were on a stalk.
Any ways... fast forward to later in the hunt. The crocs are feeding on the bait, but no big boys. We check periodically but nothing worth going for. Until one day we spot a couple smaller crocs on the same sand bar about 100 yards down from the old bait (almost gone at this point) As everyone is busy hanging a new leopard bait, I see a nose, a back, and a tail, and the total length is pretty damn long. Pierre and my dad can't see it too well until a few minutes later when he brings out his whole head. Then its on... We creep through the reeds to a point across the river (where we usually waded across to check for hippos). We can only see his nose sticking out but looks good so far. We wait silently at about 100 yards for about 45 minutes. Finally he lifts his head out onto the sand. We can see right away he's got severe overbite and a fat head. Unless he's a freak, his body will match the head and he'd be a nice croc. So 10, 20, 30 minutes go by and he isn't moving, he's probably not coming out any further. So its decided that if he can get a good solid rest he'll take the shot. After a bit of maneuvering the rest is nice and steady, here we go... BOOM. I'm on the camera since I have a better angle, so from the LCD screen I can see it was a good hit and the croc throws his head back and starts to roll. We all jump out and cross the river as quick as possible. We walk up and see a large disturbance in the water... He briefly shows his head again at about 5 yards away. Me and my dad both shoot at the exact same time, he never heard my shot and I never heard his. We both hit him square on the top of the head (we later recovered all 3 bullets, my dads last shot had gone almost straight down his head and the first time we opened his mouth the barnes triple shock was perfectly mushroomed and laying right on top of his tongue!)
So Pierre starts poking around with the sticks to try and figure out where he is. We can see his tail, and a large amount of blood from where his head should be. We figure we will just wait. the trackers arrive, find him right there, and pull him out. Same story as with the hippo, as soon as they get a hold of his tail they say "kuba sana!" and we are all excited as hell. This old boy was 14.5 feet long, missing a foot, and estimated to be about 80 years old.
Got the kill shot, and the good stuff after on video as well. Another excellent trophy to add to the list. My dad was very excited.
Leopard
This was high on my dad's list. After seeing photos of Pierre's clients from 2011, we had high hopes of a nice cat coming home with us. Pierre did not disappoint. He had started pre-baiting days before we arrived, and had one cat on bait, and another possibly on another. Luckily I brought a couple trail cameras with me, Pierre had a few but were on the fritz. We hung a camera that night and had photos of a nice leopard on bait the morning of the 1st day!
You know what comes next. Time to build a blind.
Leopard did not show up that night. We drove around for plains game, and also hung another camera at another bait site about 1.5 hours from camp. Two days later we would have photos of a very large cat on that bait as well. We will call this leopard #2 for story telling sake. So here we are in the 2nd blind that was built.
Leopard #2 was very nice, but so was the first one we had on bait. Being that #2 seemed to have more of a set schedule, we focused on him the next few days. We divided our time up between checking baits, and looking for buffalo and random plains game during the day. After getting leopard #2 on camera at about 7pm for a couple days in a row, we figured we would sit that evening and he was sure to come in.
That night was my brother's turn in the blind, so I stayed with the trackers and grandpa about a km away to listen for a shot. We also happened to have a zebra or hippo leg, can't remember, in the back in case that we needed to refresh a bait. That would end up costing us the shot at this leopard I believe. Come to find out where we were parked, was right in the leopard's path to the bait. Hearing him get closer and closer to the truck in the pitch darkness was something else. Our theory was that his attention went from the bait in the tree to the smell of the bait in the cruiser that night, and after leaving the scene that night we weren't sure if he would change his pattern or not. He continued to show up on the camera. So we sat morning and night for this guy. He was a smart one, it seemed he would show up shortly after we left each night... Pretty amazing to think he was possibly watching us the whole time, waiting for us to leave. Then one morning we check the camera to see this
This lion had climbed the tree and cleaned the bait up completely. So much for leopard #2. His smart ass is still out there somewhere.
No worries, our leopard #1 was back, and now deciding to show up in the daylight! Around 7-8am, and also just before sundown...
A slightly smaller cat than #2, but still large and with beautiful coloring. The plan was made to sit that evening...
We were waiting about a kilometer away in the cruiser, time was passing. It was getting later the leopard's usual dinner time. Then... the boom broke the silence. The game scout yells "good hit!" The game scout cocks his AK-47, the driver jumps in and we race off to the blind. The excitement at that moment in the cruiser was electrifying, get chills just thinking about it. We show up and Pierre, my dad, and brother are all waiting for the backups to arrive. Everyone jumps out with flash lights, guns, and knives ready. We climb up the small platform below the blind, I'm behind a little ways, to let the pros do their job with plenty of space. I see Pierre's barrel mounted light swinging around the dense brush, and I'm getting a little nervous thinking of all the possibilities if this cat wasn't well. All of a sudden I hear the trackers start talking really fast and I hear the best sound in the world... My dad's laugh. He isn't high on the scale of showing emotion, but when I hear him laugh I know its something really good. I knew right then the leopard was dead. Square right under the bait. From being completely tense and nervous, to complete elation. I've never seen my dad so happy as I did that moment. We did not hold back our excitement either as you'll see on the video. After about 20 hours in a blind, some ups and downs, it had all worked out.
Moments after.
Back at camp
That was one of the best nights that I can remember. The pay off of all the hard work, seeing my dad so damn happy and excited, the relief of one of the main animals in the salt.
My dad tells me "I'm done hunting leopard Bobby, that was everything I could ever want." Which in turn made me very happy to hear, not only because it was so fulfilling to him, but also I could focus on my own leopard on future hunts haha.
Needless to say, we drank some scotch, and fell asleep smiling that night.
Side note: I have a new respect for those who sit in blinds for hours on end, day after day after day. It is not easy, and downright torture at times. Me and my brother took turns on the camera, and it still was not easy. One night we sat until 10pm, got back to camp and ate at almost midnight, then left again at 3 to sit that morning until about 8am...
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