Kiss of Death

When neither Byron or I are lucky enough to draw Nevada big game tags ourselves, we are more than happy to sign on to assist the more fortunate applicants in hunting their big game. Over the past several years we've had no difficulty finding willing successful elk applicants who want some inside information in finding elk. Since 2003 we've hunted areas 22 and 23 almost every year, and in the process have gained some valuable education about those areas and their hot spots.

In 2007 we were fortunate to have three separate acquaintances who drew area 22 elk tags. One was Jed Topham, a Henderson veterinarian from northern Utah, whose father and brother were and are Utah Division conservation officers. His father, Jack Topham, was with me when I shot my 2008 antelope in Utah. The second was the wife of a buddy, John Hymas, Becky Hymas. The final was Mike O'neal, who is good friends with Tracy Truman.

Jed, Jack and Jed's brother, Jay had been hunting in 22 for about a week by the time Slim and I were able to get away from work and get up to their camp near the base of Grafton Peak 60 miles north of Pioche. When we arrived at Jed's trailer, which was parked on the side of highway 93 in the northern reaches of the unit, late on Friday afternoon Jed, Jack and Jay were gone hunting (we later found out) on the face of the mountain near Patterson Pass. Slim and I took the opportunity to go out on our own and scout for bulls in other areas.

This was the first year that the BLM was enforcing their wilderness area restrictions for much of the area. We drove up as close as we could to the base of Grafton Peak before we were impeded by barricades designating vehicle restrictions in the newly-formed wilderness area. Since it was getting late in the day, we opted to forego hiking for the day and instead glassed the surrounding hillsides and ledges for potential shooter bulls.

Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while, and that afternoon the adage ran true. I was able to locate a fairly nice 6 point bull feeding about 2 miles away on a steep hillside. There were a couple of smaller bulls in the same general area, but they did not seem to be the quality of the 6 point we were focused on.

When we finally met up with Jed and his group at Jed's trailer that evening, we described the bull and showed him the video of it we had akwardly taken by holding my video camera to the spotting scope. All were impressed with the bull and wanted to try for him in the morning.

The following morning, we parked at the wilderness barricade and hiked in to a higher vantage point to begin glassing. Slim and I located a couple of bulls high up in the basin almost immediately. There were other bulls that we eventually discovered, but the two up high appeared to be easily superior. Jay had brought horses for the group to use and he and Jed took off on the horses toward these two bulls. Slim, Jack and I were in the cat bird seat watching the thing unwind. As we would later discover, we were about 2 miles from the action - the distance was deceptively far because of our use of the spotting scopes and the undulating terrain between us and the elk. Even though Jay and Jed were on the horses in the bottom of the draw and moving steadily toward the elk, it still took them the better part of three hours to get any where near the bulls. We could see the elk intermittently, but were never able to see Jed and Jay. We were able to communicate with them on the radio sporadically, but only when they were on the top of the ridge. They were on their own to find the bulls.

After three and a half hours or so we heard some very distant shots. They seemed so remote that we couldn't fathom they were Jed's. Several minutes later Jay's voice came over the radio informing us that Jed had killed the five point bull. Slim and I began the death march in to the area to assist with recovery of the bull. Jack returned to the trucks to get another horse. It took us several hours to get to the downed bull, which was on a ridiculously steep and completely burned hillside. We could barely field dress and cape the bull, because every time we'd turn it, it would want to slide downhill. We ended up simply quartering the bull and hauling the quarters to the bottom of the burned hill where they were prepared to load on the waiting horses. Jack is a taxidermist, and was able to cape the head once we had carried it off the hill.

The bull turned out to be a big five point. Jed was thrilled with it. I later green scored it at 305, which I didn't think was shabby for a five point.

A week later, we were back in the area, but about 10 miles west of Grafton Peak to help three more lucky applicants in their endeavors. This time it was Mike O'neal and Becky Hymas (wife of John Hymas - and yes, she really was going to shoot the bull herself).

Hymas had been hunting hard for weeks and had seen plenty of elk, but had yet to get on a decent bull. The first morning Slim and I were there, we took Mike and hunted a separate area from Hymas. We spotted a few small bulls that morning before deciding to, as I like to say, "put the boots to it." It appeared there was a nice draw at the top of a huge ravine that we were unable to see from the truck. Our suspicions were confirmed after we had hiked the ridge for about a mile above the truck.

Slim and I had set up to glass and couldn't see all of the sagebrush flat directly below us. Mike walked up a bit further before we heard him ask, somewhat frantically, over the radio,"which of those two bulls is the biggest?" Not being able to see any bulls, we were at a loss. We hurriedly changed position and then were able to see two very nice bulls feeding in the sagebrush draw below us. It was clear the closer was the better of the two, but Mike was disagreeing over the radio. Surprisingly, the bulls must have heard the radio chatter even at 447 yards (confirmed later as the distance to the closer bull). They began moving away and soon were out of even "hail Mary" shooting distance.

We watched them steadily move up the draw and into some think pinion/juniper trees. It appeared they intended to bed down for the day. Once we had time to look them over completely in the spotting scope it was clear one was a nice 5 point (better than Jed's) and the other a tremendous six point. I guessed him at 370.

Well, the best laid plans of mice and men . . . we decided they would bed there for the day, feed the night in the basin and we could get back on them in the morning. Don't disturb them we thought, let them be, push them now and they'll be gone. We didn't even try to hunt them in the evening.

Next morning, the strategy had been thought out, planned, discussed, reassessed, analyzed. In our minds we'd already won the duel with these bulls. All were deciding where either Mike or Becky was going to hang that magnificent trophy. In fact, we were presumptuous enough to think we might get both of these bulls! That was until about 20 minutes after Slim and I had hiked in the pre-dawn darkness and set up to glass. That's about the time Slim's voice came over the radio and asked me in the most nonchalant fashion, "you see those elk quarters hanging in the tree on that ridge?" OH THE LUCK! In our enthusiasm and stratagem, we had unintentionally pushed the bulls onto a ridge and in view of a couple of guides out of Pioche with a client from Texas. Sure enough, the bigger bull came in right at 370"!

We talked to the lucky trio while they were unloading the horses at about 10 in the morning (they'd slept in of course) to ride in and get the meat out. They were not appreciative, and really didn't even recognize our role in their success. We were left with the grainy pictures posted here which we were able to finagle with my small digital camera jury-rigged to my spotting scope.

I keep telling everyone that hunts with me about my luck (or lack thereof). I'm the kiss of death. Despite all evidence, people never learn to stay away!

1/4 Slam

I'd like to fancy myself among the ranks of the extreme sheep hunters of the world. You know, guys that years ago passed the laudable goal of collecting North America's "grand slam" of big horn sheep and have moved on toward collecting more exotic sheep around the world, like Northern Asia's Marco Polo, the various urals of the middle east and the capra species that dot the far reaches of almost every continent. I'd like to consider myself as equal to those hunters, but I can't. I'm not saying I couldn't learn to push myself beyond the limits of human physical capacity like those guys do, to risk life and limb for in the pursuit of sharp-eyed game that is infinitely more well equipped to be climbing among the cliffs, shale rock and unsure scree fields of the highest elevations. I don't place myself in those ranks because I at least understand that membership in that fraternity is earned through the experience of doing and the actual proof that one has the fortitude and mental toughness to actually play that demanding and dangerous game. I don't consider my limited experience with sheep hunting to yet be sufficient for me, in any fashion, to attempt any claim to a part of sheep hunting's elite.

Tracy Truman, who I met in 1993, is a sheep hunting fanatic. He is a certified 3/4 slammer, which means he has collected three of the four required sheep to compete his North American Grand Slam. Tracy has the desert bighorn, the dall, the stone and only lacks the rocky mountain bighorn to complete that feat.

In 2005 a contact of Tracy's presented him with an opportunity to hunt dall sheep in the Chugath Range of southwestern Alaska. Since there were two spots available, Tracy invited me to come along as a second hunter. Though I've since assisted with one successful desert bighorn hunt, this was to be my first experience with hunting any of North America's sheep.

Tracy and I traveled to Anchorage around the August 20th season opener. Our understanding of the plan, as explained by the broker, was for each of us to be hunting with separate guides in different areas, one of whom was the bush plane pilot. Unfortunately, we quickly realized that the main outfitter and pilot was much more interested in flying the plane around, looking at game and getting home to hang out in the evenings with his truck driving girlfriend, destructive dogs and hairless ferret than getting dirty hunting sheep.

The pilot's lack of enthusiam was initially irrelevant, because the weather was not cooperating - the low hanging clouds and drizzle were keeping us out of the super cub bush plane. Those conditions always make bush flying infeasible and prohibitively dangerous. Good bush pilots universally refuse to fly in those conditions regardless of the effect on potential success of the hunt. Because the only viable method of accessing most prime hunting areas is via bush plane, weather watching is an integral part of Alaskan hunting.
We ended up spending one night on the barren floor of Rich Moran's (the quide) new apartment. Dee (the pilot and would be hunting guide) was able to get Rich and I out on the third day from the Palmer, Alaska airport about 35 miles into the Chugath Range. Actually, he got Rich into a small line cabin about 10 miles below a rock bowl where Rich and Dee had seen a dall ram from the air several days before. By the time Dee got back to Palmer to pick me up and fly me in to meet Rich, the weather was socking in again. It was touch and go whether or not we would be able to land on the tundra next to the line shack. In fact, Dee and I circled blindly for several minutes over the area where Dee knew the line shack was, while Rich called on the radio from the ground trying to convince Dee that it was safe to bust blindly through the clouds and land under the 200 foot ceiling. Dee seriously contemplated aborting the attempt and returning to Palmer for the night, but we found a hole in the clouds and were able to snake through for a landing.

Rich and I stayed the night in a community line shack which had long ago been pulled into the area during the winter with a snow cat. Over the years scores of hunters had bivouaced at the shack and when passing through had left a veritable smorgasbord of preserved food stuffs and reading materials. I commandeered a Louis L'Amour for the trip and grabbed a package of albacore tuna on the trip out to supplement the Mountain House freeze dried I had been eating for several days.

The next morning Rich and I shouldered our packs, which contained sufficient supplies for 5 days afield, and headed up the drainage. The tussock we pretty bad, but the trip in was manageable. We were in to a camping area in about 5 hours and we were barely able to get camp set up before the impending rain started in. The weather didn't let up all afternoon or through the night. I was glad to have my ill-gotten Louis L'Amour so that lying side-by-side in a small pup tent for 24 hours was bearable. It was midday the following when we finally were able to head up the far side of the drainage for a vantage point to glass back over to where the sheep had been spotted. Once up, we spotted the sheep right where we expected it to be. With the long Alaskan days, we had enough daylight left to tackle an attempt to head through the valley and up the far slope for a closer look. The climbing on the sheep side of the valley was much more challenging than the side from which we had glassed. It was primarily rocky cliffs with loose shale and deep stream gorges.

We were able to get within 200 yards of the sheep and spent nearly two hours glassing the him while he alternated between lying in the rocks and feeding on the sparse grass shoots which protrude sporadically from the scree. Neither of us could decide whether the ram was a shooter or not, he'd turn one way and it would appear his horn dropped low (meaning a larger ram) and another way, it would appear he did not have the length. Since it was early in the hunt, we decided to leave him and look for something that was more obviously a keeper.

Sheep was between the thin snow line and snow covered mountain

The next morning we headed up an adjacent drainage and over a saddle to the next valley. One thing a new Alaskan hunter quickly learns is that distance is relative. Typically, what looks to be a mile is five. We spent all day getting onto this saddle and glassing the opposite valley. There were several small caribou and one lone dall ewe on the far side of the valley (about 8 miles), but nothing else. We were unable to locate anything either in that valley or in the one in which we were camped.

A couple of satellite calls to Tracy's cell revealed not only that Tracy was still in Anchorage staying miserably with hairless ferret and truck driving girlfriend, but also made it painfully obvious that Dee had no intention of going hunting. Until I was done and Rich available to hunt with Tracy, Tracy would not be able to step foot in sheep habitat in a trip he had arranged. He was getting a bunch of time in the super cub (which is an incredible experience in itself), but had yet to go hunting. He was definitely going stir-crazy. These factors, along with the paucity of sheep, made my decision to go after the initial ram fairly easy.

Rich and I hotfooted it (to the extent one can in this terrain) down the drainage, past the tent and up the far cliff and scree fields. With the use of spotting scope, we were able to confirm from the far drainage, many miles away, that the sheep was still there. He was feeding in the scree fields in a series of small 40 foot hills set close together like the ridges on a giant potato chip. The ridges are made through the decades by the progression and retreat of the ice glacier, which pushes loose rock in front of it and deposits it in long, cigar-shaped hills as it warms and retreats. These structures are call "glacial drumlins."

We knew the sheep was in these drumlins, but had no idea which one he was in. Consequently, we would move cautiously to the top of each one and peer over slowly. We'd done this several times before Rich finally peeked his head over one, and could see him two over. He was about 60 yards, and Rich told me initially to peek over and shoot him. Then, on second thought, he asked whether I wanted to get into bow shooting range. We decided to give our advance one more ridge. When we peeked over that one we were 18 yards. Rich said, "hold up let me look at him again." As Rich took that last look the sheep saw him and took off on a dead run, I shot him on the run at about 60 yards.

By the time we were done with pictures, skinning, boning and packing the meat, the rain was coming down and it was getting dark. We were about a mile and a half from the tent and uphill in the scree. It was a miserable walk down with a pack full of meat. Rich had the hide, cape and a little meat. I had the remaining meat and my hunting gear.

We ate a quick dinner at the tent and crawled into our bags. We both slept hard, and the morning dawned clear and sunny. There were the old tracks of a super cub landing right by the tent in some year prior, so we called Dee and asked him to attempt a similar maneuver. We didn't relish the thought of the 10 mile hump back to the shack with the added load of sheep. Try as we might, Dee was not willing to attempt a landing there. We ended up spending most of the day trudging back to the line shack. Dee picked us up there in the late afternoon.

I grabbed some silver fishing before leaving for home

Tracy was finally able to get out with Rich, not Dee, the next day. It was my turn to spend time in the messy duplex with the truck driver and ferret. I only made it two days, and as soon as I got my sheep checked in with Alaska Game and Fish, I had Dee take me to Anchorage International for an early trip home.

Before I left Dee and I flew over the area Tracy and Rich were hunting. As we flew over Rich came on the radio telling us to bug out. It was obvious they were eyeing a sheep. It turns out Tracy's perseverance was rewarded with a very old and large ram. I didn't hear about it until I was home.

In any event, I'm a true 1/4 slammer now. Not much to be proud of, but three more and I'll join at least one elite club.

Blue Bag

Safari Club International has a humanitarian program called "SCI Blue Bag." The general idea behind the program is that individual hunters destined for third world countries can take basic medical or other necessities into the country for the natives as checked on baggage. The program derives its name from the over sized blue duffel bags that are used by the hunters for transport of the supplies.

Vomba Clinic

Children at the Clinic
Our local SCI Chapter, The Nevada Desert Chapter, obtained a set of the large duffels and in 2006 I was the first member to take one of the blue bags out of the country. As far as Zimbabwe is concerned, the program is much more suited to communal hunting areas than National Parks areas. The Gokwe area that I hunted in 2006 is one of those communal areas. Communal areas are essentially owned by the local tribes. The local community manages the game within the guidelines and restrictions set by National Parks. Trophy fees and meat from the game shot in those areas belongs to the tribe. Conversely, National Parks areas are directly managed by the Zimbabwean government. Generally, when hunting in a communal area, a hunter will be in and out of small villages and farms daily. As a result, delivery of the Blue Bag humanitarian supplies is easy. While in Zimbabwe in 2008, we hunted the Dande North area which is mainly National Parks with only a bit of Communal land.

Vomba residents posing at Clinic with Blue Bag

Clinic Director explaining the gift to the residents (there was a roaring applause)

Dave Small, our local SCI president was excited to get one of our bags into circulation. He volunteered to shop for and purchase a tremendous amount of over-the-counter medications, first aid supplies, soaps and school supplies. I talked the doctor into giving me prescriptions for huge antibiotics orders, which I filled along with my malaria prophylactic. In total, our bag was completely stuffed and included about 2500 doses of antibiotics. I paid the Delta's extra charge for a third checked bag to get the stuff from Vegas to Africa.


Before I arrived Zim, an apprentice PH had been sent to an area to scout for elephant near a village called Vomba. He and the trackers had located several good bulls there, and so we hunted it (unsuccessfully) three days. In that village there were the remnants of a clinic which, in the absence of any medical supplies, had been transformed into a makeshift community center. Kirk targeted the place immediately when he discovered I had the blue bag to deliver.

Huts in the Vomba village

We finally stopped there on the third trip through and sent the head tracker to look for the "director" of the clinic. The clinic was literally packed with a people from the community who were simply "hanging out," since they had nothing better to do. There were very excited to have the supplies delivered, as it had been quite some time since they had had any medical supplies at all in the clinic. We discovered that the sum total of the prior medical supplies in the clinic amounted to 6 condoms! (to the extent those can be considered medical supplies)

Hanging out at the Clinic

It certainly was a highlight of the trip. There is simply no medical treatment for the rural residents of Zimbabwe, which I suppose accounts for the average life expectancy being 35 years. I'll never know, but I hope our gift made some difference, if only temporary, in the depressed Zimbabwean village.

Wild Dogs

Africa is full of incredibly beautiful animals, but I'd place the wild dog as equal in beauty to most others. They are strictly protected throughout Africa, and seeing one in the bush is extremely rare. While hunting the Gokwe area of Zimbabwe in 2006 my PH, Kirk Mason, and I bumped into a pack of dogs on the road above the Ume River. It was early in the morning, and just barely light, so the pictures are not great. There were about 10 total, but most were off into the bush before I could get photos.

Water Hole Where Kudu Kill Was Found

Interestingly, while checking a nearby waterhole for elephant the evening before we found a kudu calf kill; which, upon examination, Kirk declared to be the work of a pack of wild dogs. It was just about half a mile from there that we saw these dogs.

Wild Dogs

Wild Dog

Wild dogs are reputed to be the most efficient and lethal hunters in Africa. They'll team tag their prey in a footrace until they jointly wear the animal out and are able to pull it to the ground.

Midnight Zambezi Death March With Wrong Buffalo!

I LOVE to hunt buffalo. I was excited to be going into the Zambezi Valley in extreme northern Zimbabwe in June/July, 2008 because the numbers of buffalo in that area competes favorably with the other great buffalo areas in Africa. Though I intended to hunt many other species on this trip, including the aquatics (hippo and croc), I made it clear to my PH that I would be perfectly content in spending 75% of the trip trailing buffalo and ending up with a great bull.

Buffalo in most areas in southern Africa are hunted by driving back roads and looking for areas where herds of buffalo or smaller groups of "dugga boys" have crossed. The trackers then analyze how recently the bulls were on the road, and if it was any time in the last 5 hours, the group leaves the cruiser following the track through whatever terrain the herd transversed until, hopefully, the herd or dugga bulls are caught up to as they shade themselves from the noonday sun in the thick jess.

Working out a tough dugga bull track in the thick grass

We were hunting the Dande North area, and there were plenty of buffalo. In fact, we'd seen groups of 2-3 dugga bulls which we couldn't get on, and huge herds of up to 250 animals. Several times we were close and either shots did not present themselves or we decided the trophy quality was not there. In the thick jess, it's possible to be within 20 yards of animals that can't be shot because of choke-thick brush. Once or twice we found ourselves, literally, in the middle of a herd and unable to move. We'd just sit and wait them out until they moved. But, without question, the most hair raising (if I had any) experience we had was getting in front of a herd that fed into us, forcing us to simply sit down in the open as dozens of animals fed around us on all sides. We were lucky that we avoided a charge from a cheeky cow.
Cows eyeballing us while we track

Spot the buff in the brush!

On the fourth day of the hunt, we cut the track of a big herd and left the cruiser at about 8:30 in the morning and spent the day playing cat and mouse with them. Throughout the day, the herd split up and was rejoined by a nice group of dugga boys giving the herd at least 4-5 bulls that I considered to be shooters.

In the late afternoon the trackers lost the track and it took us about an hour to sort it out. By the time they did, the sun was setting and it was just dumb luck that we stumbled into the herd in the THICK jess. We got to within about 50 yards and located portions of a very nice bull through the branches. Henry and I ducked behind a rock pile for cover and discussed the chances of getting a bullet through the thick stuff. While we were discussing we would occasionally poke our heads from around the rock to assess the situation with the bulls. Finally, I decided I could make the shot. I stepped out from behind and found the bottom of the horn curl as a reference on, what little I could see, of the bull's shoulder. The shot was absolutely perfect. The bull dove off the hill only about 100 yards and was piled up. When we walked over to where he had been standing when I shot, I could see him in the ravine below, and knew immediately it was not the bull we were targeting! Somehow, while we were discussing the shot, a younger bull had stepped in front of the bigger one. Both were standing in the same position, to the right and broadside with the head turned facing us.

Henry and I were SO depressed. The bull is not bad, but it's not what we had been hunting, and certainly was not any bigger than so many other bulls we'd turned down over the previous days.
Hanging meat out of hyena reach

To make matters worse, we were incredibly far from the cruiser. It was getting dark quick so we sent the guys back for the cruiser and some help in getting the meat out. Henry and I gathered some wood and sat in the pitch black (no moon) around a fire we had built in the bottom of a rock wash. When the guys returned with more men and no flashlight some three and a half hours later, we had reexamined the bull and decided he was not as bad as we had initially believed (still far from incredible). We built several fires around the bull and the guys went to work cleaning, skinning, caping and butchering the bull. Everything had to be carried out by the guys. Since there were only 10 porters, they stashed about half of the meat high up in several trees to keep it away from the hyenas, and went back in the morning for the rest of the meat. The natives waste NO part of any animal. They carried the prime meat, cape and horns out with us, but went back in the morning for EVERYTHING else.

Hauling the meat out in the dark

It was about 9:30 p.m. and PITCH BLACK when we started the 2 mile hike out to where the guys had left the cruiser. Again, no moon and no flashlight. I literally could not anything in front of me. The cruiser was somewhere above us on the ridge, but Henry and I had no idea where. For the first half mile or so, Fred, Henry's son, was walking behind me with his cell phone open and the dim light slightly illuminating about 5 feet around us; but the battery died soon and we were left to our own luck. The natives never took any missteps and never walked into anything. I, on the other hand, was continually walking into thorn bushes and stepping in holes. It was a miserable hour and a half walk. I've never been so grateful to see a vehicle than I was when the first trackers got to the truck and turned the lights on. It was about 1:30 am by the time we had driven all the way back to the Pedza camp.

Incidentally, about a mile out from the Pedza camp we came upon a very nice male leopard walking right down the middle of the road. Seeing one of these cats like that is extremely unusual, and we believe it's the same cat Kory ended up shooting off a bait on about day 13 of the hunt.

Tafika

When I was working with Chifuti Safaris to book our 2008 trip into the Zambezi Valley, I was convinced by the folks in Dallas to schedule an additional day at the beginning of the hunt to allow us to spend a decompression day after the 40 hour journey into Zimbabwe. I am so delighted that I took their advice, and only wish I had booked an additional day at the dedicated Tafika fishing camp on the Zambezi River

A Harare overnight at Gecko Gardens

I always like to say, with only the slightest degree of sarcasm, "fishing is for people who can't hunt." In accordance with that mantra, I concluded I would approach the fishing portion of the trip as truly a chance to relax - and relax I did.

We landed at Harare International Airport from Johannesburg, South Africa late in the evening, and were met by a representative from Gecko Gardens resort to spend the night in a private chalet at that resort in Harare. The following morning we were taken to a private airstrip and were chartered into the Tafika fishing camp by means of an enjoyable hour and a half in a 206 Cessna (Kory, an aspiring private pilot flew most of the way).

Coming into Tafika in the Cessna (camp in lagoon on river)

The accommodations at the camp were amazing. Kory and I each had individual chalets which were open on the front and looked onto the Zambezi River. We had hippos feeding on the lawn between our chalets during the night, and crocs in the river below the chalets.

Chalet at Tafika

We fished the afternoon we arrived and for a time the next morning before taking a 65 km boat trip down the Zambezi to the Masau river camp, where we were met by my PH, Henry Prinsloo, and where I was ultimately to spend 8 nights of the trip while hunting hippo and croc.

I was determined to take it easy

The game on the river was unbelievable. While fishing we saw hippo, croc, elephant, waterbuck, warthog, baboon, bushbuck, impala and many non-game species. We saw more of the same all the way down the river to Masau.

Elephant on Zambian side of river

Trip down the Zambezi to Masau

What an incredible experience this was. I MUST return and repeat this trip at some point in the future.

Nyati

The African "Big Five" of dangerous game trophies refers to the five trophies hunted for centuries by African hunters, and feared by natives and white hunters alike. The big five is comprised of cape buffalo (known to the Shona and Ndebele as "nyati"), leopard, lion, rhino (specifically black rhino) and elephant. In addition, some would also include crocodile and hippo, and then refer to the group as the "magnificent seven."

Regardless of how one characterizes the dangerous game of Africa, there is hardly a hunter who ever steps foot on the continent who doesn't shortly begin dreaming of pursuing this penultimate group of African big game species. I've been fortunate enough to take three of the five, or five of the seven, depending on how inclusive one wishes to be (in this I include the cow elephant shot, really is self defense, while hunting bull elephant). I have yet to take a lion, which for financial reasons may never happen; and rhino will assuredly never happen. The black rhino has been only recently brought back from the brink of extinction (the victim of uncontrolled poaching for bushmeat and horn), and the white rhino - larger and more docile, is only hunted in South Africa and Namibia and still quite expensive.

In 2006 I began my dangerous game career in the central Zimbabwe area of Gokwe North. I was there to hunt buffalo, leopard and elephant. Gokwe is a CAMPFIRE or communal area as opposed to a national parks area. In CAMPFIRE areas game is owned and managed, with oversight from National Parks, by the individual communities or tribes of native Zimbabweans. Quotas are set by National Parks for the communities, but the individual communities assign and sell the concession rights to outfitters who successfully bid and also decide how the quotas are taken.

Gokwe North is not known as the greatest buffalo area, but there are plenty of buffalo and good trophies are relatively common. We were not concerned about finding buffalo, and so we concentrated on elephant and leopard as primary targets. Despite that focus, over the first week of the hunt we frequently cut buffalo tracks while checking leopard baits or looking for elephant tracks. When we would cut buffalo tracks we'd follow them relentlessly. The day before we shot this bull we followed and continually buggered a herd of at least 50 buffalo over the course of about 10 miles of tracking, but were never able to get a bead on a good bull in the herd. Several times after the guys had spotted a feeding herd of buffalo from the cruiser we went on one of Kirk's signature "Zambezi death marches."

When we weren't on the "death march," Kirk was particularly fond of a of a rocky outlook on the point of a long narrow plateau above camp. They had named it "buffalo rock," because of its propensity to produce sightings of buffalo herds in the low flood plains on the hank of the Ume River. We would take the cruiser to the base of the hill and hike to the top and watch the lowlands for various game. In about 5 trips to Buffalo Rock, we spotted kudu, warthog, elephant, impala, waterbuck, baboon, bushbuck and listened to a very interesting scape between a lion and baboon troop in the thick brush at the base of a nearby kopke.

This buffalo was shot quite by accident as we were driving to Buffalo Rock for a pilgrimage to the top, and the guys spotted a herd of buffalo moving through the thick cover about 500 yards from the cruiser. We were able to jump out and sneak to a position of ambush ahead of the herd. There were intermittent openings in the thick cover that allowed us look the herd over in pieces as they moved toward us. I was on the shooting sticks and waited as a lead cow appeared from an opening and then this bull stepped into the opening and turned his head to stare us down with that "you owe me money look." The hook of his left horn drooped down in front of his left shoulder, and Kirk kept warning me, "don't hit him in the horn."

The 500 grain Hornady soft point did the job and we heard the bull go down within 80 yards of the shot. By the time we got to him, the herd had disappeared. As we stood there admiring him, we were startled to hear "urrgg, urrgg" about 15 yards away - two young bulls from the herd had circled back to get us! Kirk and I both raised our rifles in the direction of the sound and Kirk gave me the instruction to "shoot anything that sticks its nose out of the bush." Fortunately, the problem never developed and the bulls were chased off when Moses, the game scout, emptied a load of buckshot from his 12 gauge into the brush.

Unlike the buffalo I shot in 2008, we were able to get the cruiser right to this one to load him up.

Feed The Homeless

Last week I received an email on my blackberry from the President of the local Safari Club Chapter soliciting game meat donations for an Outdoor Channel humanitarian event to feed the homeless in Las Vegas. Since I had a freezer full of meat, I responded and with Byron subsidizing the effort with about 50 pounds of additional meat, we donated roughly 150 pounds of buffalo, deer and antelope to the project.

In the end, it was a huge success and got a write up in the Review Journal. Feels good to be philanthropic once in a while.

(by the way, despite the title of the article, not a single drop of elk in the donation)

Too Close For Comfort

In 2006 I booked an elephant, leopard, buffalo hunt with Tshbezi Safaris in Zimbabwe. I flew into the Bulawayo airport (an experience in itself) and met professional hunter Kirk Mason, with whom I spent the next 14 days hunting in the Gokwe North concession area. We drove the 6 hours to Gokwe and began immediately looking for elephant tracks and running leopard baits.

We spent the majority of the nights in a stilted river camp on the Ume river. There were several lions in the area and plenty of elephant. Unfortunately, though we tracked and looked at many bull elephant over the course of the hunt, we never located one that would have made 50 pounds (ivory weight per tusk). 50 pounds was my self-imposed, and ambitious, limit for a trophy bull.

About 4 days into the hunt early one morning we cut the tracks of, what appeared to be, two good bulls that had crossed the two track road above camp during the night. We took up the track and followed it for about 3-4 miles before we lost it in a rocky area. It's unusual for the talented trackers of Zimbabwe to lose a track, and in my experience it's the rare situation that it happens. After spending about an hour and a half trying to sort the issue out, we elected to turn back toward the cruiser in hopes that we might catch the bulls in the case they had doubled back on us.

When we were about a mile from the cuiser the trackers began hearing elephants ahead of us feeding in the thick jess. Elephants are anything but quiet as they move and feed in the brush, and sound is a frequent method for finding them. Kirk felt that we might have located the two bulls. We moved into the thick jess where visability was, at most, 15 yards in any direction. Suddenly, we could see the backs of the a herd of cow and calf elephants as they moved parallel to our position and in the direction we had come from. Since cow elephant are significantly more dangerous than bulls, we were glad to let this group move out.

I was walking slowly and watching the cows to our right at about 20 yards. They didn't appear to pose any threat and it was thrilling to be that close to them. When I looked forward the palm of Kirk's hand was held out straight to me in a frenzied warning to stop - I did! Then i noticed a young cow elephant facing us and not moving and about 7 yards in front of the lead elephant tracker who was leading the group.

The hunting group consisted of Kirk and I, two trackers, a skinner and a council game scout. There all six of us stood motionless waiting to see what this close encounter would produce. Neither Kirk or I had time or space to get our guns up. The group was in single file fashion and I was third in line with one tracker, one skinner and the game scout standing behind me.

The standoff lasted about 30 very long seconds and finally the cow turned to her left and began walking to our right, apparently content in her conclusion that we were no threat that needed aggression. Unfortunately, as she did so, Moses, the council game scout who was legendary in his fear of elephant broke ranks and spun around to run. At that point, I was the only one in the group without a tree between the cow. When she saw Moses' movement she turned on a dime to face us, dropping her head and came forward at us. By this time, both Kirk and I had raised our rifles for protection. Honestly, having never experienced such offense from an elephant, I never appreciated any emergent situation. It's a good thing Kirk did though, because the elephant had a bead on me. At 11 paces I heard the unexpected BOOM of Kirk's 500 Jeffery as Kirk stopped her charge with a shot low in the head. His shot missed the brain but turned the elephant to the side. I hurriedly put a shot in behind the shoulder, and the whole thing was over within a matter of seconds.

Obviously, the elephant was not charged to me as a trophy, and the council took possession of the hide meat and tusks. The guys went in the afternoon with the tractor and recovered the elephant. All of the meat went to the local villiagers, save a chunk of the backstrap which came down to our camp and provided a couple of very nice dinners.