Report by: Alex Brittingham
Location: Lake Natron and Selous Game Reserve
Date: 22 July - 4 Aug 2006
Tanzania Hunt 06
It wasn’t until the 3rd day of our trip to Tanzania that I actually put down the camera and started hunting. I do enjoy videoing for my Dad, but I prefer hunting over camera work any day. I remember Tanzania from the last time we came a few years back, but a photo safari is much different from a hunting safari… I am now getting in on the action and experiencing the wildlife in a totally different way. Trevor, Barron, and Jill got a head start, so I needed to work hard to catch up. Working under pressure and doing things last minute seems to be an interesting quality of mine (I’m not sure if it is a good thing yet).
On the first morning of my hunt I was as happy and willing as anyone would be to wake up at 5:30 in the morning. After breakfast, my PH John Greeff, Trevor, and I set off on a long journey. We decided that since we were on the largest of the five properties, it would be interesting to see what sort of game we would find if we drove a long distance away from camp to the Rift Valley, which is near Lake Natron, and the active volcano Mt. Lengai. About two hours into our six hour drive to the valley, one of our trusty trackers spotted an enormous Grant’s gazelle. I immediately jumped at the opportunity as I had never hunted a Grant’s before. John and I followed the bull into the brush and waited for him to walk into a clear batch of brush. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, he presented me with an almost perfect broadside shot, and I did not pass it up. It was a good shot and he didn’t run more than 20 yards before it affected him and he fell to the ground just under a shade tree. This was the start of an amazing trip loaded with action.
After we skinned and gutted the Grant’s we were on the road again, hoping to see more game soon. We came into a plains area and found lots of game feeding, including a herd of wildebeest. When Trevor shot his wildebeest we wore shuka’s just like the Maasai wear and we found that it helped out a lot. 
We decided to try this method once again, and sure enough it worked out perfectly. The group got just a little jumpy, but just as they started to realize that something wasn’t quite right with this particular group of “Maasai”, John spotted a nice bull and told me that if he stopped again I was okay to take the shot. Just at 100 yards the bull stopped and gave me a slightly angled but still broadside shot. I took the shot and as he turned to run John told me to give him another. The second shot went straight in through the back and into his vitals. The bull ran to a tree on the hillside and stood acting very sickly, so in order to prevent him from suffering or from running away, I shot him one more time in the neck and that did the job. I was very happy with this particular hunt because when I was little I tried so hard to get a wildebeest, but always failed. I finally accomplished my goal.
The next day I focused mostly on ostriches, and failed miserably. It was almost as if the ostriches we stalked that day had all suddenly been able to fly. After six attempts at different ostriches and one attempt at an enormous impala, night fell and we went back to camp for dinner and a rest. In the morning we immediately went on a quest to find ostriches, as I am one tenacious girl. 
As we were driving alongside the river bed, we stopped quickly to look at a group of giraffe and behind them Trevor spotted zebra running for a nearby field. The Burchells’ zebra had been on my list of animals to hunt this year, as they are missing the shadow stripe that a common Burchells’ zebra in Zimbabwe has, which is where we hunted last year. We threw our shukas on, but after about ten minutes we decided to properly stalk this particular pair of stallions in order to get a good look at them from a reasonable distance. We got to about fifty yards when John decided that one of the zebra was a very large bodied stallion. My shot was just a little low, but he went down regardless, because I broke both front legs. He wasn’t bound to live much longer but we rushed closer so I could give him one final finishing bullet. The zebra was beautiful and I was very proud to have taken such an amazing animal.
Not many people would be as persistent about killing an ostrich as I was, but there we were the next morning up bright and early looking to find that giant bird somewhere along the river bed. After driving about an hour straight down the middle of the river, we came into an open plain which was full of Grants’ and Thompson’s’ gazelle. Also, to the left of the truck our trackers spotted three female ostriches accompanied by two big males. As John got the shooting sticks I loaded my .300 Winchester Mag. and hopped off the truck. In order to outsmart this bunch of big birds we had Saddat, one of the trackers drive the car away as if we had just stopped for a look and then left again. 
Meanwhile, John and I had moved in on them behind a tree. John set up the sticks and told me to take the bird at the back. Less than 20 yards from where I originally shot the bird he was done and on the ground. I was ecstatic, because all of the ostriches two days before had never given me any shot opportunities. I finally got Big Bird!
Less than ten minutes after we took pictures with my ostrich and loaded him up in the back of the Toyota, Trevor spotted a monster Tommy out in the middle of an open plain. So, once again we through on our reliable shukas and quietly jumped out of the truck, and as it drove away we started to walk nearer to the Tommy. As we went in for a closer shot, we started to realize that it would be pointless to try and get any closer than 120 yards. Therefore, John set me up on the sticks and I took a shot that hit low on his leg, rather than a more desirable shot, which would have hit right behind his shoulder in about the middle of his body. I got my second chance after another ten minute stalk and my second shot was considerably better. 
By the time we had recovered him and set him up for pictures, a crowd of Maasai children had gathered for a closer look, so I got a few pictures with them and my Tommy as well.
After our first nine days in Lake Natron we took a three hour plane ride to my Dad’s Madaba camp, which is located in the Selous (pronounced selloo). Here the countryside and game is very different from where we were in Maasai land. On the first day, everyone went out looking for Impala or other plains game for the Leopard baits. Trevor managed to kill a management sized impala, but otherwise we had no other such luck that day. The next day we left bright and early looking for more leopard bait. Soon after daylight we spotted a group of impala with a nice ram for this area, so John and I hopped off of the car and followed him into the brush. We found him standing about sixty yards from us behind a tree. I had a clear look at his body but I couldn’t see his face or backside. The visibility in the rainforest-like trees is not good at all, so this was as good as it was going to get. John told me that if I had a clear view of where I was going to place my shot that I could go ahead and try for a shot. I took my time looking through the scope and finally started to squeeze the trigger. 
I made a perfect shot straight through his heart, and he ran no farther than twenty yards. We skinned him out and took his back straps for camp meat and hung the leftovers at a nearby tree for leopard bait.
One of the neatest animals in Africa (to me at least) is the hippo. This year, since we have our own property, my dad allowed me to try for one. I was pumped about the hippo hunt and mentioned to John more than enough times that that was my priority this year. We asked the trackers to take us to pans where they believed we could find hippo, as this is John’s first time on this particular concession as well. We went to a number of pans before we were successful. We did, however, happen upon a pretty amazing hippo spot. It took quite a long hike to get there, but it was completely worth it.
As we walked up and over the hill a big rock ledge came into view and our tracker Kassim told us that beneath the rock formation was a nice sized pan that normally held one or two Hippo in it. When we got nearer the rocks I started to hear the grunting of a Hippo, so I figured that there was one single bull underneath the cliff. I got right behind John because I was nervous-excited about being so close to 3,000 pounds of tough hide and muscle, which is bound to charge at any time if it feels threatened. As we came closer to the ledge John pointed out to me that we were completely safe if a chare were to occur. So, feeling confident, I followed John around to the side so we could have a look to see how many hippos were actually in this pan. 
Beneath the rock formation, there lay over 30 hippos in one big pile of mud and dung. It was incredible to see so many hippos piled in one puddle of mud trying to escape the scorching sun. We looked for a bull and found one, but he wasn’t a monster, so we decided to hold off and go to a different spot since it was only the third day of the hunt.
Again, our tracker Kassim knew of a creek off of the riverbed that just might have a lone hippo bull taking up residence. Since we were nearing the end of the day, we decided to go there and check it out. When we got to the creek, we walked along for a fair distance, until finally we decided that there was no point in going any further, because it was getting semi-dark. Our trackers Kassim and Emmanuel decided that it would be incredibly smart to go into the creek and check for a bull, so as we started to walk back to the car, Emmanuel (Ema, as we called him) started laughing and pointing and yelling for us to come back and have a look. John walked into the creek thinking it was probably a small crocodile that they were amused by, and as he looked in the direction of where they were pointing he yelled for everyone to get out of the creek very fast. Once he got out he told me that there was a hippo at the end of the creek resting in the water, but that he hadn’t yet seen us. Our plan was to get him to come out of the water so that we could see if he was a big bull, but John explained to me that we were going to get very close to him and that it was going to be a very fast shot. 
He would most likely run soon after he saw that we were there. John said he would get me in close and that he did. At the final place where we set up the shooting sticks we were no farther than seven yards from the Hippo.
In order to speed up the process as we were losing light by the second, Trevor threw mud balls in the water to let him know that we were there. As he stood out of the water John recognized that it was a very exceptional bull and immediately told me to shoot. After I shot the bull was gone in a flash. I never expected that a hippo could run as fast as they actually can. The shot looked good but maybe a little bit low. John told Trevor and me to say behind while he went into the bush to track the hippo. John felt the dampness of the grass and immediately knew where the hippo had gone. About five minutes later he whistled for Trevor and me to come. As I walked up I saw that John was not smiling, but the nearer I came the harder it was for him to keep a straight face. This is when I knew that I had killed my first hippo. Seeing this hippo so close was amazing; you would never expect them to be as big as they actually are. I have to say that this was the coolest part of my trip, but it surely didn’t end there.
As we were walking the river checking pans for a hippo that Trevor could hunt, John spotted a hyena and told me to come forward. I walked to where he was and saw where he was looking. The hyena was so inquisitive that he stopped to have a closer look at what we were. He was facing us and it was the only shot I was going to get, so John told me to take it when I was ready. I squeezed the trigger and down he went. It was a perfect heart shot straight through the middle of his chest. Such a good shot was a definite good end to my trip.
As I sit here remembering everything that happened on my three week summer vacation to Tanzania, I realize how thankful I am that I have such a wonderful Dad. He didn’t have to do any of this for my brothers, Jill, and I, but he did anyway. These aren’t very common stories that you hear a sixteen year old girl telling, and I wouldn’t be telling them if it weren’t for my Dad. But, now I am ready to get back to see my best friend Allie, eat good old American fast food, and dream about next years trip to Tanzania!