Report by: PH Alistair James
Location: Selous, MA1 and U3
Date: 18 July 2006 - 25 July 2006
Clients : Father and Daughter, Ragnar and Christina Lyng
19 July 06
We left camp early in the morning and first came across a lone bull track. Followed for half an hour, and decided that it was not fresh enough to keep following. We kept on driving and went towards the Madaba River. After crossing the river we bumped a herd of about 50 buffalo. They spooked and ran to the east into the miombo away from the river. After spooking we got off of the car and started tracking the herd. They were walking quickly, so it took about two and a half kilometers to maneuver our way in front of the herd which had by now slowed down and started feeding. We had some cows and small bulls within ten meters of us, and I was about to wave off the herd as some of the cows were too close, when a very good bull stepped out about 15 meters off to our right. The client put a perfect quartering toward shot into the bull with his .375 but missed the spine slightly. The bull ran off about 40 meters and then started to death bellow. This same afternoon we started baiting for leopard.
20 July 06
We drove the Southern part of the concession and put up two leopard baits on this side of the concession, but saw very little game. The grass on this side of the concession was much greener and longer.
21 July 06
We checked the baits and had two leopards feeding. I convinced the clients to wait and not sit as the tracks were not very good. Later that afternoon as we were passing through the Madaba River area, we saw very fresh buffalo herd tracks on the road. After stopping the car, we were actually able to hear the herd off in the bush to the side of the road. The wind was very strong, and the herd spooked badly when we tried to approach. I was almost certain that it was a different herd from that of the previous day, because there were substantially more cows and calves in the group. We only saw two mature bulls. The herd ran, and myself and Christina ran after them for over 45 minutes before they slowed down and started feeding again. We were then able to maneuver around in front of the herd, but had trouble seeing any of the animals because of the grass. Finally we found an anthill and were able to get a shot on the lead animal which was an old bull. After shooting, the herd ran off and I couldn’t see where the bull was anymore.We got down off the anthill quietly and saw the wounded bull standing 20 meters away, lung shot with a lot of blood on the mouth and looking angry. I put Christina and the trackers back onto the anthill and had just finished getting up myself when the buffalo either heard or saw us. He came, and Christina shot twice more with the .375 into the chest of the buffalo. We were safe standing on the anthill, but it was still exciting as the buffalo dropped at five meters to a final shot through the boss and into the spine.
22 July 06
We left camp late this morning so that we wouldn’t be early checking any of the baits. We saw a hartebeest herd, picked a bull, and Ragnar shot. The animal dropped at the shot, but as we walked up, the animal got up and Ragnar failed to get a follow up shot due to the long grass. We followed the animal for three and a half hours before deciding that the animal wasn’t shot well enough to be able to recover. On the way back to the truck we bumped a fantastic kudu. Once again the grass made it impossible to get a shot.
We continued checking baits and Christina shot a baboon. We then went and sat on one of the baits that was working. Leopard came in at 4:45 and started feeding. After feeding he went and slept in the top of the tree. He woke up again and started feeding at quarter past six. We decided to take him and Christina dropped the cat out of the tree with a perfect shot.
23 July 06
We had a good night and woke up late this morning. We decided to go to Rufiji camp so that we could work on the hippo and croc in that area. On the way to Rufiji we spotted a lone buffalo bull. We stalked up and saw that the animal was a sick individual and very skinny. The horns were decent and would score better SCI than the first buffalo that Ragnar shot, so we shot it. We took it to Rufiji and used the buffalo as croc bait because the staff was afraid to eat it.
We had trouble with the baiting because there was no boat in camp. We found one location upstream of the camp and I used all of the camp staff to drag the meat to the site.
This night Sandy McDonald, Oyvind and son Simen Christensen sat on one of the other leopard baits and took a very nice cat.
24 July 06
This morning we hunted away from Rufiji camp and stalked close to a group of wildebeest, but unfortunately missed a shot at the herd bull.
After this we started to walk some of the korongos in the area to see if we could find a hippo bull for Ragnar. We were about to give up when we spotted one sleeping up in the miombo. The hippo ran and then hid again in a thick piece of forest. Ragnar shot it perfectly in the brain, and Christina got the video on her camcorder.
We then went and checked the crocodile bait. There were a couple of 12 foot animals but no monster ones.
25 July 06
This morning we drove out of Rufiji trying to find some hartebeest as this was the last chance to take one before going to Maasailand. We couldn’t connect with a nice bull, so we went back to Rufiji to check again on the crocodiles. The gunbearers had rebaited the area with fresh meat this morning. Unfortunately the crocs did not feed as aggressively today as the day before, and we did not see any decent sized animals. This afternoon we drove back to Madaba.