Report by: Barron Brittingham
Location: Madaba Camp
Date: 30 August 2006
Hippo
Today we woke at 5:30, as usual, and had our daily breakfast of eggs, bacon, toast, and sausage. After a filling meal and a malaria pill, we were back in the Land Cruiser, but this time we were not in search of huge bull buffs. We were headed to the U-3 concession in search of even bigger bull hippos. We were not exactly sure where to start, but we knew there were many hippos in the area. Ideally, we were looking for a large, mature hippo bull in some sort of pan or pool by himself. Finding a bull like this would allow us to take the shot without wounding another hippo, and it would also allow us to recover him without trouble from the rest of the pod.
As we were driving to our intended location, the guys quickly told Peter to stop the truck. They had seen a large hippo emerge from a riverbed and run away through the brush. The stalk began. Upon inspecting the riverbed, it became apparent that the hippo had been lying in a pool of water, 10 feet down between two large boulders, which was only big enough to hold one hippo. It also became apparent that this must be an old, wise bull, because, had he not come boiling out of his hiding place, we would never have seen him. However, on hearing the Land Cruiser, he must have known that, if we’d found him there, he would be trapped, unable even to defend himself in such a small area.
We continued on the trail, which proved to be a difficult one to follow. The hippo, like the elephant, has large, broad feet, which do a wonderful job of dispersing his weight so as not to leave obvious tracks. The most encouraging part of the hippo trail was the occasional splatter of hippo droppings made obvious by the hippo’s spinning of the tail which scatters the pieces across an 8-foot area.
As we were tracking the bull hippo through some fairly open trees, Abdallah stopped us when he saw a group of eland feeding to our left. Jill was looking for a mature eland bull, so we decided to divert from the hippo trail to inspect the eland, because, as they say, “A bird in the hand is better than two in the bush.” Upon closer inspection of the herd of eland, we saw only cows and calves, but no bulls.
We backtracked to where we had left the hippo trail and set out again. Another twenty minutes on the trail led us into a large, open pan, which is a circular, grassy clearing in the middle of dense forest, which usually has a pool of water at its low center. These grassy pans are favorites for hippos because of the food and water sources in such close proximity. So, on reaching the pan, we knew we may be getting close. As we made our way through the tall grass around a bend in the trees, we began to make out what we thought was the water hole in the middle of the pan. The closer we got, the better we could see the back and the top of the head of the huge bull. It was apparent that he thought he was completely concealed in the water, because he did not move even though we got quite close, about 50 yards. We stared through our binoculars at the top of his snout as we confirmed the large tusks underneath. After about 30 seconds of staring, he realized he’d been spotted and rose out of the water and began to make his way for the tree line. His immense size was not fully evident until he came out of the water, and he immediately transformed from the equivalent of a Volkswagen Beetle to that of a Ford F-250 Turbo-Diesel… with one hell of a grill guard!
I had my gun at the ready, and as he neared the tree line, Peter’s words, “Bust him!” were all I needed to hear. I took the shot, just behind the shoulder, at about 60 yards. Before I could load another round into the .458 Lott, the hippo disappeared into the trees and began one of the most intimidating audible displays I’ve ever heard. I was confident about my shot, but the roaring and thrashing that was coming from the trees ahead gave us all good reason to worry.
At that moment, Peter turned to Jill and said, “I don’t want you coming in there.” He pointed his finger in the direction from which we had come and told her “Get up on top of that termite mound and stay there.” He then turned to me and said, “We’ve got a serious problem.” Then Peter, Abdallah, and I began to move in on the wounded hippo, who was still taking the liberty to let us know he was waiting. The hippo would be expecting us to come from the direction of the water, so we slowly began to circle around to the right, constantly keeping our eyes and our gun barrels searching for the brute.
By this time, the hippo had gone quiet, which could either be very good or very bad. We had circled all the way around behind him, and we came up on top of a small hill from which two large mahogany trees were growing. Upon reaching the top, we could see a large brown mass in the thicket just ahead. We knew it was him, but we could not tell which way he was facing or if he was alive. I aimed where I thought the shoulder was, and, on the green light from Peter, I gave him one last shot to pay the insurance. Nothing. The huge beast was already dead from the first shot, which, as it turned out, hit him slightly farther back than I’d intended but still went through both lungs.
We called Jill and the rest of the trackers over to admire the two-ton mass of muscle and teeth, which, on closer scrutiny, proved to be a full 12 inches long from jaw bone to tip. When we saw this, we knew that this bull was bigger and older than we had ever imagined. Surprisingly, though, he did not have nearly as many scars as Jill’s hippo did. I figure this could mean one of two things: either, when the opportunity to fight presented itself, he simply ran away, or, as I prefer to think of it, he was just an extremely good fighter who never even allowed himself to be scarred. Either way, that hippo provided us with plenty of good meat, an overly-impressive skull and set of tusks, four large panels of prime leather, and, most importantly, a lifetime adventure that we’ll never forget.