- Report by:
- PH Nigel Theisen
- Client:
- John Lochow & Tim Balazs
- Area:
- Selous Game Reserve, Kilombero South, Moyowosi Swamps
- Date:
- 01 September 2007 - 28 September 2007
John and Tim arrived in Madaba on the same flight that would take Rick Hunt, the bow hunter, back to Dar es Salaam. Also on this flight into the Selous were veteran Ph Franz Coupe, Ph Alistair James and client Alan Gornick. It was good to meet up with France as the last time John and I had seen him was in Central African Republic, were we were hunting Bongo. We made plans to get together for supper one evening and then set off for our camp on the Ulanga / Rufuji river.
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John has hunted with me many times before, so this hunt was all about collecting species that he requires for various levels of hunting achievements within Safari Club International. Tanzania has a number of species of game that are not found in other African countries, quite a few of them in the Selous Game Reserve.
We got off to a good start with an East African Bush Duiker, within the first half an hour on the morning of the first day, an important species for his SCI quest. As John had already on past hunts taken Lion and Leopard, these were not important species and if the opportunity arose he would collect either of them although they were not important species. With this in mind, we found a large bull hippo track from the night before, on the dry sand of the Madaba River. )
Myself and a tracker had left everyone at the Land Cruiser, not expecting to find him half asleep in a mud filled hollow, covered in shade, just off the dry river bed. After collecting everyone, we returned expecting to find him were we had left him, but the wind had changed and he had left. We picked up his tracks which led us upstream to another small korongo with shallow pools of water. We found the hippo lying in the mud, with a turtle lying across the bridge of his nose. As we were up on the side and therefore higher than the hippo, John took a shot at the back of the bulls head. The bullet from his .470 hit a branch and deflected slightly so another couple of quick follow up shots were necessary.
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The next couple of days were spent baiting with the hippo and checking baits. Temperatures in the Selous at this time of year are high and our baits were deteriorating rapidly, lasting about 3 days. It was during this time that John had the opertunity to take a grand old dugga boy buffalo, which also went out as bait. Shortly after this John got his Roosevelt Sable, also an old animal with thick worn down horns. We had hunted the same area a couple of times looking for this species and just prior to finding the sable had nearly got side tracked with a herd of zebra.
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After this we collected hartebeest, impala, zebra and a couple more dugga boys which were all used to replenish baits that had potential cats on them. During this time we also took any opportunity to following East African kudu and bushbuck which are important species for John’s collection. We spent time walking quietly along the Rufiji River in the thick riverine bush looking for bushbuck. We saw a number of females and young males but nothing collectable. The same thing with the kudu. We turned down several young bulls that will be good trophies for lucky hunters in the future.
During this time we also spent 2 days on top of Nandanga Mountain looking for a Suni. It is quite a climb up, but once up there it is worth the effort. I had got reports that the best way to get a suni is to call it in using a predator caller. Unfortunately we did not have one, so all calling was done by mouth. This proved successful on Red Duiker, the females of which frequently came in, but no Suni. We did see far more Red Duiker than suni and could have collected some good heads. At the end of the second day up the mountain, John collected his suni just before a cloud burst that had us all sopping wet. The way we got it in the end was by walking quietly and slowly, relying on spotting it and then using a shot gun with # 6 high brass bird shot. )
John’s suni is possibly the new SCI #1, we are just waiting for it to dry out and then be measured by a master measurer.
We had a large Selous type lion feeding at one of our baits, but he was always a step ahead of us. We sat in blinds a number of times, early in the morning and until last light in the evening but could never get a shot at him. On the last day of the hunt as we were approaching the blind, we heard him roaring, already some distance away from the bait.
After giving him some time to settle down for the day, we tracked him only for him to see us when we were about a 100 yards away. Needless to say after an angry growl for disturbing him he was long gone and did not stop to look back once, which is probably why he is still alive.
This brought to an end the Selous section of John’s hunt. We flew to Kilombero South for a Puku, which very nearly did not happen. After leaving the Selous we ended up on the wrong air strip at Kilombero sugar estates. )
A couple of calls later and we were told to head for “Ipera” the co ordinates of which the pilot had on one of his charts, so we took off and headed in completely the wrong direction until we had to divert to Dodoma as we would need to refuel here. After we landed, refueled and got a new set of co ordinates for Ipera, it was mid afternoon and John was seriously considering canceling the Puku part of his hunt and going to Moyowosi for the species to be collected there. I said that if we left right away there was a good chance of being able to hunt in the evening and knowing the numbers of Puku from previous visits to this area, we stood a good chance of getting one. By sunset we were in back in camp having sun downers with a good Puku in the salt.
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At our leisure the following morning, we flew to Marungu air strip in Moyowosi. In a little Cessna 206 this is not as short a flight as it sounds. We had to stop twice to refuel and eventually arrived in Moyowosi feeling as though we had been in the air all day, although it was about 5 to 6 hours of flying time. The first evening, hunting out of TGTS Samase camp, we collected a good Topi. There must have been a least 600 animals making up the herd that John took his topi from. With so many heads it becomes difficult to select a trophy and then describe where exactly the animal is that you want to shoot.
Finally the only species left for John in this area was a Defassa Waterbuck. The best place to find one was along the edge of the swamps. There were no animals out along the fringes, so we had to wade through water and reeds that were full of mosquitoes. This would have been fine, but the reeds are covered with fine hairs that stick in your skin and become incredibly itchy – not unlike buffalo bean found in some parts of Africa. )
We found a herd made up mostly of young bulls, with a good head amongst them. However by the time we had stalked to with in shooting distance they had all laid down, so it was a long wait until our fellow stood up.
That brought us to the end of Johns 28 day hunt. It was still a long flight back to Arusha as we had to fly to Mwanza to refuel. That wasn’t to bad as by re routing this way we ended up flying over the Serengeti and directly over the top of the Ngorongoro Crater.