Cleathorn
AH veteran
Well, it all started (as it often does) at Dallas Safari Club. “What should we do this year?” I asked my lovely wife. “I think we should find an operator suffering from malaria, briefly talk to the other guy at his booth, bid on his DSC Auction hunt that we know nothing about, and then go to East Africa on a whim” she said. At least that’s how I remember it. That’s certainly how it worked out.
KOS Safari’s (Abe Langley – managing director) opened operations in the Pian Upe reserve hunting in eastern Uganda around 2012. KOS is 1 of the 4 operators in Uganda. Based on what I found, all 4 Ugandan operators seem to work well together. The game in Uganda is spread out across the country, and everyone seems to have some part of the best areas in Uganda depending on the species, so collaboration is likely a necessity.
The Pian Upe area of Karamoja is loaded up with East African (Paterson’s) eland, Jackson’s Hartebeest, EA Defassa waterbuck, Guenther’s dik-dik, Oribi (god is there are a lot of Oribi), Sudanese Roan, Topi, as well as Bohor reedbuck, Chandler’s Mountain reedbuck, and a few other species I am certainly forgetting. It is also the hallowed ground on legendary elephant hunter ‘Karamoja Bell’ so if hunting lore means anything to you, it’s a must visit location.
Sitatunga hunting is a few hours away from the Pian Upe camp, and they have a few Nile Buffalo on quota as well as a good relationship with the operator up north who hunts a lot of Nile Buffalo. You must head over to western Uganda near Lake Albert for the Ugandan kob, but they can arrange that as well.
After a very brief conversation at KOS’ DSC booth, we decided to support DSC’s auction program (again) and bid for the hunt. I was back in Colorado before I realized that we had “won.” Quotas are limited and booking a little early is advisable, so we deferred the hunt from 2023 until the 1st week of 2024 to get everything on quota.
We left the U.S. on December 31st, celebrated New Year’s at 37,000 feet over the Atlantic, and stopped for 2 days in Nairobi, Kenya before heading on to Uganda. Having done this a few times now, I always advise new hunters traveling from the US to Africa to spend about 2 days in Africa before you start your hunt. Jet lag is inevitable, and the 2 down days helps you acclimate. It’s also cheaper to spend 2 days in a hotel and find something to explore if you aren’t tired, than it is to spend the first few days on the adventure of a lifetime only half awake and wishing you were asleep. It also gives you a few days for your luggage to catch up.
Not surpassingly, my luggage was delayed. I sent my PH Tom a quick text to determine how big he was – I would borrow some shorts and a shirt if I had too. Turns out Tom is in great shape, but not much larger than a Lilliputian. I however am the size of a rugby player, and not one of the fast guys. We made a plan to buy some clothes in Entebbe, but my bag miraculously arrived at the airport just as we were departing for Entebbe.
Nairobi was worth touring. We visited the ‘slums’ on an actual tour, and on the way back we also went to the Elephant Orphanage, a Giraffe breeding facility, and did some local dining. We did not stay at the Stanley Hotel, it’s in downtown and not very convenient anymore. But we did go by and see it; the stories are now better than the reality.
It’s a short 55-minute flight from Nairobi into Entebbe, Uganda where our PH (Tom Holloway - Zimbabwe) picked us up at the airport. You can do a road transfer or take a charter flight. We opted for the road transfer because we prefer to visit the country and its people along the way. Tom is a young and up and coming Zimbabwean PH. He’s been in Uganda for a while now and knows the the route well. We stopped for lunch, picked up supplies at a local market, coffee along the way, etc.
The local market was interesting. The economy of Uganda is chaotic, but it seems to work. Somehow. We pulled up to a packed market area with cars park like we were going to Woodstock. I never saw Tom make a call or text, and yet ‘Rastafarian’ found us anyway. I have no idea his actual name, but he was wearing a Rastafarian hat and clearly knew Tom. He was a local “buyer” who assisted us in the market with the shopping list. How he found us, or even knew to look, through the chaos of the market will forever remain a mystery. But he did. He also had a team of assistant buyers who took the list, negotiated all the prices, bagged it, tagged it and delivered it to the cruiser. The person who carried it all – is very pregnant sister. We tried to help, and she was not having it. It’s Africa.
I’m not sure how many people were in and around the market, but it was thousands. And we were the only three white people. Turns out a giant white guy with a blonde-haired women were a new sight for the Uganda children. So we travelled the market with an entourage of youngsters carrying even younger siblings along. It was a spectacle. It was not in the brochure.
We got to camp (eventually) and it was simple but effective. Typical East African tented camp, with the tents built on platforms overlooking the vast East African plains. Each tent has an en suite shower, electricity, a fan and a nice porch. The main dining area is a thatched roof open siting area with a full table, the coffee, tea, juice water and libations you would expect, and some couches/chairs for watching over the plains. It is not luxurious, but it is comfortable and effective. The camp staff is very attentive, and you will not want for anything. With an increasing number of women on safari, KOS is working on the upgrades to make the camp more civilized than most men require.
The food is typical of East Africa and Zimbabwe. Meat, potatoes, vegetables and fruit. Uganda is warm and wet most of the time, with very fertile soil, and if you drop a seed on the ground it will grow. The fruit and vegetables are very fresh, and the fruit and vegetables are some of the best I’ve had. The pineapple and the bananas are very high on the list. There is game meet if you want it, but beef, chicken and sausage are the norm.
The chef was gracious enough to cook small portions of just about everything that we hunted, and that always makes it an interesting experience. EA eland is good to eat, but since we hunters are targeting the oldest bulls, you get what you shoot. Guenther’s di-dik is surprisingly good eating, and I recommend it. The chef did well with the Waterbuck, but I would still leave that to the locals and eat the chicken. Seriously, just eat the chicken.
The camp is right in the Pian Upe hunting reserve. We were on the truck at 6:30am and onto game by 7:00am. There is a lot of game. The Pian Upe is 600,000 acres, surrounded by villages, with no fences, and its full of game. I’m guessing that without the hunting, that would not be true. And I actually do not need to guess, that is a fact.
We were onto Jackson’s Hartebeest and Eland right away. There was also Topi, maneless Zebra (they are very cool looking), and Roan around, so plenty to be distracted by. We started a stalk, and then Tom spotted something he really liked. I have never been able to figure out what gets a PHs attention, so we just followed Tom and the trackers while getting frequently distracted by everything else.
We covered a surprising amount of land, and had to grab the cruiser 2x, but we stayed on the Eland. Tom wanted “that one.” OK. We stayed on them and finally got a shot just before mid-day. The eland held up under a shade tree and we got to about 150 yards. With a little maneuvering, even I can hit the broadside of an Eland at 150 yards. Tom did very well to put me into the perfect position.
So, what was so special about this eland? Well, it had good size horns, but nothing unique. It was a decent sized “blue bull,” but so were others we had seen. When we walked up on it, I finally realized it, this bull was clearly born when Karamoja Bell was still hunting elephants. There is old, and then there was this bull. How Tom picked that out of the crowd I do not know, but this was a great bull for game management and that’s the preservation of future hunting. I was thrilled. I tried the meat, and then ate the chicken.
Unfortunately, Uganda is in a malaria zone. I’m not kidding when I saw that Abe was down with a bout at DSC in 2023. Don’t be a hero, or stupid, and just take your prophylactics. Young Tom did not look so good by the 1st afternoon. By the evening, my wife (who is old enough to be his mother) was nursing the young lad who was clearly suffering from malaria as best she could. Oh crap. He was in rough shape. Not to worry, these guys do a great job. Abe started towards camp from Entebbe, and Tom finally had to relent and head to a local clinic operated by an NGO in the morning. They put in a pick line, gave him some intravenous antibiotics to administrator to himself, and sent him back. Dam.
We spent a day in camp while Abe was getting to us, and Tom was busy not dying. Watching Tom and a camp manager prep intravenous meds, and inject himself, was itself a true African experience. It put a whole new perspective on the many outings that Chapstick and Ruark described some many years ago. I do not know how you survive malaria without intravenous meds. And the down time was good opportunity to resubscribe to Global Rescue. Seriously. My Global Rescue account is once again in good standing.
We went out with Abe on the 3rd morning and found some Waterbuck along the river that borders the Pian Upe. The grass was still high owning to some unseasonably late rains, but that just gave Abe a sporting challenge. We found a good Waterbuck in a big herd, and that makes it tough. We followed slowly behind until a big crow split off and a very good, heavy bull followed. It’s always the girls that will get ya. The bull finally split off from the cow, and we played hide and seek for a while. I eventually got a good shot at 120 yards and the camp’s 375 did its job again.
I have become a fan of hiring camp rifles. I’ve heard some guys have had bad experiences, but that’s not been my experience. I have found that most camps in Africa, and especially those in Europe, have good working guns that are well suited to the hunting conditions. KOS Safaris’ guns was no exception. They have Saur rifles chambered in 375 H&H mag, and a 300 Win Mag, and appropriate for purpose bullets. They were both dead on at 150 yards and functioned well. Tom cleaned them up at night and they were always ready to go.
I know a lot of guys want to hunt with their own guns. I get it. I want to travel with my wife so that I can hunt/travel more often. To me, that often means side trips to fun places and some general tourist activities. It is simply easier to travel without guns. After the hunt we went and trekked with the gorillas in the Bwindi Impenetrable First, and did the side trip to Nairobi. Our return flights were cancelled due to weather in Europe, and rather than stay in Kenya for a few days waiting on a resolution, we ended up taking a flight to South Africa and catching a United flight back to the US. It’s hard (often impossible) to do a lot of the side trips and unplanned excursions with a gun in tow. Make your own decisions, but for me, Abe’s Sauer 375 H&H and 300 Win Mag were the ticket.
The intravenous meds were amazing, 36 hours later and Tom looked alive. We watched as he pulled out the pick line help self, tapped up the hole (I did not say he was good at it, only that he did it), and was ready to go. These guys are tough. Abe was off to hunt Nile Buffalo, and we were off to hunt Oribi. Did I mention there are a lot of Oribi?
Oribi are small. The not-yet-burnt grass of eastern Uganda is tall. Very tall. Not a good combination. But we made it work. We used the cruiser to find suitable Oribi numbers, and when we located a ram, we got out and stalked them in the tall grass. They have developed a fleeing mechanism where they jump pretty high as they run, and they simply disappear by laying down. You watch, focus on their position, and follow. You follow a lot. And then you repeat. A lot. We were on a good ram and very determined. I eventually figured out this might be a running shot. Not my preference, but you must be adaptable. I turned down the scope and we kept following.
The Oribi broke from the grass at 30 yards and I timed the jumps until it filled the scope. A single shot at 60 yards and he was in the salt. I’ve said it 10,000 times and it is still not enough – practice. The number 1 thing you can do to prepare for a safari is shoot more often. Shoot in every condition you can, on sticks, free hand, kneeling, on moving targets, with different kinds of guns, bullets and whatever else you can. Shoot. More. Often.
We looked for reedbuck for a long while, but the grass was just too high.
We decided on an early morning outing for the unfortunately named Guenther’s dik-dik; it’s an important species for me. The dik-dik are a course browsing critter that lives in dry conditions. It was about 1 ½ hours from camp, and very near the border with Kenya, when we found the good dik-dik country. Almost always in pairs, they are small and fast. Fortunately, KOS Safaris has very good dik-dik country. We found a lot of pairs. We got on a number of stalks, mostly to watch them disappear into the thickets forever. We then saw a very good dik-dik, or so Tom said. Field judging a dik-dik isn’t easy, but Tom was convinced. So even after the ram broke into the thick cover, we followed. I was skeptical. It was thick. And thorny. And hot. But we pressed on. And there he was, “get low and you can see him under the brush in that thicket” Tom said. “Seriously, I am 6’4” and you want me to get low.” Tom was trying to figure out how to set up the sticks. Wasn’t going to happen. No worries. I got low, leaned heavily to one side, put all my weight on my right foot and had a free hand shot that was basically sideways. No problem. Dik-dik in the salt.
Back at camp we spent that night and then next day again looking for reedbuck. No luck. But we had fun trying.
The last evening and we decided we had better take a Jackson’s hartebeest, we had passed on several very good rams, looking for something special. Funny sidenote, I had never shot a warthog. I mentioned that to Abe while we were out one day, and he said they had an extra on quota so while it was unlikely, if we saw one, I could take him.
We saw one. I did not know that Ugandan warthogs are big – like a Shetland Pony that’s comfortable with its weight big. These things are huge. So, we saw a warthog. Turns out, talking to Tom while he is delirious with malaria is an imperfect time to pass on information. He did not get the message that warthogs were on quote. So, while I got on the sticks and tried to field judge a megalodon-sized warthog, WhatsApp delivered the answer – “Abe said we were good to go. If you have a…” Bang. I assume he was going to say shoot, so why wait. And I figured it’s always better to beg forgiveness than ask permission anyway, or at least that’s what I’ve heard.
My 11th safari and I finally had a warthog. The only issue was that we were under strict orders from Abe to take a Jackson’s Hartebeest. We had about 15 minutes of shootable light, and we had not yet executed on our orders – but we did have a warthog. Again, no worries. We kept to our plan to take a better than normal Jackson’s and throughout the warthog ongoings, our dutiful tracker Patrick kept track of the Hartebeest we were supposed to be hunting.
We took up the stalk again and got into position. Ever try to get a shot at a Hartebeest in a hard of about 100 Hartebeest? We maneuvered again. And again. And again. We didn’t have a lot of time left, but Tom was determined to hunt until the last possible minute and Patrick never lost sight. Finally. The last female cleared and at 210 yards in low light on shooting sticks with a borrowed rifle, we had the Hartebeest.
We took the photos of the Hartebeest and the Warthog together. My friend Lary always insists on hunting until the last possible minute, figuring there is nothing better to do anyways. Two spectacular animals in the salt in the last hour of light in Uganda – that’s why we do it.
Uganda is heavily populated but underdeveloped. The economy works, but only an African understands how. The hunting is great, and the species found in Uganda are basically unique to Uganda. While game is plentiful, the quotas are strict, and a little advance planning goes a long way. The hunting was very good, KOS Safaris does a great job, and I would highly recommend them to anyone.
KOS Safari’s (Abe Langley – managing director) opened operations in the Pian Upe reserve hunting in eastern Uganda around 2012. KOS is 1 of the 4 operators in Uganda. Based on what I found, all 4 Ugandan operators seem to work well together. The game in Uganda is spread out across the country, and everyone seems to have some part of the best areas in Uganda depending on the species, so collaboration is likely a necessity.
The Pian Upe area of Karamoja is loaded up with East African (Paterson’s) eland, Jackson’s Hartebeest, EA Defassa waterbuck, Guenther’s dik-dik, Oribi (god is there are a lot of Oribi), Sudanese Roan, Topi, as well as Bohor reedbuck, Chandler’s Mountain reedbuck, and a few other species I am certainly forgetting. It is also the hallowed ground on legendary elephant hunter ‘Karamoja Bell’ so if hunting lore means anything to you, it’s a must visit location.
Sitatunga hunting is a few hours away from the Pian Upe camp, and they have a few Nile Buffalo on quota as well as a good relationship with the operator up north who hunts a lot of Nile Buffalo. You must head over to western Uganda near Lake Albert for the Ugandan kob, but they can arrange that as well.
After a very brief conversation at KOS’ DSC booth, we decided to support DSC’s auction program (again) and bid for the hunt. I was back in Colorado before I realized that we had “won.” Quotas are limited and booking a little early is advisable, so we deferred the hunt from 2023 until the 1st week of 2024 to get everything on quota.
We left the U.S. on December 31st, celebrated New Year’s at 37,000 feet over the Atlantic, and stopped for 2 days in Nairobi, Kenya before heading on to Uganda. Having done this a few times now, I always advise new hunters traveling from the US to Africa to spend about 2 days in Africa before you start your hunt. Jet lag is inevitable, and the 2 down days helps you acclimate. It’s also cheaper to spend 2 days in a hotel and find something to explore if you aren’t tired, than it is to spend the first few days on the adventure of a lifetime only half awake and wishing you were asleep. It also gives you a few days for your luggage to catch up.
Not surpassingly, my luggage was delayed. I sent my PH Tom a quick text to determine how big he was – I would borrow some shorts and a shirt if I had too. Turns out Tom is in great shape, but not much larger than a Lilliputian. I however am the size of a rugby player, and not one of the fast guys. We made a plan to buy some clothes in Entebbe, but my bag miraculously arrived at the airport just as we were departing for Entebbe.
Nairobi was worth touring. We visited the ‘slums’ on an actual tour, and on the way back we also went to the Elephant Orphanage, a Giraffe breeding facility, and did some local dining. We did not stay at the Stanley Hotel, it’s in downtown and not very convenient anymore. But we did go by and see it; the stories are now better than the reality.
It’s a short 55-minute flight from Nairobi into Entebbe, Uganda where our PH (Tom Holloway - Zimbabwe) picked us up at the airport. You can do a road transfer or take a charter flight. We opted for the road transfer because we prefer to visit the country and its people along the way. Tom is a young and up and coming Zimbabwean PH. He’s been in Uganda for a while now and knows the the route well. We stopped for lunch, picked up supplies at a local market, coffee along the way, etc.
The local market was interesting. The economy of Uganda is chaotic, but it seems to work. Somehow. We pulled up to a packed market area with cars park like we were going to Woodstock. I never saw Tom make a call or text, and yet ‘Rastafarian’ found us anyway. I have no idea his actual name, but he was wearing a Rastafarian hat and clearly knew Tom. He was a local “buyer” who assisted us in the market with the shopping list. How he found us, or even knew to look, through the chaos of the market will forever remain a mystery. But he did. He also had a team of assistant buyers who took the list, negotiated all the prices, bagged it, tagged it and delivered it to the cruiser. The person who carried it all – is very pregnant sister. We tried to help, and she was not having it. It’s Africa.
I’m not sure how many people were in and around the market, but it was thousands. And we were the only three white people. Turns out a giant white guy with a blonde-haired women were a new sight for the Uganda children. So we travelled the market with an entourage of youngsters carrying even younger siblings along. It was a spectacle. It was not in the brochure.
We got to camp (eventually) and it was simple but effective. Typical East African tented camp, with the tents built on platforms overlooking the vast East African plains. Each tent has an en suite shower, electricity, a fan and a nice porch. The main dining area is a thatched roof open siting area with a full table, the coffee, tea, juice water and libations you would expect, and some couches/chairs for watching over the plains. It is not luxurious, but it is comfortable and effective. The camp staff is very attentive, and you will not want for anything. With an increasing number of women on safari, KOS is working on the upgrades to make the camp more civilized than most men require.
The food is typical of East Africa and Zimbabwe. Meat, potatoes, vegetables and fruit. Uganda is warm and wet most of the time, with very fertile soil, and if you drop a seed on the ground it will grow. The fruit and vegetables are very fresh, and the fruit and vegetables are some of the best I’ve had. The pineapple and the bananas are very high on the list. There is game meet if you want it, but beef, chicken and sausage are the norm.
The chef was gracious enough to cook small portions of just about everything that we hunted, and that always makes it an interesting experience. EA eland is good to eat, but since we hunters are targeting the oldest bulls, you get what you shoot. Guenther’s di-dik is surprisingly good eating, and I recommend it. The chef did well with the Waterbuck, but I would still leave that to the locals and eat the chicken. Seriously, just eat the chicken.
The camp is right in the Pian Upe hunting reserve. We were on the truck at 6:30am and onto game by 7:00am. There is a lot of game. The Pian Upe is 600,000 acres, surrounded by villages, with no fences, and its full of game. I’m guessing that without the hunting, that would not be true. And I actually do not need to guess, that is a fact.
We were onto Jackson’s Hartebeest and Eland right away. There was also Topi, maneless Zebra (they are very cool looking), and Roan around, so plenty to be distracted by. We started a stalk, and then Tom spotted something he really liked. I have never been able to figure out what gets a PHs attention, so we just followed Tom and the trackers while getting frequently distracted by everything else.
We covered a surprising amount of land, and had to grab the cruiser 2x, but we stayed on the Eland. Tom wanted “that one.” OK. We stayed on them and finally got a shot just before mid-day. The eland held up under a shade tree and we got to about 150 yards. With a little maneuvering, even I can hit the broadside of an Eland at 150 yards. Tom did very well to put me into the perfect position.
So, what was so special about this eland? Well, it had good size horns, but nothing unique. It was a decent sized “blue bull,” but so were others we had seen. When we walked up on it, I finally realized it, this bull was clearly born when Karamoja Bell was still hunting elephants. There is old, and then there was this bull. How Tom picked that out of the crowd I do not know, but this was a great bull for game management and that’s the preservation of future hunting. I was thrilled. I tried the meat, and then ate the chicken.
Unfortunately, Uganda is in a malaria zone. I’m not kidding when I saw that Abe was down with a bout at DSC in 2023. Don’t be a hero, or stupid, and just take your prophylactics. Young Tom did not look so good by the 1st afternoon. By the evening, my wife (who is old enough to be his mother) was nursing the young lad who was clearly suffering from malaria as best she could. Oh crap. He was in rough shape. Not to worry, these guys do a great job. Abe started towards camp from Entebbe, and Tom finally had to relent and head to a local clinic operated by an NGO in the morning. They put in a pick line, gave him some intravenous antibiotics to administrator to himself, and sent him back. Dam.
We spent a day in camp while Abe was getting to us, and Tom was busy not dying. Watching Tom and a camp manager prep intravenous meds, and inject himself, was itself a true African experience. It put a whole new perspective on the many outings that Chapstick and Ruark described some many years ago. I do not know how you survive malaria without intravenous meds. And the down time was good opportunity to resubscribe to Global Rescue. Seriously. My Global Rescue account is once again in good standing.
We went out with Abe on the 3rd morning and found some Waterbuck along the river that borders the Pian Upe. The grass was still high owning to some unseasonably late rains, but that just gave Abe a sporting challenge. We found a good Waterbuck in a big herd, and that makes it tough. We followed slowly behind until a big crow split off and a very good, heavy bull followed. It’s always the girls that will get ya. The bull finally split off from the cow, and we played hide and seek for a while. I eventually got a good shot at 120 yards and the camp’s 375 did its job again.
I have become a fan of hiring camp rifles. I’ve heard some guys have had bad experiences, but that’s not been my experience. I have found that most camps in Africa, and especially those in Europe, have good working guns that are well suited to the hunting conditions. KOS Safaris’ guns was no exception. They have Saur rifles chambered in 375 H&H mag, and a 300 Win Mag, and appropriate for purpose bullets. They were both dead on at 150 yards and functioned well. Tom cleaned them up at night and they were always ready to go.
I know a lot of guys want to hunt with their own guns. I get it. I want to travel with my wife so that I can hunt/travel more often. To me, that often means side trips to fun places and some general tourist activities. It is simply easier to travel without guns. After the hunt we went and trekked with the gorillas in the Bwindi Impenetrable First, and did the side trip to Nairobi. Our return flights were cancelled due to weather in Europe, and rather than stay in Kenya for a few days waiting on a resolution, we ended up taking a flight to South Africa and catching a United flight back to the US. It’s hard (often impossible) to do a lot of the side trips and unplanned excursions with a gun in tow. Make your own decisions, but for me, Abe’s Sauer 375 H&H and 300 Win Mag were the ticket.
The intravenous meds were amazing, 36 hours later and Tom looked alive. We watched as he pulled out the pick line help self, tapped up the hole (I did not say he was good at it, only that he did it), and was ready to go. These guys are tough. Abe was off to hunt Nile Buffalo, and we were off to hunt Oribi. Did I mention there are a lot of Oribi?
Oribi are small. The not-yet-burnt grass of eastern Uganda is tall. Very tall. Not a good combination. But we made it work. We used the cruiser to find suitable Oribi numbers, and when we located a ram, we got out and stalked them in the tall grass. They have developed a fleeing mechanism where they jump pretty high as they run, and they simply disappear by laying down. You watch, focus on their position, and follow. You follow a lot. And then you repeat. A lot. We were on a good ram and very determined. I eventually figured out this might be a running shot. Not my preference, but you must be adaptable. I turned down the scope and we kept following.
The Oribi broke from the grass at 30 yards and I timed the jumps until it filled the scope. A single shot at 60 yards and he was in the salt. I’ve said it 10,000 times and it is still not enough – practice. The number 1 thing you can do to prepare for a safari is shoot more often. Shoot in every condition you can, on sticks, free hand, kneeling, on moving targets, with different kinds of guns, bullets and whatever else you can. Shoot. More. Often.
We looked for reedbuck for a long while, but the grass was just too high.
We decided on an early morning outing for the unfortunately named Guenther’s dik-dik; it’s an important species for me. The dik-dik are a course browsing critter that lives in dry conditions. It was about 1 ½ hours from camp, and very near the border with Kenya, when we found the good dik-dik country. Almost always in pairs, they are small and fast. Fortunately, KOS Safaris has very good dik-dik country. We found a lot of pairs. We got on a number of stalks, mostly to watch them disappear into the thickets forever. We then saw a very good dik-dik, or so Tom said. Field judging a dik-dik isn’t easy, but Tom was convinced. So even after the ram broke into the thick cover, we followed. I was skeptical. It was thick. And thorny. And hot. But we pressed on. And there he was, “get low and you can see him under the brush in that thicket” Tom said. “Seriously, I am 6’4” and you want me to get low.” Tom was trying to figure out how to set up the sticks. Wasn’t going to happen. No worries. I got low, leaned heavily to one side, put all my weight on my right foot and had a free hand shot that was basically sideways. No problem. Dik-dik in the salt.
Back at camp we spent that night and then next day again looking for reedbuck. No luck. But we had fun trying.
The last evening and we decided we had better take a Jackson’s hartebeest, we had passed on several very good rams, looking for something special. Funny sidenote, I had never shot a warthog. I mentioned that to Abe while we were out one day, and he said they had an extra on quota so while it was unlikely, if we saw one, I could take him.
We saw one. I did not know that Ugandan warthogs are big – like a Shetland Pony that’s comfortable with its weight big. These things are huge. So, we saw a warthog. Turns out, talking to Tom while he is delirious with malaria is an imperfect time to pass on information. He did not get the message that warthogs were on quote. So, while I got on the sticks and tried to field judge a megalodon-sized warthog, WhatsApp delivered the answer – “Abe said we were good to go. If you have a…” Bang. I assume he was going to say shoot, so why wait. And I figured it’s always better to beg forgiveness than ask permission anyway, or at least that’s what I’ve heard.
My 11th safari and I finally had a warthog. The only issue was that we were under strict orders from Abe to take a Jackson’s Hartebeest. We had about 15 minutes of shootable light, and we had not yet executed on our orders – but we did have a warthog. Again, no worries. We kept to our plan to take a better than normal Jackson’s and throughout the warthog ongoings, our dutiful tracker Patrick kept track of the Hartebeest we were supposed to be hunting.
We took up the stalk again and got into position. Ever try to get a shot at a Hartebeest in a hard of about 100 Hartebeest? We maneuvered again. And again. And again. We didn’t have a lot of time left, but Tom was determined to hunt until the last possible minute and Patrick never lost sight. Finally. The last female cleared and at 210 yards in low light on shooting sticks with a borrowed rifle, we had the Hartebeest.
We took the photos of the Hartebeest and the Warthog together. My friend Lary always insists on hunting until the last possible minute, figuring there is nothing better to do anyways. Two spectacular animals in the salt in the last hour of light in Uganda – that’s why we do it.
Uganda is heavily populated but underdeveloped. The economy works, but only an African understands how. The hunting is great, and the species found in Uganda are basically unique to Uganda. While game is plentiful, the quotas are strict, and a little advance planning goes a long way. The hunting was very good, KOS Safaris does a great job, and I would highly recommend them to anyone.
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