BOTSWANA: Leopard Hunt Report

[Sourdough]

@Sourdough ..... Any pics of the Rhinos?

I just posted a few pictures of the Rhinos here. They are all doing excellent. Lots to eat and plenty to drink.

https://www.africahunting.com/threads/i-have-become-a-rancher.91343/post-1420830

 

[AZDAVE]

A leopard at 3 ft will certainly get your attention and a bit of an adrenaline dump. Congratz on a nice cat and thank you for sharing your adventure.

 

[HankBuck]

It took no more then 3 seconds for the Leopard to cover those 15 yards and be in our face. He came under the Black Thorn bush, emerged and leapt onto the hood of the Land Cruiser and on the windshield when I squeezed the front trigger of the double hitting him in the left forehead. I had tracked him with the barrel the entire charge.

View attachment 682916

The impact of the 500 grain Woodleigh Soft Point stopped the charged and actually knocked him back a bit. He fell back of the Cruiser. I tracked him to the ground and kept the sight on him until I knew he was dead.

The bullet exited the opposite side of his chest.

View attachment 682922

From there the bullet re-entered his body in the stomach area and came to rest in his scrotum.

Once I’m home I add a picture of the recovered bullet and a bunch of other photos.

@Sourdough - OK, to be clear — YOU killed a charging Leopard with a Shot-to-the-Nuts ?? Very impressive, an accurate shot, Under extreme duress, and at a “small” target (targets). Congratulations and Damn fine shooting !! (Ouch - hurts just thinking about that bullet placement !)

 

[CAustin]

Thank you for sharing your leopard adventure! Hunting them gets in your blood…..so when will you do it again? I know……thinking about number three myself.

 

[Mtn_Infantry]

Congratulations on a successful hunt.

I might send you a PM since I've been thinking about this very hunt/area.

 

[Nyati]

That was quite an experience, congrats

 

[skydiver386]

One thing needs to be made absolutely clear.

On discussing colors and fashion, when pink is used by a strong and brave man, it is instead referred to as "Salmon Colored".

 

[Sourdough]

My kind of hunt

Was there actually video or did the camera guy crap himself?

No video. I did bring a GoPro and a DJI camera but since I'd never used them before I decided it was a better idea to keep focused on the task at hand. Would have been an epic video.

 

[Sourdough]

Thank you for sharing your leopard adventure! Hunting them gets in your blood…..so when will you do it again? I know……thinking about number three myself.

Next year I start the Big Five all over again but with a Rigby 450 No 2 that they are currently building. Will be hunting with Buzz Charlton again for Elephant, Lion and Buffalo along the Botswana/Zimbabwe border. My good friend Richard Harland will be there as well. As far as another Rhino and Leopard with that gun, we shall see.

 

[Sourdough]

Congratulations on a successful hunt.

I might send you a PM since I've been thinking about this very hunt/area.

Sounds great.

 

[Sourdough]

One thing needs to be made absolutely clear.

On discussing colors and fashion, when pink is used by a strong and brave man, it is instead referred to as "Salmon Colored".

I stand corrected ;-)

 

[Sourdough]

Promised you guys some pictures of the recovered bullet.

 

[HankBuck]

One thing needs to be made absolutely clear.

On discussing colors and fashion, when pink is used by a strong and brave man, it is instead referred to as "Salmon Colored".

@skydiver386 that sounds “Fishy” to me

 

[BJH65]

Congratulations, what a hunt! I’m not sure how this could ever be topped.

 

[PARA45]

Pink = Save the Tatas, and we all love beautiful Tatas.

 

[Mtn_Infantry]

Pink = Save the Tatas, and we all love beautiful Tatas.


View attachment 684093

I feel like a better picture could’ve been found

 

[BGGMKLR]

The Set Up
The Kalahari in Botswana. I had the only permit to hunt an area of somewhere between 750,000 and 1,000,000 acres made up of huge farms (cattle ranches) and communal lands. Low fence perimeter on the farms (I’m going to call them ranches from now on as that’s what we’d call them in the U.S.).

Base Camp
A 100,000 acre ranch with a farm house style lodge, a couple of farm house style chalets, and a couple of canvas tents (not luxury).

The Team
Five hunting Land Cruisers. Three Professional Hunters (one a lady), each in a separate Land Cruiser with their trackers. One driver with trackers. The young owner of the ranch with his trackers. The lady PH also had the dogs.

The Hounds
Fourteen of them from a much larger pack of over 50. If I remember correctly fourteen is the maximum allowed on a hunt. About a third of them were scent hounds, the remainder chasers of which the biggest were also fighters. Interesting thing about the hounds, they are all coon hounds yet some will be scent hounds and some chase hounds. As an example I was told that with two sisters one was a scenter and the other a chaser, a choice the hounds make.

The Terrain
Flat to hilly Kalahari scrub lands. Mostly Black Thorn bushes with an occasional Camel Thorn three. Normally between these would be sand. But with very rainy conditions since December grasses had grown thick and two to three feet high. There was one area where a leopard had just killed a calf in a cattle pen but we couldn’t track it because the cattle obliterated the tracks and the entire area was surrounded by dense daisy like plants/flowers.

The Weather
Beautiful sunny, dry days. Hot during the day, cold at night. We did get rain at the end which proved crucial to the success of the hunt.

The Moon
New moon so dark at night other then the stars.

My Firearm
1910 WJ Jeffery Double in 475 No 2 Jeffery.

My Ammo
Hand loaded, Woodleigh 500 grain Soft Point bullets.

The Warning (from the houndsmen PHs)
This is an incredibly boring type of hunting. Hours and hours and days and days of driving the dirt roads looking for tracks.

For us that meant driving from 6am to 6pm with a couple of days where we started at 3am.

I day time Swordfish so I thought I knew what boring looked like, watching the rod tip every second for hours and days on end for a subtle tap of the rod tip. But when the days roll by without seeing a fresh leopard tracks, well that’s what boring really looks like.

Congrats on a great Tom, well done.

Your description of hound- hunting (for those who have not experienced it) is
spot-on (see what I did there?).
Hour upon hour of patience-testing boredom...or, in your case, day after day...interrupted by a few minutes of adrenaline- pumping semi-organized chaos.
When running Bears from the 70's into the 80's we had many clients who were ready to throw in the towel after only one long day and no Bear on the ground. I can only imagine the patience required to hang-in there for a solid week.
I'm betting you snuck more than a few naps in during the process.

Again, well-done.
Best
Spike

 

[PARA45]

I feel like a better picture could’ve been found

True, but I didn’t want to be put in time out by @BRICKBURN

 

[AZDAVE]

Congratz on a nice cat. I imagine that the adrenaline dump is wearing off in the last two or three days.

 

[AZDAVE]

@CAustin #3 I know a guy?