Day 11
Sometime between midnight and 3 am, the wind died completely, and while it's still cold in my tent, at least it's not rocking. I get up around 6.30, for a nice change, and wait with Dean for Jacques to return from checking a bait within walking distance. He comes around 7.30, sits down for breakfast and tells us that no leopard on the bait, but lots of hyena. I had heard them last night and oddly perhaps, it's nice to have them back. Even if I can't leave my tent at night as a result!
Before we have a single bite of breakfast, Ficker rushes in to say that two nyala have been spotted in the mountain meadow. Our spotter had been out the last three mornings, and this is the first time he has seen anything. Jacques looks at me, and says, "I know you're reconciled to it, but should we go look?" "Absolutely" is my response and we rush out of camp to get there as fast as we can. I tell Jacques to go ahead because I need to stop twice along the trail to get my breath (I have the breathing spots down pat).
When I arrive at the meadow, the guys are set up on a hill not far from our usual spotting place. A backpack is on a rock, and I'm told there are two nyala in a thicket about 270 yards away, although we haven't seen them yet. We are not sure if either is the one I shot, and we don't want to make a mistake. Jacques quickly reviews the video footage on Dean's camera to make sure he knows what the horn configuration is. Suddenly we see a nyala bull step out of the thicket, but it's clearly a young one, and not the one we are looking for. Phone calls come fast and furious, and it's hard to say where the second bull might be at this point. It seems he's been spotted in three different areas. One of our scouts says he's seen the other bull, and it's in an area I can't really see from my rock. So we move up hill a ways, and set up the sticks in case.
Some 10 minutes later, a larger bull steps out of the thicket, and is slowly feeding down a gully. He's very hard to see, and I sure can't judge whether he's the one I hit four days earlier, but someone sees him limp. There is a quick conversation between Ficker, Jacques and the two scouts, and they all say it's him. I line up the sights, and as determined as I am to do better this time, I can't get a good angle on him, and it looks like we'll quickly lose sight of him. I decide to put a bullet into him, and take it from there. I take the shot, aiming for the front of the shoulder on a quartering away angle, and I immediately hear the "thump" which signifies a hit. I can also see through the scope that he's stumbled and is sliding, but suddenly, he gets up and is headed for the thickets again.
I can't emphasize enough how cooperative the scouts were. Ficker says if you hit a nyala, you're pretty much safe taking a second shot on the same day. But 4 days out? He was worried people would say we wounded and lost one, and are going for another. And apparently the penalties for that are high. High enough that they might not let me leave until the penalties have been paid! The video was critical to allow all of Jacques, Ficker and our scouts to feel comfortable that this was indeed the same animal. And I'm grateful they were prepared to allow me to take the shot - even though the responsibility for a mistake would have been entirely on me.
Everyone thinks it's a good shot, as do I, but I want to wait until we find him for the congratulations. We start to move as quickly as possible (for the area!), and once again, the phones are ringing. And now, it seems chaos has decided to reign. Someone says he's down, but someone else says he's not, and they've seen him on the far ridge. Another says there's blood towards the bottom of the mountain (some long distance away) while someone else says there's no blood there. I'm slipping and sliding down this mountain, sticking with Dean and Jacques, hoping that some order comes to this chaos. Jacques has decided to let the others do what they want, but he, Dean, Ficker and Makonen are going to follow the blood. It goes from large drops to nothing, and then to large drops again. Looks good, but the going is very slow.
On a path around a corner of the mountain, Makonen (who speaks no English) suddenly stops and points, whispering "Nyala". The Nyala is indeed there, under a tree, looking towards us, but it's not clear he can see us. He slowly turns though, and looks ready to go uphill. Given all of the noise in the area, he must be sick indeed to have stayed around, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have enough energy left to make our lives quite miserable. So a quick shot hits him in the spine in the rear, and his back legs drop. At that point, it's likely he'll die anyway, but another shot puts the matter to rest and relieves him of his misery.
I am absolutely elated at this point! I don't need to find anyone to hug, because everyone is hugging me! As happy as I am at this outcome, I think the team is even more pleased than I am. Really, a fabulous job well done by everyone who would not give up, even though I had. The Northern Operations guys really have a great team up here.
I do put a bit of a stop to the celebration when I say I want to see where my first shot went - partly, I wanted to satisfy myself that this is really the same animal. The scouts had already looked, and, much to my and, I think, all of our surprise, he has a shattered front knee, matted with old blood and swollen and stinking already. This is clearly the bull I shot, but it's surprising that he managed to climb a mountain after being shot four days ago. These are big animals, and they are clearly tough animals.
Once we get the pictures taken, and I have a few moments to spend alone with the animal, it's time for the butchering to start. We are so high and so far from a road that we send one young fellow to find donkeys to help carry the meat out. Jacques quickly rescues the two backstraps, and we decide the rest for leopard bait. The work takes a couple of hours, and then comes the long, slow trek both down the mountain and up another hill until we can get to a road which is accessible to tour vehicles. But what a walk it is!
We get back to camp around 1.30 pm, and it's not lost on us that we haven't had anything to eat since 6 pm the previous night. Jacques says we will have to wait a bit longer, so we spend the time reliving this incredible result. Suddenly our cook appears holding a large serving plate, filled with mountain nyala! This must be close to a record for kill to plate. And it tastes superb.
The afternoon we spent in taking a shower and a rest, both well deserved, if I do say so myself.
For those who are interested, the total SCI score is 94 6/8, which puts him into the top 40 in the record book, and well into the gold category.
