Just returned from the first leopard hunt of the season.
Mark and myself flew from JHB to Nampula on SAA, MAF the charter company were waiting for us, Mark got his visa in about 10 minutes and took us about half hour to clear guns etc and be on our charter flight to Cuamba. Then the 2 hour drive to camp.
When we arrived in camp we could hear a lion calling less than 500 yards from camp, he had been there two days, was exciting for Mark.
The grass has only just started to turn brown, so it was way over our heads, which made hunting hard. First animals we saw we 5 reedbuck, one great male, but weren't hanging around. Next was a herd of just over 20 sable with 3 good bulls. We did a stalk on them, but as we were getting closer the wind turned on us.
Second morning we dropped the dogs on a fresh leopard track and after about 2 hours the Tom was in the tree, after debating for awhile, decided he was not big enough and was only second day, wasn't one of the 3 big Toms we have on camera.
Day 4 while checking baits in the afternoon, Coenraad heard a Tom calling, where
@ActionBob shot his leopard last year. The dogs took off, rough , the leopard was running circles and in the dark not so easy. The leopard ran passed Coenraad and then a little later passed Courtney.
You would hear the dogs barking and then silence, then I was amazed, you would hear the leopard calling, I couldn't believe he was sticking around and hadn't hit the highway. From 18h00 to 03h30 we chased the Tom, but he eventually beat us. Was a night of highs and lows.
Day 6 same area leopard took a bait, but the track was too cold to follow.
Day 7 Coenraad and Courtney left at 01h00 to check baits(normal routine), 03h50 while lying in bed I heard 3 low leopard grunts, the dogs got back at about 5, told them and we took the dogs to the area I had heard the Tom calling, within 5 minutes the dogs were on his tracks and took off at major speed. The echo of the hills made it hard to hear where the dogs were, the granite was interfering with the GPS on the dogs, took us over an hour to work out where they had headed. The dogs had covered about 7.5 km already. The closer we got to the dogs, we could smell that the dogs had treed the Tom a few times, you could clearly smell the urine from the Tom spraying. Big track!! This was the area where we had the huge tom on camera. Our hearts were pumping.....after about 4 hours, the leopard took us through bamboo and reeds where even the dogs battled. We lost the battle.
Quick branch and we decided we would go out mid day for sable, not the usual time for sable, but the weather had been the coldest I have experienced in Mozambique. A solo bull presented us with a good shot, 300wm did a good job.
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