NAMIBIA: Off To Namibia

[CAustin]

Bottom picture shows calf hanging in the tree to the right in picture. We had plenty of game come to water like kudu zebra honey badgers

 

[CAustin]

The problem we were having is that brown hyena were coming in and hitting the bait.

 

[jacques smith]

Holy moldy Charlie, I just found this as u r getting back. Love how u r stringing this out but I’m already to see pics of kitty

 

[CAustin]

Holy moldy Charlie, I just found this as u r getting back. Love how u r stringing this out but I’m already to see pics of kitty

The travel is a killer this trip. Just got to Atlanta and will not get home until midnight probably tonight

 

[Ragman]

The travel is a killer this trip. Just got to Atlanta and will not get home until midnight probably tonight

No kidney stones this time I hope??? Can’t wait to see the pics.

 

[CAustin]

Have you folks heard the saying it ain’t over until the fat lady sings? Well I have made it to Atlanta and I still have the flight to Kansas City………but I can hear the orchestra warming up!

 

[CAustin]

Hastily built blind over a fresh calf kill that had been dragged some 400 yards.

 

[CAustin]

Here kitty kitty!

 

[thriller]

Sounds like spots had a rough week

 

[CAustin]

No kidney stones this time I hope??? Can’t wait to see the pics.

Thank goodness no!

 

[machinistbutler]

Can't stand the suspense so I will just post a pic.

 

[Mort Hill]

The suspense is unbearable. I am about to buy in that @machinistbutler posted the real pic of putty tat!

 

[CAustin]

So it was the last day of my hunt. We had targeted a good Tom that had shown himself over several weeks at regular intervals. We had one more afternoon to sit in our comfortable blind with me set up looking through a window. We hoped to get a chance at the cat coming to the bait at sunset. It was now or never. Pieter Delport and I had only been sitting maybe 15 minutes when one of the workers from his brothers farm called urgently requesting that we come. That man had followed the drag on horseback until he found the dead calf tucked under a bush. Once this was communicated to Pieter he looked at me and said “I think we should go there at once”. So we summoned the truck to turn around and come back to where we had been dropped off and take us to the fresh kill location. Along the way we picked up three farm hands to help with the construction of a blind. By 5 PM we were set and the farm hands had departed the area. We had constructed a rifle holder out of a tree limb a limb saw and a sand bag shooting rest. It was perfectly elevated for me to lean forward from my chair and clearly she the dead calf through the scope.
Pieter was convinced that this cat would return to his own fresh kill. Just before 6 pm jackals began to bark a howl all around us. This is a great sign because it means they know a leopard is in the area. The temperature was dropping rapidly and because I had planned to be behind brick walls my legs were getting cold. I was really hoping that a cat would appear quickly. Pieter had told me to move as little as possible and that if he saw a leopard he would tap my back from his chair directly behind me. I pulled my Cabela’s fleece jacket hood over my head and listened to the on going jackal symphony. The moon had been high in the Southern Hemisphere sky since mid afternoon and it would really help keep visibility good as the sun dropped in the west. Suddenly I felt a nudge on my right shoulder and I eased forward to look through the rifle scope. Standing there about ten yards in front of the dead calf was a leopard. I was putting the cross hairs on a point just behind his shoulder about half way up into the body. He began to turn to his right obviously going right to where he had placed his kill. Pieter whispered “ Shoot Him”. I squeezed the trigger on the Musgrave 9.3 x 62 and sent the 235 grain Norma Vulcan soft on its way.

 

[Ridgewalker]

Here we go!

 

[CAustin]

The boom of the rifle silenced everything around us and once I looked up from the recoiling scope I saw nothing. I looked around at my smiling PH and he clapped my shoulder saying you got him. I said the shot felt good and that I was pretty sure the Bullet had found it’s mark. We waited just a few minutes before walking cautiously towards the dead calf with rifles loaded and safeties off. I had visions of a wounded cat charging out of the tall grass from any direction so my eyes darted around constantly. There was no cat on the ground and what was worse NO BLOOD.
Pieter and I began the slow and painstakingly anxious process of tracking and looking for signs of blood. Pieter thought the leopard had run out of the area to our left at the 9 o’clock position. About ten yards out he found a bush that looked like something had run through it and broken some of the small branches. Still NO BLOOD. So we began working our way around the dead calf all 360 degrees At anywhere from 15 to 20 yards out. NO BLOOD! Ok I’m starting to felt like crap and questioning my shot. Did I miss? If I did it was the most expensive single rifle shot I would ever take in my life. We move out past the 25 yard mark and light has faded but we still have the moon. I have my new Browning 800 lumen head lamp going and my head is on a swivel. Did I mention that a wounded leopard could charge out of this tall grass from any direction at any time. We make our 360 degree sweep and Pieter calls for help from his brothers farm. When those guys arrive on of them is an experienced tracker and he starts the process all over back at the dead calf. He too thinks the cat had run off through the bush at the 9 o’clock position. But we all slowly work our way back out to around the 30 yard mark and we are finding NO BLOOD! At this point my doubts about the shot had changed to extreme disappointment in myself. Stupid Stupid Stupid……how could you have missed that easy shot?

 

[CAustin]

Pieter gets on his cell phone and calls his farm and tells Jan, his young assistant, to get the dogs and bring his tracker Katitit. It takes 25 minutes or so to arrive at our location. These farms are massive so it takes time to get across them from one side to the other.

 

[CAustin]

Jan and Katitit arrive with five dogs. Three wiener dogs, a dog that looks like a shot hairy boxer and a tiger striped lab mix animal. As soon as the truck gate is let down that lab dog hit the ground with his nose in the dirt! He barks once and darts off at…..you guessed it the 9 o’clock position. He runs past the other guys and Pieter who are now out at about 35 to 40 yards. I hear one more bark from the big lab looking dog and then the smaller dogs must have caught up to him and they they start barking. Pieter approaches me as I am following the dogs and says Sir You Have Killed A Monster! I think to myself …….are you kidding me or what!
Pieter can see that the look on my face says I don’t believe you! He points his high power flash light to where the dogs are……about 55 yards from the dead calf and I can see they are licking a leopard.

 

[CAustin]

I get to where the dogs are with Jan and Katitit and I see him on the ground. A very big beautiful Namibian Leopard. And no blood to speak of on the ground.

 

[CAustin]

The beast was fat! And when he was later skinned it turned out that his stomach was empty so he was approaching his kill ready to eat. His fat had sealed up the entry wound very well and blood was barely trickling out. Right before the shot the leopard had started to turn away from me and so by the time I squeezed the trigger he was quartering away which caused the Bullet to enter his back left side and travel up and through the body towards the heart …..severing his pulmonary artery and lodging in his right shoulder. He ran 55 yards and left no blood trail but bleed out internally.

 

[CAustin]