REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO: Bongo In The Congo

[BourbonTrail]

That is the furriest bongo I have ever seen Congratulations Bruce!

 

[Wheels]

What a fantastic and well earned trophy! Congratulations Bruce.

 

[Mekaniks]

Congratulations @gillettehunter that is Awesome!!!

 

[Bullthrower338]

Great animal! Congratulations

 

[WMU05]

Outstanding! What an animal!

 

[Scott CWO]

View attachment 562869
A couple of feet from where he died.

Wow, wow, wow!!! Congrats!!! What a hawg!

 

[BRICKBURN]

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Me during the tracking. Look closely and you’ll see how wet my shirt is.

Standing in a pool of your own sweat!

 

[BRICKBURN]

I think you broke your face smiling on that one.

Absolute monster. Certainly one you needed that self talk on.... squeeze....
Made all those cramps worth while.

Congratulations.

 

[Arañuel]

Amazing, congrats, hunting the Bongo in the Congo is a dreamhunt

 

[WAB]

Tremendous!

 

[Beck]

We are going back to the machan that we sat in the first night. We have a broken horn Sitatunga on camera there. C says that there has been 2 additional Sitatungas on camera there in the last couple of weeks. We leave camp slightly later than normal and find a large tree across the road. Probably pushing 2 ft in diameter. So they break out the chain saw and get to work. Almost an hour to clear the road enough for us to get through.
We get to the machan and the wind is right. Great news. We eat our normal baguette dinner and settle in. The frogs, insects and birds are so loud. At 7:30 which is an hour after dark I see the lights on the motion sensor go off. I quietly pick up the rifle and turn on the Pulsar thermal attachment and start to look for an animal. C quietly tells me its a Sitatunga and asks if I can see him. I locate him and reply yes to C. I turn up the magnification slightly and can see a large Sitatunga drinking the salt water. He is facing directly to me. I have my arms and rifle braced rock solid. The crosshair is centered between his horns between his shoulders. C whispers, "wait for him to turn". I wait and wait and wait for seemed like an eternity, but was probably less than 2 min. C repeated again to wait for him to turn. My finger is on the trigger and I have probably 1 lb of pressure on in. I'm chanting in my mind, squeeze the trigger. Don't jerk the trigger.
Finally his head comes up and he steps back. He turns so he is quartering to me. I complete the trigger squeeze. Boom and he goes down where he stands. I immediately chamber another round and get back on him. He is laying still on the ground...... I have my Sitatunga!!!!!!!
We put our shoes on ad head down to check him out. On the way C shows me a trail cam picture and says I think this is the one we just killed. It's the big one that Perry had been chasing. In fact they later told me that they had been hunting this particular animal for 3 years. Last year the other PH and part owner sat for him for 40 nights. When we get close he moves and C says immediately to shoot him again. Apparently they had one get up last year and disappear never to be seen again. I shoot him in the chest and finish him.
He wasn't going anywhere as my first shot entered just in front of the shoulder and traveled lengthwise. I can only think of 3 other animals I have killed in the last 10 years that have had me as excited as this one. We loaded him up and headed back. The pygmies sang as we traveled. Truly a surreal moment. I'll show some pics of my trophy.
Bruce

Awesome!!!!

 

[Beck]

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Photo angles make a difference in how big an animal looks……

That animal looks big from every angle

 

[buck wild]

What else can be said ? CONGRATS!!

 

[Fixfire]

Great read!! Congrats!
Still one of the best titled threads!! Makes me chuckle every time I read it lol.

 

[R.M.C.]

Wow, a bucket list hunt for sure!!! Congratulations!!! Great read!!

 

[PARA45]

Amazing animal, congrats!!!! WOW!!!!!

 

[Nyati]

Just great !

Congrats

 

[JES Adventures]

View attachment 562871
Photo angles make a difference in how big an animal looks……

CONGRATULATIONS Bruce! That is a truly magnificent trophy to be proud of.

 

[gillettehunter]

Gorillas that Christophe photographed in the last couple of days.

 

[gillettehunter]

Thanks for the congrats on the Sitatunga. For those who care he measures 28 and 27 3/4 X 6 3/4. A great animal for sure.
I killed the Sitatunga on 9/27. So I have 6 more days and a morning left to hunt. Rather than a day by day I'll talk about the hi-lights. We tracked Bongo 2 more times. The first was a herd we picked up at a salt lick. Herds are difficult because when the dogs bay an animal it could easily be a female. This was a group of 5-6 animals, about as many as C will take a chance on. We went maybe 200 yds and the dogs jumped and bayed a bongo.
We rushed towards it and all of a sudden it was coming past us at about 200 mph!. The trackers later joked about getting behind trees! C had a long enough look that he was sure it was an old female. He has seen her for 6 yrs on camera and is apparently too old to breed. Generally associates near a herd, but often not in the herd. She was perhaps 12 yds from me and I could see the bush move, but not her.
We continued on the track. The herd took us up and down several steep hills. Felt kinda like elk hunting. After about 2 1/2 hrs we had a dog bark bay. Only 1 dog. We all started at top speed heading UP a steep hill. Just killed me. The dog stopped after maybe 60 seconds. Then 2-3 minutes later it bayed again for perhaps a minute.
I went until I had to stop and sit. Drank some water and when I stood back up was light headed and dizzy. I sat back down and then found a place to lay down. Only 1 dog bayed. C said "the other dogs were lazy". They didn't aid the first dog and the bongo got away. One tracker said he saw the bull. C said he saw a cow and a second animal. Without more dogs to surround and hold it we had no chance. Even if I was in better shape, with the small window of time it wasn't going to work.
With me gassed and the bongo spooked we called it for that one. On the 2nd to the last morning we stopped the truck 5 times to look at tracks. GF hogs, buffalo, sitatunga and 2 times bongo. The first set of bongo tracks looked promising so we loaded up and headed out. After about 1/2 hour or 45 min. we discovered that this bongo was part of a herd of 10-11 animals. So we called it on that herd. Too many animals. We found their tracks a second time a little further down the road.
In the machan I did get to see a sounder of 7 GF hogs. There were 2 boars in the group. Only 2 piglets and the others sows. I also saw a duiker one night. Also a palm civit came in one night. Don't think they are on quota.
Driving along the roads we would occasionally see animals. I saw a Bay duiker as well as several blue duiker. One evening we caught a couple of GF hogs on the road. Never a bongo. One female sitatunga too. One time we had a civit along side the rod. Also saw a couple of the long nosed mongooses.
I had 3 gorilla encounters that I saw them. No decent pics unfortunately. The trackers saw others on 2 more encounters.
So I ended without a bongo. In fact I hunted 14 days and had the one run past me in the bush as the only "kinda" sighting. The last 8 days we really didn't get much rain in the hunting area. We got it at the lodge, but we're hunting 15-30 miles away. The saying for bongo PH's is: No rain, no bongo.
I wasn't too interested in the duikers. Perhaps I should of been. They call them and bait them. C also said they went out and spotlighted some a couple of times. He says on a good night you can kill 10 blue duikers per hour! A slow night is 2 per hour. Occasionally they will get another duiker species. Yellow back duiker usually need to be baited. They buy a goat and kill it and let the flies get to it. The YB duikers like the maggots and after the meats rots enough they will eat that! Pretty weird.
On the last day C asked if I'd like to take a boat ride on the river. I thought that sounded like fun. We went to the nearby village to get gas. They had diesel for the trucks, but not gas. I'll add some pics. They literally poured gas into a glass bottle to measure the amount of of gas and then pour into our jug. Make due with what you have.
We also did a photo session with the trackers and their families. Some cute kids. I'll add a couple of those pics.
Bruce