ZIMBABWE: My 21 Day Safari With Charlton McCallum Safaris & A Pair Of Double Rifles

[SCLawyer]

congrats. that is awesome!

 

[Royal27]

Congrats!

Great cat!

 

[PHOENIX PHIL]

A dead leopard is a dead leopard, congrats!

 

[cpr0312]

Congrats on a nice cat!!

 

[Red Leg]

What a great cat. Your taxidermist can deal with the exit wound (and the battle wounds), and the bleached skull will make an interesting conversation piece. Well done!

 

[Tanks]

Great shooting Tanks, disappointing about the exit wound, but no crazy follow ups is definitely a positive. The battle scars make for a special trophy. Congrats.

Thanks. Keith glued the pieces of the skull together. I will get it metallic coated here ( https://highlandsliquidmetalizing.com/ ), so the glue site will not show.

 

[Kevin Peacocke]

That leopard is huge and the colour is rich and gold, clearly a prime specimen, well done.

 

[PARA45]

Gorgeous cat, congratulations!!!!

 

[TTundra]

Congrats! I rather like those battle scars on that cat. Shows even more ferocity and toughness.

 

[VertigoBE]

Wow ! Congrats on your leopard @Tanks ! Amazing story so far! Looking forward to the elephant hunting now

 

[gillettehunter]

Nice leopard. Congrats and good shooting. Always a huge plus when you DRT a leopard. I'm enjoying your report.
Bruce

 

[Shakka]

Beautiful leopard!!!!
Did you weight it??

 

[Shakka]

BEAUTIFUL LEOPARD!!!!

Did you weigh him? Any pics of his teeth??

 

[Martin Rodriguez]

Just Epic! congrats!

 

[Tanks]

Day 9:

Up at 5AM now that the Leopard is in the salt. Breakfast and we head out. On the agenda is to drop the baits and also look for sign. We drop the last bait.

After that while driving another knock on the hood, "Elephants". We gear up and take off. The terrain is not as steep as the other side of the DSA.

The elephants are about a mile away in the jess. We eventually make our way to within 30 yards of them. Still can't really tell if they have tusks or not. We move around and eventually look at each and every one of them. All have tusks. We head back to the car and get moving.

We get news of buffalo sighting near one of the homesteads and head there.

The trackers take off to check for sign. We wait and the tracks are a day old. "Move along nothing to see here..."

We get into the truck and get going, again a tap on the truck "Elephants". Once again we gear up and track them for a good while. Eventually the wind is with us and we get a chance to inspect them. All have tusks.

We make our way back to the truck. It is time to go back to the camp. Again shower, wine with snacks and dinner. After dinner we look at the trail cam we had put next to the buffalo rib near a bait spot. Interesting visitors.

Leopard

Lion

Female Leopard stealing the bait. Nothing was left at the tree when we arrived.

Hyenas visited as well

And a honey badger

Honey badger comes back

Then the Hyena again.

After looking of photos time for bed, tomorrow the hunt goes on

23,150 steps, 7.7 miles and 340 floors of incline.

To be continued...

 

[meigsbucks]

You and that 9.3 are deadly. That is a wonderful cat. Your detailed, blow by blow description of every aspect of this hunt and the timely integration of photos makes me feel like I’m along as an observer.
I can’t wait for your report on the rest of the hunt.

 

[375Fox]

When you say drop baits do you mean remove them? What is the reason to put the effort into this after you’ve taken your cat? I’ve never hunted leopard.

 

[Tanks]

Day 10:

Up at 5AM, and breakfast. During breakfast Keith mentions that a village near Mozambique border had seen a couple of dugga boys and we would go and check it out.

We head out. Prior to the village there is a curve at the road on the other side of the curve the trackers see many tracks heading the direction we came from. Keith makes a U turn and we go back around the curve. As we turn we see a herd of buffalo crossing the road a few hundred yards away.

Keith pulls the car to the side of the road and we get out. I gear up and load a couple of softs in the .500 NE. We get going. The trackers are following the buffalo. We go up and down some ridges and make our way ahead and upwind of them.

Keith sets up the sticks and shows me a hole in the jess. He says "they will be passing by here soon." We wait, it would be about a 40 yard shot if I take it. He says, "cow, cow, young bull, cow...". Nothing shootable passes.

We hustle, down a ridge and up a ridge and make our way ahead of them again. We get on an anthill, we can see down into the jess. Keith is glassing and he sets up the sticks and says "see that bull down there?" All I can see is from the neck to the start of the hind legs. I ask him, "Take it?". He says, "Yes, it is a good bull with a worn horn on one side." I point the red dot behind the shoulder and press the trigger. The .500 roars, I feel the barrels going up, muscle memory rolls with the shot. Keith says, "You hit him hard". The rest of the herd takes off passing 30 yards or so to our left. Then, they catch our scent and reverse direction passing from our left again. A few good bulls, if this was a 2 on 1 hunt the other person would have been able to take one as well. The herd was confused to where the shot came from.

Keith tells me to put a soft in left barrel and a solid in the right. We wait a bit, good news is we did not see any bulls in distress as they were passing back and forth. Head tracker tells us that he heard a death bellow, but Keith did not hear it from all the noise the herd was making.

We make our way down the ridge, it was a 53 yard shot (ranged it with the range finder afterwards). We find the bull 20 yards from where I shot it. Keith says it was a double lung shot. Will be interesting to see after we skin it and cut it up. Congratulations all around.

We are a mile and a half from the road as the crow flies. No way for the car to make it to the buffalo due to the rocky terrain at some spots and couple of ravines in between.

We all go to the car. Find an elephant trail on the way there. Once at the car the guys start making a path for the car. We go about 600 yards before we have to stop at the first ravine. From now on it is on foot. I grab my other camera, and the guys their skinning knives as well as water etc.. It will be a chore.

We take pictures.

After the pictures the guys start skinning. The bullet is under the skin on the other side of the bull. After skinning the guys cut the buffalo up. The 4 legs will go to the parks. The guys take the 4 legs and the head to the car and then they will need to come back for the rest of the meat.

After they come back they start getting the meat, the backstraps and the filet is for the camp cook. Most of the meat will go to the trackers and ribs we will leave behind for the Park's people to grab later.

Everything gets used the game scout makes a coat out of the stomach to make it easier to carry.

Two of the trackers will put the meat on a stick and carry it that way.

We make it back to the car, lots of walking today, but worth it. Head to the skinning shed to drop off the head, cape and the backskin. The guys start chopping up their meat in to thin strips to hang and dry.

Shower, wine with snacks and dinner. Buffalo in the salt tomorrow the hunt goes on.

19,445 steps, 7 miles and 51 floors of incline.

 

[Tanks]

Day 10 continued:

I wanted to show pictures to demonstrate the difference between the "rat calibers" and "enough gun", in this case .500 NE.

Here is the buffalo, you can see the entrance wound .510" diameter.

This is the other side of that entrance wound, Keith pointed at it to show scale.

And a double lung shot.

Another view of the lungs with the trackers fist in the picture for scale

As mentioned in the previous post we recovered the bullet just under the skin from other side of the buffalo. all 5,850 ft/lbs of muzzle energy was expanded within the buffalo.

This was Hornady DGX in .500 NE. Whatever issues Hornady had with this round years ago is resolved for sure.

 

[BourbonTrail]