ZIMBABWE: Once Upon A Time With Mapassa Safaris

[Rare Breed]

Hmmm.... What shall I do, continue posting for today??? Or keep you all in suspense...



enough teasing:

outstanding bull!!!!!

 

[Nyati]

Great bull, and a well written story, congrats

 

[BnC 04]

Congratulations on your bull!

 

[Riksa]

Fantastics bull and a great story! Thank you for sharing it with us. Tough hunting with some highs and lows is what makes great memories.

 

[TAG SAFARI]

Reminds me of Home - Bulawayo - What a Great Bull! Congratulations !

 

[MontanaPat]

Great bull elephant, loving the story and waiting for more!

 

[VertigoBE]

Reminds me of Home - Bulawayo - What a Great Bull! Congratulations !

You’ll be making an appearance later on

 

[Firebird]

Enjoying all the details of your report. Thanks for sharing!

 

[Frederik]

Well written and what an adventure to actually hunt an elephnat older than you that is very special.
I'll need some serious luck and hard work to be done to get an elephnat older than me still possible but the window is closing.

 

[PARA45]

What an amazing adventure, with all the ups and down you had to deal with, and finally a hard-earned bull. Congratulations!!!!

 

[gillettehunter]

Congrats! That is an excellent bull. Darn good shooting too. You worked hard and earned that animal. I really enjoy your writing style. Easy to read and we can easily visualize your hunt.
Bruce

 

[MMAL]

Great write up and great shot.

 

[Troubleshooter]

Well done indeed!

 

[VertigoBE]

Day 6 – 26/10/2022 – Almost a Mapassa McNab​

In order for all of us to have a day of rest and also for Vaughan, Garth and Ian to spend some relaxing fun time together, Vaughan organised a day of fishing on a nearby lake. For Vaughan, fishing competes with hunting, as to his favourite activity. And I’m not quite sure that hunting always wins out. Myself, I have never been much of a fisherman. I enjoyed it enough this trip, as I was a long time on safari, and catching some fish also means we could change our diets a little. The little cubes of fish, breadcrumbed and fried, made excellent appetizers!

At the lake, we were going to try and catch some bass and catfish. It was actually the same lake, where we had taken a plunge the day before. Good times were had by all and we soon had a dozen fish in the hold of the Piranha boat. Even I managed to catch a few! I also lost plenty of Vaughan’s lures, when my casts would go into some brush where we could not retrieve them. After filling up the hold, we went back for lunch to the shore to have some grilled fish. Half of them were released again. While we were having lunch, we had to run under some shelter, as a thunderstorm arrived. With hunder and lightning striking around us and heavy rainfall, we chatted the time away. Luckily after an hour it cleared up again. It was only a precursor of what was to come.... As if the clouds had to go for a test run to remember how to make it rain.

As soon as sunlight was breaking out again, we were back in the boat fishing some new spots and having a jolly good time, drinking beer, talking smack about each other’s casts and landing more fish along the way. After I had gotten my line stuck for the umpteenth time and Garth had fished for Vaughan’s line again, we spotted a group of impala. I had discussed with Vaughan, that for the remaining 11 days or so of my safari, I might be interested in going for a leopard. I had a leopard on license and Vaughan still had a tag remaining for this year, so as we had the time, this could be something interesting to do. I am not very passionate about hunting the cats, least so leopards, but this was a moment of “well, I might at least try for one”. Leopard being one of the other species that the Belgian government would be outlawing the importation of trophies from.

In order to hunt leopard, we would be needing meat for bait, so taking another impala, apart from supplying us as well with some fresh meat too, made sense. Besides it looked like a big ram and I never tire of impala hunting.

The group of impala was feeding along the lake bank and had not noticed us yet. Vaughan handed me the .22 Magnum rifle that was in the boat and told me to shoot it. Moving around in the little boat was not easy for 4 big guys, and even more difficult to get a steady position. I splayed out on my belly on the stern of the little boat, resting the rifle on the front bass motor, with my hat as some cushioning. Slowly we drifted with the main engine shut off, closer to where the impala were. Once we were about 150 meters away and I was steady enough, with no one moving in the boat, I pulled the trigger, having aimed just on the shoulder. The ram dropped like a sack of potatoes, but he was still kicking on the ground. Two more follow up shots while he was trashing, made him stop moving. High fives all around and Garth and I jumped overboard to go pick him up. Garth went first and was carrying the rifle.

While wading through the water, we saw the ram pick itself up. With Garth holding the .22 mag, Vaughan and Ian were yelling “Shoot him!” He did get one more shot in, before it disappeared behind some brushes. We were not too worried as we could clearly see that he was very sick, with two leg’s out of action. Garth ran in front of me, as my tender feet did not allow me to move very fast over the gravel, sand and rocks. Upon reaching the brush, he found the ram lying there and gave him one more finishing shot and then he brought it back on his shoulders to the boat. What a resistance these African animal's have!

Some pictures and laughs later, we were back in the boat, fishing away, but now with a stowaway. As I had fished bass in the morning, shot an impala from the boat in the afternoon, if I could now shoot a duck or a goose, I would be able to get a Mapassa McNab.

The McNab challenge originates from Scotland, where a sportsmen hunter, would try to shoot a red deer stag, flyfish for a salmon and shoot a brace of grouse between dawn and dusk of the same day. As I now had the fish and the antelope, it was a bird I was missing. So we kept the rifle at the ready, in case a duck or a goose would be swimming too close. But they all stayed at a distance.

After we had finished fishing for the day, we took the boat back to the landing place, enjoying the magnificent African sunset over the water. While coming back we noticed something very peculiar. In some shallow water we saw an eagle fighting with a heron. Upon approaching, it looked like the heron was stuck somehow and could not get away from his aggressor. In the meantime, the eagle flew away, unhappy to have to release such an easy catch. Garth jumped overboard and waded to the bird. What had happened is a fish had gotten stuck in one of the illegal nets that locals use to fish for bass. The heron had seen the fish splashing away and proceeded to try to swallow it whole, while it was still firmly stuck in the net. The heron swallowed fish and net together and suddenly got stuck too, unable to throw it back up. He looked like he had been thrashing about for some time and did not seem to be in such great shape anymore. Garth managed to pull the net from the heron’s crop, releasing the fish as well and tried to get as much as possible of the net out from the water. While we drove off, the heron was standing on two wobbly legs, still shaken by the ordeal, but by the time we were almost out of sight, he flew off.

After landing the boat, we loaded everything back on the Land Cruiser and the trailer, and returned back to Marshlands for a great dinner of elephant’s tail and elephant stew. Then off to bed, as tomorrow we would need to desperately find some zebra for bait.

Day 7 – 27/10/2022 – “Mhofu”​

Waking up at 4:30 again, we decided to stay on Marshlands to find some disco donkey’s. We were in need of bait, otherwise this leopard plan would never get off the ground. After having spotted a small herd through the brush, we tried to stalk the same group up to three times, but each time, as soon as we could get close enough to see them again, they would leave the area at speed. In order to have more chances in locating some zebra, the group had split up into Vaughan, Mlillo and I, with the other group consisting of Garth, Ian, Seda and Junior. This second group would climb different kopjes, to have a better overview and guide us in if we would see anything. Everyone was helping out trying to get one over on these common zebra, but to no avail.

Ian, for whom we also were having a look if we could find some Kudu was not in much luck either. When our group advanced across a ridge line, we suddenly came upon 3 kudu bull’s. One was young still, but the two others were nice specimen’s, one looking quite old. We got to observe them from about 80 meters. They had seen us, but as we were no longer approaching them, they stayed for a bit, walking back and forth and looking up to us. There was no way for Ian to have gotten in time there, and there was some banter afterwards. As we had proposed to him to come with us, but he preferred to go sit on a kopje instead.

Eventually we got on another group of zebra, that we pushed a few times. The last time, they ran all the way to a range of hills in the distance. The wind was not helping us at all, and as the zebra were not playing ball either, we had to regroup empty handed.

After a short discussion, we decided to drive back to the lodge for lunch. Vaughan, Mlillo and I went back on Vaughan’s Land Cruiser, while the others would get back with Garth’s Hilux. While driving there, Vaughan suddenly slammed the brakes. Straight ahead, about 300 meters from us, a huge eland bull was walking from a meadow into some mopane. “Shoot that bull!” he said very sternly. “Weren’t we going to wait for the black bull to reappear?” I asked. “No, shoot that one!”. Quickly we jumped out of the truck, grabbed sticks and the 7x64 and started stalking via the left to get closer. Mlillo stayed behind in the Land Cruiser. The bull had not noticed us yet, and was just quietly going further and further into the bush, feeding from time to time on the mopane leaves.

We could not see him anymore, so we gave chase and just saw him moving into some rocky ravine, still unaware of us and feeding from time to time. Jumping from one rock to the next, keeping the high ground, on the top of the ravine, we tried to get as close as possible without making any small rocks roll down the rocky incline. Finally, we caught up with the bull, still feeding on the dry mopane leaves. Although it would seem that these dry leaves are nothing more than lifeless, and unnourishing dry paper, dried mopane leaves actually keep about 40% of their protein content. This is how antelopes can survive the long dry season, when all other sources of protein are scarce.

We saw him appear in a small open spot, about 70 meters from us and 10 meters down, quartering away. With the rifle on the sticks, I put my crosshairs relatively high, to compensate for shooting downwards, and just behind the last ribs. The 7mm barked and we heard a good crack reverberating back to us on top of the ravine. The bull showed a good reaction to the shot, but made a jolt just out of our line of sight again. Jumping and sliding down the rocks we went. Vaughan was obviously in the lead, as that man could jump on rocks, just like the Jameson’s Red Rock Rabbit that are found on Marshland’s. He was a few dozen meters ahead of me and he suddenly turned around, letting out a war cry and giving the thumbs’ up. The bull had gone only 25m and had collapsed.

And what a bull it was, I had not had the time to give him a good look from the truck, as I still had the black ghost in front of my mind. Gnarly twisted horns, broomed tips, a big dark coloured mafushwa or mop on his head and due to his old age and the omnipresent ticks, his ears had been eaten completely away. Technically the ears had died off, due to the lack of blood circulation, because the ticks were sucking up all the blood. He also had an old wound on his right front leg. We thought for a few moments that it might be an exit wound and it was the same bull we had hunted before, but nothing else added up. As there was no entry wound, the only possible explanation would be a wound from fighting. Vaughan and I were both ecstatic with this Mhofu. What a grand old bull!

We called over the radio that the zebra hunt was over for today and for everyone to come meet us at the location of the eland bull to help with the recovery. The weather over Marshlands had turned overcast and the first big rain for Marshlands was incoming. Some pictures later and with about 10 men, we were pushing and pulling the bull into the bed of the Land Cruiser. Not an easy feat with an 600-900 kg animal. Quickly we returned to camp and we had just time to hang the eland from its hind legs at the skinning shed, before the storm arrived.

The first mayor storm of the rain season was about to hit. The dining place, open on one side, was where we were having a late lunch of spaghetti, while the wind picked up. It started to get more and more severe, with the first rain drops flying in horizontally onto the table. The gusts of wind made the temperature drop by 15 degrees in a few minutes and started to blow the pictures off the walls. The table ware, chairs and stuff lying around started to get blown over, it was chaos. With more water than sauce in our plates, we had to go shelter in the kitchen area, behind the dining room, while the heavens broke open and rain flooded everything. The roar of the storm even made speaking difficult at times.

In the aftermath, surveying the damage, we saw that the top of the hut that I was sleeping in, had blown off, causing a few leaks. With the help of Cecilia, the cleaning lady, we quickly brought my room back in order and I had to wipe down the .416 Rigby from the rain that had drenched it. But all was well in the end. After showers and some hot chocolate to warm up, we said our goodbye’s to Ian, who had to rejoin his family for the remainder of his holiday in Zimbabwe.

We had a quite evening, while it continued to be overcast, but the wind had died. With the rain having arrived, so did the insects. So much were the insects attracted to the lights of the dining area that we had to shut off all the lights, apart from one light bulb a bit further away from us. Otherwise insects would literally be raining on top of us, the dining table and into our plates. I don’t mind crunchy food, but draw a line when it is still crawling around.

For dinner, we were having the famous dish of “puffadder”, which consists of taking the large intestine of an eland, after being cleaned of course, filling it with chunks of fillet, heart, liver and kidneys, as well as some cubes of fat. Then roasting on a braai the whole sausage until all the fat had melted around the meats and cooked everything. This is an absolute delicacy of a meal, and I wish we could have had this many more evenings.