ZIMBABWE: Zim Isn't For Sissies! Leopard

[Stephen Knox]

I've had my disappointments too. Wish it had turned out better. When down on myself or the results, I tend to turn to Roosevelt's Man in the Arena Quote:

“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”

—Theodore Roosevelt
Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910

"Keep buggering on" Winston Churchill

 

[30.06king]

You're not alone. I've been humbled too but on different game. Never hunted Leopard which are acknowledged for unpredictable results.
As hunters we all want success but need to remember if we are genuine, honest hunters that sometimes nature will hold the winning hand. I remind myself that's part of the game. My defeats made the taste of the successes even sweeter.
I hope you find the will to try again and if you do I wish you the best of luck.

 

[Catchaser]

Thanks for sharing the details of the hunt although you were not successful on the leopard this trip. Hopefully you will be able to return at some point, and the stars will align successfully.

I know your disappointment as I went back and forth to Africa 5 times in 18 months before finding success. At one point I looked at the leopard as the nemesis of my hunting career however once taken it became the pinnacle of my hunting career.

Best of luck to you in the future on hunting these spectacular cats.

 

[Manny R]

I got my Leopard a couple years ago with Nick Nolte in Namibia. They run a first class operation. He is not that expensive compared with others. Feel free to give them a call and speak to his wife Isabel and give them my name.
I have been mule deer hunting a few times and still that elusive big mule deer still haunts me. There are no guarantees in hunting ; but one must do their research and try to establish the best guide and outfitter to fit their needs and objective.
Great follow up article to your hunt. I enjoyed reading it with anticipation on your next hunt when you bag a leopard.

 

[Green Chile]

Leopards can be really tricky...educated ranch cats even more so. I know the feeling and wrote about it at length in my Zim hunt report last year. I almost feel sorry for guys who get their cat in 1 sit. It's just not a relatable story for other leopard hunters. All the bait checking, hanging baits, looking for baits, looking for the right tree, etc is missing. If you can go back sometime and finish that hunt, it will be something you always value. The hard earned trophies are the ones we usually appreciate the most and that's why cats have a place of honor in most trophy rooms.

 

[Mort Hill]

Leopards can be really tricky...educated ranch cats even more so. I know the feeling and wrote about it at length in my Zim hunt report last year. I almost feel sorry for guys who get their cat in 1 sit. It's just not a relatable story for other leopard hunters. All the bait checking, hanging baits, looking for baits, looking for the right tree, etc is missing. If you can go back sometime and finish that hunt, it will be something you always value. The hard earned trophies are the ones we usually appreciate the most and that's why cats have a place of honor in most trophy rooms.

Well summarized! Cat hunting is different, but addictive nonetheless!

 

[Scott CWO]

Me too. I am zero for 3 on brown bears in Alaska. I have not seen a boar, just moms with cubs on three trips..
Trying again in 2027...

Where?

 

[MarkB]

Thanks for the report, sorry for not getting a cat but your report is the kind I really like, truth full, honest and full of great real detail. I spent 18 days in Zim with same results, not with Wayne, he came later with my ele. Finally went to Namibia and connected on a great cat. They are the one African game that has no certainty. Honey Badger is my nemesis, 3 safaris, 3 permits and one miss but still no badger for me. YET. Time will again ignite your leopard desire.

Thanks again.

MB

 

[AES]

I understand every comment in your initial post except the aversion to being without your phone. Isn’t that the whole point? Screw the leopard, not having 500 email/points of contact every day is the holy grail.

FWIW, I’ve also made a decision to not hunt with anyone whose name “isn’t on the door.” It makes a big difference imo. Wayne slayed it for me. Ie . . . If you have lots of time and get in the truck with Wayne, there is a 100% chance you get a Leopard.

 

[AES]

My buddy and I hunted Tanzania in 2023. Both got our Leopards on our 1st sit. there were 6 males on bait when we arrived. 4 were mature males. Another mature male showed while we were still there. Ryan Shallom of Untamed Tanzania holds the license for the area . It is against the South end of the Selous.

Small Leops and not exactly the same as a SW Zim monster cat hunt. Point taken, but not apples:apples.

 

[kpoynter]

I’m convinced that cat hunts and other high value hunts should be more carefully considered then we would like to think. Many, if not most, are “marginal” or worse often ( or too often)
Leopard hunts have a few key areas where they are virtually 100%
A number of other areas and outfitters that are excellent but often say 75% (at the same price as the neat 100% or the same)
Many other marginal areas that are about 50/50 ( usually priced relatively…I.e. a lot of Namibia)
Or cat hunts as Dogcat suggested
After 20+ years I’ve come to the conclusion I would either hunt a top area or outfitter or not at all
Perhaps stated differently..if I were advising someone and particularly if they only likely had the means for one cat hunt.. I would ONLY recommend a few areas and I would strongly recommend they avoid “gambling” on a “black or red” roulette area.

 

[buck wild]

I understand every comment in your initial post except the aversion to being without your phone. Isn’t that the whole point? Screw the leopard, not having 500 email/points of contact every day is the holy grail.

FWIW, I’ve also made a decision to not hunt with anyone whose name “isn’t on the door.” It makes a big difference imo. Wayne slayed it for me. Ie . . . If you have lots of time and get in the truck with Wayne, there is a 100% chance you get a Leopard.

Yes if course that’s why you go out to these wilderness areas to cut off from the world, but when you’re sitting by the fire at 8:15 pm by yourself it was nice to be able to check in with family etc for a few minutes every night. The issue was my charging port must have got dirt inside and phone wouldn’t accept a charge. I had 5 days to make it back home without phone dying so I kept it off 99% of those last 4 days until I needed it.

 

[buck wild]

I understand every comment in your initial post except the aversion to being without your phone. Isn’t that the whole point? Screw the leopard, not having 500 email/points of contact every day is the holy grail.

FWIW, I’ve also made a decision to not hunt with anyone whose name “isn’t on the door.” It makes a big difference imo. Wayne slayed it for me. Ie . . . If you have lots of time and get in the truck with Wayne, there is a 100% chance you get a Leopard.

I doubt he would make the same assurances .

“Lots of time”… how long would that need to. be ?

 

[rookhawk]

Hunting Zim isn’t for Sissies!​

Adversity builds character, they say. Well, screw those people! I don’t need any more character in my life.


Country Zimbabwe
Dates Sept 10-24, 2025
Type of Hunt (Plains Game, Big Game, Cull, Bird...) Dangerous Game
Method of Hunting (Rifle, Bow, Handgun…) Rifle- borrowed PH’s .338 Remington Model 700, .22 Hornet
Outfitter @NYAMAZANA SAFARIS - Owner/Operator Wayne Van Den Bergh
PH Bruce Cronje
Agent Self- booked off AH advertisement


Locations Hunted Marula area SW of Bulawayo. This hunting area is comprised of large free range, working cattle operations formed into a conglomerate of multiple landowners for purposes of leopard hunting. Apparently, over 90,000 acres that used to be 4xs the size years ago, but due to land fragmentation, the hunting area has been reduced. By my pin drops, we loosely covered 50,000 acres with our core area being an approximately 30,000 acre rectangle. The area consists of mopani flats, scrub brush and large rock kopjes jutting from the landscape every 1-2 kms. The giant boulder composition of the outcroppings resembles rock piles done by a toddler with his Lego set, with all boulders perfectly intertwined and stacked upon one another. There were two major drainages/rivers and several smaller dry river beds.


Species Hunted Leopard


Trophy Quality The area holds very large leopard


Species Seen, Population and Quality of Game Observed This is advertised as a leopard hunt and I can’t imagine anyone going here unless that is your #1 target. This is NOT a plains game hunt, nor is it advertised as such.

I’ll cover more below, but in short we had 5 female leopard feed regularly and one borderline tom feed for one night.

Impala, zebra, klipspringer, common duiker, steinbuck, brown and spotted hyenas, honey badger, wildebeest, kudu, baboons, bushpig, vervet monkeys

Although not a birder, I did observe these birds I thought interesting. Lilac-breasted roller, southern ground hornbill


Lodging This was a compound consisting of a skinning/salting area; a kitchen building; an open-air dinning area with table, a couple of couch/lounge chairs and a refrigerator (run off propane); 3 cabins; an outside firepit and chairs

I only entered the cabin I was staying. It has 2 twin beds, a small nightstand between, sink, toilet, shower. It had a thatch roof and one large window that was covered with chicken wire to keep anything too big from entering. The other cabins appeared similar from the exterior. All water used in camp was pumped from a what we Texans would refer to as a Stock Tank. I think Zim refers to it as a Dam. Either way, a large pond below camp. There was hot water from the donkie at night. You had to let the hot water run for several minutes to clear out the pipes; careful you don’t scald yourself as it was steaming hot.

Bonus: The mattress was very comfortable for my taste

Side Note: My wife would not have stayed here- not even for 5 minutes. I’m not sure if it was the timing of the year, but quite a few bugs (flies, gnats, mosquitoes) were inhabiting the room along with 2 lizards, a salamander and one frog. I let the amphibians stay as I figured we were all on the same mission-kill the bugs. I would bug spray fog the room, with the provided bug spray, twice per day- coming in for lunch and right before bed. I killed all spiders and mosquitoes with Prejudice and Malice with Forethought! I think I ended at 12 killed spiders, with one very large one I thought was possibly a Baboon spider. And yes I realize the spiders were killing the insects also, but getting an infected spider bite was not high on my list of wilderness activities. At night, I took an Ambien and didn’t think about any other roommates until wake up.

There is no electricity at camp. Each room and building has a small LED light run off solar. There were also small, solar-powered lights around the firepit area and lighting path to the rooms. All phones, battery packs etc had to be charged in the hunting vehicle. On the advice of a previous hunting report from another place, I picked up a portable fan that I used with a battery pack. Great Tip !

The PH did have a Starlink wifi setup in his vehicle. Not sure how you can survive without one these days. With 5 days left, I began having issues getting my phone charged, thus I stayed off it most of the time to ensure I’d have enough juice to get home. It worked out in the end, but it made for a lot of interpersonal reflection time.

Overall Score: Tough one to judge here as it is a “wilderness” destination and it was advertised as “a camp setting”. I only have one other Zim wilderness setting lodge to compare it to, but I have stayed in very remote camps in West Texas and Mexico. I would describe the overall accommodations as basic. The one real sticking point was the cabin. A little work on it could enhance the overall aesthetics of the stay, if only a psychological benefit. But this compound is only used 4+- xs per year to accommodate these leopard hunts, and I can understand it might not be financially savvy to spend much money on it. Maybe a little cheap tile in the shower/bathroom area, and patch a few areas of the walls etc

Overall Score C- (taking into account it is a remote area). If I were the property manager writing up a bio to attract Air BNB customers, I’d have to describe it as having a “wild, rustic charm, heavy on the wild”.


Food Very good given the circumstances- no electricity, running water from a pond etc

Breakfast was eggs, bacon and any leftover meat from the night before, and toast. This was my requested breakfast. I’m not sure what other options existed. There was a small fruit basket on the table also.

Lunch/Dinner- Meat, 1-2 starches to include mashed potatoes/roasted potatoes/pap, a vegetable, usually cauliflower and something (broccoli, squash, carrots, green beans), and salad. We ate anything we happened to have killed while there, and game meat from previous hunts. We had beef, chicken, bushbuck, reedbuck, kudu, impala. At the campfire before dinner, appetizers of liver, meatballs and popcorn were the normal staples.

Every couple of days, there would be a dessert of some type. For a real treat on a couple of occasions, there was a homemade bread option.

Overall Score for Food- B+

Activities Outside of hunting, there were no other type of activities, although I did mention to the PH he ought to bring a couple cheap rods and reels for lunch time fishing in the big pond where the compound was situated. That would be a good way to kill off a little afternoon downtime if you aren’t a napper (which I wasn’t).


Travel Methods Flew into Bulawayo from Joberg via Airlink (no issues/flights on time but be warned there is very little to do in the Bulawayo Airport, especially if you are staying off your phone to save battery). Vehicle transport to hunting area is a 2-3 hr drive.

High Points Around Day 9, we had two large leopards walk the roads in our hunting area the previous night. One was very close to a bait site. It created a slight buzz among the crew.

Low Points We never had enough activity at baits to even build a blind or sit for one night

Overall Summary

We hunted for 14 days. Mornings were cool in the upper 50s, and days very warm in the low 90s. Mornings consisted of daylight wake-up, breakfast, and making the rounds checking baits, scouting for fresh leopard tracks, readjusting baits. We’d eat lunch, usually around noon, take a break until 2:30-3:30 pm, then hit half the bait sites with a drag line (rotate the other half the next day).

Since I was the last hunter for the year at this camp, the local landowners asked if we could shoot the local meat rations. Any kudu bull, any wildebeest or impala we could find until we hit the quota. We did get lucky on a young kudu bull that was with 3 cows the morning of Day 4. We saw a lone kudu cow on another evening. That was the total of kudu we saw, but I did find a nice, heavy 50” side of a dead head bull off the side of the road.

I was able to shoot 6 impala, and that was every shot opportunity I had. My best ram was a heavy 21”. Based on my knowledge of Zim impala, probably an upper-class ram indeed. I did miss a flyer the last morning, as we were still short on the local meat request, so I sent a Hail Mary shot I usually wouldn’t have taken. I also shot 2 large rabbits with the .22 hornet. I killed a bait stallion zebra. That was the extent of all the game taken.

One morning we did see 3 wildebeest running across a mopani flat at 300 yds plus but never got a good look at them. I counted 13 separate pairs of klipspringer; thus I’m sure there were males in the groups, but I never saw one stop long enough to verify any size. There was a pair on a rock kopje that we passed most days going back to camp that both Wayne and Bruce said contained a shooter. We saw them twice (Day 1 and Day 3) but never got a shot.

I saw 14 steinbuck with one being a definite shooter above his ears on the second to last day, but without a leopard I wasn’t going to send a small crate back home. Maybe we could have caught up with him had that been a priority.

We also saw approximately 15-16 duikers. I think there was a male with 4+” horns in a small field next to camp one evening drive back, but otherwise I never got a good look at any of the others.

We’d normally see 2-3 small herds (2-6 animals) of zebra per day (except for days we needed bait). They were normally in the mopani flats.

Most days we’d also see a small group of impala or two. They stayed mostly in the very dense scrub brush.

We ran across 3 black back jackals, several groups of baboons, with a couple of the biggest males I’ve ever seen, and the occasional vervet monkey. We also had a couple of different brown hyenas sniff around the baits, and one night a spotted hyena.

Animals counts per day (not counting baboons, monkeys) was 2-20.


Leopard Activity- The reason I was here to hunt. Overall, we had 5 separate females hit the bait. One hit 10 of the 14 nights. A few others would show every couple of nights, and we had a female hit the last night at a new bait we had moved.

Around Day 8, we had a male hit a bait that had one of the sporadic females around. He fed at midnight, 2 am and again at 5:30 am. I had told my PH I was in for the first legal leopard we could get on. It didn’t need to be one of the super cats known in the area. We moved another camera to the bait to get a better assessment of the tom, but he never showed again.

As mentioned, on Day 9 we had two large toms walk the roads in our core area . We also found a fence gap crosser on two different days in the same spot. We set a bait there for the last 4 days, but he never showed. We would find the occasional large track that was 1-2 days old in the dry riverbeds or other areas, but nothing hit the baits.

Over the 14 days, the moon started three days passed a full and into 1-2 days passed the dark phase.


Overall Rating
This was my first leopard hunt and only real target, thus any of the other hunting we did was related to obtaining baits when needed, and as luck would have it, ration collections.

I’ve heard and read about the emotional rollercoaster of leopard hunting. Being my first leopard hunt, I prepared mentally to battle the emotions surrounding the adversities that we would face. I was able to stay grounded in the middle, even when there were days with nothing positive occurring.

The mundane, daily routine will beat you down. Groundhog Day or Deja Vu All Over Again. However, you want to describe it, not much a person can do to prepare for that other than to know that’s how it’s going to be. The cyclical nature of the day- awake with much anticipation that a big tom had fed, the ticking off of each bait that didn’t get hit, one by one until the cycle is complete. By lunch you know there’s nothing you can do to shoot a leopard at that very moment. You’ll have to wait for another night and another morning for the cycle to begin again. One day leads to the next. I lost track around Day 8 and got tangled up on what day we were on until I backtracked on the calendar.

At the campfire Day 12 I asked my PH what the final logistics of the hunt might look like. My departing flight out of Bulawayo was at 12:20 pm. Given the drive. and the errand or two we needed to make before I departed, we knew we needed a solid 3-3:30 hrs to get to the airport from camp at the very least. Thus, breaking camp by 8:30 am was a must. I inquired if a bait was hit, with confirmation of a large cat, would we sit that last night, pack and leave at daybreak? The answer was yes.

Alas, that did not happen. Several days earlier, I had resigned myself that we weren’t going to be successful. Just one of the coping mechanisms I used to stay even keeled. However, I wasn’t prepared for the wave of immense sadness that overcame me as we reached that final bait on that final morning. For the last 30 years, I have known that leopard would likely be the last big African hunting goal for me personally. I have waited to the end (I think I now have 30+ African species). As we approached that last bait, I saw my chance fleeting in the dust. It took all of the 30 min drive back to camp for the feeling to subside.

We decided to pack up and head into Bulawayo later that afternoon to the PH’s house for the final evening. A gracious offer indeed. We ate at a great local place, The Smokehouse, and I had a wonderful shower and last night without fear of a spider apocalypse.

Would I go again? I’ve read where other unsuccessful leopard hunters were booking another hunt before they left. I can’t say I’m in that group. Would I go again? Possibly. My wife was less impressed by my foray into the Wilds than most of my friends. This one stung a little more than usual. Those afternoons and evenings of phoneless interreflection brought no resolution to my leopard hunting confusion.

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Your report reads like 80%+ of other leopard hunts do. I don't think you did anything wrong or the operator based upon your report. That sadly is the nature of leopard hunting.

EVERY one of my friends gets this same advice. NEVER go on a leopard hunt. ALWAYS go on another dangerous game hunt (Buffalo, Hippo, Elephant) and ALWAYS have an emergency fund to cover a leopard trophy fee. The reason being is that leopard hunting causes grown men to cry, if that was your ultimate goal you're statistically likely to fail several times. I got my leopard on the 4th trip to Zim. It was a wonderful gold medal animal, but the journey to get that success truly sucked. The only solace I had is that my failed leopard hunts were actually bolt-ons to successful elephant hunts.

I will never hunt another leopard, I've been up through the night in freezing temperatures way to many nights to have any further interest.

I recommend you go back to Zim and enjoy a successful DG hunt. Always try for leopard half-ass as a side plot and it will eventually come together.

 

[rookhawk]

Small Leops and not exactly the same as a SW Zim monster cat hunt. Point taken, but not apples:apples.

Indeed, the SW of Zim in the Plumtree/Figtree area is notorious for monster cats. I hunted all over Paddy "Bloodnut" Curtis' old areas and all the mature cats were very large. I believe Paddy himself killed the world record #1, #3, and #4 in that area if my memory is correct.

Nonetheless, these are "ranch cats" and they are not stupid. It takes tremendous field craft to be successful. One of the most common tactics is if busted by a cat, build a second blind much farther away separated by a monument. (river, road, hill, valley). The savvy cat will check the original blind, then go to the bait tree. These are the types of advanced chess required to kill the savvy ranch cats.

 

[Green Chile]

The 2nd blind is a neat trick that I think should be used more often. On our ranch cat hunt, we used a shooting blind and then cleared (and I mean really cleaned out) a path back about 75 yards behind it to what we called the resting blind. We had a sensitive microphone at the bait that could be listened to in headphones back at the resting blind. I would sit in the resting blind and the PH would sit with me and listen in the headphones. When the bait would get hit, he would alert me and I would get ready to go forward barefoot or in my socks to the shooting blind. We had a light above the bait that could be turned up by rheostat at the shooting blind and the gun was already on the sticks, setup in advance and aiming at the bait. Now we weren't successful as that cat was super educated but I liked our setup and believed in it. We just ran out of time...and he's still out there.

 

[TheGrayRider]

Excellent, excellent book/treatise on leopard hunting. This author is knowledgeable and experienced beyond “all” doubt. I wonder if he is still alive and outfitting hunters? I am rereading my copy this upcoming winter.

Good luck to all who pursue such a challenging trophy. I am still pondering a leopard over bait hunt or possibly return for another leopard with hounds hunt.

Happy hunting to all, TheGrayRider a/k/a Tom.

 

[Graham Hunter]

Small Leops and not exactly the same as a SW Zim monster cat hunt. Point taken, but not apples:apples.

Well I don't think mine was a "small Leopard" at 160 lbs. I would never turn down a mature Tom to wait for a bigger one. Not for a Leopard!!

 

[rookhawk]

The 2nd blind is a neat trick that I think should be used more often. On our ranch cat hunt, we used a shooting blind and then cleared (and I mean really cleaned out) a path back about 75 yards behind it to what we called the resting blind. We had a sensitive microphone at the bait that could be listened to in headphones back at the resting blind. I would sit in the resting blind and the PH would sit with me and listen in the headphones. When the bait would get hit, he would alert me and I would get ready to go forward barefoot or in my socks to the shooting blind. We had a light above the bait that could be turned up by rheostat at the shooting blind and the gun was already on the sticks, setup in advance and aiming at the bait. Now we weren't successful as that cat was super educated but I liked our setup and believed in it. We just ran out of time...and he's still out there.

Leopards are weird, just like housecats. I have no idea how their mind works, but it seems like they think about "spaces". A good example is throw a cardboard box out for a housecat and they cannot resist getting in it. They like boxes. So do leopards at the zoo.

In books like Chui and others, noted authors have described the importance of monuments that are "outside the box" in the cat's mind. A leopard will surveil an area to determine the bait is safe. Determining safety is defining the confines of the box. That box stops at a two track road, or a gully, or a kopi, or a hill. The blind needs to be outside of that "box" so they do not detect a threat.

Inexperienced leopard hunters put their blind into the zone (the box) and it stands out like a sore thumb to the cat. When you start to think like a cat, you start to see the shape of the box that surrounds the bait by the landscape features.

 

[buck wild]

The second blind was our plan and PH had lots of fancy gear we never got to try out.

For the record, I think we did everything we could have done.

Only thing I found strange was that numerous females fed, but other than the one night, no males. Surely the females get harassed by the locals to the same degree as the males. The females did not seem hesitant to come to the baits.