CONGO: Congo Safari

My first post here after enjoying everyone else’s extensive reports. This hunt started in 2023 when I purchased an auction hunt at SCI Nashville to Cameroon for Buffalo and Roan with Travels and Expeditions owned by Cyrus Khodai. I upgraded to include Lord Derby Eland, the hunt was in March of 2024 and I was extremely successful.

Congratulations on a successful hunt! I hope we will get more details....
Why does the heading say Congo, seems you were in Cameroun?

Please throw in some details when you get a chance.

I’m setting the stage, that was 2024. I stayed in touch with Cyrus and we discussed Bongo, but I always thought it would be out of my reach. Cyrus mentioned that he was donating a Sitatunga and Buffalo hunt in the Congo with an upgrade to Bongo which I ended up purchasing.
We semi scheduled dates for early October which were pushed back to mid October, which suited me better.
I left Washington (IAD) to Paris, switch planes to Brazzaville Congo via Kinshasa DRC leaving October 10th arriving in Brazzaville on October 11th.
The flight from Kinshasa to Brazzaville is 16 miles , I read where these 2 Capital cities are the closest in the world and it’s the shortest commercial flight also.
I spent the night in the Raddison and we left the next morning for the 12 plus hour drive north towards Ouesso, arriving late that evening.

The PH was Kenny Swemmer, from South Africa who PHs for Cyrus in Gabon.
A personable fellow that I got along with easily.
Opening morning we waited for solid daylight, shot the rifle at 50 yds, Kenny said the bongo would be shot at something like 10 yds, then left camp to look for tracks.
Rifles are not allowed to be brought into the Congo, so you use the Outfitters rifle. It was a German made bolt action 375 H&H with a Zeiss 1.25 to 4 scope on it, perfectly fine for the situation and on older Benelli Super Black Eagle (first generation)12 gauge for the shotgun shooting #2 shot.
My room in the photo

Fantastic trips, green with envy. That lord derby/roan/buffalo is stuff dreams are made of

The hunting area was huge,we would leave camp at daylight to hunt the area by camp, I’d guess we would travel roughly 25 miles back an old logging road looking for tracks along the way and going to numerous spots where they had placed salt to attract the animals.
We hunted another area roughy 45 minutes from camp that we would have to leave early to be there at daylight.
We saw fresh elephant tracks every morning in the roads, they really liked to walk the roads at night, bulls and sometimes a cow with a calf.
Typical area they salted

Please tell us more. For a long time, Congo Forest Safaris was the operator that I’m aware of who has been hunting Congo-Brazzaville. They hunt the Tala-Tala area. Where does this operation hunt?

How’s Kenny Swemmer doing? He was Ernie Dosio’s PH in Gabon and was gored in the lower abdomen in the same attack where Ernie was killed.

We would take a head tracker, Peter, excellent guy, even spoke a fair amount of English. Bosco was our dog man, they looked like a bunch of curs, but listened to him pretty well. He’d take 5 dogs most days with us,then 2 or 3 pigmies to cut trail for us and help with tracking.
Bosco is the tall one, doesn’t look like much pygmy in him to me.

DLSJR said:

Please tell us more. For a long time, Congo Forest Safaris was the operator that I’m aware of who has been hunting Congo-Brazzaville. They hunt the Tala-Tala area. Where does this operation hunt?

How’s Kenny Swemmer doing? He was Ernie Dosio’s PH in Gabon and was gored in the lower abdomen in the same attack where Ernie was killed.

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Kenny is doing well
Cyrus’ area is southwest of Ouesso roughly 2 hrs
Take the road west from Ketta 1hour to camp
Ketta is at a “main” intersection south of Ouesso

@Webster

Welcome to the forum!
I can also say, what an entry! Wow!

I see this will be extraordinary report.
All the countries you mention are of my future interest, and in average they are rarely visited by foreign hunters.

Less beaten paths!

I suppose this was not you first safari, is that correct?

Have you considered security?
And what are your impressions on eventual security issues in Congo?

The third day, we left early for the other area. The previous day they sent a crew to the other area to cut a road open that had semi grown shut, they found a bongo track that looked interesting,we were there at daylight and took up the track into the forest.
They were excited as on the previous hunt they followed a 2 day old track and killed the bongo within the first 2 hours.
The thickness of the jungle is indescribable, usually the bongo follows the elephant paths, which are semi open at ground level but usually covered from 2 feet on up.
The tracker and dog man follow the track, then 1 or 2 pigmies would cut and chop for us, a lot of stooping down to go under cover, vines trying to trip you constantly.The pigmies sharpen their machetes with a chainsaw of flat file and keep them extremely sharp, using the file several times a day.
The main positive is you’re in the shade 90% of the time, still extremely humid.
The bongo is much easier to track in the forest than I thought, he’s pretty heavy on his front hooves and imprints fairly deeply, without sunlight the tracks are very hard to age.
We tracked this particular bongo for 4 hours, seemingly not gaining any ground, the bongo never bedded or stopped to eat, we left and went back to the truck
Heading in on the track.

mark-hunter said:

@Webster

Welcome to the forum!
I can also say, what an entry! Wow!

I see this will be extraordinary report.
All the countries you mention are of my future interest, and in average they are rarely visited by foreign hunters.

Less beaten paths!

I suppose this was not you first safari, is that correct?

Have you considered security?
And what are your impressions on eventual security issues in Congo?

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I’d been to Zimbabwe 3 previous trips
I don’t understand your security question, please elaborate

Webster said:

I don’t understand your security question, please elaborate

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Central African countries in general, guerilla or terrorist activity?
Republic of Congo, violent crime possibility?

From state dpt, travel advisory:

Webster said:

I’d been to Zimbabwe 3 previous trips
I don’t understand your security question, please elaborate

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I think he’s asking about safety. Were there any special safety protocols and did it feel safe. Lots of reports that Congo isn’t all that safe.

Russ16 said:

I think he’s asking about safety. Were there any special safety protocols and did it feel safe. Lots of reports that Congo isn’t all that safe.

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Confirmed!

Mornings were spent looking for tracks and numerous times we walked a road trying to intercept a buffalo. We would occasionally see Peter’s duikers in our travels in the road while driving or on our walks. By day 4 I had missed 3 of them, 2 from the truck and one freehand while we were walking, pretty pitiful shooting. I finally hit one heading back to camp midday.

mark-hunter said:

Central African countries in general, guerilla or terrorist activity?
Republic of Congo, violent crime possibility?

From state dpt, travel advisory:

View attachment 804537

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i didn’t feel the least bit uncomfortable anywhere I went in the Congo. They will surely look at you when you go through the towns, I saw one other “white” person on the 12 plus hour trip north.

mark-hunter said:

Confirmed!

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The Republic of Congo and The Democratic Republic of Congo are easily confused, 2 different countries..Yes I think the northern parts of the DRC are not suitable for travel, I don’t think an American can get a visa to the DRC

mark-hunter said:

Central African countries in general, guerilla or terrorist activity?
Republic of Congo, violent crime possibility?

From state dpt, travel advisory:

View attachment 804537

Click to expand...

But I would point out that category is the same one Spain and France are in form the state department.