NAMIBIA: Leopard Hunt With Nick Nolte Hunting Safaris July 1-15, 2025

[Oil & Dirt]

Congratulations on the leopard and great hunt

 

[DAK]

Congratulations man! Awesome Tom!

 

[30.06king]

The perfect result for everything you went through. The whole story rates among the best hunting tales anywhere.
Congrats on a fine Leopard and a great hunt.

 

[cpr0312]

Congrats on the Tom!

 

[Tucketed]

Congratulations

 

[buck wild]

Nice cat!

 

[DieJager]

Waidmannsheil! Great cat and a great story. Did I miss a picture of your buffalo?

 

[spike.t]

After 18 days of leopard hunting, I had two days left. Mid afternoon, we arrived at the bait location with the blind. We had sat there the prior day and nothing hit the bait. We’re hoping today is the day.

Nick and I got settled into the tent blind and so began the four plus hour sit, while being absolutely quiet. My rifle had a round chambered and ready for action.

To pass the time, I started scrolling through the photos on my phone and deleting duplicate and bad photos. After a couple of hours, Nick nudged me and pointed at the bait. I looked at the bait, and it looked the same. But a few seconds later, the Tom appeared and was soon on the bait. I was a bit startled because I anticipated the cat to appear at last light. It was a good hour before sunset and here Mr Spots was. Two taps on the leg was the signal to shoot and Nick had just done that. Switching the safety off and making a slight adjustment to the rifle to put the crosshairs on the cat, I fired and the cat dropped. However, it clearly wasn’t dead, so I had to take a follow up. Probably not the best shooting I’ve ever done, but I at least had a leopard!

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Excellent..Good to see homer crossing his fingers and holding his breath worked

 

[375 Ruger Fan]

Excellent..Good to see homer crossing his fingers and holding his breath worked

I think Homer would say the hunt was an Iliad and Odyssey.

 

[375 Ruger Fan]

Waidmannsheil! Great cat and a great story. Did I miss a picture of your buffalo?

Since my buffalo hunt was with a different outfitter, I plan to do a separate report. Stay tuned!

 

[Ragman]

Congrats, you earned it! I would love to see more pics.

 

[Frederik]

Congrats finally, and pulled out everything out of the hat getting this one.

 

[MontanaPat]

Congratulations Dave on a great cat, hope to see some more pics and read all about the buffalo hunt

 

[Cecil Hammonds]

Congrats!

 

[HankBuck]

After 18 days of leopard hunting, I had two days left. Mid afternoon, we arrived at the bait location with the blind. We had sat there the prior day and nothing hit the bait. We’re hoping today is the day.

Nick and I got settled into the tent blind and so began the four plus hour sit, while being absolutely quiet. My rifle had a round chambered and ready for action.

To pass the time, I started scrolling through the photos on my phone and deleting duplicate and bad photos. After a couple of hours, Nick nudged me and pointed at the bait. I looked at the bait, and it looked the same. But a few seconds later, the Tom appeared and was soon on the bait. I was a bit startled because I anticipated the cat to appear at last light. It was a good hour before sunset and here Mr Spots was. Two taps on the leg was the signal to shoot and Nick had just done that. Switching the safety off and making a slight adjustment to the rifle to put the crosshairs on the cat, I fired and the cat dropped. However, it clearly wasn’t dead, so I had to take a follow up. Probably not the best shooting I’ve ever done, but I at least had a leopard!

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@375 Ruger Fan - a tough Hunt but an even TOUGHER Hunter !! Congratulations

 

[375 Ruger Fan]

The saga continues!

When the Lufthansa 747 flight from Frankfurt landed in Houston, I checked my AirTags and saw that my rifle case was left in Frankfurt. The United app says it was loaded on the plane. It was not. I found a Lufthansa baggage agent near the carousel and he had a print out of about 20 names and mine was on it. Keep in mind that I had a 4 hour connection time in Frankfurt.

The Lufthansa guy said my rifle case would be on tomorrow’s flight (Sunday) and they would forward it to Shreveport and United would deliver it to my house.

Sunday afternoon, I received a phone call from Lufthansa in Houston. They said the rifle case was locked and I needed to come to the airport and unlock it so CBP could clear it. I reminded them about the flight I took to Shreveport (about 200 miles from IAH) on Saturday. At that point they told me they couldn’t put firearms on a United flight without a passenger.

I spent all day today (Monday) driving down to the Houston airport, going to the Lufthansa ticket counter and then going to the CBP location at the baggage claim area. The CBP guy was cool, had me unlock the rifle case and he looked at the serial number on one of the rifles. Checked on his computer and “Thank you, have a nice day.”

I am pretty disgusted with Lufthansa.

 

[BryceM]

Yup. I had nothing but a train wreck last time I flew with Discovery and then Lufthansa. What would you have done if the connecting airport was hundreds of miles away?

 

[RR 314]

Just catching up on this. Great job closing the deal on the cat! What a disaster on the luggage on both ends. I’ve decided two things – I don’t have the patience to kill a leopard and I will never fly Lufthansa. Oooof.

 

[Spearhead]

Another great report Dave! Thanks for sharing and congratulations. Ugh on the airline.
What are your taxidermy plans?

 

[ILDRHNTR]

Congratulations on your cat!! What a hard earned trophy in so many ways. So happy it worked out for you in the end. It could easily have been much much worse. Thanks for the great story and can’t wait to read about your buffalo as well.