ZIMBABWE: 2018 Cast & Blast x2 With Nyamazana Safaris

Thank you. I believe I adjusted the settings correctly on this one and the Impala video. I don't have much experience working with YouTube video...
(y) The video is now playing.
 
Enjoying this tag teamed report.

The klippy is fantastic!

Would never have guessed that Jerome, @AfricaHunting.com would allow (baboon) porn on his website.:eek::D

Keep up the good work.
 
EnjoWould never have guessed that Jerome, @AfricaHunting.com would allow (baboon) porn on his website.:eek::D

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The puns are endless.

Easy to see why you couldn't stop laughing.

:D
 
Thanks for the hunt report! Glad you had a good time, and LOVED the baboon video. I have culled them before, and it never gets old. It seems no matter what I am hunting, when I see a baboon it turns into a baboon hunt.
 
Thanks for the hunt report! Glad you had a good time, and LOVED the baboon video. I have culled them before, and it never gets old. It seems no matter what I am hunting, when I see a baboon it turns into a baboon hunt.

It was a fantastic time! You're welcome and thank you!
If it were easy I wouldn't have enjoyed it so much and I firmly believe trophy appreciation is directly related to earning it.

There are two more days for us to report on. Don't go away just yet! ;):sneaky:
 
Thursday 26 July, Day 9 of Safari:

Greeted by a beautiful sunrise this morning as Michelle and I reflect on the past days and what may be in store for us the remainder of the trip.


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It’s time to go explore the area we thought had a chance to contain some bushmen paintings we had marked on Tuesday during the buffalo trek.

A view approaching the area
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What a find it turned out to be!!!

A piece of pottery!

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A longbow!

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Cave paintings!

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We weren’t sure what these markings were, possibly foot prints of some type painted on the rock? Interesting!

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This turned out to be a new find on the ranch, nobody had been here before. Sunday, the local tracker whom had lived in the area his entire life had never been here. Amazing discovery!

This spot was easily defensible as it was a steep climb up, you couldn’t approach directly from the back as a granite mountain was directly behind and it had a wide field of view for spotting game or enemies approaching.

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The feeling of being in an unexplored place where bushmen lived is hard to explain as you stand and look out over the valley, wondering how many mornings a bushmen stood on the same rock doing the same.

On the way back to the truck, I almost stepped on these little gems.


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We were on our way to the next bushmen site, “the hole in the wall”, when this gorgeous Kudu stood and admired us in the warm morning sun. Wayne and I both asked Michelle if she wanted to take him but she declined, would you have? She shot him with her Olympus instead! Gorgeous!

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The “Hole in the Wall” awaits us!

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We climb up, and I mean climbed with a rope in some spots! Michelle doesn't like heights and with Wayne coaching her and me keeping my trap shut, she was able to conquer the mountain, that's my girl.

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From inside

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A lot of rock drawings in amongst the different overhangs and caves.

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We left the caves and resumed hunting, putting a stalk on a decent Wildebeest but his girls were on to us and they gave us the slip. We set up over a large pan in the late morning hoping to catch something coming in to drink. After 45 minutes a troop of baboons came in to drink, the sentry arrived first but must have spotted something out of the ordinary and began walking away from us along the far bank. I pulled ahead of his path and found a clear spot through the brush and let him have it. We wound our way around the pan and a quick finisher to end things.


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We drop off the baboon at the skinning shed and head towards camp and lunch to deliver the bow to Di Drummond and tell her of the new find, and fill our bellies with some good food!

A drive in the afternoon and Michelle scores again with a great picture of two male Klipspringers, did I mention this place is loaded with Klipspringer?

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That evening the moon arose into the sky turning the darkness away.

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We set up the FoxPro in a likely looking area and nestled ourselves behind a thorn bush, able to see up and down the road 40 yards both ways. Michelle didn’t think she wanted to be out on the ground with us and decided the cab was a safer place to NOT be eaten by a leopard, hyena or other creature of the night!

The caller is playing a tune, awesome sounds that make your skin crawl. After five or six minutes, Wayne taps me on the arm and whispers there is something in the road to your right. I pull up the 06 and the place the red dot of the Zeiss on the shape. My first thought, that’s not a spotted hyena, the shape is all wrong. It should be standing tall on its front legs with a shorter rear. This shape was like an arch. Almost simultaneously Wayne whispers in my ear, don’t shoot, it might be a brown hyena. He tells me he’s going to put the light on it, I’m ready.

The light goes on and it’s black and white striped, a huge civet! Wayne says shoot him and he’s down.

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He’s easily twice the size of the female I took earlier in the week. This one takes two hands to hold up in front of me. Another fantastic night hunt with @Nyamazana Safaris !

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A wonderful dinner of Kudu filet over the open fire capped off the night with a smile on everyone’s face.
 
Very cool find and I'm with your bride on her choice of Kudu weapon. (y)
 
I think I need an animal identification book for all the oddities you are stacking up
I’m pretty picky but I think that kudu would be real hard to pass ( Michelle) jab:/ poke
 
Pretty cool sunrise pic and the cave paintings are nice to see!!
 
Pretty cool sunrise pic and the cave paintings are nice to see!!

Discovering a new bushmen site, artifacts and cave paintings was one of the highlights of the trip for sure!

There were some additional crevices/caves under the boulders that could use some additional exploring.
 
Jeff and Dana: Day 9, morning.
(Thursday, 26/7/2018)


Ugghhhh! I think we drank a little too much last night... “Honey, where's the ibuprofen??”

Breakfast was relatively quiet and fluids were being consumed in quantity. The crepuscular Bushbuck aren't going to wait for us! So we get moving.

We head to the areas along the river beds and reservoirs hoping to see a Bushbuck or Warthog. We spied some piggies down by the river bed but they were young and immature.

In our travels we come across a fair amount of elephant damage. Trees pushed right over and branches strewn about. One tree happened to be across the road. There on the left! A piggie (warthog) female with one sizable tusk. She quickly made way behind the tree across the road as we try to get out and see her. No such luck. She was gone.

Well, this tree will simply not afford anyone easy passage around. A couple of the guys stay behind to clear the debris while we motor on ahead. We'll be back just now to get them. We scouted around for a time but didn't see anything and made our way back to the tree to pick up the guys.

We were in the thick of things when Mike spots a Grysbok 20 feet outside his window. I can just see the top of it in the tall grass and its neck. The only shot I would be able to take is to stick my gun barrel out the driver's side window and shoot leaning over him from the passenger side! I wasn't too comfortable with this... The Grysbok didn't hang around while I pondered and in a flash was gone. We traveled on.

By now it was late morning and Dana was still weary from the night before. Time for her nap.
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I mentioned to Mike that I wish I had a plastic snake to put on her leg. Then start yelling “SNAKE!” and point at her lap. You know, just messing around like a stupid guy would. Yep, this was all my idea... Being that Mike and I are such angels we decided a piece of old electrical tape would work just as well. Needless to say things didn't work out too well for us mischievous angels. The piece of tape was tossed on her lap and we started freaking out and jump out of the vehicle. She woke up, had no clue what was going on, and fumbled with the door to get out. Her feet didn't make it out the door and she poured out of the truck onto... a thorn bush! Oh no! Now she's bleeding and in pain. We play dumb and fix her leaking hands with the first aid kit. Man we felt bad!!! (Later on I came clean about the “snake incident” and she was ok with it. She even thinks it's funny as all heck except for the pain. What an awesome gal!!)

During our trip back for lunch Mike and I talk about the area near camp behind the dam. Bushbuck HAVE been seen back there as we thought there might be. The trouble is getting to a good vantage spot to see them! It is pretty thick. With only a day and a half left of the hunt we decide to concentrate on that area. We had seen female Bushbuck and various Waterbuck in that area before but no Bushbuck rams.

I considered myself pretty fortunate to have had this kind of first safari experience. At this point I was perfectly comfortable accepting the fact that I may not get a Bushbuck this trip. It is the experience that matters most and this has been a remarkable experience thus far thanks to my brother (@Edge), Wayne (@Nyamazana Safaris), and my awesome PH, Mike Blignaut (@blignaut).

After lunch, which was the fish from the day before, (and oh was it good!), it was nap time. When it came time to get up and head back out, Dana wasn't feeling up for another afternoon in the bush and wanted to rest. After making sure everything was well with her ,I walked down to the truck and met up with the guys. I relayed to Mike that Dana wouldn't be joining us this afternoon.

Jeff: Day 9, afternoon.

We drove down the road near to where I had shot the baboon the day before behind the dam and parked the truck. Into the bush we go. We carefully and quietly picked our way through the thick brush until we came to the base of the only large hill this side of the road and adjacent to the drainage area behind the dam. This is probably the best chance we have to get a decent vantage point for the area. Up we go.

Normally I'm an excellent climber but with a loaded 7.5 lb rifle in tow and binos on a shoulder strap it can get a bit more difficult. As we start making our way around the hill and upwards the bare rock starts to open up a bit. There, ahead of us, a Klipspringer. She wasn't even concerned with us at the moment because the troop of baboons that frequented that area were making quite the racket in the trees and rocks way up above us. I definitely have to agree with Ed (@Edge), there are 3 animals in abundance here: Klipspringers, Rock/bush Hyrax, and baboons.
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Here she gives us a look. Can only guess what she might be thinking...

We watched her for a minute or three then kept moving. Up, up, and across we went until we found ourselves on the face of a large mound of granite. Moving towards the dam we positioned ourselves on a good location to view the entire area behind the dam. The Sun was on its way down providing for some beautiful views but not so good for looking for game!

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(Some nicknames for this ridge come to mind but this may not be the best venue for them...)

As it turned out, in one of the less thickly filled areas almost directly across from us there was a shape below the branches of a big dead tree. I watched this shape for a few minutes before I said to Mike that I see one. Sure enough, there was a Bushbuck under that tree! But sooo farrrrr awayyyyyy. We scanned that area for some time and there was another one a little further in the thicket. I lost them in the fading light and the thickness of the brush but Mike was able to follow them – mostly.

We had lost the sun behind the mountain and it was getting dark quickly. No shot tonight. We climbed down through near vertical terrain hanging onto rocks, branches, roots, anything to keep from becoming a pinball on the hillside. We know they are in the area and where we have to be to see them. Tomorrow. One more chance. No pressure or anything...

Off to a delicious dinner by the fire and bed.
 
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You like living dangerously! o_O
 
What a grand Safari this has been in a very inspiring place!
 
Friday 27 July, Day 10 of Safari:

Our final day. Time goes by so fast when you are having a new adventure every day! The plan for today would be to take a drive in the morning and see if we could spot something worth squeezing the trigger one last time. We would come back for lunch, followed by an afternoon of bass fishing with Wayne and his wife Jen who drove down for Bulawayo to spend some time with us the evening before, she is a hoot! There was also a special astral event taking place that evening that would put a giant exclamation point on this adventure!

It was a cold morning but the sun warmed things up quickly, we spotted a few animals but nothing wanted to cooperate or was big enough. Climbing up to look-out point, the trackers spotted a waterbuck below the cliffs in the trees.

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I got a couple good looks at the waterbuck, he was nice but didn't get me all fired up, I will pass. One last view from lookout point, will we ever see it again?

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We press on looking for game. Michelle snaps a pic of a cormorant.

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Finally get to see a bull eland, well, what’s left of the old monarch! We hunted hard for eland this trip, some females and juveniles but couldn’t find a big old bull, but that’s hunting a wild area and I have no regrets.

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We head back for lunch and I prep the bass gear for an afternoon’s fishing adventure. It has been very cold for the past ten days with the sun shining fully only the last few. I didn’t have high expectations but wanted to give it a try!

The watercraft we used was more like a floating mini-barge but we would make do, as Jen was mixing GnT’s from the start!

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Wayne led the catching off with a couple small bass then hooked a nice one! Look at that form, he should be on Bassmasters!

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The first good bass of the four of us, yes the ladies were also chucking spinnerbaits!

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I finally hook up, don’t laugh, my first “African-ized” large mouth, I tried to get it close enough to the camera to make it look BIG!

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Jen and Michelle also catch a few smaller ones while us boys are trying our hardest not to be shown up by the girls. Wham, I’ve hooked something good and no net! I’m not hoisting this one into the boat like they do on TV! I circle him like he was doing a tuna spiral coming up to the boat, Wayne is able to lip him and we have him on board!

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I grabbed a shot of the fish with Wayne’s hand out-stretched to give a sense of size. Easily 9.5 inches tall and around 27 long. Easily over 10 lbs, my biggest Largemouth to date, even though he is “African-ized”! The Fenwick travel rod (details at the beginning of the post) performed nicely with good action, it behaved like a one piece rod instead of a three piece. I will always be packing a rod and reel from now on, you never know! A few swishes back and forth in the water and she gives me a tail splash and makes her way off to make more little bass!

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Michelle soon hooks into a good fish and we land it!

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We take a break and just sit around and enjoy the warm afternoon together, a wonderful way to finish the Safari and the day! The girls were having a good time!

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