ZIMBABWE: Nuanetsi; Hounds Over Leopard - Adroda Safaris

[Betterinthebush]

Who: Myself PH’ed by Adrian Salter (houndsman) for leopard and Courtney Connear (Zim PH for Leopard, Buffalo and PG)

What: Hounds over Leopard with Buffalo add on

Where: Nuanetsi Conservancy (cattle section for leopard and some PG and game section for Buffalo and PG)

When: May 8-23, 2026

Primary Weapons: Dakota 76 .416 Rigby (Jenny), Dakota 76 .375 H&H (Bonnie)

Schedule: Leave ATL to JBG May 6 @ 10:30 pm, arrived May 7 @ 8pm. Overnight at Afton Lodge, leave JBG May 8 for Bulawayo 11am. Arrive 12pm. Drive 7 hours south to Nuanetsi, arriving at 7:30pm

Now that the boring particulars are out of the way, I beg your indulgence, this was my first DG hunt in Africa. My dream hunt in, inarguably, the best leopard hunting area in Zimbabwe, with some of the highest densities of boss cats anywhere that boasts some of largest leopard in Africa. Leopard was my nonnegotiable priority with buffalo being a trophy fee add on. Nuanetsi also holds some of the best truly wild Africa PG hunting anywhere on the continent. From the diminutive Sharpe’s Grysbok to old bull giraffe, Nuanetsi is an African hunter’s paradise.

This might take a while to complete, so, dear reader, please bear with me.

After an absolutely brutal 7 hours of driving on Zimbabwean roads and highways, we arrived at our destination, Nuanetsi Wildlife Conservancy. The gate guard checked that we had business on the premises, opened the gate, and on we continued. Not more than a mile from the gate we saw a long male leopard crawling under the perimeter fence in the headlights of the car, cross the road and casually disappear into the grass. An encouraging beginning, to be sure.

We pulled into my camp a few miles later and were greeted by the staff, warm washcloths and delicious drinks. This is where I fist met my friend and Zim PH, Courtney Connear. The camp is called Camp Mwenezi. Makes sense.., it rests on the north bank of the Mwenezi River.

Over dinner Adrian, Courtney and myself went over what was going on so far. Courtney had prebaited 8 stations the day prior upon his arrival. This is not normal. The baits were from two calves that were killed by leopards in two different locations and one cow that had died from a worm infestation. Unexpectedly the ranch manager yielded the carcasses for bait, as he wanted the issue sorted quickly and we were all grateful. But, we needed more. Much more. The cats have been hunting for a living for the past four months and we had to overwhelm them with free food in as many places as possible, while concentrating on the known areas of three males’s territories in particular. Hunting zebra was the top priority to accomplish this and, I naively said, “that shouldn’t be too difficult.”, which I immediately received rolling-eye looks from both PH’s that I could actually hear.

Day 1: Trees, cameras and Zebra.

I was introduced to Courtney’s crew at the car following breakfast. Meshak (lead tracker), Albert (driver and second tracker), Gladman (Nuanetsi game scout and tracker) and.., Cement.. (government wildlife ranger).
Rifle sight in revealed that both my rifles were delivered to me by Delta still perfectly sighted in. A second good omen.

After rifles we started dragging roads with a thorn tree we chopped down and began the dusty, dirty, foul work of checking bait stations on cattle section and looking for sign of zebra. We were only two hours into our patrol when Courtney spotted a group of stallions only 150 meters from the road. This is where experience pays off, because I picked up in Zimbabwe right where I left off a year ago in Namibia smoothly placing my .375 on the sticks acquired my target and delivered 300gr. of Barnes TSX into the big stallion’s left quartering toward shoulder in excellent fashion. My first Zebra anywhere. I thought he was so stunning I paid the trophy fee for him to accommodate Nuanetsi for the loss in meat.

Dropped the stallion off at the skinning shed, had lunch and headed back to cattle section to get back to work. Well, apparently, zebra offer themselves up for sacrifice if it means a cat is on the line. We spotted four more stallions a quarter mile away put on an honest stalk and…

Now I’m feeling a little less pressure. Two zebra down for bait and with them 16 bait stations to build tomorrow. That should do..right?

Day 2 coming soon. It gets better. Trust me…

 

[DieJager]

I like this start, very interesting.

 

[Hunt anything]

Good read so far!

 

[Tucketed]

Ready,I have heard Adrian is a supper houndsman!

 

[Betterinthebush]

Day 2: My introduction to Buffalo, a profound moment and a proper old man.

Day 2 starts, actually, on the evening of day one. The line between pursuit and passion was clearly made evident to me in a way I never expected or could have imagined.

After dragging roads and checking baits we reentered game section and found the lone tracks of a buff bull over a section of road we drug earlier headed toward the river.

Now! A big aside; to explain some intricacies of hunting Buffalo in Nuanetsi so this whole “report” of mine makes sense.

1) every step a hunter takes in Nuanetsi is observed and recorded by an employed game scout (mine was Gladman)
2) only bulls away from a herd can be taken. A hunter cannot shoot a bull that has been tracked if it has reunited with the herd.
3) there is a “no shooting zone” around all camps (3). That zone is a 1 kilometer radius of every camp and each headquarters for cattle and game section.
4) PH’s wishing to operate in Nuanetsi are on an approved list. Any infraction committed by a hunter or PH will result in an automatic expulsion of that PH.

Now! Back to the story; we get on the tracks. It’s my first time. My heart is pounding. I have a dislocated rib (did I not mention that..? Never mind. Follow along here..) and it’s getting dark. The bush is so,so,so thick. Courtney freezes, motions me forward and sets up the sticks. I obligingly gently place Jenny solidly in place and see…

The most surreal image in Africa I have witnessed. I truly don’t believe I can ever covey what I saw.

“We’re not shooting, I just want you to get a feel what it’s going to be like” says Courtney. What I saw stopped my heart… I don’t know what it is like for everyone else. I’d never seen a buffalo alive before, but, if you can just imagine; looking at a wall of black hides, uphill from you, wet noses up, defiantly tempting you,.. it was perfect. Seeing those three big bulls so proudly plant their flag in front of the herd utterly immovable. I was hooked.

Now, day 2 for real. Baits, baits, baits. It takes a long time to hang 8 bait stations, chum drag lines, position and test cameras, etc.

About an hour before last light I almost put my finger through the car windshield at the same time that Courtney stood on the brakes. An old, wide impala ram was fighting with two others. Courtney dropped the sticks, I settled over them, took a nice relaxing breath, squeeeezed. Click! The coolest most solid dryfire anyone had ever witnessed. Perfect.

Cycled the bold and put an end to my embarrassment over not chambering a round.

For the area a real trophy. A true old dugga-boy ram. And more bait!

Day 3 to come…

 

[Mtn_Infantry]

Can’t wait to read what’s to come.

 

[Betterinthebush]

Day 3: “We really need more bait.”

Now, if you’ve managed to get this far and are thinking; “Isn’t this a hound hunt? Is all this guy going to write about are the inconsequential nuances of plains game in Zim?”, that would be fair.

Adrian is a rare man. For myself, I’ve got a reasonably lengthy (and boring) resume surrounding working dogs in particular and the training and commitment that goes into them. So, I selected Adrian a year ago for this hunt after a detailed vetting process and many phone calls. Even other PH’s vouched for the man with the highest degree of confidence.

While I and Courtney were sleeping, Adrian was up at 1AM tending to his dogs, vehicle, bait stations, cameras, dragging other roads, etc. Sakkie (his tracker) sat on his chair mounted to the overbuilt brush guard on the front of the HiLux. The only time that the leopard were not under observation at any time was between 9PM and 1AM.

Adrian’s focus on his task and his charges is savant-like and any reservations I may have had before I arrived were swiftly disposed of once I understood how sharp his focus was on the task at hand. He is a unique and remarkable PH and houndsman. The man works hard and expects to win. Not do well. Win. And his confidence is catching.

“We really need more bait” Adrian says over dinner. This coming after two zebra and an impala had been laid down. Looking around between Adrian and Courtney and them firmly looking right at me I answered “Aye”.

The morning broke with a plan to continue bait maintenance and drag roads looking for zebra. But a few kilometers from camp the car stopped and we all bailed out to inspect the tracks of two buffalo. A decision was quickly made and we struck out on the trail. For hours we tracked. Walking, bending, stooping, crawling, the agony of my rib was only a memory compared to the taxation of my leg muscles and ligaments that (clearly) I didn’t work out nearly enough during my training for this hunt. And I trained very hard. Or so I thought.

For all our work, guess what our reward was at the end of our trail. Go on, guess. Give up? I’ll tell you. The only fucking place in Zimbabwe with cellular reception! That’s what! We got, maybe within 50 meters of the two bulls and my cell phone suddenly chimed two received text messages! The bulls crashed and (I’m positive I heard laughter) it was pointless to continue. After I got back to the car I put my phone away in my ditty bag where it remained for the next 13 days.

Back to dragging roads and building another bait station out of my impala.

We downloaded all the pictures from the all the sets and kept a watch all the while for zebra (there are small herds of them that are trapped there after all the perimeter fence went up decades earlier).

We made our way back into game section for the evening and drove and drug roads by the river. Meskek stopped Courtney, we all bailed out and Jenny was immediately handed down to me. During the track we had an interesting encounter. A black mamba slithering in the tall grass and palms made everyone jump back and show heels for ten yards. A little detour and we resumed our work.

In failing light we came upon a herd of eland cows and calves. Marvelous animals. I’ve found an appreciation for them and I will hunt them one day. Something that before I had no interest in. At nearly the same moment we caught sight of a zebra, presumably alone, but had to wait for the eland to clear out. Finally we were in the clear and Courtney dropped the sticks. It was a difficult shot to attempt. Quartering away to his left through heavy jess. I placed the crosshairs midway up and behind his last rib from 50 meters away. Jenny spoke and the stallion folded hard. Then, another stallion broke cover and was trotting directly toward us! Courtney looked at me with a big grin and asked “Do you want another?” I nodded “yes” repositioning the sticks for me, Courtney and I couldn’t believe our eyes. The stud just kept coming to us. Well, it was either him or me at this point. I still feel ripped off for having to pay for the trophy fee, because it was more of a DLP kill than anything else. At 15 yards Jenny said “enough”.

Two stallions in two minutes.

Adrian greeted us at the skinning shed, positively beaming from ear to ear. The first thing he said was “what the hell? Are we hunting lions now!?” We all laughed and the camp was electric. You could feel that we had real momentum and there was no doubt. We were on fire. Adrian said he had never had a client come into camp and drop so much bait so fast. It just doesn’t happen. As Courtney and I stood there he remarked “you know what this means now? We’re going to kill a leopard tomorrow.” I shot back at him pointing to the two fine stallions on the concrete, “then that’s the best money I’ve ever spent! That’s cheap insurance!”

We shall see…

 

[UNTAMED KNIVES]

great read!

 

[Adam Stevens]

agreed, great writeup cant wait for more

 

[Betterinthebush]

Day 4: What will you do this day?

This day really begins 40 years earlier when a young boy of 15 read an article in a hunting magazine about the writer’s hunt in Africa for a leopard. At the time, I never even knew that men did such things or that it was even legal or possible. I read and dreamt of a day that I would be that writer. A grand African adventure for one of the most elusive and beautiful animals ever created. I read everything about leopard from hunting them, their habits and hides to the spell that they seem to cast on hunters everywhere that seek to take up the challenge. To say I am obsessed is an understatement.

From the giddy prospect of so much bait and good fortune the day prior, something with the mood in camp had changed. With everyone. Myself included. There was a quiet calm. A certain sense that something had been resolved and everyone was calmly confident. We left camp overloaded with bait and an overflowing gut barrel of putrid chum.

We left before dawn. As we drove through game section we looked over tracks of a buffalo herd, but there was nothing to occupy us or or time, Into cattle section we went at 7 AM.

Adrian left to check his areas at 2AM and was about 30-40 km south of us with Sakkie (his tracker) posted in his chair on the front of Adrian’s car. Adrian and Sakkie have no peer when it comes to how hard they work at what they do and the proof is in their results.

8AM.

After checking two bait stations the cameras showed civets, honey badger, bush pigs, brown hyena and female leopards. One absolutely enormous female had us momentarily excited before other shots confirmed that we had greedy eyes.

8:15AM.

Dragging a tree behind us slowly with every man hanging off and out of the car, as we were between bait sets Courtney stopped. Everyone piled off the car and were looking intently on the side of the road. Tracks. One very big and one smaller. Both heading towards the next bait station. This could be big or this could be big problems. Only by following the spoor could any sense be made of what was in front of us.

Courtney sent all his trackers in different directions to get the full story. One backtracked, two forward on the two sets of tracks and Courtney holding down the road with me and going forward to see if the male followed the female then separated and came back towards the bait ahead. All the while communicating with Adrian what we are onto.

8:22AM.

Light whistles from Meshek and Albert down in the dry creek bed meant one thing. Courtney needs to see something. The tracks had split. The female went south and the big male had peeled off to the north. Courtney and the trackers followed each softly until they were confident that the male was alone.

8:35AM. The call.

Say what you will about Elon, but his starlink antennas for vehicles are an absolute game changer, or, at least in so far as it concerned my needs.

Courtney called Adrian a gave every detail of his and his team’s work. Adrian had already made his decision and was heading our way at high speed. He said he’d be there in about 30 minutes.

8:55AM. Adrian arrives. The chase is on.

I’ll never forget that day. Adrian and Courtney formulated and finalized the plan. Adrian gave me a calm and confident smile and a reassuring nod. Courtney grabbed my shoulder and we looked at one another, it was time.

The dogs in the car were coming unhinged, pacing, whining, bawling, barking, vying for position to be the first out. These brave hounds. All they want to do is work. And for the next hour they put on nothing short of the fastest and most efficient treeing of a cat I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen a few cats treed…

 

[Betterinthebush]

9:05AM. Take up positions.

Adrian released the hounds. After a short pee and poop break, Adrian called the pack toward the direction of the male’s tracks and I didn’t see him for another hour. Courtney hustled back to me, we jumped into the car and hauled ass north for two miles then east for another two miles to the boundary fence where Nuanetsi ends and Campfire begins. If the dogs were heading towards the boundary fence, it could mean only one thing: game over. The cat made good his escape and we were then going to be acting as hound custodians to prevent them from getting under the fence and into Campfire, which would mean a lengthy and potentially dangerous standoff between the cat and dogs until we could get all the way around to recover them. Why all the anxiety over this? Because it happened last year. In this same block. With the same cat.

I..

Shit..

You..

Not.

This was round 2 for both sides, both for the leopard and the hounds.

The very same pack this day is the same pack that lost round 1 less than a year ago. Courtney and I were posted in our position for only 15 minutes, 20 minutes total from when we left Adrian. It was a blistering pace and the hounds were pushing the cat at a dangerously fast speed.. We heard one dog let out a yelp, then we heard the unmistakable sound of a pack baying hard under a treed cat. It is a sound that anyone who’s ever hunted with hounds can recognize instantly.

9:45AM. Come! Come in NOW!

Courtney was carrying a spare dog tracking collar and Adrian guided us to his position. We ran. We ran our asses off for a mile and a half through ankle twisting grass, stones, thorns, branches. We ran like crazy men stopping only just long enough for Adrian to correct our march away from the cat to where he was hiding 50 yards from the cat. Then I heard it. What was that sound I could hear even over the sound of the hounds? I couldn’t place it…

10AM. “Don’t make any sudden moves. This cat will charge.”

Were the last words I heard from Adrian before we moved forward. I remember being completely calm and at peace. But that sound..what the hell is that?

Adrian placed the sticks. I settled in. “Do you see him?” Adrian asked. “Aye” I said. Just at that moment I finally understood what the sound was. It was the leopard. It was the constant, unbroken, low rattling sound of him growling that was made as he both inhaled and exhaled. I never knew cats could do that.

“Can you see his shoulder?” Adrian asked. “No..” just then the leopard turned to his left and repositioned and I we met for the first time. Our gazes locked and he let out a big chuffing roar.

“Jim, what can you see?”

“Eyes (beautiful, brilliant green/yellow), whiskers (so long!), teeth (whiter than snow), and jaws”

“Keep on him. He’s going to jump.”

“I won’t let him” I thought. Then, he turned away from me back to his right.

10:02AM. The shot.

He finally revealed enough of the crest of his shoulder that I had to draw an imaginary line down and line up the heel of his paw on his left leg. The rest of his body was blocked by branches. The only thing separating the two of us now was 2-1/2 pounds of pressure.

The trigger broke clean and I delivered 300gr. of TBBC through the branches and into his shoulder and chest. He immediately folded, but did not fall. He was quivering and biting at a branch. His new position was obscured from my view clearly and I had to move the sticks to reaquire him. The only thing that could be seen was his neck.

“Shoot again, Jim.” But, I was getting reset. Our team agreement was now in effect…
“Someone shoot, please” at that very instant, both Courtney and I shot. Both rounds pierced within 1 inch of the other and penciled through. Both shots were both completely necessary and unnecessary at the same time. But this is not the time for worrying about one shot kills. There are lives that are loved at the base of that tree. And they deserve to go home today unmolested for their bravery.

10:03AM. What have I done?

Were the first words out of my mouth as I laid my shaking hands on this beautiful animal. I started shaking and quivering and was so overwhelmed by emotion that I didn’t know I had tears streaming down my cheeks. I heard someone say “That’s the appropriate response,Jim” and felt a heavy hand on my left shoulder. Good ‘ol’ Courtney. Adrian was just as kind and we could all start breathing again. It was a good day.

 

[Arty0802]

Bravo, sir. Absolutely incredible specimen and great storytelling. Congrats!

 

[Monski]

Great hunt report! So well written and done, congratulations!

 

[Mtn_Infantry]

Beautiful Cat and congratulations. Keep the story coming, I know there’s a lot more to come.

 

[MontanaPat]

Congratulations on a very nice cat!!

 

[Graham Hunter]

Excellent. Congratulations!

 

[schmijar]

Great writing , thank you for sharing!

 

[dhoover]

I don't know what is better, the writing or the cat. Both are incredible. Thanks for posting it. Helluva an adventure.

 

[Killo]

Congratulations!!!

 

[Rimbaud]

Thank you for sharing. Felt like I was with you on the hunt. Magnificent, and well done.