Now you did it:
As I thought when a close friend asked me how I made out on our Leopard Trip to South Africa with Motsomi Safaris ….
So I e-mailed him this response, PaulB, you brought a sore spot back out in the open. Just kidding. You’re right though, you didn’t see a leopard in the pictures of our recent trip to Africa. If I had gotten one of the three leopards we were hunting I would have taken out a full page add in the Wall Street Journal. I’ve never worked so hard to do nothing in my life. Again, Pieter and Company went all out. They had a female on bait when we arrived. We waited a few days until a male showed up. Then they hurried and built two blinds at right angles to the bait tree, cleared a shooting lane from both, and cleared a walking lane to each as not to make any noise getting into the blinds. Two were made in case of wind change.
We let the area calm down and the leopards were working it! Adrenaline time! So we went into the blinds from 8 to 12 hours at a time, depending what day and how long I (and not just me) could sit absolutely still. Not one cough, sneeze or pick your nose. Not moving was the hard part, along with the temperature chance. Going into the blinds it was 94 deg. on one day and in the evening when they had to pry me out, it was 44 deg. It’s hard dressing for that kind of change.
We were very close to making the deal when hyenas and a new animal that I now hate called a Honey Badger came in. Not just one but a pair of them….Leopards are bad asses… but they’re not dumb. They will not fight Honey Badgers for the food. They’ll just leave it to them and find something else to eat.
Even with the time consuming leopard hunt, we (my wife, now called Sheena, and I) had a great time and were able to get some amazing trophies with Pieter, and his other PH Shaun, and his little son PC. Just to add to the equation, I had a brace and a cane because I broke my left knee in 14 places and my right wrist in 4 places, 5 ½ weeks out from going to Africa…
I can’t explain in words how well they took care of me and my wife.
Move to Leopard hunt #2…
Our leopards, like Elvis, left the building. So Pieter and Shaun put the word out on the local drums. They received a fast response from a person they know that a leopard was killing their game to close to their house. They needed our help. WOW !!!! Tarzan to the rescue.
It was like a Chinese fire drill for an hour and a half from the phone call till the cruiser and a trailer, and the team (Pieter, Shaun, Sederick the tracker, my wife, and I) were on the way to places unknown. Now the fun part… no more than a half hour from the base camp Shawn got a call and gives it to Pieter. He stops the caravan and gets out of the truck and is talking and waving his hand and pacing back and forth along the side of the road. He gets back into the Cruiser says something to Shawn in mombo jumbo and then tells us “change in plans”. We have a monster male leopard close by that has been killing someone’s prize cattle and has just made a fresh kill. Tally Ho! We arrived at the most beautiful farm/ranch you can imagine. We were greeted by the owner who showed us where we were to stay and where he last saw the dead calf in a tree. In a matter of hours the calf had been removed from the tree (in broad day light) and taken across a dead fall and a stream to the mountain side. This is where Pieter, Shawn and Sederick looked for fresh spoor of this huge male leopard.
When they returned from the cliffs, they all had a BIG grin. The spoor (tracks) was bigger then any one of them had ever seen. He was a Monster! The next day they baited two places and built blinds while I ate Bon Bons. They killed themselves getting everything ready.
We hunted him hard (hard, meaning more long hours, not moving for 10 to 14 hrs a day). Although we never saw him, two highlights confirmed that “he” was there! One night while we were out there the owners thought we had brought high tech electronic equipment calling the leopard. But we hadn’t. Mr. Spots was just over the other side of our mountain roaring so loud that he woke them all up. And poor Sederick was so close to that spot that he jumped into the Cruiser and locked the doors. On another night, Mr. Big was 20 yards from us. Bush Bucks barked, other animals made noises in the total dark that indicated we was there and circling us. Then all went still. Nothing, not a beep from anything, he was that close. This was one of those time people say the only thing you can hear is the pounding of your own heart beat. We knew it and he knew it. He was trying to make up his mind if he wanted us or the bait…
Well Mr. Spots got a big break…. It hadn’t rained in that part of Africa in 4 months… my luck a 3 day rain storm came in. So we left Shawn there and returned to Pieter’s base camp and had more fun hunting.
DID I GET MY LEOPARD? —– NO. DID WE GO LEOPARD HUNTING? —– OH YA!
Don (eldondo) & Ginny Rickards
Pro Staffers for The Hunting Life
At huntinglife-com.huntinglife.com
Upper Black Eddy, Pennsylvania
eldondo@epix.net
Motsomi Safaris
www.motsomi.com
