Hunting Kizigo And Ugalla In Tanzania 2009
Hunt Report VI
This is what the rack on top of the truck looks like when Walter is along for the ride! That light greenish bag you see under the cameras and phones is his. It has about 200 different pockets. Trouble is, Walter only has about 190 different gadgets. This means about 10 pockets are empty, which causes him no end of confusion! He takes something out of one pocket, and puts it in a different one. He then starts looking for it in all the different pockets! To the great amusement of us all. Roy would ask him sometimes "are you confusing yourself again?" The answer comes back "yes, and I don't need your help either!" The bag has several GPS receivers, several cameras, at least two sat phones and at least a couple of cell phones. Whenever I ask him why he carries all these with him on the truck, he said "mind your own bloody business!"
Roy and his very old buffalo bull. This bull was in a cantankerous state. Apparently he chased the crew that cut the road a few days earlier. We found that he had a wound from a lion that had gone septic, and it must be causing him a lot of discomfort. We were driving along, when we saw him walk into the bush about 300 yards away. We stopped, and Roy and Alan went after him. Walter and myself waited at the truck. We thought it was going to be quick hunt. But, an half an hour later and still no sound of a shot, we assumed that the bull never stopped, and our hunters are after him. So Walter started looking for something to amuse himself. We found a dead tree, and I was sitting on one of its branches a few feet off the ground. Walter got his Swiss Army knife, got the saw out, and started to saw the branch off.
"Why are you doing this?" I asked
"I want to see you fall off"
"It is going to take you a month to cut through this branch with that saw"
"If it does not cut it, I will break it. It would be so much fun seeing you fall"
After a while he gave up, and started tapping his multi tol on the trunk of the tree, pretending to play a xylophone! This brought our driver and game scout t us, as they were getting quite amused at what he was doing. Apparently, Roy and Alan were not far from us, as the bull just went into the tree line and stopped. They were trying to get a clearing for a shot, while Walter was keeping the bulls attention. He apparently kept looking towards us! Old men get deaf, not old buffalo!
A few pictures of a zebra I shot. It shows the different markings one gets on different zebra
Someone must have bitten the top of his ear off
One more BBQ
Walter decided to paint the flutes on my rifle. He did not do a good job of it, as you can see, the paint is flaking off. He said it gives the gun a "well used" look!
We saw this herd of elephants, which did not take very kindly to us
Walter asked for a rest stop. So we stopped, had a drink and a sandwich. Then Alan announced "I really like hunting with you Walter. One gets lots of rest, food and drink"
Walter shot this kongoni, and as usual, he had some wounds from a previous fight
We had so much fun with this farting machine. We hid it under the seat as you can see above. And each time Walter pressed the remote control, and a new fart came, the looks of total amazement on the face of our trackers was something to be seen! Eventually they found out, and then Walter had another trick up his sleeve. He asked Awazi to smell it! As he got it to his nose, Walter pressed the remote, and a new fart came out! Awazi almost threw the machine away from fright!
Looking for buffalo tracks. They just passed here a few minutes earlier.
To the right of the big tree you can see our trackers. This is some of the grass we had to hunt in
This is my eye level in the grass
Elephant dung which the trackers burn in the back of the truck to keep the tse tse flies off. It works great
Field dressing a zebra
Alan setting up the trail camera at a lion bait
Walter wears a hearing aid, and was about to change the battery in it. He had the battery in his mouth, when I asked him something. He opened his mouth to talk, and the battery fell into the back of the truck. It went under the hammer, and we spent quite sometime looking for it. The back of the truck was covered in fresh blood from an impala. Roy came along, and when he heard what had happened, he said to Walter "another reason for you to keep your mouth shut!"
We hung this hippo leg up in a tree close to the water to attrack the crocs. Our intention was to take it down and tie it by the water's edge the next day. This trick works great.
Life African rice!
We finally found a "walterable" pig for Walter to shoot
An old game warden house on the Ugalla River
It was Nelson's birthday, and a cake was prepared for the occasion
Champaign and dancing
Nelson was over come with joy. Tears started down his cheeks
Leoni in hr office in the bush
Walter, Nelson, Alan, Leoni, Rene And Roy
Early morning coffee by the fireside before breakfast
You can see the hair on this zebra neck has been bitten off by another zebra
Roy and Walter enjoying a break
One of the hundreds of logging operations we found in Ugalla
We saw this herd of buffalo, and went after them. After a while we got to about 150 yards from them, and we noticed this old bull with a broken horn. We decided to shoot him. And from the looks of his broken horn, we might have done him a favor. It was infected, and so was his ear, and he was blind in one eye as well