Wheels
AH ambassador
Safari ya Marafiki (Safari of friends) Mwatisi Safaris
Jerome establishing AH changed my perspective on hunting internationally with friends. This hunt is the first international hunt I have done with friends and probably won’t be the last. It is interesting how friendships can develop through a website like AH. People you don’t know that live half way around the country or the world end up people you are in WhatsApp chats with on a regular basis.
AH friends.
These are the AH friends that made this safari possible @Just Gina @ActionBob @Royal27 and some old goober they picked up along the way.
The hunt came together for three of us at DSC in 2019. The all boys get away changed to an AH getaway when Just Gina joined the safari https://www.africahunting.com/threads/the-hunt-is-over.66172/
All the above are great people and I am honored to have them as friends!
Old friends.
I can’t say for sure if I remember when Sherdell was born, but in all likelihood, I knew at the time. There is enough of a difference in age that we never were around each other much in Tanzania. We were out of touch for many years. I was in touch with Sherdell’s family on trips to Tanzania over the years and they let me know he went to the show in Dallas. Sometime around 12-15 years ago we reconnected in Dallas.
Really old friends.
This is my father and Sherdell’s father Omar. (I spent time trying to find a photo of them together but gave up.) These photos are from 50+ years ago. This hunt would never have happened if not for the fact that they were friends and their sons reconnected for this safari. If an ivory hunter writes a book, he is known to many. If he doesn’t write a book, he is known to few. Omar’s numbers would compare favorably with many who wrote books. The few of us left that knew the Mzee, remember him fondly.
New Friends
These are the crew in our vehicle. Edwin-game scout, Bibi-tracker, Haydar- PH Tojo-tracker, Bacari-driver. To give you an idea of the kind of guys these are, Bibi has driven lions off their kill by himself to steal meat a few times. Tojo has driven lions off their kill more times than he can remember. He does it a number of times each wet season to steal some meat. I was fortunate to have a great team. Everyone pitched in on any job. Hanging baits, making blinds, getting the truck unstuck, fixing tires, etc.
We hunted with Mwatisi Safaris. The area we hunted was Rungwa Mzombi. (1967 sq kl.) It is on the west end of Rungwa and borders both the Ruaha NP and Usangu GR. I think the altitude at camp was 4800’. We flew into Mbeya then took a six-hour drive to camp. The last hour and a half were from the boundary of the concession into camp. There is also an airstrip forty-five minutes from camp if an individual wanted to charter.
Buffalo
The rains were heavy and late this year. Normally water is scarce and buffalo are concentrated around water in the concession or come out of Ruaha NP to water. Grass was still being burnt throughout our safari in October. One open area of perhaps two square miles, is supposed to look like a green billiard table this time of year with a few hundred buffalo feeding. This year there was still 12’ high grass that wouldn’t burn. This made the buffalo hunting difficult. I was fortunate to get three.
We drove up a mountain and walked down a dry watercourse to some isolated pools. At one pool we came upon five bachelors. I was wanting a double but my first shot was high so I kept shooting the first bull. It went about 50 yards. He was old and well worn. Also see photo of buff above.
One day Royal’s vehicle had problems. Royal and Shahbek (Royal’s ph) came with us. We saw some fifteen or so bulls leaving water and followed up. They joined a herd. I wounded one in the group. He was the softest buff I shot. I was probably confused on which bull I was being told to shoot. We followed up and got another shot in him. Then we had to leave him for the night. We followed up the next day and found him. I had a total of 1200 grains in him (600 the first day and 600 the second) and Royal had 1500 grains the second day, so perhaps Royal is the one who really got the soft bossed bull.
The third bull was a less than perfect first shot. The guys did a great job of tracking. We followed up for about a kilometer and finished him off that evening. This bull had a really nice boss. My shooting this trip was not my best. In the past I have been solid even with poor form. Now even with good/better form on the sticks it is getting difficult to not wobble a bit.
Sable
There were plenty of sable. I told Haydar that I wanted an old bull with secondary growth. Over the course of the hunt, we saw several that would be longer but I was happy with the one I got.
Roan
I have never taken a roan. I missed an old roan on day three and didn’t see another roan until day 12. I took this breeding age bull who had a small harem for fear I wouldn’t see another. If I had waited, I would have had four more opportunities at older larger bulls.
Eland
There didn’t seem to be many eland in the concession. I had about three seconds to get my gun up on an old bull and shoot. He was moving before I could get into position.
Zebra
We saw zebra most days. There were four on license but I had no real intention of taking one. We needed a couple of baits refreshed one day so I took this one.
Hartebeest
Hartebeest were seen most days. Hartebeest seemed to be the second most numerous antelope in the concession.
Reedbuck
Reedbuck seemed to be the most plentiful animal in the concession. It seemed most open areas contained them. I could have taken multiples but decided on just one.
Warthog
There were plenty of warthog. I saw one monster but wasn’t able to get a shot. I ending up shooting two of typical size.
Bushpig
We stumbled on two sounders during stalks on buffalo. One boar gave us the slip in rocky ground, but we did connect on this one with the second group.
Klipspringer
Most rocky areas seemed to hold a pair if you spent the time to look. We weren’t looking very hard but this one loitered a little too long.
Duiker
The duiker were plentiful but skittish as can be.
Grysbok
I only saw two and they were in full flight when sighted.
Oribi
I missed my only shot at an oribi. It was around 175 yards away and had a horizontal limb covering the top half of its body. I tried to shoot at the bottom half of the body and the shot went under the chest.
Baboon
One old baboon was up in the rocks making fun of us while we were butchering a buffalo. We had seen a leopard jump out of a tree five minutes prior to shooting the buffalo so decided to make the baboon leopard bait. The second baboon was a refresh of a leopard bait as well.
Hyena
Hyena would check baits to find scraps laying around. Occasionally they would jump on a lion bait and pull a chunk off. This one was loitering in the area of a bait a little too long.
Leopard
There was leopard everywhere. If I remember correct, I saw three in daylight and 2-3 more as we were driving back to camp at night. It seemed like every leopard bait held a leopard and some lion baits had leopards. We built a blind and sat for maybe 30 minutes. A leopard came in. Haydar thought the cat was around 6’8”. I passed. We built another blind at another bait a couple days later. In less than an hour this one came in at dusk. I shot and he was mortally wounded but still able to make it into some long grass, making the follow up and second shot a little harrowing. The leopards bottom jaw looked to be broken and diseased. A broken canine was the only tooth hanging on. We guessed he may have been kicked when younger or taken a bad fall. The leopard was in great health, even though it had to be difficult to strangle prey.
Before our hunt, a skinner was working late one night and a young leopard came up and started trying to get scraps from the skinning/butchering area, she walked up to a couple meters from the skinner.
Taking a leopard in this concession has got to be as close to 100% as a person can get.
Lion
I will leave this subject to my friends to talk about. When we left, I believe there were still five known shootable males in the area and we were only hunting around 30% of the concession.
3-4 Year old male.
Birds
I had a .22 and shot a few guineas, franklin, green pigeon, and doves.
Elephant and Hippo
There were elephant and hippo in the area but I didn’t see any. Their dung was the most valuable item on the safari. Dried elephant dung was burned to keep the tsetse flies off. You had to take care not to bring any dung back to camp or it would be stolen by the other trucks by the next morning. It got so bad we had to hide our dung in the bush as we approached camp and pick it up the next morning on the way out, to keep from tempting the drivers and trackers in the other vehicles. There is no honor among hunters. There was no tsetse in the area around camp. Tanzania pesticide!
Camp
Camp was solid and comfortable. A few nights I heard animals inside the boma and just outside the tent. Going to sleep to the sound of bushbuck, zebra, jackal, hyena and leopard reminds a person that they are in one of the truly wild places left on this planet.
Joe on the left is the camp manager and does a fantastic job.
The food was great. We ate the meat we killed. The food had an African/South Asian flair which is what we wanted. We weren’t looking for American staples but they would have fixed what we wanted.
Honey Gathering
We came across trees with bees’ multiple times. The guys asked if they could gather honey on three occasions. I said sure. It is fun to watch and takes less than 30 minutes to smoke and cut out honey.
Baiting
We had a number of baits up and refreshed throughout the hunt.
Example of Blind
Example of Bait tree
I was sick with malaria. There were no mosquitos in camp. Four people on our vehicle got sick. We were evidently out too late in a mosquito area. Gina is an amazing nurse. She took great care of me. The past 15-20 trips to Africa I have stopped taking malaria prophylactics. This is the first time I have gotten malaria. These drugs work great if you take them within the first 24 hours. I felt sick like I had a flu. Chills and low-grade fever for about 24 hours and then the next day I felt fine but really wasted and weak. I was out of commission for two days.
Molerat Not sure if it was a trophy or not.
Our crew had a shooting competition with the .22. Bacari won. We had a kabubi for him!
Hornbills make a nest in a hollow tree. Then the female goes in and the male fills in the hole and leaves a small opening to feed her and the chicks through until the young are ready to fly.
Tse tse fly were bad. I have never had a reaction to the bites before. This year they raised welts that lasted for days. I had a couple of thick weave shirts that I started wearing as light jackets to keep the flies from biting through.
Life seems good in the back of a truck, mansplaining, with the breeze in your face until a tse tse fly decides to take a chunk out of a testicle.
Scrap iron dug out of animals by the skinning crew from multiple safaris. Don’t think any were dug out on our hunt.
A few A-Frames dug out by the skinners.
Our gari.
Logging poaching during wet season. Mahogany is one of three main types being poached.
Game Scout’s Mauser 375. It would be interesting to know how old it was. Since it has been tapped, my guess is that the game department received the rifle second hand.
Camp skinners. We kept them busy. Averaged over two animals per day.
Royal and I forgoing our lunch and having ugali with the guys one day.
Additional photos from safari.
Wild dog.
Martial Eagle
Giraffes
Elephant rub
Part of the Great North Road. Cape Town to Cairo
Chunya Gold fields, between Mbeya and the concession. Big booming area with a lot of money being made. It is good to see hard working Tanzanian’s making thousands, tens of thousands and more per month from their claims. In the old days these would have been government mines. We stopped by a mine. The wash plant was a trommel that ran 200 meters/hour. The show Gold Rush needs a spinoff in Chunya.
Seabreeze Hotel Dar es Salaam
Not sure if the chair is reserved as a place of honor for the eldest, or the most infirm
This safari was all about friendship, both new and old. I am blessed to have great friends! We had a fantastic time!
Hope you enjoy.
Jerome establishing AH changed my perspective on hunting internationally with friends. This hunt is the first international hunt I have done with friends and probably won’t be the last. It is interesting how friendships can develop through a website like AH. People you don’t know that live half way around the country or the world end up people you are in WhatsApp chats with on a regular basis.
AH friends.
These are the AH friends that made this safari possible @Just Gina @ActionBob @Royal27 and some old goober they picked up along the way.
The hunt came together for three of us at DSC in 2019. The all boys get away changed to an AH getaway when Just Gina joined the safari https://www.africahunting.com/threads/the-hunt-is-over.66172/
All the above are great people and I am honored to have them as friends!
Old friends.
I can’t say for sure if I remember when Sherdell was born, but in all likelihood, I knew at the time. There is enough of a difference in age that we never were around each other much in Tanzania. We were out of touch for many years. I was in touch with Sherdell’s family on trips to Tanzania over the years and they let me know he went to the show in Dallas. Sometime around 12-15 years ago we reconnected in Dallas.
Really old friends.
This is my father and Sherdell’s father Omar. (I spent time trying to find a photo of them together but gave up.) These photos are from 50+ years ago. This hunt would never have happened if not for the fact that they were friends and their sons reconnected for this safari. If an ivory hunter writes a book, he is known to many. If he doesn’t write a book, he is known to few. Omar’s numbers would compare favorably with many who wrote books. The few of us left that knew the Mzee, remember him fondly.
New Friends
These are the crew in our vehicle. Edwin-game scout, Bibi-tracker, Haydar- PH Tojo-tracker, Bacari-driver. To give you an idea of the kind of guys these are, Bibi has driven lions off their kill by himself to steal meat a few times. Tojo has driven lions off their kill more times than he can remember. He does it a number of times each wet season to steal some meat. I was fortunate to have a great team. Everyone pitched in on any job. Hanging baits, making blinds, getting the truck unstuck, fixing tires, etc.
We hunted with Mwatisi Safaris. The area we hunted was Rungwa Mzombi. (1967 sq kl.) It is on the west end of Rungwa and borders both the Ruaha NP and Usangu GR. I think the altitude at camp was 4800’. We flew into Mbeya then took a six-hour drive to camp. The last hour and a half were from the boundary of the concession into camp. There is also an airstrip forty-five minutes from camp if an individual wanted to charter.
Buffalo
The rains were heavy and late this year. Normally water is scarce and buffalo are concentrated around water in the concession or come out of Ruaha NP to water. Grass was still being burnt throughout our safari in October. One open area of perhaps two square miles, is supposed to look like a green billiard table this time of year with a few hundred buffalo feeding. This year there was still 12’ high grass that wouldn’t burn. This made the buffalo hunting difficult. I was fortunate to get three.
We drove up a mountain and walked down a dry watercourse to some isolated pools. At one pool we came upon five bachelors. I was wanting a double but my first shot was high so I kept shooting the first bull. It went about 50 yards. He was old and well worn. Also see photo of buff above.
One day Royal’s vehicle had problems. Royal and Shahbek (Royal’s ph) came with us. We saw some fifteen or so bulls leaving water and followed up. They joined a herd. I wounded one in the group. He was the softest buff I shot. I was probably confused on which bull I was being told to shoot. We followed up and got another shot in him. Then we had to leave him for the night. We followed up the next day and found him. I had a total of 1200 grains in him (600 the first day and 600 the second) and Royal had 1500 grains the second day, so perhaps Royal is the one who really got the soft bossed bull.
The third bull was a less than perfect first shot. The guys did a great job of tracking. We followed up for about a kilometer and finished him off that evening. This bull had a really nice boss. My shooting this trip was not my best. In the past I have been solid even with poor form. Now even with good/better form on the sticks it is getting difficult to not wobble a bit.
Sable
There were plenty of sable. I told Haydar that I wanted an old bull with secondary growth. Over the course of the hunt, we saw several that would be longer but I was happy with the one I got.
Roan
I have never taken a roan. I missed an old roan on day three and didn’t see another roan until day 12. I took this breeding age bull who had a small harem for fear I wouldn’t see another. If I had waited, I would have had four more opportunities at older larger bulls.
Eland
There didn’t seem to be many eland in the concession. I had about three seconds to get my gun up on an old bull and shoot. He was moving before I could get into position.
Zebra
We saw zebra most days. There were four on license but I had no real intention of taking one. We needed a couple of baits refreshed one day so I took this one.
Hartebeest
Hartebeest were seen most days. Hartebeest seemed to be the second most numerous antelope in the concession.
Reedbuck
Reedbuck seemed to be the most plentiful animal in the concession. It seemed most open areas contained them. I could have taken multiples but decided on just one.
Warthog
There were plenty of warthog. I saw one monster but wasn’t able to get a shot. I ending up shooting two of typical size.
Bushpig
We stumbled on two sounders during stalks on buffalo. One boar gave us the slip in rocky ground, but we did connect on this one with the second group.
Klipspringer
Most rocky areas seemed to hold a pair if you spent the time to look. We weren’t looking very hard but this one loitered a little too long.
Duiker
The duiker were plentiful but skittish as can be.
Grysbok
I only saw two and they were in full flight when sighted.
Oribi
I missed my only shot at an oribi. It was around 175 yards away and had a horizontal limb covering the top half of its body. I tried to shoot at the bottom half of the body and the shot went under the chest.
Baboon
One old baboon was up in the rocks making fun of us while we were butchering a buffalo. We had seen a leopard jump out of a tree five minutes prior to shooting the buffalo so decided to make the baboon leopard bait. The second baboon was a refresh of a leopard bait as well.
Hyena
Hyena would check baits to find scraps laying around. Occasionally they would jump on a lion bait and pull a chunk off. This one was loitering in the area of a bait a little too long.
Leopard
There was leopard everywhere. If I remember correct, I saw three in daylight and 2-3 more as we were driving back to camp at night. It seemed like every leopard bait held a leopard and some lion baits had leopards. We built a blind and sat for maybe 30 minutes. A leopard came in. Haydar thought the cat was around 6’8”. I passed. We built another blind at another bait a couple days later. In less than an hour this one came in at dusk. I shot and he was mortally wounded but still able to make it into some long grass, making the follow up and second shot a little harrowing. The leopards bottom jaw looked to be broken and diseased. A broken canine was the only tooth hanging on. We guessed he may have been kicked when younger or taken a bad fall. The leopard was in great health, even though it had to be difficult to strangle prey.
Before our hunt, a skinner was working late one night and a young leopard came up and started trying to get scraps from the skinning/butchering area, she walked up to a couple meters from the skinner.
Taking a leopard in this concession has got to be as close to 100% as a person can get.
Lion
I will leave this subject to my friends to talk about. When we left, I believe there were still five known shootable males in the area and we were only hunting around 30% of the concession.
3-4 Year old male.
Birds
I had a .22 and shot a few guineas, franklin, green pigeon, and doves.
Elephant and Hippo
There were elephant and hippo in the area but I didn’t see any. Their dung was the most valuable item on the safari. Dried elephant dung was burned to keep the tsetse flies off. You had to take care not to bring any dung back to camp or it would be stolen by the other trucks by the next morning. It got so bad we had to hide our dung in the bush as we approached camp and pick it up the next morning on the way out, to keep from tempting the drivers and trackers in the other vehicles. There is no honor among hunters. There was no tsetse in the area around camp. Tanzania pesticide!
Camp
Camp was solid and comfortable. A few nights I heard animals inside the boma and just outside the tent. Going to sleep to the sound of bushbuck, zebra, jackal, hyena and leopard reminds a person that they are in one of the truly wild places left on this planet.
Joe on the left is the camp manager and does a fantastic job.
The food was great. We ate the meat we killed. The food had an African/South Asian flair which is what we wanted. We weren’t looking for American staples but they would have fixed what we wanted.
Honey Gathering
We came across trees with bees’ multiple times. The guys asked if they could gather honey on three occasions. I said sure. It is fun to watch and takes less than 30 minutes to smoke and cut out honey.
Baiting
We had a number of baits up and refreshed throughout the hunt.
Example of Blind
Example of Bait tree
I was sick with malaria. There were no mosquitos in camp. Four people on our vehicle got sick. We were evidently out too late in a mosquito area. Gina is an amazing nurse. She took great care of me. The past 15-20 trips to Africa I have stopped taking malaria prophylactics. This is the first time I have gotten malaria. These drugs work great if you take them within the first 24 hours. I felt sick like I had a flu. Chills and low-grade fever for about 24 hours and then the next day I felt fine but really wasted and weak. I was out of commission for two days.
Molerat Not sure if it was a trophy or not.
Our crew had a shooting competition with the .22. Bacari won. We had a kabubi for him!
Hornbills make a nest in a hollow tree. Then the female goes in and the male fills in the hole and leaves a small opening to feed her and the chicks through until the young are ready to fly.
Tse tse fly were bad. I have never had a reaction to the bites before. This year they raised welts that lasted for days. I had a couple of thick weave shirts that I started wearing as light jackets to keep the flies from biting through.
Life seems good in the back of a truck, mansplaining, with the breeze in your face until a tse tse fly decides to take a chunk out of a testicle.
Scrap iron dug out of animals by the skinning crew from multiple safaris. Don’t think any were dug out on our hunt.
A few A-Frames dug out by the skinners.
Our gari.
Logging poaching during wet season. Mahogany is one of three main types being poached.
Game Scout’s Mauser 375. It would be interesting to know how old it was. Since it has been tapped, my guess is that the game department received the rifle second hand.
Camp skinners. We kept them busy. Averaged over two animals per day.
Royal and I forgoing our lunch and having ugali with the guys one day.
Additional photos from safari.
Wild dog.
Martial Eagle
Giraffes
Elephant rub
Part of the Great North Road. Cape Town to Cairo
Chunya Gold fields, between Mbeya and the concession. Big booming area with a lot of money being made. It is good to see hard working Tanzanian’s making thousands, tens of thousands and more per month from their claims. In the old days these would have been government mines. We stopped by a mine. The wash plant was a trommel that ran 200 meters/hour. The show Gold Rush needs a spinoff in Chunya.
Seabreeze Hotel Dar es Salaam
Not sure if the chair is reserved as a place of honor for the eldest, or the most infirm
This safari was all about friendship, both new and old. I am blessed to have great friends! We had a fantastic time!
Hope you enjoy.
