Kilimanjaro

Bill, I never got a chance to hunt them personaly, but I was on several hunts with clients who hunted them. We hunted them on the banks of the Limpopo, and in a few spots along a river drainage that spilled out into some farm country in the waterburg mtns near Vaalwater. They were some sneaky little devils! we had a blast hunting them in the thick reeds. And although I never saw it personally, rumor has it that the rams have a nasty little temperment and have been know to charge when wounded. I could see where they could do some serious damage with those 16" daggers on their heads. On one particular hunt on the Limpopo, we were sneaking along and heard the reeds rustle out ahead of us and then heard a small spalsh into the water. we all thought croc.. But when we got to the spot where we heard it, we saw the biggest snake we've all ever seen. It was a python that has to be at least 15 ft long. He crossed the river and slowly crawled onto the Botswana bank. I think he was Bushbuck hunting as well.. Everytime I think about hunting Bushbuck, that image pops into my mind. I was thinking of adding one to my list on this go round, but I don't know... If I ad on anything, it just might have to be a waterbuck.. (if I can cough up the dough). I just can't get enough of them. i love the way they look. I passed on several on my last trip over there. they were nice, but not over 30'. If I see one this time, its gonna be hard not to bear down.. BTW, Bill, have you ever been to Thornybush Reserve along the west side of Kruger? Thats where i'll be hunting in a few months. Its a pretty good sized place (30K acres) and is loaded with good animals. Tons of Big 5 that wonder in from Kruger as well. Just curious if you've ever been there. On this trip, I am going to be taking Kudu, Zebra, warthog, impala, duiker, baboon, and Giraffe. Thornybush has a surplus of big bull giraffe on the place and my outfitter asked if I'd be interested in taking one at a very dicounted price. He assured me that it was only the big, mature black bulls we'd be hunting. I'd mounted several before and I guess the taxidermist side of me answered that question. I said to sign me up!! Now, if I can just figure out where I'm gonna put the shoulder mount!! Thats my wish list of critters on this upcoming hunt.. Its gonna be fun !! I'll be shooting a .300 RUM for all except the giraffe. I'll be borrowing my PH's .458 LOTT for him!!

You better believe it!!

Jason, good luck if ya go... Africa is a place that gets in your blood like no where else.. Bill, I know what ya mean about the difference between 1st class and coach. But the cost is outta this world for something that is going to get ya there just the same as the coach passengers. The only time I ever flew 1st class was when I had my accident in New Zealand and my issurance covered it for the flight back home.But man, was that livin!!! The best flight I found for the coach seats is British Airways. They were the most comfortable. But the layover in London was worse than just going nonstop to Joburg! Idid a trip to SA thru London once and did the non stop route on SA Air the second time round. I have 3 months left before I get into the SA Airbus for the 19 hrs of torture. But at the end of that ride lays hunting heaven!!! And I've got 7 days of it and then 7 more days of just bumming around and sight seeing. Jason, what animals are you planning on taking? I've got a list of 7 for my ucoming trip. A couple of them are animals I've already taken, but I love hunting them and could do so on every African trip. My repeats are another zebra. I had a rug done on the first one and am going to do this one in a ped. mount. Also warthog, and impala. I could go to Africa and hunt just these 2 and have a ball! The warthogs are just good fun and they are all different , and the impala remind me of the African version whitetail deer and they are just plain fun to hunt.

Well guys, I have told this one once before once here i beleive, but here goes again... you're in for a long one.... When I was guiding in New Zealand back in 2001, we had a chance to get in a good hunt or two for ourselves while we were down there. We had already done a backpack tahr hunt earlier and after a couple of months of hard work, we decided we were going to do a Chamois hunt. We made the drive to the pilot's house that afternoon and loaded all the gear into the chopper. The plan was for myself and George to fly into the area, hunt for 4 days, and then when Jamie was going to fly back into the area, pick us up, and leave Allen (George's Dad) and a client there in the already established camp that we were to leave... So, we load up and fly a LONG ways into the Southrn Alps. We get to the landing area, put the bird down and start unloading gear as fast as we could because it was raining and getting dark quick and Jamie wanted to get outta there before the weather got any worse. He said his goodbyes and goodlucks, and said he'll be back in 5 days to do the swap. So, George and I got camp set up, and got stuff ready for the start of the hunt in the morn. Thats when we realized that we had forgot the emergency radio in the rush to unload the chopper. Oh well, lets no worry too much about it.. Next morn, we start the hunt by hunting the drainage above camp. A few hours into the hunt, we see a small mob of good Chamois up the drainage and several great bull tahr further up the mountain. After a couple of hours of postioning, we are finally within range of the Chamois.. To make a long story a little shorter, I make the best shot of my life and anchor a great chamois from 420 yrds away across a deep gourge. After a couple of hrs of some serious climbing, we make it to the chamois, take a ton of pics in the rain, and cape and quarter him. It was still reasonably early (1:30 or so) so we don the now heavy packs and head on uphill to see if we can find those tahr bulls we had glassed earlier. After a couple more hours of hard hiking, no luck.. So, we make the decision to start making our way back to camp which is now a good 2 hr hike below us.. We are also taking a diff way down than the way we came up in hopes of running into the tahr. We come to really steep wall that is pretty much sheer with just a foot wide trail worn into the rock from the tahr. George goes across first and makes it. He says it's just too dangerous to try and sugested I find an altarnate route. We find a slightly less of a sheer drop-off a little further down. I start across the trail, and am about halfway when all heck breaks loose.. The trail that I was walking on crumbles and breaks free and pulls my left foot off the trail completely. This in turn makes me loose balance and then because of the 50 or so pounds in my packframe, throws me right off the cliff before I can do anything. I free fall for about 35 ft before hitting the bottom of the cliff and then begin an out of control end-over-end series of cartwheels down the scree slope. After a couple of hundred feet of this, I finally hit a rock big enough to stop me. At first I didn't realize anything was wrong. I tried to stand up and play it off. Not a chance.. I fell back down and began to see that I had alot more than just a few cuts and bumps. After George made his way down to me, we began to realize that we were in a really bad situation. I had broke my right ankle, totally dislocated my left hip, torn all my glut muscles from the bone on the right side of my butt, fractured my pelvis in 4 spots, and had several serious cuts on various spots all over me and was bleeding everywhere. After we saw that I was not going to die of internal bleeding, Geoge tried something that I will never forget. He put me on my back, put his foot in my stomach, and tried for all he was worth to pull my hip back into socket. Let me tell you, I think I saw the Lord's face! I was on the verge of going out. The pain was undescrible. After several failed attempts we made the decision that George would take off to camp and bring what he could back up to me. With that, when George was about to leave he said that I had to make it to the flat area about 200 yrds below where I landed. 200 long yards of large boulders all at a steep angle downhill. And with that, I began a crawl that was out of this world. Lets just say that the pain was so bad on this crawl, I was begging to die right there. I finally made the 200 yards in about 2 hours. Geoge showed back up shortly thereafter and made camp. From there we made the decision that it would be too dangerous for George to try and hike out of there alone. We decided to wait it out till Jamie was to show back up and pick up up. The next 4 days went as slowly as a day could ever go. Constant rain, absolutely no pain meds, and nothing to do but lie in my one man tent and wait it out. Lets just say that those 4 days are real fuzzy in my mind! Finally on the fourth day, I heard the sweetest sound I had ever heard in my entire life.. Jamie in the chopper.. They had found us. Because the drainage was so steep, he could not put the bird down. He had to stay in and keep it at full power with just one skid on the ground as George and Allen loaded loaded me up. After we got airborne, Jamie radioed what had happened to the nearest clinic and told them that we were on our way. Jamie landed the helo right onto the lawn of the clinic. They were waiting for us. They got me unloaded and took me in. After several tests, they concluded that I was in far worse shape that first realized. They then radioed for the Lifeflight chopper out of Christchurch. Soon, the Lifeflight was there and I was on my way to the big hospital. I was given a horse's size dose of Morphine on the way over there. Once there, they wheeled me in a concluded that I had sustained a good amount of internal bleeding as well as all the other bad things that I mentioned earlier. I was wheeled into surgary and had the ankle set in a cast, the hip put back into place, and had my glute muscle reattached to the floor of my pelvis. NOT FUN!!! I was in the hospital for 9 days in the same ward as all the old men that had fallen and hurt their hips and such. I was the youngest person on the floor by 50 yrs! Talk about snoring and griping!! I caught up with every TV show on every channel, and became quite accquainted with several of the cute Kiwi nurses who had to sponge bath me!! And on top of that, I was interviewed by the local news station. They had heard about my fall and they just happed to be doing a special about the recent rash of climbing deaths in the region! Go figure. I was local celeb for the day when the news came on later that night!! Ended up being that there had been 10 deaths in that area since the begining of the year. I was one of the lucky ones. After 9 LONG days in the hospital, I was finally let out. My buddy Billy, who was there guiding with me, picked me up and took me back to the lodge 5 hours away. Talk about a long 10 days! In the end, I ended up staying there for another couple of months and just helping with the skinning and such. Cuz I sure as heck couldn't do any guiding! We even went to Austrailia for a week. I just hobbled around the beach on my crutches and played the sempathy card with all the hot Aussie girls!! And luckiest of all, my traveler's insurance covered everything.. Lifeflight, hospital bills, etc... Trust me, if ya ever go out of the country, the smartest thing you can do is buy some insurance. You never know what will happen. And because I couldn't bend at the hip for long periods, the insurance company got ahold of Air New Zealand and arranged for me to fly all the way back to TX in first class! Now that was livin!! Got back and began the LONG road of physical rehab. LONG ROAD!! I was in that for a long time. But, time heals and as of today, I am completely healed up. The hip bother me a little when the weather changes, but I get it checked out twice per year, and as of now, i am good to go. I told you it was long, but that's my crazy, tell-the-grandkids, hunting accident of mine!!

Welp, I'm headed out in the morn to LAS VAGAS for the party of all parties!! My own bachelor party! I have a friend who is a commercial pilot from Lubbock, TX who rented an 8 seater and loaded a few friends from the Tx panhandle and they are on their way out to Tucson right now to pick me up for the private ride to Sin City!! This should be an interesting weekend.... 7 Border Patrol Agents, a Lubbock cop, a new Doctor fresh outta med school, a pilot, a Banker, an Insurance guru, and a few others who's occupation is a little less than mentionable . Wish me luck!!

Well, we made it home alive.. (barely). Like I said, we had 14 guys come out to see to it that I had a good time one this last single dude's Vegas trip. And we did just that. We partied in about every casino Vegas has to offer, went to some, ahhhum, shall I say, gentelmen's clubs ( I don't think there was a single gentlemen in the group), ate like kings (We had a 1.5K tap in the steakhouse the second night), and traved in style from the time we left Tucson till be got back ( private plane and Hummerlimos in Vegas) !! But hey, it was all in good fun. It was a trip that will go down and be talked about for years to come amongest us. I literally got 4 hours of sleep from Thurs night to Sun night. After we barely made it into Tucson because of the weather on Sun, I slept about 20hrs after all was said and done till Tues morn. I've swore off the booze for a good while after this trip, and have swore off Vegas for another year.. But about this time next year, the boys will start makin plans to give it another go, and I'll be there as always. Only the next time round, i'll have this little noose tied around my poor 3rd finger!!! I don't have too many pics that I can share on a public forum, but here's a few!!! The rest are, shall we say, deemed unfit for other's eyes!! This is on the way up there in the plane. The drinks started flowing before we even left the tarmac at 10 AM. Here's the group who flew in the private plane. My buddy who flew is the one behind the camera.. And here's a few us us enjoying a huge dip of Copenhagen in the back of a Hummerlimo after just dropping over a grand on a steak dinner on the way to the Belagio to play some craps.. This trip was also for my bud on the right who just graduated from Med school in San Antonio. He is now a Dr. !!! Those two have been my best friends since we were 14. Still talk to them everyday..The other one is a cop in Lubbock, TX. And just a bunch of us.. if ya haven't figured it out, that's me in the back.. Wish I could share some more, but then Amanda would kick me off the site for sure!!

Hmmm, bobbyo may be on to something here..... . He's the first one to see it from the "other" point of view... Thanks for your open view of the situation.. But hey, if ya want to spend your retirement out in the middle of the desert in the middle of the night, be my guest... I just don't think that'll be me when I get to that age.. I'll be all caught out by then!!

I case you guys didn't already figure out from all the Mearns pics with my mutts, I love hunting behind dogs as well. Bird hunting, lion hunting, they're all great and made even better by watching a great dog do what he has been bred to do. i love it

Thanks Doug... Yep, we are swamped.. It's just that time of the year! Like I have said before, my job is alot like seeing that the hoover dam is about to go bye-bye, and you're chewing gum as fast as you can to cover the cracks.. no matter how fast you are, it just ain't gonna work! But hey, where else am I gonna get paid dang good to be out in the desert and mountains all day every day? Plus, hunting people is a thrill like no other. Wily little suckers!!!

Way to go Casey... great kitty. You sure were excited when you called me right after it happened!!! Guess I would have been too though!!!! Its not everyday you get a lion.. And its damned sure not everyday you get two... way to go.

Way to go!! I knew you would eventully find those piggies! Congrats to you and your 'Ol Man!!!

I'm getting ansy to go on the annual turkey hunt in April back home in TX.. Always tons of birds and lots of action... AND THEN ITS THE HUNT IVE BEEN WAITING FOR SINCE I STARTED PLANNING IT LAST YEAR!!!! I'm getting married in June and we are taking our honeymoon to South Africa. We are going over there for 2 weeks. I am getting to hunt for one full week, and then we are going to do a 2 day photo safari through Kruger Park, a SCUBA diving trip off the Indian Ocean coast in Durban, and then go and visit the ranch where I worked over there back in 2000 and 2001 to see the guys and do some more photo safari stuff. I can't wait till we are boarding that plane!!!

Nice stink pig there Brett..

Nice bruin Dougie!!! When ya going to take me out there and show me where they are???

Now that season is over, we are still wanting to run the dogs while its still cool out. Do any of you guys know where I could purchase a load of pheasant roosters in the southeast part of the state? I have a guy here in Tucson that raises quail and Chukars, but no roosters. Anybody out there have any contacts or ideas?

Doug, my bruiser scored right around 83 3/8ths. Like a TX WT that still has milk on his lips!!!

Washington, eh?? I thought it was from BC.. Guess even I was wrong on this one, but I was close!! But Iowa, PA, and southwestTX, come on now boys!!!

Nice sheep!! Tell your brother congrats! I've seen Aoudads in NM before while we were lion hunting. If you ever go into the Geronimo Falls area ( west of Carlsbad), there is a burger/ beer joint there with a photo wall of game taken in the area. It has some great sheep pics from the area. There is a pic on the wall in there of a guy holding a 37 inch pickup that he found. Now that is a BRUISER!! I also saw a herd up in the Northeast corner of the state one time in the Canadian river breaks area. Where did your brother get his? Here is a pic of my first Aoudad. It was taken in the Palo Duro Canyon area in TX back in 1999.. Totally free ranging.. Took me 5 trips up there to finally connect with a big ram. This one is 30". I've since beat him with one other ram, but he is still one of my favorite trophys...

Nice looking pup you got there! Should make one helluva duck dog!! Good luck with all that puppy training!!

I don't know there Shiras, I don't think a load of bird shot to the face from the ol' 28ga would feel too good. The VP needs to have his eyes checked to see if he is Blaze Orage Blind!!!

It was killed in BC. Not Iowa, Pennsylvania, or Uvalde, TX!!! This cat has been shot in over 40 states by the same dude!! Now that is one tought kitty!! heck, I think he even shot it once in Honolulu, HI. !!!!!!!

Yeah, that's about right.. I probably had 30 in my bird vest come end of season. I see the Goulds most often right off the road when you are going south out of Sonoita towards Parker Canyon. There is a spot where the road comes close to the Canelo Hills. They are always there. I have seen the National Wild Turkey Federation down there a time or two as well doing studys. They said they are doing good and they are expanding their range. They said the same for the flock in the Chiricahua range as well.

I agree. Sounds like you had a pretty good season! How did your dogs do on them desert birds? I only hunted Gambels about 4 times this season.Scalies as well. My pups do alright on them, but I hate running them thru all that damned cholla and prickly pear. But, when we did hunt them, there were plenty of them in there.

Well, tomorrow is the last day of getting to chase those beloved little birds around for another season. It has been a pretty good upland season for me and the pups. We started out the season with a Blue Grouse hunt up on the Utah/AZ line with Casey and Doug. Then hunted in Whitewing heaven on the Rio Grande back home in TX. Then had a blast out here all season in AZ chasing Gambels, Blues and Mearns. Then had our trip out to California to try and get the last 2 species of quail I needed for all six and also wild Chukar hunting for the first time. All in all, a great season in the uplands. ( the big game was pretty good this season too ... a Booner speed goat and my first coues buck!!!) Doug, hope you and Rica tore them Gambels up in Sedona. We'll have to make plans for more days next season.. Cristian, sorry we couldn't make any dates work. I hope you and your Dad had as good a season as we did. We'll definately make plans to chase birds together this fall.. Casey, glad you finally made it out here to chase a few coveys of Mearns with me. We'd been talking about it for the last couple of years. hope you had as much fun as we did. Well, we are going to head out in the morn and give it one last go... I'll let ya know how we do. I'll have the camera ready!!!

And here is the final result of the last day... It was warm, DRY, and windy. The birds were there but from the looks of it, they had been hunted hard over the weekend and they had been scattered. We found 4 coveys that had good numbers of birds in them, but also found quite a few singles that were all alone. Considering the circumstances, the dogs did pretty good. When they got enough scent, they would find them and pin them down. And the birds cooperated great today. They held like they had glue on their feet! Which worked good for the picture taking. All in all, not a bad way to end the season. Here is Virgil with the lead point on the first bird of the day. It was a pair that was not with the rest of a covey. Penny and Willow backed him up nicely.. Another point on a single from a scattered covey... Me and the mutts with a trio of males that fell to the trusty 'ol .410... Just a pic that I liked of a little rooster and the Elsie... And here's the final thought of the season from Virgil.. " Here's what I think of no rain since Sept. with no end in sight!!" Thanks guys for putting up with all my bird ramblings throughout the season!!