Coues 'n' Sheep

Outstanding! Congrats guys!!!

Below is a link that the video editor (Eric @ Payson Outfitters) of this adventure I recently shared with my good friend Ron Price recently posted on YouTube…. It is a very graphic and not for the faint of heart…Please do not watch this hoping for a happy ending… Bear in mind that everything you see in this clip was a matter of life and death…. An unfortunate incident, that I am glad ended in our favor, for being in the wrong place at the wrong time in Africa can cost you your life. It is 5 minutes of the scariest moments of my life… the video was shot by the CM Safaris camera man, Justin Drainer… I was shooting still photos that day and am very glad I was not suppose to get any of this on film myself for I was far too scared to do much more than run and hide…. Justin, My hats off to you Pal! You are a Great Cameraman! Sorry for the low def video… the HD version will be complete in due time.

Scotty, Zim was Great! I had a great time and saw things I'll likely never see again.... People like us don't get to go lion hunting.... unless we win the LOTO! There are so many other parts of the trip than just the hunt, but the hunting was amazing... how awesome the trackers are... and how different the terrain and hunting styles are there. I can honestly say that the best part for me was know I was in a truely wild place.... Limited roads, limited people (in some parts), and absolutely no fences... even though in this hunt they might have been a help..... An besides... I got to start a political ruckus in my wake! Our malaria stricken PH, Buzz< had to put out the flames some days after we left.... More to come on the T-shirt drama!!

Bwaaahahaha!!! Brown-eye? You kill me! you know you want that one!! I Win right???!!!??? LMAO!

Well our adventure’s first stop in the Zambezi Valley would be the Karunga camp of the Dande East (Communal lands). The accommodations of the “fly camp” were far beyond my expectations; there were better camps to come! Two days of hoping to catch a big Mozambique bull (Elephant) raiding in the maize fields or a Dugga Boy in the jesse (jungle like, thick crap) did not pan out so we packed and headed for the DSA (Dande Safari Area, controlled by Parks & Wildlife), and the main camp of Pedsa Pasi, where we spent a few very plush nights, and our hunting days were filled with Ele encounters, Lion & Cape buff hunting. During these first days Ron shot a Cape Buffalo cow for Lion Bait…. The lions found the bait, two large males, we built a blind and sat for them but they never came back…. Strike one. Our PH was relentless about us moving to the next camp… a DSA Fly camp called Mururu (Red Mahogany)… as it is his favorite camp…. It was only an hour+ away in the 120,000 acre DSA and put us in better Cat country so off we went! We spent the remainder of our hunt at the Mururu Camp and it was placed right on the edge of the Monyimba River teaming with wildlife…. We stalked and hunted and shot game right from camp on several occasions… and it was much cooler there which made for better sleeping! We hunted long hours each day often not arriving back at cam till hours after dark. Ron’s Custom Bansner 9.3x62 rifle was very busy racking up our “body count”… The rewards were high as I harvested my Kudu with one shot and he expired within a 100 yards of the unfenced Mozambique border. Ron pounded a second cow buffalo for Lion bait on a remote pan (waterhole) in the thickest jesse around… a recovery road could only be cut so close, so we hand packed the meat for the last 500 yds, in the moon light, with lions roaring in the distance was awesome! We had a male Leopard hit a lion bait one morning so we built a blind to sit that evening… as we sat quietly the jesse behind the blind began to make noise…. What the…???? Soon there was more noise and a heavy “snuffing” sound and it was coming right at us! Was it elephants? My heart rate was high…and my eyes were as large as poached eggs as 2000 lbs of Dugga Boy melted from the Jesse and stood staring into the back of the blind at less than 5 yards covered in thick white mud (over 1 /12” thick on his back!)…I was directly in his path and could not move a muscle… Ron and Buzz (our PH) were just out of his sight in the blind and were assessing him as a trophy. The bull’s heavy breathing sounded like a roar at that distance and he was not sure about the blind and began to move up our back trail till he crossed our sent on the path and froze… now which way would he bolt???? BOOM! …and gone into the jesse he went… soon we could hear the labored lung shot breathing in the dense brush not 50yds from the blind…he was ours! A 40 ¼” bull and good one for the DSA these days! We stacked up a pile of impala for baits and table fare… Ron shot a 21”& a 16” I took a 20” & a 17” (cuz I didn’t see the larger ram in the back…) I pounded a 10 ¼” warthog and Ron shot a dream Bush Buck (15 ½”) in the river near camp on one of the only 3 days we ate lunch at camp. On this day the “Deli Bait” was born… down river about a mile from camp was a nice bend and some bluffs… and a large sausage tree perfect for tying lion bait to… we hung the Warthog, Bush Buck, and a fresh Impala there, as they spilled the guts from the impala and drug the “mutumbo” (guts) up and down the river we heard splashing in the dark river behind us… we turned our head lamps to find a pack of the rare African Wild Dogs standing on the beach at no more than 5-6 yards! It was a rare and brief encounter lasting not more than 5 minutes but they were not afraid of us in the least and that was a bit unnerving since they are Africa’s most proficient killers, boast a 100% success rate while hunting. Well we thought it good luck to have seen the “Dogs” there at that bait and we were right! A pride of Lions that we had tracked but not caught up to the day before showed up on the bait the next morning and a we built a blind. We put a nice male lion in the salt that afternoon and I took over 45 minutes of raw video footage of the pride and of taking this big cat. The 450 lb male had just let out large yawn from his up right laying position when the 9.3x62 roared…. The lion was leaking out both side instantly as he ran straight at us! He turned west up the river bank, and out of my camera view and Ron pounded him again at a dead run! The lion made it less than 50 yards into the jesse before flipping over backwards, dead as a log. The Deli bait was a success! There was much singing and celebrating on the ride to camp and in camp that evening. We actually slept in till 6am the next morning. We were off to set leopard baits… The hunt was half over the half of the Big 4 were in the salt and we were looking to score a big Valley leopard. We freshened a bait that had been hit by a male while we were lion hunting… then set a new bait in an adjoining river in case he did not return…. Then it happened… we bumped a Zebra stallion bedded with some Sable….I grabbed Ron’s 9.3 (did I mention that Ron is a lefty) and threw it on the sticks… Boom… Wack… it was a steep uphill shot in thick country and the shot felt good…. Miles later…. We were approaching the DSA boundary and wondering if I hit di more than scratch this Zebra, when I spy him looking over a ridge to our left at about a 100 yds…. only head and upper neck showing… no time for a rest I threw up the rifle sucked a short breath…. Boom…. Down! Finally I had my Zebra stallion... and a beauty! My first shot had been perfect left/right and low (real low) and I later realized that I could change my point of impact on that (borrowed) rifle on uphill and downhill shots really easy if I got into the scope… so I did not make that mistake again. The next day we spent get out a few more baits…. By mid-day we had out 9 leopard baits… and then we checked one that had been hit twice in the last 12 hrs! Time to build a blind! That night there would once again be singing and celebrating!! Leopard in the salt! We recovered the nice male just 40-50 yards from the bait tree… another perfect shot by Ron! 3 of the Big 4 in the salt! Now on to the Ele hunting… we had already logged several 10-15 mile days chasing Ele in the thick jesse and Mopani woodlands by this time and we knew the last week of the hunt was going to be long hard days of tracking. Mostly the early mornings consisted of driving roads looking for a good track and then tracking it…. If no track was found then a “random walk” into thick, road less country would fill the rest of our day. On one such late morning we were climbing a “mountain” (really a large hill by our standards) that was actually quite steep, but pretty open compared to most of the country we had been hunting, when we stumbled into a another herd of cow elephants. Now we had been in close quarters with the cows on several occasions… even less than 15 yards in the thick jesse before we knew they were there... today they were 25-30yrds and the cow in the back turned immediately on us. Buzz began to “shout her down” and she turned to leave and we did likewise…. Then it happed… The same cow changed her mind, trumpeted, and charged… she covered 40 yds ano the steep slope before I covered 5 yards. As I rounded a termite mound an desperately hunkered down behind a 12” tree (dumb on my part), I saw here zeroed in on Buzz and chasing him down…. He wheeled and shot … she fell to the ground just 3 yards from him and 5 yards to my left…. We all ran again. Regrouping 30 yards down the hill checking to make sure all made it. We all were scared, it happened so fast and now it was over… I can admit honestly that there is nothing that has ever scared me more than a charging Ele…. Not lions, not grizzly bears…. Nothing. Someone was getting squished right then had Buzz not done what he did… a sad and necessary taking of life… she had every chance to go… yet she chose to attack. We were shaken… nervous laughs were exchanged by me and Ron… not sure what else to do. When hunting of the Bull Ele resumed I was far less eager to charge into the Jesse after the previous day’s encounter… I was also very content now more than ever to walk at the very back of the line… not that 6 steps was much of a buffer. We walked long and hard… The Guys found a very distinct and large track… Game on! We were 12 hours behind and the Trackers were tracking hard and fast! The old bull was smart and we ended up bumping him twice…. He was in musk and stunk so much that at times I only knew we were on the right bull by his rank smell. On the third close encounter he was wallowing in a pan and it was so thick I could only see a small part of his massive head as he stood less than 20 yards away head on…. The Roar of the 470 Nitro Express was earth shattering and the bull stumbled… then miraculously he wheeled and was gone! Buzz had let a shot follow from his .416 Rigby as the bull spun out of site… and we were running! Tracking the mud covered giant in the thick jesse was easy at a trot and we were soon covered in mud ourselves. One mile… 2 miles…. Now 4… as it got dark we had 6 miles behind us since the shot and the bull was not slowing his pace. Darkness forced us to retreat to the truck after GPS’ing our last tracks…. A long worrisome night… first light found us back on the tracks… then the worst thing that could have happened did happen…. The tracks turned toward Mozambique… just 3 miles to the border… our heart began to sink. We tracked the bull for over 10 mile since the shot and when we were “certain” that he was the property of Mozambique and not coming back… only then did we begin the “longest walk” back toward the Land Cruiser…. Ron’s worst nightmare was now realized… and his big 4 was not going to happen…. Lowest of lows… We only had one day left at this point…. No time make the trek to another concession to hunt another bull….the hunt was all but over. The last day we focused on trying to get the old Bush Buck that I had seen twice before, finding a big Water Buck and/or Warthog for Ron, and “baboon patrol”…. We found Ron a giant Warthog but the thick jesse swallowed him up before he could get a shot… and the Baboons were just plain fun Ron shot a dandy in his prime (huge teeth) as he walked away at 150+ yds and dumped him! I shot 2 old guys with broken teeth one at 125 yds early in the day and the second from 145 yds. Well over all I can say this…. It was a trip of a lifetime the things I saw and experienced… the animals I shot with a gun, video or still camera…. All priceless! I even learned a touch of the Shona language, and spread some Western politics while I was there. I brought home over 25 hours of video, 3000 still photos, 7 trophies for my walls, and more memories than I can recount in anyone sitting. I am very grateful o my friend Ron Price for the adventure we shared and the memories we will be recapping for years around the campfire. Thanks to Buzz Charlton, Justin Drainer, and the rest of the CM Safaris Staff for an outstanding time! These guys are very good at what they do! And finally thank you to my Bride… for without her pushing me and her blessing for me to do this I’d not have taken the plunge in time such as these…. I have never missed anything in my life more than I missed my Wife on this trip. I am Very Glad to be home! I am sure I left out details but 24 days is a lot too recap… Fire away if detail on my part leaves questions… Thanks to all for your patience! Sorry for the long read......

Browning Proccessing Browning Meats & Sausage Rack Wrappers Racks 'n' Chops I could do this all day... JB's Custom Processing Custom Processing by JB Brown-Eye Custom Cuts Okay... do I win yet???? By the Way... good for you Jeremy... wishing you the very best on the business.

I agree Randy. They seem to be systematicly turning each unit in the state into "Recreational hunting units"... this Hunter Opportunity crap sucks! I finally saw them drop a few permits in "my" favorite unit and I was fortunate to draw a tag there as well! Very few units left where they manage for quality anymore.... I'd rather wait to draw a tag and then know that I atleast have a chance at seeing a Great bull or buck....vs.... just going to the woods to look at lots of small critters. I can go to the woods w/o a gun anytime I want to "look" at critters...

Water.

Just Awesome scotty! I love the Nyala!! I want one! Congrats on a Great trip and a Very successful hunt!!!!

Any of the spiral horned animals, Kudu, bush buck, etc.... I spotted a huge bush buck that my buddy shot... but never got the one I was after... Depending on where you are at the Greater Southern Kudu or the Eastern Cape Kudu are both Dream trophies IMO. I had to have a Zebra.... to me nothing says Africa like a Striped Donkey! I think an Nyala and a Sable would also be very high on my list and of course the Diuker (sp) and the Griesbok (sp) and the Klipspringer (sp).... Africas smallest game are also on my "future list"... and but a hyena if you get the chance!! They are Awesome... we heard them lots but never saw any.... Best of Luck and Congrats on your purchase! I don't know much... but I'd be happy to share what I do know with you, about my 24 days on the Dark Continent. Also... baboons are great fun... and a must have as a cheap extra!

The only two Camo's I wear are Outfitters Camo on the micotex clothing (at Cabelas) and the Desert Shadow, or occasionally Mountain Shadow from Kings (at Chasing a Dream Outfitters)... Otherwise it is Carhart colors for me!

Congrats Casey!! That is a great bag you got there! They manage their game well there on the SA ranches and it shows! I think I we probably saw half the game you did, but in part due to how thick it was.... and they look at plains game where we were as "Bait"...LOL.. so you can imagine how that works... Huge congrats on the Eastern Cape Kudu... That is certainly on my list if I go back! Hope to trade some stories with you sometime. Congrats again!

I can tell you after just getting back from my first major role as a Cameraman, that there was 2 days where I did not even take the camera out of the Pelican Case.... I should have taken a Rain Cover, but was told we would not see any rain.... In your case I would look up the Camera you are taking with you online, then look up the available accessories for that camera..... most of your professional grade cameras offer a rain cover for filming in the wet conditions...but they will add a noise factor as well. Moisture is a camera Killer... so go over prepared. I had moisture issues just because of the humidity and sweat... there was more to keeping my equipment moisture and dust free than I would have thought on my trip and I assure you it (moisture) will be a huge issue on your hunt as well. Best of Luck ... can't wait to see your pics and video!

FYI.... The price of these bows is base on the accesories being worth well over 1/2 the asking price..... A good deal on great bows for someone who cant afford to dump 1-2K on a brand new rig right now.... These bows are shooters and always have been. I'll be out of town for the weekend so if you have any questions please PM extreme coues or go see him at the shop! Thank You!

When and Where? Good call.

Way to go Max! Nice buck...even if it is a carp... one of these days I'ma make a point to get me one with a bow.... Congrats!

Thanks Pal. Jeremy has the Demo in the shop and I'll shoot it next week.... I hope I dont like it...LOL! I Really need move these other two bows so if you guys know any one please send them over to check these two Great bows out... Thanks!!!

Sorry all I'm not getting my story on line like I should be.... just runnin' in circles trying to catch up.... I'll get some of it posted next week.... I've go a lillte done but 3 1/2 weeks is a long story!! LOL!! ...and better yet we might have a Video vewing at Chasin' a Dream Outfitters when Eric at Payson Outfitters gets done editing all the film....

Thanks Man... My rental house is in escrow so after it closes I'll be driving new....

Not 100% yet, Vern..... I got my heart set on a brand new bow... When Jeremy gets the full Mathews line in stock I'll test drive a couple of those (the Z7 is there but I have not shot it yet)... and compare them to the Maxxis 35 and the Carbon Matrix (From Hoyt).... What ever feels best of all will go home with me.... I Really like the Alpha Max as well so it too is in the running. My Wife did a test drive on the Hoyt Vixen yesterday, and really like it, but she insists on trying the Passion as well before buys her new bow... (I sold her old bow to my cousin) ...she will pick one of those two as soon as the Mathews order gets in the shop. So nice to Finally have a great shop in the Rim Country where we can see, feel, and test todays best equipment!

Glad to see so many on the same page about boycotting the team... I was enraged when I got back to the States and heard this "Los Suns" BS... but many don't see a problem with it... that is Scary IMO!

OMG!! That's a new one Josh! I never thought of you as gay before, but I guess you hid it well, until now.... Then you have obviously never heard some of Josh's music & Ringtones... ... TAM and I have had our doubts for some time!! HaHa

Well... He shot all 4 of the big 4.... However there was a glitch on the Ele bull... and he was hit but not very well... we tracked him for 10 miles... and we left his tracks nearly a mile and 1/2 into Mozambique.... where he was lined out due east and we were not willing to get shot as poachers..... a Shame... he was a good bull.

I am impressed! That is too cool!!

Here are some Elephant pics.... Can you say ".com" billboard??