Sentinel Limpopo Safari Chronicle, Zimbabwe Africa August/September 2011 Day 7 and Day 8

Sentinel Limpopo Safari Chronicle, Zimbabwe Africa August/September 2011
Days 1 & 2 | Days 3 & 4 | Days 5 & 6 | Days 7 & 8 | Days 9 & 10

Day 7- September 6th, 2011
Elephant pictures, skinning, butchering and general adrenaline hangover were on tap for me today. My group did little else. David Morris and Matthew Carmen came to admire our elephant and take photos. Several trips by Land Rover to the skinning shed were required to transport thousands of pounds of meat and trophy. We met David back at camp for lunch and some shut eye. But I could forget sleeping, still pumped up.

My hunting priority now shifted to the heavy horned bushbuck ram of the riverine that had barely escaped us yesterday morning - or maybe a wide kudu, a bush pig, warthog…at Sentinel you just never know!

Day 8 - September 7th, 2011
We all met in the dining area before daylight for breakfast at 5:30 AM. Richard suggested we check the hyena bait we had set a day or so before at the very tree where I took my first and only African leopard in 1997. We set the bait with poacher’s dead impala that we found freshly snared and with a fresh impala I had taken for bait. Sure enough, the big dogs had found the buffet. We would sit there tonight.

We missed the campfire and supper back at camp this evening. I spent the first bright moonlit hours of the night in our hyena blind with Richard and Moffat. Only three hyenas showed up - all young, small, and very cautious. These young hyenas were reluctant to approach the bait and feed. They appeared very nervous, as if they were being watched. And they probably were. The cries and howls of nearby mature hyenas filled the cool evening air as did the deep sawing of a big male leopard. No mature hyenas showed up.

By the time we gave up on the hyenas and made the long drive back to camp all was quiet at Sentinel headquarters. Our dinner was prepared and left available for us at the dining table. Ox tail and rice, my buffalo, was served - a terrific end to another superb day in Africa. That is until I poured chocolate sauce intended for our desert on my ox tail and rice. Hey, I thought it was gravy. Not good!

We discovered that David Morris had taken a great kudu late in the day. David’s trophy kudu bull was wide and impressive – skillfully taken with a single .300 WSM shot in typical David Morris fashion.



Sentinel Limpopo Safari Chronicle, Zimbabwe Africa August/September 2011
Days 1 & 2 | Days 3 & 4 | Days 5 & 6 | Days 7 & 8 | Days 9 & 10

Posted by David Shashy