One Heck Of A Ride

94 Zambia’s Big Cats will even smear those entrails on the tree in the hope of tricking the cat into believing another leopard dragged the bait up the tree. One of five hippos author took in Zambia was this brute. It was close to 14 feet long from nose to tail and may have weighed nearly four tons That buffalo was only the first of the animals I shot for bait in Zambia. I shot four hippos the first week – two cows and a young bull I killed strictly for baiting my lion and leopard, plus a big bull I wanted for my trophy room – as well as two warthogs and an impala. (As my safari was ending, I shot another hippo for bait for a group of Spaniards whose safari followed mine.) All five of the hippos I shot in Zambia were taken when they were in the river, which was neither as exciting nor as potentially dangerous as my experience with them on land in Zimbabwe was. In Zambia, we would wait until a hippo stuck its head out of the water and I’d put a bullet into its brain. It would immediately sink, but an hour or so later, the gases forming in its stomach would bring it to the surface and one of the trackers would wade out and tie a rope to its leg so we could drag it ashore with the Land Cruiser. Although we didn’t use it for bait, I shot a striped hyena the second evening from one of our lion blinds. It and two or three other hyenas were moving toward the bait when Darryl said I should shoot the largest of the group, and I did. I knew I’d made a good shot, but the animal gave no indication it was hit until it dropped dead in midstride about seventy-five yards from the blind. Earlier that same day, I also shot a big puku ram. These orangish-colored antelope are slightly larger than a big impala and have similar but shorter ringed horns. They are found only in Zambia, Namibia, Tanzania, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. When poacher’s camp was found during the hunt, professional hunter Darryl Higgins and his crew burned it to the ground Bath time in a village near the safari company’s camp on Zambia’s Luangwa river After the fourth or fifth day, we had lion and leopard baits hanging in a dozen places and my safari had taken on a routine. An alarm clock would wake me up at 3:30 AM. I’d get dressed and meet Darryl in the dining area. We would have coffee, rusk and cereal, and drive off with trackers Phineas, Benton and Benson to check the baits. By 10:00 AM, we would return to camp for brunch, a shower and a nap, and go out again at