Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/742011
Nothing's worse than going after a wounded leopard, particularly one that's lost his fear of man. By DaviD Ommanney W hen Colonel "Slim" Armstrong, managing director of Safariland Limited, called late in 1958 to ask if I would conduct a safari for them, I was delighted. But when he told me the safari would begin on December 28 in southwestern Tanganyika, I was not so delighted, as it would mean leaving Djlys, who was heavily pregnant, and our son, Douglas, over the Christmas holiday. Still, I was stone broke and saw no alternative but to accept. I had already hunted with the client, Baron Boeselager, the previous year. It had been one of those chance meetings—he had completed an elephant safari with Edgar de Bono and had returned a few days early. (With the experience and lack of patience that close to 40 years can bring, I would have had the Baron back early, too!) Anyway, Safariland had wanted a short-notice, cheap hunter for a three-day jaunt to Selengai (in Kenya) for gerenuk. So, I had taken the Baron out and collected some excellent trophies. We had also managed to get along well together. The big problem with this safari was the priority on sable. Back in those days, no one—but no one—hunted sable after November, when the rain started and the tsetses sharpened their beaks and appetites, and all the game, including sable, simply vanished into the miombo woodland. It was impossible to leave the main roads, and we had only two-wheel-drive lorries. Nonetheless, I did know an area where it would be feasible. The long and short of it was that by leaving Nairobi before Christmas, I had the camp set up—albeit less than 100 yards off the main road at Rungwa—by the time my client arrived. We collected the sable after a seven-day horror show of tsetses, mud, swollen rivers, mosquitoes, heat, humidity, missed shots, and more tsetses. It was a good bull, praise be. Looking back on the experience with the wisdom (?) of advancing years, I now wonder how we did it. I do know why. I was young and broke, trying to make a name as a professional—that was why. And there was no tomorrow back in the '50s. Once we had our sable the camp staff cheered up. We headed north, driving past ltigi, Singida, and on to Babati. The Baron, like many Germans, wanted warthog, several The Baron and The Leopard S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S • 117