Last season we had to recover a bait chain that had been pulled from a tree along with the bait and dragged into a particularly nasty stretch of riverine forest. It was decided that it would be best to let him finish the meat and come collect the chain in a days time. This however was too soon!
Both myself and Stu the PH checked our rifles and loaded them (FMJ's as there are plenty of bad tempered Elephant in that bush along with some Hippo)as the trackers took to the spoor armed with axes. We had only travelled about fifty meters when we had to squeeze past a thorn bush and enter into a low canopied patch of Jesse bush. As we dropped down into this patch we all seemed to stop at once. There in front of us at about fifteen paces was the Lion fast asleep. As we where hunting for a mature Lion Stu and I crouched down and with the help of the binoculars assessed his feature for sign of age. After what was probably only a couple of minutes the Lion woke up and bloody hell his eyes looked big at that distance through the Leicas, not to mention he looked Pissed Off! As he slowly stood up, we slowly but surly reversed steps with rifles ready!
We left the chain another couple days only to track the chain again, this time with Crocodile spoor to the bank of the river.
Oh well, time for a new chain.
During that hunt we also bumped onto an old lion at ten yards as we inspected a foul smell that turned out to be a carcass of a poached Elephant.