Date of Hunt: 28th February – 13th March 12 hunting days

Location: the CAR (Central Africa Republic) Kotto River, Centre North of the CAR.(Central Africa Republic)

arms : Sauer 202 375HH & Swaro 2.5-10*56 & 1.25*4
Bow : Mathews LX, 70lbs and Easton axis HIT + Zwickey or Magnus (endorsed by Dan Hunsaker Bow Big Five hunter, see African-hunter Mag issue 2004-5)

Animals Taken: Lion, Baboon, Yellow-backed duiker, Lord Derby Giant Eland and Major Hartebeest

Game Hunted But Not Shot: : Buffalos, Warthog, bushpig, bushbuck, blue duiker, reddish-flanked duiker, Roan.

Game Not Hunted: : The allotment was still shot : Waterbuck (largest seen 32”), leopard. Bongo, hylochere, sitatunga are present but requested another type of hunting in deep jungle.

Outfitter: : Kotto Safari, Michel Angelvy:

PHs : : Herve Houdebine, Oumar Aboussar

Booking Agent: : OlSarge w.kmatera@worldnet.att.net
Travel Agent: Secrets du Monde and Kathi Klimes at: kathi@wldtravel.com

Hunt Summary: : I wanted to hunt with my bow and my Sauer 202 375HH. No easy job for the shooting distances are drastically different. I was there mainly to get a nice Lord Derby Giant Eland. More than anything else, I craved sinking an arrow into a nice buff should the outfitter let me put the team in jeopardy. Fortunately, Michel the Outfitter wanted me bow-hunting any game, DG or not.

Michel Angelvy the outfitter went 5 times in the CAR but never got his eland. So he got this block 4 years ago, nobody else was interested in hunting in wet, thick cover, dangerously close to Sudan with its rebels, guerrilla fighters and poachers. It appeared the block was crawling with all kinds of game. Michel has had many monkey wrenches thrown in his works by other very posh and famous colleagues. Consequently he decided to do his best so as to insure that his few clients get the best game and he is performing splendidly . . . along with gaining his colleagues’ envy. Bow-hunting DG is just icing on the cake.

My cousin and I arrived from Paris in Bangui Sunday morning and then flew to the block in a charter plane (1800 USD each). The roads are so bad that 3 days would have been required to cover 300 miles plus SIX DAYS ON FOOT WITH BEARERS. By plane 1:30.

THE MAINROAD BETWEEN BANGUI AND THE SUDAN, worst than any of our hunting zone trail:

The 650 000 ha (2510 sp miles) hunting zone is situated along the Kotto river in a diamond-bearing region. By chance there is no mining in the block. More luck, the diamond fever attracts the villagers out of the area. So there are only 3 nearly deserted villages living on miners’ salaries: no cultivation, no cattle breeding, nearly no local poaching.
The camp is snug and shady along a small river, it consists of 6 bungalows and a restaurant-kitchen under trees growing in a spotless sandy yard. Further downstream lay the skinning shed, the workers’ camp and the garage. Every straw-thatched bungalow is divided into a bedroom, a shower and a flush toilet. The 2 beds are topped by their mosquito nets, which was fine but (damn it) no lock on the banging door. How to keep black panthers away? Immediately, Luc, my cousin, and I rushed to the bar to complain. Fortunately, there was a waiter, no waitress. We asked him about black panthers. No trouble, here this is serious stuff, no French style camp. No cheap booze and no cheaper girls aplenty, only free booze and no chicks, so no need for a latch at the door. At dinner, we met our PHs, their families, another hunter and his wife and retrieved the Parisian taxidermist and the outfitter. As expected there was outstanding French cooking based on vegetables and fruits from the garden and game meat.

The first day was RESERVED FOR acclimation. The territory is quite flat, the hills are caped with dry bush, the lowlands are small plains, swamps and wide, wet, thick jungle or dense riverine forests. All the hunting consists of taking spoors on the trails and tracking, walking and stalking. No lying in ambush or shooting from the car. When driving one can stalk the odd hogs seen in the small plains or swamps. The first footprints I saw in a saline were heart-shaped Bongo’s. I bow hunted warthog and bush pig in the swamps and duikers called up in the riverine forests. No luck because either the wind shifted constantly and only bushbuck and duiker females would come to the call.

In the evening Hervé called lions in 3 places, not to hunt them but to have an idea of the location of the cats. He explained me he was totally successful in lion calling in Tanzania where he is guides in the four blocks of JM Latrive Safaris.

On Tuesday we searched for a rogue buff with a limp that was charging cars and people but we ended up following a herd of buffalos up to a dense forest. Walking into the bush we decided that there was no way to distinguish a buff at 3 yards in this vegetal nightmare, not speaking of shooting at it. As we came back to the car, Jean our beanpole of driver, scared out of his skin, announced that 2 lions had passed by the car. No way to make him spit out whether the lions passed 15 seconds or 15 minutes ago At once we packed our team in the scrub on the embankment and Herve and me sat on the berm of the trail. Herve unpacked his giant funnel to call the lions and told me that there are two kinds of in-coming lions. The shy awkward type comes stealthily skirting around creeping and hiding behind every clod and the big King rockets right to the caller to kill his roaring opponent. The sissy deserves an arrow; the mean stuff must be stopped with a rifle! Hervé told me that in Tanzania a couple of month ago the last lion he called was killed at 5 yards. After the first call the shivering gunbearer squealed that the lions were coming running through the plain. After the second call he muttered ‘Boss, they come fast, they are angry”. Hervé asked me to put my bow down. When a running tawny shape appeared at 40 yards I stuck my reticule on his chest and Hervé ordered me to shoot. “No, too many branches in the shooting lane”. “Shoot now”. At 35 yards I let my 300gr Swift A frame fly to the lion's shoulder. The lion roared and ran by us on three legs, getting a 458 Lott 500 gr Woodleigh soft from Hervé’s Heym double before he disappeared in a patch of long grass. 15 minutes later Herve and I proceeded inch by inch through the long grass. And now, was the king dead? What about the lioness? Shooting a lioness means prison for both and a whooping bail. The lion had died within 25 yards, we proceeded awkwardly on until we were sure the lioness was away.
Jesus, what a lion. 10 feet 2 inches of lion, an old slender scarred warrior with a shocking huge head and a good orange and black mane from the chin to the elbows. According to my aiming, the bullet broke the shoulder and smashed both lungs, the heart and the liver and was bulged just under the skin. Hervé’s snapshot Woodleigh

When arriving in the camp, the crew surged, sang “Barama yacoue” (the lion is dead), danced waving branches and carried me shoulder high in triumph. It was the first lion shot in the CAR after 4 years of closed season.

Tough people this PH’s family, the baby is 8 days old:

Our mentor Michel Vaillier, the famous taxidermist of kings and presidents and known as the “doyen” in the whole North Africa put spurs to the skinners, made them remove the tenderloins ( lion’s white meat tastes like veal) and work all night long. He wanted this lion for his booth at the next hunting fair. He hadn’t see such a large old (8-10 years) lion for ten years. Later another riot occurred when my cousin brought a wonderful eland with a big black mane and 40’’ monstrous thick horns.

Michel, the outfitter was beaming, such a great success the second day, he called Bangui via satellite to inform the country the first lion was shot. Then he visited the 3 villages around and offered the traditional prime 200$. He explained the chiefs the 15 feet lion was shot with a bow. 2 cars were requested, the first rolling and the second following in reverse gear, the lion lying in the back of the two stuck cars. Michel is a brilliant liar.

Over the next few days we tried to arrow several different buffs but the wind always ruined our close approaches. When tracking Hassim, my gunbearer stared at me, his wide eyes revolving and he muttered “Ze”. He has bumped into a leopard in thigh high grass and never I saw it at 15m. Anyway with my bow I was no match.

When trying to arrow a buff, we flushed baboons in the jungle. Hervé mimicked the baboon’s cries ( I poked his ribs with my elbow when he pretended to pick lice on my scalp) and a patriarch showed up. My arrow (Easton axis HIT+ 125gr Magnus=700gr) at 35 yards, in spite of interspersed branches hit his chest and ripped his belly open. He stumbled 60m and died, a bullet would not have killed him so fast, Hervé told me.

30 minutes later we found the very rare yellow-backed duiker. There are hunters all over the world coming in the CAR just to get this curio, the biggest of the duiker species. I raked it at 120 yards. Not a big one but a rare one. I know, on the picture it looks weird. In fact the real thing is nice, the coat shiny, the hair velvet short on the face and progressively longer up to the back surmounted by this stunning citrus yellow tuft of hackles. No bargaining, it will be full mounted.

The day after, we scouted a long valley for 5 hours but saw no game save many lion footprints and two freshly detusked elephant carcasses, a cow and a small calf. Revolting! The day after we harassed the bufallo through 8 hours. I slightly wounded one, a strange tawny bull and followed him 90 minutes in very dense cover. Exhausted by the extreme nervous tension we let down planning to follow it again the morrow. We had to call our gone driver in shooting twice. He came bathed with tears. 7 Sudanese ele poachers heavily armed with kalashnikov have given him slap in the face and stolen his cigarettes, not mine, not our whole gear in the car. They have complained we interfered with THEIR ele “hunting”. We were revolted and …. undergunned.
The white people risk nothing, these poachers (former slaves traders) won’t deal with the French legion etrangere in Bangui.

The next day, we let down the tawny bull (minor wound and major Sudanese troubles), to be frank we gave up buff hunting to the blacks great delight My DG bow hunting gave them the jitters, better two rifles than one. Even if in the past Herve brained a couple of buffs so as they received the horns on their new not still fully paid shoes they seemed to trust my rifle shooting. We scouted a wide loop out from a saline and back and failed in searching for fresh Eland tracks. Damn Ghost Antelopes, more than 500 elands and no one to be seen.

On Wednesday we picked up the track of a solitary eland and got a glimpse of him 50 minutes later. I was told that one never sees a whole eland, just part of it between the foliage. So I shot at part of his chest at 140 yards and splintering a branch gutshot it. I shot 3 times again, twice in the paunch. The guide finished him with two 458 Lott .500gr hand-loaded Woodleigh softpoints. Whow!
What a body size, like the Paterson’s, but mainly what a unique set of long horns (1.02m =40”) a pity he shed his black mane. Nonetheless I’ll keep it.

After hacking a 3.5 km trail in the forest, we loaded the butchered bull in the back of the Mercedes and drove back. Not long, afterwards the cylinder head gasket broke for the car cannot stand 5 men and 1600 pounds of eland when the temperature hit the 100°F. Poor Jean, the beanpolelike driver who never failed facing lions and then poachers, had to run 20 miles up to the camp so as to bring the Toyota. We planned a 5 hours nap, not so. At this moment we were accustomed only to tsetse and anopheles. Billions of gnats in spite of our nets and gloves were creeping into our noose, ears and eyes and then thousand of carnivorous bees, attracted by the eland meat, dived onto us, not speaking of the ants decorating our legs. We decided to walk back to the camp.

As we were chattering our way, Hervé pointed 2 hartebeests at 120 yards “Shoot the one on the right, it’s a monster”.. I picked up a forgotten 375 solid in my pocket and shot at the Major Hartebeest and spined him. What a piece of luck, a big eland and a monster hartebeest the same day.

I spent the rest of the week drooling at the many sights of a record waterbuck (>32’’) but the waterbuck quota was shot, and idling about arrowing duikers, warthog or bushpig, in vain. Bloody whirling wind! . I shot three times at a male duiker. At every missed arrow he came closer, Hervé despaired of coping with such a poor shot. The last arrow flew over his back when he was at 8 yards. Then I feared his one inch horns fuelled by this 5 lbs would ruin my new Cabelas pants . Thanks to my French scent, I deterred the red-haired brute in extremis. Anyhow I arrowed a francolin and a guinea fowl to the trackers’ satisfaction.

In addition of his monster eland, my cousin got a yellow-backed duiker, a baboon dog, a nice warthog and a huge bushpig. He could not approach good buffs, the fault of too many reckless lions. A pity in a block harbouring over 2000 buffs.

LUC’S MONSTER:

. Oumar his PH, a student of the CAR’s mythical best guide Abdoulaye, did more than his best. Paddling before my cousin in a river, he was smashed in the leg by a 10 feet crocodile’s tail. Oumar is a real pro and has some experience. In a posh territory, as a wannabe PH, searching a winged lion he was bitten in the knee before the lion flattened the PH. He managed to creep to the lion and be splashed with grey matter whilst “machetting” the lion’s skull. Another day, conveying 2 hunters, his car was suddenly rolling between 60 Sudanese poachers aiming at them with their Kalashnikovs. In low speed, he drove by, forced to stop for a hunter lost his cap. He didn’t recover the stolen cap but brought his clients safely to the camp. This Oumar, a black muslim, is a genius too. An outstanding tracker, he knows how to guess where the game will rest, letting the trackers zigzag on the long track and at best act as beaters, saving time and exertion for the best result. A complete over-achiever! At sun downer time, he never accepted anything other than Coca, what a dedication!

Alain the third hunter spent a long time building high stands to hunt bongo. As he didn’t want shoot to at night with a flashlight, he saw many bongos with his night vision binoculars. The last day he went eland hunting, shot a good bull in a herd after tracking him 3 hours. He wanted to find the herd in which my cousin saw a well known record bull over 1.20m, the world record is 1.238m. He got lost and walked 8 hours especially hacking his way at night in the jungle. A punishment.

Saturday evening we flew back to Bangui in the best hotel, the shabby but expensive Sofitel (120$/night)
We had lunch in the mythic “restaurant des chasses” where we met all the others safaris in the CAR.
Michel, the outfitter was proud and beaming. This evening was revenge day. Our success rates for eland and yellow-backed duiker was 100% and we were the only one to have gotten a lion. The others success rates for eland vary from 0 to 66% and worst for yellow-backed duiker. The fair play guys congratulated me for having arrowed a lion at 10m. Jesus, Michel is a brilliant liar.
After fending off the most DG, insomniac damsels, we snored a deserved night out. You know bragging is more tiresome than hunting.

Sunday morning we were checked 12 times at the airport and I paid some bribes to bring illegally my lion claws in my luggage.

So if you are looking for an authentic wild country and rare game the CAR will be the right destination. But be ready to get up a 3H30 AM, to walk from 4 to 10 hours per day when the thermometer flirts with 100°F, to be soaked by sudden refreshing rainfalls, to pass through any kind of vegetation, to squelch trough umpteen swamps and brooks, to feed the complete set of flying ailments. If you can, you'll be rewarded by free booze, stunning French cooking and a wonderful eland cape. The Sudanese ele poachers and the odd rioters never threaten the white people, don't be concerned about them.

Next year I'll come back for a bongo and a leopard. The leopard shot the week before I arrived was a real beauty. A huge male with a dark orange hide spangled with large black rosettes, that looks like a genuine jaguar. Fascinating! I'll search for the record waterbuck (over 37") I saw many times, a pity the quota was filled.

Olsarge w.kmatera@worldnet.att.net ">w.kmatera@worldnet.att.net </a> will be "Kotto Safari" agent in America, Kathi <a href="mailto:kathi@wldtravel.com being the travel agent. Don't delay if you are interested. I have still been asked to write an article for the foremost French hunting magazine. PHs apart, don't expect people speaking English, they speak French but understand more or less Spanish and Italian.

Allow me a little time to brief Olsarge.