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On the way back to the airport, Steve (PH) asked me what the one thing was that I would always remember or that I enjoyed most. I had already forgotten the energy sapping heat and the aggravating mopani flies. I told him I couldn't pin down just one thing. The amazing skill of he and Dix (Tracker) tracking and putting the stalk on the animals was likely the most impressive. I had always fancied myself a bit of a tracker before, but I wasn't even on the same planet as these guys. Then there were the Bush Pigs. I'll never forget those little guys. Kinda like the football of Africa, everything picks on the bush pig, and they are just the neatest little animals, so entertaining to watch and hard as can be to get a shot on one. Then the elephants, being that close to them in the thick reeds and long grass along the Mazunga then having them to come at us was really something! The Honeybadger that came in to our Hyena calls to kick some hyena butt and take their lunch money only to discover it was us. He never showed any fear of the armed hunters, only disgusted contempt.

The most wonderous sight, though, was on the second day. We had just had a stalk on a group of sable busted by an old blue bull eland. We were out in the noonday sun and the heat was nearly unbearable, especially have chasing those sable through the acacia thorn and mopani scrub for 4 or 5 miles. We were making our way back to the cruiser a little depressed and rejected. Dix and I saw horns in the scrub brush at the same time. I'll never know how I was able to see anything at the same time Dix was, maybe it was because I was looking for animals and he wasn't? It was a really nice sable bull and we put a stalk on him. He was in some real nasty scrub and appeared to be wise to us. I had one shot on him, but could only see his head and part of his neck at a longer distance than I was prepared for. I hesitated a little too long and he slipped away. When we saw him next, he was loping across our front about 100 yards away. Just as I raised my rifle, I saw him tuck his chin down and lower those big sweeping horns to act as a battering ram, then he kicked it into overdrive. The mane on his neck stood out, and his tail went straight back like a thoroughbred. The big black knight shone almost blue with the sun beating down him. Maybe it was because it was the first good look I had a big sable bull, but with chin tucked sprint was the most amazing sight I had ever seen. I'll never forget that. My jaw would have dropped, I'm sure, if the borrowed Ruger's stock hadn't been hard pressed into my shoulder. I really didn't have a shot to take, or maybe I was too slow using the unfamiliar rifle, but for whatever reason, I never squeezed the trigger and we never saw that big fellow again.

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