... he being me, of course. In 6 days I leave for Zimbabwe and my first hunt in Africa: 12 days in the Bubye Conservancy with John Sharp, hunting Cape Buffalo, and if I'm lucky (and shoot straight) I may even hunt for some of the non-DG species that abound in that part of the world... "ordinary" stuff like eland, kudu, and warthog.
This hunt has been almost 4 years in the making. I first discussed it with Jorge back in 2010, when we were hunting bufflers with EvilTwin and eh76 in Wyoming, and he put the bug in my ear and somehow I just couldn't get that earworm out. I started doing some research online, looking at locations,costs, and most important, who I wanted to hunt with, as in PH.
Fast forward to Dallas Safari Club in January of 2012. Having narrowed down my search some, I met Jorge at the expo and he introduced me to a couple of gentlemen of his acquaintance, and I spent the better part of a day "interviewing" 5 different PH's. Three were in Zimbabwe, two in Tanzania. I'd already ruled out South Africa for a couple of reasons I won't go into depth on, suffice to say the wildness of the country I was looking for wasn't there (and the prices were high). By the end of the day I had narrowed my choice down to two men: John Sharp, and Lou Halloran, both Zimbabweans and both legendary PH's. After a long night of thinking (and drinking, I'll admit, there was a wee bit o' scotch involved) the next morning I got up and rolled into the expo at the crack of noon. I walked up to John and shook his hand, and gave him a check to secure my hunt. Initially we booked for 2014, but a little speedbump in the road called a divorce postponed my plans by a year.
I've met with John each year since, in '13, '14, and '15 at DSC. In the past 8 months we've emailed back and forth a couple dozen times. A score of different tough decisions have been agonized over and finally booked, including flights (biz class), whether I'll hunt alone or bring The Redhead with me (alone), whether to hire a videographer (nope), and so forth. I've gone through 5 rifles trying to decide what I want to use on this trip, and a couple dozen handloads in the process. (FWIW, I'm taking a Kimber Caprivi in 375 H&H, loaded with 300 gr Swift A-frames @2500 fps muzzle velocity and 300 gr Hornady DG Solids at the same speed as my ONLY rifle for this hunt. If I see a world class dik-dik and decide to take him, the taxidermist will just have to patch a bigger hole.)
And now it's time to finalize my lists... all the stuff I'm packing, making sure I don't miss anything. Gun, ammo, cameras, batteries, clothes, etc, etc, etc... Bose headset for peace and quiet on the plane, digital voice recorder to record the fireside conversations... I'm still debating whether to take a GoPro, I've got a couple more days to get that fixed. Oh, and there's a few things I'm bringing at John's request, including a few tins of Skoal Long Cut, which isn't available in Zim or RSA!
Sure don't want to forget anything, but I'm equally sure that I will. So I'm makin' my lists, and checkin' 'em twice, and then doin' it all over again.
Damn, this is fun.
