Jim's Blog
Soaked to the Skin in Ethiopia
Long day ... went this morning in the dark, just got to our stand at first light, and there was already a big male nyala and about five females already down in the little meadow. We couldn't get to our blind. They saw us and took off. He was a nice one. I don't know if he was quite big enough to shoot ... we didn't get a real good look for him. Any way we sat all day, one little break for lunch, we saw a couple bushbuck females and not until right at dark did three female nyala come out and that was it all day. Long day, oh my goodness. Rained, poured all last night ...
The Next Day ...
Tired. Went out this morning; bumped into a big mountain nyala bull, real beautiful, 20 yards in our face, nothing we could do face-first we bumped into him and he was gone. Saw a few warthogs and bushbucks. Walked around up and down mountains—primordial jungles, dripping, moss, wet, pouring down rain all night and all day ... soaked all day. Not real comfortable, and our clothes won't dry because there's no sun. Pretty yucky as far as the conditions. Nothing smells good basically. Went out this evening, saw an old bull, but not very big horns. Lots of tracks; they're around; we've just been zigging when they've been zagging. Working hard trying our best. Tough, long day. Even the fire seems cold ...
The Next Day ...
Sitting in a tent at base camp, raining again soaking wet all my clothes are still mildewy and moldy. We hunted all day today ... it was a quite a nice day, didn't start raining til this evening. Hunted all day, saw two little males and some female nyala; and then the game scouts saw a big male. We tracked him, tracked him, but never saw him. Saw a bunch of bushbucks as well and a few warthogs. One bushbuck was really big. We're still living like bushpigs up here and trying our best ... tough hunting. Big leopard tracks today; there are some huge leopards up here. We saw columbus monkeys, the white and black ones with the long tails. They're beautiful ... We're hunting at just under 10,000 feet elevation ...
3/31/2010
