Jim's Blog
The World's Biggest Wild Boar
We went and sat this morning on the spot where I hit that mountain nyala yesterday, nothing came out, of course, so we walked all the way out two hours hard, hard, hard walking got back to camp. Took a few hours off for naps and went out hunting and I got a Menelik bushbuck, 106-yard shot right through the heart, good rest, lots of time. Makes me more upset about my shot yesterday on the nyala, in a rush ... Otherwise, we're doing good here ... (Editor's note: Satellite reception lost and rest of message indiscernible).
THE NEXT DAY ...
Don't know if you could understand the message yesterday because the satellite signal was kind of bad, but I got a beautiful huge Menelik bushbuck only found in Ethiopia at high elevations, great footage saw tons. Went after East African duikers, but didn't get one.
Then this morning went out early in the dark, walked in down to low, low elevations for giant forest hog. We sat there; Jason went to hang my bushbuck for a leopard bait, and we were sitting there about 10 o'clock this morning and all of a sudden a whole big sounder of giant forest hogs came in there ... the most amazing animals, the biggest of the wild boars in the world. Huge they get up to 600 pounds the big males.
I got a big male with a huge tusk on one side and broken on other side, but massive body. I shot him, and he sort of stood there, and I had time to re-load ... shot him again, and he dropped. While we were there then another sounder of giant forest hog came in. This second sounder was about 9 or 10 females including a huge albino female. So then a second boar came in, and the two groups started fighting in like a big mudhole and this one had perfect tusks, but not quite as long as mine, but perfect.
Then all of a sudden a leopard showed up, and both groups chased the leopard into a tree about six feet above the ground.
Anyway, Jason was coming down from the far side to see my boar, and he was 15 yards from the leopard perfect angle, so he sent one of the guys all the way around to come over and get me to show me the way over there and by the time we got there the leopard was gone.
The giant forest hog is one of the most difficult animals in Africa to get, and this one is a huge giant. Everyone is happy. That leopard was a huge big male, but we're going to take this giant forest hog back to our other camp and hopefully the nyala that I wounded the other day comes back in. There is a possibility. There are big leopards over there, too, and they've been knocking the hell out of the nyala and the bushbucks over there, so instead of this leopard, which probably would have come back, we're going to the other spot and try for something even bigger.
4/5/2010
