We had the most amazing day today. We met some guys in a new area in Ghana that Steve Kobrine has not hunted before. Steve opened up Ghana for hunting a couple of years ago for the royal antelope, which is one of the smallest antelope in the world - not much bigger than a rabbit. We're also hunting Black duiker and Maxwell's duiker among other things, so we're looking for all kinds of strange animals, plus we have bird permits for many different kinds of birds.

 
These new guys had a new area and we went a long way to get to them and pick them up. There were about six guys and they had three little mut-dogs with them. Three of the guys showed up with shotguns that were hand-made out of grass - it's unbelievable that these things can even fire. They don't shoot them by holding them up to their shoulder, but they hold them out in front of them using two hands - It's the weirdest thing. They don't aim, but they hold the gun out and pull the trigger in the direction of the animal, but apparently they never miss even at running animals in the bush, like the duikers.

So it was mid-morning and we went out and set-up but our hopes weren't very high because there has never been a white person that we have documentation of, that has seen a royal antelope during daylight because normally they're hunted at night. Matt Gibson, my tough-guy cameraman extraordinaire from New Zealand, actually saw the first one out of all of us. I had turned my head to say something to him and Matt looked forward and a little royal antelope ran right up to us, stopped, looked at us and then took off. By the time I turned around to look, I saw it flash and take off so, after Matt, I was officially the second white person to see a royal antelope in daylight and Steve Kobrine was the third. It was unbelievable. Steve was over the moon and totally forgot to put on his video camera. Matt might have captured it on camera, but we aren't sure yet so we'll have to check once we get back to camp tonight. 

Then it just got better from there. We went to another place and I had another tiny royal antelope almost run right over my foot. They're so fast, they're like little, tiny, 3-pound rats running through the tress jigging and jagging. I didn't even have a shot at it because it was running right at me with no warning and I couldn't get my gun ready fast enough. 

Then we saw a black duiker and some squirrels. Without any warning, one of the poacher-guys shot a male black duiker with their homemade shotguns. The shooter made an amazing shot from where he was and then tried to give the duiker to me and we had to explain to them that that's not what we're here to do. They thought they could shoot one and then count it as mine and save all the effort, but this is not the case with us. So we've given value to all the animals and Steve hired one of the guys full-time so they aren't 'poachers' anymore but now they went from the dark side to become conservationists, so they were all happy. Legally, they are allowed to shoot and eat cain rats, so they shot a big, giant cain rat which is about 30lbs - not a very pretty animal.

We kept going and it was so tight, Matt and I were crawling on our hands and knees through the jungle, literally getting eaten by ants. I've got scrapes and cuts from the vines and spikes everywhere and there were no shooting lanes the entire time. I had to cut vines just to be able to swing my gun barrel left and right. Ten feet was maximum visibility and it's some of the toughest hunting I've ever seen in my life. It's unbelievable, we saw six different royal antelope and four different black duikers today, so it's absolutely amazing. 

Then as we were coming out of the jungle, there were villages that we were passing by and all of a sudden the villagers started screaming and yelling that they found a Rhino Viper. It's one of the most beautiful snakes in the world and is about four feet long and about as wide around as your thigh - it's huge. It has the longest fangs with the most venom. We were yelling at the villagers saying, "don't kill it! Don't kill it!" but they had already hacked its head and tail off with machetes. It turns out that there were 49 baby Rhino Vipers inside, but we didn't know that at the time. It's really sad because all of those babies could have been let go somewhere else away from the villagers, but then you have to look at from their side, because they have their kids cutting the farmed vegetables, so who would want an extra 49 deadly poisonous snakes around their farmyard, so I can't hold it against them but it was really sad that it happened like that. 

So it's been an amazing day. We saw lots of hornbills and other birds and all types of jungle animals. Today we're taking the night off from hunting at night because we don't want to do that anymore, since we know it's possible to get one of these little antelope in daylight. It will be really tough shooting and I can't imagine trying to get one, but we're going to try and we'll see what happens tomorrow.