Kind of a slow day today, obviously we had the stuffing knocked out of us yesterday; we did look for puma tracks in the morning, did not find any. We came back to the ranch house and loaded up the two dogs that we had and we picked up a third dog from there. Hard to get dogs into Paraguay from the United States where Rocky lives so he's going to try to train the one they have there. And the veterinarian that comes along for all of the darting for the jaguar project she drove with Rocky's son from the other ranch to this ranch. We did some scouting to see if the roads were powdery enough to see puma tracks. We did find some puma tracks so we're going to be going out tomorrow morning.

Then we went out this evening for buffalo, the one cowboy tracked us down, he said he'd found one so we followed him, he was on horseback, he was walking and when we got over there we got into tall grass about 8 feet tall and just couldn't find it and way too dangerous to go in there after it. So that was that. Now we're just waiting for dark, going to do a night drive and see what we can see tonight. Most important is that tomorrow morning on this ranch we can go and hunt puma, we're going to be looking tomorrow morning hard for puma and then buffalo in the afternoon and then evening night drive and just sort of work 20 hours a day. Hottest day yet, mosquitos everywhere, I got eaten alive, otherwise things are going well!

The Next Day ...

Late, late here, just got in. Starting with last night on the drive we saw 14 crab-eating foxes and one female brocket deer and that was it. Got in about midnight. Slept until about 4:30 a.m., got up, and right at first light we started running roads, just to see if we could find any tracks in the dust. We found a gigantic jaguar track, normally we'd be thrilled to find and be able to put the dogs on it and try and dart it and collar it for the jaguar project, but in this case with the dogs all dead, we just had two dogs, we couldn't take the risk. Then we went a little further and found a huge puma track and we put the dogs on it and they got on the track, they took off.

Caleb, Rocky's son, took off after them with one receiver, he's faster through the bush, we started following, but they got so far ahead of us, we couldn't find them and lost them after walking about a mile and a half into the jungle. We had to come all the way back out drive all the way back to the ranch. Rocky had to go up in his airplane, I drove back over and Rocky went up in his airplane to use the receiver to figure out where Caleb was. Caleb saw the puma. It was a huge old male, but it had given the dogs the slip, they never did get it treed. That was the end of our puma hunting.

So we went buffalo hunting, walked about five miles through buffalo swamps up to our waists in stagnant water in 10-foot visibility in these giant reeds and finally right toward dusk found a herd of buffalo and another group of three bulls on its own. I tried sneaking on all of them. The closest I ever got is 46 yards to one bull, but that's too far for me, I needed another 16 yards and I would have taken the shot. They're really spooky. We think we have something figured out for tomorrow; we're going to try to sit by a wallow that the bulls have made. We'll be eaten by mosquitoes. 

Tonight we went out on our night drive we saw one female gray-brown brocket deer and then a sounder of wild hogs, and I got a huge monster wild boar that probably weighs close to 400 pounds. So now we're going to get up early in the morning again and look for puma!

The Next Day ...

Got up early today, went out to check for puma tracks. We got just to where we found the puma track yesterday and got a flat tire. We went to change it, and the spare was flat. And then, of course, we knocked the truck accidentally off the jack, so we had to dig a big hole underneath then we found a pump but the pump was broken, so Caleb had to start walking back. It was about 10 miles back to one of the cowboy outbuildings where they had a radio. But I took apart the little electric pump and got it going and we got the tire pumped up and caught up to Caleb just before he got to the radio. So that took our morning away.

We went out in the afternoon to the same area that we found all of the buffalo the evening before, and this time I went to the far end and I had the cowboys go to the end where we had seen them and they were still there and, of course, they're so spooky they ran back to the swamp and we waited and we ambushed them as they came by and I made a perfect shot. The bull was going by me walking, a big giant bull about 15 yards, he went about 70 yards and stopped and tipped over dead. He went down, we got it all on camera, fantastic footage, beautiful big old bull, so we're thrilled it should be great. 

Tomorrow we're going to get up and go out for puma again! 

The Next Day ...

Today we went out and checked for tracks first thing and all we saw was one crab-eating raccoon and a couple of brocket deer, but no puma tracks, so we decided to take the rest of the day off and jumped in Rocky's airplane. Right now I'm standing within spitting distance of Brazil. This has gotta be the prettiest place I've ever seen in Paraguay, mountains, jungles, incredible giant parrots. Fantastic here, beautiful. We're really enjoying the hospitality here. We're about to have a late dinner of barbeque meat like the best you can imagine, that 's what paraguay is noted for their beef and their barbeques ...