CASKETTS RANCH, South Africa--Cody Innes wants a leopard. He has his permit and a place in the trophy room of his home back in Colorado, where he plans to put his full-size leopard mount.
He has everything but a leopard. It isn't that Cody hasn't been trying for a leopard, he has been, and Casketts Ranch professional hunter, Adrian Anderson, has been faithfully putting up baits and checking the baits daily, but for the past few days the leopards have been ignoring the baits.
Cody's leopard hunt didn't start that way. A week before he arrived in South Africa for his hunt, Adrian faxed word to Cody that two different leopards were feeding on the baits and unless something out of the ordinary happened Adrian was confident that Cody would get his leopard. But, something out of the ordinary did happen and it has messed up Cody's hunting.
That "something" is rain. Not a little rain, but lots of rain. It seems that every afternoon for the past week the rain has ruined the hunting. There were one or two days when it just clouded up and misted but it was enough. As if nature wanted to emphasize who was in control when Cody arrived at the Johannesburg International Airport he was greeted with lots of rain falling in driving sheets like an American south coast hurricane.
The rain put the leopards off the baits before Cody arrived, and the rain kept the leopards off the baits. After several days, however, even leopards get hungry and have to eat, so in spite of the mud, the wet grass, and seemingly constant drizzle, a leopard did feed on a bait. Then the hyenas took the bait away from the leopard, which was a surprise to Adrian because he thought the bait was high enough in the tree that it was safe from the hyenas. They would have to start over with new baits.
Cody was feeling pretty down about his prospects for a leopard but he came to Africa to hunt leopard and wasn't about to give up easily; so Adrian took Cody into the bush and the two of them cropped some impalas for bait from one of the ranch herds.
But then the tables turned on Cody. While he and Adrian were out replacing baits and the rest of us were at the lodge having breakfast, we heard a warthog's agonized screams of pain in the bush just a hundred yards or so from the lodge. Monica Anderson, Adrian's wife, thought a young warthog had been caught in a poacher's snare, which is a horribly slow and painful way for an animal to die, so she sent one of the houseboys out to investigate, and if necessary, kill the warthog so it wouldn't suffer.
The houseboy was back within minutes and he was babbling excitedly. Monica finally got the story from him. The warthog wasn't caught in a snare, the warthog had been caught by a leopard that was taking its time killing the warthog, and wasn't happy about the houseboy's sudden intrusion.
After Monica got the details out of the houseboy, she quickly radioed the story to Adrian who finished setting the leopard bait and headed back to the lodge. The game now was to find the tree where the leopard would take his fresh kill and then build a hide without scaring the leopard off his kill. All of this within a few hundred yards of Landela Lodge, which is where I had booked a half-dozen American tourists and hunters.
Over the past five years I have frequently reminded hunters and nonhunters whom I have brought to Landela Lodge to hunt on Casketts Ranch that the African bush begins right outside their chalet door and the night is not a good time to go wandering around in the shadows. Some of them have thought it was just talk to try and scare the "tourist." It never has been. The other day one of our clients decided to take a short walk from the Land Rover when Adrian and I took a shotgun and tried to flush a small covey of francolin grouse. We found him walking down the bush road, which is really little more than tire tracks through the grass. He said he wasn't worried because he had his rifle.
"Won't do you much good if a cat charges from the grass right beside you," Adrian said. He was clearly annoyed and the client sheepishly promised not to go walking again without the professional hunter or at least the guide, but both Adrian and I could tell that he didn't really believe there was any risk. The leopard kill changed all that. The cat was hungry, and hunting, and killed something in broad daylight very, very close to the lodge. It could have been hunting the hunter, or his wife, or his daughter.
Africa is a wonderful place, but it is a place where there is a real danger of things that can bite and will eat you. That's why I come back to Africa every year. It is a return to something more basic and primitive than even our most remote Rocky Mountains, and I enjoy sharing Africa with readers and the hunters who come with me.
This is a place where the hunter can become the hunted and the animals have their place--and it is not behind the high walls or moats of a zoo. Even a casual game drive across the veldt, where the animals are seen from the safety of a vehicle with doors and windows that can be rolled up, is a trip to the edge of the world primeval. Right now Cody Innes is in the African bush hunting one of the world's most dangerous animals and Cody has a gun, but all the other advantages are the leopard's.
Next week I'll be in Mozambique and we'll be fishing the coastal waters for kingfish, marlin, sailfish, and whatever else we can find. I'll let you know how Cody's leopard hunt ends and what we've caught.
Best,
Galen L. Geer
Readers who would like more information on hunting at Casketts Ranch can contact the author or his booking agency via e-mail at 73737.2466@compuserve.com.
Copyright (c) 1996 Galen Geer. All rights reserved.
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