Sports A Field

What’s a Dik-dik?

These small antelopes are part of Africa’s Tiny Ten.

Photo above: A fine Damara dik-dik ram.

Get your mind out of the gutter. The dik-diks are tiny African antelopes, adapted to arid, semi-desert thornbush. The name comes from Somali, mimicking the female’s chirping alarm call.

Dik-diks are sort of gray to almost rufous, with a distinctive bulbous snout, and a forehead tuft that makes it tricky to see the male’s small, ringed, needle-sharp horns. Depending on race, dik-diks weigh six to maybe thirteen pounds, pencil-legged, a foot to possibly a foot-and-a-half tall. Think “small jackrabbit.” Most of the races have produced horns up to four inches, but three-inch horns are always spectacular. That’s the Rowland Ward minimum for the most-hunted Kirk’s dik-dik of southern Kenya and Tanzania. The Rowland Ward minimum for Namibia’s Damara dik-dik and Guenther’s dik-dik is 2.5 inches–not much horn to look for peeking past the forehead tuft.

Like all dwarf antelopes, dik-diks are tender and tasty, with meat more like a rabbit than an antelope. Although a dik-dik will be savored, they are too small to provide adequate camp fare, and too small for most larger predators to bother with. To many hunters, however, despite its small size, the dik-dik is a major trophy animal, requiring effort and expense.

At least twenty species of dik-diks have been proposed. To this day, their exact differences, boundaries, and classification are debated. With one exception, dik-diks are found only in northeast Africa. The largest one, the Damara dik-dik, is found in northwest Namibia and into Angola. That means the Damara is separated from other dik-diks by a huge stretch of Africa. In animal distribution, such a gap is unusual.

All dik-diks are of genus Madoqua, divided into long-snouted, and short-snouted groups. Damara, Kirk’s, and Guenther’s are considered long-snouted dik-diks. Despite the huge separation, Kirk’s is geographically closest to the isolated Damara, while Guenther’s ranges to the north of Kirk’s. Rowland Ward identifies five short-snouted dik-diks. SCI categorizes six, and their nomenclature is not in agreement. To some extent, it’s a moot point, because several races are found in Somalia, Djibouti, and Eritria, which are not open to hunting. Within living memory, it has never been possible to hunt all the dik-diks.

Guenther’s dik-dik is northernmost of the “long-snouted” dik-diks. Characteristic to all dik-diks: Bulbous proboscis, large eyes, and upright tuft on the center of the forehead.

Depending on which authority one prefers, Ethiopia has four or five distinct races. You’d have to travel the length and breadth of that huge country to hunt them all. Currently, the most huntable dik-diks are probably the Damara in Namibia, Kirk’s in Tanzania, Guenther’s in the northeast corner of Uganda and southern Ethiopia, and Harar and Salt’s dik-dik, also in Ethiopia.

This last is in some dispute. Rowland Ward considers all dik-diks in northern Ethiopia to be Salt’s, this species ranging on through Djibouti and Eritria to Sudan. SCI considers the dik-diks of Ethiopia’s Awash River basin to be a smaller subspecies of Salt’s, called Cordeaux (M. saltiana cordeauxi). In 1993, Joe Bishop and I camped on the Awash and hunted this dik-dik. I’m no expert and can only say that these were very small, visibly half the size of the Damara.

Thanks to Namibia’s large outfitting industry and good management, the Damara is the least costly to hunt. When I first hunted what is now Namibia in 1979, I saw several dik-diks, but at the time they were fully protected. A quarter-century later, one of these little antelopes was a primary goal of a Namibian safari. Then, the “Tiny Ten” of Southern Africa had not been proposed; I just wanted one of these cool little guys. Today, the popularity of the Damara dik-dik has increased because of its necessity for the Tiny Ten. Value promotes protection, which equals more animals. Numbers and availability have increased, although the Damara dik-dik remains a limited-permit animal in Namibia.

Boddington’s Damara dik-dik was taken in 2003, at the time a giant, still a good one. This was his first use of a .22 Hornet in Africa, still his pick as the perfect cartridge for smaller African antelopes, plenty of power, but almost no damage.

I’ve accompanied several hunts for the Damara dik-dik, so I have some experience with that one. I took an excellent Kirk’s dik-dik in Kenya, likewise have seen many in Tanzania, so I also have a little experience there. Joe and I had no trouble finding Cordeaux dik-diks in Ethiopia, but that’s my only experience with a “short-snouted” variety. On my second Uganda hunt in 2017, a Guenther’s dik-dik was at the top of my wish list. From our buffalo camp in Karamoja, we had to go far east near the Kenya border. Once in the dik-dik area, we saw plenty.

Based on this limited experience, all dik-dik hunting seems similar. You look in dry thornbush, glass into shadows. Adults are usually seen in pairs, sometimes with smaller offspring. Dik-diks tend to mate for life, so if a hornless dik-dik is seen, keep looking. Her mate is likely close-by.

Dik-diks are highly territorial. If spooked (as usual) they will scamper off. Don’t panic. Sit tight, or back off and come in from a different angle. Give it a half-hour and they often come slipping back. My Damara, at the time a giant, was taken that way. We spooked a pair from some bushes below a rocky kopje. Hunting with Dirk de Bod, we circled up into the rocks, came back down, and sat among some boulders. Wasn’t long before the female drifted back, soon followed by the big male.

With small antelopes and too-powerful rifles, best to ignore shot placement rules and shoot for the middle to avoid extreme damage. This Guenther’s dik-dik, a primary goal on a 2017 Uganda safari, was taken with Steve Hornady’s .223. Still too much gun for dik-dik, but it dropped instantly with repairable damage.

Many are taken in chance encounters. Always, you know dik-diks are in the area, on license, and on your wish list. When you see good horns, you take the shot. With this little antelope, the quandary is what to shoot him with.  The dik-dik is a special animal, worthy of a life-size mount (which takes up little space) The problem: Taking him effectively without making a mess.

Cover-dwelling dwarf antelopes like forest duikers are customarily taken with shotguns, avoiding cape damage. Dik-diks are nervous little guys living in semi-open scrub, rarely taken within effective shotgun range. The challenge with a rifle is to avoid destruction, so we need accuracy without excessive power.

In Ethiopia, we used outfitter Colonel Negussie’s scoped Brno in .22 rimfire. In Namibia, daughter Brittany used Dirk de Bod’s son’s youth model .22. Placed well, a .22 Long Rifle hollowpoint is adequate, and a .22 is present in most camps. However, effective range is limited. Because of their small size and ability to hide behind a few blades of grass, rarely can dik-diks be seen and judged at distance. Up close, they’re likely to bolt before horns can be judged. In my experience. many opportunities are between 60 and 100 yards, pushing the limits of a .22 LR.

In Kenya, I carried a few 180-grain full-metal-jacket Match loads, which shot to the same point of impact as my 180-grain Nosler Partitions. I figured they’d be perfect for dik-diks and duikers. That was the last and only time I carried two loads for a plains game rifle! It was too complicated to try to switch when an animal was spotted. I managed it on the dik-dik, but even with a solid, the .30-06 was far too powerful. We salvaged only a shoulder mount, a shame for a beautiful dik-dik.

In Uganda in 2017, Steve Hornady brought a .223, which I borrowed for my Guenther’s. I purposefully shot it too far back, and dropped the animal without irreparable damage, but it was still too much gun. On other hunts in Namibia, Trijicon’s Stephen Bindon and my wife Donna used camp .17 HMRs for Damara dik-diks. They were perfect, plenty of range and power, almost no damage. That outfitter, Corne Kruger, happens to have .17 HMR rifles in camp, but they’re not common in Africa.

Donna Boddington’s PH, Corne’ Kruger, had a Marlin .17 HMR available. Both .17 HMR and .22 WMR are uncommon in Africa, but when available are near-perfect for the tiniest antelopes.

When I went for my Damara dik-dik, I took a .22 Hornet barrel for a T/C Encore. We shot two, one for me and one for Dirk, both down on the spot, no visible damage. Since then, I’m convinced the .22 Hornet is ideal for small antelopes. And, unlike the .17 HMR and .22 WMR, it is also versatile, powerful enough for antelopes up to reedbuck and impala. Realistically, it’s awkward to take any rifle on safari that’s perfect for just one animal. So, for a highly specialized animal like dik-dik, we often borrow a camp gun. It makes sense to find out what might be available.

The .22 Hornet remains surprisingly popular in southern Africa. A couple years ago, Harley Young, at eighty-something, came to Frontier Safaris in Namibia needing a klipspringer and Damara dik-dik to complete his Tiny Ten. His 6.5 Creedmoor was perfect for the klippie, but that’s a cannon on dik-dik. Barry Burchell had an Anschutz .22 Hornet but no ammo, so we repaired to his loading bench and whomped up a few rounds, then checked zero. A day later, Harley had a fine Damara dik-dik with a perfect skin.

Tom Fruechtel, then CEO of Leupold, took this exceptional Kirk’s dik-dik in Tanzania’s Masailand. Because of long availability in both Kenya and Tanzania, Kirk’s has probably been the most-hunted of all the species and races of dik-diks.

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Colorado’s Wild Cats: Facts vs. Fiction

UPDATE: Proposition 127 was defeated in November by Colorado voters. Read our analysis here.

Read this before you buy into the claims made by supporters of Colorado’s proposed lion-hunting ban. 

Photo above: A mountain lion in Colorado. Photo copyright Victor Schendel: VictorSchendelPhotography.com

Anti-hunting groups have launched a full-on misinformation campaign in their push to ban mountain lion and bobcat hunting in the state of Colorado. A group called Cats Aren’t Trophies has collected enough signatures to place a measure on the statewide ballot this fall, Proposition 127. The initiative’s backers make numerous false claims about scientific wildlife management in Colorado, and specifically about the legal, regulated hunting of mountain lions and bobcats. (The initiative also mentions lynx, even though lynx are classified as endangered and have not been legal to hunt or trap in Colorado for decades.)

Coloradoans for Responsible Wildlife Management (CRWM), a coalition of science-based conservation groups opposing the initiative, noted in a flyer, “This isn’t about fair chase or management concerns; it’s a deliberate attempt to misinform.”

The truth is that Colorado has thriving and well-managed populations of both mountain lions and bobcats. Hunting and trapping may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but these activities are highly regulated, humane, and selective. And many people don’t realize it, but hunters do eat the meat of their mountain lions, and it is delicious. 

Let’s take a closer look at some of the questionable claims being made by those who are behind Proposition 127.

Myth: Lions and bobcats are declining

Colorado Parks & Wildlife (CPW), the state agency that oversees wildlife in Colorado, employs a staff of trained biologists to monitor wildlife populations through scientific modeling and field research. CPW’s official statewide estimates of the number of independent male and female lions (not including kittens) is 3,800 to 4,400 statewide. 

The agency’s research shows Colorado’s lion population has been growing since 1965, which was the year they were classified as a big-game species. The agency reports: “Both informal and recently collected empirical data suggest Colorado’s lion population is strong and lions are abundant in appropriate habitat.” 

Bobcats are also widespread and doing well. Bobcats are the most common wild cat in North America, with some 1.4 to 2.6 million bobcats nationwide. In Colorado, CPW biologists assess five different metrics each year to make sure bobcat populations are healthy. The information indicates Colorado’s bobcat populations are stable and likely increasing in some areas. 

Lynx were reintroduced into Colorado in 1999, and although their population is stable, they are currently listed as endangered in Colorado. Lynx are protected by both state and federal law, with hunting and trapping entirely prohibited. 

Mark Vieira, CPW’s Carnivore and Furbearer Program Manager, explained that the agency tracks population models for mountain lions in various regions of the state and that biologists have collared hundreds of lions in field studies to verify the population models. 

“Observations of mountain lions point to a growing, healthy, and increasingly expanding population,” he said in a recent presentation detailing how Colorado’s professional biologists manage and monitor cat populations. (Watch his full presentation here.)

Myth: Lion and bobcat hunting is a “trophy hunt”

When the authors of proposed Initiative 91 use the term “trophy hunt,” they are implying that hunters are only interested in the head and hide of the mountain lion and not in taking the meat. First off, that’s not what trophy hunting means, but that aside, here are the facts:

Colorado, like other states, has a “wanton waste” law. That means that hunters who take big-game animals like mountain lions are required by law to take and prepare the meat of the animals for human consumption. Bobcats are classified as furbearers rather than big-game animals and as such are exempt from this requirement, but many hunters also prepare and consume bobcat meat. 

Americans tend to have a cultural bias against eating cat meat, but there is no health or taste reason for this. As lion hunters have discovered, the meat is, in fact, highly palatable. Outdoor writer and hunter Don Thomas, who guided mountain lion hunts for many years, says, “Lion meat is lean, light, fine-grained, and delicate, and can be prepared in any manner suitable for pork or veal.” He once converted a skeptic by serving him a meal of sweet and sour lion scallopini. The doubter loved it.

Those who aren’t as adventurous with their cuisine often make the meat into sausage. One hunter told me he had his lion meat made into spicy snack sticks, which were a hit with everyone who tried them. 

Yes, most hunters also mount their lions or preserve their hides, which is a way of honoring the animal and preserving the experience of the hunt. Before they do, successful hunters are required to present the hides of their lions and bobcats at a CPW office for a mandatory check. The information gathered by the wildlife technicians at these checks is a source of valuable intel for biologists who study these animals.

Myth: Mountain lion hunting is unsporting; it’s like “shooting fish in a barrel”

Mountain lions are secretive and extremely wary animals, and there is nothing easy about hunting them. CPW’s Vieira cited statistics showing that only one in five Colorado mountain lion license holders is successful in harvesting a lion, which hardly sounds like “shooting fish in a barrel.”

Lions can be hunted in several ways, but one of the most common ways is by finding fresh tracks in the snow and then using hounds to trail them until they tree. Like hunting itself, this type of hunt is not everyone’s cup of tea, but it is a method of hunting that has been used for centuries, and it often turns into an extreme physical challenge, since the hunter must follow the cat and hounds on foot (or with skis or snowshoes) over rugged, mountainous, roadless terrain, often for long distances. Nor is a successful chase assured—lions often give hounds the slip.

The main reason for allowing the use of hounds for hunting lions is that it allows hunters to be selective. Colorado’s lion regulations are specifically designed to limit the harvest of adult female lions. “States that don’t allow the use of hounds for lion hunting have a higher harvest of females,” Vieira said.

That’s because it’s easy to quickly tell whether a deer or elk is male or female, but it’s difficult to know the sex of a cat without getting a close look. Hunters can positively verify the sex of a lion in a tree. They can then choose to let the lion go, or make a quick, clean kill.

“I have heard the ‘fish in a barrel’ complaint often, sometimes from other hunters,” Thomas, the former guide, said. “Hard to keep that in mind when I’m making a five-mile hike through treacherous terrain in sub-zero weather! I would guess that we treed fewer than half the cats we chased and shot far fewer than that. Even back when I was in top shape, I’ve never felt as exhausted as I did at the end of some of those hunts, which often did not end with a dead lion.”

Myth: Lion hunting orphans kittens

It’s important to note that female mountain lions with kittens are never allowed to be hunted. Lions are solitary animals, so if you see more than one set of lion tracks together, it’s most likely a female with young. Since lions are almost always hunted in the snow, it’s easy for lion hunters to avoid following multiple sets of cat tracks. Because of this selective method of hunting, female cats with kittens are left alone.

Colorado takes the education and selectivity of lion hunters very seriously, requiring anyone who wants to buy a mountain lion license to take and pass an online test to ensure they understand the rules. 

Myth: There is no management reason for hunting cats

Many people wonder why we have to manage wildlife at all—can’t we just let nature take its course? That’s an attractive sentiment, but Colorado now has 5.8 million people within its borders, and humans are heavily encroaching on wildlife habitat—building more and more houses and roads, running four-wheelers and snowmobiles, hiking, skiing, and biking in the backcountry. All of this has a huge impact on wildlife populations, altering the carrying capacity of the land. Like it or not, humans have to step in to help restore the balance. One of the ways this is done is through controlled hunting. Removing a carefully determined number of animals is a tool that helps maintain stable and healthy wildlife populations.

This is not about “getting rid” of lions or other predators. Thriving lion and bobcat populations are an important part of Colorado’s ecosystem. The state is scientifically managing the cats with a plan designed to maintain the populations at or above their current, sustainable levels. “Our strong lion populations also support the overall biodiversity of Colorado, interacting with deer and elk herds and providing ecological services as they have for thousands of years,” said Vieira.

Mountain lions prey on herbivores such as deer, elk, and bighorn sheep, and CPW’s scientific wildlife management approach helps keep the populations of all of these species in balance. Every wildlife management decision has complex ripple effects on many other species, which is one of the reasons these decisions should be made by trained biologists who spend years developing and implementing management plans that take all factors into account.

Myth: This proposition will stop lions from being killed

In 1990, the state of California passed Proposition 117, which banned mountain lion hunting in the Golden State. But the state still issues large numbers of depredation permits for lions that are killing livestock or threatening people, as Colorado would need to do as well. Paid trappers and sharpshooters (at taxpayer expense) kill an average of 98 lions every year on these permits, four times the number that were killed under such permits before the ban. In addition, the lack of a hunting season for the past thirty-odd years has not resulted in healthier lion populations in California. A recent survey pegged the state’s lion population at between 3,200 and 4,500, which is much lower than previously thought in a state that is a third larger than Colorado. 

Well-intentioned people who simply want to “stop the hunt” believe they are helping to protect wildlife. The truth is that trained biologists using scientific methods are the people best qualified to help wildlife populations thrive. Let’s let them do their jobs without interference from agenda-driven ballot measures. That’s how we, as informed voters, can show we truly care about wildlife.

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Meat, Mounts, and Management

The fact that I hung a rack of antlers on my wall does not mean I left the meat behind.

Many of the recent attempts to shut down various types of hunting through legislation or state ballot measures have been couched as bans on “trophy hunting.” It’s an effective tactic, because poll after poll shows that the general public mostly approves of hunting for meat or management purposes, but opposes “trophy hunting.” The problem with the term is that what most people think it means, versus what hunters mean by it, are worlds apart. 

If you ask the average non-hunter, they will likely tell you that “trophy hunting” means the head and horns were taken and hung on the hunter’s wall, and the meat was left to rot. However, true trophy hunting, as hunters understand it, means being extremely selective in holding out for the biggest and oldest animal possible (which is often also the wariest and most difficult to hunt), and when and if it is taken, it is utilized completely—all the meat is recovered and consumed, and the head, horns, and hide are preserved, retained, and prized.

Whether the “trophy” in question is a big-antlered bull elk, a brawny old male mountain lion, or an African buffalo, such an animal rarely makes the pursuit easy for the hunter. If the hunt is done right, the animal is killed cleanly, and is then consumed, appreciated, and honored—and likely spared the far more gruesome end it would inevitably meet if left to live out its life in the wild.

People who don’t hunt are often surprised to learn of the strict rules hunters have to abide by, including nearly universal “wanton waste” laws. These laws mandate that any hunter who kills a big-game animal is required by law to recover all of the edible meat. These days, our hunting world has regained the appreciation of the wide range of edible wild game meat that our forefathers had, and this requirement has expanded to cover animals that were not always hunted for meat, including bears and even mountain lions. (Everyone I know who has eaten mountain lion meat says it is excellent, with a flavor resembling that of pork.) 

It is true that there are cases in which hunters don’t or can’t personally consume all of the meat of their kills, such as when hunting in a foreign country from which importing meat is prohibited. In those places, the meat is not wasted, and the hunter’s role is that of providing high-quality meat to the local residents. Nothing goes to waste in places like Africa and Asia: every scrap of meat and offal from a hunter’s kill goes to feed a populace that desperately needs, and greatly appreciates, the protein. 

Craig Boddington, one of the most experienced and respected hunters in the field today, recently posted a thoughtful explanation of trophy hunting on his Facebook page: 

“Trophy hunting involves a selective harvest, with the highest financial contribution to the system for the fewest number of animals taken. The targeted specimens, often the oldest, largest, and most resource-needy, are used entirely—contributing to local economies and sustaining ecological balance. Whether akin to a child’s first trophy in T-ball or the prestigious Lombardi trophy, hunting trophies vary widely, commemorating the effort, pursuit, and success, while taxidermy preserves the meaning and value of the animal that the hunter harvested.”

I don’t consider myself a trophy hunter in the truest sense, because I rarely hold out for the largest possible specimen, although I have tremendous respect and admiration for those who do. I am almost always happy to take a good, mature animal. However, when I am successful in that endeavor, in addition to bringing home a freezer full of delicious, healthy, organic meat, I almost always keep and display some part of the animal—rack, skull, or taxidermy replica. 

You will call these trophies, and they are. But most people who see a photo of a hunter with a kill, or see an elk head on the wall, don’t realize that a beautiful hide or set of horns (of any size), a freezer full of meat (whether consumed personally or provided to those in need), and a memorable and fulfilling experience, are all equally important components of nearly every hunt. 

We should stop using terms like “trophy hunting,” “recreational hunting,” and even “meat hunting.” Each one assigns a narrow meaning to an endeavor that we engage in for a variety of reasons. We emerge from every outing, successful or not, with a greater understanding of the natural world and our place in it. In the end, we are simply hunting.

I realize that not everyone appreciates the natural artistry in a set of moose antlers, or the sheen of light on a beautiful bearskin draped over a chair. But for hunters, long after we’ve grilled the last moose steak and polished off the final container of bear stew, the heads on our walls, the racks over the fireplace, and the hides on our furniture remain, bringing us joy through both their inherent beauty and the memories they contain. 

I can’t say it any better than deer hunter and writer Paula Brandreth put it in her 1930 book, Trails of Enchantment:

“The deerskin rug on our study floor, the buck’s head over the fireplace, what are these after all but the keys which have unlocked enchanted doors and granted us not only health and vigor, but a fresh and fairer vision of existence.”

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The Bongo

All about hunting the most impressive antelope of the African forest.

Photo above: A good trail camera photo of Boddington’s 2018 Congo bongo, taken 19 days before the hunt.

When I was a kid, Warren Page’s story “Bongo in the Congo” made me want to hunt that mythical forest antelope. Page (1909-1977) was the long-time Gun Editor at Field & Steam. He is often described as “Jack O’Connor’s opposite number,” because O’Connor held the same title at Outdoor Life.

“Lefty” Page probably wouldn’t smile at that description. After leaving F&S, Page was Executive Director of the fledgling National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF). An avid benchrester, he was more technical than O’Connor, and contributed immensely to our knowledge of rifle accuracy. As a hunter, he didn’t take as many sheep as O’Connor, but had wide experience, and much more in Africa.

In 1957, Page was one of the first Americans to hunt bongo in the French colonies. His story created a big stir, essentially starting the Central African bongo hunting we have today. Despite the excellent article title, Page didn’t hunt in Congo. He hunted in the Congo Basin in Central African Republic (CAR). I used the same geographic subterfuge in a book chapter on my first bongo safari, also in CAR.

A seldom-seen denizen of thick, dark forest, the bongo is one of the tough ones. In 1997, Joe Bishop and I hunted for three weeks in southwestern CAR, forty-two hunting days between us. The only animal taken was my bongo. This was my second try. The year before, Sherwin Scott and I also did a three-week hunt, on the opposite side of CAR. Scotty got a nice bongo. I did not.

Professional hunter Christophe Morio and Boddington take a break in the Congo forest. On his left hip Boddington has the most essential piece of forest gear: Small gardening shears in a belt holster, invaluable for snipping through vines.

In ’96 and ’97, between Joe Bishop, Sherwin Scott, and me, we spent 84 hunting days for two bongos, six weeks of hard hunting for each. Or, if you prefer, on each 21-day safari we hit 50 percent. That was par for the course back then. Today, bongo hunting is much more successful. Like most animals, it depends somewhat on luck, and how and where one hunts them.

The bongo was first described by William Ogilby in 1837, genus Tragelaphus (“goat-deer” from Greek), species eurycerus (“broad-horn”). Initially called “broad-horned antelope,” the name bongo was first used in English in 1861, ascribed to both the Fanti and Kele native languages. The bongo is a big, blocky antelope with mature bulls weighing up to 600 pounds and more. It is one of the most colorful antelopes, with bright orange flanks, a dozen or so brilliant white vertical side-stripes, white nose chevron, black nose and darker chest, and black and white leg markings. Both sexes grow thick, smooth horns twisting in a gentle spiral. Potential length is to the upper 30 inches, with the horns of males usually thicker.

The bongo occupies a broad range across Equatorial Africa, in three distinct populations. The eastern or Kenya bongo, T, e. isaasci, is a larger subspecies, darker on neck and chest. Seriously threatened today, the Kenya bongo occurs in the high, thick bamboo forests of Mount Kenya, the Aberdares, and the Mau Forest. Not hunted since 1977, Kenya bongos were always the devil to hunt. PH Robin Hurt and James Mellon are among the last living hunters who took bongos in Kenya.

The western bongo (T. e. eurycerus) occurs from western Uganda across southwestern Sudan, southern CAR and Cameroon, the northern half of both Congos, and into Gabon. Then, there is a break across the Dahomey Gap, with bongos picking up again in Benin and Togo, ranging across southern Ghana, Ivory Coast, Liberia, and Sierra Leone into Guinea.

The bongo is so secretive that, although he was long rumored to occur in westernmost Uganda, only in 2017 was his presence confirmed by trail camera. Similarly, little is known about the current status of bongo in West Africa. It seems unlikely they still occur in Benin, Togo, or Ghana, but who knows? It’s a big forest. I saw old bongo horns in Ghana. Older local hunters I spoke to in Liberia had taken bongo, just one or two, in many years of constant hunting.

Boddington with PH Guav Johnson and their team of Pygmy hunters with a bongo from southern Cameroon, taken in 2004. This is not a giant, just a good, solid bongo bull. This bull has only 10 vertical side stripes; 12 to 14 stripes is more common.

It’s a different story with the Central African population. In the heart of the forest, across southern CAR and Cameroon, and northern Congos, the bongo is plentiful, the most common large antelope. That doesn’t make him easy to hunt, but he is not scarce.

When southern Sudan was open, the bongo was hunted in “finger forest,” strands of forest broken by savanna. There, it was possible to drive bongo from patches of forest into openings. Sudan closed in 1983. Since then, we have hunted bongo in big forests to the west. It’s difficult, mitigated only by the fact that there are lots of bongos in these big forests. There are three options: Pure tracking, tracking with dogs, and sitting over clearings or mineral licks.

Warren Page shot his bongo over a large clearing surrounded by forest. In ensuing years, the same clearing accounted for several more. Natural mineral licks are a treasured feature in the region. Locating bongo bulls at licks (using tracks and trail cameras) and sitting for them is common. Especially early in the season, March and April, when it’s dry, because forest animals move more when the rains start.

Sitting works, and is not as physical as tracking. The only thing: It takes more patience than I possess. On my first bongo hunt, we got no rain the last half. (The forest adage: “No rain, no bongo.”) We sat several nights over a mineral lick with bongo tracks. I hated it. Australian friend Greg Pennicott sat it out for several nights, then shot his bongo at first light on his last day with the camp 6.5×55–not my idea of a bongo rifle. There are irascible elephants in that forest. I used a .416 Rigby for my first bongo, a borrowed Krieghoff double .500 for my second, the camp .375 Ruger for my third and last.

Tracking is hard work. But it depends on your psyche; I much prefer walking to sitting for days on end. Although pleasant after a rain, it’s usually hot and humid in the forest. But you go slowly, walking in constant shade.

I haven’t found the African forest all that buggy, although biting ants are a constant threat. Long sleeves, long trousers, and light leather gloves are necessary. Perhaps the worst is constantly ducking under vines with thorns and stinging nettles. There’s a reason why the Pygmies are short. They can jog upright down forest trails. I’m average height, and must constantly duck. I can’t imagine what it must be like for tall people. The most essential piece of forest gear: Small gardening shears, carried in belt holster, so you can snip your way through.

I mentioned there were two options for tracking, with dogs and without. There is a weird “holier than thou” belief that tracking without dogs is “better” and more ethical. I bought into this at the start of my bongo-hunting odyssey. On my first bongo safari, I heard bongos get up and crash away. I saw one flash of a red form, gone. You can’t believe how thick and dark it is in the African forest. Mount Kenya was even thicker. Tracking without dogs gave bongo hunting its reputation for low success.

Although the forest is usually hot and humid, tracking bongo isn’t as physically demanding as often reported. Tracking is slow and steady, always in shade. When dogs are used, they are leashed until a track is very fresh. Then things get crazy.

If it was ethically “better,” I’m all for it. The problem with pure tracking: You follow a big track and if you’re lucky you eventually shoot at a spot of red. Almost never will you see the horns. My first bongo, ’97, we followed a big track and I shot a patch of red. It happened to be an awesome bull, but there was no way I could know that for sure.

Bongo hunting became routinely successful when forest PHs started working with Pygmy hunters and their amazing dogs. Success is not assured, but it is far better than in days gone by. Find a big track, keep dogs leashed until the track is very fresh. There are no wild canines in the forest, so the dogs are an unfamiliar threat. It’s not a sure thing; I’ve seen bongo bulls walk away from the dogs and evaporate into the forest. Typically aggressive, like bushbucks, they will often hold for a bit and fight. Then it’s a mad scramble to get there.

Usually you see the horns. My second bongo was taken in southern Cameroon, in 2004. As usual, we found fresh bull tracks after a rain. An hour on the track, then the scramble. Not a giant bull: 27 inches, the Rowland Ward minimum. Thus, by definition, it was too good to pass. I saw the horns, knew what I was doing. No disappointment, no bonus.

My third and last bongo was in the Congo in 2018. There are lots of bongos in the Congo forest, but I wasn’t there to hunt them. I wanted a dwarf forest buffalo, generally less common and more difficult. One morning, after a rain, we couldn’t find buffalo tracks to follow. Instead, we found fresh and huge bongo tracks at a salt lick where a giant bull had been captured on trail camera. We followed through still-wet forest for an hour, found hot dung, and loosed the dogs. They jumped the bull almost immediately, then there were several desperate minutes of sprinting and slipping in mud.

The fight was in thick stuff beyond a five-yard clearing. I saw the white stripes first, then the wide, heavy horns. For sure, it was the bull on the trail camera. It was a great bongo, big in both body and horn, and without question, my best African animal.

Boddington’s best (and last) bongo was taken in Congo Republic in 2018. He wasn’t specifically hunting bongo until they saw the tracks. Huge in both body and horn, this bull was taken with a .375 Ruger.

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Marble Mines and Mountain Zebras

In pursuit of a striped stallion in the rocky highlands of the Namib Desert.

At the farthest edge of the Namib Desert is a land that seems caught in a different time. Game roams free. Water is scarce. In this forsaken place, some of the first Bushmen, Ovambo, Kavango, Wambu, and Herero peoples left their footprints in the rocky sand. Little remains save remnants of Stone Age tools and cliff paintings, yet descendants of those tribespeople today stand watch over the same terrain that now holds the riches of gold below ground and rare marble above, jutting like tumbled dice from towering hills. 

This land is hardly untouched; the evidence of human encroachment is unmistakable. Massive blocks of white, gray, and blue marble line the first few kilometers of dirt track leading into one of Namibia’s best-kept secrets. But past the antiquated mining machinery, wickedly dangerous stone cutters, and large trucks hauling stunning cubes of future countertops and towering columns destined for the United States and China, lies another world rich in adventure and challenge. Those who make a living here still find greater value in a hindquarter of game meat than in a ton of pure marble. We were able to gain access to pursue the elusive Equus zebra hartmannae in its wild home, so long as we’d provide our hosts with an animal for meat. 

The desert sun lights up huge chunks of marble from the mining operations that surrounded the hunting area.

In what seems the center of another world and perhaps another century, far beyond the active mines, Hartmann mountain zebra scale the rocky mountain faces with a grace and ease I can only admire as I struggle with my every step to climb the loose, rocky kopjes. Shards of shale slip out underfoot and tumble down the slope. They tell me these are not truly “mountains,” but I’d respectfully disagree. Though we were out long before dawn, we’d yet to spot the mountain-named zebras in the lowlands where they’re thought to spend the earliest morning hours before heading up toward cloudless heavens. 

Outfitter Stephen Bann climbs surprising well for a hulking man with the build of a former rugby player. From the summit, he said, we could glass for game. With a lever-action Henry slung over my shoulder, a bino chest rig, and a backpack, finding my balance took more effort than scanning for game. The zebras were not our only pursuit–gemsbok and kudu were also on the list–but it was the stark black and white animal that drew me here. Once at a comfortable height to survey the surrounding valleys and farther crests, Bann and I settled in. 

Among many species of Equidae, the Hartmann mountain zebra shows several notable characteristics. In addition to thin, tight contrasting stripes, the belly is free from such pattern, being mostly white with striping ending a good three inches above the abdomen. Unlike other zebras, the Hartmann’s legs are striped right down to their hooves. In addition, and more difficult to notice at quick glance, is a small dewlap on the neck. 

These agile climbers not only exist but thrive in rugged and arid conditions. Water here is scant and unseen, piped in for many kilometers to the mines, feeding the machines cutting marble. Where the zebras find drinking water, much less the people, I still can’t say. 

Hartmann mountain zebras travel in much smaller groups than the far more common Burchell zebras. We’d spotted a zeal of three and another of five several days prior, but catching up to them again proved an impossibility. My goal of harvesting one of these wily creatures with a .45-70 Government-chambered lever action was making this venture even more difficult, and while I’m sure my more limited range irked Bann and the diligent trackers, they said nothing. Since I was shooting a 300-grain hunk of lead with arc-like ballistics, we’d have to get close, inside of 200 yards, ideally. Bann wanted to leave nothing to chance and shouldered his own .300 WSM in case I’d need to stretch my ballistic legs. 

We’d left Namibian outfitter Brink Grobler of big leopard fame along with fellow hunter Jerry Hnetynka with the Land Cruiser, and they’d gone off in search of cat spoor for their own hunt. Our quick-to-smile tracker, Tomas, summited along with us, though at this particular moment, he was far ahead, about to crest another mountain to the north. He moved with the ease of those who seem built for this land while the rest of us merely come to break ourselves against it.  Bann and I glassed low and high, scanning what seemed miles of expansive valleys, stony outcroppings, and far off, as in a mirage, the blazing red of open dunes. One would think–as I mistakenly did–that spotting zebras, their colors in stark contrast to literally everything else here, would be a snap. After all, black-and-white doesn’t seem a practical camouflage.  

“Take a break for a moment,” Bann said as I lowered my binocular. He was gazing into the distance and smiling. “Just look around. Isn’t this place beautiful?”

He was right. I had been so focused on looking for a zebra–and not tumbling down the slope–that I’d nearly lost sight of the prize. One could sit here for hours, days even, and never cease marveling at the lonesome beauty of this wild place, thinking how few over the centuries had marveled at this same view. 

Our moment of solitude was broken by the faint whistle and waving arms of Tomas. Bann was on his feet and moving down the slippery grade before I could even shoulder my pack. “Come quickly! He’s seen a stallion.” 

Down we went, far faster than seemed prudent. I was certain if I survived the way down, as we begin the subsequent climb to where Tomas waited in a crouch behind boulders, I’d be breathing too heavily to place a quick and accurate shot. As we worked closer, Bann motioned to stay low. The two men whispered in hurried Afrikaans and I understood enough between broken words and body language to know it was time. 

“A group with a shooter stallion is over the ledge here,” Bann said, gesturing up, “but they’re working higher. Drop your pack and be ready.” 

We crawled ahead of Tomas now, slipping alongside one outcropping and hiding behind another, feeling gravel grind underfoot and stepping lightly to silence it. “There!” Bann hissed. 

I followed his stare, yet didn’t immediately see anything. “The stallion is in the rear. Get on him,” he ordered, motioning for me to use the rock in front of us as a shooting rest. 

I had taken my jacket off and balled it up as a makeshift sandbag and had my rifle ready, but I’d yet to lock onto my quarry. How could I not see an entire group of black and white animals? Bann guided my gaze higher and there I caught a hint of movement, hardly more than 100 yards away but angling upward. I couldn’t believe how naturally they became part of the mountain. 

“Track them in the scope,” Bann whispered, “and wait for them to stop. Take the biggest one.”  Just when I was afraid I’d never pick them up before they crested the next ridge, my optic came alive. Four zebras were scaling the slope with the ease of mountain goats, not hurriedly, but not stopping either, partially obscured from time to time by dry brush or jutting shards. 

The distance was widening as they continued their graceful ascent, but I didn’t dare avert my eye from the riflescope to verify range. “One-twenty-five,” Bann whispered, as if reading my mind. I knew that was meters, and not yards, as I was accustomed. Only a few steps farther, as if hearing his cue, the lead mare paused and looked, not at us, but upward, in the direction they were traveling. The others followed suit and my cross hairs dropped back, finding the biggest body bringing up the rear. The size comparison wasn’t even close. The stallion had been hanging back. 

“Now,” said Bann. “If you’re on him, shoot!” The hammer on my Henry All Weather was already back and the trigger broke just as he finished saying the word. The recoil of that 150-year-old chambering took me off the target, and by the time I levered in another round and settled back onto my jacket for a follow-up shot, all I saw was the flash of a striped rear going over the crest and out of sight. My heart was about to drop, fearing I’d botched the shot of which I’d felt so certain just a second ago, but then Bann was pounding me on the back and Tomas–running to us now–let out a hoot. 

“Did you see, Memsa?!” he exclaimed as he spun around and pounded one hand down against the other, grinning ear to ear. Though I’d lost sight of the stallion in the outcroppings above and ahead, both men reassured me he was there. 

As Tomas set off with his small knife and a machete he’d been carrying precariously tucked in the back of his belt, Bann and I gathered our gear, though I was too giddy to focus. Many months of dreaming had come to fruition in this magical place. 

Alberts with her Hartmann mountain zebra stallion. These animals thrive in rugged, arid highlands.

Bann attempted to radio the truck, but didn’t get an answer, so he could only hope they’d heard the shot and would be heading our way sooner than later. And he was correct; just as we had descended, slid, and otherwise not so gracefully made it down one incline and were about to start up the next, we could make out the jostling shape of the Cruiser picking its way around jagged hazards in the distant valley. 

“Have you got one, then?” Brink questioned before the wheels had even stopped. I was sure my grin told the tale, but Bann indicated the direction to Brink while speaking quickly in Afrikaans. Plans were in the works, no doubt, when Jerry hopped down from the back. “Well, let’s go see what you got!” he said, throwing his arm around my shoulders. 

Though the incline didn’t appear that steep from below, my breathing was labored before the muscular creature came into view, and I wondering just how we’d get every ounce of this prized meat back down. When we four reached the tracker, Tomas had already cleared an area for photos, dusting away blood, but he couldn’t budge the animal and sat resting on his haunches. 

“Ooh, he’s beeeg,’” he proclaimed as I knelt to rest my hand on the stallion’s thick neck. As I offered a silent prayer of thanksgiving, I couldn’t help but swallow back tears of joy, at once overwhelmed with the surroundings, the people, the history, and our fine little hunting party. We’d overcome a number of struggles and failures in the past few days, making success that much sweeter. 

It took all of us to drag the big male a few yards into the clearing. As Jerry and I worked at photos, Brink and Bann were already heading back down to the Cruiser. “He’ll drive back to the nearest miner’s camp,” the outfitter hollered over his shoulder, meaning one of the makeshift tent-and-tarpaulin hovels we’d passed hours earlier. “He’ll fetch some Wambu. They’re strong workers and will come quickly when they know there’s meat.”

Jerry and I did our best to help with skinning and quartering, though I’m still unsure whether we helped or hindered the wisp of a man who was accustomed to working alone, swiftly and without wasted movement. If he was annoyed with our brand of “help,” he didn’t show it and continued about his rhythmic skinning, shifting, and rolling of the carcass, removing the back skin, the hind quarters, carefully saving certain entrails and setting them gently atop the hide. I’d get to keep the cape and skull, but the remainder of the animal would go to the miners. I was already feeling like a million bucks–or roughly 19 million Namibian dollars in this case, a drop in the proverbial bucket compared to the value of the sawn marble, undrilled gold, and desert diamonds that surrounded us. 

Before the sun set on this majestic day of perspiration and blisters, I was blessed to take a second, slightly smaller stallion as we descended the mountain. The bakkie was loaded with quarters, capes, and entrails. With barely a place for us to stand atop the Cruiser’s bloodied bed, two Wambu, a Bushman, and Tomas riding on the bumper, all was right with the world.  These men had helped pack out all the protein and delicacies two mountain zebras could offer, leaving nothing but the animals’ stomach contents behind. For their assistance, they were given first choice of the cuts they wanted, each opting in turn for pieces of the offal. 

Mountain zebra steaks are highly sought-after table fare in Namibia.

I was beyond pleased to have fulfilled my hunting goal, but in those golden moments surrounded by the marble mountains, that ambition felt secondary to other, simpler gratifications.  Pleased with the wealth of meat that would supply the camps. Pleased with the palpable excitement of the native workers, not understanding a word of their local dialects but not needing to, either. Pleased that I would soon taste the delights of fresh mountain zebra loin prepared by a native chef over an open flame that night at camp. Bann had explained earlier that mountain zebras, their fat pure white and in stark contrast to that of the more yellow Burchell, was highly prized table fare. 

Hot and dusty, resting around a fire that evening, we savored rare-cooked steaks and a few swallows of African brandy, our lives entwined with these treasure-filled wilds, rich with the realization that success comes not alone, but rather, with an unlikely team working in unison. The finest blessings cannot be measured by money or marble, but by memories and meat, time and place, sweat and smiles. 

Unorthodox Gear for Mountain Zebras

Taking a lever-action rifle on an African safari is unconventional to begin with, but choosing Henry’s All Weather Picatinny Rail Side Gate rifle in the .45-70 Government chambering with flying tank ballistics seems downright nonsensical on paper, especially for a “mountain” hunt. However, my love for the round means finding workarounds for its shortcomings, and outfitter Stephen Bann of SB Hunting Safaris (sbhuntingsafaris.com) was up for the patience-testing challenge of stalking mountain zebras with such a setup. 

I topped my rig with Leupold’s VX-3HD optic in 2.5-8×36. That magnification proved more than ample, while the smaller objective diameter allowed me to mount the optic low and tight for proper eye alignment, which can be tricky on lever guns. 

The star of the optical show, though, is Leupold’s CDS-ZL system, for which the company builds a complimentary caliber-matched turret, in this case customized for my chosen Federal Premium Hammer Down 300-grain load. With a mountain zebra standing at 225 yards, all I needed to do is spin the turret to 2.25 and send it. 

Not only does such a system take the guesswork out of holdovers, but also makes fast-falling rounds like the .45-70 a friendlier player on longer shots. Of course, there’s no replacement for getting close and enjoying the thrill of the hunt, but the right gear and proper preparation builds confidence for any eventuality. By safari’s end, my smooth-cycling lever gun proved itself on everything from Cape buffalo to springbok and ostrich, but in many ways, those wily mountain zebras posed the greatest ballistic challenge.

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Pure Class

Fausti’s perfectly balanced Class SLX 20-gauge is the ideal choice for everything from doves to pheasants.

Big-game hunting pulls us toward the wild, the unknown, the hoped for, the adventure. But it’s limited: short seasons, single tags… if you can draw a tag at all. And then bang. One and done. And that’s why I love bird hunting, and 20-gauge shotguns. 

Ruffed grouse and woodcock. Sharptails and prairie chickens. Pheasants and quail. Blue grouse, ptarmigan, chukar . . . nearly twenty species of upland game birds in North American alone lure us into wild country from cactus deserts to hardwood forests, from coastal swamps to Arctic mountains, where we can hunt daily and shoot often over a span of months, not days. Bag limits for some species are as high as fifteen per day. And for this, you need a balanced, fitted, smooth-handling, and sweet-swinging shotgun like the Fausti Class SLX 20-gauge. 

The Class SLX is a slim, beautifully balanced over/under shotgun with lovely lines to match the glory of autumn. From its nicely figured, oil-polished walnut stock to its swirling case-colored receiver inlaid with evocative gold pheasants and grouse, this 6.2-pound smoothbore virtually demands to be taken afield. And when it is, the user invariably demands another round. Day after day, field after field, hike after hike, shot after shot, the intoxicating mix of gun and birds fills the autumn days with discovery and joy. 

Such is the magic of upland hunting. But there is a prosaic side, a mechanical utility that contributes to the simple application of a gun like this one. The heart of this mechanism is a strong boxlock action augmented by false sideplates, a canvas for the gun’s swirling case-colored finish and gold inlaid pheasants and grouse. This same case-colored finish wraps the rest of the action, including the sculpted breech, tang lever, and action bar, where yet another gold grouse takes wing. 

The barrel selector for the single trigger is in the tang safety.

Light, fine scroll engraving adds texture for a rich overall look. The textured effect is slightly marred, to my eye, by a gloss-blued trigger bow. I suspect this was done to showcase Fausti’s newly adopted logo inlaid on it on gold, a logo consisting of mirrored images of a stylized F that can also be seen as stag antlers. 

In its defense, the shiny blued trigger bow is echoed in the deeply blued, 28-inch barrels with 3-inch chambers and capped with flush fit choke tubes, five to the set. A matte stippled, raised rib guides the shooter’s eye subconsciously to the targets. All of this metal is fitted to a AA walnut stock highlighted with 18-line checkering on the rounded pistol grip panels and wrapping around what Fausti calls a splinter fore-end. 

Light, fine scroll engraving adds texture for a rich overall look. The Fausti logo is showcased on a gloss-blued trigger bow.

The muscle in this machine is Fausti’s Four Locks locking system machined from a solid bar of steel. In addition to the usual tapered under-lug lock up, which compensates for wear over time, there are secondary lugs protruding from each lower side of the action walls. These engage matching recesses in the barrels’ monoblock. This setup should handily minimize torque working to tear the breech from the face with each shot. 

The fore-end iron is attached to the barrels via the familiar, pull-down Deeley and Edge lever. It and its frame are lightly engraved. Pushing the tang lever and hinging the barrels down activates the selective ejectors and cocks any fired barrel. The barrel selector for the single trigger is in the tang safety. Length of pull is 14.5 inches, ending in a thin, black, stippled, rubber butt pad with a bit of flex in its center, more than sufficient to soften the slight blow of a 20-gauge.  

More noticeable than all these details is the general look and feel of this gun. It’s slim, trim, light, and lively thanks in no small part to a properly scaled action and sensibly, even artistically sculpted stock lines. In the uplands, this 20-gauge carries easily, mounts quickly, and paints a bird’s flight path before the shooter consciously considers it. Flush, swing, bang, done—it happens instinctively, hardly without realizing 6.2 pounds and 45 inches of walnut and steel were even part of the operation. That, in the final analysis, describes the perfect upland shotgun. 

In the field, the Fausti 20-gauge carries easily, mounts quickly, and paints a bird’s flight path before the shooter consciously considers it.

So, once the elk is wrapped and frozen, the deer hung and aging, I can whistle up the setter and indulge day after golden autumn day walking the uplands where coveys and singles await to astonish and thrill me. And I’ll carry a Fausti wand that somehow reaches out to snare them smoothly and elegantly, every time.

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Helping People, Helping Wildlife

The Rowland Ward Foundation is helping to ensure people who live in proximity to wildlife also benefit from it.

Photo above by Mike Arnold: Among the many projects supported by hunters through the Rowland Ward Foundation is this rural hospital in Cameroon.

Rowland Ward is a very old-line name in the hunting world. James Rowland Ward, born in 1848 in London, followed in his father’s footsteps in the taxidermy business. He owned and operated a taxidermy shop known as “The Jungle” that became an almost mandatory stop for Victorian-era hunters traveling through London on their way to Africa or India. But it was his record book, Rowland Ward’s Records of Big Game, which he started publishing in the 1890s as a marketing tool for his taxidermy business, that made him a household name. (Or at least a very famous hunting-camp name.)

Fast-forward about 130 years. Not only is the Rowland Ward record book still being published–it’s currently in its Thirtieth Edition, the oldest record book in existence–but also, Rowland Ward itself has become the Rowland Ward Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Its mission is to support sustainable, fair-chase hunting that benefits local, indigenous people and the conservation of wildlife and its habitat worldwide.

One of the things that makes me proud to be a hunter is the important conservation work that hunters do through the many excellent wildlife organizations founded and funded by sportsmen. Rather than concentrate on the conservation of a particular species, as many of these organizations do, the Rowland Ward Foundation takes a different tack. It recognizes the crucial role of local communities in conserving wildlife habitat, especially in developing countries.

It may seem odd at first for a conservation organization to focus on people instead of animals. But anyone who has hunted in places like Africa and Asia understands that wildlife and habitat can only thrive in such places if local communities receive tangible benefits from the wildlife they live with.

Many of the people who live near the hunting areas we love to visit may own little more than a small hut and a few head of livestock. Well-run hunting operations in these areas, supported by organizations like the Rowland Ward Foundation, provide steady employment as well as nutrition, education, health care, and other long-term benefits to the local communities. When the local people see that they are better off protecting, rather than poaching, their wildlife, their communities in turn become active and effective conservation partners with the hunters who support their efforts.

Only by ensuring these locals get their share of benefits from the wildlife and wilderness they live with year-round, and by engaging them as equal partners, can we protect the animals and natural habitat we all love. Learn more about the many projects supported by the Rowland Ward Foundation, and how you can help, at rowlandward.org.

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Happiness in the High Pamirs

A hunter celebrates his birthday with a very special ibex hunt in Ravmed, a remote mountain village in Tajikistan.

Ravmed is a village in the Pamir Mountains of Tajikistan. About three hundred people live there: subsistence farmers and livestock herders whose way of life has not changed much in hundreds of years. The village is in a steep valley at 9,800 feet. You can see peaks more than 20,000 feet high from the village.

I tried to go to Ravmed last April, but the road from the Bartang Valley was blocked by a huge avalanche. I was hoping for better luck this time.

On January 6, 2024, Mike Rossey and I met our guide, Latifa Gulomamadova, in Dushanbe, the capital city. It was Mike’s first trip to Tajikistan, and my sixth.

Hunting guide Latifa Gulomamadova.

It took fourteen bumpy hours to drive from Dushanbe to Ravmed. Much of the way, there was unstable-looking rock on the left side of the Land Cruiser and a deep canyon on the right. The last half of the journey was on gravel roads.

Mike and I had come to Tajikistan to hunt ibex. I had booked the trip through Neal and Brownlee, booking agents who have extensive experience and contacts in this area.

Hunting in Tajikistan was uncontrolled until recently. In 2009, only about 100 ibex remained in the mountains near Ravmed. Subsistence hunters had overharvested the area.

Tajikistan has been doing a much better job of managing wildlife in recent years. In 2010, people in Ravmed and nearby villages stopped uncontrolled hunting and established a 100,000-acre hunting conservancy owned by the villagers.  

A traditional home in Ravmed village, complete with haystack.

Bringing a limited number of trophy hunters to the area has added cash to the village’s subsistence economy and has given the people who live there an incentive not to overharvest wildlife. The population of ibex has increased to approximately 1,000, a tenfold gain in only fourteen years. 

Snow leopards eat ibex. Their numbers also have increased.

Bureaucratic problems paused trophy hunting in Ravmed for two years.  This January, the conservancy reopened, with two permits for ibex issued by the government of Tajikistan.

I was very happy to be hunting once more in Tajikistan and to be guided again by Latifa, whom I have known for seven years. I was also able to spend time with her father. Gulbek is fifty-nine years old and 100 percent old school. When he was in his twenties and thirties, he hunted the mountains around Ravmed with a matchlock rifle, ragged cotton clothing and played-out, lopsided boots. He crossed the high passes alone, wandering through terrain that reminds me of the Alaska Range.

Latifa and her father, Gulbek, in their home in Ravmed, Tajikistan.

Most winters, snow pushes the ibex down from the high peaks. Gulbek says they sometimes come within a hundred yards of his house. This January, there was only a dusting of snow.  We saw ibex every day, but they were thousands of feet above us.

I was in no hurry. I wanted to absorb as much knowledge as I could from Gulbek and the other mountain people. I was happy to wait for the ibex to come to me. I spent the days glassing animals from the village and visiting with Latifa’s relatives. Everyone offered me tea and soup or dumplings along with traditional flat bread.

The interior of a typical home in Ravmed.

Villagers live in flat-roofed houses made of peeled poplar logs and rocks covered with adobe. Some of the houses are around two hundred years old, with the ceilings and rafters blackened by years of smoky fires. The village has a small hydroelectric plant. Nobody has running water.  

Most houses are a single room that is heated by a stove made of welded sheet metal. There are not many trees at this altitude. Villagers burn twigs and branches up to about two inches in diameter. The ones who are doing well can buy a bag of coal. The others burn animal dung.

A young resident of the village gathering animal dung to burn for heat.

One day, we watched a mother snow leopard attempt to stalk a herd of ibex while her two kittens hid. A few nights later, wolves came into the village and killed a dog.

On January 16, a nine-year-old ibex obliged me by walking down to within 300 yards of where I was sitting. I fired my single-shot Blaser.  The ibex took a couple of steps and rolled down the mountain like a rag doll, setting off a rockslide. Six men waded the fast, icy river barefoot to retrieve it.

Latifa, the author, and his nine-year-old ibex.

My birthday was two days later. Latifa cooked chunks of my ibex with rice, onions, carrots, and cumin. She also made a frosted six-layer cake on the wood stove. Gulbek brought out a plastic Coca-Cola bottle of moonshine that he distills from wheat and apricots. Traditional music in a minor key wailed and warbled from somebody’s phone. Nobody even complained when I tried to dance.

It’s too bad that I had to wait seventy-two years to have a birthday party this good.

Latifa prepares ibex steaks for the author’s birthday.

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Birds of the Borderlands

Hunting the little-known Gould’s turkey in the rugged mountains of northern Mexico.

The truck rolled to a stop on the rough dirt track long before daylight, and when Ted shut off the engine, we all sat for a moment in the kind of deep silence you can only experience far from civilization. As I opened the door and slid quietly out into the desert darkness, the crooked, fingerlike silhouettes of ocotillo plants pointed toward the starlit sky. More than a century ago, Pancho Villa and his revolutionary band prowled this rugged landscape, perhaps gathering in this very spot to plan a predawn raid. 

Our purpose here was nefarious as well, at least from a turkey’s perspective. We were preparing to lure an unsuspecting gobbler into an ambush. And not just any gobbler. We were hunting the Gould’s turkey,  the largest, rarest, and arguably the most beautiful of all turkey subspecies. These are birds of the borderlands, occurring in small numbers in the far southern regions of Arizona and New Mexico, and more commonly in northwestern Mexico. They’re well suited to this rough desert country, frequenting rocky canyons and high mountains.

Like all turkeys, however, they need mature trees to roost in and openings where they can feed and strut. Our guide, Ted Jaycox, had found just such a location here on the grounds of Rancho Mababi in northern Sonora, and had placed a pop-up blind in a likely spot a couple of days earlier. We made our way by starlight, walking as silently as possible in his footsteps, crossing a dry wash and emerging into what I dimly discerned was a meadow. My hunting partner, Kristin Alberts, and I crawled into the blind while Ted sneaked out to set up a decoy. 

We sat silently in the darkness for fifteen or twenty minutes before the pale dawn began to creep over the landscape. As it did, the quiet morning was shattered by an earsplitting gobble that sounded like it was right outside the blind. Then another gobble, from another direction, and a third one behind us. In the darkness inside the blind, I couldn’t see Ted and Kristin grinning, but I could feel their excitement, as palpable as my own. 

Then, as I peered through the rectangular opening in the blind, I spotted a gobbler on the branch of a tree some fifty yards away, silhouetted against the gradually lightening sky. I marveled as the ungainly-looking bird strutted back and forth along the high branch, his tail magnificently fanned out and his gobbling nearly continuous. I could hardly contain my anticipation—surely he was about to fly down and land right in front of us. But he continued to gobble from his lofty perch, turning in every direction to showcase his impressive accoutrements to every hen in the area.

Eventually he did fly down, but in the other direction, and we couldn’t see where he landed. A variety of songbirds called from the trees around us, but turkey sounds grew quiet, although an occasional distant gobble kept us hopeful. Half an hour later, Kristin indicated with an oblique hand gesture that she had spotted a mature gobbler walking along the right-hand side of the meadow. Ted made a couple of soft clucks on his box call. The gobbler stepped into view, stopped at the sound of the call, turned our way, and caught sight of the decoy.

The result was dramatic. The big bird went straight for the decoy at a dead run. When he reached it, he paused, ready to do battle. The boom of Kristin’s 12-gauge shattered the morning air, the shot bowling the bird over instantly, stone dead. Our ruse was a success.

The beauty of a mature male Gould’s turkey, with its scarlet head and the bright white tips on its tail feathers, is matched only by that of the magnificent land it lives in. I took some photos of Kristin and her bird in the morning light with the gleaming 5,000-foot peaks of Sonora’s rugged Ajo Mountains in the background.

The white-tipped tail feathers of the Gould’s turkey make it one of the most beautiful of all turkey subspecies.

The Gould’s is our least-known turkey subspecies. These birds are similar to Merriam’s turkeys, but they are larger and have more dramatic and distinctive coloration in their tail feathers and the feathers along their rumps. Like the Merriam’s, they are birds of the mountains, typically living at elevations between 4,500 and 9,500 feet. 

You can hunt Gould’s turkeys in Arizona and New Mexico, but tags are only available via a draw and are extremely limited. The National Wild Turkey Federation and its partners are working to rectify this by re-establishing strong, huntable populations in these states, but for now, your best bet if you want a Gould’s is to travel south of the border, where these birds are relatively abundant. And you don’t need to go very far into Mexico—the lovely Rancho Mababi, where we hunted with Jaycox’s Tall Tine Outfitters, is a ninety-minute drive from the border town of Agua Prieta, and just forty air miles south of Douglas, Arizona. 

The thick-walled adobe buildings at Rancho Mababi, which date from the early 1900s, provide comfortable accommodations for hunters. 

I’d had my own encounter with one of these stunning birds the previous afternoon. Ensconced in a different blind, with a hen and jake decoy twenty-five yards in front, I scanned a grassy opening as Ted made enticing turkey sounds on his call. A trickle of water ran somewhere to our front, and a riot of songbirds called from the oak and palo verde trees scattered through the meadow. To our left, a mountainside flanked us like a wall. We hadn’t been set up for more than fifteen minutes when we heard a turkey gobble from somewhere above us on that steep slope. A few minutes later we spotted him, well out of range, chasing a jake. The two turkeys disappeared into the trees.

We heard some sporadic gobbles as the afternoon wore on, but saw no more turkeys until about 5 p.m., when our gobbler—or perhaps it was a different one—reappeared, this time with several hens in tow. The flock worked its way through the meadow in front of us, about a hundred yards out. The hens were feeding, clucking, and occasionally sparring with each other, while the gobbler paraded back and forth, putting on a great show. Ted clucked periodically, but the turkeys initially seemed to pay little attention to his calls.

Soon, though, the flock began to feed closer to us, and the preoccupied gobbler continued to strut and preen, totally focused on his harem of hens. A large tree stood between him and our decoys. When he stepped clear of it, Ted clucked, much louder this time. The gobbler turned, looked, spotted the decoys—interlopers!—and raced toward them at a full gallop, wings tucked in and head outstretched. I had my shotgun ready and slid the safety off. As he skidded to a stop beside the decoys, I centered the red-dot sight on his neck and pressed the trigger. The shot pole-axed him, and he landed on his back with both feet in the air. 

This Gould’s gobbler came in on the run after spotting the decoys. The shot was 25 yards with a Mossberg Pro Turkey shotgun and Federal’s Custom Shop TSS load.

I was thrilled with my bird, a fine 22-pound gobbler with beautiful tail feathers, a good beard, and spurs well over an inch long. After taking photos, Kristin and I returned to the blind and stayed until dark, enjoying the teenager-like antics of a gang of eight jakes that milled around our decoys, strutting, making squeaky gobbles, and trying their best to impress the unresponsive plastic hen.

We were treated to an unexpected bonus the next morning, as we drove back to the Rancho Mababi headquarters with Kristin’s gobbler. We were traversing a beautiful creek bottom filled with large sycamores. As we stopped to take a few photos of the lovely area, we heard a resonant call not unlike that of a hen turkey. Ted told us to grab our binoculars, and at his urging, I focused my optics on a stunning songbird with a long tail, green head, and red breast. As it turns out, the Gould’s turkey is not the only interesting bird in this species-rich region of northern Mexico: Serious birdwatchers travel here from far and wide in hopes of spotting the elegant trogon, one of the most sought-after birds in North America for life-listers. We had the privilege of watching four of these beautiful birds as they sat on tree branches, scanning their surroundings and occasionally erupting into flight after some delectable insect.

That evening, over a delicious dinner of wild turkey with cream sauce and poblano peppers prepared on a vintage wood stove, we learned more about the history of Rancho Mababi, which dates from the early 1900s. Local lore has it that upheaval of the Mexican Revolution made life difficult for the original owners, and that Pancho Villa paid the ranch at least one visit to commandeer supplies. The borderlands have a chaotic and fascinating history of war and peace, outlaws and lawmen. This beautiful region of deserts and mountains is still a great place to seek adventure—as well as a wonderful destination to hunt a unique and magnificent wild turkey.

Book your own hunt for Gould’s or any of the other wild turkey subspecies with Tall Tine Outfitters.

The Ultimate Turkey Rig

Mossberg’s 940 Pro Turkey shotgun with Federal’s Custom Shop ammo loaded with tungsten super shot (TSS) proved to be an absolutely deadly combination for big Gould’s gobblers. It would be hard to find a more ideal turkey gun than the 940 Pro Turkey. This 12-gauge semiauto has a clean-running gas-vent system, a handy 18.5-inch barrel length, five-round capacity, quick-empty mag release, adjustable length of pull, and is choked with an X-Factor XX Full Turkey Tube. Overall length is under 40 inches, which makes this shotgun very handy to use in a blind. It comes with a HIVIZ fiber-optic sight and is also optics-ready.

TSS is an incredibly dense shot that has taken the hunting world by storm in recent years, and it’s an integral part of Federal Premium’s HEAVYWEIGHT TSS and Black Cloud TSS loads. Shotshells loaded with TSS represent a big upgrade from anything previously available, letting hunters kill gobblers, waterfowl, and upland game at longer distances. I shot my turkey at an ideal distance of 25 yards, thanks to the placement of the decoys, but TSS loads have the ability to reach out much farther for one-shot kills on big gobblers.

Federal’s online Custom Shop offers more than thirty-five possible shotshell combinations loaded with tungsten super shot (TSS). The Custom Shop ammo is a great solution for hunters who prefer 28-gauge and 16-gauge shotguns, since turkey loads can be hard to find for these smaller gauges. Simply go to the website and choose the gauge, shell length, shot size, and shot weight from a list of options. Gauges include 10, 12, 16, 20 and 28, as well as .410 bore, with shotshell length varying from 2¾ inch up to 3½ inches. Payloads range from 11/16-ounce up to a heavy-hitting 2½-ounce, and TSS shot sizes such as 7, 8, 9, and 10 are available. Order at federalpremium.com/custom-shop/custom-shotshell.–D.R.

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Coues Deer Time

These challenging little whitetails are the perfect cure for the winter blues.

Photo above: Taken with Ted Jaycox on Rancho Mababi in northern Sonora, this is a good buck, with a B&C score about 105. A buck like this is a very possible goal; it’s much more difficult to break the B&C typical minimum of 110.

February and March are mostly the doldrums for hunting. There are a few seasons open: It’s the right time for winter cougar and wolf hunts, and also the right time to hunt in the savanna country of Central Africa. There is still some Eurasian mountain hunting open. What else is awesome at this time of year? That’s easy. When it’s cold and icy up north, it’s prime time in northern Mexico.

Seasons for desert bighorn and desert mule deer are open. Both are great hunts, and I’m happy I was able to do them, but they’ve slipped out of my price range. Coues deer hunting remains reasonable, successful, and now is the perfect time. There is good rutting activity through February, and good numbers of quality deer. It’s a challenging and enjoyable hunt, and a wonderful time to enjoy the warm desert sun.

In late winter, northern Mexico is one of the greatest places on Earth, with cool mornings, mild middays, a peaceful and long-forgotten lifestyle on remote ranchos. In gorgeous country, with plenty of deer.

My uncle, Art Popham, hunted Coues deer in Arizona and Mexico in the late 1930s with Jack O’Connor and George Parker, the greatest Coues deer hunter of all time. I didn’t hunt with any of them, but was lucky to know them, and I had Coues whitetail on my bucket list from an early age.

Jack O’Connor with a nice Coues buck, circa 1930s. O’Connor’s writing made Boddington want to hunt this little desert deer. It must have been a whole lot more difficult with iron sights.

I started in southeast Arizona with Marvin and Warner Glenn, hunting on their famous riding mules. A few years later, Duwane Adams, also a Coues deer legend, took me under his wing. We shot some nice deer. Not easy, but too successful to call it difficult. There were plenty of deer you just needed to know how to look for them. This I learned from Duwane Adams, one of the first to use big binoculars stabilized on tripods.

After a couple of tag rejections in Arizona, I started going to Mexico. I hunted a lot with Kirk Kelso, often with Tucson gunmakers David Miller and Curt Crumm. More recently, in Sonora with Ted Jaycox, and in Arizona on my son-in-law’s ranch. Coues deer hunting in Mexico is wonderfully successful, but so is Arizona. The biggest problem is finding them, because spotting these small deer in their big country is the most difficult post-graduate glassing test I know of.

They’re thin on the ground, but they’re there. Once located, they are generally stalkable. Coues deer are, after all, just a desert subspecies of whitetail, maybe not as wary as their harder-hunted northern cousins. Hunting them is never a slam dunk, and there is never any assurance of a giant. Me being me, I rarely hold out for a giant, usually won’t pass a respectable buck. Just having fun, enjoying a great deer hunt in. wonderful winter weather.

I’ve hunted Sonora the most, also did several Coues deer hunts in Chihuahua. My spin: good country in Sonora generally has more deer, but Chihuahua has some awesome bucks. Perhaps the coolest (literally) Coues deer hunt of all was in Chihuahua, where we were caught by a freak overnight blizzard.

Tucson gunmaker David Miller and Boddington with two bucks taken on an unusual snowy morning in Chihuahua, Mexico. Neither  buck is outstanding,  but Miller’s has a double main beam on its right, uncommon for any deer.

In Arizona, I’ve hunted Coues deer in rain and light snow, but that was the only time I’ve hunted them in deep snow. Maybe I should have been pickier, but time was running short, and I caught an 8-point buck coming down a snowy cut, 400 yards straight below me. I mean straight down. Angle-correcting rangefinders didn’t exist. I shot over him twice, the deer clueless as the bullets thumped into deep snow. Third shot, I aimed at his knee and dumped him.

The Sonoran Desert is so weird to me. I expect to find desert sheep in the hills and mountains. Seems the desert mule deer should also be there. No. Coues whitetails are in the hills, mule deer are on the desert floor. Clearly, it’s a matter of feed and preference, because I’ve never seen a desert mule deer in Sonora up in the hills, and I’ve rarely seen Coues deer down low.

Once, walking across a desert flat, looking for mule deer, my Mexican cowboy-guide and I saw a wide-antlered buck feeding in a bushy tree. My Spanish is limited, my hearing worse. I heard him to be saying, “Shoot.” Hell, he was saying “Coues,” telling me not to shoot. I threw up my Jarrett .30-06 and dumped it, a fine buck. Fortunately, I had permits for both species. My guide didn’t know that, and he expressed much concern at that moment.

A good, heavy-antlered Sonoran buck, taken right down on the desert floor. This is one of very few Coues whitetails Boddington has ever seen on level ground.

Duwane Adams and I took a great Coues buck forty years ago, my first big one. He had a spot on the back side of the Catalinas, only accessed by starting the uphill climb about midnight. I can’t believe I could do that stuff so easily back then. We got into position overlooking a big basin, started glassing, freezing our tails off in the chill dark.

After maybe an hour of shivering, light growing slowly, Adams looked up from his tripoded binoculars and said, excitement in his voice, “Boddington, dump all your shells out on the ground. I got a barn-burner.” And he did.

Fortunately, I only needed one shot. Coues deer are small deer in tough, brushy, thorny country, and they can be some of North America’s most difficult shooting. 

I’m off on a Coues deer hunt next week. No idea what might happen, and I don’t really care. B&C’s typical minimum is 110, so I figure 100 is a fine buck. It’s not so hard to find a buck in the 100 to 105 class, but then the air rarifies. I’m not trying to beat any records; I just hope to enjoy some great deer hunting.

A more interesting statistic: In thirty years of hunting Coues deer in Mexico—not every year, but in some years more than once—I have only failed once. That time it was not Sonora’s fault, nor the fault of my friend Kirk Kelso. On the last day, he showed me a nice buck, moving back and forth on a brushy hillside like a whack-a-mole. I found him in the scope, lost him, found him again, couldn’t get a shot off. Embarrassing. That was the only time I’ve failed on Coues deer in northern Mexico, and it was completely my fault.

This Sonoran buck was taken at forty yards during a freak rainstorm. Not a big buck, but the point length is exceptional.

Other than that weird blizzard in Chihuahua, I suppose the most unusual situation I ever had on Coues deer was during a winter rainstorm in Sonora’s Sierra Madre. We were huddled under some thick mesquites while the rain dripped down, just waiting for the storm to pass, when a bachelor group of bucks appeared out of the mist.

It was early in the hunt, and there was no reason to be impatient, but one buck was too nice to ignore, a big 8-pointer with long tines. Good enough, too good to pass. I think that was the closes shot I ever had at a Coues whitetail, not 40 yards. Next week, I don’t expect to get that close. Maybe I’ll see a good buck. If I don’t, it doesn’t matter; it will be good to be back in Coues deer country, one of the great North American hunts I never tire of.

Boddington’s friend Andres Santos guided a hunter to this incredible Coues buck in January 2024. 

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