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Newsletter April/May 2008
Volume 2, Issue 4
In this issue:
Tips and Tactics
Lion Hunting Tricks
If you haven't tried dry ground lion hunting it's something you should do in your lifetime. It's a completely different experience than hunting in the snow.
The best days for finding a lion are cool days with very little wind. The wind makes it extremely tough for the dogs to stay on a track.
Scent on dry ground will normally last for 6-8 hours, so the earlier the better for finding a track. The dogs seem to trail better in the canyon bottoms in the rocks rather than in the grass or sand.
Lions tend to cover large amounts of ground a will often only move through an area once a month unless they have a fresh kill or are courting a female.
Lion hunters will look for fresh scrapes, made mainly by male lions when searching trying to strike a trail. Mountain lions will pull dirt toward themselves and it gives away the direction the lions are traveling. It's a good way to make sure the dogs are headed in the right direction.
Turkey Hunting
Setting up a blind is a great way to get close to those spring gobblers. Do some scouting a month or two before the season and see where the turkeys are feeding.
Find a spot and set up your blind long before the season opener. This will give the turkeys a chance to get accustomed to the blind. When the season comes around, set up your decoys and be ready when those gobblers come in.
Start out with soft clucks and give the turkeys some time. You can always go to louder calling as the day or season wears on. For some great turkey instruction, check out Primos The Truth 18 - Spring Turkey Hunting
Video Review
Delta Royale by Sable Trail Productions
Bwana Moja returns to Africa once again to attempt to complete his big five. Marc Watts, in the follow up to The Mane Event, heads to Botswana to hunt with the legendary elephant hunter Johan Calitz. Johan has some of the best hunting areas in Africa and his team of experienced Professional Hunters and trackers lead Marc on his greatest safari yet.
The trophies taken on this safari are truly amazing and the video work is once again superb as well. True to Marc’s previous videos, there are no staged shots, no cut-aways, just one cameraman and one hunter. If you’ve done any video work, you’ll appreciate the hard work and skill it takes to obtain this type of footage.
The safari begins with a Cape Buffalo in a large herd out in the tall grass of the Okavanga Delta. If you haven’t seen Marc’s previous videos, his trademark is marksmanship and his first trophy proves once again he is in an elite group. He takes a shot at a mature buffalo bull, dropping it where it stood at 164 yards with a frontal brain shot. That’s correct, a BRAIN SHOT!
In addition to the quest for a trophy elephant, Johan has some great lions in his concession and convinced Marc to try to beat the beautiful lion he took in Tanzania. Numerous people told him, he would come to Africa many times, but never take a better lion. It was a magnificent lion, but Johan was up to the challenge, even knowing they could only take the lion by tracking rather than baiting.
This is a great hunt for another lion of a lifetime.
The elephant gives evidence that Marc is human, taking several shots to finish the task, but it is a beautiful elephant with 60+ pound tusks and great footage up close.
In all Marc takes 15 animals, including a 46” gemsbok that looks almost abnormal, his horns are so long, a 56” kudu taken with an offhand shot, zebra, wildebeest, red lechwe and a running shot on a large eland bull. The video is three hours in length, but there is advertising interspersed through the video, so true hunting time is less. Great hunting footage once again from Sable Trail Productions.
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Dry Ground Lion Hunting
It was tough to get out much in April and May, but we did find time to get in the field a few times.
 I signed up about a year ago with a lion hunter local to the Tucson area. He works a full time job, but his passion is lion hunting and he spends many of his weekends chasing lions in the area. Layne Brandt is his name and he learned from the legendary lion hunter Ollie Barney. If you want a good read about an old lion hunter, check out "The Life and Times of Ollie Barney."
Over the past 25 years, Layne has killed 99 lions and I hoped to be his 100th. The first call from Layne came on a Friday night and I had obligations and couldn't make the trip. I did manage to get in touch with a friend and as my luck seems to run, they had a lion skinned out by 9:30 a.m. the following morning.
A couple weeks later, I received another call and it was finally time to chase a lion. We would be riding horseback, something I haven't done in years, so I knew it would be an adventure. We cut a track and the dogs followed it for over an hour before the wind finally took it's toll. The dogs lost the track in the open ground and we never did catch back up with it.
The second hunt was in much steeper ground, hunting the tops of the Santa Rita mountains. Again the dogs cut a track early and the race was on. We followed along behind the best we could and lost the dogs several times, but eventually rounded the majority of them up. No lions once again.
 Day three started out in a similar manner to the first two days with the dogs cutting a track fairly early. This time they headed off into a huge, deep canyon that took us over an hour to descend. I was just glad I wasn't on foot. The dogs were on the trail for quite a while, but never could catch up to the cat. We put in a full day and ended up leaving part of the dogs on the mountain. They got in an area we couldn't reach with the horses, and after several treacherous hikes and darkness a couple hours away, we decided it was time to head back.
Day four we headed back to flatter country, and after an hour of riding, found and extremely fresh scrape and fresh lion scat. It took the dogs some time to pick up the trail, even with it as fresh as it was, but they soon grouped up and started singing their hunting music. One of the cowboys along for the ride actually saw the lion with the dogs on his tail, but he disappeared over a hill never to be seen again.
The season finally closed on us for the spring, but we'll be back at in the fall to finish the hunt and get my lion. Check out Dukat's Journal Dry Ground Lion Hunting Part 1 for more details.
Once again, we hope you enjoy the newsletter and come visit us at Hunting Videos Online.
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Sable Trail Productions Announces Plans for Next Video
STP tells, "Slated for release in late 2008, Back to Africa: The Best of Bwana Moja will mark the 8th DVD release in the "Perfectly Shot" video line. After much thought, Marc has decided to head back into the bush and the editing room to produce another safari hunting DVD. The Best of Bwana Moja will consist of more than 30 hunts throughout Africa, that Sable Trail fans have never seen before. Every hunting sequence is brand new.
Moja heads back to Africa, crisscrossing the Dark Continent in pursuit of challenges like he has never faced before. Without a doubt, this release marks the most extensive travel and journey a safari hunter has ever endured, in the production of a single safari video.
In this video, Marc hunts in Botswana, C.A.R. Tanzania (twice), Mozambique and South Africa. He takes six buffalo, three eland, two Lord Derby eland and two great cats, just to name a few. There is also a feature of the "Top 10" best Bwana Moja kill shots of all time.
There was speculation that Marc's safari career on "video" was over, with the completion of his big five, and the release of Delta Royale earlier this year. He told close firends and allies that he was weighing a decision on whether to accepta a mega-offer to return to the network television news industry. It appears now, that after much soul searching, Bwana Moja has made the decision to go back to Africa and produce yet another video.
Sable Trail spares no expense making sure the company's DVDs loo a lot different than all of the rest, even in comparison with other releases within its line. As a rookie rifle hunter years ago, Marc remember thinging that all hunting videos looked the same.
Excellence in creativity and production ha always been high on our list of importance with whatever we do in regards to the media," said Marc. "With the Best of Bwana Moja we've truly gone out of our way to make it look unique, right down to the look and fee of the front cover."
We have just added Marc's first book to the website as well. Click the picture to check out "The Royal Showdown". The book chronicles Marc's quest for a trophy Lord Derby Eland ending with on of the top eland in the world. Marc discusses more than just his hunt and you begin to understand his drive to make that "Perfect Shot."
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Bear Camp with Jim Shockey
Jim relates: Frank Lickliter II (my PGA Tour golfer buddy) got his two bears! We got one the first evening that we hunted together there just about 15 to 20 minutes before dark, so we waited until morning to go after it because I got scared. In the morning we found it dead there, perfect shot, 19 14/16-inch skull!
That was yesterday morning when we found it and then we went back out hunting. And at 2 p.m. that afternoon Frank shot his second bear, 18 11/16-inch skull, big, beautiful bear, great footage, this one was nice and close only 30 to 40 yards. Great stuff!
So now we're headed down-island with Frank and two of his buddies. We're going to have a golf game and then he's staying at my place and heading home in the morning. We'll see how this professional does on a really hard golf course. And with borrowed clubs and borrowed shoes!!
Camp Patriot week is also a big success. I took Dan Goodenow of Flint Group and the wounded military vet sponsored by Flint Group, John Boismier, out the first evening. We were laying down waiting for a big bear to move into better position to shoot. Then a fly flew into the back of my throat and I just about hacked to death right there. My hacking chased the bear away, so I ended the season ignominiously.
But I heard that John and Dan both ended up getting big bears with a different, quieter guide. Dan's bear was fighting with another boar and chased the other one right past them. Then Dan shot the dominant bear and dropped him right in his tracks.
Hope you enjoyed the April/Many 2008 newsletter. We sure enjoyed reliving the hunts. We'd love to hear your comments at dukatsoutfitting@yahoo.com. See you in the field!
Susan and David Dukat
Dukat's
Outfitting LLC
www.huntingvideosonline.com
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