Okay, everybody, this is where it's time right now for uh what do we call these Africa dispatch Tanzania?
Did uh dispatches from a Dispatches from Africa? Volume two? What is it? Flop two?
That's right, because you're flopping right down. We're on flop to. Last night we made a list of how many game animals we've seen in three days. This is our fourth full hunt day in three hunt days. I think our list was ten.
Yeah, yeah, we're at least at ten. And I think we skipped a couple. I think that stuff we missed.
And right now we are on If it's ten, we're on number eleven.
We're working on number eleven. It's gonna happen.
So last night, yesterday evening, we were driving through an area.
We drove long ways yesterday, yeah, we did. We put some miles so we had a one hundred miles.
We were driving through an area and the trackers from the truck saw where there had been a herd yep in one of the burned areas. And then we drove a little more and the trackers jumped out and counted where four bulls had crossed this trail. So today we came in in the morning, parked and started walking into that area and like boom found where found three bowls. So we got on the tracks and guys, two of our trackers Solmoney Yep, Ellie Money yep, Ellie Mini still
with us right now, followed them. They were kind of they were in sort of a flat and moved up a rocky valley wall.
We bumped them. Yeah, they got that wind.
They went climbed out, went to the ridge, climbed back down into the valley we were in, entered this big area of eight foot high grass with maybe a few yards of visibility.
Yeah. Maximum.
The guys tracked and tracked him until eventually you could hear them milling around and they were like there.
Yeah, well the birds gave him away. The guys heard the birds on them, the packers, they could hear them kind of chattering, and so you know, we knew those buffalo were right there in front of us, maybe fifty yards something like that.
Oh yeah, you just hear them. Oh you could hear him. You put not a prayer seeing them. No, they milled out of there.
The guys tracked him again, and this is hours of time that go oh yeah, bumped them again, and now you feel like we're just gonna keep hammering on them, keep.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely so.
I mean the closest we got in that tall grass was like twenty five yards. I mean, I could just I could hear them like right there. Just the only thing I saw was just like a glimpse of one's back line, you know, it was so thick in there. And then you know, from there, they weren't really spooked. They're a little suspicious. They moved off, they kind of came into this miombo here, laid down, and then yeah, unfortunately we were just you know, it was one of
those things. Even me, you know, I kind of learned a lesson, Like my concentration was lapsing a little bit. Yeah, and we're kind of like, well, let's just sit down. You know, the tracks were really faint, it was getting tough, and I was like, well, let's just chill out for a while, let the trackers sort this out. And then yeah, we bumped them. I mean, even if we'd been standing with these guys, we likely wouldn't have gotten a shot, but we would have seen them at least.
But really it played out when I was first talking, you were getting interested in hunting Kate Buffalo and you were laying out like how it works.
Yeah, you included everything that happened. Yeah, well, even down you'll find them. You might move them, wait a while, find them again, find them again. Ye keep bumping them along. Yeah.
Well even when we were in that tall grass, you know, you saw them kind of zigzagging back and forward, which is an indication they're looking for someone to lay down. You know, they're they're tired of walking, they're ready to lay down. They want to ruminate. So yeah, we saw that several times today and yeah, unfortunately, just bump them. But on the on the good side, when they ran off, they made a considerable amount of tracks, So we've got
something to work with this afternoon. So once we wrap up here, we're going to get right back on them.
Yeah. And you explained to me before you can't do this at off the trackers. Oh no, no.
It's absolutely dependent on trackers. The other day we were tracking one and I said to you, I'm like, I don't get what they're seeing, and you said, that's the point. Yeah, they can see things that you can't see, not that you don't know how to see, but you're like, they see things you can't see.
Yeah, that's absolutely right. I mean their skills are phenomenal. They can do and the mental concentration and energy it takes to stay on those tracks in this sort of thing, you know, where you've just got leaf litter on the ground, they can track those buffalo through here. I mean yeah, even after all my years in the bush, I wouldn't have a hope of being able to do what they can do.
So do me a favorite ask uh ask Elimani. When he picks up a piece of grass and looks at it and shows you and shows his partner, his other tracker the grass, what are the things he's like?
What is he looking at?
What are the indicators he's looking at when he picks up a piece of grass?
Okay, yeah, any mighty, come Outnajua mar my johnny o Nasi gwangalia.
Jasa and come on in bi fleshy knows Jana come on in b Yes, coming.
Yeah.
So he's he's when he when he picks up a piece of grass, what he's looking for is like if it was broken or if it was damaged when it got trodden on by the buffalo. He can tell based on like whether it's dry, whether it's still wet, whether it's got some water on it from like the dew in the early morning, when that actually occurred when those buffalo passed through there. So he'll look at a piece of grass and he'll be able to tell based on its condition exactly when those buffalo passed through.
Ask him what is his favorite animal track?
Sasa coma, una, penda, kuinda wan yama, gani, culico one, yamen guini.
Bogos.
Number number So yeah, he's buffalo is number one. He says.
All the others are kind of easy in comparison, Bogo, which is buffalo is number one.
How old was he when he first started studying how to track?
Okay olianza, couchifunza, screaming.
Winds. Come ayand Pierre and Michelle and assume well bi.
So he used to live He used to live near a game reserve called Musswa Game Reserve which is near the Serengetti Uh. And he was he was a kid basically, and he was a poacher. So he used to hunt with a bow and arrow and poison. Oh yeah, he used to hunt with poisoned arrows. What was his favorite thing to hunt?
Them?
Lasamani wulipender.
As as a money with your maijie and watching my thing, said a bit in Noblemiji.
So his favorite was buffalo and what he used to do, Yeah, what he used to do was he'd build a small blind near a water hole very close, and when the buffalo came in to drink, he'd hit him with those poison arrows.
Oh.
Yeah, when he looks at like oftentimes they'll find a dropping buffalo dropping, he'll scratch it. Yeah, what clues are within that when he scratches the surface?
What what? What sorts of things does he like to see? How does it?
When?
Is it two days old? One? Is it one day old?
On a dropping okona mafigalia, niniku gosu.
Leni on a pitah si.
Jew ohangai kuna in a peppo in acca nat thistancy in a coca Kiss again ya do do your schoom vi video pita.
Yes.
So what he does when he when he scratches it like that, he's looking at how dry it is and whether there's any bugs in there. If there's bugs in there, it's a it's been a couple days for sure, if it's if it's very wet. If there's just a very thin layer of dryness from the wind, then he knows it's fresh.
Oh okay, gotcha, that's what that is wan to rise like an outside layer to it.
Yeah, the outside layer is drying in the you know, in the sun and the wind. So he's actually when he kicks it, he's looking at the thickness of that of that outside layer to know like how long it's been there. And then yeah, he said, if he sees bugs, no good.
If you're if your track and a ball or a group of balls, and you bump them once, bump them twice, bump them three times, does it get less encouraging or more encouraging?
Well, from my perspective, it gets I would say it gets slightly less encouraging. You know, you're you're definitely winding them up every time. You're kind of you know, they're becoming like more tightly wound. So they're going to put themselves in like thicker, darker cover. They're going to start to really kind of be very switched on, as opposed to if you haven't bumped them at all and they're kind of just in dreamland, they're just chilling out, which
isn't to say that approaching them super easy. They're still tricky, but yeah, when you've bumped them a few times, it definitely it starts to get pretty marginal. And that's where I think what we've done today, giving them that little bit of time between each kind of bump to chill out, can help with that. Like, particularly now we've given them a couple of hours, they're going to be pretty desperate to ruminate and lay down. So with a bit of luck,
that'll work in our favor. But generally speaking, yeah, if you just keep pushing them like that, it gets kind of marginal and borderline dangerous to depending on the situation.
When Alimane was a boy, was he even aware that you could have the job he has now? Was he aware that this was a job and would he have wanted this job as a boy?
Lana uli dua kusu campunia wain dagi nah no campuni.
Not kazi kazi any.
Course your.
India like k.
So he had no idea. He didn't He didn't know about this industry. He didn't know about the job. He he only came to learn about it later when basically when this company started in in Maswa, hunting there he became aware of it, but yeah, all he knew was poaching.
And this is this might be an awkward question since you guys worked together. But what does he like think of the job?
Does he like the job? Is it just a job?
Like?
What's what's his take on it?
When when a pinda ka Sam, Yeah, he likes it and he likes working with me. But he's just saying that to be nice. I think I really chap his ass sometimes.
Well I hope he knows. I want you to tell him that I have every moment of watching those guys work is like pure joy to me, Like I really like, like I really really like following those guys in the woods on.
A semma an a pinda kazi sanaa Come.
I, he says, thank you very much. Tell him this.
I hang out like I know people my friends I have I hang out with like very good hunters in America. Unless there's snow, okay, unless there's snow on the ground. For us, tracking is just that you can tell something came through, or you can tell something frequents an area, or you can tell it routinely comes through. But unless there's snow, we never follow an animal.
So I'm an sma and a jua watuwangihi medakani winda palepia howskana come bilaluji ohi oh barau awas cut bisa.
Never never, unless there's snow our ways bisa, cut bisa. And I think he would enjoy snow a great deal. I think he'd hide it. I sema uh kona tluji nina sema.
So we're gonna we're gonna pack up. Yep, We're gonna go back to where we lost the track. And then how when do you call it?
Like, how do you like?
It's three third, it's gonna be three thirty pm, sun sets around what six thirty?
Yeah, you know that's that's a hard question to answer. It's kind of my prerogative. I would say, if we bump them again hard and they go snorting out of there like they did last time, it's probably time to to to.
Hang it up.
But in an ideal world, we'll find those things sleeping and they'll have chilled out a good bit since that last bump, and we can make a play on them.
And then last question, if we if let's say we blow them out bad mhm tomorrow do we just forget them and go find other ones that haven't been disturbed.
Not necessarily, Not necessarily, I like this area.
If we really, I mean, if we blow them out bad and for example, they go up on that escarpment again and they just bline it to a different valley, then yeah, it's probably not worth coming back here. With that being said, yesterday was four balls. You know, this is three balls. One of them is either it's either a different group or one of them spun off and gone on his own. Plus there's another herd in this valley too, So I'm not I by no means going
to give up on this place. And that's why I've told the guys not to burn it, which was sort of.
We haven't gotten into the burning yet, and we need to get into the burning and another dispatch.
But the burning is the greatest thing in the world. Oh yeah, it's heavenly.
Yeah, being able to just flick matches in the right places and yeah, well it'd be like it's slow moving, low intensity grass fires. Yeah, they don't damage the trees. Yeah you're out. Yeah, the old dead grass.
Yeah, the decadent grass. A few days later, new grass comes up. Yeah, I mean the burning really appeals to the little boy and all of us.
It's a hell of a lot of fun, especially when you when you look and it's like you make like these perfect new grass.
Growth areas, and then there's animals. There's animals. Yeah, yeah, that helps them too. No no, it's super cool, very like not destructive. No no, no, no, very restorative. Al Right, it's you guys, ready to go. Let's do it.