Three of us were packed into a Double Bull pop-up blind in a thick riverine area where a feeder stream fed into the larger Luangwa River in Zambia. We had elephants feeding on three sides of us, and seemingly getting closer, so the professional hunter, Jason, and I were getting a bit concerned that our sit for a big male leopard might get cut short.
Longtime WTA client Barb Solow was on the rifle and I was attempting to video her leopard hunt. Jason and I whispered back and forth about the approaching elephants that were basically surrounding us when I peered through my blind window and saw that the leopard was standing broadside on our bait limb. We had barely been in the blind for 45 minutes!
I looked at Jason and whispered, “Cat in the tree.” He tapped Barb on the shoulder. She slid down to her rifle, moved her safety forward, and squeezed the trigger. The cat fell straight off the limb, but then we could hear him running through the dense jungle-like vegetation, straight toward the blind. He stopped under a huge dense bush about 10 yards away, and Jason and I grabbed our double rifles and approached the area where we hoped to find him.
The bush had limbs growing almost to ground level and it was probably over 30 feet in diameter. Jason and I began moving around it in opposite directions, trying to peer under the cover and hoping to glimpse a dead cat. Suddenly Jason yelled, “Tim, stop!” I did, and then I heard the report of his .470.
Jason walked over to me, lifted some branches, and there was the leopard only a few feet from where I had been standing. Jason said he saw the cat watching me come around the tree toward it. When I got close, it bunched up to launch at me, and that’s when Jason shot it.
That was on the fifth day of Barb’s safari, and we had three female leopard, a young male, and this nice mature tom already feeding. The Luangwa Valley has one of the highest leopard densities in Africa, and though leopard hunts typically last 14 days, Jason’s clients often score within a week. He produces some really nice cats in the Luangwa with an occasional giant. Last year a client of mine killed an absolute monster there—its head looked like a lioness.
Our hunt continued with great success. A few days later, I took a brace of 40″ and 42″ buffalo, and Barb got a very nice roan and puku. There was a lion left on quota, so we began baiting in hopes of attracting one of the big maned males in the area to feed.
After a couple of days, we got a hit. And after setting up a trail camera, we learned that a very old male lion was on the bait. We kept him feeding for a few more days in hopes that one of the larger maned lions would find our other baits. But since we only had a few days left to hunt, Barb said she wanted to try for the ancient old male since he was the perfect lion to take out of the population anyway.
That afternoon we climbed into the blind 52 yards from the bait, and about an hour before dark, I was shaken out of my daydream by an incredibly loud roar. The big guy was on the move and not too far away. When he got to about 200 yards, he must have lain down as he continued to roar and grunt, but he didn’t move for some time. Then all went quiet.
The area around the bait was thick, and I hoped that the lion’s silence meant that he had gotten up and was headed for the bait. Seconds ticked by slowly. We were all on edge, and then he was there. He stepped out of the brush behind the bait, looked around for a bit, and then began to feed. He stood on his hind legs to reach up and grab the meat to eat, and his back was toward us.
Then he would spin around, and the bait would be blocking our view. The lion finally dropped off the bait, but he was sitting and facing away. It seemed as though he would never present Barb with a quality shot. He ran back into the brush, but reappeared within a few minutes.
I was thoroughly enjoying the show, but I knew Barb was incredibly stressed waiting so long for a shot, and we were losing daylight very quickly. Finally after 20 minutes, the big cat stood broadside, and Barb hammered him with her .375. He dashed off without so much as a snarl, which was odd, and Jason asked Barb how she felt about the shot. She said she was confident that she’d hit him right behind the shoulder, but Jason was concerned because he said he had never seen a shot lion that didn’t either drop dead or growl and make a lot of noise when it was hit.
We gave it some time and called in the truck and trackers. It was dark by then, so we loaded up on the vehicle, had flashlights and rifles at the ready, and slowly drove in the direction where the lion had run. After about 100 yards, one of the trackers pointed to the left, and we could see Barb’s lion lying under a small tree.
He was a grand old cat that Jason estimated at over 8 years old. And though he didn’t have a huge mane, he was the trophy of a lifetime. Besides the incredible leopard density, the Luangwa Valley also has a very strong lion population.
Jason has not failed on a leopard in over 17 years, and his lion hunts have been 100% successful for over 10 years. He is my go-to cat PH when booking serious clients on leopard and lion hunts for Worldwide Trophy Adventures. On this hunt we sat twice, and Barb took both cats on the first try. Jason told me that isn’t unusual. He tries to make quality setups and only sit for a cat when he feels it’s comfortable feeding at the bait and will almost assuredly come back.
That being said, I have always told people that they must go with a good cat PH. There are some guys who just love hunting leopard and lions and can think like a cat. These PHs excel at cat hunting and have incredibly high success rates. Most of the really good cat guys also operate in high-quality cat areas, and that combination almost assures success. Jason is one of the top cat producers in Africa, and on his Zambia hunts, he guarantees clients a shot at a mature leopard or lion if they stay the duration of their hunt, or they can come back free if no shot is presented. That is a professional hunter putting his money where his mouth is. I don’t know any other operator in Africa who will make that guarantee.
Besides the Luangwa Valley, Jason also hunts the Kafuwe area in eastern Zambia. When we have a client who wants a big sable and leopard, we send them to the Kafuwe where 45″+ bulls are very attainable. Recently, long-time friend Tom Niederer took an incredible 49″ sable bull on the first afternoon of his safari with Jason’s brother Clinton as PH.
Over the years, I have seen photos of the leopards that Jason and Clinton have produced from the Kafuwe, and it made me consider another leopard hunt. I had taken nice mature cats in the Niassa of Mozambique and the Zambezi Valley of Zimbabwe, but those areas generally produce 7′ cats that weigh 125–140 pounds. They are beautiful cats, but they are not giants.
There are a few places in Africa renowned for big leopard. Southern Zimbabwe, Masailand in Tanzania, South Africa (when it was open to hunting), and certain parts of Namibia come to mind for great leopard genetics. The Kafuwe region of Zambia should be added to this list. The Kafuwe has long been known for producing really big maned lions, but the leopards there are superb as well. Jason takes a lot of cats in the Kafuwe that are over 160 pounds, and it’s not unusual for him to take a cat that tops 170. There are lots of numbers thrown around on weights of both cougars and leopards. I see people talking about leopards weighing 180–200 pounds, and while Mr. Spots can get that big, it is a rare occurrence.
So after much deliberation and talk, I jumped on the opportunity to hunt a leopard in the Kafuwe with Jason. And my buddy Tom decided to hunt sable, roan, and a couple of species of lechwes with Clinton.
Much like Barb’s hunt a few years earlier, we had three leopards on bait after only two days. There was a female that hit the first night. She came back the second night, and a young male had also eaten at another site. It was late in the afternoon on day three when we found a big track in the road headed toward our last bait to check, and we soon discovered that a large male had smashed the sable leg we had hung the day before. It was too late to build a blind and sit that day, so we decided to put up a second camera and watch for the cat to come back to feed.
We had a few baits out in another area by an old bush airstrip for a big cat that Jason knew about, and he felt like that male could be a 170-pounder. The next morning, that big cat hadn’t found our baits, but the big male from the day before had fed again, and we got some better photos of him. He was thick and heavy, his ears appeared to be tiny in comparison to his head, he had a dewlap on his neck, and in some of the pictures we could see loose skin on his chest going down toward his belly.
He had all the characteristics of a big male leopard, and Jason asked me what I thought. I told him that I thought it was a great looking cat, and from what I could see, I would be very happy with him. But I am not a PH that looks at dozens of leopards every year. He told me he didn’t know if it was bigger than the airstrip cat, but he too felt like it was a very good leopard. That’s all I needed to hear. We decided to put up a blind and give it a try.
That afternoon as the sun was fading out of the golden area, Jason tapped my leg, and I knew our cat was there. When I eased forward and looked through my scope, I could see the spotted back of the cat leaning over the bait, and then he turned toward me. He was magnificent, and staring straight toward the blind, he looked like a thick necked brute. I waited tensely for him to present a shot, and then like a yellow ghost, he was moving and out of the tree. I couldn’t believe it, he never really settled down to feed, and he did not present me with a quality shot. I prayed that he would come back before darkness overtook the bush.
Then he was simply there. I didn’t see him walk out on the branch, he was just there, and broadside. I quickly put the small aiming point on his shoulder, moved it one third of the way up his body and touched the trigger. The 180-grain bullet hit him like a sledgehammer, and it sounded like a base drum when he hit the ground. There was one deep growl before all went silent. I told Jason I felt really good about the shot and he said he was sure the cat was done.
We radioed for the truck to come in, strapped on headlamps, and got out of the blind when we heard it approaching. Cautiously we made our way the 58 yards to the bait tree, and there he was, lying motionless under the bait.
It’s a serious thing to take a leopard, and I didn’t have any words for a few moments. I took in his beauty, rubbed his velvet-like coat, and absorbed the whole experience. This was one big leopard for sure! He was even larger than I had thought, and he was old. He had broken teeth, a scarred face and ears, and was a serious heavyweight. He was a perfect leopard to me
Jason had produced on the first sit again. I’ve had the privilege to sit in a blind with him three times, and that has netted two great leopards and an ancient old lion. You can’t argue with that track record.
There may be a few chosen areas around Africa that are as good for hunting cats as Zambia, but I don’t think there is any better. Considering population density, trophy quality, and success rates in the Luangwa and Kafuwe Valleys, if someone told me my life depended on taking a leopard or lion, I would choose to hunt with Jason in one of his Zambia areas.
