Big Caracal

Thursday: Big Caracal

One the way to the hunting area Thursday morning we got a call that the tracker had a Caracal treed in the same area we hunted on Wednesday. We arrived where he told us to meet him. Now, like I said earlier, the frames of reference are different in Africa. When we arrived we didn’t find him. We got him on the hand held radio (his boss was there waiting for us). It seemed "Meet me here." Meant "Drive to here, than walk a mile." So we got out and walked to his location. Well, again the frames of references are different, and we ended up climbing the down the side of mountain into the river valley – it was a real pain.

JR's Caracal Hunt Earlier in the Week

We made it down vertically about 200 feet and settled on a large rock outcropping. We heard the dogs at the bottom of the valley along the river howling – probably another 800 feet below us – straight down. After about 20 minutes or so, through shouting and radios, we determined the treed cat had run off. The tracker said he would keep looking and call us later. We climbed back up and headed to the truck. We were off to look for Bush Bucks again.

Bush Buck Terrain

About an hour later we got a call from the tracker. Something along the lines of "Come quick Boss, I have a big one in a tree. Hurry!" So we asked him where. "Right where you were today on the rocks." We made our way back to the spot, ran from the vehicle, climbed down into the valley, and ran to the rocks. Nothing. It seemed "Right Here" meant – "Somewhere near where I was today, maybe a few hundred yards, maybe a few miles". We climbed back up and listened. We heard the dogs further down the gorge about a mile or so.

We started on our way. We occasionally dropped off the flat area into the top part of the gorge to listen and then would go back up. We want up down many hills and even across a small stream or two. We eventually made it to the area right above where the cat was treed. Murray looked at me. We have had a hard go at it thus far, we are all soaked in sweat and exhausted. "Now it gets hard," he said.We started climbing down into the gorge. We had about 400 feet to go. The sides of the gorge were almost vertical and water was running down around us everywhere. It was truly a rainforest. We could hear the river roaring at the bottom. The only we reason we didn’t fall was that there were so many trees and vines. We slid from tree to tree and we when started falling, the vines would catch us like nets.

We finally made it to where the Caracal was treed. He was in the top of a large bushy tree, barely visible. Remember, this species of cat is around 30-40 lbs, and he was curled in a ball 40 feet above the ground. I was using 300 grain solids in my 375. They would pass straight thru. The other bullets would have caused him to literally explode. I aimed for his rear area as not to damage the skull. Bang! The 375 came back and smashed my face and glasses due to the angle of the shoot. The cat leaped from the tree. He was hit. He starting pulling himself down the side of the gorge with his front legs only. I chambered another round to take a shot, but people and dogs were in the way. The cat ran down and down.

The tracker headed down to keep the dogs off of the cat. The cat was dead about 100 feet below us. We brought the cat back up and started a climb, literally, back to the top. In many areas we were climbing and then crawling on our hands and knees, sometimes bellies, to make it thru the thick brush. We got to the top. The Caracal was very nice.

Caracal

Everyone had pants on that day except for me. My legs were scratched beyond recognition and covered with blood. It looked like I lost a fight with a Leopard or something worse. That night at the hotel I scrubbed my legs raw with hot water, soap, and iodine.