Alice Monarch
Alice Monarch
Black Powder on the Dark Continent
by Sam Monarch
Answering my phone, I heard: “Hello, Sam. It’s Vlam from South Africa. I have a leopard permit for you! How soon can you get here?”
“How much time do I have?,” I asked, silently thinking, “You can’t do this! You just got home from South Africa! I have trials scheduled! You don’t need to spend any more money!”
Oblivious to these thoughts, Vlam continued, “You need to get here quickly. We have two really big leopards coming to bait. The hunting will be over soon, as the rains are about to set in.” He went on to explain that I would be the third hunter to hold this permit, as two prior hunters had been unsuccessful. One bowhunter had missed a big male in June, and a second hunter had just missed that same leopard with a pistol.
“This is crazy! Forget it!,” I thought—but the non-thinking part of me said out loud, “I’ll check on plane tickets and e-mail you tonight.”
While Vlam was talking, my mind raced back to our parting conversation in September. I had wanted to hunt a Venitia Limpopo leopard with a muzzleloader. However, I knew the reserve permit from DeBeers and the export permit from CITIES were in high demand, but extremely short supply. The handgun hunter’s botched shot had created a rare opportunity for me.
Before our conversation ended, I knew—deep down—that I was going back to South Africa. To my credit, I argued vehemently with myself against such a foolish undertaking. I was confident that my wife Alice, my secretary, and our Commonwealth’s Attorney would prevail upon me to stay home and take care of my business as a judge. Instead, all took sides with the irrational me and insisted that work could be rescheduled.
Vlam’s phone call came on November 2nd. On November 10th, Alice and I found ourselves seated in a Boeing 747 bound for Johannesburg. After a night’s rest at the Michelangelo Hotel, we boarded yet another plane to our final destination of Polokwane. There, we were welcomed with hugs and South African handshakes by Vlam Myberg and his Madubula Safari team. The camaraderie we had enjoyed a few weeks earlier was immediately rekindled, intensified with the thought of hunting a big cat with a muzzleloader.
Vlam’s enthusiasm for hunting amazes me. Even though he hunts more than 175 days a year, each day is greeted with the same excitement and anticipation one would expect from a teenage boy just before his first date. During our trip from Polokwane to lodging at a resort near the Venitia Limpopo Nature Reserve, Vlam ecstatically told me that since we had last spoken, a third male leopard had begun visiting yet another bait.
After storing our bags and changing into hunting clothes, we confirmed the rifle’s zero. The Knight Muzzleloader had traveled 20,000 miles from South Africa to home, then back to South Africa within six weeks, yet it held zero perfectly. Only a few clicks were necessary to lower the point of impact to “dead-on” at 50 yards.
Rain was in the forecast, so Vlam was anxious to start the hunt. A couple of hours before dusk, we were sitting in a blind about 50 yards from where an impala was hanging in a large tree. The rifle was placed on a rest pointing in the general direction of the bait. On Vlam’s signal, I would quickly prepare to shoot. On his second signal, he would shine a dim, red-filtered light on the leopard. Vlam said that, depending on the leopard, I should have about five seconds—definitely no more than ten—before the cat would flee the tree.
As dusk became night, the sounds of Africa were all around us. Night birds called from every direction and jackals responding with coyote-like yelps. We periodically heard wild animals of various sizes moving through the brush near us. While we sat motionless in the dark, stories of leopards and lions becoming aggressive while guarding their prey kept coming to mind.
Time passed quickly: two hours, then three. I was startled when Vlam touched my shoulder and whispered, “Get ready.”
I snuggled down against the rifle. Vlam switched on the dim light—and a second later said, “He’s gone.”
The leopard had responded to the light by immediately leaving the tree. Apparently, this old cat was wise to the game after being a target twice before. Alice caught a glimpse of the tawny animal, but with my head on the rifle stock as I tried looking through a blackened scope, I saw nothing.
Straining to see through the scope, aided only by the faint red light, I realized I had a problem. As a result of eye surgery, a portion of my night vision had been lost. Consequently, the crosshairs vanished in the drastically reduced light. The crosshairs were visible against the background of a pale sky, but disappeared when there was no contrast to set them apart.
When I discussed this problem with Vlam, he suggested we use a more powerful light, also fitted with a red filter. We realized that with the stronger light, the leopard would probably give us even less time. Vlam suggested that, as it was early in the hunt, we should call it a night and hope our leopard would return later to feed undisturbed.
As Alice and I soon discovered, leopard hunting is hard work! The next morning at daylight, we were greeted by Dennis, Amon, Vincent (a new member of Vlam’s team) and Vlam. Each morning the baits had to be checked to see if they had been visited during the night. Some baits had to be replaced, as they had been eaten or had become overly putrid from the intense summer heat.
After nearly nine months without rain and with constant pressure from predators, the impala needed for bait were hard to find. They were even more difficult to approach for a shot. The net result was that after our nightly vigil, it took several hours each morning to check and refresh the baits. We hoped to return to the lodge in time for a late lunch and a short nap before resuming the evening watch.
During the third night of our hunt, Vlam whispered, “There are lions in the tree.” When Vlam turned on the spotlight, we could see two grown lions feeding on the impala, which hung more than twenty feet off the ground. When struck with the light, the lions instantly turned and raced head-first down the tree, shattering my belief that lions could not climb trees.
The lions’ intrusion gave me an opportunity to confirm my hope that the brighter light would solve the invisible crosshair problem. However, that proved to be not the case. The center portion of the duplex crosshairs totally disappeared under the red light. This meant that shot placement, even at 50 yards, would be simply a matter of luck.
During the ride back to camp that evening, Alice and Vlam chatted excitedly about the lions. All I could think about was whether or not I wanted a leopard badly enough to risk wounding such a beautiful animal. Vlam assured me that a wounded leopard would “hole up,” and they would find him, but that did little to ease my concern.
As Alice slept that night, she unknowingly became involved in a decision that would put her in the shooter’s seat. The next morning at breakfast, I asked Vlam if the leopard permits had been issued in my name, or if they were being held in reserve. Vlam responded that the permits had been allocated to Madubula Safaris.
Exhibiting some courage, I told Vlam and Alice that Alice would shoot the cat! Vlam inhaled deeply and said nothing.
Alice was much more vocal, “No! I can’t! No! I won’t! No! It’s your leopard! We’ve come 10,000 miles for you to shoot a leopard!”
I had spent the night mentally addressing that same issue. We have a rifle range on our farm, and Alice frequently accompanies me to shoot one of the small rifles. With Alice firing from a rest at only 50 yards, I was confident her bullet placement would be certain.
“It makes no difference to me which one of us squeezes the trigger,” I assured her, adding, “I’m not willing to risk wounding a leopard.”
The plan called for me to watch the bait each evening until it was too dark to see the crosshairs with natural light. Alice would then take the shooter’s seat, and sit there until first light. At dawn, we would again trade seats until full light, when we would call it a night.
When I explained my plan to Vlam and Alice, they had to admit it made sense. After a long silence, Vlam turned to Alice and asked, “Can you do it?” I held my breath until she agreed. She had gone on hunts with me for over forty years, but had always been an observer. Now, with no advance warning, I was asking her to shoot one of Africa’s “Dangerous Five.”
The next evening, it rained and rained and rained. We anxiously sat in the blind hoping that the rain would stop and the leopard would come in to feed, but it didn’t work that way. After mid-night, the rain stopped and the stars came out with renewed luster—but so did a family of hyenas that had come to the bait foraging for scraps that had dropped to the ground. Growling and snarling at each other, these disagreeable animals added adventure to our evening. When these unwelcome visitors finally left, so did we. Vlam advised us that our leopard would not soon follow hyenas to the bait.
The morning bait check confirmed that our second big cat was visiting his bait every night. The third cat was coming to bait, but so sporadically that he offered little hope.
We had focused on the first cat because we knew he was an outstanding specimen. However, the second leopard left equally large tracks. Vlam and the trackers speculated that he might be even larger than the first cat, but no one had seen him. Vlam decided that it was time to change our hunt strategy and go after the second leopard. He opined that, as this leopard had never had a light on him, he might give Alice a bit more time.
On the sixth night of our hunt, we were in the blind long before dusk. I sat in the shooter’s seat until the crosshairs would no longer silhouette against the bait. When the crosshairs disappeared, Alice moved behind the muzzleloader. We sat there until roughly midnight, then decided to retire as the winds had shifted, carrying our scent towards the bait. The next morning, tracks revealed that the leopard had attempted to feed, but had smelled us and left before reaching the bait tree.
That evening we repeated the routine, but in the rain. The rain was heavy and steady, but it wasn’t the torrential rain we had experienced earlier. We were rapidly approaching the end of our hunt, and the rains had set in. Vlam commented that leopards do not like to get wet, but will hunt in the rain if they are really hungry. Enhanced by the rain, darkness soon settled upon us. Alice and I again prepared to play musical chairs. It was difficult to suppress the feeling that our leopard hunt was irrevocably on the road to failure.
As I tried to console myself, Vlam touched Alice on the shoulder and whispered, “Get ready!”
She bent over the muzzleloader. Moments later, the light came on and I began to silently count, “1,000 and one; 1,000 and two; 1,000 and three; 1,000 and four. . . Shoot!” I mentally pleaded. “Please shoot!
“One thousand and five; 1,000 and six; 1,000 and seven. . .Shoot!” I silently demanded. “Hurry up and shoot!”
As if on my command, the blind shook from the blast of the 150-grain charge of FFg black powder pushing a 300-grain Barnes all-copper, hollow-point bullet.
“I didn’t hear the bullet hit. . .” I whispered.
Vlam added, “I didn’t hear him growl. . .”
“Where were the crosshairs when the rifle went off?,” I asked Alice.
“In the middle of his chest,” she replied.
With trepidation, I quizzed, “Did you jerk the trigger?”
“No!,” she retorted.
It took seemingly forever (probably no more than three or four minutes) for the trackers to arrive and follow Vlam to the tree. Alice and I stood in the downpour, watching their lights move to and then away from the tree. My heart sank, and I silently cursed myself. “She missed!,” I thought. “Why did I make her do it?”
Suddenly, Vlam and the trackers began shouting in Zulu. Their message was clear. They had found the cat! Moments later, they emerged from the shadows, carrying the leopard. In the pouring rain, we were soaking wet, but all were euphoric, laughing and shouting, hugging, shaking hands and patting backs. Even in the fractured light, the animal was beautiful—a very large and very old male.
Riding in the rain back to camp, the men heartily sang a tribal victory song. The song was jubilant and exhilarating in any language. My pride in Alice was excitedly shared by each member of the team.
Grinning, Dennis called her, “Boom! One Shot!” Later Dennis and Amon told us that shot placement had been perfect. The leopard had jumped from the tree, taking no more than ten steps before dropping for good.
Initial measurement of the animal revealed that the rare opportunity to hunt a Venitia Limpopo leopard had produced a leopard of rare proportion. An unexpected phone call from our South African friend had eventually led to a new SCI World Record..
After the required drying period, the skull was measured by an SCI Master Measurer. The dried skull measured 17-4/16 inches in length and has since been certified by SCI as the new World Record Leopard with a Muzzleloader. Recently, the SCI Trophy Records Committee selected Alice’s leopard to receive the “First Place Award” in its “Major Awards Program for Muzzleloaders” for the 2006/2007 hunting year.
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