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swamp thang

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Everything posted by swamp thang

  1. swamp thang
    I've heard of the Wells catfish in Spain's River Ebro, Sniffer. There have been a couple of Discovery Channel programs on those monster Wells, one of which included an interview with a German angler who is credited with illegally introducing Wells into the Ebro River back in the 1970's, by driving over there from Germany in his car, with a few hundred fingerlings that he released into the river. Hatching here starts at night with a hormonal injection of a Canadian-manufactured drug called Ovaprim, to both parent stock. This is only done in the rainy season from about May to September, wh
  2. swamp thang
    I sell catfish fingerlings, when they are six weeks old, and about an inch long, Sniffer. My hatchery creates a reproductively sterile but fast growing cross-breed of two African catfish, the Heterobranchus logifilis, which can grow quite big in the wild, and the Clarias "walking" catfish, which reaches a smaller adult size. Those fingerlings are raised by local farmers for 4 to 6 months when they reach a couple of kilos in size, and then sold by weight in markets here. Both parent stock and their fast-growth offspring are air-breathing catfish which are generally sold alive by the fish farm
  3. swamp thang
    I'm in west Africa. The website mods know exactly where of course, but just in case any government officials from this neck of the woods are listening in, I can't be too specific, given the way firearm permits get revoked here from time to time, and hunting weapons "confiscated", as a prelude to, ahem, re-distribution of said weapons to more "deserving" owners.
  4. swamp thang
    Hello Jonah, The camera is the Covert Black 60 trailcam, one of the new generation of "black flash" infra-red cameras whose flash is not visible to the human eye. This camera really comes into its own at night, and has the brightest "invisible" flash on the market right now, which really lights up the night better than most other models on the market. The bushbuck are kept in a really small area of maybe an acre at best, surrounded by 8-foot high chain-link fence. I keep them mostly for visitors and schools to look at, but the bucks get terrirotial during their rut, and the dominant
  5. swamp thang
    Hello Skycat, When I first started out trying to raise bushbuck in captivity with a few orphaned fawns some years back, I was fairly confident from my years of hunting them that I knew all the varieties of foliage that they eat, but I found out that the leaves and vines that were being brought in for them were still lacking in some key nutrient that I couldn't put my finger on. Finally a man who kept goats showed up, and noting how skinny the bushbuck in the pen were back then, suggested I try feeding them raw beans like he fed his goats, but only if the beans had been soaked for 3 to
  6. swamp thang
    The bushbuck herd in the pen out back aren't anywhere near tame, so the only way I was able to get this group closeup was to put a trail-camera out when they gather for lunch. Without this addition of pre-soaked beans to supplement their diet of leaves, these animals just waste away and won't breed at all. They also get cattle salt-lick blocks for their minerals. Almost all of these were born in captivity, though I do buy the odd fawn from local hunters who would otherwise feed them to their hunting dogs, and those youngsters get bottle-fed till they can eat greens.
  7. swamp thang
    Beware the rampaging deer, for he hath no fear, when he's had a beer. The reactions of those pedestrians was nice to watch. They just glanced back over their shoulders, as if they were expecting a procession of deer to follow the first one down the street.
  8. swamp thang
    Hello Pledgey, the very best website I have found for trail cameras on the internet is called "chasing game.com". That website is frequented by a lot of very experienced trail cam users from all over the world, and some of those guys have up to twenty cameras set up on their land. The "Chasing Game.com" website carries detailed user test results from all the latest trail cameras on the market, plus some of the most amazing collections of wildlife pictures taken with trail cameras owned by subscribers to that website. From my limited experience with trail cameras, the ones to avoi
  9. swamp thang
    Just seen the Muntjac picture. Looks a lot like an African Duiker. Muntjacs are supposed to be Asian originally, I read somewhere.
  10. swamp thang
    Ok I managed to get a couple of shots of my captive Sitatunga, named Swampy by my eight-year old. He is about half grown now, comparing his horns to those of the one I caught on film by the river-side. Very nervous animal this one, even though he will walk up to people he knows. We had to suspend re-roofing a shed nearby, because he went haywire with the carpenters noise, and wouldn't eat for a week. Here he is snacking on his favourite treat - Moringa olifera leaves. Here is another shot. I was about to crouch down to get a petter perspective, but his hackles went up, and
  11. swamp thang
    The forest runs in a narrow ribbon along the banks of a stream, Skycat, and it is there that these animals find refuge from year- round unrestricted hunting pressure. The bushbuck (Tragelaphus scriptus) is actually a grassland species, but this small group have adapted to skirting the edges of the swamp behind my catfish ponds, where the hunters and their dogs don't go due to difficult terrain. The far more rare and stealthy Sitatunga ( Tragelpahus spekei gratus), shown in my earlier night pictures, is a slightly larger cousin of the bushbuck, and is a purely swamp-dwelling antelope, wit
  12. swamp thang
    Thought I'd add this shot to show that the stripes don't fade on adult bush-bucks. Here a doe and fawn take a stroll.
  13. swamp thang
    Great description of the hunt, Matt. I could almost feel the cold wind in my face, reading about that rainy day stalk. The landscape where you hunt is picture-postcard beautiful, I must say. Nice shots of the land, and of the quarry. You bagged a fine beast there.
  14. swamp thang
    Thought I'd add this picture that shows a bit of the swamp forest. The raised embankment on which this fawn stands was built by the dozer digging fish ponds years ago, and is now plastered with antelope tracks, and tore up with horn scrapes. The camera that I set here ten feet up a palm tree is by far the most productive trail-cam I have out there.This is the same spot where the Sitatunga emerges from the swamp, but in the dead of night only.Here Here again is the same Sitatunga using his horns to apply his stamp of authority, to show who's in charge in this area.
  15. swamp thang
    Thought you fellas might appreicate a few pictures of the species that are hunted here. Don't do much shooting myself these days, seeing as the habitat hs shrunk so much that these species are all pretty much endangered here. Anyways, here goes. This is about my best closeup of a bushbuck in the wild, as she grazed on the edge of my catfish pond at dawn. Next is a group shot of my captive herd of bushbuck. I will get around to taking a closeup at feeding time one of these days. Now this is the King of the Swamp, the Sitatunga swamp antelope, which is as elusive and ha
  16. swamp thang
    Top notch shooting Foxhunter. That haul should keep the freezer stocked with venisson for a while to come.
  17. swamp thang
    Years a ago I snared dozens of squirrels, just to learn the technique in case I ever needed it. I used a loop measuring about the size of the circle that you can form with the tip of your middle (ring) finger touching the tim of your thumb, and I generally set them between one and two finger widths above the branch. Depending on the species of squirrel you are after, the size and height of your loop may vary slightly. Might be an idea to shoot one squirrel to get a close-up view of its head width and approximate head-height above the branch as it runs.
  18. swamp thang
    As a rule, ALL beaver tastes good, and I speak from personal experience as a muff diver of many years.
  19. swamp thang
    Pulled this picture of the net. Wikipedia, if I remember rightly. This is an African pouch rat. and they are being used in some parts of Africa for mine-clearing in areas where brush wars were fought. The rats are too light to set off anti-personnel mines, and they have an acute sense of smell that allows them to detect explosives as accurately as any dog. Trained for that important, life-saving job, these long-snouted little beasties are worth their weight in gold.
  20. swamp thang
    Right you are about keeping on with the search, PJ. I have spent the day reading consumer reviews on the net, and the Bushnell Trophy Cam Model 119466 CG, sold by Gander Mountain for a rather steep $279 USD each, came out tops. It costa a good $50 above what I'd hoped to pay, but this nicely camoflagued unit unit is dead silent, produces zero visible light when it flashes for night pictures, and records images of far greater clarity than most other trail cameras in the same price range. Being a creature of habit that I am, staying with a known name brand will probably turn out to be
  21. swamp thang
    I posted this earlier to day on an electronics forum, but decided to paste a copy here with the hunting community as well, just in case some of the old hands here know of a day/night trail camera with invisible flash, that I could order online. Thanks for any help you can render. Out on my motorbike on the trials through the woods here, on the trail of a couple of my hounds that took off, I damn near ran over a headless corpse. Talked to some of the locals, and it turns out ritual murder is on the rise, BUT, the cops are too scared to go into the woods. As for crime scene investigati
  22. swamp thang
    A Fox-cam and a Terrier-cam would give viewers high-resolution footage from both sides of the canine duel, while aerial footage could also be gathered by a GPS-guided RC quad-copter poised to be scrambled on short notice, for auto-location and auto-hovering above the fox, recording key moments of its life on the run.
  23. swamp thang
    Got family in the UK, and visit often. Always dreamed of owning a cottage out in the countryside there, but probably never will. To busy hatching catfish out here in Africa.
  24. swamp thang
    Beautiful part of the country you live in, RH583. City folks don't know what they're missing.
  25. swamp thang
    Matt and Plastic Jock, I thank you both very much for this vote of confidence in this Chinese ammo. Your assurances do calm my worries, and I will head out to try a few shots in the next couple of days. With rifle ammo so scarce here, I wasn't looking forward to discarding what little I could find to buy, so it is good to hear that panic measure won't be necessary. Thanks again, fellas, and happy hunting.
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