Untamed Pursuits
Embark on a wild adventure like never before with the groundbreaking podcast, "Untamed Pursuits."
Join the intrepid duo of renowned author and outdoor enthusiast, Ridr Knowlton, alongside the seasoned professional fishing guide, Jamie Pistilli, as they traverse the globe in pursuit of the world's most exciting fishing and hunting destinations, and the fascinating creatures that live there. From the lush rainforests of the Amazon to the icy depths of the Arctic Circle, each episode promises heart-pounding encounters, captivating tales, and invaluable insights into the natural world.
With Ridr's profound storytelling and Jamie's unparalleled expertise, prepare to be transported to the front lines of adventure, where every roar, splash, and rustle ignites the senses and leaves listeners on the edge of their seats. "Untamed Pursuits" isn't just a podcast—it's an adrenaline-fueled odyssey that will redefine your perception of nature and leave you craving more. Buckle up for the ride of a lifetime!
Untamed Pursuits
Episode 27: Preserving Culture Through the Hunt
We explore the intricate relationship between hunters, ranchers, and the natural world through Kendall-Ray Kaschula's experiences in Zimbabwe. The conversation highlights the balance of managing predators, the importance of tracking dogs, and the ethical considerations of hunting as a means of wildlife management and sustenance.
• Kendall’s upbringing and its impact on her outdoor skills
• The significance of hunting in the context of ranching
• Challenges faced with predators like hyenas and their management
• The invaluable role of tracking dogs in hunting practices
• Ethical hunting practices and waste reduction in wildlife management
• The importance of passing down knowledge through generations
As the world gets louder and louder, the lessons of our natural world become harder and harder to hear, but they are still available to those who know where to listen. I'm Jerry Ouellette and I was honoured to serve as Ontario's Minister of Natural Resources. However, my journey into the woods didn't come from politics. Rather, it came from my time in the bush and a mushroom. In 2015, I was introduced to the birch-hungry fungus known as chaga, a tree conch with centuries of medicinal use by Indigenous peoples all over the globe.
Speaker 1:After nearly a decade of harvest use, testimonials and research, my skepticism has faded to obsession and I now spend my life dedicated to improving the lives of others through natural means. But that's not what the show is about. My pursuit of the strange mushroom and my passion for the outdoors has brought me to the places and around the people that are shaped by our natural world. On Outdoor Journal Radio's Under the Canopy podcast, I'm going to take you along with me to see the places, meet the people. That will help you find your outdoor passion and help you live a life close to nature. And under the canopy Find Under the Canopy now on Spotify, apple Podcasts or wherever else you get your podcasts. So so, so.
Speaker 2:So, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so. And we are back with the untamed pursuits podcast on the outdoor journal radio network. I've been waiting for this one. Uh, I'm here, with rider nolten and our guests. Uh, we just have to keep this connection. We found a connection to Zimbabwe. That is solid. So we're just going to keep this party going. From last week, ryder Kendall, that was what a week last week was. I learned so much and I got to say I've been Googling all these plants and animals and now I have even more questions. How are you today, ryder? You know?
Speaker 3:I'm doing great. We were so lucky. I still can't believe we got that connection to work, you know, with our guest, kendall Rae Kishula from Zimbabwe, who is, you know, as we speak, she's on her family's ranch in South Central Zimbabwe, which is in Southern Africa, and we've just had an amazing show last week listening to Kendall talk about you know, her family's day-to-day life on the ranch and and what her you know her days are like, and and and what it's like, you know, being in the middle of a great big cattle operation and it's in such a challenging, tough, dry, arid environment and and and. So we're we're definitely taking advantage of what we happen to have here, which is some really good connections. Obviously, on the link here was Zimbabwe. So, without further ado, kendall Ray Kashula from Zimbabwe is our guest again this week. And, kendall, how are you? Thanks for staying on with us.
Speaker 4:Welcome back. Oh no, I'm glad to be back on. It's been very, very cool and I'm actually really enjoying talking to you guys. I've been so excited for these podcasts. So how are you guys all doing?
Speaker 2:We're doing great. I think you can be our security detail for the Untamed Pursuits podcast. Anybody who's killed a wildebeest to me, right up the ranks instantly.
Speaker 3:Yeah, killed a wildebeest as a teenager, by the way, Jamie, you know not, you know at a pretty young age, as we said. Definitely, Kendall would definitely rank among the very top. If you were to do the badass rankings of our guests, and of course, including you and I, you and I would be at the very bottom of that ranking, but Kendall would be at the very top of the ranking.
Speaker 3:So get the title ready, she's back. She's back. I'm glad to have her back. Hey, listen, we we had to wrap up the last show because poor Jamie had a million questions about this the hunting part of your life, and and how in the world you, you life, and how in the world you deal with the animals that are constantly trying to, the predators that are constantly trying to prey on your cattle and, of course, the calves, right, and so let's dive right into that, kennell. Let's go back first, though, and tell us. You talked about your family's history on the ranch and your day-to-day life on the ranch, but tell us about you know how did you who introduced you to hunting, and how did you learn about hunting, you know, in the early days, like kind of, how did you get involved in that part of the outdoor world?
Speaker 4:So I was very, very lucky. I have quite a large family and so many of them hunt. I can't tell you how many cages I'm related to. They're either an uncle or a cousin or something like that. And then my dad grew up hunting. He used to love to hunt and he actually at one point was doing his hunting license before he went into farming. So from very, very young I had so much exposure to it and then I think I must have been going hunting with my dad. I must have been three or four Like when we started out. It was simple things we used to go shoot doves and I used to be like put on walls and roofs and all of that to go fetch them and then obviously playing game. And then we lived in Zambia for a while so we didn't hunt so much there.
Speaker 4:And then when we moved out of this ranch, um in southern Zim and the Lofelt, there was just a lot of opportunity for it. Um, the property had a lot of wildebeest which give the cattle and the disease that you can't cure and you can't dose again. So you really wanted to get rid of wildebeest from sharing paddocks with your cattle. So there's's great opportunity there and the low-file is still very wild. There's so much game, there's so much game movement, especially in your next years, between kind of. You know, gonrejo, we're a few hours from the Savi Valley Conservancy, we're almost against the Bubi Valley Conservancy, so any game moving out of those areas it can come through us, come near us, and so we get a lot of what we call in Zimbabwe PAC, which is problem animal control. So basically, like, sometimes you have a rogue, leopard or lion killing cattle in the reserve areas where the local people live, and after a certain amount obviously you can't leave it. So then we'll be called to hunt that.
Speaker 4:Um, sometimes elephant raiding crops, buffalo was very, very common because they carry foot and mouth disease so they're not allowed near cattle. That's a veterinary law. So like, if we had any of those come near the ranch we had to shoot them. So mostly I was just lucky to end up somewhere with so much exposure and to have a dad who had grown up hunting and he knew how to hunt because, yeah, he taught me how to use a rifle the first. However many times that I did it he did it with me. So definitely as a direct teacher, mainly from him, and then also just lucky enough to be so exposed to it.
Speaker 3:And with the wildebeest. And again for the listeners when you say buffalo, you're talking about the African Cape buffalo, very, very dangerous animal, yeah, yeah. And can you? If are the, do you use those animals for camp meat and bush meat when you take a wildebeest? One of the things that's always amazed me about my time in Africa is how you know animals are used, everything's used, and so if the animals, if you do think those animals, have those diseases, are you still able to use the meat or can you not use the meat? I'm curious about that.
Speaker 4:I'm like wildebeest and the Cape buffalo, which carry snot sickness and putainath disease. It doesn't affect us at all. So, yeah, we don't really shoot anything that doesn't get processed, be it on the ranch or a PAC. All of that meat goes to the people local to the area. Obviously, a small portion goes to parks and wildlife department. My trackers will get some the skins and ivory and everything goes to parks for their records. So, yeah, definitely all gets used. One thing I can say is and you know such a big thing with the hunting as we don't, we don't believe in waste. Um, especially obviously the economy is not at its peak at the moment, so we have to. You know, everyone is only too keen to get that protein in some areas when you shoot an elephant, that's the only protein source that those people will have for the whole year. So yeah, we definitely we're very, we're very good, especially from park side and from the local people side, and even as hunters we really try not to waste anything.
Speaker 3:Well I think it's so great you raised that point. You know, when you think about a village, that an elephant might be the only protein that village gets for the whole year, and just let that really sink in with people and what that really means. There is no other option, there's no. They're not going to a store to get supplies. The elephants very well could have destroyed the crops that they were trying to grow in the village and so that's such a pointed comment that might be the only protein they get for a year. The significance, you know, starts to sink in.
Speaker 3:I've been lucky to spend a lot of time in Africa myself and I've never been to a place where so many parts, every single thing is used, all the way down to the sinew and the, you know, and the marrow and the bone. I mean every single part of the animal is used. And of course you know some of those camp, the local native cooks and what they can do in those bush camps with all every I mean every imaginal part of a Cape buffalo there is and it's incredible to watch it go to use and obviously tastes great. I mean we have these great native cooks that can prepare it with, you know all the peppers and spices and all these things they have, that they've grown and it's good food, it's good meat, but nothing goes to waste and it's really it's amazing to see that. You know, see that in action, where you're, you know it's going to, like you said, different, whether it's a village or parks and rec or your camp meet, all of it's going to use.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you know, I'm actually really glad it came up because it's a very especially PAC can be so misunderstood by a lot of people, because you know it's an opportunity to hunt something and you're not, it's not a paid safari. So you know a lot of people are like, well, you just like like hunting, so this is just an opportunity for you to shoot something, but it's also it's like one big cycle because so, like the local people, yeah, you know, we don't have. They don't have farming equipment. So when they're planting and they're working in their fields, they do it by hand. You know their plow is still pulled by oxen. They are walking by hand and planting. They're walking with a bucket and watering the whole field. They're looking after that themselves with more blood, sweat and tears than people realize, because it's a bubble. We're so behind in time. It's not machinery or anything out there. And then, if that grows up, because obviously there's no pivot system, so you have to hope that they have enough water, hope that they've managed to make enough money to get fertilizer when this finally grows.
Speaker 4:This is where a lot of our PSE comes from. You have hippo, you have elephant. Come into these fields. They completely destroy it. I mean, I've done a lot of PSE and you've been places where the field is just annihilated. It's ridiculous.
Speaker 4:And then you know people, a lot of them have this opinion of, well, you still stood and shoot it, or the elephant can't help it, it's coming through and yeah, it's not the right take on it at all. You know, these are people's livelihoods that get destroyed literally in one night. One large herd of elephant through a maze field, that is their entire crop for the season gone. They can't re-sow it. And yeah, that's why it's lucky as well that we do meat distribution the way that we do, because getting that back is like one of the few sources of protein. But it also helps cater for the loss of the crops that they lost in the meantime, because they take very, very heavy crop losses and you know you can shoot one elephant but it doesn't bring back a whole field of maize or a whole field of sweet potatoes.
Speaker 3:Well, and the elephant population in Zimbabwe has gotten a lot of coverage recently. You know, in trying to in leadership in that part of Africa, trying to explain to the rest of the world, you know we've got parts of Zimbabwe that you know a manageable herd of elephant for this area might be 5,000 elephant and they'll have 50,000 elephant in a certain area and so it's good for folks to realize that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I know it is. You know it's so important to talk about it so that people know, because obviously you know hunting in general there can be so much controversy but, like in Zim, there's a lot of animals that people think there's so few of. And I mean I live, yeah, I grew an Apache and I can tell you it's not true. I'd be surprised if it was true a quarter of the time.
Speaker 3:Well, tell us about so. Your dad introduced you to hunting and you've come from a family that you know that introduced you to the outdoors and and um, and obviously you started at a young age. You know that's incredible. You're talking about your first. You know experience being, you know, uh, charged by a wildebeest at a young age. And so tell us about, um, you know some of those early days. What was it like? Were they there to kind of coach you along the way, or were you learning on your own? Or how did that go?
Speaker 4:It was a good mix. So I was 14 when we moved here and for the first two years it was a bit of a mix. I used to do a lot of bow hunting at that time. So I was in blinds a lot hunting with a bow, which I think is like such a great way to get into hunting because it's a lot more complex than a rifle, so it makes you think about like your shot placement and your distance, like it makes you a lot more mindful if you don't want to be tracking a wounded something for three days. So I did a lot of bow hunting those first two years, um, and then your other shooting and hunting with my dad the one supervisor cattle supervisor on the ranch used to do a lot of hunting on unesi many, many years ago when the system, yeah, was totally different how we've come in and there's a lot of hunting and so a few times he took me out. But so what, the problem we had is after about two years of this and by then I got in my first hunting dog. I got my first hound when I was 15. So after two years of like I'd learned enough that I still had so much to learn but I could technically like hunt alone and all of that, but obviously it is very backwards Africa, it's a lot of bush.
Speaker 4:I'm a girl as well, and so my parents, especially my dad, was not very keen for me to like be off hunting, because, I'll tell you, I was ready to just be. Like, give me a rifle, dump me in a paddock, I'll see you tonight. Like no GPS, I didn't even think about carrying water. We grew up, you know, drinking from the cattle, troughs, with the cows. It sounds terrible, but it's so hot down here there comes a point where you don't really care what you're drinking from. So, like I was just, you know, obviously still so naive as to some of the trouble you could run into and I was just like, yeah, I think I need a gun, let me go, because you know like, hunting for me it's something that I love to do, and it's not just the shooting aspect of it, it's the adrenaline, it's the excitement, and there's even moments, you know, like when you're in a bow, blind, and you're happy to just be sitting there, like I've had gonna sit here and watch, like it's just amazing, and so I wanted to be outside all the time. I was homeschooled. So, like my school was very flexible and yeah, I can just remember like so many fights in the house, like it was really really, really bad, and then eventually my dad was like, well, you know, we can't keep this up and so he hired a tracker.
Speaker 4:So for those I'm listening maybe don't know all the hunters in zim. They have one or two or even three trackers. You know one who can drive, one who can skin one, who does the tracking, and these are basically local zimbabweans but who are so, so incredibly skilled in their trade and in their craft. Um tracking animals, skinning animals, the I mean the things you can learn from them, just where to find water, what this track sort of means. You know the one track on the property that I hunt with and he hunts with me.
Speaker 4:Now, actually, it's pretty much what we grew up Like. If you go hunting with him, it is like reading the audio version of the bush newspaper. By every step he will tell you what happened, what it was doing, what it was thinking, why it did this. It's absolutely remarkable.
Speaker 4:And as PHs you know every PH has at least one like tracker who's their main tracker, and then you know there's other members of the team, your skimmers and your drivers and everyone. But so for me, my dad, he put it out with, you know, bush Telegraph in Zimbabwe, which is just how the local people know everything that's going on, regardless of time, space or distance, and he put it out there that he was looking for one and this much. He was actually a retired tracker, slash, skinner, slash, sort of everything that had worked for a hunting company in his younger days and then he had had a back injury and retired and not gone back and had been retired for around five years. And then he heard of this job offer and he's from West Nicholson, it's sort of between Byte Ridge and Bulawayo.
Speaker 3:And he was from that area. Yeah, famous famous leopard country.
Speaker 4:Exactly, and he was from the Ndebele tribe and so he came out, yeah, and he worked with me for about three years and he was literally like we'll say tracker and this and that, but he was literally just my babysitter to keep me from like killing myself spontaneously in the bush.
Speaker 4:But he was absolutely amazing. So much of my hunting from lions to baits, to bush trees, plants, tracking the way I think I learned from him and you know, even outside of hunting and bush, I learned a lot about life from him. You know, he was obviously been alive a very long time, experienced so much, been through so much um, and he was absolutely brilliant. He taught me to skin everything from skinning to how to keep track of my skins in the shed, to life choices, decisions. He was my best giver of advice and for the three years that he worked with me he was probably my best friend and he grew me up in so many ways and that was definitely probably having him come and be in my life was very, very life-changing and, yeah, it was just very, very, very special.
Speaker 3:Kendall, is he your tracker today? You said for three years is he no longer your tracker.
Speaker 4:Well, unfortunately he was already quite elderly so he got sick and he retired. But a few months before his retirement he had actually brought his son on because at that time I needed a second hand to help with the dogs and everything. And so it's been. It's been really wonderful because I sort of stayed a family affair. So I'm still in touch with him. I visit whenever I can.
Speaker 4:His son now works for me, is absolutely brilliant with the dogs, like loves the hounds more than anything. I think if you put me on a cliff and a hound on the cliff, he will pick the hound like just adores them and it's, yeah, it's been really amazing. So I have him now and then I have my PH tutor, because if you're doing your hunting license and you are like you're a apprentice for someone, my PH tutor Skinner. His son now works for me as a tracker. He's very, very good.
Speaker 4:And then whenever I go away to do hunts with the dogs and those kind of safaris and even Safia and Mirage, that very first tracker who is now a Catholic supervisor, who I did the first walk and stalk I ever did I did with him. So he's known me since I was very young. He goes with me as well, and so the three of them are kind of my team, which is really great. I've been very blessed to have a good team of guys and it makes all the difference, especially, you know, with hunting, your clients, your areas, the times, the animal, everything changes. But like us, the dogs and this team, it's the only thing that's the same throughout the whole season, so it's very special.
Speaker 3:You know, hunting is not shooting. Hunting is the tracking right and it's patterning animals and understanding the animal and the shooting is kind of a final step to it. But that's not the hunting part. The hunting part is putting yourself in a position to take that shot. And I get asked you know who are some of the best hunters that I've had the opportunity to spend time with? And here in the US, you know, you think about the bow hunters, as you said. You know the bow hunting is such an intimate, you know way to hunt and you know, and the whitetail hunters in the US, you know, in my mind, are among the very best. And the bow hunter, the whitetail bow hunters in the US, you know, would need to be at the top of that list. Turkey hunting in the US, you know, is some of our best hunters.
Speaker 3:But if I really were to think about who are the most talented hunters, you know, tracking those animals, the native trackers of Africa, it's just a. You can't even explain it. It's almost mystical to watch these people go through the bush and see things, as you said, see things we cannot see. And as they're explaining or as they're seeing it, they're going back in time and they're seeing the image of what actually took place, but to us it's invisible and you just sit there and wonder and watch them, and watch them, and sure enough, you know, five hours later, there's the eland that you've been tracking for, you know, for two days and they took you to it. It's just, you know, it's almost a mystical thing.
Speaker 4:It's absolutely miraculous, like for me, because, like, obviously, growing up homeschooled on the ranch, I was around, I've had the privilege of being around so many of our local people so much and obviously, having that track with my and it is miraculous, you know, even now I'll go out because obviously, like, I still have so much to learn and we'll go out and be learning and be going over things and he'll look at a track and tell me something. And so often I look at it and I'm like, well, just how, how do you know this? How do you see this? How can you pick up on this? And it's not really something that he can even explain and it's not to withhold information at all, but I think for them it is just such an integral part of who they are, how they grew up, being that you know you could work side by side with them every day for 30 years and you still won't measure up the same. You know they're seeing it through an entirely different, entirely different lens than we see it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a good way to say it. Tell us about, and I'm, I'm are those your dogs? We're starting to hear in the background.
Speaker 4:I know you've got no, no, no, I love it.
Speaker 3:No, I'm so sorry. No, no, no, I love it. No, no, no, it's the best background sound.
Speaker 2:It's the perfect intro to the next part of the show. My dogs heard your dogs barking. Now they're singing upstairs too.
Speaker 4:I'm so sorry.
Speaker 2:No, no, it's great, it's great and it's real.
Speaker 3:There's no problem at all. I love it. So tell us now you know you grew up hunting and, and and and now you're you're working with tracking dogs and and tell us about. You know, were dogs always a big, important part of your life on the ranch? You're, you know you're working with dogs literally that you know or you take out to track. You know track leopards with this pack of dogs you have. Tell us about what got you into working with dogs and how long you've been doing it.
Speaker 4:So the miraculous thing, like it's quite an interesting story. I think I said in the last episode as well, like you can't beat your genetics. So when my dad was doing his hunting license, he used to run a pack of hounds for his cousin. So they weren't his own but he ran them for somebody else and he loved it. And you know, when I was very, very young, during the hunting season, maybe a couple of times where he'd be away and obviously it was to do these leopard hunts and that's kind of all that I remembered of it. When I was like 14, you know, I didn't have a lot of memory of the time. I'd been so young and before the opportunity to come back to the ranch even came up, I was raiding, I think, old albums or picture boxes in the house and I found all these old pictures of my dad in his hunting days when he'd been doing a lot of it and you know pictures with the dogs and the cats and all of that and like it was like this switch flipped in my head and I can remember looking at it and just being like well, now this is what I want to do. And at that time I remember being like well, I'll have to be back in Zimb, because in Zambia the hunting industry and everything is quite a lot different. And it wasn't even four or five months that this job offer came up and we moved back and I can remember you know I'd spent, I'd been in Zambia from seven to 14. So I'd settled in quite well and I remember being a bit sad about leaving but just thinking to myself if I move to this ranch, I'm getting my own dogs.
Speaker 4:And we were Yara a year and I got into bow hunting and that same cousin, my dad, had run dogs, for he used to breed a litter of butyx, like every year. And so I remember thinking to myself I had to be a bit strategic because my parents were not going to be like Kendall, you can just get 15 dogs. And so I went to them and I was like, no, I bow hunt so much. Now I really should have a blood dog, because do we want to leave wounded things? And I really laid it on thick, like you have no idea there was like all the daughter charms came out and, sure enough, like two months after my 15th birthday, I got my first blue tick. I still hunt with her now. And yeah, from there it just went up. So, lucky for me, because my dad loved it, he still loves it. So I got that one dog and then, you know, me and him were kind of in it together like yeah, you know, she needs a teammate. And then she accidentally had puppies. We had a bit of a mistake and that was the beginning of the end, for, like anyone who didn't want to have lots of dogs, I kept two puppies from that litter. Then I got another one and then we bred her. Over the years I've gotten a few dogs from other places and it just really built up. So, yeah, it started, I would say, when I was 15.
Speaker 4:The first cat work we ever did was two years later, not even when I was 15, the first cat work we ever did was two years later, not even a bit less than two years later. I was 16 at the time and I wounded a lion and I caught it with my two dogs because for many years I just had two. They were like dream team, wounded game, leopard, lion, anything and everything. And you know, after that cat, that's kind of just where it all came from. She had puppies. I kept some, some.
Speaker 4:I think my very first wounded work that I did for someone with clients, because before we were trailing and catching cats we just did wounded ones. Um, I think I must have been, I must have been 18, 17 or 18. We did one cat um for clients, for our ph clients, that wounded the cats. He, luckily enough on my wounded line, this ph had been there and he had seen the dogs work. So when he had his mishap with the client they called the dogs, he called that one. And then the year after that was kind of my first official season and I remember being so happy because when I did the dogs I was like you must have your first official hunting season while you're still a teenager, and on my very first season I was 19 and then, yeah, I was sort of just been climbing up from there, so I almost missed the mark, but we just made it.
Speaker 3:That's incredible. Again, jamie, just for the record, her first tracking job with the hounds was on a wounded lion. So just putting things in perspective talk tough about muskie.
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Speaker 3:So tell us on the show last or wherever you get your podcasts. So tell us on the show. Last week you were telling us about your day-to-day life at the ranch. You get up and obviously calving season and all that is part of your day-to-day life. And you mentioned coming across.
Speaker 3:You said if you know if the hyenas had gotten in and taken one of your cattle, then you would then have to go and try to track those hyenas, cause obviously that then becomes a challenge for the, for the, for the cattle. Tell us about that. Like if you get up in the morning you're doing your day and sure enough there's a hyena kill. How does that change your day? What do you do? And kind of walk us through that process and tell us about you know a lot of folks listening aren't going to really understand this animal. You know they've seen it on videos You've. You know you've watched the Lion King and they're scary on the movie. But you just can't imagine I'm assuming these are spotted hyena and you just can't imagine how big and scary these critters are.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so well, before I start, just like put it out there for everyone. Obviously, everyone you know has their way of hunting hyenas and doing things. This is just how I've come out doing it from learning from PHS trackers and my own stuff. So definitely like, don't take anything I say as the only method. It's just the way I do it. But basically what happens is if they find an hyena kill.
Speaker 4:So, like you say, for people who don't know, hyenas are technically classified as scavengers. You know the people who the animals that come after the lions or like come to leopard kills and try to steal the kill. And you know they're portrayed as being very kind of, cowardly and scavengy and like sweepers of the bush. But it is a very serious misconception. Once they are so capable of killing their own prey, they do not need to scavenge. Obviously they will. But even a lion and a leopard, if it finds something fresh enough, will scavenge, because why exert energy unnecessarily? And so they are very effective killers, especially once they learn something.
Speaker 4:You know, a wild animal is like any animal. It learns its process, it learns what it's doing and so, like our hyenas become specifically cattle-killing hyenas. You know, in a bad month we'll have them catch a steer or a heifer every two or three days and if you put that in a year, that is such a sincere loss to the property. So basically, if I'm at work and they find an ahina kill, they'll get a hold of me On that day. I leave work early because for me a big thing. So the way we hunt the ahinas, you either do it with a caller, so like you go out and you put on a caller. I think you guys use callers as well for stuff in the States, if I'm not mistaken. Absolutely.
Speaker 3:No predator callers, sure For coyotes and other predators?
Speaker 4:absolutely yeah. So, yanzin, we do the same thing for eidenas. You can use, you know, a call that's replicating their noise. You know, spotted eidenas have a very distinct like booping call. I won't replicate it for anyone on here, but it is like very distinct. Or maybe them on a feeding frenzy where they've been recorded feeding.
Speaker 4:Distress calls are my personal favorite, especially um the jackrabbit distress. I have called in leopard, hyena and lion on that one call so I absolutely love it. But we've used callers so much out here and it has worked really well. But obviously, you know, hyenas are so intelligent they've wised up to being called. So most of the hunting now is done from a blind, which is basically where they have a kill if you can get them feeding on a bait so owls don't really eat baits anymore. Again, they've been quite educated.
Speaker 4:Obviously over a long period of time of hunting you'll set up like a hide or shelter, um, and then sit there at night and wait for them, because ahinas are nocturnal so you know they're not going to be coming in before dark. In fact, like I did, an average statistic percentage on New New Jersey and like 95% of our Ahina's are coming in between 1.30 am and just before sun up. So you'll start sitting maybe just before dark, but you're not really going to have any action until so late at night. So if they find an Ahina kill, they'll call me. I'll leave work early because for me setting up a blind time is such a big thing, because the earlier you finish your setup you can leave and then all of your scent now will rise. Luckily in the low fall it's so hot. You know, the hotter it is, the quicker your scent is rising. So if I'm a bit late it's okay. But I like to get there and be done my setup by two or three in the afternoon and then when I go back I literally just climb into my blind and sit. So they'll call me, I'll leave work. I'll go check it out.
Speaker 4:Often we have to clear a shooting lane, so basically from the meet to where my blind will be, make sure it's open enough that I can see with my rifle. We will tie the meat to the closest tree or some anchor. And this is really remarkable to me. Always the strength of a predator leopards and hyenas both to pick up an entire carcass and pull it is absolutely unbelievable Because we have a fantastic leopard population out here. So often I'm sitting on an hyena kill and I have leopards come in and feed. Often I'm sitting on an Aina kill and I have leopards come in and feed and I learned the hard way a couple of times that if you don't tie it up, they just pull it out of your lane and then you're completely messed up for the rest of the night. So you have to tie that in place and then start your sit.
Speaker 4:So I like to get into the blind early. So if I'm going to sit in a blind blind I'm the person who sits the whole night and then, because I'm dedicated an entire night to it, I'm very pedantic about little things. So like I want to get in there early. So before dark things have already been quiet and settled for an hour and a half. Um, my smell from walking the blind is already at an hour and a half to drift away and I'm actually I'm not a fun person to sit with because, like I don't want to hear myself or the other person breathing too loudly, let alone any other noise. You know, I'm very much like if we're going to sit here for an entire 12 hours, we are not wrecking our chances because we made a noise or we knocked a cup or we unscrewed a bottle cap, so like once you're in a blind with me, you're in a blind with me, you're in a blind with me.
Speaker 4:And a lot of that comes from many years ago when I was around 17. We had a bit of like a hyena explosion on the property and a bunch of PAHs came out and were hunting them. We had about two guys that came consistently. Chap was actually one of them and so from him and the other PAHs I learned so much of my blind and baiting stuff. And Chap's friend was like so, so strict in the blind.
Speaker 4:I used to sit with him and if I made a noise I used to get like a flick on the leg or on the ear and just be quiet, don't make a noise, we're sitting, which at the time obviously I remember being like it can't be this serious. But I learned it that way and I try to keep up that standard. Now. You know, with hunting and with life in general, I think if you're going to do something, you don't want to come out the other end saying maybe I would have had a better outcome if I had done X, y or Z Like if you fail, you must fail, having tried the absolute most that you could think of.
Speaker 3:You know, chap, we're talking about a mutual friend that Kendall and I have a guy named Chap Esterhuisen from Bulawayu, which is in southern Zimbabwe, and he Chap is. I've had the opportunity to spend a lot of time with Chap out in the bush as well and he's, he is a bushman. I mean, he really is.
Speaker 6:And he, I had a chance.
Speaker 3:Oh, he's such a good hunter and he's, you know, he's quiet and he's patient.
Speaker 3:And I remember, I remember going with him and his team and I want to say his tracker I think had worked with his dad and, as you said, that relationship between the tracker and the hunter or the property owner and the ranch manager and all those, I mean that relationship between those various teams, those generations, and it's so deep and important.
Speaker 3:And I remember Chap and I going off a remote part of Matetse, which is northwest of where you are at New Inetse it's, you know, up by Wangi National Park for our listeners, towards Victoria Falls and being on a real remote road and the trackers, of course, you know stopping and you know watching the tracks in the dirt road and trying to figure out what had happened the night before. And I remember a chap looking around and kind of whispering to me he goes, you know they had a there's a buffalo kill here. The lions were here last night and they killed a buffalo and that buffalo, you know, is 50 or a hundred yards off in that high grass and you know he just felt it and he knew it and we got off the truck, we got off of his old Rover.
Speaker 3:Chap's an old mechanic and he always drives these old Rovers and we got off and went into the he loves his old Rovers and we got off and jumped into the you know and walked off into the high grass and, damn it, up, 75 yards into the high grass was a lion kill of a female Cape buffalo. And he knew it, he just knew it, he felt it and it was incredible to just be around somebody who's such a Bushman he truly is. So I think it's important too to to make the listeners understand you're, this is your livelihood. I mean, your family are, you guys are ranchers, you're cattle ranchers, and part of maintaining that operation is managing the predators that are on the ranch and that's a daily part of your life. And so when you're talking about setting up lines and trying to outsmart these very smart, very capable hyenas, you know that's not something you're doing on a trip and then you go home. That is your. That's part of ongoing daily life, right On keeping and protecting, you know, your cattle on the ranch.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it is. It's very, it's very consistent, hey, especially like some of our hyenas. Now the thing with them is, you know hyenas are planned so even if you shoot X amount and like you haven't wounded any, you didn't miss any, the very fact that you killed that one, their intellect is so high that the other animals in that clan have now picked up just from losing that member. So you know, we have hyenas now that kill cattle but they don't come back to feed to this at this cow, or maybe they jump a few nights and then they come. You know we had a gang of our humans once. That's like outsmart them. You'd have to sit on a kill for three days and like three days of all nighters a bit of a tall order. So, like when I said I sit with the track and eventually we're doing shifts, you know one of us is sleeping, one of us is awake, because you know you're constantly trying to outsmart them.
Speaker 4:Lately I've been using a tree stand a lot, um, like you guys have. I actually got the design idea from the states. I saw a bunch of pictures of one and my dad um, he bought me one, yeah, on the ranch workshop and so lately I've been using that a lot, um, to try get on the head of them, which has been a whole new experience, because obviously you're very high up, it only takes one person. So now I sit alone, I kind of strap myself in because if I fall asleep that won't be. You know, that'll be quite a story actually. So it's been very, very different. But I think like it's very frustrating, especially like you say. You know obviously we don't own the property. We work on it so for like all of this predator control and cat work and stuff, I get paid for that. So it is definitely career livelihood and it can be so frustrating. But just from a perspective of hunting and being outside, it's actually amazing, like, if I put my frustrations aside, it is so interesting to sit there and be thinking you know what are they thinking? How can I outsmart them? How can can I go around them? It's a different kind of hunting and you know it can take such a long time. It took me three months of hunting once to shoot a single aihina, because you know we live here and the track is us.
Speaker 4:You learn these animals on a personal level, even though you're obviously not seeing them. From their tracks. You learn where they walk, where they drink, what do they usually do? Um, how many of them are they? Where have they come from, what direction? You know the one track on the property. Yeah, obviously he helps manage cattle on this, the section where the hyenas are the problem the most, and he is so involved in them. He can tell you, you know, tomorrow night they're probably going to walk this way. The night after that they're probably going to walk that way, um, and so, even from him, like I was saying, he's one of the guys that works with me now and you learn a lot and it's just, it's very interactive hunting. It keeps you guessing, keeps on your feet. So at the time it's like terrible, but when you eventually succeed and you come out of it, you know it's very just, from a skill level, a learning level, it's verying.
Speaker 3:I had a chance to spend two or three days following Chap as he was scouting locations up in Matetsi and he talked to me about BOB. He called it B-O-B Bait, obstacle, blind, and the mindset of the obstacle. In other words, if you get a place that, whether it's hyena or leopard or whatever it is you're trying to outsmart, that, whether it's hyena or leopard or whatever it is you're trying to outsmart. He talked about the science of picking that spot and understanding it from the standpoint of the bait and the blind, but also the obstacle. What's the obstacle gonna be that distracts or that diverts the attention of whatever it is you're trying to hunt?
Speaker 3:There's so much thought that goes into it. I was just, we weren't hunting, I mean, and he was just there with his team just scouting you know parts of Matetsi and I just was lucky enough to be able to go along and keep my mouth shut and just listen and learn. For you know two or three days of watching these guys just, you know, explore the river, the dry river, channels in Matetsi, and you know evaluating different trees and situations and you know, and watching them study the elements of bait, obstacle, blind. It was so cool.
Speaker 1:As the world gets louder and louder, the lessons of our natural world become harder and harder to hear, but they are still available to those who know where to listen. I'm Jerry Ouellette and I was honoured to serve as Ontario's Minister of Natural Resources. However, my journey into the woods didn't come from politics. Rather, it came from my time in the bush and a mushroom. In 2015, I was introduced to the birch-hungry fungus known as chaga, a tree conch with centuries of medicinal use by Indigenous peoples all over the globe.
Speaker 1:After nearly a decade of harvest use, testimonials and research, my skepticism has faded to obsession and I now spend my life dedicated to improving the lives of others through natural means. But that's not what the show is about. My pursuit of the strange mushroom and my passion for the outdoors has brought me to the places and around the people that are shaped by our natural world. On Outdoor Journal Radio's Under the Canopy podcast, I'm going to take you along with me to see the places, meet the people that will help you find your outdoor passion and help you live a life close to nature and under the canopy. And help you live a life close to nature and under the canopy. Find Under the Canopy now on Spotify, apple Podcasts or wherever else you get your podcasts.
Speaker 8:How did a small-town sheet metal mechanic come to build one of Canada's most iconic fishing lodges? I'm your host, Steve Nitzwicky, and you'll find out about that and a whole lot more on the Outdoor Journal Radio Network's newest podcast, Diaries of a Lodge Owner. But this podcast will be more than that. Every week on Diaries of a Lodge Owner, I'm going to introduce you to a ton of great people, share their stories of our trials, tribulations and inspirations, Learn and have plenty of laughs along the way.
Speaker 7:Meanwhile we're sitting there bobbing along trying to figure out how to catch a bass and we both decided one day we were going to be on television doing a fishing show.
Speaker 3:My hands get sore a little bit when I'm reeling in all those bass in the summertime, but that's might be for more fishing than it was punching.
Speaker 7:You so confidently?
Speaker 8:you said hey, Pat, have you ever eaten a drum? Find Diaries of a Lodge Owner now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast.