Big and toothy best describe male baboons, also known as bobo dogs. Gotta love them as ugly as they are! Baboons are a very challenging game animal to hunt. It only took me four safaris to finally score and then I plain cleaned up! I shot four in Zimbabwe with the .375H&H and took the fifth in the South African Limpopo with an arrow. Bobbejaan is the Afrikaans name for baboon.
Very versatile, they can make for good leopard baits. I shot my first one while elephant hunting out of the Mariatsoro spike camp at Chewore North in northern Zimbabwe. We put him with an impala doe I shot earlier to entice leopard. No luck with the cat hunting there but there were lions in the area each night. What an awesome sound to hear the lion as he roars!
The first baboon was taken in Mariatsoro one day while walking in the Chewore River bed. We heard a troop of baboons barking in a small gorge that veered off from the main riverbed. We quickly located them and when they saw the group of us they climbed up into the high rocks on each side of the gorge. Once up in the rocks they forgot about my hunting party. Pictured below, this dog was foraging and stopped behind a bush, he fell with one shot. The brush did not hinder the Woodleigh soft one bit. This baboon was very old, his canines worn down to nubs.
After taking my elephant we moved camps to add some other dangerous big game found in the new area. From our second fly camp we relied on the Zambezi River as our "road" and thus traveled by boat to reach other hunting spots along the river, still within Chewore North. A large troop of baboons was seen from the boat as we were coasting down the river looking for hippos. We spotted a big dog walking along a sand bar on the shoreline. My professional hunter, Buzz, gave me a look and said something like, "I suppose you want to go for them?" I immediately replied I wanted to fill my quota! So we coasted past the troop hoping to set up an ambush by faking them out. We ditched the boat a bit further up stream and hiked back. The baboons all took the rocky hills rising up to form the sides of the gorge. They seemed to feel at ease once at a bit of altitude. Three of them found out otherwise with the .375H&H easily reaching them on their rocky perches. Two were very prime dogs and the third was another very old one that was in poor physical shape and had teeth worn to the gums. Most of his tail was gone. I had the dog in the center skinned for a full mount. They were all taken in about a 15-minute time span.
My paying job is as a Forensic Scientist and my specialty is fingerprint analysis. I happened to notice that baboons have similar patterns on their hands and feet to humans. A close up of the ridge detail on the palmar surface. Now take a look at your own hands and feet.
What big teeth you have! Notice the dog-like snout? This is how they get their other nickname, bob dogs.
Number five was taken in South Africa in the Limpopo Province at our hunting area north of the Soutpansberg Range. I was bow hunting at a water hole hoping to see a big bushbuck show himself to me. This bobo came in alone which I thought was strange. He initially came in silently but very close to the blind but by the time I got ready to draw he had moved across the water hole and was now 27 yards away. That’s further than I like to shoot but he was not paying attention so I gave it a go. My PH was in a different blind on the same side of the water hole the baboon was now located. He could see the whole show as I launched an arrow. The PH said he figured if the baboon didn’t die from the arrow that he’d have died from a broken neck. When I let the arrow go the bobo swung his head so fast to see what was coming his way it was a blur. The arrow entered his upper right arm and plunged through his chest with a quick double lung kill. The baboon only went 20 yards before expiring.
One thing I noticed was of all animals I have bow hunted, only the baboon did not react and try to jump the string. I wondered then if that was because they have eyes forward and not to the side like antelope and deer? I will have to keep track of my future observations.
It was early, about 1630 hours when I got this guy so I left him lay in hopes of still getting a chance at a bushbuck. I had thought the baboon crawled and had hidden under a Fine Thorn bush as he died. Things settled down quickly at the waterhole and as the evening wore on all kinds of other game came wandering in. Nyala (some real whopper bulls!), kudu, waterbuck and then all the rest of the bobo’s showed up. Baboons are very active and boisterous animals and most impressive when en mass. All of them came to the water from the direction where the baboon was lying. I was really starting to worry that as the big troop of baboons came in they were going to find the body and drag it off.
Sunset finally came and I got out of the blind to find that my bobo was actually lying out in front of the bush in full view! My broken arrow lay just to the side of him. None of the other animals were apparently concerned. There were dozens of different hoof prints and paw prints with in inches of him! If you ever make it to Africa please consider adding this challenging animal to your bag.
For more information concerning African safaris or African travel please feel free to contact me.
