“Please tell me we won’t be in a mokoro when we go onto the Myanja River in pursuit of the antelope that walks on water.” Before our Professional Hunter (PH), Christian Weth could answer, “Those dug outs scare the bejeebers outa me!”

Christian smiled, and with his German clip he responded, “No mokoro, but a tall-sided, flat-bottomed boat, which is more difficult for crocs and hippos to turn over.” This offered some relief, but not much.

Over sundowners the night before, Christian and legendary PH, Dougy Stephenson told tales of crocodiles exceeding 15-feet in length and enraged bull hippos flipping mokoros and small boats. They were true stories of hunters, trackers and professional hunters barely escaping with their lives, after venturing into the foreboding, floating papyrus, hunting sitatunga. That was just what I really wanted to hear, knowing the morrow I would be hunting the strange, unique water-living antelope that walks on water.

“Hippos and crocs… nah, that’s not what scares me,” commented Dougy Stephenson, one of the most experienced and renown professional hunters in all of Africa. “I’m a bit more concerned about the monstrous pythons that live in and under the papyrus.”

Christian recalled a recent sitatunga hunt with a client from Germany who shot a long-horned sitatunga bull in the papyrus. Christian and his trackers followed a blood trail deep into the dog-hair thick, tall floating papyrus. Stepping carefully, not to fall through the floating mass of vegetation, Christian spotted the downed sitatunga. The dead, broadside bull was rapidly coming toward him, carried in the coils of a huge python which had claimed the antelope as its own and it did not appreciate something trying to take her next meal.

At rifle barrel’s length, Christian shot and killed the serpent before it could wrap a coil or two around him. An hour later, his trackers finally delivered their client’s sitatunga at his feet, along with a 24-foot-long python.

I dearly hoped no such “adventure” lay ahead for my hunting partner, Tim Fallon and I.

Our journey through the papyrus waterway in search the water-living sitatunga started with confronting a 14-foot-long croc, which crawled into the narrow waterway right in front of the boat. He swam ahead for a few feet then disappeared under water, where we would have to pass over.

“The papyrus is too tall for us to see over from the boat. We have several machans erected along our waterway path. We will crawl up and look from above, down on the papyrus and the few open areas adjoining our pathway.” Stated Christian, as our trackers paddled and poled.

The first machan, a raised platform 12 or so feet tall, looked rickety to say the least. Thankfully it was stout enough to support both Christian and myself. We spotted a female sitatunga, which we watched for 20 minutes. After she disappeared, we got in the boat and moved along the narrow waterway to the next machan, watching vigilantly for hippos, which created and maintained these water trails.

The rest of the morning was reasonably uneventful. We reached our take-out spot where Dougy waited with the vehicle. “We will drive a mile to another boat and watery pathway, then I will again meet you and pick you up at the end of that trail. We will then go for a late lunch before heading to a tall treetop machan at the edge of the papyrus and there we will spend the afternoon.”

At the next jump off point, we were met by 21 hippos who blocked our pathway. “It’s not safe,” said Christian. “We’ll take a circuitous route back to camp and look for waterbuck.” We did and found several, but none our PHs deemed shootable.

After a most delicious meal of grilled oribi, which Fallon had taken earlier, Christian and I, along with the trackers headed to a tall machan built in the top of a tree, overlooking a vast expanse of papyrus. Fallon and Dougy continued to another machan farther up the river.

Approaching our machan, Christian said, “We pay locals to cut down blocks of papyrus, leaving only six to eight inches standing. This encourages fresh growth which sitatunga dearly love. It’s rather like a food plot in your part of the world.”

Christian ascended the ladder to the platform easily 30-feet above the ground. Before crawling onto the platform, he glassed the three food plots. “Come quickly, but do so without making jerky movements.” Shouldering my Ruger M77 Guide Rifle in 375 Ruger, topped with a Trijicon Accupoint, I crawled upward.

On the right edge of the middle block, only hindquarters stood visible from a somewhat shaggy grayish-brown antelope. “Get a rest and put your scope on the sitatunga. Do not shoot unless I tell you to do so.” I did as I was instructed, then waited. Its head was hidden in the papyrus, so there was no way to determine whether it was male or female. Thanks to its extremely elongated hoofs, the antelope that walks on water, disappeared into the papyrus. Neither that one or any others made an appearance that afternoon.

Heading back to camp, Christian commented, “We will hunt that same machan in the morning. I think what we saw was an old male and hopefully he will be back in the morning.”

We crawled into the tall machan just as the skies hinted a gray dawn. In the distance a myriad of sounds could be heard; insects, birds, reptiles, hippos and several I could not come close to identifying. In the middle block, along the back edge was movement. I glanced at Christian. With hands he formed the lyre shape of horns and the sitatunga disappeared into the papyrus.

Only a sliver of the dawning sun appeared on the eastern horizon when another sitatunga stepped into the same open block, a female. She fed hungrily on the papyrus’ fresh growth and 20 minutes later she left. We continued our vigil. As we waited, Christian commented, “There’s a weather system with much rain headed our way. It’s likely we will have today and possibly tomorrow morning.” Just then another sitatunga stepped out. Christian whispered, “Male, not very wide, but nicely long, definitely mature. He has smooth surfaces on the outer side of his horns and long ivory tips. It’s certainly a good representative.” He turned and looked my way, “Up to you? We can wait for one with longer horns, but the weather may be soon and be such that we cannot adequately hunt the papyrus. He’s definitely mature.”

Mature was the one word I was waiting to hear. When the sitatunga walked out, I dropped my binoculars and started watching through my Trijicon scope, which I cranked up to 10x. I tracked the bull as he walked towards the edge of the tall papyrus. Doing so I whispered, “I’m shooting.” When the handsome bull stopped, I planted my crosshairs on his shoulder and I pulled the trigger sending forth a Hornady 300 grain DGX. The bull shuddered. He took a step towards the nearly solid wall of tall papyrus, so I shot him a second time. The bull lurched forward and was gone.

“He’s hit hard. He won’t go far!” said Christian, then followed immediately with, “I know you want to go with us for the recovery, but you are not allowed. I do not want you falling through the papyrus to the crocs and pythons beneath.” Until those last words I was prepared to argue.

A few minutes after Christian and trackers disappeared, I heard a whoop. My bull was down and found. Several minutes later the trackers dragged my sitatunga onto relatively dry ground for me to admire and appreciate.

To learn more about Uganda Wildlife Safaris, chick here.

Photo credit: Larry Weishuhn Outdoors