OVER THE first days of hunting in Africa, we’d seen plenty of that ubiquitous African pig, the warthog, but every time I pointed them out to my PH, Mansu, he’d say, “big female” or “young boar”. Hunting a trophy warthog turned into something of a game of patience as we sat for hours on end, 14 hours in fact over two days, waiting over waterholes. We saw warthogs — heaps of them — but it was always the same response from Mansu: big female or young boar.
AS it turns out, female warthogs only have two ‘warts’ on their head so while they might carry extra oversize tusks they are off limits. The young boars had me stumped as every one I saw seemed to possess tusks out of all proportion to its body size. It wasn’t until well into the hunt that I realised young warthog boars have a ‘beard’ of fine silver hair up the side of the head that appears to be a continuation of their tusks. Mystery solved!
By 9.15am it was getting hot in the
