Having hunted a lot of places in North America including Alabama,Mississippi, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado,Utah,Montana and Idaho. Plus Ontario,Maitoba,Alberta and British Columbia in Canada, I was really ready to go to Africa.
I have been thinking about Africa for a long time and this trip exceded all my expectatations.
I was able to take an old dagga boy buffalo bull and actually experineced an unprovoked charge by an unwounded bull on the same day. I had a great time hunting plains game as well.
I was hunting the Limpopo area of South Africa with Kuche Safaris. I booked the hunt through J.D. Outfitters and dealt with Kuche owner Koos De Meyer in preparation for the trip.
I was met at City Lodge Hotel by my PH, Pete with whom I hunted every day. It was an excelent experience all the way around.
Koos has a several camps in three areas of South Africa but we hunted in his largest camp which is close to the Limpopo River right across the river from Botswana.
We hunted large tracts of land and saw lots of animals everyday. The animals were spooky and hard to hunt but that just makes it better when you are sucessful.
I told my PH that the two animals that I was the most interested in are Kudu and Cape Buffalo. They really mean Africa to me. About a mile from camp on the way in we spotted a big Kudu bull,and I asked if we could hunt him.
We spent several hours looking for him but never laid eyes on him again. This country is Bushveld and visibility is less than 50 yards in most places. And the size of these thickets are vast. Also the animals are pretty spooky and if they see you or smell you they head for cover and are gone quickly.
At sundown on the first day, we did see a good Blesbuck. I was able to stalk him and take him off sticks at a little over 100 yards.
It was an unexpected emotional experience taking my first African animal. I was hooked on Africa forever.
The Blesbuck was taken about a mile from the main Kuche Safaris Lodge. The next day we drove about 30 minutes to a large ranch where Koos runs Beefmaster cattle.
This place had a lot of Kudu, wild spooky Kudu. We saw lots of immature kudu bulls as well as many cow and kudu calves.
About noon that day, while hunting kudu, we happened upon a really old warthog boar. His body weight was down, Pete said it was his last winter.
He was quartering away when a single Trophy Bonded bullet put him down instantly.
We looked all day for a good kudu and got a quick look at one after the warthog hunt, we hunted for him for a while tracking him on foot and finally caught up with him again but he saw us and was gone again.
I was feeling like the kudu had won the day only to see a really good one about sundown, he saw us too and was slipping away in the brush when I shot him just behind the shoulder with my M70 in 416 Remington.
He ran off but a heavy blood trail led to him after about 100 yards.
I asked my PH if he was a good one and he said “No sir, he is magnificent.”
A sense of relief ran over me because I came to Africa especially to find a good kudu.
The next day we got up at 3:30am and drove 2 hours to the place Koos wanted me to Buffalo hunt.
The scenery was worth the drive. It was beautiful place where the bushveld meets the highveld mountains. It had large open spaces and thick bush as well as gorgeous mountain escarpments.
As we were driving, we topped a hill and were about 50 yards from 50 buffalo.
