So we are in a 4x4 Ford Ranger. Brown our tracker is driving and he is on the right side of the cab with the steering wheel.
Pete my PH is in the truck bed with me seated right behind Brown.
And I am in the back of a Ford Ranger at eyeball level with a herd of buffalo.
There were a bunch of cows with calves in this herd with maybe a dozen bulls . They are all mighty agitated and the bulls form a line right to left and start working our way with that nasty look in their eyes.
The Bulls close the distance to within about 40 yards and I have shouldered my rifle and am watching them through the 1x power of my Trijicon 1-6 scope.
Suddenly one of the bigger bulls starts charging straight toward the truck exactly where I’m sitting.
Nobody has told me to shoot but I’ve got the safety off and am trying to put the tip of the green triangle between the bulls eyes.
There no way I’m going to share my spot with a mad Cape Buffalo so at 15 yards the reticle steadied and I am putting pressure on my trigger. Waiting for the trigger to break.
I suppose I should have mentioned that when we drove up on the buffalo, Brown stopped the truck and Pete is glassing them looking for a hard bossed shooter.
I was looking through my scope because Pete had told me to be looking through a scope and not binoculars when he is looking for a shooter animal if the animals are close.
That way I’m in a position to take action shouid he tell me to do so.
So I am about to finish pulling the trigger when I hear Pete yell “ Drive Brown, Drive.”
When it occurs to me that I am not about to be killed, the adrenaline really hit me.
So we wait about 30 minutes and get out of the truck and head back to the spot where we were charged.
The buffalo are gone but Brown picks up their trail and we begin tracking them on foot in heavy cover.
I have the M70 416 and Pete has his Brno 460 Weatherby. Im loaded with a Swift 400 grain Aframe followed by Norma 400 grain Flat nosed monolithic solids. Pete has a 500 grain Barnes TSX followed by Solids.
Knowing the seriousness of the situation of tracking the bull who had just charged us, Pete looked at me and said “From this moment on, be ready and listen to me with every fiber of your being “.
So we stayed after them all day long. Occasionally getting glimpses of cows, calves and soft bossed bulls but never seeing the really big mature bull that Pete saw when he was glassing the herd.
A little after lunchtime, we are back in the truck traveling and glassing. We also meet Arnu, the manager of the property we are hunting. Pete has told Arnu about the charge and Arnu has brought his 470 Merkel Double which he has loaded with two Barnes TSX bullets.
Arnu said he prefers Woodley Hydros but he has run out of them. So as we are driving around glassing we happen upon a big Zebra Stallion. Arnu gives the go ahead and we slip within 75 yards of the Zebra in the heavy bush. He sees us and is almost out of sight when I am able to hit him through an opening with a 400 grain Aframe behind the shoulder as he is quartering away. He dashes about 75 yards and piles up.
So you were charged by a buff….Did you survive? 😳😁
I had about given up on finding the big bull we’re after as we are driving around looking for them or their fresh tracks when Brown spotted them about 300 yards away at sundown.The big bull was with a group of 8 bulls and at least a dozen cows and calves.
Knowing we had to move quickly before dark, we put a quick sneak on them since they were downwind.
When we got within 120 yards of them, some of them spotted something and started looking our way. We got set up to shoot but the big bull was behind a couple of the cows. I turned my scope up to 6x and had to wait about 5 minutes for the bull to get clear of the other animals.
Finally he was clear and I told Pete that I had a good clear shot. He said” Shoot when you are sure”.
This time I strarted putting pressure on the trigger as I placed the reticle just behind the shoulder of the quartering away bull. The trigger broke, and all the buffalo disappeared over the rise to our right. My bull following the others on 3 legs.
We went to the spot the bull was standing and there was no blood. Arnu said we need to wait, but the sun was setting and it would be dark soon.
Pete asked me exactly where I was aiming when I shot and I told him half way up the body, just behind the shoulder.
Pete had seen me make 4 one shot kills so far, two with the 308 and two with the 416. He looked me in the eyes and said “Let’s go now.” He started walking the way the buffalo went and I followed,so did Arnu.
Arnu,in his late twenties carried his Merkel 470 double. Pete in his early 30s carried his Brno 460.
We were separated by about 5 yards, Arnu to my left and Pete to my right. I carried the 416 in the middle. Brown was tracking right at Pete’s right side. We went over the rise following the buffalo. The adrenaline was real knowing we were following a wounded buffalo in a group of bulls, one of which had already tried to kill me.
What we found as we cleared the rise was a dust storm about 40 yards in front of us. The bulls were pushing on my bull trying to get him up,and fighting each other deciding who was now boss.
I have my scope on 1x and Pete and Arnu have no optics on their big guns. In an instant, the bulls stopped fighting and were looking at us like we had despoiled their fiance, burned their houses and owed them money.
I knew we were in for another charge but they all suddenly turned and ran except for my bull on the ground. Since it’s the dead ones that kill you, I was about to shoot him again but Pete said “Wait”.
We walked around to the rear of the bull with our rifles ready, but he didn’t move. We got closer and found that he was stone dead.
The 400 grain soft point had made a tennis ball diameter wound channel through both lungs and had taken out the great vessels above the heart. It had smashed the off side shoulder without exiting.
In spite of this damage, the bull had made it a little over 100 yards without any blood trail.
He was the biggest bodied of all the bulls and had huge massive hard bosses. I consider him the trophy of a life time.
Getting a Buffalo and a Zebra in the back of a Ford Ranger and driving more than 100 miles back to camp is an adventure in itself.
The Ford Rangers used by several of the PHs are the same size as ours but they are very different. Equipped with a 3/4 ton suspension and turbocharged diesel, they get over 30 miles per gallon.
I would buy one tomorrow if they were sold in the states. They did not use DEF and probably wouldn’t meet our emissions standards but if they polute twice as much as our engines per gallon but use half the gallons, they would work. And we would use half the fuel.
I spent my last two days hunting on a 30000 acre farm that belongs to Pete and his family,it is only about 20 minutes from the main Limpopo Kuche Safari Lodge where we had our meals and lodging.
I was hunting for a good impala and a male gemsbuck.I had actually passed on a good Gemsbuck while we were hunting kudu,that Pete urged me to shoot,but not wanting to spook any kudu,foolishly passed. I would not have another chance at a male although I did pass on a very fine female.
Pete's ranch, known as Buck Africa,was full of dense brush and lots of animals. They were hunted often and were very wary. Hunting here mostly consisted of slipping up on water holes as well as sitting at them at midday heat and last light. After a couple of blown stalks on spooky impala,I was able to take a very old scared male at a waterhole. Pete said he too was in his last winter.
After the Impala, we kept slipping up on water holes hoping to find a Gemsbuck male. Pete said it would be difficult because Gemsbuck only water every few days.
That afternoon we sat at a waterhole in a blind and saw a waterbuck. I could tell from the look on Pete’s face that he was a big one.
I shot at him broadside with the 308 and he ran into the waterhole and emerged standing on the other side quartering away.
I always shoot again when an animal gives me a chance. The second shot hit the big waterbuck quartering away behind the shoulder and dropped him instantly. The first shot had gone through both lungs and exited but the second was under the hide on the off side. It was the only bullet recovered out of all the shots fired from the safari.The 165 grain trophy bonded tipped looked like an advertisement for a perfect bonded bullet.
The Waterbuck was a large one with horns to match. Pete said he was around 200 kilograms.
