Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Africa Back from my Zimbabwe safari... Aug-Sept 2015

Yes, Ed, I was. I used Hornady brass, IMR4895 powder, and Swift A-Frame 300 gr bullets, which were good for about 2500 fps and dead-nuts accurate in my rifle. I had solids loaded with Hornady DGS 300 gr bullets, which are reputed to be decent and shot to the same POA/POI as the A-frames. FWIW, I didn't shoot anything with solids.

A good writer knows where to take a break! I was sitting on the edge of my computer chair when you decide to take a nap. Well done.

Just woke from a nap to read your writing about Doc writing about taking a nap.

Part 3: Cape Buffalo 2

Day 3 and Day 4 of my hunt were pretty much more of the same: we got up, found buffalo bull tracks at a waterhole, then followed them. We got close on bulls several times, but never as close as that first morning. No opportunities for a shot presented themselves, but that' buffalo hunting, eh?

Afternoons, after lunch and siesta, we went out looking for plains game. Specifically, kudu and eland. We saw lots of kudu, mostly cows, but occasionally young bulls. The young bulls were big enough to make my jaw drop... 50-inch racks, or bigger, but the horns were thin and the bulls hadn't had a chance to breed yet, so my PH said we would have to pass no matter how dry my mouth was nor how hard my heart was pounding.

I should say at this point that kudu was not a high priority for me on this hunt at first. This was primarily because I'd never seen kudu bulls alive in the wild. After I saw my first pair of live bulls vanish into the brush like grey ghosts, my priorities changed.

ON the morning of Day 4 we were on the way to a waterhole we had put a game camera on the evening before, and came around a corner and caught a glimpse of two huge mature kudu bulls. John brought the car to an abrupt stop and said softly, "Oh, we have to go after that one. He'll go 57 and one half inches."

He saw my eyebrows arch at his statement, and he said, "You must think I'm a bit confident to say that, but I've been hunting this area for 30 years, and I'm confident of the genetics. The good bulls here come in three sizes: fifty-two inches, fifty-seven-and-a-half inches, and occasionally a sixty-incher. This pair was a 52 and a 57-1/2."

I wouldn't know, because we not only didn't get to measure any horns, we never even got to see them again. We stalked them for 3 hours, until they apparently caught sight of us and bolted. Isaac said the tracks said they'd suddenly started to run. They were gone. By this time it was near noon, it was 100 degrees or more, we were hot and thirsty and tired (again), so we trudged back to the car and drove back to camp for lunch and another nap. (Did I mention that naps are one of the best things about safari hunting in Africa?)

That afternoon we were loading up the car and John said he thought we should drive north 30 miles or so to the Bubye River valley, where we would have a good chance of seeing something interesting. Like what? I asked.

"Who knows? We have a very good chance of seeing a kudu, or an eland; the blue bulls tend to be more common there. And who knows? We might stumble across a buffalo."

We didn't see kudu. We didn't see eland. But we did stumble across buffalo.

At about 5pm Isaac tapped on the roof of the car and John stopped. "Buffalo," he said quietly. "Under that big green tree."

The big green tree was 1000 yards away, across the dry bed of the Bubye River at the bottom of the opposite bank/bluff. I looked through my binoculars and thought I could see some black specs under the tree. John said it was a herd of 5 bulls. Isaac had seen them with naked eyes and pronounced two of the bulls to be good shootable ones.

Here's a pic of the big green tree:



It's hard to imagine the scale, but the trunk of this tree was about 25 to 30 feet in diameter. You can't really get that scale from just looking at this pic, which was taken with the zoom on my camera cranked up all the way. I did put my laser rangefinder on a big rock about half way to the big green tree, though, and it said 525 yards.

So, we got out of the car, I loaded my rifle, and we began yet another stalk. I felt quite optimistic, I'm not sure why. For one thing, the Bubye River valley is beautiful. For another, it wasn't really hot, the breeze was good and strong and coming straight at us. The light was good, too. I don't know, I just felt good about it. I wasn't saying to myself, "Yeah, this buffalo is goin' down," or anything like that. I just felt good. It was good to be out and hunting in such a lovely place, with good people whose company I really enjoyed, carrying a good rifle and wearing good boots. It was just good.

We crossed the river and then headed east along the edge of the riverine brush, single file, being vewy, vewy quiiiieeeettt. Elmer Fudd woulda been proud. It was tougher than usual, as the soil is very sandy and loose along the river, and there was a lot of up and down. We came to the green tree, and Isaac scouted the mud at its base where the bulls had been while the rest of us waited in the brush.

"Five good bulls," John told me after Isaac gave his report. "At least 3 shootable ones."

Ten minutes later, we found them, and after several minutes observing through binoculars, we moved upland and skirted the next couple of ravines, then dropped down into the third one and carefully climbed the far side. There was a fallen tree to our front. I couldn't see a damn thing, but John and Isaac, in front of me, could see the bulls feeding their way up through the riverine brush toward the flats to our left. John positioned us behind the fallen tree.

"They're coming up the bank," he whispered. "They should come out right here," and he pointed to the open grassy plain to our front, "But for God's sake do NOT shoot unless I tell you."

"Gotcha," I said, feeling more confidence than I had any right to. John placed the sticks and I rested my rifle in the canvas. Several minutes passed, then suddenly a buffalo bull appeared roughly 50 yards away. Again, the size and color of a railway tanker car. Hay-Zeus!!!

"Steady," John whispered, as the first bull fed slowly out into the open, and we could see the others at the edge of the brush. The first bull was in tall grass, and we couldn't see his horns. He fed past a bush about halfway between us, and then got into shorter grass.

"He's got hard bosses. Do you have a shot?" John asked me in a very soft whisper. I had been asking that same question, and the answer was "no". The bush between us had a single branch on it that mattered, and of course that branch and a dozen leaves were squarely between me and the bull.

"No joy," I said.

"Then don't shoot, just wait," he replied. So we waited. I noticed that the light was fading, and there were no shadows. When had the sun set? Minutes ago, I thought. Still lots of light. Gradually, the other bulls fed out into the grass. There were three bulls now.

"They're all hard, but one on the right is the widest one," John whispered. "Do you have a shot?"

I swivelled my riflescope off the first bull carefully and looked through it at the third bull, both eyes open, the field of view clean and full. He was in the clear, head down. I could see both front legs, his shoulder, could visualize his football-size heart between those massive shoulder. His hindquarters were back in the next county.

And I knew. All the thoughts of buffalo I'd ever had coalesced to this moment and my whole mind focused down on the illuminated tip of the post of my reticle and the shoulder and heart of the massive bull. And I knew he was mine.

"I have him," I whispered.

"Then shoot him," John said simply. I flicked the safety forward, placed my thumb on the top of the tang, placed my finger on the trigger then smoothly brought thumb and finger together. The big rifle crashed and bucked up in my hands but I heard the solid whack of the bullet as it hit him and out of my non-scope eye I thought I saw blood blow out his nose and I knew I'd hit him exactly where I'd meant to and I knew he was dead on his feet even though he was trying to run, running and limping with his left shoulder smashed into uselessness, and all the bulls were running, running to our left into the open field.

The first bull, the one I hadn't had a shot at, was roaring; a huge loud bellowing roar--BRRRAAAAAAAAWK!!--unbelievably loud, as he charged up beside my shot and dying running bull and dropped his head and hooked up hard as they ran side by side, and he lifted my bull off his feet and up into the air. Simply unimaginable strength and power: sixteen hundred pounds of buffalo tossed into the air like a rag doll, all four feet off the ground! It was incredible, simply unimaginable.

Both bulls were roaring then, running together and the younger bull trying to hook him again, then my bull stopped and stood there for several seconds, then fell down. The younger bull hit him again, hard, trying to hook him with his left horn again and again, both bulls roaring at each other. (I don't think they were friends, those two bulls. They appeared to have a history.)

The other three bulls stopped and milled around. They seemed confused, unsure of what had happened, looking all around for the source of the loud noise that had startled them, while the dying bull on the ground continued to grunt and blow, trying to rise and failing. The other bull gave up trying to gore him and moved away. Then the four bulls turned and ran off and out of sight.

I watched my bull on the ground for a good five minutes, groaning and grunting, his tail flicking and his head tossing. Then he lifted his head and let out a long loud moaning bellow, the famous death bellow, then his head dropped and he lay still. His tail twitched a few more times, then stopped.

"Hit him again," John said quietly then. "Just below the hump, through the top of the grass. Insurance."

I put the post on him and fired again, just to be sure, but the bull didn't move. I can't describe the feeling I had as I came up on the dead bull. I don't have the right words. I expect if you want to know you'll have to hunt one and kill one yourself.

Anyways, here's some pics of my buffalo on the ground. I think he shrunk quite a bit after I shot him. He's 36 inches across the horns, which is fairly respectable, I think. He's got good hard bosses, a symmetrical head, and in short is a very nice representative specimen. I believe he'll look good on my wall.













The whole process of getting this big guy loaded into the hunting car and back to camp is worthy of a chapter its own self, but I'll likely save that for another day. I like this photo from the skinning shed, though, as it gives a good perspective as to the size of these magnificent creatures:

Doc: already your story has brought back a lot of memories !! I was one of those guys on a 14 day hunt...and killed my bull, the only good one I got a shot at in the thinly populated area I was hunting, in the last 20 minutes of the last day.
And I spent a good deal of time on my belly looking a buffalo ankles 15 yards away....

[Apparently I exceeded the bandwidth limit in my previous post. Here's the last bit with the photos included.]


And here's a photo showing the small tear in his hide where the other bull's horn hooked him. I would have thought there would be a huge slash in the hide, but no... only this little mark. I think it demonstrates extremely well how incredibly tough Cape buffalo bullhide is.



The knife I'm pointing at it with is a special one made for me for this hunt by a patient of mine here in San Angelo. It's Damascus steel, made by the knifemaker by hand, with a polymer-stabilized amber handle.

And here is a pic showing the two entry wounds: the one by my index finger was my original shot, and the one indicated by my pinky is the second "insurance". The killing shot went in through the left humerus, shattering the bone, then through the top of the heart, and ended up in the triceps muscle of the off shoulder.


Finally, a pic of the damage to the heart caused by the Swift A-Frame softpoint in transit across the bull's thorax. The skinner's knife gives some scale, but hadn't been used to open the heart wound yet... all the damage you see is entirely due to the bullet.




Also, a pic of the recovered bullet. I haven't weighed it yet, but it should come in at 280+ grains, I think.


Coming up: Part 4, Poachers; Part 5, Kudu; Part 6, African Rifles.

ingwe, I believe you related that story to me over a glass of amber liquid on the hog hunt this past March... you should write it up for the guys here on the Africa forum!

Oh, and just to give the guy some credit, y'all: the 375 H&H Magnum load I used on this hunt came to me courtesy of the Poobah his ownself. Thanks a bunch, Poobs!!

Doc, you kidding me? he's a good bull with great hooks! marvelous story sir! Very happy for you!

Just too cool. Thanks for the write up.

Thanks. I will be chasing brown bear coming spring and am undecided on what you used or the 270 gr TSX. Six of one, half a dozen of another perhaps. Great story so far. It may have me bump buffalo ahead of goat and Dall...

Doc, awesome hunt, awesome narrative. Can't wait for the next chapter.

Yep Doc, thats a good Zimbabwe bull by any standard!

No matter, now you know what I meant when I told you that you hunt buffalo, in order to have hunted buffalo.....

Nice bull and a storyteller you are. Looking forward to the rest.

Great story, Doc, about getting in amongst hard-bossed bulls and doing everything right. Congratulations.

Congratulations Doc., I thought I was going to have to wait till next months magazine came for the conclusion on the Buff.. Glad you got your first choice on your trip. I Look forward to reading the rest of the story and seeing the excellent photo's of your hunt.

Well done Sir.

I've enjoyed every word and photo! Great report and a good representative bull. Buffalo aren't a free lunch, served up on a platter.

Guys, thanks a lot for the kind words. I gotta admit I'm being a bit selfish writing these reports up. I should be getting my gear all put away, catching up on the chores left undone for 2 weeks of travel plus the frantic week prior to travel that I spent getting ready to travel, but I've got a strong feeling I need to get these stories laid down before the memories start to fade.

A couple observations in response to questions/comments:

1. Jorge, ingwe, guys... you're right, I believe my Cape buffalo bull is a magnificent specimen. I downplayed him a bit just to be funnin' myself for y'all's benefit... but yes, he is truly a wonderful head.

2. EdM, re. your plan to use your .375 H&H on a big bear: I've studied the ballistics of this cartridge and its best bullets (as I'm sure you have as well), and IMHO you can pretty much use whatever softpoint/expanding bullet you want. Bear are not thick-skinned or heavy-boned game as buff are, so the deep bulldozer penetration of a 300 gr A-Frame really isn't required. You can easily launch a 270 gr bullet at 2700 fps, and that will give you trajectory similar to a 30-06 caliber 180 gr bullet, which means point-blank range out to 250 yards or so with a 200 yard zero (but you'll have 4400 lb-ft of impact energy rather than the 2900 lb-ft of the 30-06). Myself, I'm looking hard at developing a 240 gr bullet load for this caliber, which ballistically would be a monster and highly useful for game such as big hogs at night, or big bears next spring in Alberta.
3. Mule Deer, badger, knivesforme... guys, again thanks for your praises and kind words. Sorry it's taking so long to get this all down in pixels.
4. I have to confess I'm using you guys as guinea pigs. I'm planning to write this stuff up for a couple of gun rags, but I need to get some kind of drafts together and down on paper/pixels so I can organize my thoughts & narrative.

Congratulations! What a great hunt so far! I look forward to hearing the rest. Not sure if Buff will ever be on the agenda, but reading this, and others, sure makes me think about it. I went to SA last year, and I think another trip is in order. Now, back to waiting for the rest of the story!

Part 4: Poachers and Anti-Poaching Activities in the BVC

I started this next part of the story at 0430 this morning. My body is still trying to figure out what time zone I'm in, apparently. I started out fine, but then bogged down in a depressing and pointless narrative about poaching in Africa. So I poured myself another cup of coffee and erased the whole damn thing. It's a worthy topic, but I've concluded that I can't fix it. And "raising awareness" isn't what I do best.

So instead, I'm going to focus on the positive aspects of what's being done in the BVC for at-risk wildlife. To kick this discussion off, here's a pic from my second or third morning on safari:



Here's how this pic came about. On the morning of Day 3, we were scouting waterholes well to the north of the camp. Actually, what we were doing was retrieving photos from the game cameras we had put up the previous day at selected waterholes. John and I were sitting in the car looking at this particular waterhole camera's pics from the night before, when I glanced up and saw two men materialize out of the bush at the edge of the clearing.

"John," I asked, "Would those two guys be BVC game scouts?"

He looked up and replied drily, "Well, if they weren't, we'd be in very deep trouble about now."

"How deep?"

"Six feet under deep."

We got out of the car, and the game scouts walked up to us and we shook hands and exchanged greetings. We showed them a pic that the game camera had caught of one of them getting a drink from the waterhole the night before, and everyone got a good laugh out of that. Then we snapped this pic at my request, we shook hands again, and they disappeared into the bush.

These game scouts were on a routine patrol. At any given moment, there are between 10 and 15 pairs of scouts on routine patrol in the BVC. These guys are primarily trained in game conservation, but they're on the pointy end of the conservation stick. Because poachers in Zimbabwe aren't much like poachers here in the USA.

Most Americans have lived, hunted and fished their whole lives within the bounds of the game & fish laws. Partly because we don't want to be punished for violating those laws, but mostly because we believe in conservation. To most of us, a poacher is like Joe-Bob Pudknocker from the next county over who got caught with 237 largemouth bass in coolers in the bed of his pickup last month and got fined $1000 in court last week. But in Zim, a poacher is a very hard case. A guy who carries an AK-47 and will kill anyone he thinks might stand in the way of his big payday, or who might put him in prison.

The goal is primarily rhino horn. And rhino horn is plentiful within the well-guarded confines of the Bubye Valley Conservancy. Here's a couple pics of what I'm talking about:










During my 10-day sojourn in the BVC, I observed no less than 6 black rhinos and one white rhino. My PH told me I was extremely fortunate; most of his hunters don't see a single rhino during their hunts, and I'm only one of a handful who has seen one at bad-breath distance (see previous story of buffalo stalking!).

But the fact is that the BVC has a large (and increasing!) population of breeding black rhinos. I've been asked not to publish the actual number, as they're already under intense pressure from rhino poachers and they don't need any more of them finding out about this gold mine.

A poaching operation will get word of the whereabouts of a good rhino from a "friend" who works in the Conservancy; i.e., the criminals will approach BVC employees when they're off-duty and offer them money, merchandise, etc, for information leading to a poached rhino horn. Since there are hundreds of employees in the BVC, there are plenty of targets. The informant gets a cell phone, and when he learns of the location of a well-horned rhino, he calls the operator and gives him the GPS coordinates. A team is then assembled.

The team consists of 3 or 4 men: a shooter, armed with a suppressed modern high-caliber bolt action rifle, a knife & hatchet man, and a couple of guards armed with AK-47's. They penetrate the Conservancy at a predetermined point close to the rhino, and cut their way through the electrified fence in late afternoon. The breach is rarely discovered until the next day. They locate the rhino and after sunset light it up and kill it, cut off the horn, then make quick egress. Another cell phone call brings a car to pick them up at a prearranged point, and off they go.

Payout to the poacher is in the neighborhood of $5000. The organizer has to pay off local and national government officials, which might cost him another $20-30K, but when he flies to Hong Kong or Beijing with the horn in his carry-on, he's looking at a cool half-million dollar payday. The horn will be cut up, ground up, etc, all for the benefit of Chinese and other men who don't want to take Viagra for their erectile dysfunction and prefer to stick to traditional remedies that don't actually work, but which are big status symbols in their culture.

The BVC game scouts, and the anti-poaching activities in the BVC which include the huge electrified double fence around the entire area, actually do a pretty good job. (That's the same kind of fence our Democrat politicians in Washington, who live in fenced and gated communities, claim don't work. Ha!) An official I spoke to briefly told me that this year they've got a pretty good rhino-to-poacher ratio. I asked what that meant.

"It means we've killed more poachers than the poachers have killed rhino," he replied matter-of-factly.

Plainly speaking: poachers don't like to be caught. They think nothing of killing people to save themselves, so if apprehended, they almost invariably try to shoot their way out of it. Sadly for them, the BVC's game scouts are trained ex-military men who know how to fight with rifles, whereas the poachers have little or no training. As you can see from the wear on the well-worn and well-maintained rifles carried by the game scouts, these are men who know how to keep and use a fighting rifle. The poachers rarely survive such encounters.

Elephant are also highly prized by poachers, for their ivory. Although the payout isn't as good as it is for rhino horn, they still make attempts. The results are usually the same.

My PH showed me some photos of carcasses of poached rhinos and elephants. Not pretty.

On the other hand, living rhinos and elephants make great photo opportunites, and I did manage to get few of those. Here's a couple shots of a trio of young bulls at a waterhole:





This trio of boys was a lot of fun to watch. They reminded me a great deal of my son and his two younger cousins when they were in the 9-12 year old age span. The big boy, in the center here, was obviously the eldest. He took great delight in pushing his young cousins around with his tusks, spraying them in the face with trunkfuls of water, etc. Number two, on the left, got pissed off and tried to retaliate and got the equivalent of an elephant noogie for his trouble, whereas Number 3, on the right, kept poking at the other two as if to say, "Hey guys, wait for me! Wait for me!" while his cousins more or less ignored him. It was pretty cute.

Cute is not a word I'd use to describe this jumbo, however:


[img]http://i1200.photobucket.com/a...ephant%20Bulls%208_zps1yplweim.jpg[/img]

This bad pic is the only one I got of him, and he was wandering away from us at this point. I should have got several pics of him when he was standing less than 20 yards from the windshield of the car, but for some reason I completely forgot I had a camera hanging in the middle of my chest.

Here's what happened. We had seen the three young bachelor bulls in the morning of Day 1, and I got some of the history of the elephant herd in BVC. Many of the elephant are native to that area, but the Conservancy got a good deal on elephant from the Zambezi valley many years ago, elephant that were going to be culled if they weren't sold and moved elsewhere. So these Zambezi elephant were darted and moved south.

Now, these Zambezi bulls aren't little guys like the bachelor boys we saw in the morning. They're big, tall, muscular elephant with an attitude.

So imagine my surprise when, just before sunset, we drove around a corner and found ourselves looking up at a Zambezi bull at less than 100 yards. And I mean looking UP. The bull didn't like the look of us, and without hesitation he turned toward us and started walking toward us With A Purpose, as John put it. Not exactly charging, but his ears were wide out and his trunk was up and he was high-stepping toward us at a brisk pace.

John stopped the car as the bull advanced down the middle of the road toward us. He put the Land Cruiser in reverse gear, but kept his foot on the clutch. He reached into the overhead bin and pulled down his Freedom Arms 454 Casull revolver, which someone posted a pic of here a few weeks ago. He put it out the window and cocked the hammer, and I had to wonder if he really thought that little pistola was going to be of any use in this situation, should things get truly hairy. John tromped on the accelerator, and the Toyota diesel engine let out a roar. To my surprise, the bull stopped at that sound. He was close enough to the car that I couldn't see the top of his head without leaning forward to peer up through the top of the windshield. (I probably don't need to point out that my heart rate and blood pressure were quite a bit above normal.) He stomped his forefoot and raised his trunk again to try to wind us, hesitating. John mashed the accelerator again, and the engine roared again, and the bull took a step back, his head swaying side to side uncertainly. He mashed the accelerator two or three more times over a span of 30-40 seconds, and finally the bull turned and slowly walked off into the bush. Which is about the time I remembered my camera and took this photo.

I asked John if he really thought the 454 revolver would do any good.

"I'm sure it would have an effect," he replied matter-of-factly. "I didn't have time to get the 470 out of the back, now, did I? Had to do something."

I asked about the ballistics of his loads (340 gr LBT-WFN's, IIRC). "One of these would get his attention, at least," he opined, "And turn him if it didn't kill him. But I've a bit of experience with frontal brain shots on the elephant, and these bullets will go straight through a Land Cruiser engine, fender to fender, so I'm pretty sure they'd get the job done." (In later talks around the campfire, I learned that John has killed over 100 elephant over the course of his career, both hunting and culling, and nearly all of these with brain shots.)

When my PH discovered I'd failed to even think of taking a pic of the elephant as he advanced at us, or at any time during the standoff, he teased me mildly but was understanding. "They do get your attention, don't they?" he chuckled.