Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Africa Plains Game warm up for Buffalo

I have my Cape buffalo hunt scheduled for 2020 and I want to add a couple plains game animals to hunt first as a warm up prior to going on the buff hunt. My thoughts are to do a eland and a black wildebeest hunts and then finale with the cape buff hunt. I have already taken a blue wildebeest. Any other thoughts or suggestions?

Sounds like a great idea to me, but...

I must confess profound lack of experience in this area!

Guy

Any hunting is good. Are you adding plains game for the same hunt as buffalo in 2020 or going for plains game in 19?

Can't help you. The first animal I ever shot in Africa was a buffalo.

Sounds good, but it is your hunt. If you want an eland and black wildebeest....by all means have at it!

Where are you going? Few areas have buff, eland and black bewilderbeests, if you are wanting to do them all on one trip.

Zebras are always good!

To warm up for your buffalo hunt, use your buffalo gun to get used to shooting/handling it in field conditions and get close (under 100 yards) to the game, preferably in dense brush. Eland is a very good choice because they are big and can be a real challenge to stalk within "buffalo range". Black wildebeast on the other hand are open plains animals. Hunting them, at least in my experience, is like hunting pronghorns and not anything like hunting buffalo. Even though you've taken one already, a better choice is blue wildebeast (AKA "the poor man's buffalo") because their preferred habitat is the same as a buffalo. If you don't want to take another blue wildebeast then waterbuck, kudu, impala or zebra are better choices because of the habitat in which they are usually found.

From a hunting experience standpoint, I concur that a kudu, or zebra may be a more fulfilling hunt. Black's are like the clowns of Africa. Zebra would probably be a little more realistic as they are herd animals and an absolute blast to get after and sort out the stallion.

If it is all in one hunt, your PH will make the call. Usually they want to get the toughest animals out of the way first or at least attempt to get them out of the way as you may well encounter some of your other wish list animals as you are looking for buff.
You don't need to over think it. My first African animal was a buff.

Eland is a great warm up for buffalo. Will agree with others that kudu or zebra would be good too. Black Wildebeest are indeed clowns....weren't one of my favorites to hunt.

How long is your hunt? If a Cape Buff is your goal. I wouldn't waste time with PG unless something really spectacular falls into your lap. Sometimes you find a shootable buff in a day or two. Sometime it may take 10 days. Sometimes, not at all.

I agree with Ingwe, but there was more than one time I wanted to shoot one that screwed up a stalk! You blow a black wildebeest and everything in the area gets blown.

As said, Zebra is a good idea, and I need a damn big Warthog and Water Buck, you may want to consider those too.

What I have regretted is not allowing sufficient budget for more trophy fees. Depending on the area you are hunting what would be high on my priority list would be: Kudu, Nyala, Sable, Eland, Black faced Impala, Red Lechwee, Lessor Kudu, Bushbuck, Warthog, and many others. You only live once and the experience is beyond comparison. Blesbok make a pretty mount but are not very challenging to hunt. Baboons forget it as the novelty mounts of them sitting on the toilet are disgusting. I did shoot a Baboon because I was tired of them blowing my stalks.

A big Kudu is a part of my holy grail. I am at 60 inches on Kudu so far. Nyala are another beautiful antelope and I hope to make it back to Africa to hunt them. Any of the Gemsbok family are out standing animals to hunt and they are very striking mounts due to their coloration.

Zebra are not that difficult to hunt but I would still like to do a slam on them, Mountain, Burchells, Grevy, Hartmans, and a couple more.

Just tell your PH what your priorities are and then let him make the calls. First day may still be jet lagged so good to just take a walk or better yet get there a couple days early.

Having needed up until the last day to secure my Cape buffalo, I would say focus on the buffalo first and then PG if time remains. On the other side of the coin, I shot my elephant on day one and had the whole rest of the hunt to hunt plains game. Had not planned on so much free time I hadn’t budgeted a lot for plainsgame.

My recommendation is to hunt buffalo first, since that is what you’re there for, then have a big budget for plainsgame in the event you get your buffalo day one.

C ROY,

Since you mention black wildebeest, I assume you're hunting in South Africa. If all the hunting is going to be on a ranch, then there won't be much trouble locating buffalo. In that case, it might not be a bad idea to warm up on a couple head of plains game.

When hunting buffalo in "wild" Africa, on the other hand, it makes more sense to go after them first because they're not so predictable, and see what happens with plains game along the way.

thats very good advise Mule Deer ,myself i am going to remember that too ! thank you Pete53

What LJB said !!!

JMHO but the Eland would be the best "warm up" for buffalo, as they are usually hunted the same way, by tracking, and will lead you on a merry chase. Black wildebeest struck me as somewhat stupid, and not a hard hunt....not a good tune up for buffalo.

My choices instead would be kudu or zebra.

I must disagree with one point asserted by my good friend Mule Deer. In RSA not all ranches are the same. The ranch at which I am currently hunting has plenty of buffalo and they are not easy to locate. They have been quite elusive.

The conditions vary considerably from area to area. There are areas in Zim and T where buffalo predictably hang around the same areas from year to year. Likewise Caprivi.

Rick,

I should have said "ususally"!

Also, often buffalo are pretty easy to locate in wild Africa. The easiest buffalo finding I've experienced was in Botswana's Okavango Delta. Never had to track any, as we always saw some first, while looking for tracks....

John,
Have been in Africa for the last five weeks hunting buffalo. Leaving for home in a couple of days. Have had some great success but have expended lots of time and effort. Have conducted a thorough test of the Barnes TSX 270 grain.
Rick
PS will contact you when I get home.

Friend of mine just got back from Africa (Dande North in ZIM) shot two buffalo with a 416 Rigby and 350gr TSX. TSXs, like Porsche there is NO substitute.

Eland, zebra, or gemsbok, or all if in the area.

This was my exact plan for my first trip to Africa

When I got there first thing I was told was that there was a change in plans, we were going for buffalo first; first critter I shot in Africa was my buff, worked out well.

You will find out that situations arise that force a change in plans, don't stress, happens a lot in Africa, go with the flow. Best of luck on your hunt.

My priority on my first hunt in Zim in 2015 was buffalo. My PH had me shoot a zebra on Day 1 as a "warmup", which I suspect was more as a way for him to evaluate my shooting than anything else. Then we went after buffalo. Even though there were abundant buff in our area, it took three days of stalking to get on a good buff and have a chance at taking him. I did so, but that is by no means the norm... my PH told me the hunter he had had just before me did not get a chance to shoot his buff until Day 9 of his 10-day hunt.

You just have to take what Africa offers. That's what my PH said, and following this simple rule, we did well.

I'm going back for buff in a couple of weeks, and I'll follow the same rule again. If I get my buff on Day 1, so be it... but I am not counting on being as lucky this time as I was the last.

Good friend killed a 41" buff in Zim last year. Used the 400 TSX out of his .416 Rigby RSM. PH packed a push feed M-70, .416 Rem. He liked the big Ruger but said, in his opinion, it was too heavy.

What's your thinking, 350 TSX vs. 400 TSX out of a .416? This buff was hit with a raking shot, didn't go thru.

Another friend is building a .416 Rem for a buff hunt next year. I'm helping him with the technical stuff. Will reload for that hunt.

DF

Well, we got back yesterday from our 10-day buffalo and plains game hunt, and my earlier post proved prophetic... the drought in southern Africa has made the beasts of all species exceedingly harder to hunt than in more normal conditions. Despite the high numbers of buffalo in the BVC, we hunted hard for 8-1/2 days without getting a shot on a good buffalo. I was able to collect my dagga boy on Day 9, but I may have been forced to eat tag soup if that bull hadn't cooperated!

Bottom line: buffalo are very, very wary critters, and in the opinion of many experienced hunters one of the most difficult African game to get in the bag. Start hunting them early and hunt them hard and you should be successful, but there are no guarantees!

Sounds like another good trip James. I am kicking around a Caprivi hunt with the guy I hunted Namibia with a couple of years ago.

Shot mine on day 8 of a 10 day hunt with John last year. Anxiously awaiting pics of Doc's buff...

I'm hoping to get some pics uploaded and posted tomorrow.

I did a two day warm-up on my hunt (with John, right after Doc) but not by choice...my .450 Dakota ammo didn't arrive to the BVC until the morning of Day 3!

So I took a Zebra (#4 for me, can't get enough of Zebra) and a Spotted Hyena.

Took to hunting Buff on day 3. Took my buffalo on day 6.

Then spent 6 days chasing scarce Eland, without firing a shot!

As Doc mentioned, the drought has added some complexity to the hunt. I thought it would concentrate the animals and make hunting easier...but not if they were concentrated on a block other than the one you are hunting!

That sucker is wide. What did it measure?

DF

John told me it was 41".

Same as my buds, posted earlier. It looked wider, tape measures don’t lie.

Nice.

DF

Tim, that bull is a beauty! A gray-faced, hard-bossed old bastard! Well done!

Still haven't posted any pics of my buff from last month. I've tried uploading pics but the files I have are too big for the app here on 24HCF. I've got to find the time to get on that.