Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Africa DocRocket's BVC Hunt With John Sharp

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More to come, today, boys.

Great job Doc. it is like reading a book on line with an installment at a time; very well done! Doc. you do tell stories around the campfire don't you. Cheers NC

The Poor Man's Buffalo

After our warthog success on SD3, the sundowners and dinner conversation were lively indeed. Cate and I had discussed the direction we would want to go for the rest of the hunt, and as we enjoyed our coffee and cigars around the campfire after supper she raised the issue with our intrepid Professional Hunter.

"So, John," she said, "I've been talking to my husband, and I think it's time I try to shoot something with horns. What do you think?"

"Well, that sounds fine to me, Cate," John said. "What kind of horns do you have in mind? Impala? We have a lot of those."

"No, I don't think so. And James already has a kudu, and wants a waterbuck, so they're out." She paused, then pointed up at the wildebeest mounted on the wall of the dining hut. "I think I want to kill one of those things. A wildebeest."

"Ah," said Rayno. "The poor man's buffalo."

"Why's it called that?"

"Well, for one thing, the trophy fee on one of those is one-tenth what you'll pay for a buff," Rayno explained. "Then there's the fact that they're comparatively easy to find, easy to stalk, and you don't need a heavy rifle to kill."

"Well, that may be true, Rayno," John said. " But they are the toughest of the plains game to kill, and in that respect they are more like buffalo than any other antelope. You can't really take one on with a light rifle like Cate's 6.5." He looked at me. "She would have to use your three seven five, if you think that might work."

I nodded. John was asking me if Cate could handle the big rifle. We would discuss this more later.

We all turned to look at the wildebeest on the wall, and after a moment John turned back and said, "That's fine with me, Cate. We'll keep an eye out for a good one, and when we see him, you can shoot him."

So that was that.

Except it wasn't. We saw an awful lot of wildebeest each day, but we were either hot after buffalo, or there were no shootable wildebeest bulls around when we were at loose ends.
the discussion.

"So, James," he asked, "Do you think Cate can handle your three seven five?"

"I think so, John," I replied.

"Has she shot it at the range at all?"

"No."

"Well, that might work quite well, then."

Which is exactly what I was thinking. Hunters flinch because they anticipate recoil. Cate had been shooting a light rifle that hardly recoiled at all, so she had no experience of it. Furthermore, when shooting at game, hunters typically don't notice the recoil of even a very heavy rifle at all, because their adrenalin is up and they are focused on the game. My reasoning was that if Cate's first (and hopefully only) shot with the 375 H&H was at a real wildebeest, she wouldn't know to flinch and wouldn't notice the recoil. Apparently, John thought the same thing.

Fast forward now, to dinner time on the evening of SD6. My mood had brightened immeasurably since my fit of glooms the day before, which I won't get into except to say that faith and prayer had a lot to do with it. Suffice to say I was feeling pretty good about the safari despite the repeated failed stalks on buffalo. John was starting to sound frankly worried.

"We just aren't seeing the numbers of buffalo I was expecting," he said. "We've looked everywhere here in Nengo, and even most of Chamalaya, and the bulls just aren't there. Tony tells me they're seeing a lot of buff in Dyers, but they have a party of four hunting in there now, so that's off limits to us. We'll just have to do the best we can with what we've got."

We all mumbled agreement, but I could tell that both of our PH's and even my usually upbeat bride were starting to worry, and I mean a bit more than slightly.

"Look, guys," I said. "It's hunting, not shooting. We haven't had the luck we'd hoped for, but if we keep putting in the work, we'll make our own luck."

More nods and mumbles of agreement, but I could tell they weren't convinced. John simply looked morose. Well, all I could do was keep believing, smiling, and encouraging. That's what the King of the Safari has to do, right?

SD7

Safari Day 7 dawned clear and bright, with a lovely gold and red sunrise for Rayno's cameras. The morning was slightly warmer than the previous two had been, and that made a difference as we drove along, checking early morning waterholes.

Isaac and Lovemore found the tracks of 4 good bulls at one of the big waterholes well south of camp, near the border with Chamalaya district. We drove down one road and north on the next, and Isaac found the bulls' tracks where they crossed the road as we slowly motored along. We clambered down and chambered rounds in the rifles, and set off. This was easily the longest stalk of the entire safari. We started off at about 0730 and tracked the meandering buffalo until nearly 1000 without finding them, then Isaac announced we had lost the trail! This is an unheard of event, by the way... Isaac and Lovemore have skills beyond the white man's comprehension, and even John admitted it was extremely rare for them to lose a track. But the drought conditions were tricky, he explained.

So the four of us sat down under the mopane trees and waited while our trackers reversed up our back trails to try to find the bulls. They returned half an hour later and led us back to where they had picked the trail up again, then we followed for another hour or so. At that point we stopped. We were facing a very dense thicket of mopane and other brush still holding very thick foliage. John and Isaac conferred, then we prepared to leave.

"They've bedded in this thick stuff," John explained. "We'll leave them here, and come back around 3 to pick up their trail again after they start to move."

Which is what we did. But the wind continued its capricious behavior, and after a 3 km stalk, the buffalo caught our scent and stampeded off. Busted again.

"There's at least one good bull in that bunch, John," Rayno said. His eyesight was and is excellent, and I would say was at least as good as Lovemore's... which is to say, he had been seeing game all week that only he and the young tracker could spot. This proved to be a real boon later!

John looked at Isaac, who mumbled agreement, and they all nodded. "We will try for them again tomorrow, perhaps," John said. "This same group of four or five bulls has stayed in this area for several days. They've got good forage, the lions aren't too thick in here, and they seem to be moving between these 3 waterholes. We should be able to pick them up again in the morning at one of them."

It sounded like a great plan, and we were all feeling buoyant as we loaded up into the truck and headed back toward camp.

The late afternoon light was, well, purely African. Those who have been know what I mean. The dusty haze in the air that blankets southern Africa in the dry season makes the photographer's "golden hour" a good 2 hours long, if not longer. It has to be seen to be appreciated.

John had chosen a meandering route back to camp, and as we were driving along the east-west road that leads to Nyati Dam, Rayno suddenly tapped on the roof over John's head, pointed off to our left, and said something in Fanagolo to the trackers. They immediately got excited, and as John brought the Land Cruiser to a halt, they were all climbing down the right side of the truck. John peered through his Swarovski's for a few moments, then beckoned to Cate.

"I think we've found your wildebeest, Cate," he said, smiling. I pulled the Caprivi out of its sock and handed it down. Cate worked the bolt and chambered a round, and then she and John moved ahead and to our left.

There was a smallish herd of wildebeest in the open brush, about 75 yards from the road. John and Cate, and Rayno close behind with his camera, moved stealthily through the brush to get closer. About 50 yards from the quarry they stopped, John set up the Viper sticks, and Cate laid the 375 across them.

I looked over the wildebeest through my binocular, but I honestly couldn't tell which one was the good bull... since I have no interest in the species, I've not done the eye work to get to know what's good and what's not. They all looked about the same to me. Blue wildebeest are really dark colored, and in the fading afternoon light they were really hard to pick out. But one bull was standing broadside, and John seemed to be pointing Cate at it, and I suspected that was the one.

The 375 crashed and the wildebeest I was watching through my binocular was poleaxed. I mean, it was a bang-flop. I let out a whoop, and started to run over to John and Cate. I looked at Isaac, who was behind John, and saw him shaking his head. Uh oh.

The wildebeest staggered up to his feet again. [bleep]. I knew instantly what had happened: the Accupoint scope on my Caprivi has a post reticle, with an illuminated green triangle at the top. You use the tip of the triangle as the aiming point, and it's all good. But Cate had the Leupold Duplex reticle in her scope, so if she used the entire green triangle as the aiming aid, her shot would go high. A high shot means the bullet would stun the thoracic spine, temporarily dropping the animal, but it would be up on its feet again. Sure, the wound would eventually kill him, but about as quickly as a gut shot would. Not good.

I could see Cate was struggling with the bolt, trying to get a fresh round into the chamber, then saw John reaching over and bulldozing the bolt back and forward again. Cate shot again as the wildebeest bolted forward.

We had a quick discussion as to what happened, and Cate confirmed my fears about shooting high. She had been confused by the aiming point of the post reticle, as I suspected. Hindsight dictated that I should have had her sight through the scope, at least, but that horse was well out of the barn. The trackers were already up ahead and looking for blood when we moved forward. Isaac pointed at some blood with a long grass stem, and Lovemore, 20 yards to his right, pointed out a large splash of blood on a mopane trunk. Good. He was bleeding well.

"Might have nicked the aorta, John," I ventured, looking at the bright red blood splashes.

"Could be," John said, but his tone was not hopeful.

"Probably not," Rayno added, cheerfully. "When they get hit high like that, there's often a lot of blood initially, but it comes from the muscle. The wound closes up as the muscle swells, and the bleeding stops. Externally, anyway."

"Well, ain't you a ray of freakin' sunshine, Rayno," I replied. He gave me a shrug and a lopsided grin. "Sorry," he said. But he was right.

We tracked the wildebeest for about a kilometre before we sighted him again. By this time, the sun was getting very low in the sky, already dipping into the trees on the western horizon. We saw the wildebeest, and he was moving slowly, obviously hurting badly and unable to really run, but not slowing down, either. True to Rayno's prediction, there was no more blood to trail. That didn't matter to Isaac and Lovemore, however. We caught up to him again another 500 metres further on, but by then the sun had set and darkness was coming on rapidly. Isaac and Lovemore stopped tracking, and looked at John.

"I think we'll have to leave him, I'm afraid," he said to Cate and me. "We're almost a kilometre from the road, and there are a LOT of lions in here. They'll smell the bull's blood, and we don't want to be between them and him."

"Lions turn into real [bleep] after dark," Rayno observed.

Cate looked like she'd been kicked in the belly. "Are the lions going to get him?" she asked me in a whisper.

"They might not," I said, without much conviction.

"No, the hyenas might get him first," Rayno said cheerfully. "But don't get down on yourself, he may make it through the night, and we'll get him in the morning."

The ride back to camp was very quiet. Cate didn't cry, but she looked like she was going to. When we got back to camp, she went straight to our chalet for a shower, while John and Rayno sat down at the firepit.

"What do you think, John," I asked. "Chances we'll find him tomorrow?"

"Well, I'd normally say we've got a pretty good chance of finding a jawbone tomorrow," he said gloomily, swirling the ice in his scotch glass. "But Isaac says he didn't see any sign of lions in that area, and the place we left him is a long way between waterholes. So there may not be any predators near there, and since he's not bleeding, he won't be giving off much scent. So he might make it."

"Maybe a 20 percent chance, you think?" asked Rayno.

"Sure, maybe a bit better than that."

Cate walked over to us from the chalet, freshly showered and looking lovely.

"Well, guys, I've had a few minutes to be glum, and I'm over it. What have y'all decided?" and just like that, she seemed to be over her sadness at losing the wildebeest.

We talked then, about how every hunter misses now and then, and no one who's really hunted can claim he or she has never wounded an animal. It happens. Wd all done it, and Cate had just proven that she wasn't immune to the universal disease at all.

"This is part of hunting," I said. "Nothing is guaranteed. Nothing is really easy, even when it looks easy."

"We have all missed, Cate," said Rayno. "I have, James has, John has. You have to accept it and move on."

"Well, that's it then," Cate replied. "So tomorrow morning we'll look for him where we left him, and maybe we'll get him before the lions do."

"That's it, Cate," said John, smiling. "We can only do our best, and that's the truth of it."

To be continued...

Doc thanks for the write up! cant wait for more! Guys like me that wont ever be able to see Africa, get to live it thru you Lucky ones! Yes I do have John Book a Great Read!!

SD-8: The Tables Turn

In safari camp, one tends to go to bed early and rise early. But awakening well before dawn in Africa is infinitely more civilized than it is at home. At home, a pre-dawn awakening is a chore, the preface to a long drive in the dark to the ER and a hard day of work. In Africa, the awakening is much, more fitting for The King. It's good to be King.

It starts with a soft knock on the door, then before your eyes actually open a gentle voice says, "Morning morning," and the aroma of fresh coffee hits your nostrils. The light comes on and a tray with two French presses and two mugs is laid on the bedside table. You untangle yourself from the bed covers and your wife, push up the pillows for a backrest, and sigh contentedly as your wife pours a cup of hot black aromatic coffee and you slowly sip it until your body gradually moves from the Land of Nod into the deep dark morning of Africa.

That, gentlemen, is how a King wakes up.

Then up and dressed, and the short brisk walk to breakfast, then breakfast, then out to the Land Cruiser at 0620 with the eastern sky brightening but the land still in shadow. "Morning morning," says Lovegood, taking your rifles and sliding them into the gun sheaths fastened to the roll cage, muzzles down, chambers empty, magazines full. "Morning morning," says Isaac from his perch up on the seat at the top of the roll cage. The truck coughs itself into wakefulness, and then you're rolling down the two-track, the wind created by the truck's passage cutting through the fleece jacket, and Rayno notices you shiver and comments that Wayne Gretzky wouldn't be shivering on such a warm morning, and you tell him to fornicate off in no uncertain terms and he laughs at you.

We arrived at the spot we'd left last evening just before sunrise. We took down both rifles, and I shouldered the 375 as Lovegood handed the Creedmoor to Cate. "Hey," she said, "That's my rifle today, remember?"

"Just thought I'd carry it for you," I said.

"I can handle it, mister," she said, and we exchanged rifles. To tell the truth, the light little Howa is a pleasure to tote on the shoulder.

Isaac was already off on his way to the spot we'd left the wildebeest the night before, with Lovegood taking up another track perhaps 20 yards to his right, both men already scanning the ground and the bush ahead. Rayno pointed with his chin as he shouldered his video camera.

"Looking for lion sign," he commented.

I looked down at the ground, and the profusion of game tracks in the dry ground of the roadside. "Do you see any?"

"No, none," he replied, and smiled. "We may be in for a bit of luck."

And off we went, following John, who was following Isaac, his big 470 Rigby double rifle perched on his right shoulder as usual. The trackers took us through the mopane scrub as if it was a 4-lane freeway, straight as a die, a good 500 yards from the road. Then Isaac stopped and Lovemore pointed.

"There he is!" Rayno whispered excitedly, and we all saw him at once. The bull was standing perhaps 100 metres west of the last place we'd seen him, looking back at us. He slowly moved off, obviously limping. We let him get out of sight, then moved up to where he had stood. The grass was flattened here where he had lain down for a miraculous undisturbed night's rest.

"I wouldn't have given odds better than one in ten," John said, smiling. He looked at the Howa slung over my shoulder. "You'll need the three seven five to finish him, don't you think?"

I nodded at Cate, who was looking west with clear purpose and intent. "Cate's got it, she'll do fine," I said.

John looked surprised for a moment, then turned and looked at Cate appraisingly, then looked back at me with a faint smile. "Right you are, James," he nodded.

The trackers were already following the wildebeest to the west, and we promptly followed the trackers. Two minutes later Isaac suddenly stopped and turned and came back to John, handing him the shooting sticks. Cate shouldered the 375 and laid it on the sticks, looked down the scope.

The wildebeest was standing with his back end toward us, his head turned so he could look at us. He was in shadow, so it was hard to make it out if you don't know what to look for. Cate didn't know what to look for. "Where should I shoot him?" she whispered.

"Shoot him right in the middle of the biggest part," John replied.

Cate said nothing, just thumbed the safety forward. BOOM. The wildebeest collapsed. General hysteria ensued, whoops and hollers, and Cate cried incredulously, "Did I get him?" and John laughed and said yes, and she handed me the rifle and gave John a big hug and then we all went up to survey the dead wildebeest. Which wasn't quite dead yet, it seemed. He tried to rise up as we approached, his head tossing and legs thrashing.

"Give him one more in the heart, James," John suggested. So I unslung the Howa and put one Hornady slug through the animal's heart, and he finally subsided, completely dead, finally.

"Look at this," Rayno said, squatting near the bull's back end. "A perfect Texas heart shot!"

And so it was: the bullet hole was half an inch from the bull's puckered butthole. There was much laughter and congratulating at that; Cate had made much of being a native Texan, so Rayno's characterization of her bullet placement was spot on.

As we waited for the Land Cruiser to make its way through the brush to pick up the big gnu's carcass, Cate was ecstatic. "I can't believe it," she said. "From the lowest of lows last night to this, I can't believe it. I'm over the moon." She kept kneeling down to stroke the big bull's head and neck, feeling the mass of his horns. "What a beauty," she whispered.

"Where are you going to put him?" John asked.

"I'm gonna hang him right over our bed," she replied. "And I'm gonna name him Bill."

Bill is her ex-husband's name. Nuff said about that. "I'd just as soon not look at, uh, Bill when we go to bed, darlin," I said, and everyone laughed.

The trackers winched the bull up into the bed of the Land Cruiser, which is almost a feat of magic with an animal of this size, and considering the tininess of the cargo bed in the Toyota 4X4. We cruised back to camp in fine mettle, all of us chattering happily at this remarkable turn of luck.

We dropped the wildebeest off at the skinning shed, and Gibson and John got out their tape measures. "Nineteen inches, inside spread," John announced. "That's a really, really good bull." (We didn't measure the outside spread for some reason, and our friend Ingwe prompted me to make a guess at outside spread, based on the picture of Cate holding the skull that I took the next day. We tried to duplicate the photo at home later, and my best guess was an outside spread of 31 or 32 inches. That, my friends, is getting close to Rowland Ward territory if the estimate holds up in reality.

But at that point none of us were thinking about Rowland Ward's book, or any other such academic nonsense. We had felt our luck change. It was as certain as certainty can be. We all felt it, we all knew it. We were hunting with an entirely different purpose now.

And Africa seemed to have got the same message. It was no later than 0930, and we hadn't driven more than 20 minutes out of camp when we rounded a corner and it appeared that All The Buffalo In Africa were suddenly there. It wasn't just a herd, it was a YUGE herd, on both sides of the road, crossing the road in tens and twenties, in the bush on both sides of the road, and seemingly oblivious to our presence. By the time the morning was over, I realized there were well over 200 bovines in that bunch, which amounts to roughly 400,000 pounds of cranky critters with large, sharp horns and cast-iron hooves.

The topography here was interesting. There was a small dry creekbed off to the left of the road, which the buff had apparently been using as a corridor through rather thick brush. Off to our right there was a long ridge, perhaps 20 or 30 feet higher than the road, and running obliquely to the southeast. The entire area was fairly heavily wooded, and there was a lot of grass and other forage. The buff were feeding more than they were moving, but they were definitely still moving, not bedded or about to bed.

John carefully put the Land Cruiser in reverse, and backed us around the corner and out of sight. We all got down and conferred briefly while Lovemore handed down the rifles and Cate and I both jacked cartridges into the chambers, and John dropped a pair of cigar-sized 470 rounds into the twin chambers of his Rigby (tonk, tonk, they said).

"So are we going to hunt this herd?" I asked, already knowing the answer.

John nodded. He understood what I was asking. Yes, the BVC discourages hunting Cape buff in herds. No, the BVC does not forbid it. And as it was already Safari Day 8, it was time to throw the gloves down on the ice and start swinging with a purpose.

"Yes, and it's time now," he said simply. "What we will do is go that way to get around the head of the herd," and he pointed off to the south. "We'll try to get a good look at all the bulls up there, then we will use that ridge to move down alongside the herd, and finish up looking at the tail. We'll probably find the best bulls at the tail of the herd."

And that's what we proceeded to do. Now, I had never hunted a herd before, but I'd read about it. This is actually the way it's usually done in most of Africa, apparently. Boddington, Ruark, and Seyfried all have written detailed accounts of how it's done, so I won't spend a lot of time on details. Suffice to say that if you crave a prolonged adrenalin rush severe enough to cause you to mess your pants several times over, hunting a buffalo herd in heavy brush is the ticket for you.

For the next two hours we sneaked, crept, slunk, and skittered through heavy brush as John and the trackers carefully looked over every damn buffalo in the herd. We would scoot along for a bit, then the signal from up front would come to FREEZE, which we would do, holding still for two or three or five minutes while John and Isaac peered through brush and leaves with their binoculars, then the signal would come to move on again. At one point we all stood stock-still as a young bull suddenly appeared out of a mopane thicket less than five yards away, feeding happily on the dense grass at his feet for perhaps 7 or 8 minutes all the way to the next thicket, completely oblivious to our presence. I probably don't need to say that the wind was decidedly in our favor!

Finally, at about 1130, we reached the road again and John and the trackers seemed satisfied and relaxed.

"Quite a nice herd," John said. "We saw perhaps 40 bulls, but we didn't see a really good one. We couldn't see the opposite side of the herd, though, so there may be one there. But the wind is starting to get tricky, and they're going to bed soon, so it's best not to chance it. We can come back for them again tomorrow if we need to."

And with that, we headed back to camp for a lunch and a nap.

At 1530 we drove out of camp again, back north to Waterholes Number 5 and 6. "There's no point in looking at the herd again," John explained. We know where they're headed, so we know where to find them if we want to hunt them in the morning. But we don't know if there are any good bulls in there, and we know there are several good ones up near Fimbiri, so let's go up there tonight and see if we can find some."

Unspoken was the understanding I shared with John about the other quarry we still had on the list: eland, and perhaps a bigger kudu bull than the one hanging on my wall in Texas. Both species were more likely to be found up near Fimbiri than down south where the herd was, so the possibilities of a mixed bag was better this way.

And I haven't even got into the frustrations we'd had in our quest for a good waterbuck bull. Suffice to say we'd put on several stalks, and never gotten even close to a shot. The waterbuck were plentiful up along the Bubye River on the way to and from the Fimbiri waterholes, though, so I knew that was in the back of John's mind.

Long story short: we found tracks that told us both of the Fimbiri waterholes had held buffalo bulls that day, and they were big bulls, and they were old bulls. Dagga boys of the first order. My hopes were high for the morning hunt on SD-9. And yes, we stumbled across a really good waterbuck along the banks of the Bubye as we headed home, and yes, we had yet another unsuccessful stalk on him, but we didn't mind much.

Because in the morning we were going to kill a buffalo. I knew it.

To be continued...

Fantastic story telling Doc, keep it coming...

SD-8: Dinner

The mood at our dinner table that evening was upbeat, to say the least. Cate's wildebeest was the prime topic of conversation, of course. We relived the experience together, reminding each other of different aspects of the hunt, laughing at the funny bits, and generally revelling in the astonishing change of luck we had had that day.
--a
After dinner was done and the coffee and cigars were ascendant, Cate announced something profound.

"You guys don't know what an experience this has been for me," she said. "I've been among hunters my whole life, and my husband has given me some idea of what a hunter is, and I admit I really like it. But I had no idea what an amazing thing it is, to be a hunter. There's honor in it--honor for the land, and for the animals, and for each other--that I never knew about. And it's more important to you guys than I ever realized. And you have a really high set of standards for how everything is done, and I never realized how high that standard was, or how hard you were willing to work to make sure those standards are never violated.

"Hunting is the most amazing thing, and I never knew it until I came here and learned from you guys," she said. We were all a bit quiet there, for a minute.

"And I'll tell you one more thing," she said. "I wasn't a hunter when I came to Africa. But when I leave Africa, I will not leave as a tourist, or a hunter's wife. I will leave as a hunter."

There isn't much I can add to that.

SD-9 Hyenas After Breakfast

I awoke sometime in the middle of the night to the sound of rain falling. Not heavy rain, just a light pitter patter of raindrops on the thatch overhead and the flagstones outside the window. I wondered if that was a good thing. I considered how everything had changed the day before, and I decided it must be a good thing, and I rolled over and went back to sleep.

We met at the Land Cruiser at 0630. The sky was overcast, so it was darker than usual. The ground was damp from the sprinkling of rain that had fallen overnight, but it wasn't raining at the moment. Lovemore met me as usual.

"Morning morning," we greeted each other. He climbed up into the bed, and I handed him my rifle to put into the scabbard, then climbed up to the bench seat. I looked up at him as he took his seat on the roll cage.

"Today, Lovemore," I said, "Nyati."

Lovemore grinned. "Mbogo," he replied, and his eyes got big.

"Buffaloooooo," I replied, and we both laughed.

John made sure we all had rain gear, then we drove off to the north. The clouds were very low, I would estimate at no more than 200 feet off the deck. We were already getting a light sprinkling of rain as we passed the dam and headed off toward the Bubye.

We had scarcely traveled the prescribed 2 kilometre gun-free zone around camp (the BVC frowns on any shooting close to camp, for obvious reasons) when Rayno knocked on the roof of the truck, pointing off to our right. John brought the truck to a rapid stop, and we all tumbled out.

Hyena.

He was perhaps 80 yards off the road, and had been loping along parallel to our track when we first saw him. When we stopped, he did too, and stood there staring at us. John put up the sticks and I laid my rifle across it, but as I looked down the scope I could barely make out the hyena. Try as I might, I couldn't make out anything more than a blob... and then he was gone.

John seemed a bit disgusted. "You're not in a box blind in Texas, now, James," he said. "Game isn't going to stand around all day waiting for you in Africa."

I only half-heard his admonition... this was my 19th day of hunting in Africa, after all, and I had a pretty good idea how quickly one needs to shoot. My problem was being able to see what I wanted to shoot.

I was already trouble shooting my problem as I climbed back up into the truck. The 1.5-3X Accupoint DG scope I was using has no objective bell, which means it's not a great light-gathering scope for the sort of shot I was trying for that morning. I had the variable set down low at 1.5X, so it was not going to give me much targeting information, and the aiming point at the top of the post, a glowing green triangle, was set for brighter conditions. I turned the magnification up to 3X and turned the tritium setting down until it was almost as black as the post beneath it. I shot a quick look through the scope as we started up again. Much better.

We had barely got going again, and were perhaps 200 metres down the road, when we all saw the hyena loping along parallel to our track again! John slammed on the brakes, we all tumbled out again, and the sticks went up again. I laid the rifle down, and this time I could see the bizarre-looking carnivore perfectly well.

I put the tip of my aiming point on his shoulder and sent off a 300 grain A-Frame to say hello, and lost him in the recoil. I brought the rifle back down again, not lifting my cheek from the buttstock as I stroked the bolt, and he was still there, but facing the other way. Rayno was saying I'd hit him, and hit him again, but I already had my post on his hindquarters, the only part I could see clearly behind the little bush he'd spun around behind, and my finger was already tightening and I fired again and the rifle slammed back and I lost him again. I brought it down again and looked for the hyena, but he was gone.

Damn. Missed. But Lovemore was grinning at me and Rayno was slapping me on the back and saying I'd knocked the bastard into next week, and John was congratulating me on some fine shooting... I hit him?

We walked up to the little thicket that stood next to where he'd been standing, and Isaac let out a shout and we all went around it and found the hyena dead on the ground with two bullet holes in him--well four, really, two entry holes and two exit holes. I'd hit him exactly where I'd aimed with both shots: through the shoulders, and through the hips. He was dead as Al Gore's political career, and I said as much, thinking I had about the same level of respect for the pair of them. Actually, in retrospect I realize I hold the hyena in considerably higher regard, but that was my thought at the time.

I was surprised at what a lovely animal the hyena was, up close. His fur was thick and soft and quite luxuriant, golden brown with darker brown spots, and that black face and muzzle, and those frighteningly large jaws and teeth... yes, Fisi is an ugly bastard, but he's beautifully ugly at that.

"That's a beauty," Rayno told me, stroking the fur. "A really good one. How do you think you'll mount him?"

I laughed. "I have no idea. I've never thought of having a hyena, so I have no idea. I suppose I'll have to do a full body mount. Maybe with a dead cottontail in his mouth, I can get one of those in Texas easily enough. And the rabbits here look just like our cottontails."

John nodded approval. "That would look really fine, I think," he said. And that was that. I was ridiculously happy with my hyena, a total target of opportunity. Cate had shot my theoretical wildebeest, and Ihad shot her theoretical hyena. Tit for tat.

"That was all of a hundred and eighty yards," John said, as we loaded him up into the truck. "Fine shooting." From John, that's quite a compliment.

We rolled back to camp and dropped the cat-dog off with Gibson, then turned around and headed back north to Fimbiri.

We caught some moderate rain on the 45-minute drive up to Number 5 waterhole, but it slacked off a good 10 kilometres short of the kopje country up that way. The beauty of it was, the rain had soaked the dirt of the road and countryside just enough to wash away all the old tracks, so every track we saw now was absolutely morning fresh.

We rounded the corner by the stone wall and dam about 4 miles short of the twin kopjes overlooking Number 5 and climbed the hill. We all saw them at once, and John slammed on the brakes. The road dropped away before us in a long swale, and at the crest of the next rise in the road, perhaps a kilometre away, we could see the unmistakable bulk of four buffalo bulls walking down the road as if they were on their way to church or something.

We waited until they had dropped over the far side of the rise, then John started off again. He stopped just shy of the next crest, and we got out and got ourselves ready for the stalk.

"They look pretty good to me, John," said Rayno.

"They do look pretty good," John agreed. "At least two shooters there, maybe three. Wide enough anyway. We'll have to see about the bosses when we get a closer look."

Well, that was good enough for me, and i felt positively ebullient as I shouldered my rifle. Today was going to be the day. I knew it. I grinned at Lovemore, and he mugged back at me. He knew it to. Hell, even Isaac had a shadow of a smile on his stony face.

To be continued...

Nyati Now...

We got down from the truck, checked gear, chambered rounds in rifles, and set off after the bulls. We walked quickly, briskly, parallel to the road and just on the edge of the mopane for perhaps five or six hundred yards, down into the swale between crests, and then back up the opposite slope. Before we reached the crest, we moved deeper into the bush, but kept up the brisk pace. Glancing off to my right, the deep, heavy tracks of the buff were plain as day in the wet earth of the road.

Just past the crest we paused, Isaac and Lovemore casting around in the grass and leaves ahead of us. Rayno pointed at the road.

"They probably heard us getting out of the truck right here," he ventured. "Look, you can see they milled around there in the road, then they moved off into the bush."

Even I could read that story in the sign. Isaac and Lovemore beckoned and started to track. The bulls had moved perpendicular to the road perhaps 30 yards, then resumed their eastward direction. "They're heading to water," Rayno whispered, and John glanced back over his shoulder at us, and nodded.

This was unusual. Because of the rain during the night, the bulls had stayed out feeding much later than they would normally, not heading for water until daylight was upon them. Their route was direct now, and much easier to follow, bearing toward the distant kopjes and the cool water of Number 5. We tracked them for perhaps another kilometre, not slowly and cautiously as we had done each of the previous eight days, but directly. The sign was easy for the trackers to read, and the message they were reading was, "thirsty buffalo".

We dropped down into a dry creekbed and up the other side, and up a bit of a rise, and then Isaac signalled an urgent halt. We did, and watched as he looked at something out of our line of sight with his binocular. He turned and beckoned, and John moved up, whispering to us to stay put. He moved up beside Isaac and Lovemore, and took out his own binocular. They stood there a long time, looking. Then John turned and beckoned. I moved up with Rayno beside me, Cate close behind.

As I peered out through the mopane, I could see that we had reached an open place: a road right-of-way, and a major road at that, with a gravel surface and wide clear shoulders. I guessed which road it was, leading north into Fimbiri; which meant ahead of us about a mile or so was the Maletetzi River, which was the border with Dyers. The bulls had veered away from Number 5, and were headed for the edge of our hunting area. This was getting a tad dicey, I realized.

But across the road, perhaps 80 yards away, were the buffalo. They were feeding calmly just inside the sparse brush at the edge of the shoulder, all four of them. John pointed and whispered.

"The ones in the middle are both shootable bulls. The one on the right is wider, but the one on the left has better bosses. They're about eighty yards. Do you think you can take him at this distance?"

It was a loaded question, and the fact he had even asked it was a hell of a compliment. John had told me more than once that he hardly ever lets a client shoot a buffalo past 50 yards. As distance increases, the chance of wounding the bull increases exponentially, and as everyone knows, a wounded buff is Not A Good Thing. The fact that he was even asking me this question told me that he was saying he trusted me to do something he would not let almost any other hunter try, and that was a hell of a thing. A hell of a thing.

"Let's look through the scope," I whispered back. John moved us to the left a yard or two and put up the shooting sticks. I laid my rifle across and sighted through the tube. The bulls were there, clear as dammit, big and black as railway oil cars, long and menacing in their bulk. They were feeding and partially obscuring each other. My scope adjustments earlier that morning were perfect: I could see the bulls clearly, and the softly glowing green triangle at the tip of the post was just bright enough for perfect clarity. I sighted on the chest of the bull on the left, and knew it would be fine. Both of the shooter bulls were partially obscured by brush, but they were constantly moving, and it was only a matter of time til one of them gave me a shot.

"I can take him," I whispered.

"All right, then," John said. "The one on the right is the one we want. If he comes out from behind that bush, or turns the opposite way, we'll take him."

So we waited, John watching them through his binocular, and I watching through my scope. I was glad of the cool weather that morning. On any of the previous eight mornings at this time, holding my rifle on a buffalo for this length of time would have meant quivering muscles and salt sweat stinging my eyes. But this morning I felt nothing but comfort and calm. I had this bull. I had him.

And then he turned. Just like that, perfectly broadside to me, and he stepped into the clear space between the bushes. "That's it," said John. "Take him now."

My right thumb found the safety and slipped it forward, and my finger found the trigger and I started my squeeze.

Then the truck came. The mother fecking cark sucking pig fecking truck fecking came.

The bulls simultaneously lifted their heads and my bull whirled around to look to our right, and then they were gone.

To be continued....

Fantastic, thank you for taking the time to share.

...And Nyati Again

I was incredulous as the truck roared up the road toward us. I put my safety back on, lowered my rifle. My pulse pounded in my throat, and my vision was red. I wanted to shoot the fecking driver of the truck. He had stolen my buffalo at the eleventh hour, the buffalo I'd worked so hard for! I was infuriated!

Lovemore had moved off to our right, partly out of the bush, and had waved frantically to stop the truck, but they saw him too late. They did stop though, and all four or five of the men in the truck grinned broadly at us and waved. They were all carrying automatic rifles. Game guards. Good guys, but not hunters, and they had no idea what a devastating blow they'd delivered to our hunt.

John growled something in Fanagolo to Isaac, and both Rayno and Isaac growled something back, and I guessed that it was some sort of imprecation against these well-intentioned men who had so badly busted our hunt. But there was nothing for it, we were busted. And that was that. I was crestfallen.

"Come on, let's go," said John, and he and the trackers started across the road.

"What?" I said, surprised. "We're still going after them? They'll be half a mile into Dyers by now!"

"Maybe," join agreed, "But maybe not. They see vehicles all the time. The buffalo didn't run, they just walked away. If we're lucky, we might still have a shot at them."

Bemused, I slung my rifle and started after him. I glanced over at Rayno, who shrugged, seeming as skeptical as I felt. I looked back at Cate, and she smiled and blew me a kiss.

We crossed the road, waving and smiling at the heavily armed Game Guards, who smiled and waved back. I felt slightly less murderous as I stepped into the brush on the far side of the road, though, and watched as the trackers carefully examined the ground ten yards ahead. They gestured this way and that, signalled to John, and then started off into the deeper bush.

"Well, we may be in luck," John said quietly. The bulls haven't run at all. They're just walking that way," and he pointed eastward. "But we have some bad luck, too, perhaps. They're not going for Number 5 any more. They're headed toward the Maletetzi River."

"And that's bad because..." I paused.

"Because that's the boundary with Dyars," he explained. "Once they cross the riverbed, we can't follow them."

"So we have to hope they don't cross," I said.

"Or catch them before they do," Rayno suggested.

"We shall see," John finished, sounding remarkably upbeat for a PH whose hunter had just got busted for the umpteenth time. And on we went.

The bulls seemed to be following a less direct course now, but they weren't moving as fast, either. Isaac and Lovemore had no trouble following the trail in today's soft earth, which was so clear that even I could follow it most of the time with my ancient and city-wrecked eyes. The terrain was more rolling here as we approached the Maletetzi, and the bush became thicker and thicker. I was beginning to worry we were going to get into such thick stuff that no shot would be possible.

Then they stopped. Isaac and Lovemore, I mean. I couldn't see much ahead, other than their backs 20 yards ahead. John moved up to see, while the rest of us hung back. Then John gestured us forward. When I moved up the brush parted enough for me to see, and I wasn't exactly pleased by what I saw.

We had reached the bank of the Maletetzi. We were perhaps 20 feet higher than the dry sand riverbed, which lay unbroken before us for at least 60 to 80 yards. And on the bank across from us was Dyars. And there, in Dyars, feeding on the brushy far bank, were our four buffalo bulls. John motioned me up beside him, and he pointed carefully.

There was a more or less clear patch directly opposite us, perhaps 30 yards wide. It was flanked by two tall trees with thick trunks. The base of the tree on the right was partly obscured by a thick tangle of brush and thorn. The bulls were feeding in and around that brushy tangle. John pointed to the bull on the far right.

"That's our boy, on the right," he said. "At least I think it is. The one on the far left, by the tree, is still soft and not wide at all. I can't see the one behind the tree, but the one feeding just on the edge of the brush is the heavy-bossed dagga boy."

"I thought we couldn't hunt in Dyars?" I whispered.

"Well, we can't really hunt in Dyars," he said, "But that doesn't mean we can't shoot into Dyars."

"And I suppose we can follow a bull we've already shot if it goes further into Dyars..." I continued.

"Right," John said. "It's a fine point, but I don't think anyone will really have a problem with it."

I squinted at the bulls across the wide riverbed. "What's the range, d'you suppose?"

"About a hundred," John said mildly. "That shouldn't be a problem for you, the way you've been shooting today. Hmm?"

"Let's have a look," I replied, and John set the sticks up. I laid my rifle across and peered through the scope. The light was really just about perfect: the bulls were feeding in fairly open country, with no overhead canopy. The high overcast clouds diffused the sun's rays enough to obliterate all shadows, but there was plenty of light to see detail. I put the green aiming triangle on the chest of the far left bull, the non-shooter, and looked carefully. I could see the line of his shoulder clearly, and the point of the triangle rested steadily on his chest. I counted five Mississippi's, and the reticle stayed on the heart. Good. Well and good.

"I can do it," I said.

"I know you can," John said simply. "Now, let's wait for the one we want to come out." I stood back from the rifle, and put my binoculars on the bulls. We watched for what seemed like a very long time. Rayno had moved off my right shoulder, and John stood on my left. Cate was directly behind me, the trackers flanked us on both sides. We waited. The heavy-bossed bull moved a bit more into the open, but the wide bull seemed to be feeding back, away from us, and behind the tangle.

"I can't see him at all now," I said. John nodded. Then he spoke.

"Well, James. It's Day Nine, and this may well be our last chance. Beggars can't be choosers, you know."

I dropped my binos and took my rifle up again, looked through the scope. The heavy-bossed bull was there, broadside. Shootable.

"Let's take the heavy one, then," I said.

"Take him when you're ready," John said simply, and that was that.

The post settled firmly on the bull's chest, the point an inch behind the shoulder. I felt the safety slip forward under my thumb, and the smooth metal of the trigger under my finger. I tightened my grip slowly. The post remained rock solid.

The rifle roared and bucked up off the sticks, and I was driving it down and forward as the bolt worked itself in my hand as if the rifle was doing it rather than me, and I was finding the bull in my scope again. The loud THWACK of the bullet strike echoed across the river, and I could see three bulls milling about in the clearing between the trees. Which was he? They weren't running, they couldn't tell where the shot came from! Then I picked him out, the heavy-bossed bull, over to the left now, standing with his head low, breathing hard, and I knew I'd hit him hard.

"Should I hit him again?" I asked.

"You can if you like," John replied mildly. "But you've already killed him. You got him right through the heart with your first shot."

I decided to hit him again, and yanked the trigger. The rifle bucked again, and the resounding THUMP that echoed back confirmed my suspicion that I'd hit him too far back. I worked the bolt again, and found him standing on the right side of the open space, moving, starting to turn. I didn't hesitate, but settled the post and fired a third round. This one made the hollow THWACK of a hard chest hit again, and I knew he was done and dead on his feet. The bulls turned away, the first two running, but my bull walking, and walking slowly. They disappeared into the brush.

I came up off my rifle and looked at John, who was grinning broadly. I turned to look at Isaac, and he was making a downward gesture with his hands, signalling that bull was going down. He looked at me and with a ghost of a smile he nodded at me. Rayno was thumping me on the back, and Cate came up behind me and hugged my neck.

A long, low, very loud moan sounded from across the river. "The death bellow," Rayno and I said simultaneously, and then we were all shaking hands and slapping high fives, which Cate had taught to Lovemore, and then she hugged Isaac and the shy old tracker actually returned the hug (barely), and John and I embraced, laughing and slapping each other.

"Well, then," John said, "Let's go collect your dead bull, James."

And that was that. We crossed the river and climbed the far bank, and at the top of the bank we saw the bull lying on his side ten yards away. He wasn't thrashing or kicking or even breathing. A few yards past him in the bush, we could see the other three bulls standing and facing us, heads down, menacingly big and awfully damn close. I held my rifle high, and saw John shoulder his big double as well.

"Wheesht, wheesht," Isaac whistled oftly, waving both hands slowly at the bulls. The bulls all jerked their heads up, looking hard at Isaac. "Wheesht, wheesht," he whistled again, and the bulls whirled and galloped away in apparent terror. I don't know what Isaac's whistle meant in buffalo-speak, but the bulls apparently understood it and made haste to get themselves out of there.

We walked up to the bull, and I suggested I should pay the insurance with a bullet into his neck, but John smiled and said that wouldn't be necessary, this one was dead as dead could be, and he was. The ticks on his belly were dropping off like rats off a sinking ship, and his eyes were hooded and glazed. John touched his rifle muzzle to the near eye and there was no response.

I laid my rifle across the bull's back, and knelt down by his head. I took the massive horns in my hands and pulled... I could barely move the damn thing! I knew he wasn't any wider than the buff I took in '15, and was in fact probably a shade narrower, but those incredible bosses! They were hard and scarred and jammed tightly together in the middle, heavier and deeper from front to back than he'd looked in the scope. An ancient old bull, this. His ears were tattered and torn by lions and by other bulls' horns, his shoulders and flanks scored and scarred from a hundred battles or more, an old warrior who deserved better than to be eaten alive by lions when he became too old to defend himself, he'd died on a beautiful morning on the banks of the Maletetzi River, at the hands of a man who loved him and everything he represented in wild Africa. I bent down and whispered some words of thanks into his ragged ears.

And that, gentlemen, is pretty much that. On the nineteenth day of my 20-day safari, I killed the Cape buffalo bull I'd been dreaming about for 45 years, since the day I read The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber on a cold afternoon in my apartment in Calgary.

To be concluded....

Odds and Ends, and We Bid Africa Adieu

Well, I guess I should finish up some loose ends here.

Getting my buffalo bull back to camp was a bit of an effort, as I had dropped him at a point that is about as far from a road as any point you can find in the BVC, and it took the trackers and driver more than an hour to bushwhack through the mopane scrub to get to us. We rolled him a bit for pictures, and once we got him rolled over on his right side, John pointed at the little hole low on his left chest, right behind the shoulder.

"Perfect shot placement, James," he said, smiling. "And at one hundred and twenty yards, that's really good."

"One twenty?" I said, genuinely surprised.

"At least," he affirmed, and Rayno agreed. I frankly couldn't have cared less, but I suppose it gives me some sort of bragging rights, if that's important, which I don't think it is. None of the fellows I hunt with and know, here on the 24HCF and in the real world, would consider a 120 yard shot on a deer or elk much to brag about, and the plain truth is it's no more difficult on a buffalo... except in your head, if you let the buff take up residence there.

We got him back to camp, and put the tape to him, and he came in at 34", two inches less wide than the bull I killed in '15. But I'd learned the hard way that the width of a buff isn't the measure of his worth. This bull was and is priceless to me.

We learned the next day that two hunters in Dyars had killed monster bulls at about the same time as I killed mine: one a behemoth of 46", and another an unbelievable 49". Both bulls had been surprised by hunters who hadn't hunted buffalo much at all before stumbling upon them. They had simply been lucky. And I'm not sure that those hunters will ever appreciate what it is to really work for a bull. Perhaps they will, but it doesn't really matter in the end. I worked damn hard for mine--we all did, our whole hunting party, and all 6 of us have in irrevocable share in that hunt--and for that I feel very blessed indeed.

We had a great day on SD-9, and we killed a magnificent bull after a very long and very hard hunt, and there really isn't anything more satisfying than that. We had a great dinner of eland steaks that night, and John and Rayno drank quite a lot more wine than usual, and we all stayed up much later than usual, and we laughed a great deal more than we had laughed at dinner any night previous. I kind of wish we had recorded those dinner conversations, especially the dinner on SD-9.

On SD-10 we got up at the usual hour, ate the usual breakfast, and tried very hard to get the waterbuck we'd been looking for. We put in two very good stalks, but the wind had returned to its previous capricious habits, and we got busted both times. We tried for a big impala ram, too, but the same thing happened. It was good to do, simply to say we had tried our best right up to the end.

We parted ways with John at the airport in Bulawayo and continued on to Johannesburg with Rayno. John and I have plans to meet at DSC next January, and we will have more business to do together there and then, and probably after that as well. Some of it will entail rifles and blood, I expect. Rayno and Cate and I have plans to get together then as well, and we are tossing around ideas for a combination bird hunt and flyfishing trip in the Northern Cape next year, which will probably get tacked onto an eland hunt on the same trip. I realize now that Africa has got under my skin. God willing, I will go back.

Africa is deep under Cate's skin as well. She found a dinner set of china in one of the shops in the Joburg airport, which we bought and had shipped to our home in Corpus Christi, and now we eat our supper each night on African plates. She has the spot for her zebra picked out in the living room, too, and she's impatient for all our trophies to get back to Texas so she can go see them prior to mounting.

And yes, Cate left Africa as a hunter. She is already making plans with friends in west Texas for her first deer hunt this fall. And she tells me that she feels a lot more confident about the Glock she carries for personal defense now, too, because as she puts it, "If I can kill a wildebeest bull under those circumstances, I can kill any damn Texas son of a bitch who messes with me."

I remember Ingwe laughing at me on the telephone in 2015, before I left on my first safari, when I told him I'd only go to Africa once. I know now why he was laughing. Because now I'm laughing too.

I don't know when it will be, but I'm very much looking forward to Safari Day 21, and all the other SD's that will follow.

Incredible, it certainly gets in your blood. I am already dreaming and scheming of trip #3.

James, incredible adventure, very well told.

Thank you!

That’s as good if not better than about any gun rag story.

Your text with some select photos would make the cover story of a major publication.

IMO. DF

Thanks Doc.

That was a great story, you really took us along with you.

Africa does get under one’s skin.

All the best.


GRF

I agree with DF about the quality of your writing, are you going to see if you can get it into a hook and bullet magazine?

Thanks for the kind words, fellas. I write this stuff up more for my own satisfaction than for any dreams of publication. I’m too long winded for magazines, and I don’t know if anyone would publish this stuff in a book as a collection of stories. Not a real worry. BTW, this was all written straight out with hardly any editing. It’s pretty raw. And there’s some details I left out... I didn’t make enough with the Wayne Gretzky sub-theme, which was hilarious at the time, for example...

John Barsness has mentioned that stories of this type just don’t sell any more, which is why he switched over to more technical writing. This is a shame, as he writes really fine hunting stories. So do other people. But the gunzines won’t print them, and the short-attention-span readers of today won’t read them. So there you are.

Anyway... thanks for readin', guys.

That's the beauty of the Fire. We can read great stories that otherwise wouldn't find their way to print.

I like JB's stories, too. The old rags were into stories. I'm wondering why the market seemed to trend more toward technical stuff, away from good story telling. I guess I'm still living in the past.

DF

Thanks for the write up, Doc. That was as good a story as I have ever read. It would be good to share a campfire with you and hear more stories of your other hunts.

Let's just go ahead and declare this thread of the year for the CF and award doc the fame and riches he deserves. Really well told.