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Just got from Crooks Corner in Zim. 4 hunters, 4 Buffalo in 5 days!

Congratulations! Details, man, details...

what a great looking trophy!! more pics please...and details...

Here are 3 of the 4. The bottom one is 41 3/4 with 15inch bosses, Mine is the second one up, 39 inches with 15 3/4 bosses and my buddies is the top one at 36 inches.

We hunted with Shingani Safaris. I am on the left,owner/PH Riaan is the middle and my freind Dale is on the right. What an awesome adventure. We walked 10-12 miles first day. Second day we walked about 5 miles before Dale shot his at 60yds in high grass. Riaan and I continued to hunt and covered 5-7 miles before I was fortunate enough to shoot mine 30 minutes before dark at 50 yards. I was using a Ruger 77 in .416 Rigby. The other hunters took a bull that same afternoon as well, the 41 incher and the other gentlemen took his on day 5. He was on his last legs as they covered some serious ground everyday.
All I can say is that Riaan with Shingani Safaris is awesome.

Wow, NICE bulls! More of the story when you have time. Congratualtions for sure.

Those are nice looking buffalos.

Awesome bulls! Congratulations.

More details please!

Stunning! Congratulations on something that very few of us will ever have an opportunity at!!!

Did you hunt anything else while there or was this a one animal hunt?

WAYYYYYY cool. Congrats.

Nice..looks a good time for all!!

Superb buffaloes, congratulations! jorge

JB,

Congrats. I'm sav'n pennys. How many beers went down the gullet?

KP.

Sorry it has taken so long in giving the details. We flew non stop ATL-JNB on Delta. Shingani Safaris Riaan meet us at the airport and it only took an hour to process through. On a side note, I know the expedite services are wonderful but if they stayed out of the way every one could process much quicker. They disrupt the whole flow. So rifles in the land cruiser and Ellisras in Limpopo province here we come to spend the night. Oh yes we stopped and got a Wimpy burger for the ride and to wash it done plenty of Hansa.

Day 2 packed everything and the kitchen sink, well not the kitchen sink but a generator and deep freeze packed to the bream with food. Off to cross the border at Beitbridge into Zimbabwe. This took 3 1/2 hours. What a mess. We spent the night 1 hour from the border at the Lion and Elephant Inn.

Day 3 We rose and traveled 3-4 hours on dirt roads to access our hunting concession at Crook's Corner. Crook's corner is where Zimbabwe, South Africa and Mosinbeek come together and are seperated by the Limpopo River. Which on the South Adfrican side is Krueger Park! We arrived at camp they staff hadn't seen any hunters in 3 years. Needless to say the camp need a little TLC but by the end of the day everything was squared away. It wasn't 4 starr or even 2 starr but we had a place to sleep, shower (cold only as the barrel boiler broke into from rust), eat and bathroom facilities. When the camp was built 50 years ago there was game everywhere. Today you have to drive 20 minutes to the Limpopo River and surrounding area. The animals from Krueger cross to feed on this side of the river. The tracks crossing the river from Krueger to Crooks Corner looked like a freeway. We scouted that afternoon to formulate a plan. I did pass on a monster Nayla at 30 yards as not wanting to spoil our buffalo hunting. He was a monster.

Day 4. Early rise and off to the river. there where 4 hunters, 2 in each party. We took the river and they decided to scout the road looking for tracks to follow. The river was hard walking as the sand kicked our butts. I have worn my hunting boots for almost 8 yers and they are like an old friend. I have never had any problems what so ever but the river, I am loosing 2 toe nails due to the sand. At least every one else in the party is loosing at least 1 toe nail. As soon as we parked the tracker found sign, fresh sign. The spoor still had steam coming off it. We tracked this group of 5 for over 6 hours through jess and tall grass. Finally they moved out, must have smelled us. We stopped had lunch and back to the river to find another track to follow. No luck that evening. All told probably 10-12 miles that first day.



Day 5. We cut tracks again very early and 3 hours on the trail we ran across fresh blood. Large drops of FRESH BLOOD in grass over our heads and you couldn't see 10 feet in either direction. Yes pucker factor was at a 10. We could never catch up with them. As we are walking across an open grass meadow our tracker Robert stops us and points out 2 sets of horns at 100 yards coming our way. Its amazing, you would think that the buffalo would stick way out of the grass but all you could see was there horns. The wind was in our face so all was good in that department. They feed to with in 60 yards of us before Dale dropped the hammer on his Ruger N0.1 in .416 Rigby. The shot was high on the shoulder and he put another into him to finish the job. Man the excitement was really flowing then. After some pictures and back slapping Riaan , Robert the tracker and i set off again to see what the river held. We cut tracks of 2 "Dugga boys" as Robert said. We stayed on the tracks for almost 4 hours. The buffalo did figure 8's at least 3 times and doubled back once trying to catch us. We never saw them but you could smell them. So far for the day we had made 4 trip's up the river trying to keep the wind in our favor. We headed back to the truck and learned that in addition to Dales buffalo one of the other hunters was successful. His is the 41 on the bottom. The bad part of his kill was that it was 3 hours walk from the road. It took them 8 hours to hack a road into the bull.

It was getting very late maybe an hour before sunset as we where heading back when Robert spots something about 180-200 yards into a feild of grass. We glassed but could not see anything. Robert was certain that he had saw something. Riann said what the heck lets go. So Riaan, Robert and I took off across the field down wind. We got to the spot where Robert thought he saw the object. He found sign and began to track. If you have never experienced a tracker in Africa they are truly amazing. We followed the bull's tracks around in almost a circle and then he seemed to disappear. Riaan said to Robert and me that he thought the buffalo was lying down right in front of us. We only had maybe 20 minutes of light left so we pushed into the grass. We had not gone 30 yards when out of nowhere this bull turns and starts to run away from us at about 50 yards. it seemed like 5 yards. Man my blood was pumping. Riaan is yelling "Shoot,Shoot'. So the first shot was top of the shoulder and the second one was in the neck which planted him. In between my 1st and 2nd shot Riaan fired a solid through his rear for insurance. It all happened so quick and man did the emotions take over. There was a lot of hugging and grinning and tears from all parties. We gave quick word of thanks to the man up stairs before it was to dark for photos. The ironic part is that I shot my buffalo 100 yards from where Dale shot his.

Oh KP, we did put a few Hansa's down that night along with a few good Cuban's.



Day 6. Late rise as we celebrated kind of of late. Three Buffalo in 2 days is pretty awesome. The other hunting party stayed as they still where after one buffalo. We packed up and headed back to SA. Crossing the border back only took 40 minutes.



We stayed for an additional 7 days and Dale took a Nayla, Eland and Eland. We where able to fish and caught a ton of Talipa. most was in the 2lb range but his son Rubin who is 5 landed a 5lb plus Talipa It was a monster. The 4th hunter was successful on the 5th day shooting a very nice 40 inch buffalo. I forgot to mention that Dales wife Lisa was long on this hunt. She was a real trooper in these where some pretty demanding conditions with the heat, sand, walking, thorns, etc. She never complained once. If you are looking for a challenging hunt you need to sign up for this. It made sheep hunting look easy. That is no joke. Well I am hooked and have already started saving for the next buffalo hunt.

Proper.