My PH and I talked about maybe doing it next year. Or rifle crock/hippo and either plains game/buffalo with a bow or tuskless/buffalo with the 500. Can't do crock/hippo and leopard in 3 weeks. Hippo leather makes the best cowboy boots.
Yup. But you spend the day dialing in your pin to the bait. Now Ultraview makes a scope that it lights up both the pin and the white (internal) housing/surround. And you can buy a glow in the dark peep...............
P.S. It seems pretty clear that the link I posted above was of a captive buff, as it were. Didn't dig but my guess is SA fenced deal. I know you well enough to know that's not the kind of experience you'd want. Can a wild CB hunt be had w/a bow? Yep. That said, if you book one tote a .375 H&H at minimum, bud. Forget the bow. MHOO.
people even hunt elephant with bows and Fred Bear even hunted Brown Bears, but there's a reason we kicked ass with Winchesters vs bows and arrows...hint.
I can kill anything with a rifle... would want the risk.
Interesting way to look at it. The issue is the trackers, PH, locals are put at more risk more than the client hunter. There are more than a couple of well known PHs that have been killed on wounded game follow ups. Granted the animals were wounded with rifles, not bows.
There will be those who will be upset by this but hunting large dangerous game with a bow is a stunt in my opinion.
I can kill anything with a rifle... would want the risk.
There will be those who will be upset by this but hunting large dangerous game with a bow is a stunt in my opinion.
Well, yeah.....that is kinda the point isn't it?
And I'm not saying hunting DG isn't exciting, but he is right though, anyone can shoot a buffalo with a rifle.
Surely anybody can shoot a Buffalo with a rifle, that is why all follow ups end with the Buffalo dead on the ground. If that was truly the case Wayne Clark would be alive, as would Owain Lewis. Nixon would not have got injured as did the client. Those are from a few years ago but there have been a few ph’s killed recently due to various circumstances.
I have shot about a dozen Buffalo, mostly with a double rifle. In reality a scoped big bore from 100 yards is a safer choice. I even self guided in the Congo for two weeks, so I understand wanting an exciting experience. But it is my opinion that bows are not a good idea on large dangerous game. That opinion is based on my experiences as is yours.
All that being said without a doubt there are some hunters that are skilled and experienced enough to hunt dangerous game in the wild with a bow but in reality those guys are far and few between.
P.S. It seems pretty clear that the link I posted above was of a captive buff, as it were. Didn't dig but my guess is SA fenced deal. I know you well enough to know that's not the kind of experience you'd want. Can a wild CB hunt be had w/a bow? Yep. That said, if you book one tote a .375 H&H at minimum, bud. Forget the bow. MHOO.
From the lodge, I think it was definitely RSA.
There's a retired taxidermist named Joe Kuhlis in NE Ohio who took the big 5 with a bow. First an Alaska brown bear, self guided. He got a 200 pound bow and at lunch every day went out behind his shop to pull it several iinches three or four times. Eventually he could pull it to full draw. He said the bear's head and hide weighed 200 pounds.
Yup. There is nothing as exciting as getting within and surrounded by a herd of bull ele and not far from where Phillip Smythe recently lost his life to an ele, as did a local from the same village as our tracker just a few weeks before I arrived.
Or amongst a herd of buffalo to shoot one with a double rather than with a scoped 3-7-5 at distance. I won't do that again (scope) or ever take my 416 Rigby to Africa.
Isn't that what it's really all about...As Hank Kingsley would say in the intro to The Larry Sanders Show "This is exciting isn't it?"
PS When I had lunch with Phillip at Sango he was on a buffalo hunt.....
I shot a brown bear with a bow two years ago. The bow was 65 pounds. The arrow sailed completely through it, and the bear ran about 80 yards and was dead. And I shot a Cape buffalo with a 75 pound bow. Yes, high fence in SA.
P.S. It seems pretty clear that the link I posted above was of a captive buff, as it were. Didn't dig but my guess is SA fenced deal. I know you well enough to know that's not the kind of experience you'd want. Can a wild CB hunt be had w/a bow? Yep. That said, if you book one tote a .375 H&H at minimum, bud. Forget the bow. MHOO.
From the lodge, I think it was definitely RSA.
There's a retired taxidermist named Joe Kuhlis in NE Ohio who took the big 5 with a bow. First an Alaska brown bear, self guided. He got a 200 pound bow and at lunch every day went out behind his shop to pull it several iinches three or four times. Eventually he could pull it to full draw. He said the bear's head and hide weighed 200 pounds.
This must have been a loooong time ago. For at least the last 35 years you couldn’t hunt brown bear in AK without a guide unless you were/are a resident....Pete Shepley, the founder of PSE Archery, has taken the big 5( free range) with a bow. Met him years ago in Joberg at a guesthouse. He was on his way to Zambia to hunt lion, then on to Zim for elephant with his 90 lb draw weight bow.
Absolutely yes Cape buffalo can be hunted and killed with archery equipment. With that said, I have never killed or hunted buffs with a bow. I tried to get an archery hunt put together on short notice a few years ago but it never fell into place. This (2021) will be the third time my dad and I have tried to get a Cape buffalo hunt under our belts. Once, health issues scrubbed our hunt. Last year it was COVID. Hopefully this year we get it done. We will be hunting free range with rifles but I fully plan on taking one with my bow in the next few years. People who have never hunted and killed game with a razor sharp broadhead can’t appreciate their lethality. Yes, a buff requires careful selection of one’s equipment, but it is absolutely possible and ethical.
Not being a bow hunter, my take on your question may not be relevant, but let me give you a couple observations based on two longish buff hunts in Zimbabwe in the past 5 years.
Wild buff, as opposed to pasture-fed high fence buffalo in RSA, are not easy to get close to. Hunting Cape buffalo, even with a rifle, involves a lot of tracking and getting close to your quarry. This is especially true if hunting herds, which involves creeping around in dense bush very close to hundreds of buff, taking a look-see in case any of them are shootable bulls. Getting within 10 yards of bulls is mandatory in these situations. And most of the time, the buff you get close to aren't shooters, so you have to sneak away as carefully as you sneaked in. When you DO get your eyes on a good bull, it may be at very short range, but it may not be. Most PH's won't let a rifle hunter shoot a bull at much past 50 yards with a rifle, and you can be damn sure they won't let you shoot one with a bow much past 20. So your opportunities for shots will necessarily be few.
I hunted hard for 4 days for my first buffalo, and hunted even harder for 10 days for my second. I looked at bulls at bad-breath distance that turned out to be non-shooters. I finally killed my first buff at 50 yards and my second at a little over 120, with a 375 H&H. If I had needed to be within archery range, I wouldn't have 2 bulls on my wall. YMMV.
Finally, don't dismiss the comments above about the risks involved in finishing a wounded leopard or buff. DG is DG, and the kill in these cases invariably involves a lot of adrenalin and a lot of large caliber lead, and often involves the shedding of tracker and/or PH blood. Why would you put these fine people in that position if you could avoid it by using a suitable rifle? Doesn't make sense to me.
All cape buffalo are wild animals. I have been in fenced areas which held buffalo that were born there. They behave the same way as all buffalo that are hunted: they are wary, skittish, and will hurt you under the right circumstances.
Guys that bowhunt for DG usually do it for two reasons.
The first is simply a dicking dragging, ego stroking, glory seeking quest.
The second is a bowhunter that simply wants the ultimate bowhunting challenge.
It took nine days for me to get a buffalo with my 404 J. I can not imagine how unbelievable the experience would be trying to accomplish the feat with my longbow.
Anyone who hunts dangerous game with a bow has a screw loose. And if said hunter has someone looking over their shoulder with a rifle is just a wannabe. Playing games with your life is one thing, but to put others at risk is BS.
DocR Nothing in your post offended me in the least. My only observation is that all living things exist in areas that have boundaries albeit natural or man made. The important considerations are the size of the areas and, from the point of view of the animals, is their behavior constrained or altered because of the size of the area.
Was the game born in the area in which it is being hunted and is the area of sufficient size that its behavior isn’t altered? If the answers are YES then I have no qualms.