Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Africa 24 hour Campfire hunt in Zim.

Well it has taken a while, but I finally got a chance to post some pics of my hunt in Zimbabwe. I have had a lot of questions on security issues in ZIM. I can not speak for the entire for country. But, I experienced no security issues and at no time did I ever even feel slightly uncomfortable. Yes, we experienced and saw gas shortages and shortages of electricity. I would go back. Again this is my own personal evaluation.

Now on to the hunt. The first pic is my Sable shot the first morning and 7 minutes in to the hunt. We were driving to sight in the guns and a small herd of Sable ran across the road. I shot this one at about 100 yards off the back of the truck. I am on the left, Mark aka "safari man" inn the middle, my father on the far right. Hunting in Zim is easy.

After a couple days of searching we finally found some buffalo. We found a small herd of about 60 animals. Picked out a decent one and shot my .378 Weatherby(I know Zim guides don't like Weatherby) at about 115 yards, hitting right behind the shoulder.
The herd moved a few hundred yards, but it was getting dark so we waited to morning o pick up the hunt. The next morning we were back on the blood trail and after about 15 mins of tracking found my animal. After 4 more shots from "Safariman" borrowed 416 Rigby, I had my first Buff. I gave my gun to my dad for back up.
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Next was a bushbuck while we were waiting for a Leopard to hit the bait.

Next was my Eland, still waiting for a Leopard. 11 shots total on this bad boy. We were both bleeding. 38" on the left horn.

Motor City,
Nice eland! I've been waiting to see it, the other animals I already saw in Zim. Between the .378 and the eland it looks like you took quite a beating.
Say "Hi" to your dad for me.
Mike

MC: What kind of ammo were you shooting out of that 378? that round can handily take a buffalo. 11 shots on the eland? what happened? jorge

Motorcity,

Nice animals all the way around and excellent pictures! I especially like the picture of the whole crew with the buff. Who was your PH and how many days did you hunt?

Test

Excellent!

Jorge1,
The story isn't mine to tell, but I do know Motor City was using Weatherby factory ammo.
Mike

weatherby loads Hornadys (bad choice) Ballistic Tips (even worse) and Barnes (perfect) I believe. jorge

Jorge1,
I saw the bullet that was recovered from the buffalo. It wasn't a Nosler Partition, Ballistic Tip(Do they load that one in .378?) or TSX which leaves Hornady. There wasn't much left of it, but it looked like a Hornady Interlock to Safariman and myself. I didn't see unfired ammo, the box or anything involving the eland at all.
I'll now back away from the keyboard to avoid telling MCs story.

Bad choice. And yo are correct, they only load Hornady & Xs. I learned my lesson with the 300 Weatherby and an impala years ago and Hornadys. Shot it right on the point of the shoulder (on purpose to test the bullet) at 80 yards. The ram dropped like a sack of potatoes but I recovered the bullet in the off side ham and it weighed 79gr I believe. Yes it whacked the impala, but had that been an eland for example penetration would have been an issue. No more Hornadys for me, at least not for MVs >2700 fps. In the 375 H&H at least, it's a good leopard bullet I hear but the way I look at this is if I'm spending 20K on a hunt, why scrimp on bullets? I'm partial to Swifts, Partitions and North Forks. The Inerlock remains my favorite bullet for my 257 Weatherby and deer though. Go figure jorge

That eland is freakin' HUGE.

Nice animals but the bullet performance just wasn't there. I'm with jorge on the Barnes, but the last two safaris I've been hammering everything with the Nosler Accubonds. Few are recovered other than long distance (250 yard average) on Blue Wildebeast. Both were one shot kills with the .280 using Federal ammo.

Nice animals. Do you remember the name of the tracker in the photo with the orange stocking cap? Was his name Stephen?

Yes, I think his name was Stephen. He was my dad tracker, who helped us track the buff.

He was the tracker of my good friend and PH Wayne Edwards that was killed in a freaky car wreck awhile back. I was was curious to whom he ended up with. He was always happy at my success. On my last safari we went out in a boat on lake Kariba to get water to baptise his newborn child with.

Yes, he I think he did work for Wayne. Now a PH name Don (forgot his last name) is using him. He seemed like a good guy, of couse I have found almost all of the trackers to be very gentle, kind and hard working people.

Kow this is late response, but have just seen this, the tracker is a very important part of the hunt, the tracker in the orange wooly hat is Clever Ncube, he used to work for Kudu safaris.

Nice boss on the buff. That sable is certainly a beautiful animal. Sounds like you had a good hunt.

Congrats!

BH

Holy necropost!