Andrew62
AH fanatic
- Joined
- Oct 12, 2010
- Messages
- 909
- Reaction score
- 2,090
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- SCI
- Hunted
- Cameroon, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Namibia.
I just returned from a 7-Day group buffalo hunt with Uganda Wildlife Systems. My flight from the US started at Dulles Airport, I flew through Doha, Qatar on Qatar Airlines. All aspects of my flights went great. I will say that checking a rifle in with Qatar Airlines will take upwards of 30 minutes, it is not difficult, it just takes time. In the US they had me open my gun case and weighed my ammo separately. On the return they only asked how many rounds of ammo I had, they did not look inside my case.
Upon arrival into Entebbe, Uganda, I was met by Levi, he is a representative of UWS. I was taken to a nearby hotel, Palm Hotel, the room was serviceable, there was a very nice restaurant behind the motel. My steak was excellent.
After an overnight in Entebbe, I boarded a charter flight to the Karamoja area of Uganda. The charter flight was 1 hour 40 minutes. This was a group hunt, meaning there would be six of us hunters with three guides, so a 2x1 hunt. While I have never done a 2x1 hunt, I did not feel this would be a problem as from the videos I had seen there were thousands of buffaloes. What I found astonishing was that for 3 of the 6 hunters, this was their first ever African safari.
Our camp was very nice, traditional tented camp. All tents had a concrete floor with a thatched roof. Of all of my safaris I have to give credit to UWS for providing so many pieces of furniture and chairs in the room to spread my things out on. This camp does not have AC, I took along a battery operated fan, and wow, was that ever a game changer when it came to afternoon rest times. There was always plenty of hot water, they had electric 24/7. Wifi is ok if you have WhatsApp, other messaging services did not work so well.
I never did go over and eat breakfast, our lunches and dinners were just ok so far as the food quality went. My biggest frustration was that dinner was not served until at least 9pm. That’s a bit late when everyone was back in camp by 7:15.
As to the buffalo hunting, you just have to see it to believe it. There were days when we saw few buffalo, then there was the day I saw at least 500 buffalo by 9am, and probably 1500-1700 buffalo the one day.
On the very first morning my hunting partner took a really old dugga boy, that afternoon right before dark I took a nice dugga boy. During the hunt I added a Jackson’s hartebeest and a 2nd dugga boy.
I used my Kimber Talkeetna .375H&H with Swift Aframe 300 grain bullets. My hunting partner used his Ruger .375 with 300 grain Hornady DGX. Both bullets worked great. My Kimber has a 2x10 Leupold, and I suggest if you hunt in this area that you consider using an 8 or 10 power scope. My first buffalo was shot at about 50 yards, my second buffalo probably closer to 100 yards. I mentioned the 8 and 10 power scopes, that would be for antelopes at longer distances. It is extremely wide open in this hunting area.
Tsetse flies were abundant, little bastards. The trackers kept a paint can on the back of the hunting vehicle to burn elephant dung in. Every time we hunted I wore a neck gaiter that I pulled up over my ears to help ward off the tsetse's.
In this area there were at least a billion oribi, lol, seriously, those little guys were everywhere. Saw waterbuck and a few kob, I do not believe they have permits there for those. There were reedbuck, some duikers. The main animal to hunt was buffalo. The widest buffalo taken was 43 1/2, mine were 34” and 38”, the size really did not matter to me as I was hunting the oldest buffalo I could find.
I have been on a number of safaris and I can say that Uganda Wildlife System does a great job, very organized. In the area I hunted they have a ridiculous amount of buffalo. Hunting was mainly riding around, locating a buffalo, then get off and shoot it or put on a bit of a stock then shoot it.
Because of the remoteness of this area I did buy evacuation and medical insurance, and I am glad I did. A charter flight out of this area is expensive, and you would definitely have to be evacuated as there are no medical facilities around. This was the first time in my life I bought this type of insurance.
I truly cannot think of anything negative I could say about Uganda Wildlife Systems. The group hunt option saves a lot of money and for me, the highlight of my trip was meeting a new hunting partner that I really enjoyed getting to know and watch him experience his first ever African safari.
I booked this hunt with Tim Herald of WTA. I used Hannah from Gracy Travel, she did a great job.
If anyone has questions about this hunt please feel free to message me.
Andrew
Upon arrival into Entebbe, Uganda, I was met by Levi, he is a representative of UWS. I was taken to a nearby hotel, Palm Hotel, the room was serviceable, there was a very nice restaurant behind the motel. My steak was excellent.
After an overnight in Entebbe, I boarded a charter flight to the Karamoja area of Uganda. The charter flight was 1 hour 40 minutes. This was a group hunt, meaning there would be six of us hunters with three guides, so a 2x1 hunt. While I have never done a 2x1 hunt, I did not feel this would be a problem as from the videos I had seen there were thousands of buffaloes. What I found astonishing was that for 3 of the 6 hunters, this was their first ever African safari.
Our camp was very nice, traditional tented camp. All tents had a concrete floor with a thatched roof. Of all of my safaris I have to give credit to UWS for providing so many pieces of furniture and chairs in the room to spread my things out on. This camp does not have AC, I took along a battery operated fan, and wow, was that ever a game changer when it came to afternoon rest times. There was always plenty of hot water, they had electric 24/7. Wifi is ok if you have WhatsApp, other messaging services did not work so well.
I never did go over and eat breakfast, our lunches and dinners were just ok so far as the food quality went. My biggest frustration was that dinner was not served until at least 9pm. That’s a bit late when everyone was back in camp by 7:15.
As to the buffalo hunting, you just have to see it to believe it. There were days when we saw few buffalo, then there was the day I saw at least 500 buffalo by 9am, and probably 1500-1700 buffalo the one day.
On the very first morning my hunting partner took a really old dugga boy, that afternoon right before dark I took a nice dugga boy. During the hunt I added a Jackson’s hartebeest and a 2nd dugga boy.
I used my Kimber Talkeetna .375H&H with Swift Aframe 300 grain bullets. My hunting partner used his Ruger .375 with 300 grain Hornady DGX. Both bullets worked great. My Kimber has a 2x10 Leupold, and I suggest if you hunt in this area that you consider using an 8 or 10 power scope. My first buffalo was shot at about 50 yards, my second buffalo probably closer to 100 yards. I mentioned the 8 and 10 power scopes, that would be for antelopes at longer distances. It is extremely wide open in this hunting area.
Tsetse flies were abundant, little bastards. The trackers kept a paint can on the back of the hunting vehicle to burn elephant dung in. Every time we hunted I wore a neck gaiter that I pulled up over my ears to help ward off the tsetse's.
In this area there were at least a billion oribi, lol, seriously, those little guys were everywhere. Saw waterbuck and a few kob, I do not believe they have permits there for those. There were reedbuck, some duikers. The main animal to hunt was buffalo. The widest buffalo taken was 43 1/2, mine were 34” and 38”, the size really did not matter to me as I was hunting the oldest buffalo I could find.
I have been on a number of safaris and I can say that Uganda Wildlife System does a great job, very organized. In the area I hunted they have a ridiculous amount of buffalo. Hunting was mainly riding around, locating a buffalo, then get off and shoot it or put on a bit of a stock then shoot it.
Because of the remoteness of this area I did buy evacuation and medical insurance, and I am glad I did. A charter flight out of this area is expensive, and you would definitely have to be evacuated as there are no medical facilities around. This was the first time in my life I bought this type of insurance.
I truly cannot think of anything negative I could say about Uganda Wildlife Systems. The group hunt option saves a lot of money and for me, the highlight of my trip was meeting a new hunting partner that I really enjoyed getting to know and watch him experience his first ever African safari.
I booked this hunt with Tim Herald of WTA. I used Hannah from Gracy Travel, she did a great job.
If anyone has questions about this hunt please feel free to message me.
Andrew
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