Aussie_Hunter
AH elite
The last week of hunting has produced a couple of once in a lifetime trophy's for me, a potential record scrub bull and maybe the most unique water buffalo bull you will ever see. My primary focus on this hunt was scrub bulls and I was looking for big bodied bulls as I wanted to turn them into flat skins (rugs), if the bulls came with big horns that would just be a bonus, well I definitely got both big bodied bulls and big horns to say the least. And although my focus for this hunt was scrub bulls I was never going to say no to a trophy buffalo bull of a lifetime and I most certainly found that. Along the way I also cleaned up a couple of good boars, an albino donkey and a really unique old scrub cow.
On this hunt I used my Rigby Highland Stalker in 9.3X62 which is topped off with a Leupold VX-3HD 1.5-5 scope and ammunition used was handloaded 320 grain RNSN Woodleighs trucking along at right on 2300fps. I recovered projectiles from the buffalo, both scrub bulls and the scrub cow, I will post these in the bullet performance thread. As alot of you already know and concur, the 9.3X62 is a fantastic big game cartridge and it definietly did not disappoint on this hunt.
On the second day of the hunt we were hunting along one of the main river systems in the area which always holds good numbers of buffalo. At around 200 yards we spotted this bull and we could not believe what we were looking at, a massive buffalo bull with one big horn curled up and backwards and one big horn curled down and backwards. We were in a terrible position for a shot as we were too far away, the bull was across the river and he had a number of cows with him that had already spotted us, so we went up the river about 1km and stalked back down the river out of sight to get in position for a shot, took the shot at around 90 yards, perfect broadside shot with the Rigby that took out the top of the heart, the bull ran in a loop for only around 20 yards or so and piled up dead. This bull has massive bases, haven't measured him yet but one side we estimated the base to be 21 inches and the other side around 19 inches. I have no idea how I am going to mount him on the wall with his twisted horns, I'll have to figure it out once I get him home. The 320 grain Woodleigh smashed the shoulder, took out the top of the heart and was recovered under the skin on the opposite shoulder with around 95% weight retention.
The first of the 2 scrub bulls was an absolute tank of a bull, beautiful redish brown colour, hide was in great shape with not too many scars so perfect for a rug, decent horns and he was also blind in one eye. Dropped him on the spot with an 80 yard neck shot from the Rigby, must have hit some some very sharp and heavy bone as the recovered Woodleigh was an absolute mess, retained weight is around 65%.
Fleshing the hide back in the skinning shed before putting it in the salt.
This big black scrub bull is a potential record, when I get him back home I will get him officially scored. A mate of mine has the number 3 scrub bull in the world taken with a bow and this big fella's horns are quite a bit bigger than that bull so I'm thinking he will hit the record books fairly high up the ladder for a scrub bull taken with a rifle. I'm not one for hunting with a tape measure but when you get an animal like this it's hard not to want to have it officially scored. I got this bull on dark on the last day of the hunt, when we first spotted him I couldn't get a shot, he was around 80 yards away on a bad angle with a lot of brush in the way. From there the bull ran and we followed at a fast pace on foot for around 1km but we were unable to find him again. We were confident he would have stopped in a creek not far away so we made it back to the vehicle and drove up a fence line that followed the creek, sure enough a few km's down the fence line there he was, I got out of the vehicle and started hitting him with the 9.3, whacked him 3 times before he managed to run down into the creek, one shot in the shoulder, one in his side and one up the rump as he was running away, my mate then hit him up the rump with his 45-120 as well but he was still going, a quick 200 metre or so follow up run down into the creek and he turned towards us, I then hit him in the chest, he dropped and then got back up, then hit him in the shoulder broadside, he dropped and got back up again, finally I hit him in the neck and put him down for good. Body was not as heavy as the red bull but he was much taller and a much bigger frame, not to mention the massive horns.
To give some perspective, this is him next to a fairly decent buffalo cow.
And a massive skin, quite a bit bigger than the red bull.
On this hunt I used my Rigby Highland Stalker in 9.3X62 which is topped off with a Leupold VX-3HD 1.5-5 scope and ammunition used was handloaded 320 grain RNSN Woodleighs trucking along at right on 2300fps. I recovered projectiles from the buffalo, both scrub bulls and the scrub cow, I will post these in the bullet performance thread. As alot of you already know and concur, the 9.3X62 is a fantastic big game cartridge and it definietly did not disappoint on this hunt.
On the second day of the hunt we were hunting along one of the main river systems in the area which always holds good numbers of buffalo. At around 200 yards we spotted this bull and we could not believe what we were looking at, a massive buffalo bull with one big horn curled up and backwards and one big horn curled down and backwards. We were in a terrible position for a shot as we were too far away, the bull was across the river and he had a number of cows with him that had already spotted us, so we went up the river about 1km and stalked back down the river out of sight to get in position for a shot, took the shot at around 90 yards, perfect broadside shot with the Rigby that took out the top of the heart, the bull ran in a loop for only around 20 yards or so and piled up dead. This bull has massive bases, haven't measured him yet but one side we estimated the base to be 21 inches and the other side around 19 inches. I have no idea how I am going to mount him on the wall with his twisted horns, I'll have to figure it out once I get him home. The 320 grain Woodleigh smashed the shoulder, took out the top of the heart and was recovered under the skin on the opposite shoulder with around 95% weight retention.
The first of the 2 scrub bulls was an absolute tank of a bull, beautiful redish brown colour, hide was in great shape with not too many scars so perfect for a rug, decent horns and he was also blind in one eye. Dropped him on the spot with an 80 yard neck shot from the Rigby, must have hit some some very sharp and heavy bone as the recovered Woodleigh was an absolute mess, retained weight is around 65%.
Fleshing the hide back in the skinning shed before putting it in the salt.
This big black scrub bull is a potential record, when I get him back home I will get him officially scored. A mate of mine has the number 3 scrub bull in the world taken with a bow and this big fella's horns are quite a bit bigger than that bull so I'm thinking he will hit the record books fairly high up the ladder for a scrub bull taken with a rifle. I'm not one for hunting with a tape measure but when you get an animal like this it's hard not to want to have it officially scored. I got this bull on dark on the last day of the hunt, when we first spotted him I couldn't get a shot, he was around 80 yards away on a bad angle with a lot of brush in the way. From there the bull ran and we followed at a fast pace on foot for around 1km but we were unable to find him again. We were confident he would have stopped in a creek not far away so we made it back to the vehicle and drove up a fence line that followed the creek, sure enough a few km's down the fence line there he was, I got out of the vehicle and started hitting him with the 9.3, whacked him 3 times before he managed to run down into the creek, one shot in the shoulder, one in his side and one up the rump as he was running away, my mate then hit him up the rump with his 45-120 as well but he was still going, a quick 200 metre or so follow up run down into the creek and he turned towards us, I then hit him in the chest, he dropped and then got back up, then hit him in the shoulder broadside, he dropped and got back up again, finally I hit him in the neck and put him down for good. Body was not as heavy as the red bull but he was much taller and a much bigger frame, not to mention the massive horns.
To give some perspective, this is him next to a fairly decent buffalo cow.
And a massive skin, quite a bit bigger than the red bull.
