Foxi
AH legend
YES,one must.Again and again.
Its a wonderful challenge to stalk to the old dagga boys.
Buffalohunting in Africa.
One of my great passions is traveling to Africa, whether on horseback or with a rifle through the bush.
All of this is one of my personal life highlights.
So I flew to the north of South Africa at the last minute in December.
It was a difficult year for me in some respects and I just had to get out. My PH in Zimbabwe didn't come up with a reasonable offer and the costs were such that I couldn't afford it.
So I posted the following ad in AH forum: Buffalo hunt, end of season, wanted at short notice, buffalo wild and free.
A forum member gave me some advice which I essentially followed (thank you!) and had a great time in the bush on the Mozambique/Zimbabwe border in South Africa.
Thanks to the AH member Ph Valie Enslin from “Thats Africa Safaris”. Sympathetic, perfectly organized by his charming and pretty wife and he and his team are great hunters.
Some outfitters did not respond to my inquiries, even though I wrote to them personally. Well, if you don't want it, you've already got it. They had probably already mothballed their big game rifles by this time.
Fortunately, Valie Enslin hadn't and it was a fantastic time..
Weapons check in Johannesburg:
I filled out the versatile Saps 520 form (google that, so you go there) at home and it is mandatory for the gun permit.You can have a look at it and a sample of how to fill it out is often included.Everyone who flies via South Africa needs this, as well as a lockable metal or hard plastic box for the ammunition.I was traveling without an agent for the permits and I have to say it wasn't necessary.I checked the chassis number of the gun, got the signed SAPS 520 back and then it was on to the plane to Hoedspruit.I wasn't begged by the officer either, but as I have a heart for Africans, he got a few easily bearable dollars afterwards…
Flights:
I booked the flights through Lufthansabüro Niederrhein(LCC)/Germany and I have to say from experience that when Lufthansa books your gun in, I have never had a problem with it anywhere, let alone discussions.
Everything went smoothly with the gun and ammunition, without the slightest problem. Munich there and back.
All flights were delayed, ALL of them and the plane that arrived on time, there were no drivers for the luggage in Joburg, so you had to wait 1 hour until the baggage carousel finally started rolling.
Out of 5 or 6 security gates only two were manned !!! and out of 16 passport control desks only 5 !!! were even in service and that with hundreds of passengers.....(on the return flight)
Connecting flights with at least 4 hours of air time are reassuring.2 hours is often too little.
Everything went just fine for me and so I was picked up in Hoedspruit by Valie Enslin and off we went on the several-hour drive north.
And even there we saw elephants and a pride of lions.
The hunting areas there are all long-abandoned farms that have been merged into concessions; no fence hinders the animals; there is only a gate at the back towards civilization, towards the front everything is open to Tanzania!
Cattle farming has not been viable there for a long time, the drought and above all the really large number of lions make this sector simply uneconomical. All the better for us hunters.
We lived on an abandoned farm, the electricity was solar-powered, everything was clean and in simple order, a base camp.
At the waterhole, which was a good distance away, you could spend the whole day observing everything from impala to elephant and practising your approach through the PH.
There was no shooting and the animals behaved in the same way, but the hunting reality was completely different..
Here you see Walter,our cook. He thinks about how many hamburgers that could be
The hyenas came at dusk in large numbers, up to 10-12 of them, and moaned almost all night around our fortunately fenced camp.
Unfortunately they are protected there; next year there is a quota of 4; ridiculous, there should be 40 to alleviate the feeding pressure on the antelopes.
No chance of enforcing that these days.....
Valie said one evening that if you were to send a child up to the age of 12 out there at night, it wouldn't stand a chance with the hyenas; they would be too cowardly with adults.
But he wouldn't want to go for a walk at night either, lions, leopards and elephants would be the first to give him a hard time.....
December is a really tough summer month in South Africa and the heat exhausts everyone.
The game drives were wonderful, herds of buffalo held out until you turned off the engine or left the vehicle - they were all gone.
I could have shot 20 buffs every day, but only young vegetables.
Now already a capital buffalo, but too young, hopefully he will survive the lions for a few more years.
But the old ones are clever and keep away, and in the bush many eyes are the enemy of the hunter, so despite many opportunities we didn't get close to any of the old men.
We had to get up at 4:00 a.m. and from 8-9:00 a.m. the wind was constantly changing, so I realized that despite the good view, it wasn't going to be easy.
If they were being hunted by lions at night, the herds were so attentive that the stalk was unsuccessful, like a nervous herd of grazing female deer at home.
They had to be old and the spread limit was 38 “ to get the best genes.
That shouldn't be so bad for me, in any case.
36" old and strong
35 “ a dream trophy, old and strong. Super boss.
You can see from the quality of these two photos, that the old ones are already keeping their distance.
We were also accompanied by a game scout every day on every hunt there. The rules are strict and as far as anti-poaching is concerned, the South Africans are better positioned than I have experienced in other neighboring countries.
It's always important to me not to shoot in the first few days if I get the chance, but fortunately I had to change my mind, because in the second half of the week the temperature in the bush rose to over 40 degrees Celsius, which you have to experience for hours on your knees and crouching through the bush to enjoy it.
In the bush you have to take your chance and not be snobbishly picky when Diana says: kiss me.
And so it went, after some tough stalking so far it went faster than expected and I got a big kiss from her.
We came across a lone buffalo bull that almost passed. Almost. Because he was too good. We estimated him at 39”.Hm.Shi... But the game scout said allright and so we stalked him.
We lost him in the dry, overgrown stream bed and didn't dare go any further for fear of wearing him out to arm's length and scaring him off, or provoking an attack at close range.
None of us really wanted to do that.
We retreated, made half a volte face and discussed the next steps in whispers.
Then he suddenly pulled up the slope; I ran a few steps ahead and shot him freehand at 20 m through my scope ,turned down 6x for the stalk ,on the shoulder blade.
A good impact was to see, he ran 5m ahead, 2nd shot and then he went another 10 meters, wavering and I knew it was his end.
But as I like to shoot buffalo and don't like to take a lot of ammunition home, he got the whole magazine.
He collapsed and after two minutes of grinding/schlegeln ??? (found no translation ; means kicking with his rear legs) he went over the rainbow-without, without Death Bellow...
On the shoulder blade you can see the fatal bullet holes from the first rapid shots.
The hole on the left is my safety shot when he was lying down, I was standing slightly below and wanted to hit the heart, this bullet went through the rest of the body and went out at the jaw.
It goes without saying that all the meat was used up and doesn't really need mentioning.In the evening we had his fillets from the grill with potato salad and a good glass (or were there two?) of a cold South African white wine.In the heat there you don't drink red wine any more.No matter what kind of meat is on the plate.
On the left is my PH Valie Enslin from Thats Africa Safaris. Also a AH member.
I'll hunt with him again anytime, he's a great guy.
It's hard to describe the sensations you experience and I won't even try.
Just this much - it's a privilege to be able to do this in the African wilderness and I really savored it.
I felt two bullets under the skin on the other side of the shoulder.
They were 300 gn Degol Starkmantel bullets that mushroomed perfectly, loaded in the lower range with 63.2 gn RWS 903.
I prefer precision to maximum power, and it was enough for me....and the buffalo.
Degol (Wim Degol bulletmaker/Belgium) strongcoat, .375 H+H
I promised the guys 5.- dollars per bullet, if they found them for me in the -giant-opening.These two I got,remaining weight 82%
I admit, I prefer to shoot full matel, because most of the time they are in the thick stuff, but basically I do what the PH suggests, the more the guarantee is given that he will NOT reshoot and I like to do my job alone. I always say to every PH that I shoot my game alone and if we are in danger, he should do what he thinks is right .The skin of the buffalo is incredibly tough, and the small incisions on the haunches can hang a good 700 kg of buffalo without tearing.
Speaking of tough, the first shot counts, the caliber is not so important, you know what I mean.
They sometimes release so much adrenaline to stay alive when the shot is wrong that you think you have no bullets loaded, just powder.
One buffalo took seven (7) shots from Valie's .470 to go down after being shot sick by a guest.
By the way, elephants are generally more aggressive than buffalo, but usually easier to stop or get to turn away.
Farm workers fear buffalo more than lions and elephants.
They say that with the latter there is a good chance of a fake attack/mock charge, but a buffalo that starts running will come, no ifs, ands or buts.…
Here he is being loaded.Lucky who has a winch.
With a buffalo from the Save Rver, 10 men did not bring him on the loading area,see next photo:
didn't work out, even if it looks like it.
On another hunt, in Luangwa, a neighboring camp, it was not possible to drive the pickup to the buffalo, the terrain was too dense, so it had to be slaughtered on site to be able to load the buffalo.
It was already dusk and a pride of lions was circling the team and everyone was waiting to see what would happen.lions are generally no fun, but in the dark they quickly mutate from Dr. Lekyll to mr. Hyde.
Fellows ,hoped not boring you.
Rest of the story comes tomorrow.
Foxi
Its a wonderful challenge to stalk to the old dagga boys.
Buffalohunting in Africa.
One of my great passions is traveling to Africa, whether on horseback or with a rifle through the bush.
All of this is one of my personal life highlights.
So I flew to the north of South Africa at the last minute in December.
It was a difficult year for me in some respects and I just had to get out. My PH in Zimbabwe didn't come up with a reasonable offer and the costs were such that I couldn't afford it.
So I posted the following ad in AH forum: Buffalo hunt, end of season, wanted at short notice, buffalo wild and free.
A forum member gave me some advice which I essentially followed (thank you!) and had a great time in the bush on the Mozambique/Zimbabwe border in South Africa.
Thanks to the AH member Ph Valie Enslin from “Thats Africa Safaris”. Sympathetic, perfectly organized by his charming and pretty wife and he and his team are great hunters.
Some outfitters did not respond to my inquiries, even though I wrote to them personally. Well, if you don't want it, you've already got it. They had probably already mothballed their big game rifles by this time.
Fortunately, Valie Enslin hadn't and it was a fantastic time..
Weapons check in Johannesburg:
I filled out the versatile Saps 520 form (google that, so you go there) at home and it is mandatory for the gun permit.You can have a look at it and a sample of how to fill it out is often included.Everyone who flies via South Africa needs this, as well as a lockable metal or hard plastic box for the ammunition.I was traveling without an agent for the permits and I have to say it wasn't necessary.I checked the chassis number of the gun, got the signed SAPS 520 back and then it was on to the plane to Hoedspruit.I wasn't begged by the officer either, but as I have a heart for Africans, he got a few easily bearable dollars afterwards…
Flights:
I booked the flights through Lufthansabüro Niederrhein(LCC)/Germany and I have to say from experience that when Lufthansa books your gun in, I have never had a problem with it anywhere, let alone discussions.
Everything went smoothly with the gun and ammunition, without the slightest problem. Munich there and back.
All flights were delayed, ALL of them and the plane that arrived on time, there were no drivers for the luggage in Joburg, so you had to wait 1 hour until the baggage carousel finally started rolling.
Out of 5 or 6 security gates only two were manned !!! and out of 16 passport control desks only 5 !!! were even in service and that with hundreds of passengers.....(on the return flight)
Connecting flights with at least 4 hours of air time are reassuring.2 hours is often too little.
Everything went just fine for me and so I was picked up in Hoedspruit by Valie Enslin and off we went on the several-hour drive north.
And even there we saw elephants and a pride of lions.
The hunting areas there are all long-abandoned farms that have been merged into concessions; no fence hinders the animals; there is only a gate at the back towards civilization, towards the front everything is open to Tanzania!
Cattle farming has not been viable there for a long time, the drought and above all the really large number of lions make this sector simply uneconomical. All the better for us hunters.
We lived on an abandoned farm, the electricity was solar-powered, everything was clean and in simple order, a base camp.
At the waterhole, which was a good distance away, you could spend the whole day observing everything from impala to elephant and practising your approach through the PH.
There was no shooting and the animals behaved in the same way, but the hunting reality was completely different..
Here you see Walter,our cook. He thinks about how many hamburgers that could be
The hyenas came at dusk in large numbers, up to 10-12 of them, and moaned almost all night around our fortunately fenced camp.
Unfortunately they are protected there; next year there is a quota of 4; ridiculous, there should be 40 to alleviate the feeding pressure on the antelopes.
No chance of enforcing that these days.....
Valie said one evening that if you were to send a child up to the age of 12 out there at night, it wouldn't stand a chance with the hyenas; they would be too cowardly with adults.
But he wouldn't want to go for a walk at night either, lions, leopards and elephants would be the first to give him a hard time.....
December is a really tough summer month in South Africa and the heat exhausts everyone.
The game drives were wonderful, herds of buffalo held out until you turned off the engine or left the vehicle - they were all gone.
I could have shot 20 buffs every day, but only young vegetables.
Now already a capital buffalo, but too young, hopefully he will survive the lions for a few more years.
But the old ones are clever and keep away, and in the bush many eyes are the enemy of the hunter, so despite many opportunities we didn't get close to any of the old men.
We had to get up at 4:00 a.m. and from 8-9:00 a.m. the wind was constantly changing, so I realized that despite the good view, it wasn't going to be easy.
If they were being hunted by lions at night, the herds were so attentive that the stalk was unsuccessful, like a nervous herd of grazing female deer at home.
They had to be old and the spread limit was 38 “ to get the best genes.
That shouldn't be so bad for me, in any case.
36" old and strong
35 “ a dream trophy, old and strong. Super boss.
You can see from the quality of these two photos, that the old ones are already keeping their distance.
We were also accompanied by a game scout every day on every hunt there. The rules are strict and as far as anti-poaching is concerned, the South Africans are better positioned than I have experienced in other neighboring countries.
It's always important to me not to shoot in the first few days if I get the chance, but fortunately I had to change my mind, because in the second half of the week the temperature in the bush rose to over 40 degrees Celsius, which you have to experience for hours on your knees and crouching through the bush to enjoy it.
In the bush you have to take your chance and not be snobbishly picky when Diana says: kiss me.
And so it went, after some tough stalking so far it went faster than expected and I got a big kiss from her.
We came across a lone buffalo bull that almost passed. Almost. Because he was too good. We estimated him at 39”.Hm.Shi... But the game scout said allright and so we stalked him.
We lost him in the dry, overgrown stream bed and didn't dare go any further for fear of wearing him out to arm's length and scaring him off, or provoking an attack at close range.
None of us really wanted to do that.
We retreated, made half a volte face and discussed the next steps in whispers.
Then he suddenly pulled up the slope; I ran a few steps ahead and shot him freehand at 20 m through my scope ,turned down 6x for the stalk ,on the shoulder blade.
A good impact was to see, he ran 5m ahead, 2nd shot and then he went another 10 meters, wavering and I knew it was his end.
But as I like to shoot buffalo and don't like to take a lot of ammunition home, he got the whole magazine.
He collapsed and after two minutes of grinding/schlegeln ??? (found no translation ; means kicking with his rear legs) he went over the rainbow-without, without Death Bellow...
On the shoulder blade you can see the fatal bullet holes from the first rapid shots.
The hole on the left is my safety shot when he was lying down, I was standing slightly below and wanted to hit the heart, this bullet went through the rest of the body and went out at the jaw.
It goes without saying that all the meat was used up and doesn't really need mentioning.In the evening we had his fillets from the grill with potato salad and a good glass (or were there two?) of a cold South African white wine.In the heat there you don't drink red wine any more.No matter what kind of meat is on the plate.
On the left is my PH Valie Enslin from Thats Africa Safaris. Also a AH member.
I'll hunt with him again anytime, he's a great guy.
It's hard to describe the sensations you experience and I won't even try.
Just this much - it's a privilege to be able to do this in the African wilderness and I really savored it.
I felt two bullets under the skin on the other side of the shoulder.
They were 300 gn Degol Starkmantel bullets that mushroomed perfectly, loaded in the lower range with 63.2 gn RWS 903.
I prefer precision to maximum power, and it was enough for me....and the buffalo.
Degol (Wim Degol bulletmaker/Belgium) strongcoat, .375 H+H
I promised the guys 5.- dollars per bullet, if they found them for me in the -giant-opening.These two I got,remaining weight 82%
I admit, I prefer to shoot full matel, because most of the time they are in the thick stuff, but basically I do what the PH suggests, the more the guarantee is given that he will NOT reshoot and I like to do my job alone. I always say to every PH that I shoot my game alone and if we are in danger, he should do what he thinks is right .The skin of the buffalo is incredibly tough, and the small incisions on the haunches can hang a good 700 kg of buffalo without tearing.
Speaking of tough, the first shot counts, the caliber is not so important, you know what I mean.
They sometimes release so much adrenaline to stay alive when the shot is wrong that you think you have no bullets loaded, just powder.
One buffalo took seven (7) shots from Valie's .470 to go down after being shot sick by a guest.
By the way, elephants are generally more aggressive than buffalo, but usually easier to stop or get to turn away.
Farm workers fear buffalo more than lions and elephants.
They say that with the latter there is a good chance of a fake attack/mock charge, but a buffalo that starts running will come, no ifs, ands or buts.…
Here he is being loaded.Lucky who has a winch.
With a buffalo from the Save Rver, 10 men did not bring him on the loading area,see next photo:
didn't work out, even if it looks like it.
On another hunt, in Luangwa, a neighboring camp, it was not possible to drive the pickup to the buffalo, the terrain was too dense, so it had to be slaughtered on site to be able to load the buffalo.
It was already dusk and a pride of lions was circling the team and everyone was waiting to see what would happen.lions are generally no fun, but in the dark they quickly mutate from Dr. Lekyll to mr. Hyde.
Fellows ,hoped not boring you.
Rest of the story comes tomorrow.
Foxi
Last edited:
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