Here’s another that I just remembered…
Back to 1983 on Deka. We went out one late afternoon to look for a big sable bull that we’d passed up a few days earlier. We were just going to look for an hour or so before dark, so my fiancé tagged along. I grabbed my 300 Winchester, Roy Vincent had his 460 Weatherby and off we went. As were were walking along, we bumped into 4 buffalo bulls, good ones and they were CLOSE. They were standing shoulder to shoulder in a small clearing, facing us and we were kneeling at the base of a small hill, a mere 20 yards from them. My fiancé was getting a bit more of an idea about buffalo than she cared to have!
The buffalo suddenly turned and thundered off into the brush, with Roy and me in hot pursuit. As we took off, Roy told our tracker, Roger, to stay and look after her. Roy and I took off after the 4 bulls and yes, I guess I was gonna shoot a bull with a 180 grain Nosler Partition if things worked out. Not planned but it’s what I had in hand when we encountered the buffalo.
The bush was very thick and in no time we were among the buffalo. The first bull we saw was behind us, between us and my fiancé & Roger. That bull spooked, thundering off right toward the two of them. Roy and I took off after it, worried about her safety. When we got back to the clearing there was nobody there. Not Roger, the buffalo or my fiancé! We had an ‘Oh Shit’ moment and started calling out to them. After a bit we could see Roger coming down from the hill, laughing; but she wasn’t with him. We started yelling her name and up the hill we heard “I’m up here”. When she saw the buffalo barreling out of the bush, she took off and climbed a tree! Fortunately, the buffalo had no interest in her. We got her down and headed back to the truck, as we’d had enough excitement for the evening. But we couldn’t know the surprise we were going to have on our drive back to camp…
On the way back we came upon a large gray rump sticking out of the brush on the roadside. Roy slowed and the animal backed up into the road and faced us in the headlights. It was a Black Rhino bull! The rhino turned toward the truck and started running up the road. Roy quickly put the truck in reverse and started backing down the road, with the rhino trotting along in the headlights. My girlfriend was terrified and told Roy to shoot it, he replied we can’t because it’s protected. A lively, humorous and fairly panicked by her discussion ensued all while Roy continued back down the road in reverse with our new friend in front of us. Finally, the rhino turned around and we chased it back up the road. After perhaps 1/2 a kilometer, the rhino turned toward the brush and Roy floored the throttle and we got past the rhino. It was an entertaining discussion over dinner, as she was still terrified of the evening’s adventure, while Roy and I both thought it was quite a good day.
After that, she didn’t go out hunting with us much, choosing to stay in camp to read while we ventured forth.