Hippo on land Vs. Buffalo for first Dangerous Game hunt?

[Hunter-Habib]

I personally enjoy hunting both. And my first African dangerous game animal (that I ever successfully hunted) was a Cape buffalo in Kenya, 1974 when I went on my life's first Safari.

That said, Cape buffalo is my fifth most favorite dangerous game animal to hunt in Africa. While hippopotamus bulls on land rank as my second most favorite. There's nothing more dangerous than a hippopotamus when you're standing between him and the water. Hunting them at night in the sugarcane fields is a thrill rivalled to none, barring hunting truly wild lion (in my personal opinion, anyway).

Now, please bear in mind that picking a "Favorite Dangerous Game Animal" is very much dependent upon personal taste. Just because I enjoy hunting hippopotamus bulls on land more does not mean that you will (rather unlikely, since I'm a very weird guy who prefers strawberry ice cream to chocolate amongst other peculiarities). A Cape buffalo is (in and off itself) a very, very thrilling quarry to hunt.

I'll offer a very unusual piece of trivia: Prior to 1993, when I was still using solid bullets on Cape buffalo (before controlled expansion bullets began to gain prominence on the market)... I actually had a somewhat harder time hunting Cape buffalo than I did hippopotamus.

I will say this, though. I have been charged by more hippopotamus than I have by Cape buffalo over the last 50 years of going to Africa on safari.

 

[Sarg]

I'm biased towards Hippo on land myself as on a couple of my DCA hunts I was charged & one got very close.

Spent nearly 4 days on one & a week on the other, one was a killer already & the other a maimer but I hunted these on my own & some of the hunting was in very thick cover.

Very exciting, also these are a huge animal !

I suppose for a traveling hunter the Cape Buff hunt would be the normal pick ?

Not mine but they do make a cool mount to.

Have a mean bite to this is a bite & shake on a Ford Bakkie

 

[DLSJR]

While I love buffalo hunting and heartily recommend it , do not underestimate how good a dry land hippo hunt can be. I hunted dry land hippo last year with PH Alan Vincent on his Madaba concession in the Selous Game Reserve. It was an interesting and intense hunting experience that I look forward to doing again.

When we went looking for dry land hippo we walked down a long valley, checking pools in the bottom of the Karongo running down 5he center of the valley. We came on an elephant herd at close range, saw bushbuck, waterbuck, hippos, a crocodile and other game.

We were walking along a trail that ran along the karongo, with me about 10 feet behind Alan. We were coming up to a patch of very thick brush when Alan suddenly hustled backward while bringing his gun up. As he came alongside me he hissed “Hippo, big bull”. The brush was so thick that we couldn’t see the hippo except when he opened his mouth, then we could see his tusks. I had my gun up as the hippo was just fifteen yards in front of us with no shot opportunity. Suddenly, the bull broke to my left and instinct took over. It was like shooting a 5,000 lb. Pheasant flying past at 20 yards. BTW, it is astonishing how fast a hippo can run, they’re very fast. I was shooting my .416 Hoffman with 400 grain Cutting Edge Solids. My first shot took out the heart and second shot, angling hard away, transited about 15-18” of spine, dumping the bull in his tracks. We found the bullet at the base of the skull, penetration had been about 4 feet!

Hunting dry land hippo can be every bit as exciting as buffalo. They’re a very underrated hunt. You won’t find dry land hippo in many of the places where they can be hunted, but they’re commonly found a long way from water in the Selous.

Me and my son, it was great having him with me on this hunt. The next day, we tracked and killed a pair of Dugga Boys that also provided excitement.

Son‘s buffalo

My buffalo

Done right, dry land hippo are every bit as exciting to hunt as buffalo.

 

[MATTANJA HUNTING SAFARIS]

Definitely Buffalo in my opinion!

 

[375Fox]

I imagine finding a large trophy bull on land might be somewhat challenging.

You are very often sacrificing the quality of the hippo trophy in exchange for the hippo being on land. More about finding an acceptable bull on land than looking over many hippo and finding the best trophy you take take.

 

[Cleathorn]

I’ve been fortunate enough to hunt Cape Buffalo several times, and dry land hippo a couple of times as well.

I would recommend a Buffalo hunt for the 1st time Dangerous Game hunting.

That said, like @Hunter-Habib I have hunted hippo at night in the sugar cane. Of the hunts I have done, hippo at night in the cane fields was the most dangerous. I shot a lion at 19 feet once, and an elephant at 30 feet in a dead on charge, and hippo in the cane was more dangerous. I shot a monster, but it took 4 shots from a 458 Lott, all hitting in the head and neck, to knock him down. And another one from the side for good measure. It’s not a hunt for the inexperienced.

And I don’t know too many experienced folks that would do it 2x.

 

[matt85]

@375Fox Exactly! Which do you think is more difficult to find, a good buffalo or a good hippo on land? If you're not willing to settle on a lesser animal, I think the hippo might be more challenging.

I have not hunted hippo... yet. So, take my comments with a large pinch of salt.

If I can ever manage to scrounge up the money for another trip to Africa, hippo will be the prime target!

 

[375Fox]

@375Fox Exactly! Which do you think is more difficult to find, a good buffalo or a good hippo on land? If you're not willing to settle on a lesser animal, I think the hippo might be more challenging.

I have not hunted hippo... yet. So, take my comments with a large pinch of salt.

If I can ever manage to scrounge up the money for another trip to Africa, hippo will be the prime target!

It could be, but I don’t think that is how most hunts will go. The ability to judge tusks for a hippo on land can be limited. Just being on land if an acceptable bull becomes the trophy generally. Buffalo is a better hunt in my opinion and more consistent experience.

 

[Northern Shooter]

Hippo always seemed like the short bus dangerous game hunt.

Too easy?

 

[PeteG]

My advice would be to do the buffalo first.

Depending on where you’re hunting and what kind of area.
If you’re hunting a free range open concession or Unfenced ranch, you’d likely be looking over a bunch of buffalo and getting the opportunity to see them, watch them and get a good stalk on them. In other words it’s a bit more “interactive” so to speak.

Hippo on land, again depending on where you hunt, is probably more exciting to a degree as the ranges can be very close and the bush generally around rivers can be thicker.

Having done a few hippo on land, it is great fun but there can be times where trophy selection is very hard as you may or may not have time to accurately gauge the trophy quality. And in some cases you may not have an option as the close quarters can often push them into an aggressive state where there may not be an option to let the bull walk away. I have had that situation and the trophy, although decent was not the best.

When hippo are in the water, it often gives you more time and allows for better judgement.
But it is not as entertaining as on land.

 

[IvW]

Now if you start hunting hippo at night in sugarcane fields it becomes a different and very dangerous ball game.....did many of those in my younger days.
Not compareable for foreign hunters but that was some.exciting stuff

 

[Northern Shooter]

So price wise, how does Hippo compare to Buffalo?

Also if one were doing a plains game hunt, is it possible to add on a buffalo or Hippo a la carte?

 

[Hunter-Habib]

Now if you start hunting hippo at night in sugarcane fields it becomes a different and very dangerous ball game.....did many of those in my younger days.
Not compareable for foreign hunters but that was some.exciting stuff

IvW, are you using Rhino Monolithic Solids or Rhino expanding Solid Shanks in your .500 Jeffery for hunting hippopotamus on land ?

All my life, I exclusively preferred solids for hippopotamus on land. But during my most recent two hippopotamus hunts, I’ve found success with controlled expansion bullets (namely the Barnes TSX). It’s still too early to tell if I should abandon solids altogether, so I still keep solids in the magazine for the last two shots as insurance (Cutting Edge Bullets monolithic brass Safari Solids).

 

[TOBY458]

Having hunted both, I’d choose buffalo hands down. But having said that, the biggest challenge to hunting hippo is trying to find a big bull out of the water. We made stalks on numerous hippo pods and I never got a shot at a bull on two separate hunts. I’ve been to Africa four times and have shot four Cape buffalo, so the odds of shooting a buffalo are pretty good if you’re hunting in a good area.

 

[TOBY458]

So price wise, how does Hippo compare to Buffalo?

Also if one were doing a plains game hunt, is it possible to add on a buffalo or Hippo a la carte?

On my last two hunts, the buffalo was $1k more than the hippo.

 

[revturbo9967]

@375Fox Exactly! Which do you think is more difficult to find, a good buffalo or a good hippo on land? If you're not willing to settle on a lesser animal, I think the hippo might be more challenging.

I have not hunted hippo... yet. So, take my comments with a large pinch of salt.

If I can ever manage to scrounge up the money for another trip to Africa, hippo will be the prime target!

@375Fox hit the nail on the head. If you want a hippo on land, your ph will generally lower trophy quality expectations in order to make it happen. As a new hippo hunter and never seeing one in person, they all look huge so the one we saw on land would have been perfect for me. My ph knew I didn’t care about the hunting method, so he wanted a bigger one and we went to a different area. If you have not judged hippo before, any mature bull on land would end up being a shooter and you would most likely not know the difference and be extremely happy with the trophy at the end of the day.

A hippo in water may not seem as fun but the shot placement makes things much more interesting. Being in water allows your ph to judge the bulls, there were 3 different ones we sorted out which took a few hours.

Another point many forget with hippos are they extremely territorial and violent to just about everything. If you remove a large dominant bull from a pod, it allows another to take its place and start breeding. I do like to think about conservation with any African game, so targeting mature animals should always be in mind.

 

[revturbo9967]

So price wise, how does Hippo compare to Buffalo?

Also if one were doing a plains game hunt, is it possible to add on a buffalo or Hippo a la carte?

Hippo is a bit cheaper in a dangerous game area. You would typically go to hunt dangerous game and then add on plains game if time permits. You would need to reserve the animals you’re interested in far in advance with your outfit, 1-2 years if not longer. South Africa fits the a la carte profile a bit better if you want to hunt plains game first, then possible adding buffalo or hippo. Hippo in South Africa with be substantially more expensive then a DG are in Zim or other countries.

If you think you want to hunt DG for a first hunt, don’t hesitate and just go for DG and add on plains game if time and money allows

 

[PeteG]

So price wise, how does Hippo compare to Buffalo?

Also if one were doing a plains game hunt, is it possible to add on a buffalo or Hippo a la carte?

Trophy fees here are very similar.

Although you may be lucky to add on a hippo to a pg hunt but you will have to pay buff hunt day rates for a buff if you want to add it on to a pg hunt.

Each operator will have their own say as to how it will work out.

 

[Nyati]

I would say buffalo, but I have also hunted hippo at night, and well, it does become very interesting...

 

[Uncontrolled_round_feed]

Too easy?

In the water, an assassination. On land in the open, it looks as challenging as stalking an ill-tempered school bus. I imagine at night or in thick stuff it would be quite a redneck thrill. To each their own but between Black Death and the Pink Tutu I think there’s a winner…and the only guaranteed way to stop a charging buffalo is to take away his credit card.