Scott CWO
AH legend
Yes. I should have taken the picture from further away and then zoomed it in. The picture makes the head look a little weird since the camera is below the mount. I do like the mount.
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Mozambique Tales Of Boomslang Snakes, Man-eating Crocodiles & Angry Buffalo 2013-2014
- Thread starter Scott CWO
- Start date
Great hunt! Thanks for sharing it with us! The tease was worth the wait!
Scott CWO
AH legend
Another fun thing at the SdM camp was an orphaned “baby” elephant that was kept there. One of the PHs and his trackers found the baby in a poachers pit. The poachers couldn’t get it out of the pit and had just started a fire to cook it alive! The PH caught the poachers just in time to save the baby. They got it out of the pit (it was smaller back then) and took it to camp where a big cage was built to keep it in overnight. The camp owner hired a local guy to tend to it and he lets it out during the day. It has since grown and is spoiled rotten. When you feed it crabapples by hand, it gets a bit pushy and impatient if you don’t feed it fast enough. Wendy was afraid of it when it got pushy.
Scott CWO
AH legend
After arriving camp and getting settled in, we went to the range to check the rifles. I brought the same two rifles that brought on the safari with Jamie. Craig brought a .375H&H, if I remember correctly. The rifles shot just fine.
After that, my PH, Brin and I were off in search of crocs, sable, bushbuck and maybe a kudu. Craig and Skippy went out to get some plains game for leopard bait and would report to us if they came across any sable.
We employed a variety of methods to hunt crocs. We drove along parts of the lake and would then hike very carefully along the inlets to glass up crocs and evaluate them. We also used boats to hunt the small islands and peninsulas. We would hike up alongside the tributary drainages/rivers that fed into the lake. The crocs are very spooky and hard to approach on foot. Craig also hunted from blinds for croc but I never did sit in a blind but I wasn’t opposed to it. As many of you likely know, crocs are cold-blooded and sunbathe during the daytime to stay warm and then stay mostly in the water at night when the water stays warmer than the air/land.
Crocs were everywhere. Same for hippos. Quite often, we had to change our approaches because of hippos. We also saw a fair number of fishermen and locals. Some of our trackers lived in the small village on our side of the lake. There was a fairly large village on the opposite side of the lake, near the Zimbabwe/Zambia border. Near the lake, the three countries all come together.
The crocs kill several people here each year. During our safari, two people were killed close by. I’m not joking! One was a 40 year-old man that worked at the camp and also did some fishing. He was killed when a croc tipped over his canoe. The other death was a 12 year-old child. The child was with mom while they were doing laundry along the shore. A croc came rushing out of the water and grabbed the child. After this happened, a group of people came to our camp at lunchtime and asked if Skippy and Craig would go kill the croc. I was out hunting at the time. Skippy and Craig went to the area. They said there were over a dozen crocs in that lagoon with no way to tell which one had taken the child. Craig was tempted to shoot one of the crocs just to make the locals happy but none of them were over 14’ as far as they could tell so they didn’t shoot.
Here is a picture of people near the water at the larger village. Safety in numbers I guess??
After that, my PH, Brin and I were off in search of crocs, sable, bushbuck and maybe a kudu. Craig and Skippy went out to get some plains game for leopard bait and would report to us if they came across any sable.
We employed a variety of methods to hunt crocs. We drove along parts of the lake and would then hike very carefully along the inlets to glass up crocs and evaluate them. We also used boats to hunt the small islands and peninsulas. We would hike up alongside the tributary drainages/rivers that fed into the lake. The crocs are very spooky and hard to approach on foot. Craig also hunted from blinds for croc but I never did sit in a blind but I wasn’t opposed to it. As many of you likely know, crocs are cold-blooded and sunbathe during the daytime to stay warm and then stay mostly in the water at night when the water stays warmer than the air/land.
Crocs were everywhere. Same for hippos. Quite often, we had to change our approaches because of hippos. We also saw a fair number of fishermen and locals. Some of our trackers lived in the small village on our side of the lake. There was a fairly large village on the opposite side of the lake, near the Zimbabwe/Zambia border. Near the lake, the three countries all come together.
The crocs kill several people here each year. During our safari, two people were killed close by. I’m not joking! One was a 40 year-old man that worked at the camp and also did some fishing. He was killed when a croc tipped over his canoe. The other death was a 12 year-old child. The child was with mom while they were doing laundry along the shore. A croc came rushing out of the water and grabbed the child. After this happened, a group of people came to our camp at lunchtime and asked if Skippy and Craig would go kill the croc. I was out hunting at the time. Skippy and Craig went to the area. They said there were over a dozen crocs in that lagoon with no way to tell which one had taken the child. Craig was tempted to shoot one of the crocs just to make the locals happy but none of them were over 14’ as far as they could tell so they didn’t shoot.
Scott CWO
AH legend
Here’s some pictures of crocs along the shores and hippos we encountered. These were common occurrences.
Scott CWO
AH legend
Craig was getting some plains game and some baits hung. By the end of the trip, as far as plains game goes, he took a grysbok, warthog and a dozen impala. His leopard was proving a challenge, just as sable was for me. I had seen several sable but nothing to shoot. We also had tracked some that we bumped. As sometimes happens, Craig was seeing some nice sable bulls but I hadn’t yet. Wendy and I actually saw a leopard in the daylight and I teased him about that while he teased me about whether he should shoot my sable for me. We were having a good time but then, tragedy struck…
Scott CWO
AH legend
On the fourth morning of the safari, Craig and Skippy and a couple trackers hiked a trail through some tall reed grass out to a croc blind on a peninsula to see what size crocs would show up when the crocs came out of the water to sunbathe. They sat in the blind for several hours but didn’t shoot anything. When no more new crocs were arriving, the guys decided to leave and go check leopard baits at mid day.
While hiking back to the Cruiser on the trail through the high reed grass, suddenly a cow buffalo jumped up just off the trail and immediately charged towards Craig! While Craig was backpedaling a bit and trying to get his slung rifle off his shoulder, he tripped in the reed grass and fell down and disappeared from view. The cow then changed direction and went for Skippy. Unfortunately, Skippy had given his rifle to the tracker while helping Craig get out of the blind and the tracker was still walking with the rifle when the charge occurred. Skippy was defenseless and Craig had fallen down! The cow smashed into Skippy and then pinned him to the ground, goring him in the thigh. The cow’s horn poked a sizable hole in Skippy’s thigh. When the cow pulled the horn out, Skippy’s quadricep muscle came out with the horn and was sticking way outside of the hole and looked too big to go back in the hole. The muscle also had debris on it.
While the cow had Skippy pinned down and was batting him around, Craig quickly got back to his feet and promptly shot the buffalo before it could kill Skippy or do more damage. The buffalo tipped over and off of Skippy and Craig shot it again before everyone turned their attention to Skippy. Skippy was alive but beat up pretty bad and the quadricep muscle was hanging out of the hole in his thigh. Luckily, the femoral artery was not damaged or Skippy would have bled out.
The trackers flagged down a fisherman with a boat with an outboard motor. They loaded Skippy up and took him to the village. I don’t remember all the exact details of the logistics of the transport because I wasn’t there but Skippy ended up getting transported to Harare for surgery and later had skin grafts done in Johannesburg. Thankfully, he made a full recovery but it took quite a while.
Wendy and I learned of this horrible incident when we got back to camp that night. Obviously, we were all very concerned about Skippy.
As good news filtered back to us all about Skippy’s prognosis, Craig then resumed his hunt with another PH provided by SdM.
Later that year, Craig received the Award of Valor from the professional hunters association for saving Skippy’s life. The award is usually given to a PH and not very often is given to a client.
While hiking back to the Cruiser on the trail through the high reed grass, suddenly a cow buffalo jumped up just off the trail and immediately charged towards Craig! While Craig was backpedaling a bit and trying to get his slung rifle off his shoulder, he tripped in the reed grass and fell down and disappeared from view. The cow then changed direction and went for Skippy. Unfortunately, Skippy had given his rifle to the tracker while helping Craig get out of the blind and the tracker was still walking with the rifle when the charge occurred. Skippy was defenseless and Craig had fallen down! The cow smashed into Skippy and then pinned him to the ground, goring him in the thigh. The cow’s horn poked a sizable hole in Skippy’s thigh. When the cow pulled the horn out, Skippy’s quadricep muscle came out with the horn and was sticking way outside of the hole and looked too big to go back in the hole. The muscle also had debris on it.
While the cow had Skippy pinned down and was batting him around, Craig quickly got back to his feet and promptly shot the buffalo before it could kill Skippy or do more damage. The buffalo tipped over and off of Skippy and Craig shot it again before everyone turned their attention to Skippy. Skippy was alive but beat up pretty bad and the quadricep muscle was hanging out of the hole in his thigh. Luckily, the femoral artery was not damaged or Skippy would have bled out.
The trackers flagged down a fisherman with a boat with an outboard motor. They loaded Skippy up and took him to the village. I don’t remember all the exact details of the logistics of the transport because I wasn’t there but Skippy ended up getting transported to Harare for surgery and later had skin grafts done in Johannesburg. Thankfully, he made a full recovery but it took quite a while.
Wendy and I learned of this horrible incident when we got back to camp that night. Obviously, we were all very concerned about Skippy.
As good news filtered back to us all about Skippy’s prognosis, Craig then resumed his hunt with another PH provided by SdM.
Later that year, Craig received the Award of Valor from the professional hunters association for saving Skippy’s life. The award is usually given to a PH and not very often is given to a client.
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Scott CWO
AH legend
We continued hunting and had some close encounters with sable, kudu and buffalo. Most of the buffalo in the concession would feed in the greened up areas along the lake at night and would then return to the forested areas to the south to bed down. To do this, they had to cross the east/west road that paralleled the lake. We had some close calls with these buffalo herds and tracked some groups but I was being very picky. I had shot a good bull with Jamie the year before so I wanted a bull over 40” with big boss. However, buffalo were not my priority.
One morning while driving the road looking for buffalo or buffalo tracks to follow, I spotted a nice bushbuck. We hid the Cruiser and took off on foot to get closer. We closed the distance to about 75 yards and Brin setup the sticks. Just as I squeezed the trigger, the bushbuck moved and I hit him too far back. He humped up and ran into heavy cover. We cautiously followed but ended up jumping him twice. Luckily, he never charged, as bushbuck often do. We also inadvertently walked right into a lone elephant bull in the thick cover but were able to back out before anything bad happened. We flanked around the elephant and jumped the bushbuck again and I was able to hit and kill him on the run. I was happy to get my first bushbuck!
One morning while driving the road looking for buffalo or buffalo tracks to follow, I spotted a nice bushbuck. We hid the Cruiser and took off on foot to get closer. We closed the distance to about 75 yards and Brin setup the sticks. Just as I squeezed the trigger, the bushbuck moved and I hit him too far back. He humped up and ran into heavy cover. We cautiously followed but ended up jumping him twice. Luckily, he never charged, as bushbuck often do. We also inadvertently walked right into a lone elephant bull in the thick cover but were able to back out before anything bad happened. We flanked around the elephant and jumped the bushbuck again and I was able to hit and kill him on the run. I was happy to get my first bushbuck!
Scott CWO
AH legend
The next day, we came across some sable that Craig and his PH had told us about but after a long tracking job, they eluded us when the bull was covered up by cows and I couldn’t get a clear shot. Once back at the Cruiser, we decided to look at some croc areas to see what was out in the sun. Finding nothing exceptional, we continued on.
We then came upon a local young man, probably about 18 years old, who was walking down the road and wearing the bright red uniform of the Manchester United Football (soccer) team. He waved at us and Brin stopped the Cruiser to talk to him. Brin asked him if he knew of any big crocs. He was a nice kid and said he knew of a big croc that lived not too far from his village and that this croc was known to have killed a few fishermen over the years. Brin asked him if he would climb aboard and show us where this croc lived for $10. He enthusiastically agreed and we were off! He took us down the road for a ways and then said to pull over. We then hiked across country to a tributary or drainage well away from the main body of the lake. We turned and hiked a trail paralleling the water in this drainage for a few hundred yards. He then said that we were getting close to the territory of the big croc and where the croc came partially out of the water each day. We rounded another bend in the trail and sure enough, the kid pointed to the spot and there was the big croc! Unfortunately, the croc heard or saw our commotion and slipped all the way into the water but not before we saw enough to know this was a big croc. The kid said not to worry because the croc would be right back in the same spot tomorrow to get some sun. He said this part of the drainage was this croc’s territory and we believed him.
The next day, we returned and Brin told the trackers to stay back a bit while he and I snuck up the last 100 yards to have a look. Sure enough, the same croc was right back in the exact same place! He was laying the same way - about halfway out of the water. Brin wasn’t able to judge his exact length in this position but he said it was a very big-bodied, heavy croc with a big head with a lot of missing teeth. Brin thought the croc should be at least 14’ just going by the way he tapered but with his tail in the water, he couldn’t say for sure.
I liked the whole story about this old man-eater and how the kid knew just where to find him. This croc had a history with the villagers! I told Brin that I was willing to take the risk of him being a little smaller but I thought he might be 14’ or a little more.
The croc was across a small channel from us and we had an eroded, elevated bank on our side that allowed us to look down at the croc a bit. I would be able to shoot him in the brain at a downward angle after crawling out to the edge. I got down and crawled until I could see the croc from a prone shooting position. The range was about 50 yards. I got set and started squeezing the trigger.
At the shot, the croc moved very little and just twitched his tail a bit. I cycled the action on the .338WM but there was no need. He was brained!
We then came upon a local young man, probably about 18 years old, who was walking down the road and wearing the bright red uniform of the Manchester United Football (soccer) team. He waved at us and Brin stopped the Cruiser to talk to him. Brin asked him if he knew of any big crocs. He was a nice kid and said he knew of a big croc that lived not too far from his village and that this croc was known to have killed a few fishermen over the years. Brin asked him if he would climb aboard and show us where this croc lived for $10. He enthusiastically agreed and we were off! He took us down the road for a ways and then said to pull over. We then hiked across country to a tributary or drainage well away from the main body of the lake. We turned and hiked a trail paralleling the water in this drainage for a few hundred yards. He then said that we were getting close to the territory of the big croc and where the croc came partially out of the water each day. We rounded another bend in the trail and sure enough, the kid pointed to the spot and there was the big croc! Unfortunately, the croc heard or saw our commotion and slipped all the way into the water but not before we saw enough to know this was a big croc. The kid said not to worry because the croc would be right back in the same spot tomorrow to get some sun. He said this part of the drainage was this croc’s territory and we believed him.
The next day, we returned and Brin told the trackers to stay back a bit while he and I snuck up the last 100 yards to have a look. Sure enough, the same croc was right back in the exact same place! He was laying the same way - about halfway out of the water. Brin wasn’t able to judge his exact length in this position but he said it was a very big-bodied, heavy croc with a big head with a lot of missing teeth. Brin thought the croc should be at least 14’ just going by the way he tapered but with his tail in the water, he couldn’t say for sure.
I liked the whole story about this old man-eater and how the kid knew just where to find him. This croc had a history with the villagers! I told Brin that I was willing to take the risk of him being a little smaller but I thought he might be 14’ or a little more.
The croc was across a small channel from us and we had an eroded, elevated bank on our side that allowed us to look down at the croc a bit. I would be able to shoot him in the brain at a downward angle after crawling out to the edge. I got down and crawled until I could see the croc from a prone shooting position. The range was about 50 yards. I got set and started squeezing the trigger.
At the shot, the croc moved very little and just twitched his tail a bit. I cycled the action on the .338WM but there was no need. He was brained!
Scott CWO
AH legend
In this picture, you can see the elevated riverbank to the left. That’s where I took the shot. Brin and one of the trackers are in the background to the right and they’ve tied a rope around the croc and pulled it all the way into the water so that the other tracker and I can pull him across to our side.
You might notice that on the top picture that the croc is missing several tail segments. He measured just a little over 14’ but would have been probably 15’ or so if his tail was completely intact. Brin told me that it’s not uncommon for part of the tail to be missing in this area due to the high numbers of crocs and all the fighting they do when younger.
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That's a nice croc! Like the story to go with him as well.
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Here’s the video of Cosimo getting slammed down by the leopard. Jamie acts very quickly with his CZ550 .458 Lott with open sights and kills the leopard. The skill and quickness he exhibited to kill the leopard without shooting Cosimo was incredible! You can see that Cosimo and Jamie have big heavy coats on for a bit of protection. This leopard was shot across the brisket and through one front leg by a 10 year-old boy the evening before. A returning wealthy client from Chicago booked two full bag safaris - lion, elephant, leopard, buffalo and plains game for his two nephews aged ten and twelve years-old! These boys were obviously not experienced hunters and the client should have known better. This all happened on the safari immediately preceding mine.
Can you guys see the video? Let me know.
That’s crazy fast… and in such thick cover as well. Well done to the PH!
PARA45
AH ambassador
What a beautiful bushbuck. Oh, and that crock is a trophy of a lifetime, and the fact that it was a man eater makes the story even more interesting. WOW!!!
What an amazing safari, keep it coming.
What an amazing safari, keep it coming.
gillettehunter
AH ambassador
Very nice bushbuck and a great croc. Well done. Congrats
Bruce
Bruce
DLSJR
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Thanks for sharing a great report. Very nice buffalo from the first hunt but that croc is something special. Congrats!
Wow, just wow, what a story to tell your grandchildren! Waidmannsheil and I hope there is more to come. That’s an amazing croc. Very well done and thanks a lot for sharing!
Tra3
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Nice croc!
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