My Cape Buffalo

[CRCO]

 

[Neil Molendyk]

Eagerly waiting your hunting report, Great buffalo. Congrats

 

[deewayne2003]

Eagerly waiting your hunting report, Great buffalo. Congrats

Agreed, details on rifle and ammo at least

 

[coreydb]

Ditto. also, how many shots fired before the beast dropped!

 

[CRCO]

My wife wanted to do an African Safari, who am I to argue about this. My dream was Cape Buffalo, my wife Fran's was plains game. We met our PH Gerrie who took us to our first camp. Once settled in, we test fired our rifles. A Sako 375 H&H suppressed with an Hybrid 46M shooting 300 grain Barnes TSX and a Springfield 2020 308 suppressed with an Omega 300 shooting 150 grain Nosler partitions. Both were dead on, no adjustment needed.
During our communications, Gerrie had told me about an opportunity to hunt the Buffalo on the Dinokeng free range Big Five reserve. This sounded wonderful to me as part of the cost and all of the meat would go to their anti-poaching program.
The rest of the day was spent scouting with our PH and the reserve ranger. We found a heard with what Gerrie told me was a nice bull in it.
The next Morning we picked up the reserve ranger and headed back to the area where we had seen the buffalo. Once spotted, the reserve ranger got on the radio and had this portion on the reserve closed off to all visitors. Then the "fun" began. The three of us took off on foot and worked our way close, then started crawling through the bushes, brush and wait-a-minutes. We got close, real close. Two cows were between us and the bull. All of them giving us the stare that only buffalo can. They suddenly spooked and took off running. We waited a bit and then we followed. This went on most of the day, get close and no clear shot. We were either spotted or the wind swirled and the buffalo were off again.
Towards evening, we caught up with them again and began our stalk keeping bushes between us and the buffalo. Ph and I are once again crawling closer and closer and closer still. We get to within 30 yards without being detected. The bull is laying down. Gerrie whispers as soon as he stands, take him.
I'm sitting, one knee up elbow braced on my knee, seems like time has slowed down. Eventually the bull stands facing me head on. I put my sight center chest about a third of the way up, slowly squeezing until my shot goes off. I hear reload reload as I'm already reloading. Bull turns facing toward my left, I put one into his shoulder. He spins around facing toward my right, I put one into his shoulder, it's like the bull doesn't even notice. Again I shot into the shoulder and the bull drops straight down but doesn't roll over. Bull stands back up, I put another one into his shoulder. This time he drops and rolls over, PH says put on right between his legs, so I do. For those of you keeping count, yes that is six 300 grain Barnes TSX I've put into him. We move around to his back side, PH says put one behind his ear so i do. (number seven). Please keep in mind this all happened at less than 30 yards. Wow are these things tough.
Just so you know, I've killed over 30 elk, one moose and countless deer, both mule and whitetail along with multiple pronghorn and never shot more than once at any of them.
I'm done, I'm happy!
We spend the next six days focused on Fran getting her plains game. Springbok Slam if you will, impala, hartebeest, blue wildebeest, and golden gemsbok.
We stayed at a Lion rehabilitation reserve. We were allowed to get in with the nine month old cubs and take a few pictures.
The last two days, we toured and stayed the night in the Kruger Park. I can't even begin to imagine a trip for us that will come close to this Safari!

 

[RLL]

Well done. Sounds like a great trip!

 

[CRCO]

To add a bit more, the reserve ranger told us about two of his folks who had to follow up on a bull a client had made a bad shot on. They followed the bull into the really thick stuff and the buffalo snuck around behind them, charged and hit both of them. Killing one and putting the other in the hospital. Of course he tells me about this before we head out to hunt my buffalo. He also said Carl you keep shooting until he stops moving or you loose sight of him. Good advice that I followed.