Day 9 – Thursday
Thursday was still cool, windy and overcast. An interesting start to the day. Dean and I were having breakfast, while waiting for my wife to join us. While we were eating, two bats were flying above our heads (it was still dark out at 5 am). When my wife came into the dining room, she got a few yards in before seeing Benji and Bob (as I’d named them). She shrieked and ran from the room. The waiter and cook came to see what the fuss was about. Once Dean explained, they expressed some wonder that she seemed to find being charged by a lioness exciting but was afraid of bats. North Americans. What can you do.
Once my wife had her coffee on the porch, we headed out to see what might be lurking in this bad weather. We quickly found a couple of bull elephants munching their way through the morning, at a distance of less than 100 yards. These elephants were not at all disturbed by our presence. If they’d been shot at, it wasn’t recently. I found this behaviour different from that of virtually every elephant I saw in Benin, for example, where if they saw or smelled you, you had to be ready to beat a hasty retreat since they appeared to be uniformly bad tempered. That bad temper, of course, comes mainly from shooting out of herds, whether by hunters or more likely, poachers.
For those animals which had come out, the wind once again seemed to play in our favour. Jackals are usually very difficult to get during the day, since they are very wary and almost never let you get close enough or stand still for long enough to get a decent shot, unless they’re responding to a call and haven’t seen you. We’d seen lots of jackals during the week, but today, we saw one before he saw (or heard) us. And that was his downfall. Not a big target at a couple of hundred yards, but if you have a good rest, it can work very nicely.
We didn’t see any signs of buffalo today, but began to see more zebra and giraffes as the weather began to slowly improve. I’d shot my quota of both, which likely why we were seeing them.
In the afternoon we passed by our ground-nesting bird from two days before, and he or she was still there, still immobile, but eyes open this time. We left it in peace. From a vantage point overlooking a natural water hole we saw a new sight for me – two honey badgers a couple of hundred yards away on a mission. Not sure where they were going, but they were going with purpose. I’ve seen them at night, but not during the day. We later saw three bat eared foxes, again an unusual sight during the day. I am beginning to think that these unusual daytime sightings may be related to the number of lions about.
Day 10 - Friday
Our last day of hunting, and the weather had again turned, but while it was still cool-ish, the sky was blue and the wind had calmed. A perfect day to track buffalo. Not that we had much choice - we were leaving tomorrow!
While we hadn’t been as focused on buffalo as we would have been if this had been my first buffalo hunt, we had paid attention to the comings and goings of the herds, and had determined where smaller groups of dugga boys seemed to hang about. The lions seemed to be a factor with the buffalo as well. Rather than drinking at night, as buffalo usually do, the buffalo here seemed to drink in the late afternoon, perhaps to avoid the lions which hung around waterholes at night. As a result, the usual strategy of finding fresh tracks by a waterhole and following them could be an exercise in futility – by the time we got there –even at 6.30 or 7 am, the tracks were likely almost 12 hours old.
So our plan was to drive the roads where we had seen dugga boys, and look for fresh tracks. For some reason, Dean kept repeating “last day buffalo” as if it was a magical saying.
After a half hour of driving, and finding no fresh tracks, I was enjoying the sunshine when we heard the loud rap on the roof of the truck. Dean stopped quickly, and Elias whispered that there were buffalo about 400 yards ahead. We couldn’t see them from the cab, so Dean climbed onto the back, and quickly came down, saying there were 6 buffalo feeding slowly through a vlei in front of us. They weren’t aware of us, and the wind was in our favour. Fortunately, they couldn’t see any activity on the ground either, so we had some time to get ready. Dean had his eyes on some trees a few hundred yards in front of us, so we (the whole troop!) hunched down and quietly moved over to the trees.
From those trees I got my first glimpse of the buffalo, and while they were in fact feeding, the grass in the low lying vlei was so high that at times we couldn’t see all of the buffalo, and at other times, we could only see their backs. I ranged them with my binos and told Dean they were about 100 yards . . . “yes, too far” was his reply. The only cover between us and the vlei was a couple of trees about 40 yards in front of us. Dean grabbed the sticks and his rifle from Elias and told everyone else to stay hidden behind the trees.
Dean told me to walk directly behind him, and we began to move slowly towards the last remaining cover (if you could call it that). The buffalo were still unaware of our presence, but every once in a while, a head would lift up and look around. At one point Dean whispered “freeze . . . don’t move a muscle” and I could see one looking straight at us. After what seemed like 10 minutes but was likely closer to one, the head went back down and the feeding resumed. Whew. We finally made it to the two trees, still undetected. If they looked up and in our direction though, and if we were moving, they would spot us without a doubt. Dean slowly set up the sticks while looking for any sign of a head coming up. He told me to focus on one which was far lighter than the others. But he did say not to shoot it – he still wanted to judge the horns properly. Not a problem, since there were two in the same general spot, and with the tall grass, it would have been next to impossible to get a clean shot. While I was trying to keep the lighter buffalo in my sights, Dean seemed to be scanning the other animals.
Suddenly Dean whispered “Henry, I’ve found your buffalo”. I looked up, and he pointed out a black buffalo much farther to our right. He said that’s the one – "focus on him, and if you think you can get a shot, take him.” I stared through the scope nervously, since with the grass and another buffalo, I wasn’t sure I could get a decent shot, and I wasn’t about to guess where the bulk of his body was and shoot into the grass. Dean said “don’t worry . . . in a minute he’ll feed into a clear area” and sure enough, he did. I didn’t see the horns, but I trusted Dean, and as soon as the buffalo stepped out of the deep grass, I took the shot.
With a .375, you rarely see the impact of your shot due to the recoil, and this was no exception. I quickly reloaded, and looked for a second shot, but all of the buffalo were running . . . together. At this point they were about 40 yards from us, and all six were staring straight at as. Dean began to wave his arms, making a bunch of noise, but they still seemed a bit unsure. I was ready for a second shot, but couldn’t tell which one was mine. Suddenly Dean said “he’s wobbling” and then my favourite words, “he’s going down”. At that point, the other buffalo began to clear out of the vlei away from us.
We had now lost sight of my buffalo in the long grass, so we gave it a few minutes. My wife and the others came up to join us, but one of us were speaking yet. Dean whispered to them to stay out of the grass and wait for us to call them, and we began to walk slowly into the vlei.
I have followed up wounded buffalo before, and I can say that I far prefer it when you can see where you’re going, and more than a few feet in front of you. After a few minutes of very slow walking, I was a few yards to the left of Dean and motioned to him that I thought I could see the body of the buffalo through the grass, some 15 or so yards in front of us. Dean motioned for me to stop, and then slowly walked my way. He nodded, and we began to slowly swing around, getting closer, but from a different angle. As we got closer, it was clear that the buffalo was down, but also clear that he wasn’t dead. Dean motioned to me to put another into him, and with my scope already turned down, I knelt and gave him another through the lower body towards the spine. He took it, but didn’t appear to be prepared to give up the ghost.
I have a strong preference for approaching wounded buffalo in slightly more open country.
We got a bit closer, and I whispered to Dean – “can you see the blood?” His response was yes – “you must have hit the jugular.” Blood was pumping out in volume and while the buffalo didn’t appear to be able to get up, he seemed quite angry about his situation, and was kicking and thrashing his head wildly, sending blood everywhere. Another shot (the third) quieted things down considerably, and at that point we breathed a sigh of relief, and waved to the others that they could come.
At this point blood was still pumping out, so he was clearly not dead, but he appeared to be immobile. I took a good look at him and I am astounded. He was virtually the scrum cap I was looking for! Both horns were broken off, not completely, but substantially. This was an old bull, with his boss beginning to disintegrate . . . He has old scars on his side and rear end, likely from lions. I couldn’t have asked for a better trophy!
By this time my wife was with us, and she moved towards the buffalo to take a closer look. I told her to be careful – he wasn’t dead yet, and blood was still pumping. I think she got a bit too close for the buff’s comfort, because he suddenly tried to get up, kicking his legs and thrashing his head, sending blood everywhere. My wife jumped back in sheer panic, and I lifted up the rifle, but it was pretty much a last gasp. This was a tough buffalo – he’d have lost most of his blood by that point, but still had the will to try to hurt those who had hurt him.
In the final analysis, it’s lucky counts as much as good. My shot was terrible – I’m not sure how I shot a foot forward of where I intended at 60 yards, but I did, and I was lucky to hit the jugular, or we might have been tracking buffalo for a long time. I also missed the giraffe neck with this rifle, so it may be that the scope wasn’t right, but the two shots we fired at the range seemed close enough, so I can’t really say that was the reason. Whatever, we got the job done, and no one got hurt, and I found my perfect buffalo!
This is my idea of a great buffalo trophy!
And so ended my hunt on the BVC. We had the buffalo at the skinning shed by 9 (he’d been on the ground at about 6.30 am), and spent the balance of the day just driving, looking at the animals, and being amazed at what hunting can support.
