ZIMBABWE: Buffalo In The Savé With Mokore Safaris

[Karl Johnson]

Afternoon, first day buffalo hunting...

Lunch at camp was a welcome break followed by a snooze. Back out at 2:30, to catch up with animals rousing from their own siesta in mid-afternoon. So began our routine for the hunt.

We picked up the herd, a kilometre or so from where we left them to the lions. They seemed to have settled down.

A slow, careful stalk got us close enough to see more bits and pieces, but not close enough for a shot. Time to change tactics. Dalton motioned for me to get down, and for the rest to stay behind. We crawled like leopards for 100 M or so, cradling our rifles in our arms or placing them sideways on the grass in front of us, and using elbows, knees and toes to creep forward. We caught glimpses of the edges of the herd a couple times. Not good enough. We noticed some activity in a more open spot a couple hundred meters to the right. We carefully walked closer, then repeated the “low” approach.

Perhaps it may have been better if I was three years old instead of more than 60. “Duck squatting” and leopard crawling are two of my least favourite methods of locomotion, especially when crawling over ground studded with thorns. One exceptionally nasty thorn managed to pierce the heavy sole of Andrew’s boot, stopping our forward momentum until remedied.

We were more successful the second crawl, and Dalton urged me to very cautiously ease up to kneeling and take aim at a big old bull that had turned and peered at us, not sure what we were. He was massive, muscular, and a little scary. He was in good range for a rock, not a rifle. His horns swept out wide and low before coming up in wicked points, sprouting from a hard, solid boss. He looked at us for a long time, peering over a low bush with baleful eyes and a scarred muzzle. The bush was perfectly covering his heart and lungs.

The crosshairs of my scope were pretty steady, considering, but there wasn’t a clear opening in the bush big enough to shoot a bullet through. A deflected bullet was just too risky. A cow came over to see what he was staring at. She snorted, and they left. They all left. There is nothing quite so empty as a thorn thicket that recently held buffalo, with no buffalo in it.

With a mischievous grin, Dalton said, "let's see your hands!" I'd like to report they were steady as a rock, but nope. I'm not quite that manly.

We followed that herd for a fairly long way, perhaps a couple more kilometers, playing hide and seek amid the thorns and low hills. Once the gleaming white shell of a dead tortoise caught my attention, and as always, interesting birds flitted here and there. We were sometimes startled by spur fowl. Remarkably similar to our Gray Partridge, they have the same heart stopping tendency to flush raucously from nearby, cackling loudly as they did so.

Towards dusk we caught up with the herd once more, as time was running out. In the low light the herd began to move more tentatively, knowing that it was time to bed and keep watch for the night predators.

We approached as always from downwind, Andrew puffing little squirts of wood ash from a traveler’s size liquid soap bottle to check the wind direction as the ashes drifted in the light swirling breezes. Wind OK. Dalton surprised me by walking boldly directly towards the herd, jumping them from their rest and moving them forward.

We strode quickly behind, then something even more surprising. Dalton let out a loud bellow, and repeated it quickly and often. A “calf in distress” call. The tail end of the herd slowed, and we could hear a couple of them turn around to investigate. An old cow thrust out her muzzle and stepped forward. A young bull followed, tossing his horns threateningly. Another bull, older and a possible candidate, hung back behind a screen of thorns but assumed a defensive, and investigative pose.
They couldn’t make out what we were in the fading light, but they were not spooked. They just turned and drifted away.

Dalton said it was a tactic that was worth a try, and had worked for him at other times just at last light. I have so much to learn.

Night falls very quickly in the tropics, and the hot, smokeless fire made from dense Mopane wood was a welcome luxury waiting for us when we returned to camp. It was turning chilly again. Dalton asked me how I liked my first day hunting buffalo. I said it was wonderful, beyond expectations. Three times on the sticks. “Success without venison”.
View attachment 480915View attachment 480916
Somewhere in the darkness, tree frogs began their chorus. A spotted Hyena called WhoooouP! A primitive, scary sound that brings a chill down my spine. The hyena knows very well that humans are just another kind of meat. Much farther away, a male lion roars a challenge, followed by the grunts that proclaim his territory to all rivals. Time for the night shift. We’ll leave that to other hunters.
Tomorrow it’s Kevin’s turn.

Fantastic write up!

 

[fourfive8]

Yes, great report. Thanks for posting! You included what makes hunting Africa so special... not just pulling the trigger... but all the little details. The variety of axes and hatchets, the sounds, the camp staff, trackers, skinners, the game scouts and patrols. It's the people and the small stuff not necessarily the stuff hunted. The elephants up close, elephants knocking trees down across two tracks etc., etc.

 

[Proneshooter]

Thank you for taking us along on your hunt, it brings back some very good memories for me. I have had the pleasure to hunt with Dalton in 2017 in Sengwa, and 2019 in the Save. He is a fine man and very good PH. I took my first buffalo in the Save at Mokore's camp and also enjoy that veranda overlooking the river.