ZIMBABWE: Hunting The BVC In Zimbabwe For Buffalo, John Sharp Safaris Exceeding Expectations

[Carrie]

Sounds like an amazing hunt!!!!!!

 

[PHOENIX PHIL]

My luck on bumping into a daylight hyena is definitely not happening, we have spotted and brown hyena coming into several baits but not while we are sitting them. I’m pretty sure the word has gotten out that if we pull a trigger it is going into the salt shed and the hyenas are scared! Lol
We were sitting a blind an Nengo Dam and in comes a brown hyena. Starts devouring our hind quarter of zebra we have hanging we take some pictures and enjoy watching him. Dave said he was going to spook him off so maybe a spotted would come in. He yells out of the blind and the hyena runs straight at the blind then veers off to the left and into the bush. Good he is gone! That only lasted a couple minutes and he was sauntering back into the bait. Evidently this dude had got the memo that we can’t import brown hyena and really didn’t give a damn that we did not appreciate him eating our zebra. The 1200.00 trophy fee on a brown would have been well worth it at this point and it would have made a nice picture for the wall but along with the TF there is a government added 1500 fee that comes with shooting one and that was a deal breaker for me. We decide to call for the truck and abort operation Nengo Dam Hyena. As Dave so eloquently said, “a plan so cunning we could pin a tail on it and call it a fox”. Well back to the drawing board!
The next morning we run our baits, spotted on two baits, browns on every bait and we have a beautiful male leopard on one bait as well as a couple honey badgers.
We need more bait, hmmm, Impala with the 470 would be quite cool, Dave agrees so we are off in search of a bait impala!
We find him and a couple buddies as we cross through the Bubye River and get out of the cruiser. I got a strange look from Doobi as I asked for the 470. Kinda that what is this goofy white man thinking look that only an African tracker can give. We sneak up the bank but they have us pegged, we switch direction and get into the river bottom and instantly spook a bushbuck that goes directly in the direction of the impala! We keep moving and slowly Dave peeks over the bank, he sets the sticks and I slide into place on them. He is facing away from us at about 40 yards so I line up and touch off the right barrel. The impala runs! This is not the expected outcome of 5k foot pounds impacting a 100 pound animal! We run up to where he was standing and he was about 15 yards from where he was at the shot facing us just shivering. Dave and I looked at each other in awe and I raised the rifle again and put a round into the point of his shoulder.
Upon inspection of the ram we find that the bullet had entered dead center his ball sack, through the belly smashed through the front shoulder and was under the skin! How did it not penetrate completely on such a small animal? We cut the bullet out and upon inspection the shank of the bullet had a large dent in it! The second bullet had taken a similar path and exited an inch from the entrance of the first.
View attachment 304929
Bullet weight was 480.4 so retention was excellent yet the dent in the shank is quite confusing!

We hung half the impala at the site where the leopard was showing up and the other half at an active bait right near camp.
The next morning when we checked the cards the male had returned and brought a date with him. Very cool to see. The below picture shows claw marks in the hide of the impala.
View attachment 304930
Hopefully Dave will send a few pictures of the leopards from the game cam but he is in the bush in Mozambique for 45 days.

Cody,

I presume you loaded the A-Frames yourself and would not have loaded a bullet looking like that. I can only imagine you either glanced a tree branch or one of the heavier bones in the impala. Putting a dent like that in the bullet certainly took off a lot of speed and perhaps explains why no exit.

 

[Bullthrower338]

Cody,

I presume you loaded the A-Frames yourself and would not have loaded a bullet looking like that. I can only imagine you either glanced a tree branch or one of the heavier bones in the impala. Putting a dent like that in the bullet certainly took off a lot of speed and perhaps explains why no exit.

Yes, loaded myself. I suspected the same thing but don’t recall any substantial trees or brush in the way. It did pulverize the shoulder blade but that isn’t a massive bone that I would think would cause this damage. IDK

 

[BeeMaa]

@tarbe - Gotta love the new avatar.

Congrats on the Buff and a successful hunt for both you and @Bullthrower338.

Keep it coming.

 

[PHOENIX PHIL]

Yes, loaded myself. I suspected the same thing but don’t recall any substantial trees or brush in the way. It did pulverize the shoulder blade but that isn’t a massive bone that I would think would cause this damage. IDK

I was wondering if it could have hit the sternum. One thing I noticed with a lot of kills using North Fork bonded cores is that I recovered a lot of bullets from animals I didn't think I would. Now those that were recovered were under the skin of the offside of the animal. Some of them were just about to poke on through leaving a noticeable bulge.

My thought on many of these and the guys at NF agreed with me, is this is one drawback, if you can call it that, of the most positive upside of the weight retention. For an expanding bullet to maintain that kind of weight, means the mushroom must stay for the most part intact. So if the bullet has the mushroom still in front when it hits the hide on the offside of the shot, you have a much larger surface moving at a much slower rate than on bullet entry. And therefore often do not get an exit wound.

 

[cls]

Thanks for taking us along for the ride. Congrats to all on a very successful safari.

 

[375 Ruger Fan]

Cody and Tim: I've been reading along since last week and hitting the "Like" button a lot. I've been too busy to stop and write a few comments until now.

Wow! Great hunt, great report (I like the Huntley-Brinkley Report style) and memories that will last a lifetime. I know this hunt has been in the planning stage for several years, as I can recall getting a PM from Tim asking about my hunt with @John Sharp. Reading this report brought back a bunch of memories. The rental Ruger 300 WM Tim used for the first few days is the same rifle I used for PG. The old push feed, tang safety model. Tim, your close encounter with an Ele was similar too. It's very comforting and reassuring when John calmly drops in a solid into his 470. The BVC is the Magic Kingdom for African Safari and as you both mentioned, the two PHs of John Sharp and @DaveL are a wonderful team.

Can't wait for our next lunch get together and hear some more stories from this hunt!

 

[tarbe]

Dave - thanks for your help "way back when" with the decision to go with John.

He is a special man and I am so glad to have hunted with him, and even more grateful to have a relationship with him.

And it was pure joy to make the trip with Cody, and watch he and Dave work together, laugh together and just generally have a great 12 days.

My only regret is that I won't get to do this every year!

 

[Mort Hill]

Great read an congrats on all your fine animals. Love your Civet story, and I also know the pain of wounding and losing an animal. Gut wrenching. So glad you found and secured!

 

[Bullthrower338]

Great read an congrats on all your fine animals. Love your Civet story, and I also know the pain of wounding and losing an animal. Gut wrenching. So glad you found and secured!

Thanks Mort. If a guy doesn’t feel like that when something goes to hell, he would be remiss to call himself a hunter in my opinion.

 

[Bullthrower338]

Well guys, I am down to my last critter. We worked our asses off to get a hyena and it just wasn’t coming together. One night we had to run four lions off the hyena bait which was a highlight of the trip. Dave was driving and Tim was in the cab with him while my dumb ass was in the back of the cruiser! The lions ran as we came up on them, soon two returned then three. Momma was in the darkness making noise that made the hair stand up on your neck! I was thinking that I was a pretty damn easy target sitting there and never took my hands off of the rifle. Tim and Dave got a kick out of my predicament though so well worth it.
John and Tim had found a den a couple days earlier and marked its location for us. We went and checked it out and as we pulled around the corner there was a small hyena pup sitting at a hole. I told Dave I didn’t need a hyena badly enough to kill one of the pair with young pups.
Getting soft in my old age I guess. Fast forward to the last day of our hunt and John tells me that the pups are eating meat and we’ll old enough. So we set a blind overlooking the riverbank. We had just settled in and I was reading White Hunters by Brian Hearne when Dave whispered to hand me the book and look at the top of the ridge. I’ll be damned, a spotted hyena! I put my placemark in my book much to slowly for Dave because he sarcastically told me to take my sweet time, no rush. Lol. I leaned forward into the Winchester that was in the cradle and pulled the trigger. At the shot the hyena spun around twice on a dime, went straight legged and fell off the hill with only a puff of dust rising. Hmm, quite dramatic! We climbed up to where it had been standing and it had fell right into a big hole that was entrance to one of the many dens that covered the bank. Much bigger than I had thought they were! It was a large female that was dry. She had cruised in from out of the bush and was headed to our bait in the river bottom. Last couple hours of our hunt and we had completed my list of hopes for the BVC!

We had the blind broken down and we were actually going to have a sundowner as the sun went down and we were kind of excited about that but along the way back to camp two honey badgers bust out in front of us. Out of the truck, 375 handed down to me and we run after the badgers. There they are, I’m on the sticks and the damn see through scope caps are still on the old Swarovski scope but you can’t see through them anymore. My honey badger dream waddled off into the bush and my hunt was done! What a wonderful hunt it was!
Thanks to Dave, John and the staff, what a first class operation that exceeded every expectation I could have set! Thank You Tim for including me in such a special trip, hopefully many more adventures ahead my friend. And thanks to the AH community for all of the kind comments, great advice and the friendships I have made here!
Cheers and God Bless,
Cody

 

[enysse]

Congrats Cody on getting the spotted hyena! I really wanted to get one in Zimbabwe and missed out.

 

[ActionBob]

Congrats Cody, hell of a finish to one heck of a trip! Too bad on the honey badger but just to see them is an accomplishment Should have stuck to the old '06 Taxidermists have thread to sew holes up.

And as always, great write up Hope you write your Memoirs while I'm alive to read it

 

[gillettehunter]

You guys had a great trip. Congrats. Thanks for sharing with us. Great trophies.
Bruce

 

[Bullthrower338]

Hope you write your Memoirs while I'm alive to read it

Thanks Bob, I would have to change to many names to protect the guilty and nobody would believe half of it anyway! Lol

 

[cpr0312]

Congrats on the hyena Cody!

 

[meigsbucks]

Too bad about the honey badger, but other than that, the hyena was was great end to your hunt.

 

[tarbe]

Cody just finished day 12, and I am only done with Day 6!

Truth be told, the next 6 days included some of the most incredible hunting...but no shooting!

You see, we set to chasing Eland...the last of the three animals I had on my short list. And the Eland were "wired for sound" as John liked to say.

Cody and I both found the Eland to be pretty few and far between. According to John, the many Lion on the BVC have been particularly hard on them.

But there are some snorters there to hunt (witness Cody's fine bull).

Cody and Dave told us about the group of bulls they had chased. According to Cody, there was a monster with a black rug in the group, but he never made himself available.

It is difficult to believe now, looking back...but I took my Buffalo on day 6 and we hunted Eland until after sundown on day 12! It does not seem like 6 days...but it was.

While hunting buffalo, Isaac and Lovemore saw the tracks of a lone, large Eland bull every day at Dindingwe water hole. Once we started hunting Eland, we never once again saw those tracks, despite checking that hole every day!

But we did get onto Eland bull tracks every day, and we saw the Eland every day. We even got within about 30 yards of Eland...but we never could get a sure shot at Mr. Rug Head.

The final afternoon was a near perfect climax. We had been chasing these Eland and trying not to bump them around too much. But surely they knew we were on them. Finally about sundown we were making what we all assumed would be our last attempt to get in range, when it became evident the Eland were running.

They had either scented us or finally otherwise made a positive ID. In desperation we move after them, hoping beyond hope that we would get a glimpse or Mr. Rug Head would make a mistake.

We finally break out of the thick stuff and cross a track and we see lots of tracks heading West off into another large block. The sun is down, and John and I know this is the end of the road for our hunt.

About the time resignation had sunk in, we notice Isaac and Lovemore are walking perpendicular to the direction the tracks were heading. One or two bulls had broken off and traveled along the ditch of the track.

Hmmm....perhaps it isn't over yet?

As John an I are staring down the track, we see Mr. Rug Head bust out of cover and and stand staring at us!

He is about 250 yards away, with Isaac and Lovemore directly between us. What's more, Isaac has the sticks!

Both Isaac and Lovemore instantly eat dirt and plug their ears. I wrap my left arm in my sling and crank the scope to 6X. Just as the crosshairs are settling onto the bull, he spins and heads back into the bush, never to be seen again!

Had he posed another few seconds, would I have shot? I don't honestly know.

But I can say this for certain...I am glad he ran and I am glad the hunt ended the way it did. It seemed right that he escaped intact, to run with his boys another day.

Those Eland gave me more than my money's worth. I got to watch John, Isaac and Lovemore work their craft, leave tracks for 1 mile swings that put us right back into the Eland...get us within 30 yards of a feeding herd without spooking them. What a treat!

I unloaded my 450 Dakota with complete satisfaction that evening. I had hunted Eland in a way I had never done before. It was an utterly successful Eland hunt!

 

[tarbe]

Nearly two weeks have passed since our hunt ended.

I am nearly back into the work groove.

I have been in the loading room, loading ammo, at least 6 of the days since our return.

Kathy and I are somewhat back into our normal routines.

I can honestly say though that I miss the days hunting with John and the team. And I miss the evenings in camp with Cody, Dave and John.

Seldom do you spend 12 entire days with a group of guys and never once have a moment of frustration or anger. Never once wish you could get away. Never once regret where you are, or who you are with.

It was an awesome trip, with an awesome team, with an awesome buddy. Hell, even Delta couldn't piss me off!

Thanks to John, Isaac, Lovemore, Gift, Cody, Dave and his team and all the great folks of the BVC for a special hunt that will only get sweeter with time!

 

[meigsbucks]

Tim, it sounds like you had a memorable hunt.