Part 3 “Recovery and a missed opportunity”
Day 2 Recovery of the tuskless and recovery of me…
After a long and needed night’s rest, Day 2 would be focused on recovery of the harvested animal from the day before and my physical body. The day started with a wonderful breakfast in camp and recap of the previous day. Camp manager Charlie and parts of his team had started before the break of day to cut a temporary road to access the site where the tuskless was shot and we joined them just before 8AM. It was a cool 16C degrees in the morning which was really refreshing in comparison to the high heat from the day before…this was however the last time we saw anything below 25C degrees during the rest of the trip… regardless of time of the day… October in the Zambezi Valley is really warm…
It was amazing to see the guys work on the harvested animal and see how all parts are taken care of and eventually utilized as food, material, or potential bait for other animals. Fascinating structure and quite quick, with many knives and axes working on the animal at the same time. My focus during the day was to rehydrate, reload electrolytes and energy. So I was more or else endlessly drinking water with supplements throughout the day.
Arrived back at camp for a late lunch and planning for Day 3… Buffalo was back in focus…
Day 3 “Back at it - Dalton delivers and I miss an opportunity”
We were all ready and loaded early in the morning. Dalton had an idea from the day before of where we should start looking for fresh tracks of dugga boys. His intuition would be proven correct even before we got there… as we where making our way to the starting point, our trackers spotted a group of buffalo from the car… a first of many “get off the car…get ready” was stated…
We quickly made an attempt to get close, but the wind was unfavorable and walking on the dried leaves of Chewore was like walking on cornflakes… but we were on the tracks and the pursuit was on…
After a long stalk Dalton had me on the sticks with a mature buffalo standing 25-30m away in the shadows underneath a tree. I struggled to find a clear shot as the buffalo really blended in in the shadows and was partly standing behind a tree. My red dot was on the lung area, and I followed the bull’s movement. The buffalo took a big step backwards and became stationary…I took the shot…not realizing that the vital zone now was covered by the tree that standing in front of the buffalo.
Now the “confusion” starts, we see that we had followed a group of three bulls, all running of away from us… which animal had I shot at… was it hit…which bull if any, should I fire my second shot at?
We quickly started following the tracks to determine whether or not I had hit one of them. We followed the track for a couple of hours. The tracks looked normal, no traces of blood… there was no signs of a hit. The decision was made by Dalton to call my shot a missed opportunity, concurred by the trackers, the game scout and myself.
The day can be summarized with…Dalton and his team delivered their part…I missed a clear opportunity… Important to point out is that Dalton provided “support” and refocused my thinking on what was to come next and not looking back.
