SOUTH AFRICA: Cape Buffalo Hunt With Motsomi Safaris

[MontanaPat]

Well since we've seen few hunting reports lately given we've reached that time of year, I thought that now since I have some time I would post a couple of hunting reports that I've been too busy to put together. Hope you enjoy the brief read!

Country hunted: South Africa (but also visited Botswana)

Species taken: Cape Buffalo and Kudu

Firearm used: Winchester M70 Safari Express .375 H&H

Outfitter: Motsomi Safaris

Area Hunted: Limpopo, far north along the Limpopo River and Zimbabwe, 25,000 acre property with perimeter fencing on three sides but open to the northern edge bordering a game reserve area and the Limpopo River.

Time frame of hunt: First week of June 2023

This was my third hunting trip to RSA and second trip with Motsomi who I had met in Salt Lake at the Western Hunting and Conservation Expo in Jan 2020, I first hunted with them in April 2021 just as hunting began to open back up following covid. On that hunt we were based out of their Nyala Lodge main property and hunted several different locations. In 2021 on my first hunt to Africa I was able to take a nice sable, 55" kudu, waterbuck, 37" gemsbok bull, 30" nyala, bushbuck and both a southern and black impala. It was wonderful trip in 2021 as my wife accompanied me and we got to visit Kruger as well as hunt. In 2022 I hunted with Huntershill Safaris in the Eastern Cape as I wanted to see another area of RSA and loved the topography in that part of the country. I decided that I wanted to do a cape buffalo hunt and had spoken with Pieter Potgeiter of Motsomi about it and decided to do a hunt with them for a couple of reasons. First I liked hunting with them previously and their pricing was favorable and second I wanted the hunt to be on a larger property with the feel of being as free range as possible and doing a tracking style of hunt. I invited my 39 year old son to accompany me on the trip and make it a father / son outing as we hunt together often here in Montana. Since it was my son's first trip to Africa he wanted to see more than just the hunt experience so we booked a 5 day trip prior to the hunt to visit the Okavango Delta in Botswana. We had a great trip to Botswana and it gave us both a chance to get our eyes accustomed to spotting game prior to the hunt. We saw lots of game variety in the Okavango and had a great time but were eager to get to the hunt by the end of our time there. Here are a couple pics from Botswana.

 

[MontanaPat]

We flew into Johannesburg on the Delta flight from Atlanta as I decided to take my own rifle for this trip. I had purchased a Winchester M70 Safari Express .375 H&H in the spring of 2022 after I had booked the buffalo hunt as I wanted to hunt DG with my own rifle and wanted time to get used to shooting it. The rifle grouped very well off stick shooting Barnes Vor-Tx 300gr TSX factory ammo so that was what I chose to use when hunting.

After the Okavango side trip we arrived back into JNB and stayed overnight with Afton Safari Lodge as we had stayed there upon arriving from Atlanta and they stored my gun case and hunting gear while we went to Botswana. The next morning we were picked up by a shuttle and taken to meet our PH and hunting team for the long drive up to the hunting block outside of Musina. Arriving into camp that evening we were excited to begin seeing game all over as we drove in. We had time to go shoot my rifle and put a shot dead center in the orange dot of the target at 50 yards, PC my PH said that was close enough! My son was along as an observer, however they told him that once we had my buffalo he was welcome to hunt as well if he wished so we had him shoot the camp 300 Win Mag to give him a feel for the rifle.

Day 1:

The next morning we were up early and excited to get started. We had discussed with PC the evening before how the buffalo hunt would unfold. PC indicated that they had a pretty large herd of buffalo on this property and that we would drive around looking for fresh tracks / sign or buffalo sigthings and then get out to stalk on foot. He indicated that on this particular property the average size buffalo they shot was around 40-41" and that we would see quite a few buffalo in that size range or smaller. He felt quite confident that we would be able to get a good shot on a buffalo that size through out the week so rather than rush to take an animal right away we would spend time tracking and getting in close to several buffalo for the experience, but there was always the possibility we would see a bigger shooter during the week.

We headed out at daybreak on day one and started seeing game right away. We saw a few nice kudu bulls and waterbuck along with a couple of bushpigs. Within 30 minutes we saw a group of buffalo up a hillside. PC said let's get out and take a walk and see if we can get close to them. We stalked up the hill trying to remain hidden behind the mopane and several opportunities to glass some of the bulls. PC said there is a monster bull in this group and we really need to try and get closer to take a hard look at him. Well after about 20 minutes the wind swirled and they busted us and took off so we headed back to the truck to continue on, but it was a great first experience stalking buffalo. We drove just a little ways and the trackers spotted the same group of buffalo about a mile further away. We parked the truck agains and got out with PC andone of the trackers Jeff leading the way with myself and my son following behind. We got close and for the next hour kind of played cat and mouse with the buffalo in and out of mopane thickets trying to get a good look at the one bigger bull. There were 2 shooter age bulls in the group of 8 but the big guy kept keeping himself hidden in the brush or behind the others most of the time. After watching them for a while from about 80 yards away PC turned to me and said "Mr Pat, I know I told you that we would wait a couple of days before taking a buffalo as we would get several opportunities; but there is a buffalo in this group that is at least 44" in my estimation and I think you should take him if we get a shot." I told him let's keep working them and see what happens. We kept on their track as they slowly moved along for the next 45 minutes and finally they moved out into a more open area. They started to hurry along and PC set up the sticks and bellowed at them to stop them, The big bull was in the lead and offered me a slightly quartering away shot at about 70 yards and I pulled the trigger with a loud slap ensuing as the 300 gr TSX him the bull right in the sweet spot. The whole group took off at a gallop and I racked the bolt for a second shot but he had disappeared behind some scrub brush. One bull followed the one I had shot veer off to the left and we could see that bull standing about 125 yards away just giving us the stare down. We stood there waiting for about 15 minutes listening for the death bellow but heard nothing. Finally the other bull turned and headed off to join the others that went off into the mopane. We started easing slowly toward we saw my bull go and found him piled up dead in some brush not 50 yards from where I shot him. PC had me put an additional insurance shot into him but he was done. It was an exciting few minutes and we we amazed at his size as we walked up to him. While I was thrilled with such a beautiful buffalo I was kind of shocked that my 7 day buffalo hunt was already completed on the first morning. We pulled the buffalo out of the brush where he crashed and got pics and loaded him into the back of the truck using the winch to take him back to the skinning shed. He taped out at 44 1/4" wide with nice curls. I was amazed at the sheer size of his body and especially the size of his neck to be able to hold that big head up. When we got him back to the skinning shed they found that my first shot had hit him right through the heart and the bullet was lodged in the far shoulder, the TSX doing a perfect job.

More to come

 

[USN]

Outstanding and I am very pleased reference the rifle. I have purchased the exact same for my upcoming buff hunt in May and can only hope my shooting is somewhat close to yours. Well done Sir!

 

[Neil Molendyk]

MontanaPat, you wouldn't happen to be going to the show in Billings in January, would you? I hoping to slide down to it from Alberta to have a visit with Marco as I hunted with him in 2018, had a great time and hope to catch up with him. wouldn't mind to meet you there and tell stories and swap ideas.

 

[Firebird]

Cool pictures and a wonderful bull. Eager for more from your hunt!

 

[Fatback]

Congrats on a fine buffalo. I have the left handed version of that rifle and I love it. It will service you well for sure. Thanks for taking the time to share your adventure with us.

 

[shootist~]

What a beautiful bull. Thanks for sharing.

 

[MontanaPat]

MontanaPat, you wouldn't happen to be going to the show in Billings in January, would you? I hoping to slide down to it from Alberta to have a visit with Marco as I hunted with him in 2018, had a great time and hope to catch up with him. wouldn't mind to meet you there and tell stories and swap ideas.

Hi Neil, Yes I will probably go to the show in Billings, I've been over the past two years since the Motsomi team has been going there, good chance to visit and catch up with them. I will PM you directly with my info.

 

[MontanaPat]

OK on with the story, so day one is done and I've already gotten my buffalo. I told myself don't get too eager and take a buffalo on the first day but when a 44" brute gives you a shot, how do you pass up that kind of opportunity? PC told me that he had clients take a 43" buffalo before but this was his first to stretch the tape to 44", his dad Pieter had gotten them before and he was excited to have me get this one. Since we had the buffalo we drove around that afternoon looking to see what other opportunities might present but nothing caught our attention other than a giant Baobab tree and sunset.

Day 2:

We decided that we would leave the buffalo area and move over to Motsomi's Sable Lodge and hunt plains game the rest of the week on that property. Prior to the trip my son had said he would like to shoot an impala but he was now very excited after seeing several big kudu to try for one. He is a big elk archery hunter here in Montana and I knew when he saw a nice kudu there would be no holding him back. After getting settled in at Sable, having lunch and a nap we went out for an evening drive to get the lay of the property, saw lots of game but nothing to excite us on a stalk.

Day 3:

We did a walk from the lodge that morning and saw some nice eland. An eland is the only member of the spiral slam I haven't taken so I told PC if we got a chance at a good eland bull we should pursue it, I also have not taken a blue wildebeest and that was on my target list as well if we got the chance. The eland we encountered busted and took off at a pace way too quick for us to catch up so PC radioed for the truck to pick us up and we went to another area. We had parked again and took a walk running into some nice impala. We got Chris on the sticks and a nice ram came along following the ewes about 125 yds out. The ram wouldn't stop so PC whistled at him and when he stop Chris took the shot. I think he had a little buck fever given this was his first african game to shoot at and he pulled the shot high appeared to just graze the top of his shoulders. We found just a few specks of blood and quickly lost them never to find the ram unfortunately. Chris was pretty dejected at the moment but soon after we got him on a nice kudu bull and he made a perfect shot this time and dropped the kudu within 20 yards of where he was shot. He was elated to say the least!

I was thrilled for Chris but still kind of bummed to not be hunting buffalo. PC said let's see if we can find some more buffalo there on the Sable property or a neighboring parcel of about 75,000 acres they hunt sometimes and try to stalk in on them for the experience. We went over to the neighboring farm and found some buff to stalk just for fun and see if we could get in close. Saw this beautiful bull below that we stalked in close on, he is a knock out bull but still young and soft in the bosses, would love to see this one when he gets older! (photo taken with my iPhone)

Day 4:

We went for another walk from the lodge and then had the truck pick us up. After driving around some that morning we saw some eland along with a group of wildebeest. We jumped out of the truck grabbed the sticks and hsutled down the road on foot to see if we could catch up and get a sot as PC said there was a big eland bull in the group. About that time PC threw up the sticks and I got on them but couldn't see the eland bull, only a bunch of golden and blue wildebeest mingling about then the wildebeest took off and everything spooked. Come to find out there was a large blue wildebeest bull in the group and PC threw the sticks for me to get a shot at him but I thought he had seen the eland bulll, oh well there will be other chances! We got back in the truck and soon stopped just prior to a crossroads and walked slowly up to the intersection to see if anything was in the road. Another nice blue wildebeest bull was standing there all by himself in the middle of the road in a little shady area looking directly at us. Up went the sticks and I got my .375 on them and the bull in my crosshairs, now I had turned my scope all the way down to 1.5X earlier when we were trying for the eland due to the thick brush. I have a Leupold VX3 1.5 - 5X scope with a firedot reticle I put on the model 70 .375 H&H, which I really like. I forgot that I had turned the scope down so when I got sighted in on the wildebeest in my haste I did not turn it back up. The wildebeest was about 125 yards away and as I looked at him for a direct head on shot PC is whispering to hold it dead center in the lower third of his chest. Well I didn't realize that what I was seeing that I thought was his lower chest was actually dark belly hair. I put the firedot where I thought I should and pulled the trigger and we heard a good slap. The wildebeest bucked up in the air and took off to his right. We gave him a few minutes and then went to see of we could find him fully expecting a dead wildebeest. There was a good amount of blood splatter and we followed the blood trail for several hundred yards. The blood was bright red but didn't really look like lung blood. After following the blood for about an hour it began to peter out and soon stopped. We thought we jumped the bull out of his bed a couple of times but never could get a shot at him. PC had said that if you don't double lung them they can go forever with only one lung hit. We called the truck and went in for lunch thinking if we let him lay down maybe he would bleed out or we could catch up with him later. At lunch we took a look at the video which tracker Jeff was filming when I shot. it looked like maybe the shot was low and when we slowed the video down frame by frame and then took a still frame image and enlarged it we could actually see the bullet coming across and hitting very low in the chest appearing to graze thru the brisket area below the vitals. As we played the shot back several times and discussed it I realized that I was seeing those dark belly hairs and thinking that was part of his lower chest so where I aimed was actually low on his chest instead of a third of the way up. My shot was just a bad shot placed in the wrong area due to not having the scope turned up and not realizing what I was seeing. Later that afternoon we ran across what we thought was this same bull with a few cows and while he limped along it didn't appear he was hurt too badly, that was the last time we ever saw although we looked for him for the next 3 days. I sick with the thought that I had wounded the animal, first time for me in all of my hunting life for deer or in Africa that I had made a bad shot and lost the animal. PC told me they would be hunting at Sable lodge several times over the coming weeks and they would watch for him and if they saw the wounded wildebeest they would take him and let me know but I never heard any report of the wildebeest for the remainder of this past season.

 

[MontanaPat]

Day 5-7:

We kept hunting at Sable Lodge and the neighboring ranch always keeping an eye out for that wildebeest bull but never saw him again. We focused on trying to get an opportunity at an eland bull but every time we found some they would wind us and take off before a shot was available, we tracked them quite a bit each time but it seems once they busted us they were gone on a trek for several miles and they can cover ground at a much faster clip than we could walk and catch up to them. We sat in an elevated blind one morning at a water hole to see if any good warthog came in but just saw impala ewes and kudu females. The week came to an end and it was time to head home with a great buffalo for me and nice kudu for Chris so the trip was a great success overall and we had a wonderful time hunting together that I cherish.

Post hunt follow up:

I know severl folks ask on the forum fairly regularly about the costs of shipping back trophies so I thought I would give brief breakdown from this hunt since I have all of the data fresh in front of me and the trophies are at my taxidermist. I had the trophies shipped back to my taxidermist Monarch Taxidermy in Helena MT. Motsomi had Nylstroom taxidermy in Limpopo pick up the skulls and hides to do a dip and pack (they do all of the work for Motsomi clients I believe as they also handled my first safari hunt in 2021). It took about 4 months for the dip and pack to complete and then they sent the skulls/horns and capes to Zingela Trophy Exporters/Shippers in Joburg to be crated for shipment. Zingela contacted me with their quote for shipping the crate to Coppersmith in Seattle WA. The crate was booked on Turkish Airlines thru Istanbul then to Seattle, however Turkish kept bumping the crate each week for three weeks before it finally got on board and on it's way. The crate arrived into Seattle on Nov 2nd and was picked up by Coppersmith and cleared thru customs a couple of days later and was then shipped via ground freight to Monarch in Helena MT arriving there on Nov 9th. The capes have already been shipped off by Monarch to their tannery and hopefully I will see the finished pieces around April / May of next year according to Monarch. I'm having a floor pedestal mount done with the buffalo and and a shoulder mount of the kudu for my son. Here is a cost breakdown for one cape buffalo and one kudu:

Nylstroom Taxidermy Dip and Pack - $650 total ($500 for the buffalo and $150 for the kudu)

Zingela Trophy Shippers - $1,760.27 (air freight on crate weighing 216 lbs, documentation fees, customs and facility fees and trophy insurance)

Coppersmith Seattle - $1,712.83 (Import fees, airport transfer, storage, US customs fees and inland ground freight charge to Helena MT)

So the total amount to get the trophies processed, crated, shipped and imported into the US and delivered to my taxidermist was $4,123. Not sure how that stacks up to others for a 216 lb shipment in a crate measuring about 4ft by 3 ft by 3 ft. but there it is in total.

Hope you enjoyed the report! I will be sending along a couple of others for Argentina red stag and US big game soon.

 

[AZDAVE]

PC is a great PH to hunt with and Motosomi is a fine company to hunt with! Thank you for sharing your safari with us.

 

[gillettehunter]

216 lbs!! What did they do use, ironwood? That seems to be double the weight I'd of expected..... Good job on a nice buffalo.
Bruce

 

[PARA45]

216 lbs!! What did they do use, ironwood? That seems to be double the weight I'd of expected..... Good job on a nice buffalo.
Bruce

I believe that is volumetric weight, not actual weight.

 

[MontanaPat]

I believe that is volumetric weight, not actual weight.

Volumetric weight was 268 lbs according to the shipping manifest, actual weight was 216 lbs

 

[MontanaPat]

216 lbs!! What did they do use, ironwood? That seems to be double the weight I'd of expected..... Good job on a nice buffalo.
Bruce

Good question about the weight Bruce, the crate went straight to my taxidermist so I never saw it myself. The crate contained the buffalo skull and cape along with the kudu skull / horns, cape and backskin. That buffalo skull was might heavy when I was lifting it!