ZIMBABWE: Off To Zimbabwe With AH Friends

[BourbonTrail]

 

[CAustin]

Mr Gareth Brown was assigned as my PH for the ten days and we got along famously. If you check out This Is Africa 5 on YouTube you will see him hunting with Chad Allen for buffalo in the Omay.

 

[CAustin]

The dusty one hour trip from the airstrip brought us to our home for the next ten days the Ume River Camp in the Omay north. Second picture is the chalet I had and the third picture was my view straight out into the river flood plain.

 

[CAustin]

Position of my front porch facing almost true north.No door on my quarters just a mosquito net around the bed.

 

[CAustin]

We all quickly headed to the shooting range to prove that we could indeed hit the side of a barn.

 

[CAustin]

After the shooting range we were treated to a truly fine meal served in the open air dinning area, once we had our fill we all retired to the next best place in camp and that was the bar. Bourbon was available and therefore I was a happy hunter.

 

[CAustin]

The Ume Camp has been there a long time but it is clean and well staffed.
The cook makes things happen with a wood burning stove and oven. Electricity is provided via a generator and solar panels that feed a couple of heavy duty batteries. I was pleased to have WiFi to stay in touch with home.

 

[CAustin]

While drinking water is bottled your shower and washing water is pumped from the Ume river. Water is heated for showers the old fashioned way…..with a fire. I never wanted for hot water but it did smell like mud.

 

[Frederik]

Keep em coming

 

[Kevin Peacocke]

Thank you Charlie, I love the talk about the camp, some skip over that, but the details transport one there. Also love the muddy, smoky smell of a bush shower.

 

[CAustin]

Weapons for this hunt were the 416 Ruger Guide Gun and the 470 NE Merkel Double.

 

[CAustin]

wake up call was at 4:30 the next morning to start hunting buffalo. This vehicle would become very familiar to me for ten days. The Omay is really big folks. Dalton & York Safaris has two permanent camps, Ume being one, and a fly camp. A reliable vehicle is an absolute must with at least two spare tires onboard.

 

[CAustin]

Folks if you are going to the Omay you better put in your walking in advance, I was walking five miles a day most days to prepare. Three In The morning and two in the afternoon every day. I am ever so glad that I did otherwise day one would have killed me. According to my step meter by lunch time we had walked five miles.
Just after sun up we were In The Jess as they call the woods over there Following fresh buff tracks that had crossed the river flood plane,
My PH sent the trackers,Moses and Kashinga, along with the game scout , Agmire, to follow a set of tracks that looked like several animals, A wide birth was given to the feeding elephants Pictured below.
A bird chirp on the radio told us that buff were sighted. Then a short conversation let us know that we needed to mi e the truck a couple,e if miles,
Moses met us on the road and we walked down the hill towards the river below. With binoculars at a distance of about a Mile we could just make out black shapes feeding at the edge of the flood plane. Stalking slowly and as quietly as possible we covered the distance In about thirty minutes stopping to check the wind often. After much zig zagging we finally got into an observation position about 150 yards from a group of about twenty buffalos.
we watched this group for a good hour looking to see if there was a shooter In The group and while bulls were there none of them were really mature.
So it was lunch time! Wait what happened to breakfast? Joffels, a sort of pancake sandwich, had been packed In The cold box for breakfast but we never stopped to eat them. It would become a running joke each evening as Gareth would order our Joffels for the following days breakfast that we would’t eat until lunch if at all.
We found a nice spot to take a lunch break and well the table and chairs came out along with a table cloth. a cold box containEd all sorts of good food. Baked chicken wings and my favorite new dish Rice Salad.
After lunch we were back at the search walking after tracks that had crossed a road until about 4 pm. Then it was into the truck for what was about an hours drive back to camp.

 

[Hunting Hitman]

Excellent reporting so far and I appreciate the way it’s presented. Makes me feel like I’m there. Keep it coming!

HH

 

[CAustin]

Day two the wake up call came at 5 as we would be hunting a section of the Ume not so far from camp. Instant coffee was available in the dinning area so my routine was to grab some and sit by the fire that night security had made. Why security? Did I mention Lions? Yep we had lions near camp working the resident buffalo herd that consists of more than 120 animals. This herd would come into the flood plane below the camp each night and we would view they sometimes with binoculars or a night vision device. Dalton and York have placed this herd off limits to shooting for the time being. I never saw the lions but the tracks proved they were in the area,

 

[CAustin]

The aforementioned fire would have been nice to have in my room the first two nights as it got down right cold. I had to ask for an extra blanket. But then it heated up and the day temps got up to the low 80s.
Now not complaining but hiking up and down hills with rocks slipping under your feet constantly in three foot tall grass where you can’t see the rocks in say 82 degree temps takes it out of you.

 

[Rare Breed]

Weapons for this hunt were the 416 Ruger Guide Gun and the 470 NE Merkel Double. View attachment 487538

Charlie, I sound like Kevin now, are you shooting your Merkle with just iron sights?

 

[CAustin]

About three mikes from camp the trackers saw fresh tracks crossing the road of three bulls. Dugga Boys? Yep they were! And so the hardest walk if my hunt began. I carried the 416 and Moses carried the 11 pound Merkel. Thank the Lord. I didn’t really notice it but our walk that morning was down hill. The trackers and game scouts worked the tracks and they were amazing. They would see something that I would walk past. They could see sign where I saw nothing and then occasionally a clearly visible hoof print. For two hours or more we walked until we came upon two elephant cows one of which was tuskless. I wasn’t hunting tuskless cow elephant. Damn there she was twenty yards in front of me broadside and a perfect opportunity for the double, We backed up and waited for the girls to pass but they were content to stand there a feed a little. Gareth checked the wind and it was blowing in out or faces..,the elephants were clueless that we were there. A abrupt and very loud trumpet from the bigger cow had us all on edge but the noise was not directed towards us.
We mi Ed more back and circled the two clockwise. When we got around to about their eight o’clock our sent hit them and off they stormed through the Jess. As quick as we had first seen them they disappear Into the morning.
The pictures below give you an idea of what the surroundings looked like as we worked our way through the Jess.
If you expand the last photo you will see one cow elephant in the very center. I took this once we had backed up a good distance.

 

[CAustin]

Charlie, I sound like Kevin now, are you shooting your Merkle with just iron sights?

Yes

 

[CAustin]

I lost track of time but Gareth said we would sit for a bit while Kashinga and Moses worked to pick up the Dugga Boys trail again. Did I mention that we had been walking sort of down hill.
An hour later we arrived at what had been the destination of the Dugga Boys and the elephants we had bumped into. A spring that was u known to Gareth. He marked it in his GPS for future reference.
The third picture is looking back from the direction we had spent the last couple of hours walking, Going back was like walking up,the back side of Stone Mountain Georgia. We all rested by the spring and then started that climb out. Let’s just say it was hard and by the time we were a quarter mile from where we left the truck Kashinga was carrying the 416.