ZIMBABWE: Off To Zimbabwe With AH Friends

[BnC 04]

Enjoying the report Chalie, keep it coming!

 

[CAustin]

I'm enjoying your report and photos Charlie.

Thank you sir!

 

[CAustin]

That is wisdom that none can argue with!!!

Don’t you just love fat fingers typing fast with the the i and the o next to each other on the keyboard.

 

[CAustin]

I the evenings the bar became the gathering place where we shared our days events and snacked on chips, peanuts, popcorn, meatballs, biltong or chicken wings. Of course there was plenty of Castle beer and bourbon for me. As the WiFi signal was strongest here all of us would check on things at home via Facebook calls or WhatsAp.

 

[Rare Breed]

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

The reason I ask I am thinking of just using iron sights on my Westley Richards

 

[buck wild]

Looks like you stayed in the same villa as I did along with @rinehart0050 but the floor on the porch got a coating of red paint. We never got cold despite the open wall concept even though temps were in the low 40s. Always seemed somehow the wind was blowing a slightly different direction than through the open porch.

 

[CAustin]

Wake up for me the following day was to be 6 am but I was up at 4:30. Getting adjusted to the time difference takes a bit and I never really got sin up to Zimbabwe time.
Gareth had once again planned to find the smaller group of buff we came so close to scoring on the day before. So the plan was to leave camp well after sun up. As we loaded up the truck the camp manager ran after us to say that he thought the group we were after was In the flood plane west of the camp. We ran In that direction with binoculars in hand. Sure enough there was a group of about 30+ Cape buffalo working their way through the tall grass and reeds. Gareth hurriedly took the team bay truck about a mile down the road and then a turn back to the South west of camp, we stalked out over what would normally be under water even in the dry season. Imagine your favorite fishing lake dried up for the most part and walking out into what would have been a cove or small inlet that is now covered in green grass.

 

[CAustin]

The reason I ask I am thinking of just using iron sights on my Westley Richards

I think you use what you are most comfortable with.

 

[CAustin]

We walked very fast to get to a place where we could see the group of buffs. Again visualize you are crossing over lake inlets that are devoid of water so there are ups and downs. We come up a rise that has about three foot tall grass on top and there across the way we can see black objects moving through thick vegetation that is over five feet tall. Gareth motions for the trackers and game scout to sit down, a decision that would be telling later, as he and I moved forward with my 416 and the sticks. Gareth set me up and pointed at what was a massive body moving but once again I could not see where I would shoot. Gareth could but the guy is a foot taller than me. We decide on a dead tree as a point of reference that he says is 100 yards out. The buffs are moving right to let towards that point and they do not know we are there. Gradually some cows and a few calves come up a bank into an open area. Then a couple of young bulls and more cows, Gareth says the big bull is almost to the tree and to get ready. I see his head come into view but he stops, Seconds tick away and it seems like a long time. I click the safety off the 416 and Gareth asks me to confirm the bull to shoot is about to come past the dead tree. He steps out and pauses for just a second or two. Gareth says take him when you are ready. He is moving again and I squeeze the trigger. The big Ruger barks and everyone clearly hears a thwack. Chaos insues as black shapes scatter and run up the far side of the depression, lake cove, and into the trees. A massive bull now stands all alone approximately 200 yards away looking at us. The rest of his group is gone and the you owe me money stare is clear through the scope.
I tell Gareth I think I should shoot him again, but he says no let your bullet do it’s work. I turn around and see that the trackers are just now standing up …..they didn’t see the shot or the bull’s reaction. Gareth says he flinched when the Guide Gun went off and he lost the bull in the chaos. I say I think I need to shoot THAT bull but he says we can not be sure it is the bull I shot and so we wait. What seems like an eternity before this bull turns and walks into the woods where the others went. We wait a few minutes to follow and I step off the distance to the dead tree and it’s a little over 135 yards not 100. We make it to where the bull had been standing and there on the ground is a pool of blood. The trackers say it’s good blood but I am skeptical as it is dark not bright and frothy. I don’t think I got the lungs. We walk in the direction the bull went and find blood on both sides of his path. Gareth says there is a hole punched through him. Moses hands me the double which I now load with two Federal Premium rounds topped with Swift A Frames. Gareth has a round chambered in his 458 Lott as we enter the woods, Damn I wish I had just shot that bull while he stood there looking at us but the first rule of a Safari really is listen to your PH. If I had shot and we later determined that we had two wounded buffalos to track I would be paying for two buffalo hunts.
Can you say tension ruled every step we now took. The game scout was armed with an ancient WW2 British 303 rifle and he had a round chambered. He didn’t look very excited at the moment.
I fully expected to walk 50 to 100 yards and confront Black Death and finish him with the 470 NE, Nope! We walked half a mile tracking drops of blood here and there. The terrain got harder and harder to negotiate. But the trackers were very good at following the buff. After an hour with the wind against us we bumped the group and we could hear them crashing through the trees, We found the spot where the wounded buff had been standing and the blood was still on both sides. Where had I hit him!?

 

[Ridgewalker]

I’m tense just reading this! What a grand time!

 

[CAustin]

So now it’s pushing one o’clock and the buffs will want to stop. If we keep pushing them the big guy may not bleed out this side of China. So we back away in hopes that they will bed down during the heat of the day. We find a spot for lunch and make a plan for the afternoon. We will come back from a better wind direction and perhaps find them still bedded.
The trackers have such amazing eyes but Gareth warns them to have one guy looking down while the other keeps his head up. Kashinga and Moses are looking for sign and the game scout is heads up. But after an hour o& looking it is Agmire the game scout who finds a drop of blood. The bull is now with a smaller group perhaps the younger bulls. It’s 4:30 when we bump the group and off they run. Less blood now and Gareth makes the spot with tissue paper in a tree limb and on his GPS. We are done for the day. First light the next day we will come back to this spot from the far southwest of the position.

 

[rinehart0050]

Great report so far Charlie! You've got me on the edge of my seat!

 

[revturbo9967]

The suspense is killing me

 

[TOBY458]

Great report so far Charlie! You've got me on the edge of my seat!

I watched your hunt. Looks like it was great!

 

[PARA45]

Sh*t this is intense, I can't wait for the rest of this report. WOW!! Keep it coming Charlie.

 

[CAustin]

The following morning we are on our way to an area some distance from Where we last encountered the buffs, we approach the location with some luck as the wind is in our face. Slowly we examine a dry wash area that has some deep spots containing small pools of water. Perhaps we will find tracks but to no avail. The wash becomes some twenty to twenty five feet deep but we continue to walk along its edge. Slowly but surely our team made its way towards the marked spot on the GPS. When we arrived the trackers really went to work and their ability to see trackers and interpret the meaning and direction Was amazing. It becomes clear that a big buff is on his own and no longer traveling in the same direction as the group Had traveled.
We slowly take up the tracks of the single buff for at least the next hour. We do find one spot of dried blood most probably from the previous day. We are stopped while Moses and Kashinga assure themselves of the buff’s course. Suddenly a shot rings out from well in front of our position. Gareth waits a few moments to raise his walkie-talkie and ask who shot? The question goes unanswered and so he asks again. Dalton Tink responds that a member of our AH group, Tim, has just shot a massive water buck out on the flood plane just by the river. As it turns out not far from where I shot the buff we were tracking. Gareth asks if the war there is over so that we might proceed on our way. Dalton assures us that the shooting has concluded and that Tim’s waterbuck is a fine one. We take up our task again following what Kashinga thinks is the buff, Dalton radios that a large buffalo bull just crossed the river 200 yards above them over into the National Park. He thinks it is my buff and as luck would have it Tim’s hunt is being filmed and they have footage of the big buffalo. Gareth thinks we should return to camp and see what the buff on video looks like,

 

[CAustin]

Yep this was the one!

 

[CAustin]

Well I bought a buff that unless he crossed back into the Omay I would not finish. We don’t really know but everyone thinks that I must have shot the animal too low and that the bullet passed through.
Every morning thereafter Gareth and the trackers would go out and check the boundary roads for tracks for a single buff but none were found.

 

[buck wild]

 

[PHOENIX PHIL]

That sucks....that is a proper old bull.