ZIMBABWE: First Hunt In Africa, First Hunting Report, Dalton & York Safaris

I've been debating on whether I wanted to write this or not, mostly due to time. I happen to be working from home today and my laptop is still open, so here we go. This is going to be somewhat short, so I apologize for the lack of detail.

Country - Zimbabwe
Dates - September 1-12
Type of Hunt - Dangerous game and plains game
Method of Hunting - Rifle
Outfitter - Dalton and York Safaris
PH - Dalton Tink
Locations Hunted - Omay, Zimbabwe
Species Hunted - Buffalo, Hippo, Crocodile, Waterbuck, Bushbuck, Kudu, Impala, Zebra, Hyena, Baboon.
Trophy Quality - Pictures will answer this one
Species Seen - Elephant, Buffalo, Hippo, Crocodile, Waterbuck, Bushbuck, Kudu, Impala, Zebra, Hyena, Baboon, Grysbok, Duiker, Klipspringer
Lodging - Permanent Camp
Food - Typical African fair
Activities - Hunting
Travel Methods-Qatar Airways and car


I booked this hunt way back in April of 2021, which is right around when Covid started to let up. I spoke with a few outfits, but I ended up going with Dalton and York safaris. They were still fairly new as owner operators at this time, so I was a little nervous.

I booked my flights with Jenn at @TRAVEL EXPRESS through Qatar airways. (she was very very helpful). I flew from my home state of CT to Chicago, mostly due to the major airports in my area are very anti gun, and Jenn thought it would be best to fly out of a better airport, I didn't argue. Once in Chicago I had to recheck my guns with Qatar, which was very easy. They didn't even open the rifle case, nor weigh my ammo. The entire process took maybe 15 minutes. (have your paperwork pre filled out with copies) I then waited a few more hours, boarded and had the long flight over to Doha (12 hours). Once in Doha I had a 9 hour layover which I stayed in a sleep n fly pod. It wasn't worth the money and I will be getting a room at the hotel next time around, if I fly this route. Total transit was 41 hours, too long in my opinion. After the layover, it was another flight down to Lusaka, then Harare.

After I landed, I made my way down the jet bridge and was met by a meet and greet I set up previously through Michelle Buchanan. She was very helpful with logistics even though I didn't booked though her. I was taken to a room, gun and ammo checked, then walked to the door to be picked up by the Amanzi lodge. This may have taken 20 minutes, most of which were waiting for my bags on the carousel.

I was met by George, the manager of the Amanzi lodge, who took me on a little tour of the city. Once I arrived at the lodge, I dropped my bags, showered and passed out for a few hours. I then woke for dinner and a few cocktails. I was happy to meet 3 other hunters at the bar hunting with CMS and had a great hunting talk. After dinner I passed out again, but was wide awake by 2am, jet lag really hit me. The Amanzi is truly a great stop for an overnight, I will definitely use them again next time around.
Pictures of the lodge





I was picked up by by a carrier organized by Dalton, and we drove to a little place called Lions Den, in Chinhoyi around an hour and a half from Harare. I was met by Dalton and York whom were dropping off their previous clients. After our hellos and goodbyes, we drove the 6 hours to camp. What a ride.

We arrived in camp around 3, just in time for a beer and to settle down. Once I was on my second adult beverage Dalton and I loaded up my rifle and headed to the range.. Talk about pressure of a first timer. Thankfully I shot hundreds of rounds down my M70 375 H&H. I set up on my rifle case and squeezed off a round. I hit dead center left to right and 1/4 inch high, still in the red. Dalton told me to unload my rifle, that was enough. We ate dinner then off to bed, Buffalo in the morning.

A few shots from the room I stayed in. A wonderful spot, the first morning when I couldn't sleep, elephants were making their way through the dry river bed in front of me. It sure was wild Africa.

GOTTA THINK YOU ARE PLANNING THE NEXT TRIP?

We left camp around 5am, Dalton, Tongi his tracker, Tremol, his driver, Time the game scout and myself. There was a spot where he had a recent client miss a good buff and needed his revenge. We found tracks at first light crossing the road, fresh tracks, this was around 6:10-6:15 am. Once on the track we heard buffalo moving not far from us. We moved around some brush and I see Dalton throw up the sticks (these were African Sporting Creations I brought and practiced on). This was at around 6:30, we may have been hunting for 20 minutes or so and I was already on sticks watching small pack of dagga boys walking past around 40 yards. I was NOT ready for this, it was faster then I could have ever dreamed. I could get a shot nor could Dalton make out the what we were looking at as the sun was right in our eyes.

We kept on these bulls and had them jump and run, but never see or smell us. Once we came to a small road, the wind swirled and Dalton wanted to pull off. Tongi kept puffing his wind tracker and insisted we push on, which we did. We headed up a small hill and Dalton stopped, watched through his binos, then motioned us to get down. He then moved forward and got the sticks up, I moved forward and he pointed out where the buffalo was. I couldn't make him out, until I saw old torn up bosses shining back at me through my scope. The buffalo stepped forward through some brush, then turned. We re adjusted the sticks as he was broadside at this time and POW. The buffalo turned slowly, acting as he was hit and I shot again, then he started to trot away, clearly injured. Once I was out, Dalton fired off 2 rounds while I reloaded, he was still on his feet and in sight. He went down, and we ran up to him, I was instructed to lay one into his shoulder, which I did. It was 9:20 am

And just like that, my Buffalo hunt was over in 3 hours and 10 minutes. What an old fighter, I couldn't have been happier.















You may see a hole above his right eye, in his boss. Dalton told me he thought one of my solids exited his neck and through the boss cracking it. Days later at the skinning shed, his skinner showed me a bullet lodged in the BACK of his boss, shot from the front. This bullet was not from me as he never faced us when I shot. It wasn't an old wound, and he seemed unfazed. Pretty wild what these animals can handle.

The gamescout phoned a local fishing village to have a few guys come out to help cut this old guy up. With them a swarm of people showed, over 100. These people were from a local fishing camp and not the locals. They were certainly not well behaved and things got quite ugly when we ran out of meat with plenty of hungry mouths.

Once the small riot was over, we headed back to camp for a snooze and lunch. Around 3pm we headed out to look for a Bushbuck or Waterbuck, which the Omay has a healthy population of both. We went to an area which they call the reservoir, as the water never dry's up. We walked for about 25 minutes and I see a swirl of guns be passed off for sticks, and sticks thrown up along the edge of the dry river bed. Dalton says "shoot the big Waterbuck running". This thing was moving fast across the large river bed and stopped right at the top of an embankment, just where he thought he was out of sight. It was around 225 yards. I squeezed and POW. We hustled over the and looked for blood, to come around a corner and find him dead, within 15 yards.

What a monster, 29 inches was our rough measurement at the skinning shed. Incredible first day , 11 more to come.

revturbo9967 said:

We left camp around 5am, Dalton, Tongi his tracker, Tremol, his driver, Time the game scout and myself. There was a spot where he had a recent client miss a good buff and needed his revenge. We found tracks at first light crossing the road, fresh tracks, this was around 6:10-6:15 am. Once on the track we heard buffalo moving not far from us. We moved around some brush and I see Dalton throw up the sticks (these were African Sporting Creations I brought and practiced on). This was at around 6:30, we may have been hunting for 20 minutes or so and I was already on sticks watching small pack of dagga boys walking past around 40 yards. I was NOT ready for this, it was faster then I could have ever dreamed. I could get a shot nor could Dalton make out the what we were looking at as the sun was right in our eyes.

We kept on these bulls and had them jump and run, but never see or smell us. Once we came to a small road, the wind swirled and Dalton wanted to pull off. Tongi kept puffing his wind tracker and insisted we push on, which we did. We headed up a small hill and Dalton stopped, watched through his binos, then motioned us to get down. He then moved forward and got the sticks up, I moved forward and he pointed out where the buffalo was. I couldn't make him out, until I saw old torn up bosses shining back at me through my scope. The buffalo stepped forward through some brush, then turned. We re adjusted the sticks as he was broadside at this time and POW. The buffalo turned slowly, acting as he was hit and I shot again, then he started to trot away, clearly injured. Once I was out, Dalton fired off 2 rounds while I reloaded, he was still on his feet and in sight. He went down, and we ran up to him, I was instructed to lay one into his shoulder, which I did. It was 9:20 am

And just like that, my Buffalo hunt was over in 3 hours and 10 minutes. What an old fighter, I couldn't have been happier.


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You may see a hole above his right eye, in his boss. Dalton told me he thought one of my solids exited his neck and through the boss cracking it. Days later at the skinning shed, his skinner showed me a bullet lodged in the BACK of his boss, shot from the front. This bullet was not from me as he never faced us when I shot. It wasn't an old wound, and he seemed unfazed. Pretty wild what these animals can handle.

Click to expand...

D&Y are nothing short of incredible!!! Loved my hunt with them taking a great buff. Congratulations on an outstanding old Dagga boy…look at the white on his face truly an old warrior!!!

Fantastic, thanks for sharing your adventure!

Stacking them up the first day! Boss is beautiful on your buffalo. Congrats on getting him. Nice waterbuck. Can’t say I’d of passed either one of them. Good job!!!!
Bruce

The next day was Hippo day, which we needed for croc bait. We spotted a bull on land while eating breakfast and jumped out across the river bed. We got within 40 yards, and we almost set up for a shot, but he was a little too small. Dalton said if this was for bait or someone who wanted to hunt one on land, he would have been taken down. It was fun to watch.







We set out in the truck to a spot down the UME river. There were a bunch of hippo in the water but very hard to make out what's what. I couldn't tell a cow from a bull to a big bull. I let Dalton do the sorting, which took a few hours. We saw a V in the water from the hill we were on, and a second V behind it, a bull chasing another bull. He chased this bull out of the water across the river and dalton said we are going to take that second bull. Within 30 seconds he said, never mind we are taking that bull and pointed to a 3rd V of water. Out of the water came a 3rd, BILL bull and chased the 2nd one away. He went back into the water and we got into position, sitting on the sticks felt like a lifetime. He finely popped his head up far enough for a side brain shot, and POW. He went down.

I have to say, the recovery of a Hippo in water is actually a lot of fun. Lot of joking and ball busting. Charlie , the camp manager managed to get it with the boat, then pull him on land, not before a few broken ropes and more laughs.


This guy was a fighter, and clearly the dominate bull in this area.


















I cut the tail off in customary fashion, tossed it back into the river and we were done for the day. His crew stayed behind to cut up the bull while Dalton and I went back to camp.

Now while waiting for the bull to float to the surface, we had to go check out a dead elephant which was found a few days earlier. They needed to check cause of death and get the ivory for national parks.

I have a pretty strong stomach, and can handle most smells, but this almost took me down. The bull was estimated to be down for 5 to 6 days, and they concluded he died from natural causes. It was the worse smelling anything I have laid my sniffer on. I wont go into details, but fly's, maggots, were of the 10s of thousands. A few villagers showed up when we arrived whom were looking to eat this thing....

I will spare everyone the pictures, and I have quite a few. I think Dalton got the villagers to cut the ivory out in return for the meat, which he was telling them not to eat anyways.



Once we left, we went to recover the hippo. I wanted to show this part of the hunt as it shows just how real this area is. There is true hunger here, as well as conservation. That bull was dead for days and many villagers knew of it, yet they didn't take anything from it until after they received permission from the game scout. I believe they're doing it very right in the Omay with the conservation and anti poaching.

I have videos of this interaction as well. What an experience.

Awesome trip! Hard to believe the size of the teeth on the hippos! I dream of taking a Cape Buff. Congrats on your hunt!

That night we had a few cocktails, it was a good second day. We woke up early to a breakfast in camp again, and struck out to set baits. We swung by Mr elephant to see what was left and to see if we could get free croc bait, suprising there wasnt much left.

This picture is 24 hours later.



We grabbed a leg, hooked it to the truck and took off to the river. We joked of how the hyenas would go crazy running after this one.






Blind construction.

We headed to the boat later on that day and while driving to the docking site we heard the iconic banging on the roof the the truck, Bushbuck his tracker yelled. We jumped out and set out on this bushbuck which wasn't far, maybe 200 yards. Dalton wanted to get a bit closer as he wasn't spooked. We snuck up behind a small hill and saw him step out around 135 yards. He threw up the sticks and POW. I heard the crew in the truck erupt with cheers, BIG bushbuck down.







Rough measurement was over 17 inches. I was told this is HUGE, I wont disagree.

We moved on to the boat and set 3-4 baits and set some cameras up. Now there are croc everywhere in the UME. Thousands. We set a camera on one bait and counted 30-50 which were over 10-12 foot. But we wanted a BIG croc. This is where things slow down a bit.

This is one of the croc baits.

We spent the next few days battling big croc. We sat over a few baits but the big boys would come not out. We had one croc at the bait with not one tooth. ZERO. He was actually not a bad size but Dalton didn't seem interested in him.

We drove to another area pretty far from camp over near the lake on the 3rd day of croc hunting, I think this was day 6. We spotted a MONSTER croc basking away on the other side of the bay, and we made a stalk. We got within 70 yards and off he went. These things are incredibly intelligent and seriously underrated. We built another blind and set a bait, but he never wanted to show his face. We watched another 30 or so crocs hit this bait, but not the big one we saw.

Dalton was getting worried about our bait supply even though there was one leg left at our Elephant friend. We headed for the mountains which weren't far from where this croc blind was, to look for Zebra. It was late in the day and his tracker spotted a large herd of Impala. Dalton and I set out and made a long stalk on a herd of about 20. He spotted one and threw up the sticks. He told me the one on the left, right in his chest. POW, and he dropped.







Scott, his appy hauled it out on his back.





While driving out from this area, we heard the loud roof bang. I jumped out and they handed me my rifle. I ran around the truck with the sticks up and a monster Kudu in sight. Dalton said dont shoot, he couldn't make out its horn size due to brush. Off it went. This was the start of some tough kudu hunting.

The next day we changed tactics. After sitting over 5 different baits, Dalton wanted to just drive the flood plains and see if we can spot a big one alone. We stopped by the Elephant and picked the last leg, Scotty wearing bags on his hands as gloves.




Once at the flood plains, Dalton spotted a croc on an island. He went off alone to take a look, and came back with a big smile. He grabbed me and a seat cushion.

We did the boot scooch around a hill, then down on our belly's. He moved in front of me and set up the cushion. I followed, making small movements, dragging my rifle along in the wet grass. When I got to the bag, my heart started to pound. This croc was big, and didn't know we were there. I set my rifle up and told him I needed another minute. I waited and then set up with the rifle tight in my shoulder. With the cross hairs on his cheek, I started to squeeze. Dalton actually told me later he could hear me squeezing. POW. The top of his head blew off. I sent 2 more down, one in his neck and one in his shoulder, but they were not needed.








He had a large bite mark in his back healing over, most likely from a hippo.










And how did we retrieve him from the island? Scotty swam across with Dalton and Tongi holding a rope tied to his ankle. These guys have BIG balls.

Once back in camp we were able to take a measurement, He was missing a large length of tail, as well as a chunk missing from the spine section. He measured 13 foot 6 inches with 6-10 inches of tail missing. He measured over 14 inches from nose to eye

We took the evening off from hunting, but made sure to do a bit of drinking and fishing. I'm a terrible fisherman, but it was a lot of fun to relax for an evening.

We headed back up to the mountains in search of Kudu and Zebra. We spotted both from the top of this one mountain and decided to make a stalk. Slowly we made our way down and spotted a Grysbok. He looked at it good and hard and i can see his wheels turning, but there was a big kudu out there, so we let him go.

We bumped the Kudu a few times, and i even had to run at max speed up a hill to get on the sticks once they were bumped a 3rd time, but no shot, they were running at that point.

This is were the heat started to take me down. I live in the northeast where it doesn't get above 90 for more then 2 days. Its below 60 for 75% of the year, so hunting in above 95-100 degree heat was hard for me. After lunch I needed to take it a little slower. We moved over a few hills and spotted a Zebra about 400 yards off on the ridgeline. We slowly stalked around to the top and looked. That's when the sticks went up and they pointed to a Zebra about 50 yards in front of us. POW.

Dalton asked how the shot felt and i said fine. We moved about 10 yards from the shooting position and there it was, down.

That was a TOUGH day, but well rewarded.





We skinned and quartered, leaving the body hole. We then hiked a few miles down to the lake where the truck was waiting. There were about 8 people fishing near the parked truck, and we told them were the rest of the zebra. They took off in a sprint up the mountain.

First hunt report is very good! Keep it coming. Congrats on an old scarred up buff and early in the hunt! Nice croc! They are way more fun and challenging than people realize. That's bruiser of a waterbuck! Hey did you eat any of the zebra? It's really good! It is really hot as you said in Zim. I finished up just as October was getting started.