ZIMBABWE: First Safari Hunt Report - Bubye Valley With MARTIN PIETERS SAFARIS

Philip Glass said:

Wow, Bubye with @MARTIN PIETERS SAFARIS for your first safari! Anyone with any sense would be jealous. What a trip yall had.

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Hornedfrogbbq said:

I missed my chance to take my father...very jealous indeed. Incredible buff. Not that numbers matter at all (or actually even pulling the trigger) but i am curious the measurements and any age verification. I am trying to get better at judging size and age.

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Fzj80 said:

Day 4 felt different, even as we all loaded onto the Land Cruiser success was just in the air. We covered quite a bit of ground that morning, spotting countless game as we drove, we made our way to a small rock hill that we would climb to view elephants and smaller game from for about 45 minutes. Once we’d had our fill of that we climbed back down and were on our way.
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About 30 minutes after driving away from the hill, we were slowly driving on an elephant destroyed road when Dube spotted a lone buffalo bull about 500 yds to our right side. After a quick glance in the binos I knew this is what we had been waiting on. Quickly jumping from the truck with guns and shooting sticks we start making our way after this buffalo. He is strolling across this open area, and we are walking as fast as we can through the thick grass and it is unclear if we are even closing the distance on him. After about 10 minutes of this he begins to walk in more of an S pattern which works to our advantage and we close some serious ground. Alerted to our presence he doesn’t spool, by gradually heads in the direction on a huge group of mopani thickets. As he approaches this, we flank his right side and end up setting the sticks up at 20 yds. As soon as I get set up he briefly stops and gives me a perfect, unfettered broadside shot. As soon as the first shot rang he begins to move into the thicket and luckily I had reloaded, and fired again off the sticks before he entered it (I barely remember doing this). Once in the thicket it was clear that he had only walked maybe 20 ft into it as we could see a mopani shaking. There was zero visibility to shoot him again unless he were to come at us. After a few minutes of the tree shaking we hear a few consecutive death bellows, and Charity looks at me with a mile-wide grin and says “he will not be coming this way now”
Even though we were all confident he was dead, it was hair raising entering that thicket due to the low visibility. Once we finally found where he was laying, it was a chilling realization that we had been that close and couldn’t see him at all.
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My life’s hunting dream had been fulfilled in this moment, thankful is the only word I know for it. This is right where he fell
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Of all the nice pics we would take, I think this is my favorite.

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dargo said:

What a great trip! Thank you for sharing. The story was very well written as well. Africa is definitely a magical place.

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Safari1 said:

Awesome trip !

I know they do not hunt them but what was your impression on elephant..numbers and size?

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Brandon.Gleason said:

Congratulations on a great hunt and thank you for sharing. Even better that you got to experience it with your father. I keep trying to drag mine along, unsuccessfully so far.

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Fzj80 said:

Day 2 started off much the same, and as lunch approached we started making our way back towards camp. While driving We saw a very nice warthog that would end up being my first African kill. We quickly jumped off the truck, had a short stalk and made an effective shot off of the sticks. It’s funny how your desires change a bit when you are actually here on the ground. Before arriving I was really wanting a waterbuck, and couldn’t care less about a warthog. After seeing that warthog I had to take him, it became a classic trophy to me at first sight. Funny enough, over the next few days I just totally lost the desire to kill a waterbuck, so we shifted gears away from that.
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Zim Fan said:

Charity can track anything even in the thick stuff. He is also a great companion on a hunt. Have spent many days with him chasing Buffalo.

Knew you would have a great hunt, the Conservancy is a great place and you had a good PH in Kevin.

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