I'm still not having any luck uploading pictures, but I'll get it done as soon as phone reception or Internet allows.
Anyway I finally got my Buffalo on the ground. Tuesday evening we were following tracks of several bulls and were finally able to get up with them just before dark at a waterhole. We got in position and this time the big bull finally stepped into a shooting lane. He was facing directly at us and I prepared for a frontal shot at about 80 yards. We were slightly above him and he needed to lift his head to give me a clear view of the vitals. He sensed we were there and kept moving his head side to side quickly trying to get us to move. Finally at last shooting light he turned to his right and I put the red dot on his shoulder and let the shot go. I could tell he was hit hard by his reaction.
A minute later the PH and one of the trackers could hear him coughing so I knew I hit lung. Everything got quiet and we decided to back out because it was almost completely dark.
The PH called one of his friends that has a thermal drone and he came to the lodge to see if he could locate the bull. He was quickly able to locate him and he still had six of his friends with him, and he was unfortunately still alive although not on his feet. This was still the case three hours later although the other bulls finally moved off. Definitely too dangerous to try anything in the dark so I knew it was going to be a long restless night.
When we checked with the drone just before sunrise we found that the bull was no longer in the same spot. My heart sunk and I knew we could be in for a long day. We eased our way into the area and the trackers quickly found a little blood on the way to where he was bedded and began to try to sort things out. The PH is a master tracker himself and having hunted with him many times I knew I was just going to be in the way until they got things sorted out so I just waited in the truck until he messaged me to drive around and he would have one of the trackers meet me and take me to them.
There were seven sets of tracks, but the PH felt something wasn't right and having the two trackers make one more loop around the area they located a single set of tracks going out the other way alone. Turns out another bull joined the six uninjured ones and my bull was the one moving alone.
We found many places were he bedded down. Never more than 200 yards apart. We knew he was hurting and it probably wasn't going to be long before we caught up with him. The area was very thick as is most of the areas we've hunted for the past week. Everyone on high alert as we knew a charge was likely to come at any time. Sure enough after less than an hour of tracking we heard the snort grunt and he he came. The PH fired one shot quickly as I was taking aim and we both fired simultaneously and the bull went down within 10 yards. One through the neck and down the spine and the other between the eyes. The PH said I could claim the between the eyes shot, but I'm sure it was his bullet that was that one. Either way we both got stopping shots into a charging Buffalo. Not much more exciting than that.
The buffalo was 44 inches wide and hard bossed, although the bosses were never going to join. An old bull for sure and I couldn't be happier with the entire hunting experience. Again I'll post some pictures as soon as I can get them to upload.
