SOUTH AFRICA: ZIMBABWE: BOTSWANA: RSA / Zimbabwe (With A Little Bit Of Botswana) 2026 Hunt Report With JKO HUNTING SAFARIS

Wow, what a buffalo! Big congrats!

Good Lord...I pray you get what you need from Africa.

The hunt is off to a great start!

The leopard project continues, but more on that at a later date. We're back in the lodge a little bit earlier than normal, so I have time to add to the report.

With a kudu and sable down, and then the add on of the buffalo, this part of the hunt has truly turned into a "let's just see what the bush gives us" scenario. Well then, how about an nyala? Donna doesn't have one, so let's see if we can find a proper bull.

We head out in the morning and come up on a flat are where shortly we'll turn and make our way to the crossing to the south property. "Hey Riaan, looks to me like that's a proper nyala bull, what do you think?" "I agree Phil." "Hey Donna, how about an nyala, you've not taken one before?" "Sure" she says.

We move on a bit to put the truck behind some cover and get the wind right. We cross the flat using the cover to disguise our approach. About 100 yards out, Riaan sets the sticks and Donna takes a shot. She hits a little high and little back, but good enough to catch the lungs. The bull makes about a 30 yard dash and stops, staggering a bit. A second shot and a step forward followed by a step back and the bull is down. So fun to listen to her excitement at taking another fine animal.

It's still quite early in the morning after wrapping up things with the Nyala, so we continue on with the original plan. The original plan was to head down the other side of the river that runs in front of the lodge. The owner of the property has a catch at the top of the bluff that would have animals drinking at often through the day. Others would go ahead and come all the way to the river such as red lechwe and one rather nice waterbuck bull.

Our plan was to go see if we could find that waterbuck. We didn't find him but as we rounded a bend and came down a hill there was a herd of Livingstone eland that I'd seen from a distance but now am seeing quite close. In with the herd is a bull, a big bull.

We make our way onward and discuss the eland. Generally speaking I prefer to take game that is endemic to the area we are hunting in. I already took an unplanned buff and I've got a leopard hunt coming, so I decide to not make a plan for the eland.

We go the rest of the morning without a shot fired. We've seen some of the tinies on this trip. Steenbok, which if I've seen one I've seen thousands have been teasing me once again. At this property you get a short lasting glimpse of them from the truck and in a flash they're gone. Just a step or two and they'll be in the thick brush.

But we make a plan to head over to the south side of the property and see what we can find. As we're ambling down the road, a Steenbok ram shows himself to the right side of the road a few hundred yards ahead. Riaan tells the driver to just idle the rest of the way forward to where we last saw the ram before it entered the bush.

About 60 yards out, he comes out of the bush and starts to run directly away from us, but stops looking over his left shoulder. I'd like to tell you we put on a stalk, but I'd be lying to you. Without much shame I took an offhand shot from the truck at the very small backside of the little guy. Convinced I'd missed, I call my shot as such. Riaan has a different opinion, he saw the ram go down.

@gizmo is going to have a bit of a mess with this one. The .375 hit the left rear leg and thru the abdomen and hit the front left leg. As I say, a mess. Worst case, a full body mount in a laying down position will work.

I go to sleep that night thinking about that gorgeous eland bull.

You're better than you think you are!