For 35 years, I dreamt of this hunt.
I have read widely on the subject--Ruark, Capstick,, Hemmingway, Bell. I subscribed to Sports Afield, started following Boddington on the internet (like him, I'm also a lefty.)
For most of those years, dreams of Africa were a pleasant diversion and nothing more. My wife and I were raising four kids on a public school teacher's salary. I worked summers as a fly fishing guide to keep us in groceries; she drew people's portraits at county fairs to buy new shoes and school clothes each August. Africa remained out of reach.
In 1999, I purchased the fishing outfitting business, moving from being simply a fishing guide to becoming an outfitter (in addition to my day job.) I worked hard, built the business up, and sold it for a nice profit eight years later. When the new owner asked me what I was going to do with my newfound "wealth" (hardly the case, but it was a tidy sum just the same) I said "I'm going to Africa."
But the family van was getting up there in mileage. The bathroom was in serious need of a remodel. And there were medical bills to pay, and credit cards to pay down. The kids went off to college, and there were educational expenses on top of everything else. The money from the sale of the business evaporated quickly.
Before the money was all spent, I managed to find a left-handed Winchester chambered in .375 H&H magnum. Searching for this rifle would itself take years, taking on the out-of-reach dreamlike qualities of hunting Africa itself. In the end, it would be more accurate to say that the rifle found me rather than vice-versa, but that's a tale for another time.
In 2019, ten years after the youngest left the nest, I purchased a "show special" South African plains game safari at an SCI fundraiser in Spokane. The plan was to hunt in the summer of 2020. Then the Covid pandemic hit, so we pushed it back to 2021. South Africa was still struggling with the pandemic a year later, so we delayed the hunt until 2022. In the meantime, a granddaughter was born, and her christening was scheduled for (you guessed it!) June of 2022. The South African outfitter understood, and he graciously allowed me to postpone the hunt until 2023.
I had a wonderful experience in South Africa. The outfitter, my PH, and the entire camp staff were superlative. I harvested five species, toured an elephant rehabilitation and education center, and spent two days on a photo safari in Kruger NP.
... and yet, the longing for Cape buffalo remained.
I've known John since he was 16. His mom hired me as a fishing guide back when I owned the outfitting business and they were such wonderful clients that we easily became friends. John's mom and dad are both avid hunters, and John had been to Africa a couple of times over the years I've known him, including on his honeymoon. Needless to say, we have spent a lot of time over the past twenty five years talking about Africa.
John has more than once texted me this quote:
"... and so if you should meet a hunter who has been to Africa, and he tells you what he has seen and done, watch his eyes as he talks. For they will not see you. They will see sunrises and sunsets such as you cannot imagine and a land and a way of life fast vanishing. And always, he will tell you how he plans to go back."
I've been haunted by that quote for decades. Truth be told, I will likely remain haunted by that quote for the rest of my life.
Ever since I completed the South African plains game hunt, John and I have been talking about going back to Africa. Somewhere over the course of many months and many discussions, that talk transitioned into an action plan. Somewhere in the course of that action plan, John discovered That's Africa Safaris.
As I understand it (and I may be wrong on some of the fine points) Valie Enslin of That's Africa Safaris has been a PH for quite some time, working for various outfitters. Five or six years ago, he established himself as an outfitter and founded his own hunting business. And, among other concessions that he offers, the Incomati Reserve in Mozambique caught our attention.
80,000 acres. Free range. Bordering Kruger NP.
And, of course, Cape buffalo.
We began corresponding with TAS in April of 2025. Due to various work and family obligations for both John and I, we were hoping to hunt in August of September of 2026. We knew enough to know that these dates were fairly late in the season for an African safari. Would they work? After the predictable back-and-forth of questions asked and answers received, John and I took the plunge and deposited on a 2x1 buffalo safari.
It did not disappoint.
We flew into OR Tambo on Monday, September 7th. It was Labor Day in the US, but just the beginning of many adventure days in Africa. After spending the night at the City Lodge, we flew to Nelspruit and Kruger Mpumalanga International Airport on one of the daily SA Airlink flights to that city. There, we would meet Valie and be introduced to our PH, Hannes Malan. If I understand correctly, Hannes is the primary PH for That's Africa Safaris for the Incomati Reserve in Mozambique.
After loading our gear into Hannes' truck, we said goodbye to Valie and began the roughly three hour drive to the Incomati Conservacao (Reserve.)
We would learn that the Incomati concession is roughly 80,000 acres. Of this, approximately 3,000 acres is a working banana plantation. The remainder is bushveld that varies from level lowland to some fairly steep and rocky hills in the southwestern portion of the property.
The accommodations did not disappoint:
Upon our arrival and after we off-loaded our bags, Hannes took us for a drive before dinner. As I mentioned earlier, 3000 of the 80,0000 acres is a working banana plantation. There's an area not far from camp where waste bananas are dumped.
While the banana pile made for some easy wildlife viewing, we never hunted there.
I should note that we had encounters with buffalo, hippo, elephants, lion, wildebeest, zebra, steenbok, crocodile, impala, waterbuck, kudu, bushbuck, giraffe, and nyala in the bush. Of these, buffalo, elephant, waterbuck, and nyala were the most common sightings.
Over the first six days of our hunt, we were able to stalk to within 50 yards of buffalo every day--sometimes multiple times each day! The closest encounters brought us within 25 yards. However, in all cases except the last two, swirling winds gave away our presence, and we were left in the dust, shaking our heads and regrouping to develop our next plan. Most, but not all, of the dagga boys we saw were in the hillier areas, but we also found them elsewhere in the bush where the walking was decidedly easier.
This bull's remains were encountered while stalking a lone dagga boy we saw bedded on a hillside the previous evening.
We saw a LOT of buffalo!
Hannes and our trackers Charles and Sharai were skilled in their craft, dedicated and hard working, and very good company. I would hunt with them again in a heartbeat!
They seemed to be enjoying themselves as much as John and I were, and once we harvested our bulls, it was amply evident that they were hunting vicariously. They seemed to enjoy our success as much as we did, maybe more so!
The swirling winds that vexed our stalks the first days of our hunt gave way to more consistent, prevailing winds. This made our stalking easier and led to our eventual success. I harvested my bull at the end of a long day. I'd estimate we had already walked six or eight miles, had been busted at close range four or five times, and then...
...the stars simply aligned.
We spotted an old bull that we had encountered unsuccessfully that morning in an opening near the edge of some heavier brush. The wind was favorable for us to used the heavier cover to conceal our approach, and we were able to get within 50 or 60 yards of the grazing bull. However, he didn't present a shooting opportunity for perhaps 20 minutes, so we stood in the shadows and waited, hoping he would move our way into a clearing before the sun set behind him. As we waited, I suddenly heard the deep rumble of a contented elephant, feeding perhaps 40 yards deeper into the bush directly behind us. My tracker glanced repeatedly over my shoulder in their direction, clearly not too pleased at how close they were to us.
My rifle was already on the sticks when the bull took two steps forward and stopped, broadside.
"Take him," Hannes whispered.
The first shot was a double lung shot with a 300 grain Swift A-Frame, perhaps three inches above the top of the heart. The bull lurched, clearly hit but moving toward the heavy cover to our right. I shot again, running a 300 grain solid through both lungs. A half dozen other buffalo that had been out of view in the bush behind my bull came barreling out, following him into the cover on our side of the clearing.
Over the next 15 minutes, Hannes and Sharai carefully sorted out the track. I joined them, looking for blood. There was none. Self doubt began to creep in, despite the fact that I felt rock-solid on the sticks. It was as if the bull had simply absorbed the bullets without any effect.
Sharai pointed out a particular footprint in the melee of tracks on the ground, and stated that it belonged to the bull I shot. We followed it into the brush where Hannes pointed out a single drop of blood.
I felt sick. Did I really shoot that badly?
The next five minutes felt like an eternity to me, but Hannes was in his element. "Stay close to my right side. I suspect we'll be encountering a very unhappy buffalo in short order."
We followed the bull and found him waiting for us, perhaps forty yards in. He charged, but all I could see was the wildly waving branches of the trees and he plowed through them. Hannes fired once and the bull turned, stopping broadside at 25 yards. I shot him through the lungs, jacked in another round and shot him again. He dropped, kicking wildly for a few seconds before uttering the death bellow.
I don't know that I've ever been more relieved in my life.
We made a wide semi-circle to approach the bull from his backside. While he appeared fully dead, Hannes instructed me to put an insurance shot through the bull's spine. The carcass rocked on impact, but the bull was already dead. My first order of business was to inspect the carcass for bullet holes, fearing that I had either allowed adrenaline to negatively influence my shot placement or that my scope had become misaligned. To my relief, and frankly to my surprise, all of the shots were lethal. Granted, I had missed the heart itself and didn't break the front shoulder, but each of the bullets were double lungers. What amazed me was how little blood came from these wounds. There were also no exit wounds.
The camp manager declare my bull to be "a proper madala."
The adrenaline dump, following a long day of stalking, hit me like a truck that evening after dinner. I excused myself from the campfire a little early and decided to sleep in the next morning. As luck would have it, that's when John would harvest an absolute freight train of a bull.
John also harvested a fine waterbuck and an impala. I had the privilege to participate vicariously in both of those hunts.
Having more or less tagged out in Mozambique and still with a couple of days before our flight home, we then drove to South Africa to a property in Hannes' family. There, John made a brilliant 290 yard shot on a red hartebeest, dropping the old bull in his tracks.
I don't know that I'll ever be able to go back to Africa. There's a certain sadness to this realization. I know I've been extremely lucky, having now hunted there twice when most men will never go even once. I am so grateful to have had these experiences, and to finally experience hunting, and taking, a Cape buffalo. The good people associated with the Incomati Reserve and That's Africa Safaris have my deep gratitude for helping me to see the dream, fulfilled.
I have read widely on the subject--Ruark, Capstick,, Hemmingway, Bell. I subscribed to Sports Afield, started following Boddington on the internet (like him, I'm also a lefty.)
For most of those years, dreams of Africa were a pleasant diversion and nothing more. My wife and I were raising four kids on a public school teacher's salary. I worked summers as a fly fishing guide to keep us in groceries; she drew people's portraits at county fairs to buy new shoes and school clothes each August. Africa remained out of reach.
In 1999, I purchased the fishing outfitting business, moving from being simply a fishing guide to becoming an outfitter (in addition to my day job.) I worked hard, built the business up, and sold it for a nice profit eight years later. When the new owner asked me what I was going to do with my newfound "wealth" (hardly the case, but it was a tidy sum just the same) I said "I'm going to Africa."
But the family van was getting up there in mileage. The bathroom was in serious need of a remodel. And there were medical bills to pay, and credit cards to pay down. The kids went off to college, and there were educational expenses on top of everything else. The money from the sale of the business evaporated quickly.
Before the money was all spent, I managed to find a left-handed Winchester chambered in .375 H&H magnum. Searching for this rifle would itself take years, taking on the out-of-reach dreamlike qualities of hunting Africa itself. In the end, it would be more accurate to say that the rifle found me rather than vice-versa, but that's a tale for another time.
In 2019, ten years after the youngest left the nest, I purchased a "show special" South African plains game safari at an SCI fundraiser in Spokane. The plan was to hunt in the summer of 2020. Then the Covid pandemic hit, so we pushed it back to 2021. South Africa was still struggling with the pandemic a year later, so we delayed the hunt until 2022. In the meantime, a granddaughter was born, and her christening was scheduled for (you guessed it!) June of 2022. The South African outfitter understood, and he graciously allowed me to postpone the hunt until 2023.
I had a wonderful experience in South Africa. The outfitter, my PH, and the entire camp staff were superlative. I harvested five species, toured an elephant rehabilitation and education center, and spent two days on a photo safari in Kruger NP.
... and yet, the longing for Cape buffalo remained.
I've known John since he was 16. His mom hired me as a fishing guide back when I owned the outfitting business and they were such wonderful clients that we easily became friends. John's mom and dad are both avid hunters, and John had been to Africa a couple of times over the years I've known him, including on his honeymoon. Needless to say, we have spent a lot of time over the past twenty five years talking about Africa.
John has more than once texted me this quote:
"... and so if you should meet a hunter who has been to Africa, and he tells you what he has seen and done, watch his eyes as he talks. For they will not see you. They will see sunrises and sunsets such as you cannot imagine and a land and a way of life fast vanishing. And always, he will tell you how he plans to go back."
I've been haunted by that quote for decades. Truth be told, I will likely remain haunted by that quote for the rest of my life.
Ever since I completed the South African plains game hunt, John and I have been talking about going back to Africa. Somewhere over the course of many months and many discussions, that talk transitioned into an action plan. Somewhere in the course of that action plan, John discovered That's Africa Safaris.
As I understand it (and I may be wrong on some of the fine points) Valie Enslin of That's Africa Safaris has been a PH for quite some time, working for various outfitters. Five or six years ago, he established himself as an outfitter and founded his own hunting business. And, among other concessions that he offers, the Incomati Reserve in Mozambique caught our attention.
80,000 acres. Free range. Bordering Kruger NP.
And, of course, Cape buffalo.
We began corresponding with TAS in April of 2025. Due to various work and family obligations for both John and I, we were hoping to hunt in August of September of 2026. We knew enough to know that these dates were fairly late in the season for an African safari. Would they work? After the predictable back-and-forth of questions asked and answers received, John and I took the plunge and deposited on a 2x1 buffalo safari.
It did not disappoint.
We flew into OR Tambo on Monday, September 7th. It was Labor Day in the US, but just the beginning of many adventure days in Africa. After spending the night at the City Lodge, we flew to Nelspruit and Kruger Mpumalanga International Airport on one of the daily SA Airlink flights to that city. There, we would meet Valie and be introduced to our PH, Hannes Malan. If I understand correctly, Hannes is the primary PH for That's Africa Safaris for the Incomati Reserve in Mozambique.
After loading our gear into Hannes' truck, we said goodbye to Valie and began the roughly three hour drive to the Incomati Conservacao (Reserve.)
We would learn that the Incomati concession is roughly 80,000 acres. Of this, approximately 3,000 acres is a working banana plantation. The remainder is bushveld that varies from level lowland to some fairly steep and rocky hills in the southwestern portion of the property.
The accommodations did not disappoint:
Upon our arrival and after we off-loaded our bags, Hannes took us for a drive before dinner. As I mentioned earlier, 3000 of the 80,0000 acres is a working banana plantation. There's an area not far from camp where waste bananas are dumped.
While the banana pile made for some easy wildlife viewing, we never hunted there.
I should note that we had encounters with buffalo, hippo, elephants, lion, wildebeest, zebra, steenbok, crocodile, impala, waterbuck, kudu, bushbuck, giraffe, and nyala in the bush. Of these, buffalo, elephant, waterbuck, and nyala were the most common sightings.
Over the first six days of our hunt, we were able to stalk to within 50 yards of buffalo every day--sometimes multiple times each day! The closest encounters brought us within 25 yards. However, in all cases except the last two, swirling winds gave away our presence, and we were left in the dust, shaking our heads and regrouping to develop our next plan. Most, but not all, of the dagga boys we saw were in the hillier areas, but we also found them elsewhere in the bush where the walking was decidedly easier.
This bull's remains were encountered while stalking a lone dagga boy we saw bedded on a hillside the previous evening.
We saw a LOT of buffalo!
Hannes and our trackers Charles and Sharai were skilled in their craft, dedicated and hard working, and very good company. I would hunt with them again in a heartbeat!
They seemed to be enjoying themselves as much as John and I were, and once we harvested our bulls, it was amply evident that they were hunting vicariously. They seemed to enjoy our success as much as we did, maybe more so!
The swirling winds that vexed our stalks the first days of our hunt gave way to more consistent, prevailing winds. This made our stalking easier and led to our eventual success. I harvested my bull at the end of a long day. I'd estimate we had already walked six or eight miles, had been busted at close range four or five times, and then...
...the stars simply aligned.
We spotted an old bull that we had encountered unsuccessfully that morning in an opening near the edge of some heavier brush. The wind was favorable for us to used the heavier cover to conceal our approach, and we were able to get within 50 or 60 yards of the grazing bull. However, he didn't present a shooting opportunity for perhaps 20 minutes, so we stood in the shadows and waited, hoping he would move our way into a clearing before the sun set behind him. As we waited, I suddenly heard the deep rumble of a contented elephant, feeding perhaps 40 yards deeper into the bush directly behind us. My tracker glanced repeatedly over my shoulder in their direction, clearly not too pleased at how close they were to us.
My rifle was already on the sticks when the bull took two steps forward and stopped, broadside.
"Take him," Hannes whispered.
The first shot was a double lung shot with a 300 grain Swift A-Frame, perhaps three inches above the top of the heart. The bull lurched, clearly hit but moving toward the heavy cover to our right. I shot again, running a 300 grain solid through both lungs. A half dozen other buffalo that had been out of view in the bush behind my bull came barreling out, following him into the cover on our side of the clearing.
Over the next 15 minutes, Hannes and Sharai carefully sorted out the track. I joined them, looking for blood. There was none. Self doubt began to creep in, despite the fact that I felt rock-solid on the sticks. It was as if the bull had simply absorbed the bullets without any effect.
Sharai pointed out a particular footprint in the melee of tracks on the ground, and stated that it belonged to the bull I shot. We followed it into the brush where Hannes pointed out a single drop of blood.
I felt sick. Did I really shoot that badly?
The next five minutes felt like an eternity to me, but Hannes was in his element. "Stay close to my right side. I suspect we'll be encountering a very unhappy buffalo in short order."
We followed the bull and found him waiting for us, perhaps forty yards in. He charged, but all I could see was the wildly waving branches of the trees and he plowed through them. Hannes fired once and the bull turned, stopping broadside at 25 yards. I shot him through the lungs, jacked in another round and shot him again. He dropped, kicking wildly for a few seconds before uttering the death bellow.
I don't know that I've ever been more relieved in my life.
We made a wide semi-circle to approach the bull from his backside. While he appeared fully dead, Hannes instructed me to put an insurance shot through the bull's spine. The carcass rocked on impact, but the bull was already dead. My first order of business was to inspect the carcass for bullet holes, fearing that I had either allowed adrenaline to negatively influence my shot placement or that my scope had become misaligned. To my relief, and frankly to my surprise, all of the shots were lethal. Granted, I had missed the heart itself and didn't break the front shoulder, but each of the bullets were double lungers. What amazed me was how little blood came from these wounds. There were also no exit wounds.
The camp manager declare my bull to be "a proper madala."
The adrenaline dump, following a long day of stalking, hit me like a truck that evening after dinner. I excused myself from the campfire a little early and decided to sleep in the next morning. As luck would have it, that's when John would harvest an absolute freight train of a bull.
John also harvested a fine waterbuck and an impala. I had the privilege to participate vicariously in both of those hunts.
Having more or less tagged out in Mozambique and still with a couple of days before our flight home, we then drove to South Africa to a property in Hannes' family. There, John made a brilliant 290 yard shot on a red hartebeest, dropping the old bull in his tracks.
I don't know that I'll ever be able to go back to Africa. There's a certain sadness to this realization. I know I've been extremely lucky, having now hunted there twice when most men will never go even once. I am so grateful to have had these experiences, and to finally experience hunting, and taking, a Cape buffalo. The good people associated with the Incomati Reserve and That's Africa Safaris have my deep gratitude for helping me to see the dream, fulfilled.
