Hunting Buffalo by Calling in Central Africa

[morioc]

This is a video I want to share with you. It shows the buffalo from that eastern corner of CAR and how they come, sometime very close (3/4 meters), when I call them in. It is an easy shot if you stand still until the last moment.... I hope you will enjoy it and I am waiting for your questions....

Here are somes trophies.

Cheers
Christophe

 

[AfricaHunting.com]

Very very cool Christophe! They're coming fast, just excellent! Thanks for sharing and nicely put video.

 

[daggaboyblog]

Hey Christophe,

I'm keen on hunting both the Central African Savanna Buffalo as well as the beautiful red Forest Buffalo when I'm in CAR. Hunting in the same area, I assume that there would be a fair amount of interbreeding between the two species - is this the case?

In your video as well as many other photos and footage I gave seen, the Central African Savanna Buffalo (Syncerus caffer brachyceros) is typically black and very similar to the Cape or Savanna Buffalo (Syncerus caffer caffer). The Forest Buffalo (Syncerus caffer nanus) is generally red with those oversize hairy ears!

In your video I saw herds of the Savanna Buffalo I would expect to see in the region, mixed herds of red and black buffalo, and one very black animal with those big fluffy ears that I associate with the red Forest Buffaloes. It's a mixed up situation to someone who doesn't know the region and its species very well!

So when you're out hunting, are you chasing a specific species when you head into the bush or are you "hunting buffalo" and deal with what you find out there? Do you hunt distinctly different areas for each species?

And being quite a bit smaller than their southern cousins, what are you shooting with?

Great video by the way; I'm looking forward to doing that!!!

 

[morioc]

Daggaboyblog..
Nice subject...
My believing on these buffaloes from that part of Central Africa is, as you notice perfectly, a mixed up of Brachyceros and Nanus or rather an adaptation of their biotope.... but for me there is no real Syncerus caffer nanus ( attached a picture of real dwarf forest buffalo bull)..... They live in the real rain forest and the other one live in a kind of mosaic forest/savannah. It is very difficult to find a real red buffalo bull as when they get old, they get dark... The one shot on the vidoe is a big bull with a 31 inch spread and about 650 kg.. quite different compare to the buffaloes shown on the picture above. So we don't hunt a particular area or herd ... we hunt buffalo...
Remember, buffalo are strong and big animals, 375 HH is for me the minimum caliber. Of course you can kill one with a 30.06 but it is not very serious...
best Christophe

 

[daggaboyblog]

So I like the idea that "...we hunt buffalo..." and to some extent, we will see what we can see once we're in the bush with out rifles. Doing a quick bit of research on the web as to what a nanus animal looks like, in different regions the images captured are of very different animals - these are three pictured that are claimed to be from Congo, Senegal and Sierra Leone in that order. They are so distinctly different to each other and I guess the Congo variant most closely resembles the animals I have seen coming out of CAR.

I'm planning to bring my .450 Ackley Magnum shooting 500 grain Woodleigh round nose - soft and solid - and the .300 Weatherby Magnum shooting 180 grain Woodleigh Protected Points. This combination has worked for me on previous hunts. Any thoughts on the guns and ammo combo for use on a full bag CAR hunt excluding the cats?

 

[morioc]

The only real dawarf forest buffalo (cow) is the last picture./ I never found accurate infos about animals on internet!!!!! The picture I posted above is a real syncerus nanus BULL from south of CAR.
Your weapon combination is perfect.

 

[PHOENIX PHIL]

Nothing like calling an animal in! Once again great footage Christophe.

 

[Nyati]

The video is really "magnifique"