Savé Valley Conservancy: The Buffalo saga.

[Tau Wilderness]

The screaming symphony of the Cicada's was temporarily subdued by the blast of a 300gr flat nosed solid striking a Buffalo with a full frontal impact at close range.

The Mopanie forest went quit and with that, the last breath of a Duggaboy was exhaled.

Hunting in the Savé is not easy, but rewarding.

 

[Tau Wilderness]

 

[Tau Wilderness]

Just like most hunters from Africa I have been dreaming of hunting a Buffalo for a very long time. As a 17-year-old I went on a Big 5 hunt as an apprentice. I did not carry a rifle or commit to the final stalks, however those 10 days I spent next to the Linyanti river in the Caprivi region of Namibia had me hooked.

I finished school studied Nature Conservation, hunted plains games regularly and as often as possible.

Life …..she happens. The next moment you wake up, 40 + years old and you still haven’t been on that buffalo hunt the 20-year-old you though would happen yearly.

Then my opportunity came without warning.

Me and Andre Scholtz (AKA:Skollie) have been shooting and XSSSA( Long range steel shooting competition in South Africa) teammates for a while. Even though he is much wiser,fitter and a little older than me we have become very good friends. Must be my good looks....

He told me he wanted to shoot a Buffalo and sold one of his XSSSA comp rifles and acquired a .375 H&H in its place for the occasion. In secret he was planning and inquiring from different operators on the availability, cost and circumstances he could hunt a Buffalo in at their farm, concession or Zoo(tongue in cheek removed).
Skollie like most of us wanted to shoot an Old Bull in an open area preferably 100’s of kilometers away from a bale of lusern and without an ear tag. Buffalo’s with names like Titan, Storm, Maestro and big hoss was also to be passed along to other hunters.

Not too full of rules, but a proper wild old Dugga boy in the wild.
Well, if he was making rules, he also wanted to hunt this Buffalo in his country of birth, Rhodesia or as it is now known Zimbabwe.
Every now and then he would tell me about a possible hunt, followed by excitement and then the let down of another hunt that was cancelled by the outfitters.

Skollie decided enough is enough and he went full bore and booked a hunt with Shangani River Safari’s. The PH Sean Grant came highly recommended by @Dewald which made everything much beter.

Oh and then he invited me to come along…..and take my gun. Who does this!!! I said yes, we got plane tickets, paid transport fee’s for rifles and then we applied for firearm export permits from South African Police service to Zim…..this was a issue. South Africans need to wait for an export permit for firearms which can take 3 months. We had 2 months and hoped for the best.

There was moments of worry as the hunting with a borrowed gun is not something Skollie wanted to do, me not having a gun would be fine, I have a knife for buffalo charges. 5 days before our flights was leaving we got our export permits.

 

[Tau Wilderness]

So the big day arrived we had a 03:00 collection by shuttle from Skollies home in Paarl for a 6 am departure from Cape Town International to OR Thambo. After a short layover we had a flight to Bulawayo from Johannesburg.

On arrival we had a “VIP meet and greet” arranged by Skollie to insure we could get past immigration and customs with rifles before our 14;00 cut off. We had a cutoff as it was still a 6.5 hr drive from Bulawayo to the hunting camp. If you want to go hunt in Zimbabwe include this service in your budget . The VIP meet and greet went as one can think if something is lubed with US$.

Whilst waiting outside, we spotted a very heavily loaded Toyota Hilux supercab charge in!!!

Ty jumps out and greets us. It is at this point that I realise between me and Skollie one of us will be seated in the rear of the Supercab. I also immediately focus on the provisions on the rear of the bakkie en realise that it is for the entire way to the concession and not just till we reach “the other car”. I have one of the vehicles at home and know I do not fit in the back for longe er than 15 minutes...

So as Skollie was paying for everything and I was going along as a "super sponger deluxe" I insisted that I will squeeze in the back and give his 1.94meter frame a front seat. You know I am a good friend….

We left the airport and Ty mentioned we needed to get diesel for the bakkie. Ok no problem… not in Zim. 1 hr later almost we found a service station that had stock.

For the next 6.5 hrs I experienced what I can only compare to childbirth, but much worse. I am sleekly built for a fat short guy. When Hero Sun at Toyotas designed the rear section of a Hilux supercab he never had a Boerseun in mind when he placed the rear suicide door release handle in place. It smacked me on the knee every 5 minutes. I was tired from the flying and getting up early and my bum was burning from the hard seat. Proper childbirth comparisons were made.
We got caught by the dark and the last 2 hrs to camp was on dark dangerous roads filled with cattle, donkeys and when we reached the Triangle / Chiredzi area cane trucks.

Ty soldiered on and got us to camp safely. She is a very tough lady that keeps the hunting camp, food and staff going whilst the boys go out hunting we would soon come to appreciate.

We arrived at a perfect setting to brand new safari chalets/ tents. Stunningly done and situated on the riverbanks. The dining area was gorgeous and the weather nice and warm. I all but forgave the Toyota Hilux engineer from Japan.

We had dinner and then we died in our double beds. Lions roaring in the distance was heard and then I joined in with my world renowned snoring.

 

[Tau Wilderness]

 

[Tau Wilderness]

Saturday morning, we woke up rested and excited for the hunt. We got on the hunting vehicle and started driving to the shooting range. The area just had 100 mm of rain and everything was alive. You could hear the Mopanies grow. I have never experienced this before the rate at which the grass and leaves was appearing seemed like something unnatural. The green variants in the leaves and bush were amazing. I have a verbal diarea problem, but I was left speechless for much of the first two days of the hunt as the natural beauty of the area was astounding.

We each fired a shot at a target to check if the rifles travelled well. It was confirmed that both .375’s was spot on.

Skollie en Rocky ( hunting dog supreme)

Baobabs with leaves was something new to me. Historically South African go to Zim during winter holidays when the bush is dry.

Signs of the 100mm rain two days before we arrived was visible everywhere

The bush became thick and overgrown overnight after the great rains

most of the concession borders was marked by dry rivers.

We had to clear roads daily that Elephant closed with their antics.

 

[Tau Wilderness]

The rest of the morning we drove around the concession looking for the herds of Buffalo that Sean had sent Skollie pictures and video’s of and all the elephants. We found signs of elephant dung and Buffalo dung, but no tracks. It was as if they heard the hunters had arrived and left for central Save valley!! In reality the rain had now opened up massive section of the inland parts of the Save as it now had pools of water and fresh grass en leaves.

The plan then changed a little to driving most of boundary roads until we would find spoor followed by the trackers and us following these spoors until we would catch up with the Dugga boys or bulls and have a look to see if it would be an Old Bull that would fit the criteria of a real trophy bull.

On that subject. I have never been one to measure horns and hunt for the biggest measuring trophy. I love animals with one horn, broken tips or that is very old. To me this is the correct animal to hunt. Hunting a bull in his sexual prime does not make sense, but the world and record books have most hunters hooked on finding that Bull or Ram with the big horns.

We do not tell the story of the hunt, we always start the story with the size of the horns. We even ask other hunters the size of the horns before we ask them about the hunting experience.

“I am not taking that animal the horns are to small” have been uttered by most of us at some stage.

We chase the trophy not the journey or the experience.

The reality is that old male animals that do not breed anymore is typically the owners of worn horns and tusks. Not in all species but definitely Buffalo. HOWEVER, horns size is what drives a huge part of our industry so let it be. It is very important to the financial viability of trophy hunting. So I respect it and welcome it.

In Zimbabwe and when hunting with Sean old animals is the main focus.

Skollie and I did lots of research (YouTube is research isn’t it?) about age and horn development in Buffalo. Buffalo with massive 42” horns, soft bosses and tips that sits high above the head has possibly not reached sexual maturity or is still spreading their gene’s. As buffalo gets older their horns wear as they fight trees en scrubs to get ready for territorial fights. They mud bath and horn the clay to secrete their scent and cover themselves with mud to remove ecto parasites. All this wears the horns down and the horns develop/grow/ move lower compared to the ears and the top of the Buffalo's’ head as animal get older. Like the ears on a human being.

So keep all this in mind and my self rightous mentallity leading up to this hunt….on the afternoon of day one driving around looking for tracks we drive past a bull of 42” plus horns , It is like trying not to stare at a very pretty gun in the Gunshop when your wife is next to you and you only popped in for some primers.

Murphy, ethics, self pride and glory all arrived at the front door of our self-control. Well at mine at least. You know looking a gifted horse in the mouth and so on. I wanted to tap on the roof jump of and get Skollie on the sticks to get a shot of. I lost my list of rules very quickly.... I am only flesh and bone.

This is where Sean made his first move on this hunt that was a sign that he is my kind in person, or at least the kind I strive to be.

He simply drove on.

He didn’t stop and glance with his bino’s or mark the spot. He just kept driving. I assumed the Bull had soft bosses or it was a resident bull that was named after some ex-politician. About 1.5km’s later we stopped. Sean declared we had gone far enough away from the bull to not make this a diesel stalk and we have given the animal an opportunity to move away or not. We kitted up and started our walk back thru the bush and not on the road.
As soon as we started to walk and stalk the cover that the newly sprouted Mopanie leaves create was serious. Anything further than 50 meters away was not clearly visible and open shots would be almost impossible.

However, “we knew where this 42” was so walking across the ridge finding it and shooting it on the shoulder would be easy.........NOT so, 6.7km later and almost 3 hrs on foot we found the herd at 18;02. We could see 3 black figures no more than 20 meter in front of us, but there was no way at seeing which was a 42” bull and which was a cow. We watched them for about 20 minutes, but they just kept grazing. With ZERO wind we could hear them grunt and eat. Then suddenly a soft breeze rolled over our necks towards the herd of Buffalo. The bush erupted and away stormed 6 Buffalo!!! Immediately we realised that this hunt was not just about finding tracks, walking till we found the buffalo and then stalking them, but also getting an opening in the bush to view and then shoot the Buffalo.

 

[Tau Wilderness]

Out on our first stalk.The veld was still a little wet.

The Mopanie shoots was and intense green and the smell was gorgeous.

The Man himself ...Skollie.

At this moment I could not believe that I gave up this life for a "normal" job.

Hunters also do selfies. I had to take a picture of us looking at the herd of Buffalo at 20 meters with no clue what we had infront of us.

Baobab in full bloom. I am from the Cape and Namibia, I have never experienced the Lowveld after rain it is something spectacular!!!

 

[Sideshow]

Enjoying your writing style looking forward to more!