SOUTH AFRICA: A Month In Africa

[McKenzie Sims]

Day 8 August 16

5am wake up, I had two cups of tea a slice of toast with butter and honey on it than off we went, it was a chilly morning with frost on the group. Not much was moving to start with, crazy how the field went from full of reedbuck last night to nothing this morning we glassed up two Oribi one was a really nice ram above then a female reedbuck and a young ram were laying so we turned to head back to the road but stopped to check a spot on the way and I caught a reedbuck running out of some tall grass next to a pond as soon as I see the horns I knew it was the big ram from last night. We watched him walk over a ridge so we made a plan the plan worked great we moved him in a fence line and found him bedded and worked to within 135 yards. We waited for a hour and Matt said let’s step out and see if we can get a shot but as soon as the ram seen us he got up and ran and didn’t stop for 400 yards.

Matt glassing the ram

 

[McKenzie Sims]

We made a new plan but now he was closer to the first two reedbuck and a new group we spotted as we drove into position it required us to be between then and just hope they wouldn’t alarm and spook him. We wanted to use the pivot to help close the distance and get a shot but the pivot started to move while we were sitting about 150 yards from him so we had to leopard crawl back and to our left as we crawled we started to loose the small rise in front of us that was giving us cover and soon the ram could see us we just kept crawling slowly and slowly until we could get a shot I told Matt let’s shoot off his back so he moved into position and I slid over top of him to get the shot it was about 80 yards away. I had a fence post support wire blocking my shot so I had to pull the shot a little to avoid that. The shot hit him hard, he went down but got back up again and gave me a broad sided shot this time off the sticks dropping him for good. This is my biggest common reedbuck to-date.

 

[McKenzie Sims]

 

[McKenzie Sims]

 

[gillettehunter]

Nice reedbuck. I have a good one on the wall and I'd take that one given the opportunity. Enjoying your report.
Bruce

 

[McKenzie Sims]

Nice reedbuck. I have a good one on the wall and I'd take that one given the opportunity. Enjoying your report.
Bruce

Thank you sir!

 

[McKenzie Sims]

A month in Africa





It’s Sunday August 4th I’m on the pouch with my friends Bongo, Damaro, and Koda. the late summer heat hasn’t started to cool yet but there is a light breeze and the doves are beginning to Hume their evening coo’s

I’m full of excitement as the last week has been nothing but preperation of checking my list packing, weighing and re packing. Tuesday I leave these 3 for a full month. Tuesday I leave back for Africa. For a month long Safari



I’m going to be traveling to South Africa where I will be exploring three different provinces with multiple areas in each they will all be new to me as the outfitters im going with I have yet to hunt with. I’m excited to see Africa once more and experience what these outfitters have to offer for areas, accommodations, and over all services.



Even though these will be accumulatively my 16th, 17th and 18th safaris I still think to my self did I pack right? Tuesday will be here soon and I will soon be in Africa.



I packed heavy for this trip loaded down with lots of extra gifts for the camp staff I will meet along the way I’m sure I will be a bit over weight but t



Arrived in Johannesburg at 6:50pm got through customs quickly but was hung up waiting for my one and only check bag that had ammo in it, it Findlay showed up in the fragile bag area probably due to size but I’m sure it was the last bag off the plane. I was greeted by the staff of rifle permits as well as my PH Matt Maartens and cameraman Berrie Van Niekerk getting the rifles was a breeze and we were soon loaded up for our drive east to the highveld near Ermelo where we will be staying for two days to hunt Serval. A cold castle light and some biltong hit the spot on the start of the drive. We stopped along the way at a garage to grab some food at a Steers and some drinks from the filling station a burger and chips along with a Cappy be breakfast blend juice hit the spot. Along the drive as we got closer to where we would be staying and hunting we seen several duikers in the headlights as well as a fallow buck walking down the side of the dirt road. It was after 11pm when we pulled into the camp, after gettting quickly settle we gathered at the bar area had one more beer made a plan for the morning and I retreated back to take a shower and get settled in. Tomorrow is day one, we will sleep in a bit as it’s already 2am, shoot the rifles drive around but primarily get ready for the night hunting, it get dark early over here at the moment so we will be able to get plenty of night time hunting in.



Day 1 August 8

We got in late so there wasn’t a set time to get up my alarm was for 6 but I got moving about 6:30 to great the day we had some tea ate a nice breakfast than headed to the range to check the rifles after checking the rifles we did a quick drive around than went back to hang out at camp ate a lunch at 1pm than took a nap till a quarter to 4 we than went and sat for some ducks and geese no such luck we ate a nice dinner of chicken schnitzel and got ready to go out hunting for the night. The night started off fast paced when we turned up a jackal but I missed him 3 times with the thermal 243.

We turned up what we thought was another jackal that I again missed but this time we filmed the thermal and found out it was a serval.

We kept driving around d with no luck and about 11pm we headed for another property when we seen another jackal that I missed with the 22 hornet.

We got to the other property and soon found a set of eye’s we drove closer and I confirmed it was a serval cat we got to about 100 meters where I got setup and shot I hit the car with the 22 hornet and he was off to the races running he stopped a brief moment then disappeared through a fence and over a rise we got the jack Russel jabo out and soon got on the trail jabo found the car and bayed him up some what but as we crawled through the last cattle fence towards the two the cat took off and as he passed me I was squeezing the trigger to the point I was jerking it, I hadn’t set the set trigger yet. The cat disappeared and left the dog we search around to find his tracks and blood but it was to no avail we found that conclusion, I barely nicked the cat as we only found one small job of blood, and he was running perfectly fine

Away from the dog. We than had a call some other hunters needed the dog so we loaded up and drove that way. We shortly got there, unloaded the dog, and he went out to help them look for the civic cat they had hit. They returned empty handed as well we again split up and hunted the last little bit of the early morning darkness by this time it was already 3:30 Am we found another civet but I missed his as he spun and I wasn’t quite ready but that 22 has a hair trigger. We rolled into camp at 4:45 showed and not drinking some early morning tea at 7am writing this I’ll take a short nap here soon I believe.

During the night hunt we seen loads of duikers, house cats, and common reeebuck.





Ready to see what day 2 will bring.



Day 2 August 9

After getting a little bit of sleep I woke up at 8:30 went to the sitting area to wait for everyone to show up everyone was moving slow and by 11 we had everyone up and had breakfast at noon after eating we all went back to our rooms to take a nap before having dinner at 5 and heading out at 6 we had steak and fries for dinner and were soon on the way as soon as we pulled into the first property we started seeing game lots of Duikers it had just got dark so we were thinking it might be a little before we seen any of the cat activity but we’re hoping for a bush pig when we glanced the light off a caracal. I quickly got the 243 with the thermal scope and got setup after a few short seconds I had the cat in the cross hairs and touched one off it felt good and everyone heard what sounded like a bit but after searching around and letting the dog out we turned up nothing. We spent the next two hours driving around without seeing a Serval cat or anything else we wanted we did see an ain’t bear (ardvark) but I hadn’t planned for one this trip. We than moved back over to the last location we stopped at this morning where I missed the Serval. Short after we got into the good are of the property I took three shots at a whitetiale mongoose but he got away. Than we spotted a serval acrosss a valley on an opposite ride Matt moved the truck closer and I got setup he was over 120 yards so I held on his back when I squeezed the 22 hornet the cat dropped with a thwacking report, we drove up to the base of the hill the car was on and began to climb it when (Jack russle) started barking so Matt, Berrie and my self began to ran up to where the dog was barking soon Matt was yell shot shoot but I could see the cat, the cat had ran right to me and Matt in the long grass and I was looking on the other side of the dog. The cat turned and ran but in the heat of the chase it managed to give the dog a few licks and he soon stopped following it and in result we spent 30 minutes trying to turn the cat up with no luck. ( spot light man) was still in the truck and had watched the cat run and could see blood running down his shoulder and want sure how the car was evening running. We drove around another hour or so and I air balled a shot at a jackal with the thermal but that called an end to our night hunt. We got back to camp had a tea and a beer for a moment than I went to take a shower we are heading to Zululand tomorow in search of red duiker and other antelope species.



Day 3 August 10

We traveled from the highveld to Zululand we drive through the timber company country side that soon dropped off into the sugarcane country. We had lunch at spurs great burger and chips. We arrived at the ( get name) camp at a little after 2pm we got settled in and headed out a little after 3pm on our afternoon outing we seen so much game as in the way of Nyala, impala, and warthogs. We also seen several zebra, wildebeest, giraffe and kudu we also seen some buffalo with a fine young bull. We seen 2 read duikers one was a female as we got in close and could tell but the other one kept moving a head of us. For dinner we had soup Impala with rice and sweet potato followed by mud pie a chocalte like cake with ice cream it was amazing. I hit the sack early to catch up on some much needed sleep.



Day 4 August 11

5am wake up a couple cups of rooibos tea and off we went we planed to sit a water hole that a nice male red duiker had been seen visiting just a few days ago. We got setup on this game viewing deck we had grey duiker come in and lots of monkeys followed by some Nyala but at 8 we had a red duiker male come unfortanitley he didn’t stay at the water long enough to give us a shot and left but we know he’s an old male.

We made some adjustments to our setup now we are waiting. Oh and there is about a 13’ croc in this pond as well around.

10 am I was glassing some Impala back in the bush when I caught a red duiker scurry past, I told Matt ones coming and excitedly waited within a few minutes it was in a small opening feeding its way to the water Matt confirmed it was female as she moved close to the water she hung out and drank with the abundance of Nyala, kudu, warthog, and Impala. After she spent about 30 minutes in front of us she moved off and I started to doze off as the morning sun was warming. I was awoke by Matt saying duiker I looked to my left a sure enough there was a new red duiker drinking. I slowly slid in behind the rifle and waited for Matt to give me the green light after some looking Matt said ok take him. I got settled in behind the Jarret and put a 300 grain solid behind the shoulder, the ram didn’t go 5 yards and was down we were getting sorted to go look at the ram when Charl the PH who told us about the old ram at this water hole pulled up and we told him we had just got one so he walked with us to view the ram the shot was just about 100 yards. As we walked up on the ram we could see he was old and when Matt picked up his head we could see his incredible worn down tips and the amazing secondary growth Charl said “yes that thing came off Noah’s arch” we also confirmed this was the old ram he had seen with a limp as his passenger side back leg had a swollen ankle and was deformed after some photos and video we headed to the skinning shed. We returned to camp to have lunch. It was some nicely toasted sandwiches, biltong and dry sausage.

It was getting very warm so we planned to head out at 2:30 it gave me some time to catch up on some computer work while relaxing. That after noon the plan was to look for a Nyala bull, we had seen many Nyala just in the evening and morning so high hopes for the after noon, we drove around looking and seen many Nyala and bumped into a couple groups of buffalo with an hour of daylight left we parked the truck and took a walk along a dry river course hoping to find a big bull, we seen a load of Nyala about 15 bulls just on our walk just none of them had the look I was wanting, I’ve hunted a few Nyala in the past so I wasn’t focused on length I’m more focused on a shape and age I’d like a bull with a big bell and a flaring tips.

Dinner was yet again an incredible 3 course meal.



Day 5 , August 12



4am wake up after getting ready I sat at the dinning table and had a nice cup of robois tea while we waited to leave.

The plan for day 5 is to drive about and hour to the south west and look for suni on aloe view

We arrived around 7am collected our local farm hand France who knows where the suni are and headed off within minutes we were seeing game two red duiker scurried off the road and into the bush than we turned a corner and had 3 red duiker in the road and as the marking went on we would continue to see more red and grey duiker along with Nyala we stopped in a spot (local guy) said he had seen a big suni and took a walk, no luck so we got back to the truck and countered to roll the tires. We drove around and had circled back to this area we walked and as we drove past two suni darted off the side of the road we kept driving a ways then got out and walked back Matt got a few glimpses of one if the suni but could never tell if it was a male or a female as it fed around in the very thick brush. We spent some time waiting and slowly. Walking into the brush to try and see the suni but no luck. We got back in the truck and conjured to drive around looking, we decided at noon we needed a break so went back to the lodge on this farm to eat the lunch we had packed with us of sandwiches a boiled egg and some small sausages.

Some weather moved in and it was windy and looked like it could rain. The afternoon didn’t produce any suni but we continued to see many red and grey duiker as well as Nyala we ended the day with a great meal again back at camp.



Day 6 August 13

4 am wake up some tea and in the road again back to suni country. As we near Aloe view we can tell they got a proper rain as the road is very wet with low hanging clouds. Maybe this weather will help us get a suni today as the ground will be much quieter and if it rained last night the animals will be moving food this morning trying to warm up and dry off.





11:40 we seen an absolute monster of a leopard that stood and let us get a proper look at him he was bus of Tom

The rest of the day we didn’t see much we did go to the a local place for lunch called Croc cove and enjoyed some great burgers I had a venison burger.



Day 7 August 14th

4am wake up and off the the sun I area around 5:30 we picked up France our tracker pop had to leave to go to a family funeral so France was solo in the back no suni movement at all this morning we drove and covered all the areas we had seen them in the previous days. We seen a crowned eagle that had a Nyala leg it was colored as if it was a young male.

We went back to crown cov for lunch we had pizzas this time I had pulled pork, pineapple chutney, and onion on mine, it was incredible.

We went back to camp and spent the rest of the day filming some much needed content we finished the zuluand portion of the trip off having some castle lights & black labels around the fire topped off with a Braai of different meets, pop on the side and veggies with pecan-nut pie for desert it was incredible.



Day 8 August 15

4am wake up, packed up had a bowl of fruit and yogurt and we hit the trail at 6 to make our 7 hour drive to Koksted

The drive to Koksted was scenic as we drove the cost line for a bit than turned and headed inland we stopped in Koksted had a spur chicken burger with chips than drove to the guest house we would be staying at. We quickly unpacked the truck and went for an afternoon drive.

We got out at about 3pm and hit the first farm this farm had lots of cattle on it and corn fields we see a few in the first pasture we drove but most of them we jumped up driving past than as the sun started to sink more we got to a new pasture and the reedbuck Mecca came alive we seen 50+ reedbuck from one small area some good rams one was really old and one had a broken horn and was missing an eye it was getting very late in the evening with not much time left and Matt wanted to go check a spit he had seen a big ram in years past just as it was getting dark we found him and boy he’s a monster ram we finished the night with seeing over 200 reedbuck all in all. We ate at the little restaurant and bar for dinner pepper steak and chips.



Day 8 August 16

5am wake up, I had two cups of tea a slice of toast with butter and honey and off we went it was a chilly morning with frost on the group. Not much was moving to start with crazy how the field went from full of reedbuck last night to nothing this morning we glassed up two Oribi one was a really nice ram above then a female reedbuck and a young ram were laying so we turned to head back to the road but stopped to check a spot on the way and I caught a reedbuck running out of some tall grass next to a pond as soon as I see the horns I knew it was the big ram from last night: we watched him walk over a ridge so we made a plan the plan worked great we moved him in a fence line and found him bedded and worked to within 135 yards. We waited for a hour and Matt said let’s step out and see if we can get a shot but as soon as the ram seen us he got up and ran and didn’t stop for 400 yards.



We made a new plan but now he was closer to the first two reedbuck and a new grew we spotted as we drove into position it required us to but between then and just hope they wouldn’t alarm and spook him. We wanted to use the pivot to help close the distance and get a shot but the pivot started to move while we were sitting about 150 yards from him so we had to leopard crawl back and to our left as we crawl we started to loose the small rise in front of us that was giving us cover and soon the ram could see us we just kept crawling slowly and slowly until we could get a shot I told Matt let’s shoot off his back so he moved into position and I slid over top of him to get the shot it was about 80 yards away Davi g us I had a fence post support wire blocking my shot so I had to fill the shot a little and she. I did it hit him hard he went down but got back up again and gave me a broad sided shot this time off the sticks than we had the reedbuck in the salt



We took a drive this afternoon looking for another big ram that had been seen we didn’t find him but we glassed over 250 reedbuck on the fields we could hunt it is incredible we also seen Blesbok and Oribi along with good amounts of waterfowl



Day 9 August 17th

We spent the morning looking for another reedbuck ram it was a chilly morning 0 celsius with frost and a thin layer of ice on the ponds. We again seen a ton of reedbuck and several really nice rams just nothing bigger than the first ram, we looked for reedbuck briefly this afternoon with seeing nothing we wanted to try for, the last 2 hours of our day was spent hunkered down at a dam wall attempting to shoot waterfowl, I say attempting as my shot gunning skills are below bar having only jump shot ducks and called geese in once. It was a great time and I shot a lot of shells but only manage to get one duck to fall on dry land one landed way out in the pond with no way of getting it. This one is a red bill teal such a cool bird.

 

[McKenzie Sims]

 

[McKenzie Sims]

We are getting up early tomorrow to start the drive to the airport to fly to Kimberly to begin a hunt in the Northern Cape. Will update along the way

 

[McKenzie Sims]

Okay back in the USA, due to some WIFI issues I was having problems getting post to publish on this site. I will start to finish off the report on my trip now.

 

[McKenzie Sims]

Day 11 August 18

4 am wake up and off to the airport at 5am it is a 4 hour drive from Kokstad to the airport in Durban. Barrie and I get checked in and are ready to fly to Johannesburg. Once in Jo berg Barrie has to re check form his other flight to airlink but I’m checked through we grab me a SIM card for a little service dongle that Barrie has so I can get service to use WIFI on the road it works good for most things but. Not for everything. We fly to Kimberly just before 5 pm landing at 5:45 in the afternoon we get our bags meet Johann Badenhorst owner of Almansdam Safaris, we get my gun cleared then start to make a 45 minute drive to camp before reaching camp we see a big aardwolf, they are cool animals. Its well after dark when we arrive to the beautiful Orange River camp and get settled in. Dinner is amazing and a warm shower is even better after a day traveling.

 

[McKenzie Sims]

Day 12 August 19 5:30 wake up 7 we head out. It is pretty chilly this morning and we all about freeze in our shorts on the back of the truck with the last bit of winter air. We are looking for springbok and bontebok. We see several Bontebok right off the bat but no big males. We are driving just above the orange river glassing down into the river bottom and out across some of the rolling hills we see 4 Sable bulls along the river along with a nice up and coming Kudu bull. Out in the flats we bump into a few springbok We drive through some more rolling hills and spot a group of Roan climbing up one of the hills there is several cows, a young bull, but they are followed by a big mature bull taking up the rear. Roan are an impressive looking antelope. We had been driving around for about 2 hours when we spot a loan bontebok ram that almost looks jet black in the distance we got off the truck Johann, Berrie and I use the terrain and brush to close the distance. There Is 5 female springbok that move in next to the Bontebok we knew would give us up at some point. We slowly move in on him till we cant get any closer, Johann sets the sticks up at 160 yards for me, the ram wasn’t giving us a good shot so we waited for him to move, he moves behind a bush and into an opening giving me a shot, I take the shot with my 308 shooting a 180 grain bullet. The ram didn’t go 10 yards and was down, the success story of the Bontebok is incredible to how there were only 17 Bontebok left in 1900 but with the support of the hunting industry the value of these animals brough the numbers back to over 2,700 as reported in 2020.

After some photos of him we quickly took him to the skinning shed after that we went out to look for a big wide springbok ram Johann had seen just days before our arrival. The ram was with a female and a smaller ram, we found a big heard of springbok, but it seemed like there were more rams than what he had seen the other day, we confirmed our ram was in there we made a stalk but had no luck the rams were chasing each other around and kept moving the heard further into the wide open. We made a quick push on them but bumped a smaller ram in the proses that took the entire group far out into the flats we watched the big ram and 3 other springbok split off from the heard we knew this was good sign for later today. We drove around and broke for lunch on the banks to the Orange River where Marhill cooked us Impala burgers with roosterkoek buns. Our apprentice PH managed to get the truck stuck while pulling up to the lunch location so they spent a few minutes getting the truck out while we hung out for a few minutes waiting for the afternoon heat to start to die off on the way out after lunch we stopped by the camp for more water, cool drinks, and to get the sunscreen it was much needed.

We were in search of the big springbok shortly after getting to the area we last seen them we bumped two springbok from the truck that we didn’t see till they were already running so we left them to settle down and glassed up 2 springbok but we weren’t sure if this was our ram as there was a ram almost identical to him in this same area with a wide flare but his horns seemed to be just a bit shorter. We got to 130 yards of the two rams one was for sure not a shooter but the one looked like it could be him, we studied the bigger of the two rams in front of us and looked back at photos of the big ram Johann had seen a few days earlier and concluded this was the smaller ram

We went back to where we left the ram and female and soon found the female up eating but the ram was bedded, we waited till the female bedded than made a stalk form 260 yards all the way into 50 yards and when he stood up I center punched him he did a semi-circle and was down, Finally I had my very first Kalahari ram and what a beauty he is.

After some photos and dropping him off at the skinning shed we finished the day with yet another great dinner, a few old drinks, and more stories.

Tomorrow we go look for buffalo.

Beautiful Dark Bontebok ram

My Kalahari Springbok ram just at sunset

Chicken Kebab, mixed veggies, and a tradtional Braai Broodjies to finish off the day.

 

[McKenzie Sims]

Will continue the buffalo story Friday!

After we finished up at the Orange River camp we loaded up our gear and headed to visit Johann’s Kalahari camp on the morning of August 23 day 15. We did some filming work first thing had a breakfast of bacon scrambled eggs and sausage plus toast got the truck loaded and we are just about to leave and it’s 9:30 we have a 4.5 hour drive ahead of us today. The drive was pretty un eventful after we got stopped at a police check station for just a few minutes while they check all our gun paperwork.

We arrived in the Kalahari just before 2pm and were welcomed with an incredible snack spread

 

[McKenzie Sims]

Day 13 August 20 will give you the buffalo story

5am wake up had some tea loaded the truck and we are on the way at 6:40, it’s buffalo day!

We arrived at the Buffalo property at 7:45 it’s just shy of 5,000 acres of rolling hills, at first look it doesn’t look like buffalo habitat I’m use to its very rocky and it looks like you should be able to see every buffalo from a distance. This is my very first buffalo hunt in South Africa I have some mixed feelings as it won’t be the same as hunting buffalo in the vast wide open spaces of Tanzania and Zambia that I’ve experience but as they say don’t knock it till you try it.



We left the truck at 8am from a water point on some tracks, we had been following a thick ravine for a little ways when we climbed a small koppie and glassed up a nice bull right in front of us the bull was hard but still had his tips so we said we need to keep looking not 10 minutes after that we bumped a bull that was about 43” with solid boss still just not what we really wanted we want something old with character plus who wants to shoot a bull in the first hour of the first day..

We walked for about an hour and were climbing a pretty steep hill when Johan said let’s go to that tree look and turn around if nothing not 20 yards later a bull stood up out of the only brush on this flat landing and looked at us for just a second spun and was going away he had a broken off tip and Johan said that is a lekker bull like we want, The bull did not give me a shot so we followed quickly behind him but the bull kept climbing and went over the hill. We kept going to the top and lost his track so after searching a bit we said let’s head down and look for him on our way out. To the truck aa it was getting hot and the bulls would be bedded up till later in the afternoon. We hadn’t made it 1/4 of the way down the hill when we jumped another bull at about 20 yards this bull was a younger bull, we kept moving down the hill and soon seen 4 more bulls down in the valley moving away from us the younger bull must have bumped them and might have been one of them but we wernt sure they were 300-350 yards away, the wind was bad and we couldn’t have been that sneaky as this hill has so many rocks and boulders on it making it tough to walk. We said ok let’s hug the hillside at the bottom and look for the broken horn bull we had to cross a very narrow but deep draw that the 4 bulls we seen moving away had to as well, Johann went down the steep bank and asked for my rifle I told him I was okay keeping my rifle and sliding down into the ditch as soon as my feet hit the bottom of the draw a buffalo erupted from a bush not 8 yards from the two of us it was the broken horn bull we didn’t have a shot and was pretty startled up from the close encounter. I had bullets go flying out of my pouch we had moved so quickly when he stood up. We had a pow wow and decided we needed to give him a rest go make some lunch and come back. We had some Boerewors rolls with kudu and wildebeest over a braai for lunch in some shade. Waiting to go out here in a few to see what’s moving its hot today!

It’s 2:23 and I’m getting restless, and I can tell everyone else is we have another yoke here named Jimmy to help us out. We went to a different area to look for some buffalo that were seen this morning to just kill some time. We found them it was a group of 8 they actually winded us as we pulled up to the waterhole they were at in the morning and they all took off. We tried to follow them on foot and never turned them up our appe/drive called and said some had ran over the ridge so we walked to the gravel mine on the property but the drive than called and said 4 were very close to the gravel quarry, we had a look at them all 4 were soft, we grab some water from the truck and heading off in the direction we left the broken horn bull at this morning. It was a bit of walk across a fairly open plateau that dropped off into our buffalo honey hole, we got into the thick draw that we had left him in and the 6 other bulls we knew were in there and slowly started moving, we cut fresh tracks and stared to follow them. Jimmy spotted some buffalo to our right we than slowly started moving in I got down to look under the brush and seen 2 bulls just as they spun to run off we moved in quicker and got a glimpse of a big hard boss bull a 44-45” bull. They then turn to run the group split up into two groups the wide bull and two younger bulls and then another nice old bull and a soft bull together we just seen part of buff here and there. We left them to go back to the tracks we were on we had went about 20 yards when we lost the tracks for a just a moment as we were casting about looking to re pick up the fresh tracks Jimmy spotted a bull bedded behind some brush, but as jimmy spotted the bull and got our attention the bull already has us pegged the broke horn bull stood up next to us about 20 with another bull but they never gave us a shot and thundered off we climbed the nearest koppie to get some elevation to see if we could see them but never did we walked out to the point we got drop off in the morning and had the truck pick us up. We see a big heard of buffalo that had some nice bulls but no broke horn bull on the way out of the property. Tomorrow is another day.

We had steak, potatoes, spinach sauce, and salad for dinner.

not the buffalo country I’m use to but boy did it hide buffalo.

 

[kingh2004]

Looks like you're going to have a great time!