TANZANIA: Selous Hunt With Alan Vincent From Vincent Safaris

[sshunt]

Magnificent write up!!!! Congratulations!!!!

 

[cpr0312]

Congrats on the croc!!

 

[Skshyk]

Congratulations on the Cat! Dream hunt there sir.

 

[WyoBull]

Congratulations! Great story and photos.

 

[DLSJR]

13’2”. In a few years I believe they’ll take some crocs much bigger than this.

 

[DLSJR]

On our way back to camp with the croc we were treated to an encounter not that many hunters get to enjoy - African Wild Dogs!

We were fortunate to see Wild Dogs twice. On the second day we pulled up to a shady spot on the Madaba River and ran into a pack of 9 wild dogs. They were fairly spooky and wouldn’t let us get close. This pack of 11 dogs was actually curious and calm and we watched them for about 5 minutes at 20-30 yards. It had been many years since I’ve seen wild dogs.

 

[DLSJR]

Now that we had the croc in the salt we had 4 days left and really no pressure. I still had a buffalo on license since Danny only shot one and the animal I really still wanted - a big Livingstone Eland. I was fortunate to take a 41+” eland in Zambia five years ago and know the Selous is one of the few places with a decent chance to take another of comparable size.

We started looking at new country and since this is the first year of a 10-year lease on Madaba, it was very literally new country to Alan. There was much more surface water in the Madaba upstream of camp and tons of wildlife. The sandbars showed tracks of just about everything the area holds. Lots of elephant, hippo and buffalo tracks. Eland, sable, kudu, waterbuck, hartebeest, wildebeest, reedbuck, bushbuck, duikers, impala and pigs. Lion tracks were at a couple places.

But what jumped out was how common it was to see leopard tracks at nearly every waterhole. Big tracks, smaller tracks and numerous leopard cub tracks. Madaba seems to have an unusually high leopard population based on five of our seven baits being actively fed on, several had multiple cats. Twice, we saw cats jump out of a bait tree while checking baits during the day. One female let five of us watch her from 30 yards away for about a minute before she jumped down and disappeared. I’ve hunted leopards four times (shot 3 leopards) and spent time on other hunts in prime leopard country like the Kafue and have never seen nearly as much leopard sign as Madaba.

cub tracks

We enjoyed a great day despite not finding anything worth pursuing.

 

[ILDRHNTR]

Congratulations on such a fine hunt. Thank you greatly for taking us along with such a great story.

 

[DLSJR]

The next day we headed to some country we’d only been to one, early in the hunt. We found a small group of Dugga Boys, then a lone bull, but if I was going to take the final buffalo I had on quota, it had to be something special. We were enjoying just seeing game while looking for buffalo when we ran into this fellow, a large Puff Adder about 3’ long.

It’s unfortunate I can’t upload video as I have several minutes of great video of this snake. It was inflating itself up and then loudly ‘puffing’ (hissing actually) by rapidly compressing itself. I got great video of that as well as it striking at Alan several times. We spent about five minutes with this snake, always staying out of strike range, before leaving it to crawl off while we went on our way to look for buffalo.

 

[DLSJR]

Things that go POP…

Earlier in the hunt, I think on our fifth day, I was riding as an observer on Jim’s truck. We were driving through the forest when we heard a loud ‘pop’ sound. We stopped the truck immediately, thinking we’d run over something that had punctured a tire. We all jumped down to check the tires, but they were all fully inflated.

We then looked down the two track and saw what had popped. A Puff Adder!

PH Peter Waddelow and puffer.

As best as we could figure out the snake was laying extended straight in the tire track with its head toward the truck. As we approached it inflated to puff at us, but before it could exhale the left front tire ran over the snake from head to tail. Since there was no way for the air to escape, it compressed until the snake literally popped. Not something most of us will ever see on safari!

 

[DLSJR]

I want to take time to give an insight into the meals we enjoyed. I know that some luxury operations, particularly in places like South Africa, can be pretty luxurious with excellent meals. But those places are not wilderness areas like the Selous Game Reserve where everything has to be flown in at the start of each hunt. That said, we enjoyed really good meals that focused on fresh fruits and vegetables along with whatever we shot. Fresh baked bread or rolls every single day!

Wildebeest, it’s what’s for dinner!


We had chicken a couple times, as well as Ahi loins (frozen) that Alan had flown in. It was nice to have a variety and never know what might be for dinner. Every dinner started with soup, then the main course, then dessert.

Healthy and very tasty!

Heaven & Rama make a great cooking team.

 

[WMU05]

What a great report on a fantastic hunt. Congratulations and thanks for sharing!

 

[DLSJR]

OK, probably my last few posts on this hunt. With three days left we went in search of a big buffalo. Alan knew I was fine not shooting one unless we found something excellent. We saw Dugga Boys six times that day, from lone bulls to 3 in a group. One thing Alan is pretty firm about is only hunting old bulls, Dugga Boys, not hunting the herds. That meshes well with how I like to hunt. No tape measures, just find old bulls that we like. It was getting late in the day and we were near the edge of the concession, going through an area with thick grass that was above our heads when walking.

As we were driving along perhaps 10 minutes before sunset, we suddenly saw 2 bulls that were just over the crest of a hill. Between the hill and grass it was fairly tough to judge them as we could only see the upper 1/3 of the bulls, but one walked into a small opening and we quickly grabbed rifles and bailed off the truck.

The lead bull was at least 42” wide but also with great bosses, deep curls and lots of length. He was just what I was hoping we’d find. As soon as we hit the ground we couldn’t see anything due to the tall grass. The trackers were still on the truck, and they were giving us signals as to where the buffalo were headed. We realized they were going to cross the road, so quickly hustled to about where we thought they’d come across the road.

The lead bull, the one we wanted, eventually appeared about 50 yards in front of us, just partially in the road. For me, it was fairly difficult to see him well as I’ve got early stage cataracts so my vision is a bit fuzzy. Making things worse, the sun was low in the sky behind the buffalo and to its left a bit, so the bull was totally backlit. The bull was broadside and just as I got ready to shoot it turned toward us. Thinking the bull was almost facing me but slightly quartering, I placed the crosshairs a bit to the left of center on the front of the chest and sent a 400 grain Bearclaw on its way. At the shot, the bulls head dropped and he looked hard hit but as buffalo so often do, he quickly recovered and disappeared into the long grass before I could take a follow-up shot. I told Alan the shot felt good and he agreed it looked hard hit.

We quickly took up the blood trail as the sun was setting in a few minutes and we wanted to find the bull before it got too dark to safely follow in the long grass. The blood didn’t look like lung or heart but rather arterial blood, not a good sign. Visibility was mostly 10-20 yards and the blood was rapidly diminishing. We followed the bull slowly and only made it 300-400 yards before the light was too dim to continue. We marked the location and headed back to the truck hoping that we’d find a dead bull the next morning, not too far from where we stopped.

On the way back to camp we were discussing the shot and that’s when we realized what we’d be facing the next morning. Alan said the bull was still mostly quartering but had twisted a bit toward me. He said I should have shot right on the point of the shoulder. I shot for what I thought was the front of the chest. We figured out that my bullet was too far forward for the angle and probably exited out the left shoulder without getting inside the chest cavity. Between not having as good vision as I used to enjoy and a backlit buffalo, I had blown what should have been a fairly easy shot. No excuses, I simply blew it.

Back at camp we quickly ate dinner and turned in early. We knew tomorrow was going to be ‘interesting’, no matter how it turned out.

 

[Fatback]

Talk about a “cliff hanger”. The rest of this story will be awesome I’m sure. Looking forward to hearing how this turns out.

 

[PARA45]

Noooooooo!!!!!!!! Don't leave us hanging like this. Anxiously waiting for the rest.

 

[USN]

Dang it…. Anxiously awaiting the finish

 

[ChasingHemingway]

Eagerly waiting to hear the ending!

 

[DLSJR]

The next morning we were up early, had a quick bite to eat and cup of coffe, then we were off while it was still fairly dark. Alan had communicated with the neighboring concession holder and gotten permission to follow the buffalo onto his concession if it had traveled that far. We hoped that wouldn’t be necessary but we’re prepared to do whatever we had to in order to recover this bull.

On our way to where we left the track the evening before, we ran into several Dugga Boys, but we paid them no attention as we had to go dig our bull out of the long grass. When we were just a couple miles from our jumping off point the trackers got the truck stopped as they saw a big eland bull. It was alone, traveling through thick bush. We bailed off the truck after it, forgetting for the moment what we were supposed to be doing. After just a few hundred yards there was a fleeting shot opportunity but I wasn’t comfortable due to all the brush. We suddenly looked at each other and wondered what the hell we were doing since we really needed to be focused on recovering the buffalo and not getting distracted by eland, no matter how big the bull was. Back to the truck and off to find our buffalo.

We got to where we’d shot the buffalo, loaded up and took off into the thick, long grass. We quickly found where we’d stopped the prior evening and started following what little sign we could find. I was carrying my .416 Hoffman, now loaded with 400 grain TSX’s. Alan was carrying his .450 Ackley with 500 grain TSX’s, it’s a great stopping cartridge which was comforting as we expected that we’d find the buffalo at close quarters if he hadn’t expired.

We continued slowly with Nyoni and Robert leading the way, following whatever sign they could find. Alan and I were following closely behind with our rifles off our shoulders, in our hands and ready to shoot quickly. I had my scope turned down to 1x but was wishing I had the scope off and using the open sights because of how thick the cover was.

We found several places where the bull had bedded down during the night, but he’d get up and travel a while then lay down again. I think we found 5 bedding spots as we continued along. Each time we’d come to a thick island of trees and brush we’d slow down even more as we figured it was a great spot to lay in ambush and wait till we were too close before coming for us. Visibility was often 10-20 yards, but there were areas where we could relax a bit since we could see as far as 50-75 yards. Tracking was difficult and slow as there was no longer blood to follow, other than every couple hundred yards we’d find a drop or two that confirmed we were still on the right track…

 

[Mort Hill]

What a grand trip you are taking us all on with your safari. I can close my eyes and picture your every circumstance, and feel your every emotion. My only regret is I have to open my eyes to not be sitting in Africa, but Tennessee. Thanks for the journey, and I don’t envy that buffalo tracking. Been there done that, and it is physically and mentally exhausting.

 

[DLSJR]

We’d been on the track a few hours and the bull had crossed the Madaba river bed, which meant it was now on the neighboring concession. The Madaba is dry at this time of year and we noticed something we hadn’t seen in the long grass. The bull was dragging a front leg some of the time, which gave us hope that it might lay up soon in a thick patch, waiting for us.

The terrain here was more open as it had burned so we had much better visibility. We were going uphill, approaching a very thick patch of brush. Alan motioned for me to move off to the side and hang back while he, Robert & Nyoni crept forward. The trackers started pitching rocks and sticks into the thicket in hopes of getting the bull to reveal itself while we had some separation and time to get several shots into him.

After doing this for a bit, we circled the thicket only to find his tracks leading still further away. Alan commented to me that he was quite sure that’s where the bull would be waiting as it was uphill from us and would have an easy path down onto us, but it wasn’t to be. Off we went again on the tracks, now moving at a better pace since we were out of the grass and in more open Miombo.

We’d been on the tracks now for over 5 hours and between the tension of always being ready to suddenly have to shoot in a high stress situation and the hot sun (it was a cloudless sky and over 90 degrees now); it was time for a break. We sat in what little shade we could find and everyone sucked down a bottle of water. After a bit we were ready to go again and continued onward.

The bull had watered at a small hole where he hooked up with a small group of bulls and they continued away from the water. It was pretty obvious that our situation had now gotten a lot more complicated. Instead of following a single wounded bull, we were now following five or six bulls and only one was our bull. We continued onward.

Finally, six and a half hours into tracking the bull, I was getting pretty tired and I needed a break. It was now 2:30, hot and getting hotter. After sitting in the shade for a while and knocking back another bottle of water, Alan came over and we discussed our dilemma. The concern was that the bull was traveling steadily despite being wounded and the group was now in thicker Miombo. We worried that we’d likely only see pieces of a buffalo if we caught up to them at all; and if we did catch up it’d be hard to be sure we were shooting the right buffalo. About the only way we’d be sure was if it came for us. Shooting an unwounded bull, especially on the neighbors concession, would be a huge problem. With all that in mind, Alan still left the decision up to me. He said if I wanted to continue on we’d go until we found the bull or it got dark.

I pondered everything for a bit, weighing everything including my desire to bring this great bull to bag. Finally, I told Alan that, as much as I wanted to continue onward, I believed the smart and right decision was to accept the fact that the bull was lost. We might find and recover it, but the chance of ending up with an even bigger problem simply wasn’t smart at this point. Reluctantly, we all headed back to the truck. I was very disappointed in myself for making a poor shot, but also for putting Nyoni & Robert in harm’s way due to my failure. They’d busted their butts and deserved a better result than I’d given us.

We headed back to camp, had dinner and not a lot of conversation. Alan did comment that he was sure we were going to find the bull in the long grass when it stood up at 10 yards and came for us. I replied that I pretty much expected the same thing all day. After we finished dinner we turned in Early. We were both very tired. Tomorrow was a new day and our last one. I still had an eland bull to look for.