We had a later than normal breakfast the next morning and headed out with the sunrise to have good light on our follow up. Michael was excited about the buffalo and as a PH himself, we asked him to grab his double and join us. We got to the area of the shot and found blood easily. 20 yards into the grass we found where he had stood and had lots of lung blood in a big swath, then 30 yards further in more of the same. Good sign. The tracking got a little harder from there as he was back in tall grass but the guys were good at finding the trail and getting us back on track anytime we got hung. We were all still thinking he would be right there close as he was just drifting down the little valley with lots of blood.
Then we found a place he bedded and the manure was still body temperature and the blood was dripping off the grass! Uh Oh, definitely not looking for a dead buffalo anymore. And what was worse was he had turned up the steep, rocky ridge out of the valley from here. Not good. Still up and mobile enough to go uphill. His sign was easy to follow out of the grass but we were moving very slowly, like picking our way through a minefield. He just kept going up. At each little level bench he would stop and bleed, even lay down some, but always he got up and went on. My nerves stayed good but my mind was racing. I did not want to lose this buffalo and I sure did not want to have anybody hurt following up a bull I had wounded. All the stuff I have read over the past 40 years kept running through my mind.
Just shy of the final crest in the ridge, Strang held up his hand to stop everyone. He had seen two ox peckers go down in a Jess thicket at the very top. 50 yards above us. He pointed and mouthed he will be there. He eased the trackers back and whispered to me and Michael, “if he runs, just get lead in him.” The three of us spread out a little and started forward. Strang and I both saw him stand up at about 30 yards in the middle of the thicket. I had to move to my right, towards Strang, to get a clear shot. As I did he saw me and faced up with his head high staring me down. Strang urgently said “now, right between the eyes, he is fixing to come!” I fired at the end of his nose and Strang’s shot was an echo of mine. When I recovered from my shot the bull was not in sight. I moved uphill toward Michael and immediately saw him down. I put the insurance shot between his shoulder blades with no reaction.
As we moved up to him it started to dawn on me, just what kind of buffalo I had taken. I looked at Strang as he checked his eye reflex and said “this is a big bull isn’t it?” He smiled hugely and said “bud this is a HUGE bull!” This bull had everything. Big bosses, huge spread, good drops and carries his mass all the way out to his curls. The right horn was already worn down a lot and the other was broomed and rounded too. Michael told me I could hunt buffalo from now on and not get a better one. The shakes hit pretty good before we took pictures but it couldn’t have been a better experience for my first buffalo. And what a bull!
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My shot from the night before looked in perfect position. We found Strang’s shot that followed mine had just hit him high on the back as he was already collapsing from my shot right at his chin with the solid. After we got him back to the skinners we went and watched them do a little post mortem. My 300gr .375 bullet had gone just forward of his heart and got both lungs. Yet he made it 18 hours, 1 1/2 miles uphill and was still ready to fight. Strang thinks we did bump him trying to get uphill of him the night before and his adrenaline is what carried him. He believes if we had just pulled out and left he would have died right there. He also expressed the view that a 416 or 404 would have ended it in 20 minutes the night before. I love the 375 H&H but I don’t usually hunt anything with the minimum caliber and probably won’t do it for buffalo again.
