The final hunting day continued....
View attachment 658350View attachment 658351View attachment 658352The afternoon of our final day we returned to the tracks we had backed off of that morning. We tracked into some thicker bush with little patches of jess throughout and the wind began to swirl again. We stopped, lighted a couple balls of elephant dung on fire to mask our scent, and waited for the wind to quit. After it quit we continued but had to repeat the same process multiple times. Finally we arrived at a spot where there was a small opening in the thick brush that would lead into a clearing of tall grass maybe 60yds in diameter. Timotio leaned over and told Jaco to look to the left once we enter the clearing. He felt the buffalo would be bedded down in that spot. I have no idea how or what made Timotio feel that way, but once we entered the clearing the buffalo were bedded down in some thick bush roughly 35yds away. We advanced maybe 10yds through tall grass and Jaco put up the sticks. You could barely see one of the bulls horns sticking out, but Jaco said the one to the right was very good. It felt like an eternity waiting for the bull to come to his feet. Jaco let out a cow bellow and the bulls stayed bedded. He repeated the bellow about 4 times, then finally the bulls stood. When they stood the bull on the right was in very thick, shaded bush. I could not make out his head or his orientation. Jaco told me he was quartering-to hard, almost full frontal. I then saw the outline of his body underneath his chest between his legs, and a little bit of his back. I still could not decipher his face/head clearly. I placed my sight between his legs, came up, and over to where the shoulder should be, then squeezed the trigger. At the shot the buffalo hunched up and took a couple steps backward into the light. I put my sights back on him and right as he turned placed another shot through the hips and he disappeared behind thick bush. Joe & Timotio started celebrating and said that the bull had gone down in about 20-30yds, but neither Jaco or I had seen that. The stuff we were in was thick and Jaco asked how I felt about my shots. I told him I wasn't 100% on my first shot, but I knew the second shot went through the hips. We followed him up into the thick area the trackers saw him go down in and when we found him his rear was facing us. He was on his belly but almost sitting up on his forelegs like a dog and trying to gain his feet. I placed a solid into his spine from the rear, then another further up between the shoulders. I reloaded, we came around his left side, and I shot him again through the shoulders. Finally he was done. I looked down and couldn't believe the animal I had just taken. His head and body were huge compared to any other I had seen. His neck was longer and scarred from lions. He had big drops, big bosses, broomed tips, and was polished up, my absolute dream of a dagga boy. The bull had to be cut in half to transport and later at camp the two halves and guts weighed almost 2200lbs total. This was an incredibly special evening and one I will never forget.
More photos and comments to come....
