BryceM
AH enthusiast
My father and I first went to Africa in 2010 to fulfill a lifelong dream for both of us. It was a relatively quick 6-day management hunt with some nice trophies added in. I returned several times over the next few years to hunt plains game as funds and time allowed, but the "big goal" was always to hunt buffalo. Books, magazine articles, and too many stories from people at hunting shows seeped into my brain. Although it's been more than 2 years now, it seems appropriate to share the experience.
My dream trip finally all came together in 2022, but it almost didn't happen due to COVID. Fortunately everything fell into place a month or two ahead of the hunt and I set off in June for this highly anticipated adventure. Maybe here I should add that I really desired to hunt buffalo in one of the wide-open wild spaces of Africa. I could have realized the dream more readily and with less expense on any number of game farms, but something about the Caprivi really seemed worth waiting and saving for. My good PH friends at Utispan Safaris in the Kalahari region of Namibia put me in touch with Dawid Muller and battle plans were drawn up.
A few years earlier, a CZ550 in .416 Rigby came to live with me. I did my best to feed it and take it out to the range once in a while but it constantly begged to be used on something bigger. I worked up a load with 400gr TSX bullets, and it did better than an inch at 100 yards from the leadsled. After that, I started doing 5 or 6 shot range sessions from the sticks. My target was a small paper plate and my goal was to hit it every time out to 100 yards. A few weeks of practice saw that goal accomplished to my great personal satisfaction.
I traveled from SLC to FRA to WDH to Katima Mulilo. Well, that was the original plan. For a short time, EuroWings Discover operated a nonstop flight to Frankfurt, and from there it's a direct Lufthansa flight to Windhoek. They don't fly the SLC-FRA route any more and I think I understand why..... When I left, the EuroWings flight had only been operational for 2 weeks, and it was the airlines only flight out of SLC. I checked the rifle all the way to Windhoek without any difficulty and made my way to the gate. A delay of an hour was announced. Then another hour. Then another 2 hours. Eventually the managers showed up and told us that they were having weight/balance/fuel/temperature issues, and to come back in the morning. They apparently loaded too much cargo and couldn't safely take off at that elevation at the 90 temps at the time. They offloaded all the luggage. I had to wait several hours to reclaim my rifle since it was now after normal airport hours and the ground crew had to go looking for it. After a couple hours of sleep I showed back up, re-checked the rifle, this time with enormous confusion, and was told that they could only check it through to Frankfurt. Thankfully, the nice folks at Gracy Travel had secured me a German import permit "just in case."
Well, once on the plane it was announced they had solved the problem by off-loading fuel, and that we'd be stopping in Halifax to take on more fuel. My frustration level at that point was starting to bubble up, but what can you do? I had been in contact with Dawid and he said something like "The buffalo herds are here right now, get here as soon as you can!" I eventually hit Frankfurt in time to find out my flight to Windhoek would be about 14 hours away. I had to claim my rifle, clear German customs with my permit (thank goodness), walk around to the check-in area, and give it right back to them. The poor lady at the counter there was already frazzled before I showed up..... and then policemen, machine guns, police dogs, and a wait of an hour or so. It was now a solid 3 hours since I deplaned. Eventually it was all sorted out and I found a hotel for a few hours of sleep. From there, it was pretty smooth sailing. Well, almost.
The flight from Windhoek to Katima only goes three times a week, and I was a day or two away from the next one. Fortunately my PH friends from Uitpsan, Michael and Tienie Duvenhage were going to make the drive up to share in the experience. They re-arranged their schedule and I hopped in with them for the quick 12-hour ride to the Caprivi. We arrived, well after dark, tired, but excited.
The first order of business was to do a bit of target shooting and we were off. The first day we saw one solitary dugga boy, but he was across the boundary inside the Nkasa Rupara park national park. The second day we moved around quite a bit and we saw plenty of elephants, reedbuck, giraffe, zebra, and a few waterbuck. Millions of impala. It is different inside a conservancy. Apart from the impala, the game was clearly not as dense as in most high-fence areas, but it was all truly wild. Elephants are HUGE! No buffalo that day. The PH explained that in a 10 day hunt it was almost certain we'd have one or two herds move through during the week, but not to be surprised if we went a few days without seeing any. We checked the north side of the conservancy near Mudumu park. This side is pretty dense mopane forest and we didn't see any fresh tracks at the waterholes.
The next day we made a short tour of the more southern parts of the area. We quickly spotted a huge herd of buffalo, easily over 100 animals. We backed out with the vehicle and set out on foot. They were only a few hundred yards on our side of the park boundary and we had to move around to get the wind in our favor. We moved carefully, getting within 30 or 40 yards of them on several different occasions. As they fed along we had a pretty good look at maybe 30 of them. There were a few young bulls, but nothing that excited us too much. Fortunately the wind was steady and we used that to move in and out to get a look. After a while, we decided to make a swing around the herd to get a look at the other side. After a few forays through the light forest, we finally got up to within about 40 yards of a dozen we hadn't seen before. One bull seemed to spot us and stopped, focusing on us. He looked pretty darn nice to me...... and after a bit of looking, Dawid assessed him to be a solid old bull with hard bosses. Up went the sticks, and after a final all-clear, I let one fly. Whack! What a glorious sound. He humped up, tucking a front leg, and exited stage left through the forest in a veritable sea of buffalo. There was no opportunity for a follow-up shot. We made our way out of the little patch of trees and could clearly see the entire herd about 100-150 yards away. If he was in the middle of that mess, there would be no way of knowing. The herd moved off pretty quickly and we were left with silence, and chest-high grass.
A LOT of things went through my mind at this point, but taking cues from the PH, who was cool as a cucumber, I figured it would all sort out favorably. The trackers located the bull about 50 yards from where we started. We moved up cautiously, but it was clear that he was done for. We never heard a bellow. A one-shot buffalo! At this point, the usual handshakes and photos were completed. I have one significant regret though. All of the photos were done with the buffalo chin-down. It shows the bosses nicely, but not the drops. Oh well.
The skinners located the bullet. It had broken the near shoulder and penetrated the entire chest cavity, coming to rest under the skin on the far side. It had shed 3 of 4 petals, but clearly did its intended job.
We did get the shot on video, and only yesterday I realized that I had a version that was much better than the low-resolution version I've posted here once before. It's the best images I have of the shape of the horns.
When such tremendous success happens on day 3 of a 10 day hunt, other nonsense finds a way of happening, but that's a story for another day. My Kalahari friends had to leave the day after the buffalo was in the salt and I spent the rest of the week enjoying, really enjoying this beautiful part of the world. The local villages hadn't had much game meat, hunting having been on-hold during the lockdown. The trip home was straightforward, Dawid's lovely wife picking me up from the Eros airport and dropping me at WDH for the trip home. The return trip was a breeze, and fortunately this time they were able to clear the rifle through Frankfurt. Photos and the video to follow.
My dream trip finally all came together in 2022, but it almost didn't happen due to COVID. Fortunately everything fell into place a month or two ahead of the hunt and I set off in June for this highly anticipated adventure. Maybe here I should add that I really desired to hunt buffalo in one of the wide-open wild spaces of Africa. I could have realized the dream more readily and with less expense on any number of game farms, but something about the Caprivi really seemed worth waiting and saving for. My good PH friends at Utispan Safaris in the Kalahari region of Namibia put me in touch with Dawid Muller and battle plans were drawn up.
A few years earlier, a CZ550 in .416 Rigby came to live with me. I did my best to feed it and take it out to the range once in a while but it constantly begged to be used on something bigger. I worked up a load with 400gr TSX bullets, and it did better than an inch at 100 yards from the leadsled. After that, I started doing 5 or 6 shot range sessions from the sticks. My target was a small paper plate and my goal was to hit it every time out to 100 yards. A few weeks of practice saw that goal accomplished to my great personal satisfaction.
I traveled from SLC to FRA to WDH to Katima Mulilo. Well, that was the original plan. For a short time, EuroWings Discover operated a nonstop flight to Frankfurt, and from there it's a direct Lufthansa flight to Windhoek. They don't fly the SLC-FRA route any more and I think I understand why..... When I left, the EuroWings flight had only been operational for 2 weeks, and it was the airlines only flight out of SLC. I checked the rifle all the way to Windhoek without any difficulty and made my way to the gate. A delay of an hour was announced. Then another hour. Then another 2 hours. Eventually the managers showed up and told us that they were having weight/balance/fuel/temperature issues, and to come back in the morning. They apparently loaded too much cargo and couldn't safely take off at that elevation at the 90 temps at the time. They offloaded all the luggage. I had to wait several hours to reclaim my rifle since it was now after normal airport hours and the ground crew had to go looking for it. After a couple hours of sleep I showed back up, re-checked the rifle, this time with enormous confusion, and was told that they could only check it through to Frankfurt. Thankfully, the nice folks at Gracy Travel had secured me a German import permit "just in case."
Well, once on the plane it was announced they had solved the problem by off-loading fuel, and that we'd be stopping in Halifax to take on more fuel. My frustration level at that point was starting to bubble up, but what can you do? I had been in contact with Dawid and he said something like "The buffalo herds are here right now, get here as soon as you can!" I eventually hit Frankfurt in time to find out my flight to Windhoek would be about 14 hours away. I had to claim my rifle, clear German customs with my permit (thank goodness), walk around to the check-in area, and give it right back to them. The poor lady at the counter there was already frazzled before I showed up..... and then policemen, machine guns, police dogs, and a wait of an hour or so. It was now a solid 3 hours since I deplaned. Eventually it was all sorted out and I found a hotel for a few hours of sleep. From there, it was pretty smooth sailing. Well, almost.
The flight from Windhoek to Katima only goes three times a week, and I was a day or two away from the next one. Fortunately my PH friends from Uitpsan, Michael and Tienie Duvenhage were going to make the drive up to share in the experience. They re-arranged their schedule and I hopped in with them for the quick 12-hour ride to the Caprivi. We arrived, well after dark, tired, but excited.
The first order of business was to do a bit of target shooting and we were off. The first day we saw one solitary dugga boy, but he was across the boundary inside the Nkasa Rupara park national park. The second day we moved around quite a bit and we saw plenty of elephants, reedbuck, giraffe, zebra, and a few waterbuck. Millions of impala. It is different inside a conservancy. Apart from the impala, the game was clearly not as dense as in most high-fence areas, but it was all truly wild. Elephants are HUGE! No buffalo that day. The PH explained that in a 10 day hunt it was almost certain we'd have one or two herds move through during the week, but not to be surprised if we went a few days without seeing any. We checked the north side of the conservancy near Mudumu park. This side is pretty dense mopane forest and we didn't see any fresh tracks at the waterholes.
The next day we made a short tour of the more southern parts of the area. We quickly spotted a huge herd of buffalo, easily over 100 animals. We backed out with the vehicle and set out on foot. They were only a few hundred yards on our side of the park boundary and we had to move around to get the wind in our favor. We moved carefully, getting within 30 or 40 yards of them on several different occasions. As they fed along we had a pretty good look at maybe 30 of them. There were a few young bulls, but nothing that excited us too much. Fortunately the wind was steady and we used that to move in and out to get a look. After a while, we decided to make a swing around the herd to get a look at the other side. After a few forays through the light forest, we finally got up to within about 40 yards of a dozen we hadn't seen before. One bull seemed to spot us and stopped, focusing on us. He looked pretty darn nice to me...... and after a bit of looking, Dawid assessed him to be a solid old bull with hard bosses. Up went the sticks, and after a final all-clear, I let one fly. Whack! What a glorious sound. He humped up, tucking a front leg, and exited stage left through the forest in a veritable sea of buffalo. There was no opportunity for a follow-up shot. We made our way out of the little patch of trees and could clearly see the entire herd about 100-150 yards away. If he was in the middle of that mess, there would be no way of knowing. The herd moved off pretty quickly and we were left with silence, and chest-high grass.
A LOT of things went through my mind at this point, but taking cues from the PH, who was cool as a cucumber, I figured it would all sort out favorably. The trackers located the bull about 50 yards from where we started. We moved up cautiously, but it was clear that he was done for. We never heard a bellow. A one-shot buffalo! At this point, the usual handshakes and photos were completed. I have one significant regret though. All of the photos were done with the buffalo chin-down. It shows the bosses nicely, but not the drops. Oh well.
The skinners located the bullet. It had broken the near shoulder and penetrated the entire chest cavity, coming to rest under the skin on the far side. It had shed 3 of 4 petals, but clearly did its intended job.
We did get the shot on video, and only yesterday I realized that I had a version that was much better than the low-resolution version I've posted here once before. It's the best images I have of the shape of the horns.
When such tremendous success happens on day 3 of a 10 day hunt, other nonsense finds a way of happening, but that's a story for another day. My Kalahari friends had to leave the day after the buffalo was in the salt and I spent the rest of the week enjoying, really enjoying this beautiful part of the world. The local villages hadn't had much game meat, hunting having been on-hold during the lockdown. The trip home was straightforward, Dawid's lovely wife picking me up from the Eros airport and dropping me at WDH for the trip home. The return trip was a breeze, and fortunately this time they were able to clear the rifle through Frankfurt. Photos and the video to follow.
