The book:
There's Something about Buffalo
Pages
: 300
A Few Chapter Excerpts:
Chapter 1:
Early Years by Kevin Thomas
Within days of my arrival I was instructed to sign out a .425 Westley Richards from the station gun safe. I also signed for two boxes of Westley Richards Kynoch cartridges. Due to ammunition shortages for the calibre in question I only got to fire two shots at paper. An old cardboard box placed on the sand in the Lundi River bed. The rifle, nearly back in the white for most of its barrel length from regular usage, had an island front sight and a four-blade folding rear sight.
Caption: The indomitable Shangaan game scout Sgt Hlupo, who taught me the finer skills for hunting buffalo, and in the background tracker Gondo, one of the best trackers I’ve ever hunted with (Photo credit Kevin Thomas).
Chapter 3:
Random Thoughts on Buffalo Hunting Calibres by Kevin Thomas
Whilst I certainly don’t want this chapter to read as if it is a treatise on the .375 H&H alone, I’ve always found from my own experiences as a PH, and prior to that, as a government game ranger doing PAC work, that the .375 H&H magnum was adequate for buffalo. I must however, qualify this with the words,
if used in open country, and I cannot emphasise these words enough.
Caption: In this photo the 300gr Remington Premier 'A' Frame bullet recovered from a buffalo can be seen to have mushroomed perfectly. It was used by my client Bill Porteous, from the UK. He was using his 1951 pre-64 Winchester .375 H&H wearing a Leupold 1.75 - 6x32. Bill killed his buffalo on the fringe of a dense thicket, hitting the spinal cord immediately forward of the shoulder. The only shot other than a brain shot that is not directly related to wound channel size. Normally, the larger the wound channel the quicker the animal dies, because that's exactly what expanding bullets are designed for. With the brain shot, and the spinal cord shot just forward of the shoulder, death is instantaneous. However, if the spinal cord is missed problems can arise (Photo credit Kevin Thomas).
Chapter 6:
Shot Placement & Tracking Buffalo by Kevin Thomas
There are, however, a few things to remember about shot placement on buffalo. The safest and most commonly used shot on buffalo is the side-on heart/lung shot, followed by the neck/spinal shot although the latter shot can be misplaced more easily than the former.
Caption: Action on lost spoor, attach diagram
Chapter 7:
The Buffalo Hunt by Kevin Thomas
It is far preferable to anchor your buffalo where he goes down and not allow it to recover, and then pumped full of adrenalin depart the scene. If it has been well hit it certainly isn’t going to go very far, and it’s always a warm and fuzzy feeling to find your buffalo ‘dead’ rather than waiting for you to approach so it can attack you.
Caption: A buffalo cow lingers to see what all the fuss is about after the herd has been spooked (Photo credit Kevin Thomas).
Chapter 8:
Cape Buffalo: An American View by John Barsness
We waited another minute, then followed the blood trail, leading back across the donga to a small clearing where a buffalo bull stood broadside, something shiny covering his shoulder, and three buffalo butts were disappearing into the forest on the other side. I shot the bull three more times before …
Caption: The writer with his Botswana buffalo bull after a long tracking exercise that ended up in a dry streambed (Photo credit John Barsness).
Chapter 9:
An Ode to the Dagha Boy by Kevin Thomas
The dagha bull acknowledged the bullet by hunching his huge forequarters and then markedly accelerating across the sandy riverbed with his tail curled up over his rump, a good sign, before entering and then crashing down noisily inside a reedbed on the edge of the riverine bush.
Caption: Buffalo bulls love to wallow and can often be found in the vicinity of mud baths (Photo credit Manfred Lotze).
Chapter 10:
Watch Out for the Buddy! by PH Paul Zorn
… suddenly the game scout shouted from way over on the truck
‘Hokoyo yena buya!’ (‘Watch out, it’s coming!’). With a snort the bull accelerated down a small incline and came thundering towards us at a full-on gallop. Lifting my rifle, I shouted for Don and Dan to get out of the way. And then, full of adrenalin, I focused on the fast approaching buffalo, reminding myself I only had time for a maximum of two shots before he’d reach me.
Caption: Don West from Wisconsin with a 40” Omay buffalo in Zimbabwe, shot
circa 2004 using PH Paul Zorn’s .416 Rigby (Photo credit Paul Zorn).
Chapter 12:
Hunting a Wounded Buffalo by Kevin Thomas
A common error that could become an extremely costly one is if both the client and PH are too hasty when trying for an anchoring shot on a stationary wounded buffalo that is close, but not actually charging. If the buffalo isn’t killed instantly, both client and PH could end up having empty chambers at a critical point during a sudden extremely close, fast, inbound buffalo attack. As an example of what I’ve stated in the above paragraph, I’ll make mention of …
Caption: If at all possible try to account for a wounded buffalo before it gets into dense greened-up in leaf mopane thickets, trying to account for a wounded buffalo in that stuff can be a lot worse than hunting in the proverbial jesse thickets. There’s nothing wrong with the buffalo in this photo, I’m just trying to show how dense mopane thickets can be (Photo credit Katrina Leatham).
Chapter 14:
Some Buffalo Hunter’s Tales
PH Craig Robinson’s Close Call
… I thought of shooting for the brain when he was 10 yards away … but held back, 5 yards … but held back, and then because he hadn’t dropped his head, I let him have it straight in the face at about 2 yards, and then leapt to my right – the bull tried to hook me but missed, brushing me aside, and knocking me off my feet with his shoulder. As I was recovering …
Caption: PH Craig Robinson and his client Dave Merkel, with Dave’s buffalo after their close quarter joust, Craig was lucky to have come out of it unscathed (Photo credit Craig Robinson).
Chapter 16:
Buffalo Can Be Mean! by Kevin Thomas
After being viciously hooked in the stomach by the buffalo’s one horn Alistair was thrown upwards with tremendous force. Crashing back to earth, he clutched his exposed intestines and in immense pain and shock rolled into the riverbed. Meantime, the buffalo turned its rage on Bellingham the architect of its grief, and despite his imposing physical presence it killed him outright within moments before …
Caption: Botswana safari operator Mike Gunn after his buffalo ordeal (Photo credit Mike Gunn).
Chapter 17:
The Trackers – Unsung Heroes by Kevin Thomas
No book on hunting African dangerous game would be complete without a chapter dedicated to the all-important role of the trackers. Without them, the hunt wouldn’t succeed, it’s as simple as that.
Caption: On the big safari concessions across much of Africa now, the trackers are invariably in the forefront of the ongoing war against elephant and rhino poachers, and often pay with their lives. This sad epitaph bears testimony to one such man, Nguenha ‘Ngwenya’ Jose Mareau who was shot and killed in a confrontation with ivory poachers on Mokore Safari’s Mozambique Concession. When information had been received of the presence of an elephant poaching gang, he’d willingly joined the police follow-up and in the ensuing gun battle was tragically killed. All of us who venture out into the hunting fields of Africa, can only salute such men – without their courage and dedication there wouldn’t be much to hunt. (Mokore Safaris)
