I hate everything about traveling to Africa. I hate airports. I hate grumpy TSA agents. I hate taking my shoes off and being herded like cattle being led to slaughter. I hate 6 hour layovers. I hate being shoehorned into a tiny seat for 16 hours and being asked if I need a bottle of water and a semi edible snack every 10 minutes, while I'm TRYING to get a tiny amount of very light, unrestful sleep. I hate it all....every bit of it....period.
But I love hunting in Africa!
I mean....why else would I put up with that kind of abuse year after year??? I would be seen as some sort of mental case otherwise!
But I digress.
As many of you know, I have been planning a second trip to Zimbabwe since I was last there in 2022. This trip was to include a bull elephant, tuskless cow elephant and a cape buffalo. Well...I returned from that trip this past Monday with the following results.
The beginning of our trip had a rather rocky beginning just two weeks prior to departure. This is when I received the rather disappointing news that my outfitter had received one less bull elephant on their quota for 2023, in the area we were to be hunting. There was some ongoing legal issues ensuing for many months prior, that I won't go into. But suffice it to say that they were just as surprised as I was, that the quota had been reduced at the last minute. So, this put me back to hunting tuskless and buffalo only. Not what I had hoped for, but a very "first world" problem you might say. I mean...I was still going to hunt animals that many folks can never even dream of hunting. I still consider myself very fortunate to be able to do so myself.
So....off I went on another adventure!
While preparing for this hunt, I had decided to live up to my Toby458 name, and hunt with a Blaser R8 in 458 Win Mag. I had elected to use CEB Raptors and Solids for this trip. I am pushing the 420/450 grain Raptor/Solid combo at 2250 fps. The 23" barrel and short overall length of the R8 action, makes for a very handy, portable package. And as it turns out, a very deadly package.
Our first day of hunting started out like most days of hunting in Zimbabwe. Looking for fresh buffalo tracks, while bouncing around in " The Cruzer", over miles and miles of dusty, rocky roads. It's big fun! On this morning it didn't take us very long to hit pay dirt. And off we went.
The spoor led us through the typical up and down, thick and thin terrain of the Omay. We came across a few snares that were set by poachers in the process. So we stopped to let the parks officer remove these before proceeding. After approximately 2 miles of tracking, my PH and I decided to let the trackers continue in one direction, while we went in another to see if we could determine which spoor was the fresher of the two we had been following. What we originally thought was two buffalo, turned out to be a single animal which had traveled through the area more than once. So some deciphering was in order!
After a short while, we heard the distinctive whistle of Sadza, our main tracker. He and the others had actually ran into our buffalo without spooking him! He was laying down, having his mid day nap when they found him. The wind was in their face at the time, so they backed out quickly as to not disturb the ole fellow.
My PH and I quickly followed them to within 65 yards of the still sleeping bull, and the sticks went up. With the 458 nestled in place...now we waited.
It would turn out to be a very long wait. One hour and twenty minutes to be exact. The bull was laying at a very odd angle to us, and his vitals were covered by tall grass. I could clearly see his shoulder at times when the wind would blow the grass in a certain direction, but at other times, it was completely obscured. Through the binoculars we could see that this was a very nice bull, so we waited patiently for him to stand and offer a shot. And we waited...and we waited.
The bull eventually turned his head and began to stand, but then plopped right back down to our disappointment. This shift did however offer us a clearer view of his shoulder. That's when we felt the dreaded shifting of the wind. What once was a nice breeze in our face turned it's back on us. We were about to have to shit or get off the pot....
My PH and I had a short discussion, mostly with hand and facial gestures. It was now or never, as the bull seemed to become suspicious of the foul odor wafting in his direction. He was laying upright with his feet tucked under him, so his vitals were in much the same position as when they are standing. It was obviously not an ideal shot, but I could clearly see his shoulder now. I felt confident that I could get a 458 Raptor into his vitals. So...I held the crosshairs as low on his shoulder as the tall grass would allow and pressed the trigger.
I'd love to be able to tell you an exciting story of him rising to his feet and charging full tilt at us. Only to be stopped by a 45 caliber missile through his brain. But this was not to be. He simply wilted to the ground when the bullet struck home. I ran forward a few yards to get a better view of the now fallen bull, and fired another shot into the junction of his neck and chest. This put an end to any and all movement. We walked up and I put another bullet into his spine through the top of his back, after he had fell over on his side. This was a 450gr solid, which penetrated the entire chest cavity, and exited his brisket.
Another insurance shot just for good measure, and it was all over.
Upon autopsy, we discovered that the first shot had passed just under his spine, and was responsible for his immediate immobilization. It was amazing to see just how far the spine comes down behind the shoulder of a buffalo. I would've never guessed that the mid shoulder shot I took would've broken his spine. But that's exactly what happened. The Raptor bullets had done massive internal damage. Overall a great performance from the rifle and bullets.
The next 8 days would be spent hunting tuskless elephant, with a break here and there to unleash the 22 mag on impala, guineas and geese for camp staff meat. Our elephant hunting would prove somewhat uneventful. We stalked in on several groups of elephant each and every day, some days we covered 9 miles or more, but the three tuskless cows we were able to find, all had dependent calves. We did have a few exciting encounters with an angry cow elephant and a young bull elephant. But we came out unscathed.
And that's that.
Until next time.....
Did I mention I hate traveling to Africa?
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