I hunted with Charlton McCallum Safaris for a 7 day buff,impala,zebra,and hyena hunt.I chose to hunt with the above because of a gut feeling everything would be OK.I was right.This was my first trip to Africa.The flight with United and then SAA to Zim from Montreal was better than I expected.The big airbus from Washington was new and comforatable with those Recaro seats.I saw the movie fools gold on board and enjoyed that.My rifle arrived in Zim and Buzz was waiting at the airport.We drove to Bob Swifts bed and breackfast were I spent the night.




Bob and Buzz


The food was REALLY good at Bobs.In the morning Kirsty showed me around Harare.








Stopped for coffee


and some shopping




I then had lunch with Buzz.



I arrived in Chirisa.


We stopped by another camp and saw and heard Lou Hallomore demanding a beer.
Lou visited our camp one night and told us some stories. One of the magazines at camp had a story of his inside and I enjoyed reading it.


Home for the next few days.


Day one.


Justin and Alan(my PH).


The hunt in detals.....We followed buff tracks for three days in thick cover and could not get near a bull.At times we followed a herd,other times a couple of animals.The third day we were following two bull tracks in thick cover for hours.As previous,we needed to stay really quiet,and not get tired.At this point,especially after learning of others experience at camp,and hunting without a scope,I thought there was a good chance I would return home without my buff.Nyati,the lead tracker had brought us to two nice bulls.Alan glassed them and the horn of one was visible at 100yds through the thick growth.I could not see much,except for a small dark spot or blurr far ahead.I borrowed Alans binocs and saw the horn and a bit of the body behind it.Alan got the sticks up and I was hesitating.I knew it was a tough shot and I stood a good chance of wounding the buff and not finding him,as was the case with more than one of the hunts in recent days.It seemed that everyone was wounding the buff,because the hunting was difficult.I decided to attempt the shot.There was one 500gr A frame in the chamber.I told Alan I will take the shot.The sticks came up again and before I could rest the rifle on them my shot was off.The dark figure ahead seemed to react very briefly to the shot.I will never forget the excited and surprised look on Alans face as he turned to the trackers and told them it was a hit.I assume everyone believed it was probably hit,especially since the first morning,after hearing that I prfer to shoot with open sights and offhand,Alan stopped the truck and asked Chrighton,his tracker to put a target on a tree about 100 yds in view.The carton had a 2 inch square tape in the center.I got off the truck and fired my Lott offhand at the target.Crighton went to check the target.His face lit up when he looked at it and looked back at everyone while pointing the the hole in the center of the 2 inch square.That brought a silence amongst us and we were immediately on our way.We waited a few minutes before advancing to were The buff last stood.Alan asked me to reload and from the excitement, I mistakingly put an A-frame on top of the Woodleigh solid.The shot had hit the buff on the joint on its shoulder and broken it.He went only 25 yds before I caught up with him and put another A-frame in his brame after it passed through a 7 inch tree.The bullet was later recovered from the brain.The buffalo collapsed.As I yelled "he is down" the second buff put his head down and with a fierce look on its face started to run away from the downed buff in a direction which at first seemed he was headed for us.This sent some trackers diving for cover.Here is the entrance hole on the head shot.




22 inch impala.A hundred and fifty yd kneeling shot.



Here is Justin the video guy.It was a pleasure to have Justin along with us.


Nyati,


Fishing with PH Ross J and,HKK camp manager Jacques who along with his wife Beverly ran a camp to be proud of.Russ was fun to be around and is quite a very entertaning guy.


The REAL trophy was hunting with this group.







We saw and videoed a herd of 200-300 elephant.Alan said that I would probably never witness such a thing again in my life.Although wdid not see a Zebra and only small hyenas came to our ele bait,we did see many elephant and I really close to scoring on a 54 inch Kudu on three occasions.


Cobra



Finally,thanks to everyone on AR for making this hunt possible.I think I screwed up somewhere in posting this.I'll try and correct it soon.Have fun.


THE END.

Shootaway,

Congratulations on a fun hunt. Thanks for sharing some pics of Harare. No mayhem noted.
Love that Cobra!

Thanks,

Hugh

Very nice pictures indeed and thanks for sharing. One suggestion, if you could get them cropped they will view better. Oh and I have to ask; did the buffalo fall at the "crack" of the shot? jorge

Shooter--- ya done good!

Be nice Jorgy

G

shootaway, congratulations on a successful hunt.
Please tell us about that big cobra.

Congratulations. Glad to see you did not try that Shootaway high lung shot though.

Thanks for the report.

Nice report, congratulations on a good hunt. I could do without seeing the snake though -- they give me the creeps.

Shootaway,

CONGRATULATIONS!!! Was the picture of the Sengwa river taken from the abandoned ranger station?

Love the cobra picture. We got some video of a big cobra while there in 2000. They are an intimidating snake.


Great report and photos. Glad you had a successful hunt.

Shootaway,

Congrats and glad you enjoyed Chirisa. What a great place. That place must have a higher than normal population of nasty snakes. We came across a boom slang and a black mamba last November, Kathi mentioned seeing cobras during her safari and now your pictures. Yikes. Congrats again. Justin was my cameraman as well. He was a really likable chap and you will be very impressed once you get your film (I suggest getting the edited version as well as all of the raw footage).

Shootaway,

Did you see any lions while there?

What's the story on the cobra?????

TJB

Nice animals, congrats, and well placed shots.. Unfortunately after one bullet in the target, two in the buff and one in the impala I am sure your bore is completely shot out.

I gotta say, congratulations! Lots of good photos, I'm enjoying them.

Nice Pics, what other animals did you see in Chirisa?

Congrats Shootaway!

Nice buff. I hope to get mine next month.

Good shooting and now you are hooked on Africa...

Mike

Congrats on your buff.

JPK

Glad you had a great hunt, and thank you for sharing it with us.

May I sugest you size some of your photos please?

They are too large to display on some members screens.

I normally size my photos to have 780 pixels on the largest dimension.

Congratulations on a great hunt! Great report and pics. I love that cobra pic. Everytime I encounter one of those I usually can't get my camera ready - too busy looking for a stick and then they run (slither) away. It's the mambas that really get me edgy.

Nice buff and impala. I can't wait until I get back there next year.

Namibiahunter

Congratulations on a great hunt and a good report. Nice buffalo.

TerryR

I'm really glad you finally did it. Good shooting and a good buff. All that load development paid off.

The egyptian cobra was seen crossing the road right in front of our vehicule.It was escaping from a forest fire that was still burning.The snake was 9 feet long and looked much bigger than it appears in the pic.As soon as I saw it,Justin and Alan decided to go after it.I did not want to leave the vehicule because I was frightened and handed my camera to Alan so he can take a picture of it.They poked the snake and grabbed it by the tail so they could get it to pose.Kathi,the view is from the abandoned ranger station.We saw no lions but saw tracks.There was a nice vodka drinking fellow from Florida who arrived in our camp for a 21 day lion hunt.He said it was his 20th trip to Africa.His PH was a guy named Cook.

Well done George on the buffalo!

Alan was anticipating your hunt, and had gotten word of the "high shoulder shot" plan. I am sure everybody was pleased with how things unfolded. Glad you got to meet up with Buzz, and Kirsty, too!

Looking at your pictures, I too found Harare to be calm, and enjoyed driving around town gathering supplies prior to heading into the bush.

Congrat's on making this hunt happen.

quote:

Originally posted by robncolorado:
Nice Pics, what other animals did you see in Chirisa?

Rob,we saw lots of ele.We also saw kudu,bushbuck,waterbuck,duiker,warthog,honey badger,mongoose,baboons,monkeys,crocodile and eland.

quote:

Originally posted by Bill C:
Well done George on the buffalo!

Alan was anticipating your hunt, and had gotten word of the "high shoulder shot" plan. I am sure everybody was pleased with how things unfolded. Glad you got to meet up with Buzz, and Kirsty, too!

Looking at your pictures, I too found Harare to be calm, and enjoyed driving around town gathering supplies prior to heading into the bush.

Congrat's on making this hunt happen.

Thanks Bill!

Well done George,
Great buff and love that cobra.

Dirk

Great report. Nice shooting on the Buff and Impala.

All that range work paid off!

Will

Shootaway...Congrats! Looks like you had a great time!

I took the liberty of editing your post for you, to reduce the size of the pictures, eliminate the duplicates and get it to line up on the left margin. Hope you don't mind.

Cheers
Canuck

quote:

Originally posted by shootaway:
There was a nice vodka drinking fellow from Florida who arrived in our camp for a 21 day lion hunt.He said it was his 20th trip to Africa.His PH was a guy named Cook.

Would that be Richard Cook?

JPK

quote:

Originally posted by Canuck:
Shootaway...Congrats! Looks like you had a great time!

I took the liberty of editing your post for you, to reduce the size of the pictures, eliminate the duplicates and get it to line up on the left margin. Hope you don't mind.

Cheers
Canuck

A BIG thank you,Canuck!

quote:

Originally posted by JPK:

quote:

Originally posted by shootaway:
There was a nice vodka drinking fellow from Florida who arrived in our camp for a 21 day lion hunt.He said it was his 20th trip to Africa.His PH was a guy named Cook.

Would that be Richard Cook?

JPK

I think so.He had his son along as an aprentice PH.

Great pictures. Thank you for sharing them!

Congrats! That is a great buff place...

Good show. Thanks for sharing.

I might have stayed in the truck myself with that Cobra.

quote:

Originally posted by shootaway:

quote:

Originally posted by robncolorado:
Nice Pics, what other animals did you see in Chirisa?

Rob,we saw lots of ele.We also saw kudu,bushbuck,waterbuck,duiker,warthog,honey badger,mongoose,baboons,monkeys,crocodile and eland.

Excellent! I have my eyes set on tuskless, buff, and eland in 09... they say the eland are tough, so I am especially going to work hard at hunting them. Again, well done on your hunt....

Congrats! Very nice trophies, funny you mention Lou demanding a beer, have heard that one myself many times. I can't wait to hunt with he and Clive in Nov.

Congratulations on an excellent hunt, I hope mine is as much fun. I would like to commend you on your report, too often we hunt and may not take our limit or kill all the animals on license and that is what we write about. Again congratulations and excellent shooting.

Great stuff, well done!!

Well done! Now you can get ready for a tiger -- after the kudu that is.

Nice report and some good shooting with those iron sights. Please can you post details of your rifle and the loads that you used in your Lott.

Thanks