7 day buff
Outfitter- Chifuti Safaris
Operator- Mbalabala Safaris
Ph- Lin Stanton
Hunter- Steve
Observer- Len
Area- Nuanetsi Ranch
Chifuti safaris had offered a late season special on buffalo. I had Steve from Australia who had asked for any specials on buff so I arranged the hunt for early November. This was going to be a very hot seven days. After collecting Steve and Len from the Victoria Falls we made the eleven hour trip down to Nuanetsi Ranch,once we reached the beautiful Mbizi Camp we settled then set about sighting in the old .375 that I had arranged for Steve to use. After a lovely meal a good nights sleep was in order after a long day.
Up early we set off in search of buffalo. We had seven days so we would try and get a big bull over 40". It wasn't long into the hunt and we came across seven dagga boys that had drank at a pan earlier that morning. Because of the heat the Bulls wouldn't move all that far from the water,it took us about an hour to find the Bulls bedded down in some shade we stalked in to about 40 meters and had a good look at all the Bulls in here was one we thought might go 41" but turned him down as he was a little soft and another two in the big thirties.We left those Bulls and found another three Bulls at a different pan after an hour or two we caught up with them only to find one solid bossed bull of about thirty five inches and the others were soft bossed.
The following day we found five dagga boys had drank at a pan called Esigodini we started tracking them at 11:30, the heat was almost unbearable,it took the trackers about two hours to find the dagga boys resting up in some acacia trees. Steve and I stalked for a closer look but before we got close enough one of the Bulls spotted us and took off as they ran it was clear that they had joined another ten Bulls. One of the Bulls was well over forty inches. We decided to leave them for an hour or so whilst we had some lunch and a rest in the shade.
After lunch we took up the tracks that we had left behind tracking was pretty easy as there were so many Bulls. We caught up to the Bulls feeding in the late evening. Because of the wind we skirted around ahead of the and watched them feeding towards us. There was a huge bull in the herd I estimated him to be 47" with a good solid boss. Unfortunately I had been warned not to shoot this particular bull as he was a breeding bull and his genitcs were needed in the area. It was hard to turn down such a big bull but it was one of those things that had to be done.
The next few days we spent following dagga boys but finding nothing what we were looking for. On day four we came accord nine Bulls with some huge tracks in them. We followed them all day and late in the afternoon we caught them feeding ahead of us. We moved ahead of them set up the shooting sticks and waited. It wasn't long before the Bulls started appearing one by one, it was a perfect set up as the Bulls moved into the open no more than 30 yards in front of us. After looking at the herd we decided to shoot a bull with huge bosses and a very good spread. The .375 bellowed and the bull took off away from us. I asked Steve if he was confident of his shot and he was as we started to follow I heard the bellowing of the dieing bull. Putting another shot into him to make sure he was dead we walked up to him and could see his bosses were huge and had a spread of 38".
The next few days we spent looking for a second buff. We looked at over 50 or sixty Bulls over four days lots of Bulls in there high thirties but not many in the four ties until we came across two Bulls on the last day late in the afternoon. We had been tracking eight Bulls after we had looked over all of them I called my truck on the radio asking my driver to pick us up on the road, as he arrived he was very excited saying he had seen two Bulls one of them was very wide as it was after 5pm we had to hurry as the light was fading fast. Picking there tracks up we followed we could see by they way they were walking that they were in no rush and took us about ten mins to find them feeding. I got Steve into position and watched the bull feeding in front of us, we watched him for what seemed like ten mins but was only two or three. We wanted a bull over forty I decided with the help of Dean our apprentice that this bill would go over forty. Boom the sound of the .375 erupted and the bull took off. We followed for ten mins but we kept bumping the bull and as it was late we decided to leave him and return early in the morning.
Returning early in the morning we found the bull, 50 meters from where we had left him the night before - very much alive! We followed him, cautiously, fortunately for us he never charged! Putting another shot in him, he went down. He measured 42" with 12 " bosses, a really fantastic bull. It was a great ending to a good safari. Thank you to Chifuti Safaris, Sandy the Camp Manager and Dean the Appy for all their hard work.
