Botswana Bound for Buffalo

21 June 2008, 21:50

Paul Reed

AR Colleagues,

My wife and I leave this evening for a Botswana buffalo (my first) and plains game safari with Greg Butler Safaris. As you might expect preparations have been in high gear all week, packing, repacking, weighing luggage and trying to cover all the details. The rifle is ready: Ruger 416 Rigby with a 1.8-5.5X Conquest, in Warne detachables and 400 grain Swift A frames as the soft, 400 grain Barnes Banded as the solids. My son Brandon (aka Clayman) ably assisted in equipment selection, reloading and range work as well as being an excellent source of conversation all things Africa and shootingâ€¦thanks B-man. I think Iâ€™m ready having put about 250 rounds down range and practice off sticks out to two hundred yards. My rifle feels like it is an extension of me after all the practice. Planned trophies are: buffalo, tsessebe, red lechwe, impala and crocodile. Travel routes are long and tedious but we wonâ€™t let any complications or problems deter us from our final goal. We fly PHL to Munich, 10 hour layover, Munich to JNB, overnight at Afton (using Louisâ€™s VIP Meet and Assist Service), next day JNB to Maun and connect to a charter into Butlerâ€™s Khwai camp in the Delta. Ten days of hunting followed by a charter to Chobe for some sightseeing and (for now) plans to sightsee at Hwange and Vic Falls. We fly Vic Falls to JNB to Dulles and then back to PHL for the return. Unfortunately the Zim run off election falls in the middle of our safari so we will be monitoring results there with an eye to avoiding Zim if it goes to hell and implement a (loosely organized at the moment) backup plan.

None of this would have been possible without the expertise and suggestions that I often tapped into from many of the Forum members and for that I am very grateful. It goes without saying that we all owe a debt of gratitude for Saeed for conceiving and making this Forum available to all of us.

Talk to everyone in a few weeks,

Paul

DRSS
Life Member SCI
Life Member NRA
Life Member WSF

Rhyme of the Sheep Hunter
May fordings never be too deep, And alders not too thick; May rock slides never be too steep And ridges not too slick.
And may your bullets shoot as swell As Fred Bear's arrow's flew; And may your nose work just as well As Jack O'Connor's too.
May winds be never at your tail When stalking down the steep; May bears be never on your trail When packing out your sheep.
May the hundred pounds upon you Not make you break or trip; And may the plane in which you flew Await you at the strip.
-Seth Peterson