I feel the need to go hunt a Buff and as it looks right now I might be able to do it in April or May of 2011.

Is there any place that hunts Buff that early in the year? All the recommendations that I see are to hunt in August and September for the leaves to fall and the temperatures to moderate. I figure that November through February is the heat of summer but is there any place to hunt in the African Fall?

april and may are actualy excellent times to be in the zambezi valley ..april is a bit early for chewore north but chewore south is excellent from beginning of april onwards ..it will be green africa that you see , lots of grass , lots of green and very very beautiful ..

this year in april i hunted chewore south with chifuti with josh spies and we took two buff on our first day , in 2008 i hunted in march with jim hall and we took 7 !!! i did write a hunt report somewhere on it ....

here are some of the buff we took ....

Fjold I was at Doma this April/May - just south of Chewore South - VERY exciting, VERY close contact stuff - you can read my report here.

I have hunted Buffalo in Chewore south in late April early May.
Due to the extremely thick bush and long grass I would recommend no earlier than May as you may not sight many.

Hunted them in April in omay and Chete.... long grasss very green but an incredible experience. I hate that Jess. go go goooo

I, too, have hunted Doma in May: as Mouse says it is very close hunting-love it!

We had a great buff/leopard hunt in the Save this may with zambezi hunters.

My favorite time to hunt Buffalo any place in Africa is the last two weeks of July, and the first two weeks of August. The nights are cool, and the days are rarely over 80 degrees F. In fact you better take a good jacket for the rides in the Bakki from and to camp in the dark, it gets damn cold. The water is starting to dry and concentrate the game, and much of the grass is dry enough to burn, so visibility is better than earlier!

quote:

Originally posted by ozhunter:
I have hunted Buffalo in Chewore south in late April early May.
Due to the extremely thick bush and long grass I would recommend no earlier than May as you may not sight many.

Yeah. And I have to disagree with Ivan. April/May is just too early.

Thanks guys for all the input. I have trouble getting away from work in June, July and August and there's no way that I'm going to wait until September or later for this hunt.

I may have to tell them at work to "piss off" and just schedule it for June or July. Hunting my first Buff is a hell of a lot more important than being here to babysit power plants.

I have hunted them in Feb. Apart from getting rained on, it wasn't an unpleasant hunt by any means. We found plenty of buff and they were not as spooky as later in the season. Yes, the bush is thick, but the area (Chirisa) has some fairly open woodland and it's higher elevation than the Valley.

It all boils down to what you are actually after – hard to tell. On a first buffalo the experience to actually shoot one, makes all the difference (I believe) - therefore it may be the whole point of the hunt.

However (speaking for myself) – early hunt in thick stuff is like a syrup – everything is so condensed and concentrated...IMO you get an experience ratio of 5:1 according to main/late season. While lacking of actual possibilities of acceptable shot positions, it sure brings you much much closer to the quarry (BTW I have learned that close grunt of a buffalo sometimes sounds just like a leopard growl - SCARRY) and it is there where you learn some big,big experience on buffalo and maybe even more important – creepy test of how do you behave under those circumstances...
An actual act of shooting a buffalo is just that – shooting – it sure is a certain achievement under certain conditions, however just an act of shooting doesn't prove much of a thing when there is a Hunting the Nyati in question...and it ain't that bad at all – a bit of luck is all that one needs – especially once you are SO close...as Gordon put it - “No big deal – pint - pant – dead buff...”

First 16 days of June, 09 I shot a buff and leopard in the Save Con. in Zim. The bush was green and thick. Frankly, buff hunting was challenging. It took 10 days before we caught up to a bull that cooperated and gave us a shot. That being said, it was alot of fun too.

I'd rather be hunting buff than at work, green and thick or not. Of course, you take advantage of your schedule to plan the best trip possible, but go when you can.

I hunted them in Feb in Chirisa.. Green, thick, jungley, and HUMID.. Lots of buff though and they weren't too terribly hard to get right into.. Shooting one was a diff story though with the grass and bush.

Gentlemen.What do you think about May for buff and sable hunt in Matetsi?

In Botswana April and May are excellent times to hunt - in the areas adjacent to National Parks most of the park buffalo migrate following the rains in Jan FEb , if the rain pans hold into April and May you get both concession and Park Buffalo - so the numbers can be staggering. The main thrill of the early hunt is you have to hunt very dense green bush. Later in the year the buffalo are easily tracked from waterholes and one can see them a lot better.

I hunted the Dande North in May of last year. It is to early the brush is to thick and I'll never hunt early again. It was the worst hunt I've ever been on.

I have to Agree with Will on this one, April and May are just to early.