13 September 2009, 17:22
JudgeGPerhaps the most famous quote about the fierceness of Cape buffalo is by Robert Ruark: They look at you as if you owe them money! Well, on September 3, 2009, a dagga boy bill collector decided to call the debt due. He damn well about perfected a body lien on me in the process.
On September 1st , I began a safari for leopard with the incomparable Lou Hallamore as my professional hunter. We were hunting the Deka Safari Area. By earlier agreement, Lou had put up a couple of baits before my arrival and early that first day of hunting, we went to check to see if any cats had found supper.
I was a bit confused when the guys in the back (Alfred and Clements are both brothers and trackers, and Alexander, the game scout) all excitedly signaled for Lou to stop the vehicle only a few minutes out of camp with loud whispers of “Dagga Boy! Dagga Boy!” As usual, Graham Hingston at HHK Safaris had worked out a great plan for my hunt, but we’d never even talked about buffalo, except maybe taking a cow for bait and camp meat.
As the Land Cruiser emptied, I quickly asked Lou why the excitement if male buffalo was not on my ticket. Lou raised up a piece of carpet on the dash put there to dampen noise of binoculars, etc., and pulled out a sheet of paper with my name on it and a list of game I could take. Sure enough, “Buffalo, Male” had a “1” inked in the appropriate square. Graham always does me right!
I was handed down my unscoped “heavy” rifle, a .458 Winchester Magnum built on a CZ military Mauser action. I had a 9.3x74 double, but it was regulated for 232 gr. Norma Vulcan ammo which is certainly not suited for buff (but perfect of a leopard, of course). Not really being prepared for buffalo, the only ammo for the bolt gun that I had was Federal DGS 500 grain solids (intended for a tuskless elephant cow if we saw one). I stuffed three down and one in the spout then hatted up and headed out.
Dang! Before I even got abreast of the front fender of the car, I could see the outline of the buffalo moving slowly in thick jess to my front. I raised my rifle and the bull stepped out into the clear and presented me with a broadside shot at 40 yards. He was magnificent!
Yes, but too magnificent to shoot by just riding up and taking a chip shot. A buffalo like that deserved more. That and including that I just wasn’t mentally prepared to hunt buffalo was enough for me to look over to Lou and shake my head indicating that I didn’t want to shoot.
Lou whispered, “He’s a fine, fine one “, but didn’t encourage a shot at all. The bull slowly squared his shoulders to us and then, after four or five seconds, in which you can bet your bippy I re-raised my rifle, he grunted a short note that could only mean that he thought that we were not really worth his consideration, dropped a derisive turd and loped away at an unhurried, but obviously painful canter.
I immediately had mixed emotions. I felt that I did the right thing in giving the old Nyati the respect due by not shooting so close to the car and with not a bit of sweat raised on my part. Then, how bad was his injury, I wondered? Would the wonderful, old buffalo suffer the ignoble death of being pulled down by hyenas?
I didn’t have to say a word to Lou in explanation. He understood. I then took a deep breath and with a nod to the direction of the animal’s path, “Game on?” Lou smiled, and with a slight chuckle, said, “Let’s go kill a buffalo.”
There are way too many elephants in Deka. Almost universally, all trees have been stripped of higher branches, causing most all vegetation to rise not much higher than six or seven feet. Mopane trees are particularly hard hit. Since they can’t grow up, they send out branches horizontally from the ground, making them more like bushes than trees. One can’t see under them, around them or through them. Often visibility is limited to just a few yards. Into that mess we proceeded with a joy peppered by a not too subtle fear, known only to those who “have been there and done that”. Damn, I love it!
For the next three hours, we followed the old man’s tracks. Finally, we spotted him again when we came down a hill and could see across the valley. From about 200 yards, we saw him top the crest, stop a second and lumber away. Yep. He had a limp, but he seemed to not be as badly hurt as originally thought. I snapped him a salute and we went back to the vehicle, the five of us bonded by the experience.
It was a great way to start the first day of safari. Lou understood that I came to hunt, and not just shoot. As for myself, I learned that this was “my safari”, not one pushed by a P.H. who favored “success” over a quality experience. As for the fellows in the back of the truck, Lou told me later that they approved of their client’s enthusiasm and ethic.
Before we saw the buffalo again, a great deal of good stuff happened that afternoon, the next day and the morning that followed it. I made good shots on some bait impala, killed a beautifully figured Zebra stallion at 200 meters with my little Merkel and took a grande dame of a tuskless cow elephant with the .458. We had a piss-in-your-britches thrill when a big male leopard made claim of the sunrise with throaty growls just a few yards from our blind.
The old dagga boy wasn’t forgotten, but, as we speculated over drinks when we warmed ourselves in the evenings before the fire, the general feeling was that the Nyati’s injury wasn’t really that bad.
I was in the unadulterated bliss of the perfect safari.
That speculation about killed my fat ass.
Early on the morning of the 3rd day, we arose and made our way to the site of the carcass of the elephant I shot the midday before. We had built a blind about 100 yards away on a hillside and at first light that morning, I took a hyena who waited until a lioness and her cubs vacated their breakfast (but more about all that in another post).
We put the hyena in the truck and motored back to a wonderful breakfast of bacon, eggs over-easy, toast and tea. I wasn’t even three full days into my safari and if I never saw another animal, I would have surely have gotten my money’s worth. At nine or so, we saddled up again and went to look at baits for signs of chui.
I don’t know why I put the .458 in the truck.
I already had my elephant and since the initial intercourse with the buffalo, we had seen little to no sign of any buff in the direction we were heading. Mr. Nyati was not one bit on my mind.
We happily bumped along the track out of camp headed for the road that bisects the concession and runs from the railroad into Hwange Park. The bait we wanted to check was in a tree on the north side of that road. At the intersection, we turned west towards the park and as soon as we crested the little bump up from where the camp road meets the Hwange road, the trackers started their finger snaps indicating game seen. Quite reasonably, there is a no hunting strip alongside the road. Lou reversed the Land Cruisers path back onto “legal” hunting grounds and we got out to survey the situation.
It didn’t take me long to learn that the dagga boy of the first day was spotted again and he was slowly walking away from us and into legal hunting grounds. Could life get any better? I shifted gears and loaded up the Win. Mag. again and flipped up the wing safety.
At my age, it doesn’t take much for me to stoop over as in my dotage, I guess I walk like that anyway. I’ll not speak for Lou’s age, but before me, Alfred, Clement and Lou preceded and Alexander followed with his rock-an-roll FN FAL rifle, all of us hunched as low down as our relative age would allow.
Then, I screwed the pooch.
After about 500 yards of slipping along, very professionally, I was squired into a position about 60 yards from the buffalo which was standing motionless in the shade of a rare, still-standing tree. I asked for confirmation, “Facing right? Broadside?” I got a nod of confirmation and raised my rifle. Lou said, “Shoot when you’re ready.” And I did.
Damn! As I began my trigger squeeze, as I was told later, but not recognized by me, the buff took a step and turned his body directly towards us. My old eyes didn’t see it and I shot. The buffalo immediately made a couple of troubled lurches into the jess and was gone.
I shoot pretty well. I knew that the bullet went where I intended it to go. Heck, the buffalo was obviously hit. Didn’t he run like his shoulder was buggered? Then reality set in. Heck, his left leg or shoulder was already hurt. Alfred, who speaks English quite well, convinced me that I had either shot down the buffalo’s left side, missing entirely, or had put a bullet in his paunch as he turned toward me. The former was not good, the latter was horrible.
Lou looked at me with no expression at all. He had watched me make a perfect side-brain on an elephant. I had shot three impala and a Zebra at long range, dead-right-there. I didn’t piss my pants when a female lion had seen me in the hyena blind and started a purposeful walk towards me. I had double tapped the hyena at 100 yards, the second shot made while the animal was flying…. and, now, at close range, I had just probably gut-shot close to a ton of buffalo that was already pissed. It happens sooner or later to us all, but I was pretty darn depressed with myself.
Before we even went to look for sign, Lou handed his .458 Win. Mag. to Alfred and sent Clement back to the Cruiser for his Wilkes .470 double. I didn’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure out what that meant.
No one would talk about what happened as we awaited Clement and the rifle. I had made a mistake that needed to be sorted out and there was no use in rubbing it in. I tried to replay the shot in my mind. My rifle was more than adequate with express sights and a slightly oversized NECG white front bead that I had added just this spring. I tried to will myself to believe that I missed the animal and reconstruct the sight picture upon firing. I thought about what happened again and again. I constructed a willful scenario that I was aiming at the crease of the shoulder and the bullet went there, but since the buffalo had already turned, the “crease” was actually empty space. Damn, I hoped I was right.
We went to the spot where the buffalo was standing (and now I hoped moving) when I fired. No hair, blood or gut matter. A small relief. We picked up the tracks and began to follow. Dang if the buffalo didn’t take the same game trail that he had taken three days before. Very carefully we followed down to the dry river and thank goodness, we found no spoor of a wound. My spirits were much better now.
After a mile or so, we had absolutely no indication of a hit. Both Alfred and Lou assured me that if the buffalo had been injured by my shot, that after a mile, there would be hair, some blood, some stomach matter…. something.
Game Scout and Lou conferred. Both agreed that “no harm, no foul” and no trophy fee would be charged. That relieved me some about the money, but the real relief was that I hadn’t wounded a buffalo to suffer or be someone else’s problem.
Since our trek had paralleled the park road, Lou sent Alfred to go get the truck and the rest of us would call off the hunt and proceed directly to the road which was only a few hundred yards away. Clement walked first, Lou next with me third and Game Scout following me.
Maybe forty yards after we made our right angle and began to walk up the slight incline the 400 yards or so to the road, we entered into really thick Mopane jess where a few taller trees had escaped the elephants' destruction. It was very tight quarters and we were following a narrow game trail in single file.
Ahead of me, I saw Clement and Lou as they progressed down the trail bend down to the left to get below some branches of a tree. I prepared to do the same. Game Scout was about five yards behind me. While we had been tracking the dagga boy, we came across a bit of wire and while we walked back to the road Game Scout was rolling it in his fingers and apparently mumbling bad words about poachers.
So, that is how I found myself when the poop hit the fan. Clement and Lou had their heads down and slightly turned away from straight ahead to avoid branches and thorns as they stooped under the lower foliage. Visibility to their front and right was severely limited. I was still upright, looking not ahead but where I was going, around the left side of the tree and what branches I’d have to avoid. Game Scout was really not in play. We’ve all been in the same situation a million times. It is unavoidable.
They don’t call it “dangerous game hunting” for nothing.
With absolutely not the slightest bit of warning, just seventeen yards in front of me, the bush exploded in sun-dappled violence and multiple shades of gray, black, dirty browns and dusty tans. I saw Clement, still bent at the waist, spin to his left and then scurry backwards on a supporting hand. Lou could see nothing as the tree blocked his view and he was turned to the left somewhat, himself. (He later said that he initially thought Clement had stepped on a snake.)
As for me, I had not the least doubt as to what was happening. A big grey-black hulk was at full-stride coming directly at my body. I remember nothing about how I was holding my rifle, flipping down the safety or raising my gun to my shoulder. It all just happened. I clearly remember stepping forward and to the right to clear the tree instead of getting behind it. Damn Marine in me, I guess? You know, Semper Fi and attack the ambush, don’t run from it.
Burned in my memory is that beautiful, over-sized white front bead appearing in the shallow “V” of the rear sight. Boss and horns covering the brain was my instant realization as the buffalo was swinging his head in what I can only guess was his practice hook before sinking a horn in my belly.
It was absolutely slow motion. I forced the bead down into the chest and fired. The buffalo was at 12 steps (which I wobbly walked later). The 500 grain Hornady DGS hit the heart and the buffalo staggered and turned slightly to my right with the impact. I'm not sure if I ever took my rifle from my shoulder to work the bolt, but I know that the second shot was almost instantaneous with the first and about 3” higher.
By now, the buffalo was closer than before, but would pass by me and towards Game Scout if he continued his new path. I fired again into his quartering-towards-me shoulder. I think he might have gotten powder burns. I had no thought of trying to brain him as what I was doing seemed to be working fine.
Upon impact of the third shot, a huge shutter coursed the bull from head to toe. Humped up now and turned some more, he passed Game Scout who, by now had his FN in battery and was raising it to shoot. As I worked the bolt of my Mauser for a forth shot, Lou, now not hindered by the tree and able to shoot since the buff had cleared me, fired his .470 into the buffalo’s right hip, shattering it and putting the Bill Collector on the ground.
From start to finish, I’ll bet that four seconds didn’t pass. I know that the buffalo never was more than 20 yards from us from charge to demise. Teddy Roosevelt called his leading the Rough Riders up Kettle and San Juan Hills as “My crowded hour”. Well, I damn well had my crowded little "moment" myself.
Of course, we all wanted to see if I had hit the buffalo earlier that morning. I had not. Obvious from the pictures, some idiot had snared the buffalo and the cable had become imbedded in his leg, just above his hoof. Apparently, constantly in pain and pissed at the world, when we got to twenty yards, he decided that enough was enough and he was going to get some satisfaction.
He nearly succeeded.
And I loved every single of the four seconds in which the debt was called due.
Yep! I've already booked to do it next year. I may die in a pauper's grave, but I'll die rich with the experience of Africa.
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