I know from watching nature documentaries on public television that when gorilla charges at you, that you are in no real danger. If you will just stand there and crap your pants, the gorilla will stop growling and tearing trees out by the roots and you will both be good chums. Same goes for elephants, I think.

When a buffalo charges, is it likely to be a mock charge, or do they generally mean business? How can one tell a mock buffalo charge from the real thing?

H. C.

quote:

Same goes for elephants,

I would not stake my life on that

We had a bluff charge from an old scrum cap bull with fresh lion wounds. He came ten yards and as we backed up he stopped. After a long pause he turned and cantered off.

JPK

HC, Some bull eles will posture and back down, with yelling and waving guns and arms...Tuskless cows will not...They are like a truck coming down a hill without brakes...
A buf can shake his head but I have to say every charge I have read about come from up close...20yds and closer...

Mike

If he doesn't run you over and stomp and gore you maybe he's bluffing? studdog

Do Buffalo Bluff Charge?

I will let someone else find out.

If you find yourself merrily flipping through the air with a large piece of your arse flapping wildly in the wind you can safely conclude it was not a bluff.

I don't know if this is a fact or not but it seems to me that when a wounded buffalo means business they launch the charge with a short sharp grunt or it can be described as a snort.

I've only had one experience with this but I've since noticed it on several videos where the buff charges.

Maybe somebody with more experience in this arena can confirm this or lay it to rest?

Henry - FWIW, the buff generally has the reputaion of being least likely to mock charge.

Is it charging or merely running in your direction?

I thought they usually, if not wounded, "charge" the opposite direction away from the hunters.

The buff that attempted to charge us last year wasn't bluffing.

They sometimes step forward, shake their heads, turn and leave. I have had buffalo wounded by lions come looking for me, charge and then turn off when they saw what I was. I once had four come at once. That is when you wonder if a double rifle is what you really need.

I have watched a buffalo that thought I was a lion (if the herd bunches up as it leaves they think you are a lion. If they break up they think you are a man)drop back and set up an ambush while the herd walked away leaving him half a mile behind.

I think he thought we were lions. He had been mauled by lions but a long time ago. The wounds were all healed. He was a very serious creature. We watched him for 15 minutes as he watched for us on his back trail. Finally we shot him. He wasn't likely a big as big a bull as what we would have found in the herd we were following but he was just too serious a creature to have with us in the long grass.

But most of the time they do not bluff and they are very difficult to turn. I once turned one shooting it in the head at 5 yards with a 375 H&H with solids and it went past but it got up, turned, and charged again so I think the bullet hit the skull near the brain and stunned it to the point where it lost consciousness for a second and veered off course. Then having recovered its senses it got up and charged again. The trackers with me always get excited about the grunting they do on a serious charge but I never hear it as my ears are shot.

VBR,


Ted Gorsline

I had an interesting experience in the north of Kruger last year. We were surveying for dinosaur bones when the head ranger of the area called in to say he was making his way towards us but had to move around a herd of buffalo. He was only about 300 yards from us as we were working on a cliff face. After about ten minutes I tried to call him on the radio and got no reply…. After another 10 minutes I began to get worried. I was in a bit of a quandary as I was the only person in the group with a rifle and I had a dozen students and one colleague with me who were relatively inexperienced in the bush. I knew from the rangers call-in that there were buff just above us. I decided to get the group situated on a cliff face and left them with a bear banger and a satellite phone with instructions to call for help in 1 hour if I had not returned.

Walking through the bush on top of the hill I found the herds tracks – maybe 150 buff – which had obliterated any hopes of finding the rangers trail. I was still hoping that he had maybe turned back so I proceeded to where we had parked the vehicles. There I found the vehicle, door ajar and no ranger…. I found his footprints though and followed them back towards my group calling every five minutes on the radio. I hoped that even if he were injured I might here myself calling on the radio if it was undamaged. When I got back to the area where the buff had crossed I found that his tracks veered off towards another cliff covered with dense vegetation. This made tracking tough and I was pretty much spending all of my time looking down when I heard a sharp “snort†ahead. I looked up to see three buff, all agitated, sweating and circled staring at me at about 40 yards distance. All I could think was that the ranger was mushed up at their feet…

I slapped a round into the chamber, making as much noise as possible and took a step forward shouting at the buff in order to drive them off. I fully expected them to bolt down the hill away from me but to my complete surprise the bull in the middle just started a heads up charge – by the time I caught on that this guy was serious (which took me about half a second) I shouldered my rifle and started to shout at the buffalo (using many different variations of “stop†many of which are not repeatable). By this time he was about 20 meters away and all I could think of was that the head was a lot smaller from this direction than when side on and a brain shot was going to be real fun. At about 15 yards the bull stopped – shook his head – snorted and whirled around in his own tracks and barreled back the way he had come. This set of a thundering herd of buffalo running away which had been hiding just below the rise.

I was now very shaken and walked over to where the buff had been searching for a smashed ranger but found nothing. Sure the guy was dead by now I walked back to my students to call for assistance and get them out before nightfall. As I was trying to make the emergency call on the sat phone – first attempt got a disconnected signal! My radio came to life and then I see the ranger crashing out of the undergrowth. Cut, bruised out of breath and dazed. It turns out that he had moved to the cliff to avoid the herd and found himself being pushed down into the gorge by this huge herd. He had eventually reached the bottom of the gorge and had climbed a tree and shouted at the buff who had all run up the hill – he thought he was safe – and started the long climb back up. What he didn’t know was that he had pushed the buff right back into me and I promptly pushed the whole herd right back down on him! They almost killed him as they came crashing down through the undergrowth and he only survived by climbing a thorn tree. His radio got bashed and quit working and he had only just got to me in time for me to stop making a R50,000 emergency call!

The pertinence of this story? I have always been taught that a buffalo that charges like this is going to come all the way and I should have popped him – but sometimes the real world works differently..

Does being charged by an angus bull count? I think if I had stood my ground, he would have done something nasty. It started when I put out some new hay and I was standing around checking out the cow when he gave a snort, shook his head and strated after me. I ran backwards yelling (or was it screeching like a girl ) and waving my arms. He finally tired of this and I retreated from the pasture. I don't go out there anymore without a very long stick. I am afraid that if I'd had a gun with me, I'd have shot him and had a $2,000 bull reduced to hamburger . My theory would be that if a buff gets within 10 yards, you better be pulling the trigger.

Regarding gorillas the nature documentaries often lie. A Kenya photgrapher named Root apparently got badly bitten by a male gorilla during the filming of Gorillas in the Mist and was lucky to suvive the loss of blood.

VBR,

Ted Gorsline

quote:

Originally posted by Ted Gorsline:
They sometimes step forward, shake their heads, turn and leave. I have had buffalo wounded by lions come looking for me, charge and then turn off when they saw what I was. I once had four come at once. That is when you wonder if a double rifle is what you really need.

I have watched a buffalo that thought I was a lion (if the herd bunches up as it leaves they think you are a lion. If they break up they think you are a man)drop back and set up an ambush while the herd walked away leaving him half a mile behind.

I think he thought we were lions. He had been mauled by lions but a long time ago. The wounds were all healed. He was a very serious creature. We watched him for 15 minutes as he watched for us on his back trail. Finally we shot him. He wasn't likely a big as big a bull as what we would have found in the herd we were following but he was just too serious a creature to have with us in the long grass.

But most of the time they do not bluff and they are very difficult to turn. I once turned one shooting it in the head at 5 yards with a 375 H&H with solids and it went past but it got up, turned, and charged again so I think the bullet hit the skull near the brain and stunned it to the point where it lost consciousness for a second and veered off course. Then having recovered its senses it got up and charged again. The trackers with me always get excited about the grunting they do on a serious charge but I never hear it as my ears are shot.

VBR,


Ted Gorsline

Excellent Post!!!

Some of the video footage of charges that can be bought on hunting videos looks more like curiousity sometimes.

Sells the videos though.

Redlander:

It was nice to read something familiar in the middle of all this talk about buff charges! I grew up in a dairy county of NY. In those days,(I'm 76) artificial insemination was just not the way to go so every farm had a resident bull. Most were practically pussycats - but we never tried to put it to the test! Often while cutting across a field I would keep a wary eye on the cows -and bull standing in the shade of a tree. Occasionally, there was movement and I would see the bull come to the edge of the herd. Maybe it's paranoia but I'm positive to this day that he was measuring how far away I was - and how far it was to the nearest stone wall. (There were no barb wire fences as such. A single strand of barb wire right above the stone wall sufficed) Sometimes the bull tried his luck. I never waited around to see what his intentions were! Gee! You and I are veterans of being charged!

quote:

Originally posted by NitroX:
Some of the video footage of charges that can be bought on hunting videos looks more like curiousity sometimes.

Sells the videos though.

Sure,like the video I saw on AR. Don't know anything about cape buffalo but I'm used to being charged by cranky cattle, and none of them do it at a trot. Not to say the buffalo wouldn't get into high gear when they got closer though.

Talking about barnyard bulls.

Many years ago I used to work at Dadanawa Ranch in the Rupununni savannahs of what was then British Guiana. We had 30,000 head of cattle and about 10 % were wild. They were of Spanish (or Portuguese)long horn descent.

They lived in bush islands and in the jungle at the edge of the savannah. There were lots of 12 year old bulls with no brands and no ear marks. Every March we went bull hunting. We would find their tracks at the edge of the savannah and camp in hammocks maybe a mile away. We rode out in the dark on horseback and would get on a hill top downwind but beside the place where we saw the bull tracks.

Then we unsaddled the horses, rested them, and waited for the sun to come up. As the light rose you could see the bulls feeding often with small herds of cows. There were normally about 15 of us and we had 80 foot rawhide lassoos attached to the saddle girth.

We would ride as quietly as possible down the edge of the forest trying to keep the bulls out in the open and the moment they detected us we rode as fast as we could trying to cut them off from the forest and get them running out into the open savannah.

Once they were in the open we chased them as fast as possible and tried to get a rope on the horns. But they would hear us coming and always turned and charge. Then we circled them like a wolf pack.

As a bull charged one man that man retreated and the man at the bulls rear rode forth and threw his lassoo. We kept doing this until somebody got a rope over his head. Then we tried to get a rope around his hind feet by tossing a big loop over his butt and hoping he would step into it. Eventually he would.

Once he was roped at both ends somebody would dismount and pull the bull over by his tail.

The we tied him up and brought up a trailer and rolled the bull onto the trailer on planks and took him back to the ranch.

This was far more fun than any buffalo hunting I have ever done and the bulls were quite determined. One killed a horse right out from under me.

We also used to shoot and rope running whitetail deer and feral pigs from horseback but the pigs were hard on horses. Unless you got a loop over one front leg they pulled off the noose and usually charged. And the loop had to be small or they would run through it. A small loop was light in weight and that meant you had to get close with the horse and when you got close they turned and charged the horses and often caught and cut them up.


VBR,


Ted Gorsline

In my experience, unwounded Buffalo rarely charge, unless they have been harrassed by lions, and you stumble onto them in thick cover, while they are upset!

The body luanguage of a Cape Buffalo is, IMO easy to read if you can see him, and he sees you! If close, and he stands faceing you, if he shakes his head several times, and glances at his sides, or back behind him, he is likely to turn and run. IMO, if he looks you in the eye, dips his chin, tips his nose up, and as he does, emites a guteral grunt, he's coming!

The sittuation Berger discribed, with the buff stopping at 20 yds is, IMO, very unusual, and he may have been shot for his trouble, if it had been me! When hunting Daggaboys, in a small group of, say four, and you knock one down, and one stays to stand over his fallen buddy. This is a place where you need to be ready, and above all do not move, or take your eyes off that GUARD. In my experience if you stand still the GUARD will leave, but if you move in any way, he's likely to come.

Wounded, I find once he starts he will seldom turn, or stop. Generally, if he can see you, and you can see him, within 30 yds, and he starts, As PHC quoted, " once he puts a close charge into motion, your options have been wonderfully simplified, you kill him, or he will kill you!"

I think the Cape Buffalo bull is the least likely to turn once he starts in a dirrect line to you!

I absolutely agree with Macd37. I have been and was trained to shoot a buff that charges in these situations. In the one I described, I should have shot the buff (by my training and experience) as he started the charge. No one would have questioned my actions. I did not only because 1) I was caught off guard by the charge, and 2) by the time I decided he was actually charging he was too close for me to risk taking a shot and my rifle jamming, etc on the reload and thus I was going to wait for a close brain shot inside of 10 meters. Quite literally if the buff had taken two or three more steps I would have pulled the trigger. It is, by the way, a classic situation where if I had had a double I would have shot the buff once at say 20 meters and waited for a second brain shot closer if he had kept coming. Luckily for me and him this did not occur. Maybe its because he was really charging as a resort to not going back down the hill. Who knows

when I was younger,thinner,dumber,we would load wild cattle off ranches in So. Tex. in double deck cattle trailers. they would no doubt kill you given the chance. we did not call a bluff! Kurt.