Hey thanks guys, appreciate your talent and kind jesters...I guess I should learn to do these things but considering my age and the age of my camera, we'd just croak about the time I got it down pat!! Besides I have reached a point where I know you never get to old to learn, but what most of you don't know is you do reach a point where you don't really give a s--t!

Where was that bull from???? I've never seen one with a white moustache before.

...nor with such big droop, er, I mean drop.

Ray- is he dead or just asleep?

John

Zambia, Luangwa River with Muchinga Adventures, Late September 2006.

quote:

is he dead or just asleep?

Ray was alive last I heard... just moving real slow!

Actually I roped that old boy and choked him down, the older I get the more daring I become. I never noticed HE had a white mustache!

quote:

Originally posted by Atkinson:
Actually I roped that old boy and choked him down, the older I get the more daring I become. I never noticed HE had a white mustache!

What do you ride to rope Cape Buffalo, a Clydesdale??

Sure would liven up the average rodeo...

Dande North September 2008.

I think this guy was as old as I am. He was a PAC.

Jefffive,
I have a fairly well trained Rhino that I have started on the head end..It was a bit of a chore getting him gentle but he is a puppy now, but grunts a lot. I have to be carefull not to grain him too much or he gets a little high on me....

PSmith

I know there is a good story behind that buffalo hunt....Maybe you will tell us what happened?

Dave

quote:

Originally posted by David Hulme:
PSmith

I know there is a good story behind that buffalo hunt....Maybe you will tell us what happened?

Dave

Dande North September 1 through 14 2008. Chifuti Safaris.

Overall, David, as you have said in your posts, Zimbabwe was absolutely fine in every way.

Day one was supposed to be "elephant hunting orientation"; the final exam was at 8:30 am:


Day three, I took this buffalo at about 3:30 pm near some villages near Black Store Road. One shot at 80 yards with a Dakota .416 Remington; we tracked him through very thick reeds and it was extremely tense at times.





Then on day twelve after eight hard days of hunting for a Chobe bushbuck, my PH (Dirk Mostert) and I were asked to "sort out" a PAC buffalo that was supposed to be wounded and in the middle of a few villages. Of course, I jumped at the chance. My PH shot the bull first, so it was his bull not mine, but being a part of the hunt was fantastic.

Here is where we started the hunt; pretty thick stuff. Our National Parks guy said he was staying in the truck and he did:





We tracked the bull for about an hour. I almost had a chance for a frontal shot when we first bumped the bull but he ran off just as I raised my rifle (a Krieghoff .470). It was so thick that we had to walk single file. About 30 minutes later, we came around a big bush and Dirk shot the bull at about six yards in the face (that's the entry wound you can see in the photos). The bullet apparently went below the brain and did not seem to have much of an effect on the bull. We tracked the wounded bull for another 4 1/2 hours through very thick stuff, occasionally getting a glimpse of him.

Finally, we saw him standing quartering to, and I was able to get to the side of Dirk and hit the bull with two .470 Barnes solids in the shoulder. I reloaded and shot him two more times, then again with another two. All told, I put six .470 solids into his heart/lungs in the space of about 30 seconds and he was done.

He was just older than the hills and as tough as the stories we've all heard about Cape buffalo. It was a great experience to hunt an old dagga boy in the thick stuff, especially with a double rifle.

PSmith,

Yeah, now that is something like what I was thinking! Nothing like hunting a crusty old dagga boy in thick stuff. Thanks for the entertainment and congratulations on your splendid trophies.

Dave

Great pics, always enjoy seeing this sort of post.....

A general question for you all who have hunted them...How high do these guys stand at the withers? Ivan, PSmith, Ray, whoever....Ray you can give me an answer in "hands", I savy that pretty well....

Thank you all

Hmm, that's a good question. Ivan or David or Ray can tell you. The ones I've seen up close were lying on their sides. When they are 15 or 20 yards away in the bush, it is hard to tell how tall they are, they do look big though.

JPenn

Don't quote me, but I guess up to 1.6/1.7 meters high at the withers.

Dave

Dave,

WOW, that surprises me, my mental image did not have them being that tall. 1.6 metres works out to 63 inches, 1.7 to 67 inches....as tall as a good sized horse (15-3 hands to 16-3 hands). Always thought of them as being more low slung but big bodied.

Thanks, John

Here's the oldest one I've ever run across. I shot him 3 weeks ago. His horns were as smooth as ivory and the right side was broken off. His right eye was gone and there was just a hole where it used to be and his face was gray, knarled, and heavily wrinkled. He had to be hiding from lions as he enjoyed his last days when we spotted him in the brush.