I've been fortunate enough to make four trips to Africa since 1998. The last two were to the Selous and were truly memorable experiences.

I'm retired and do some odd jobs to make hunting money and green fees. Initially I would save for two years and then make a trip but, now it takes me three years to save a sufficient amount for a good 10-day trip.

Tanzania spoils you. I know I could go to several other countries a little cheaper but once you travel to Tanzania, especially the Selous, your screwed up for life.

I was scheduled to go in 2007 but the funds weren't there so I decided to wait until 2008. Then, a couple of months ago, I got to thinking about all the money I had saved over the past couple of years and had to have a talk with myself (a very stupid decision). I've taken six cape buffalo and a bunch of plains game animals. Just how many buffalo does one man need??? Plains game is nice, in a mundane kind of way but, once the buffalo "bug" bites you, things are never the same.

I knew I wanted to go back but I began to "rationalize" things to myself... I convinced myself to cool it for a few years. If I never went back, at least, I had been there four times.

Well, today my PH from the last two trips to Tanzania called me and we talked for a while. I was resolute in my position, to begin with, but by the end of the conversation, I was making tenative plans to return to Tanzania for "one more trip". Problem is, I've already told my wife that I wanted to return to Africa one day but wasn't planning on going back in the near future For the time being, I'm just laying low and keeping these dark secrets to myself... Sooner or later, she has to be told. Looks like someone will be getting something nice for Valentines Day. No wonder hunting is so damned expensive.

Bull1

You can't take it with you, so you may as well enjoy it while you're here. As long as all your other affairs are in order, and the wife is mostly happy, go ahead and go.

bull1 Priceless...

Mike

Asking forgiveness instead of permission was probably less painful.

Take her with you. Add a couple of days at the Victoria Falls Hotel, maybe Capetown.

My last trip to Africa included a 10 day trip to French Polynesia. Sometimes you got to pay to play.

quote:

I've taken six cape buffalo and a bunch of plains game animals. Just how many buffalo does one man need???

At a conservative estimate, I think I will stop after I have about 10,000 under my belt

As my favourire PH said "I cannot understand those who do not want to hunt elephant and buffalo!"

I used to buy my girl jewelry, whenever I bought a rifle - made them really expensive! She finally ran out of places to put or hang the baubbles. Then I started on fun things together, like vacations.

My wife went along on my leopard trip to Namibia, and really enjoyed herself. Loved being with friends the whole time. However, she admitted it was just "OK", but has no desire to go back. Hunting trips are now on my own, or with my hunting partner.

She would rather go on a cruise to Hawaii (this year same time as Reno, already paid), New York City Broadway shows, and Washington D.C. sights.

Any other suggestions for things to see or do for a lady, with her girlfriends. I'm sure I can find other trips to trade off.

How about a tuskless? You've got 1/2 dozen buff so maybe try something new?

There is nothing that can beat hunting old mbogo!

A couple of observations.

I have invited and encouraged my wife to accompany me on each of my four trips. She has no desire to be in the bush for even one day. I have suggested side trips to Capetown or Victoria Falls. She is just not interested. But, she has never tried to keep me from going.

She agrees with some of the posters here in suggesting that I "do something different". She just doesn't understand (and I'm getting tired of explaining) buffalo hunting is a disease. Once it gets in your blood, you're doomed. It can take many trips to the "doctor" to attempt to cure it and the treatment for "dugga disease" is pretty expensive. And as of yet, I've not found any insurance policy to cover the treatments!

Bull1

Bull 1,
All things considered...perhaps a new wife is in order?

Rich Elliott

Saeed wrote

quote:

There is nothing that can beat hunting old mbogo!

Yes this is realy true !!!

Seloushunter

Amen! However a divorce is probably more expensive than most valentines gifts but a small price to pay to continue buff hunting.

You need some gun insurance. The cost is rougly equal to the cost of the firearm or at least 1/2 the cost of the safari or hunt you are planning.

For the uninitiated, gun insurance is jewelery.

TAKE HER TO THE SELOUS!

Then, after she has been pampered by the staff and forced to suffer through the daily hippo chorus, and the nighttime serenade of the lions, followed by the damn hyenas yucking it up and the playful call of the doves, and ....,

TAKE HER TO ZANZIBAR for five days, ok, six.

That makes it a good three week trip. And, remember extra cash for the Tanzanite-- and what a marvelous valentine's gift that would be!

How about a non-trophy elephant hunt, with the option of buffalo on the side? That way the hunt can be presented as something different, even if buffalo is still your main interest. Whether that will be convincing to your wife or not is uncertain, but that is the angle I'm working.

Why not hunt a lion? That way you will have shoot a buff for bait.

quote:

Originally posted by bull1

For the time being, I'm just laying low and keeping these dark secrets to myself... Sooner or later, she has to be told. Looks like someone will be getting something nice for Valentines Day. No wonder hunting is so damned expensive.

So that I could do my last year's Africa trip I had to buy my wife a brand new pickup. For this year's bribe, I have to send her and 2 of my daughters to Hawaii for a week. I'm dreading what my 2009 DG hunt is going to cost me.

If you're gonna dance, you gotta pay the piper.

Namibiahunter

Since I don't have a wife anymore, I can save for my next buff hunt without the baksheesh...

This makes me thank my lucky stars for the wife I have. She is the most non-material, cheap, giving woman. She was raised poor and still has to be dragged kicking and screaming to go buy things for herself. She told me in no uncertain terms that I was NOT to buy her a diamond engagement ring, that we would get $80 white gold plain bands at Service Merchandise, and not buy new furniture or take a honeymoon when we got married. In the 18 years that we have been married she has never begrudged me spending money on any of my hobbies, and I have to make her spend even small amounts on her own (which are very inexpensive compared to mine.) The only thing she asked for that I gave her was moving back to Florida after 8 hellish years in Tennessee for her, and I'm glad we did because now she is happy and says she has everything she wants. She didn't bat an eye at me when I said I wanted to go to Namibia, and now is telling me that she is just fine with me going back to Africa every few years (she says she knows I will want to!)

And no, she doesn't have any sisters.

Good to see the Broken Horn 49-Incher that I first spied in 1999 in an internet search for cape buffalo hunting info.

That is how I found this website.
A picture of Saeed posing with Mbogo Ultimo.

I can't find that picture here anymore.
Where did it go?

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:


There is nothing that can beat hunting old mbogo!

http://www.accuratereloading.com/49buffalo.html

Just a little red X in a box?

Nice buff, Saeed. I also like the photo of the ever elusive Africanus Walterus to the right of the buff.

I was trying to ignore Walterus. Devilish or just a horny guy?

From the paper file, poor quality scans of Mbogo Ultimo:

Without a doubt, the eassiet buffalo I have ever shot!

I can just imagine some arm-chair writer writing endless pages of how much he had to "work" to get a trophy like this.

We were on our way to sit in a leopard blind, when we saw two bulls walking about 100 yard.

Alan said "Shoot the one in the back! He is HUGE!"

Roy stopped the truck, I jumped out and clobbered him. We ran after the second one and shot him too.

All of it, from start to finish, cold not have taken more than 5 minutes!

We went and sat in the leoprad blind. The leoprad came early, walked around the tree where the bait was in plane few. But, I could not get the barrel of the rifle low enough to shoot him - too much brush.

We thought he will get up the tree and feed.

He did not, and managed to live for another day.

Such is the luck of the draw in hunting.

My wife said it is time in our relationship to prioritise I must chose between her and hunting. i could not swallow and the tears was close so i said Shit honey im realy going to miss you

375 fanatic


I've already sent one packing. The old saying, "it's cheaper to keep her" is true.

I'm just gonna stand up and be a man...in otherwords, I'm gonna beg if everything else fails!

Bull1

This should help Bull1 i have a secretary filling this form in every day

I have a cousin who is pretty well off, and he has a habit of telling his wife he is leaving for hunting trips (I mean BIG trips -- up to two weeks duration) as he is walking out the door for the airport.

One time, he was leaving for an Arkansas duck hunt (as usual, informing his wife as he was walking out the door), and she had made "couple" plans for them that weekend. She yells at him as he is getting in the car "if you go on this trip, You won't have a single gun in your cabinet when you get back!

Well he just smiled and continued on the trip. However, when he got home, there was not a single gun in his gun cabinet. I mean L.C. Smith's, Parkers, custom rifles, nothing!

When he inquires as to their wherebouts, she says she pitched them in the dumpster. All he can say is "I certainly hope you weren't stupid enough to throw away $100,000 worth of guns." Then he let the subject drop.

For one solid year they did not mention the fate of the guns to each other (he knew better). It became a large topic of conversation among the rest of the members of the family, however. We would always ask him at family functions "any word on the guns yet? The answer would always be "no" and with that we let it rest.

Finally, after a year, she told him where the guns were (wrapped in blankets, under the insulation in his attic).

Since then the tells her when he is leaving for a trip at least one day in advance. Seems to work, as he still has his guns (however he now keeps then in a vault to which he has the only key).

Update and new issues...

Well, I finally got up enough nerve to tell my wife I had been thinking of making another trip to Tanzania. She didn't say anything for several minutes, then she said, "if you're going to go, you'll need to start making some plans pretty soon, won't you?"

OK, now I'm making plans. If I don't have to sell my house to make the trip, it's a go. And for the first time in four previous trips, it appears I will have a hunting companion. In the past, a couple of guys expressed interest until the issue of price entered the picture. Then, their desire disappeared and so did they.

Now to complicate matters, I sold both my .458 Lott and my .375 H&H in the past month. I know, I know, I should have got on the forum and requested an intervention or possibly even an exorcisim before I did something so foolish. But, I didn't. Now I have to come up with another rifle!

I have ordered a .375 H&H barrel for my T/C Pro Hunter and will put my Leupold 1.75x6 Vari-X III on top. I want to play with this combo for a while and see how comfortable I am with it before I consider anything else. As of now, it will be my buffalo gun. Best case scenario...good combination and a good buffalo package, maybe not the best but, good. Worst case scenario...my decision, my ass. But I honestly believe it will work just fine.

Bull1