Folks,

Had a very busy client just return from safari. Jeff did want to post report though and I volunteered to put it up for him. Enjoy!

Mark


Just back from a 12 day Cape Buffalo and Sable hunt in Zim – Matetsi Unit 1, hunting with Gary Hopkins/Klipkraal Travel and Safari.

The trip was booked through Mark Young. I’ve known Mark for close 20 years now, though we’ve never met in person. We talk on the phone and he’s sent me on a couple great elk hunts and now to Zimbabwe. We’d been talking about a trip for a buff for a while and this opportunity came up. Booking the hunt was extremely smooth – everything was laid out well in advance and there weren’t any surprises. Sadie keeps great track of the billings and deposits and whatnot – and since my wife was on the trip, she and Sadie talked during the run-up to the trip and Sadie was able to steer her in the right direction on a couple things. Mark’s logistics person, Jamie, took care of the gun permits and kept up with all the paperwork on that end – everything was smooth, to the point of me having a single folder with all the stuff I ever needed in it. I know that Mark was in contact with Gary during the hunt, too, making sure that things were going OK. Having booked my first trip to RSA myself and now experiencing a trip with an agent and travel agents I can honestly say I’ll never do it any other way. Both Shawn at Gracy travel and Mark and his staff were great throughout.

The trip got off to a great start when I was packing the gun case the day before we left. I opened the action on my backup gun and closed it and the bolt hit the scope. That’s not right….so I open it back up and the bolt snaps off in my hand, at 4:41 pm on a Friday. Lesson #1 – this is why you use a booking agent and Gracy Travel. Within 15 minutes I had talked to Mark Young and three different folks at Gracy and had everyone working on a solution. THAT is customer service. Regrettably, we were flying Emirates and they don’t allow changes within 10 days of the flight to the guns. Lesson #2 – if you’re flying Emirates, pack the gun case 12 days ahead of time and leave it alone.

We flew Emirates Houston to Dubai – laying over for a day in Dubai because my daughter (who’s 15) wanted to see it. Spent a nice evening when we got there strolling around the Palm Island and the next day at the Burj Khalifa and the mall there. Emirates was a joy to work with on the guns. They checked the serial numbers, but they put “business priority” tags on everything – and the luggage sailed through. Flew Emirates to JNB, where we had engaged Gracy's meet and greet service. Lesson #3 – That’s TOTALLY worth it. We were met at the gate. Customs parted like the Red Sea for us – the gal that was escorting us snapped her fingers at the customs guy as we walked up and he opened the gate and we cut straight to the front, to the dirty looks from everyone in line – and were escorted to pick up the weapons, handed off to Bruce who took us to SAA check in and with 30 minutes of leaving the plane we had cleared customs, claimed the guns, checked everything to Vic Falls, cleared customs back into the departure gates and were waiting for takeoff. 30 MINUTES – I clocked it.

Camp is about 1:20 from the Vic Falls airport. It’s as close to 5 star luxury as I’ve seen in a camp – it overlooks a pan that they keep pumped full, so there was an endless parade of animals coming to drink. The week before we got there, a leopard came into camp and tangled with the 4 camp pit bulls so they were all gimped up from that. They’ve also had lions drinking out of the swimming pool.

Unit 1 is about 160 square miles of unfenced Africa – fantastic area. We saw shootable animals every day, and one day alone we saw over 150 elephants. Gary is a great guy and I cannot recommend him strongly enough. We had a fantastic hunt.
We started on the Buff….method was to drive the roads and look for animals crossing, then to drive around them in a circle on other roads to ascertain they hadn’t crossed another road…then go back to the original tracks and start walking. The first 3 days we were on herds twice a day – morning and afternoon – and usually spooking around on the downwind side close enough to smell them while we sorted out the bulls.
Long story short: the rifle sighted in just fine the first day, but late on the second day I missed a nice bull. We went back to the paper – and the rifle wasn’t even close. Not even on the paper at 100 yards. No idea what happened. We re-zeroed and didn’t have an issue after that.

The third day we got on a herd in the morning and I got a shot at the bull in the picture at about 90 yards. First shot was lungs – perhaps a bit far back. He took off and both Gary and I missed as he ran. We started after him – the country was pretty open – and after we got him in sight we sprinted about 400 yards to close the distance. We got to within about 50 yards a couple times and every time we were going to finish him (had to make sure we had the right one) he’d move. Then another bull came back to join him. We got another shot into him as the second bull came out to challenge us. He didn’t charge – but we had to back off. The second bull went back and tried to lift the first bull several times and then wandered off. All in all, the bull took five 375 H&H Nosler partitions (all in the chest) and one from Gary’s .416 before it was over. He’s 37” with 15” bosses – exactly what I told Gary I was looking for…

We started day 4 after Sable – same method. We were on Sable every day. Day 7 we were on a bull from just after 9 am until almost dark before we left him. As luck would have it, we found another bull a mile or so away on the drive back to camp, and after a short stalk I shot him at about 80 yards about 10 minutes before pitch dark. We had good blood – both sides and high on the grass from a lung shot – but we were tracking through chest deep grass in the dark. Gary worried we’d mess up the trail so we marked the spot and backed out, returning at first light.

We had only been about 30 yards from the Sable when we quit – but it was the right decision. A leopard ate 5-10 lbs off the hind quarter overnight, but nothing that will affect the mount and to me, that just adds to the story. Sable was right at 38”.
Next up was Waterbuck. Though we saw several – like 5 or 6 – that were pushing 28 inches or more during the Buff and Sable hunts, we just couldn’t find a decent one the last few days of the hunt. We passed on several that were mid-20s, and we saw a very nice one that had broken off one side. Could have had a nice earlier, but I wasn’t willing to break off a stalk on buffalo or sable to do it.

We saw lions twice – once a pride of 5 – and lion tracks daily. We saw leopard tracks several days and saw elephant daily. All in all, I bet we looked at over 1,000 buffalo and maybe 50 sable – bulls and cows. We saw a nice herd of eland and a big herd of roan with a really nice bull.

Abe (pictured with me and the sable as he came out of the recovery) runs the concession and the camp is first rate from top to bottom. Great food – snacks and sun downers by the fire daily and three course meals to follow that. Of the six camps I’ve been in, this was right there with the nicest. Staff was fantastic. The lunchbox on the truck was awesome – we had everything from cold burgers with fried eggs on them to quiche to cold steak.

My wife and 15 year old daughter came on the trip. Of the 12 days in country, they went to town with a day guide three days to do all the touristy things. My daughter has now bungee jumped from the 360 foot bridge over the Zambezi River in Vic Falls. When the day guide found out my daughter swims competitively, she brought out a whole gym to the camp and made sure Erica worked out the 3 days they were together. Gary and I took the girls to town one day so I could see the falls and watch the bungee jump. We did a sundown cruise on the Zambezi that was a lot of fun and spent time looking around the markets. I enjoy that kind of stuff and it was a nice break from up at 5 am to ride the truck.

Final thoughts:

-Emirates did a great job with the guns – I’d gladly fly them again. Business class tix were reasonable and the A380 is a great plane.
-Don’t book your own trip – having an agent such as Mark made this a LOT better than my first trip that I did myself.
-Let Gracy do the travel – When you hit a snag, they are fantastic. The folder I got from them let me sail through the airports. Everything was organized and at my fingertips when the airline folks wanted it.
-Spend the extra $$ and get the meet and greet in JNB – totally worth it.
-Gary is a great PH and I’m already contemplating an elephant hunt with him.

Thanks Mark!!!

It was a GREAT hunt - highly recommend it. If anyone has questions, Mark can put you in touch with me.

we had no issues in Zim generally or Vic Falls specifically - except for the liquor store refusing my $10 USD bill because it was "too old" - I had to give her two $5s.

We paid for all the "touristy" stuff we did - bungee jumping, zip-lining, sunset cruise, etc with credit card without incident. Card was billed in USD without any added fees or exchange rate charges.

That third pic is my daughter going off the 370 foot zambezi river bridge with a rubber band tied around her. She's not wired right. Of course, that's coming from a guy that ran after a wounded buff....

Awesome Hunting Report and trophies.

Yes, I agree. Unit 1 is fantastic !
Did a buffalo, Sable, Reedbuck there last year and would love to go back. Just so many buffaloes and great camp.
Cheers

Love the drop of that Buff!

Looks like a great trip. Always wanted to see Matetsi!

Well done and thanks for posting.

Great trophies and fantastic hunt. Glad Mark posted them.

BH63

quote:

Originally posted by Fjold:
Love the drop of that Buff!

Frank - I agree. I told Gary I was willing to trade a bit of width for the hooks/tips, and I got just what I wanted.

Jeff

Nice report. Thanks for sharing


Morten

Bump for no other reason than I'm bored at work and re-reading hunt reports.

The hunt is long over, but the memories are fresh still.....

The zambezi river bridge shakes when the train goes over it....
Seeing my first Roan....
Bringing home a $100,000,000,000,000 bill for the fun of it....
And I'll bet if you took me to where we parked the truck for the buff I could walk you to within feet of where we took the shot...