First off I want to apologize for posting such a long report...
We booked this 10 day 3X buffalo hunt (management bulls) about a year and a half ago and had been looking forward to it and making preparations for a few months. Flights were booked on Qatar by Patrick Wright at PWP Travel ((patrick@pwptravel.com) who was able to keep everything organized despite 3 or 4 changes in various flights.
Trips lasting several days are a challenge if one has a small business and there is usually some "emergency" immediately before any trip, not so this trip and even my wife was packed and ready 4 or 5 days pre-flight. There was a small crisis though, I woke up Wednesday before our flight on Friday and had excruciating abdominal pain, there was no way I could travel as it was. My primary care Dr was on vacation so tried to reach my urologists, no luck...out of town. The lady that is my wife's assistant arranged for me to be seen by a Dr friend of hers, explaining to him that we had travel plans in a few days. Turns out I had an infection and was given an antibiotic injection, two prescriptions and orders to return the next day for another injection, which I did and the problem was somewhat relieved and felt able to fly.
Flight from DFW to Doha was great, though I can't seem to sleep on airplanes, even in business class. Doha to Joburg flight was especially good, we had one of the most attentive sets of flight attendants we've experienced.
Though our bags were supposed to be checked thru to Biera, Moz on Airlink, we were required to claim them and get a SAPS permit (which I knew was going to happen and had pre applied thru a service). My checked bag with ammo and my rifle case did not show up at the SAPS office and was not at the baggage carousel and after about 45 minutes we showed the SAPS supervisor where our air tags showed the items to be located (near but not at the baggage carousel), he was kind enough to go look and retrieved our items. Air tags are great. While waiting on the concrete apron to board the Airlink flight we were relieved to see our bags loaded into the cargo hold...and about 10 seconds later see my SKB rifle case come flying out of the cargo door and land about 10 feet from the plane. My wife had to restrain me a bit when I accosted the gate agent with us. Upon landing at Biera, we had pre approved "eVisa's" so entering should have been a breeze...not so. The officers knew nothing about evisa's or of the latest visa exemption, even though a poster proclaiming both was glued to the glass about 10 inches from his face. Still took almost 2 hours to get visa's. We were lucky though, there were 3 miners from Australia trying to enter the county with pre approved visas that had been there most of the day waiting for someone from their company to come and pay for their visa because the immigration credit card machines were broken and the officer would only take US dollars, which these guys didn't have. Had to show rifle and ammo to Police for firearms permit and found that during our 5 hour layover in Joburg that my bag had been broken into and a Wheeler screwdriver kit and deodorant had been stolen, why would I expect anything less? Helicopter flight into camp is always a highlight of visiting Coutada 11, as soon as the helicopter crosses the border with the adjoining Coutada the presence of game drastically increases.
Once in camp we were able to sort everything out and I was able to check zero on my rifle, CZ .458 Lott shooting 450 grain TSX and Banded Solids with a Leupold 1x5 scope, surprisingly the zero had not changed even after being tossed from the plane. Testament to the quality of both Leupold and SKB. Also, upon arrival at camp and access to wifi, my wife had an email from her assistant saying there had been a very bad storm at home and trees were down all over our place. I WhatsApp called a trusted friend and asked him to please go out and survey the damage and do whatever needed immediate attention. He did so, good to have a friend or two you can depend on. My PH was Julian Moller, who we have hunted with before, who knows I prefer to hunt in the forest rather than the flood plain. Might be a bit more difficult, but I like it. A work crew had told Julian where they had seen a small herd that had a couple of inferior bulls, so we went to that area, which was a large pan, maybe 300-400 acres of tall grass with some low areas holding water. The trackers soon found fresh sign and after a short tracking job (pretty obvious where they had walked) we stalked to within 50 or so yards and waited to see if an acceptable bull was in the group. There was and I shot him at about 40 yards in the left shoulder, he turned to run and I shot him behind the right shoulder. He expired in about 20 yards. Buffalo #1 down.
The second day we went to the flood plain where a herd containing a broken horn bull had been seen the day before and I was pretty keen about hunting him, fair amount of walking, maybe 3-4 miles slogging and looking for the herd but didn't find them.
The third day found us back in the forest and found a herd of about 250 buffalo in one of the large pans, lots of cover in the form of small clumps of trees so stalking wasn't really hard. Julian identified a bull that needed to be removed and I rested on the sticks for probably 25 minutes waiting for cows and other bulls to clear the chosen bull. When the others finally cleared, I shot him behind the right shoulder at about 70 yards and he dropped. The other buffalo didn't even run off, many came over to smell the downed one, including one really big bull that will make a good trophy for someone, he was big! I'll post pictures soon.
On fourth morning I woke with the same pain I had experienced prior to our leaving home, just no quite so severe. We hunted once again in the forest, checking the edge of pans and finally worked our way to a pan where a worker had seen a lone dugga boy two or three times in the past few days. We walked most of the length of the pan, which had head high grass over most of it, when we spotted the bull walking in a depression towards some trees and high grass. Using small clumps of trees to get closer we were able to get within about 40-50 yards but couldn't see the bull in the high grass. We could see the grass moving, but not the bull. He finally walked into an area of shorter grass and Julian gave the OK to shoot him. I shot the left shoulder but I could tell it hit a bit high, the bull headed for a small clump of trees and I shot him in the left ribs. Julian shot twice with his .470, hitting him in the back leg and in the meat above the spine. The bull ran to the small clump of trees and fell over so we decided to wait a few minutes to see if he bellowed was hopefully dead. These trees were about 40 yards away from where I had shot him the first time. We slowly walked up to where I had first shot and saw lots of blood, we had both marked where he fell so we had a good idea where he might be but as soon as we took a couple of steps towards the trees, the bull jumped up about halfway between us and the trees, much closer than expected, headed our way. I shot him in the throat and then shot him a bit lower, which dropped him. Julian had shot once hitting him in the right ribs. Pretty exciting stuff! He wasn't moving all that fast and didn't seem like a real determined effort to get us, but exciting nonetheless. Buffalo hunting was done...3 bulls in 4 days!
The fifth day started much like the fourth, only pain was a bit more intense, so we decided we might ought to try and change flights if possible to get home in case my problem got worse. Emails were sent to Patrick, some he answered in the middle of the night in the US, and he was able to make arrangements for us to leave on what would have been day 6.
Flying out of Biera was an experience, my firearms permit had been misplaced and luckily the admin at ZDS was able to email a copy to the police. Airlink was the usual cluster where no one knew how to accept a rifle and ammo, one has to pay a tax on ammo used in Mozambique at $2.00 per round (legit tax) and they tried to grossly "overtax" me but luckily I am able to multiply the number of fired cartridges by 2 and that was sorted out. What was a bit harder to sort was the extortion conducted by the police after clearing security, they take you into a small cubicle and say they need to search your carry on, told them to help themselves and then they start asking for cookies or a coke or $10.00. I told them I didn't have any of that and they let me thru, then they tried that with my wife and she got a bit loud, as she is prone to do, let her thru, too. I did report the issue to a hotline they have set up for reporting this sort of thing, the number is on a large poster next to where the extortion took place. Don't think much will happen from my call.
We had a 4 hour layover in Joburg and upon checking in for our flight we discovered that Qatar has contracted with a third party to handle check in, none of the third party knew anything about checking rifles or ammo (even though Patrick had the clearance from Qatar) and had to call someone somewhere to get it accomplished. Also, the contractor seated my wife and I several rows apart and on opposite sides of the plane, even though our "new" itinerary had us seated one in front of the other. Finally made it on board and had a very attentive flight attendant again, she noticed that we were seated apart and asked the person seated in front of me to change with my wife, which they did.
Our flight was delayed a bit and this put us with a less than ideal transit time in Doha, so when we landed in Doha and walked off of the plane there was a Qatar employee standing there holding a placard with my name. She explained that the Doha police had not been notified of my carriage of firearms and ammunition (turns out the contractor at Joburg had failed to send the proper notifications) so I would be refused boarding until matters were cleared up.This young lady pretty much took us by the hand and walked us thru every procedure required to transit Doha, took us to the head of every line and walked us thru every door. We would not be allowed to board unless the police were satisfied and the firearm/ammo were cleared to be placed on the plane. The young lady was constantly on her phone trying to get the police to speed things up, we were constantly looking at the location of those bags air tags. About 5 minutes before the doors were closed the air tags started to move and a call came thru to let us board. Pretty relieved! However; the Qatar rep did tell us that they had a hotel room for us if needed (I figured that was so the police knew where I was located).
Arrived home in decent shape, 3 Dr visits and more prescriptions and I'm doing pretty well.
Fantastic hunt with really good people and a great camp. Really good service from Patrick and Qatar. Sorry the report is so long, I have more to report, action packed hunt! And will report it when I add photos.

Thanks for sharing, Karl, and congratulations on a successful hunt. I hope you're on the mend with your abdominal issues. Looking forward to seeing some photos.

Thanks Karl for the report - it sounds pretty exciting. Though perhaps the abdominal pain was a little too exciting! Last time I had some abdominal pain that lasted 24 hours, I finally called the phone nurse and was told I had to go to the emergency room now . Good you were able to get home and are on the mend.

Congrats on getting it done. Once again a reminder why I don’t fool with hunting with my own rifles. The older I get, the less patience I have with continual aggravation. Hope the kidney problem is improving.

quote:

Originally posted by jdollar:
Congrats on getting it done. Once again a reminder why I don’t fool with hunting with my own rifles. The older I get, the less patience I have with continual aggravation. Hope the kidney problem is improving.

Or avoid countries with stupid entry rules!

Avoid flying through Johannesburg!

You can take your rifles, you can be welcomed into the country, and gave a fantastic time.

Simply by a choosing where to hunt, and what to avoid.

South Africa crime spree is getting worse, but gets no mention in the media!

Karl, Glad you enjoyed an action packed, if short, hunt. Looking forward to pictures and more detail.

Thanks for posting Karl, glad you and your wife had a great hunt, Hope you feel better real soon.

What an ordeal! So sorry for the health issues and glad you’re on the mend.

And congrats on pushing through all the problems and having such an enjoyable, exciting and successful safari!

I do wish there was another way to get to Moz other than through Jo’berg. It is the living Hell of travel destinations, even if only transiting.

Thanks for the great report!

Thanks for the report Karl.

Sounds like C11 is as good as ever!

Sorry your hunt was cut short.

Karl,

I hope you're back on your feed and doing well. Sounds like a great trip, but it's always an adventure. Congrats and looking forward to photos.
Hope you are feeling better.

Congrats and thanks for posting!
Mark Haldane runs a great operation and anyone that's never hunter coutada 11 and 12 is really missing out.

As far sas I am aware you can fly into Beira with Ethiopian Airlines.
I have flown with Ethiopian several times. A bit of a faff with firearms in baggage central in Addis Ababa but as long as you have your ducks in a row you are good to go.

Had a flutter on Ethiopian airlines website. You can fly ex Addis Ababa into Maputo much cheaper also.

Good to know. Thanks.

Karl,

What a sh@t sandwich, but at least the meat in the middle was a bonus and incredible story.

It’s good to hear you feel better and I hope there wasn’t too much damage on your property.

That's a great report, Karl!

Sounds like Qatar took great care of you two.

Airlink: Yeah, in my experience using them to move firearms is a great way to start thinking that life is not worth living... But sometimes there's no other option.

Glad to hear you are on the mend and feeling better. I can't think of anything much worse than falling ill while traveling. Regardless, sounds like you had a great safari. ZDS is a solid outfit with some of the best populations of game in wild Africa! Congrats!

I recently read "Bringing Back the Lions" which is a detailed history of what Haldane et al did to reestablish that area. It was a really interesting and well written book. I would highly recommend. ZDS is on my short list for a future hunt.