Dates: November 9th - 13th, 2009
Area: Omay North, Zimbabwe
Outfiter: Martin Pieter Safaris/Bulembi Safaris
PH: Martin Pieters
Weather: 70's to low 100's, depending on rain/cloud cover
Rifle: Hill Country Rifles DGR .404 Jeffery with Zeiss Conquest 2.5x8
Ammo: Hornady Dangerous Game Series .404 Jeffery 400 grain DGX and DGS factory ammo
Camp: Ume River Camp
Travel Arrangements: Kathi Klimes
Airlines: Delta/SAA

Many of you remember when Martin ran his advertisements for 5 and 7 day buffalo specials on AR back in late September. Whether coincidence or fate, a good hunting buddy of mine, Kelly Park and I had shared the previous weekend together chasing alligators on a hunt in the Guadalupe River delta. One of our topics of discussion was buff hunting and the fact we both had a bit of vacation to burn... Kelly and I shared a safari in Namibia in '99 and he was eager to strike a buff off his bucket list.

Imagine my surprise a couple of days later when Martin's ad showed up in the Hunting Classifieds here on AR! I had read Bill Campbell's Hunt Report of his elephant adventure with Mart earlier this year and knew Pieters was an excellent PH and had a truly huge area with ample opportunities for dangerous game. A quick e-mail and call to Bill reconfirmed my initial thoughts that this was a bargain not to be passed. When I told Kelly about the opportunity he jumped at the chance and in short order we added John (who posts here as john e) and Blanton on board to round out our group of four.

I must add here that Martin was a real champ in accomadating our needs for specific dates. Due to my tight schedule requirements, he actually agreed to hunt us the week of his son's seventh birthday... I truly appreciate his sacrifice in missing that special day with his family!

We booked our airfare with our own Kathi Klimes using Delta's nonstop service to Jo'Burg then SAA to Harare. Our flight went without incident. This was my first trip using Delta's non-stop service to Jo'Burg and I did not miss the stop in Dakar at all. I found the seats in economy adequate, service excellent, food fair at best and entertainment very good. All in all I would fly Delta again. I did worry about the transfer of gear from Delta to SAA since we had a 2 hour 40 minute layover before boarding the 7:30 flight to Harare but everything made it fine. We had a glitch on the SAA connection with our tickets showing they were refunded but one of the "smarter" SAA attendants sorted it out and we were on our way. This proved interesting on the trip home but more on that later!

We arrived in Harare, cleared customs and were met by a representative of House Harrison Bed and Breakfast who couriered us to a light supper, shower and comfortable bed. We hit the rack around 11:00 p.m. Our wake up call came at 5:00 a.m. and after a hearty breakfast we were off to our charter flight to Omay North.



An hour later and I was once again enjoying one of my favorite experiences of a hunt... touchdown on a dirt strip in prime game country and all of the promises the next week or so holds! Martin and his team of PH's met us on the runway. I was paired with Martin, Kelly with Shawn Nicholson, John with Lyndon Stanton and Blanton with Pierre. Martin had his appy's, Dalton, Steve and Reward load the cruisers with our gear and asked if we minded dropping gear off in camp and immediately getting ready to hunt... with four buff needed in 5 days he wanted an early jump on the proceedings! No one voiced any disagreement with his idea and we were off on the 40 minute ride to camp.



Ume River Camp is comfortable and rustic and sits at the point where the Ume River begins to flow into Lake Kariba. Another couple from North Dakota were in camp hunting leopard and sable with an old friend of mine, Shaun Buffee. I first met Shaun when I hunted elephant in 2004 in the Dande with Buzz Charlton and Shaun was our fearless cameraman. It was nice to see he had made the transition to fearless professional hunter!



We were assigned chalets, geared up and headed for a quick sight-in at the range with our rifles and then on to the hunt. All rifles remained true and escaped serious damage from the baggage apes.

At 10:00, we were checking tracks at the first spring Martin wanted to look around. Though the first light rains were just beginning, things were still quite dry and the buffalo and other game were still concentrated around water sources. We found tracks from the evening before but nothing that elicted much interest from our team of trackers, Steve and Witness and game scout Madjambonje. We covered two more springs and then headed for a turn-around on the Ume River/Matsudona National Park border.

Imagine everyone's surprise when we pulled up to the turn-around under a tall mopane tree and stopped to glass our side of the river and promptly spotted five buffalo bulls feeding on the fresh green grass growing along the river's edge. A quick review of the bulls and Martin whispered that there were four shooters in the group, one young bull and one "monster". At the word monster I had my kit ready and was reaching for my rifle when Martin stayed me....
"let's run up the road 5 kilometers and park, get the wind right and shoot this big bull".
Hell, sounded like a plan to me. An hour and a half into the hunt and we had just found the Ume Five! Things couldn't get better...

And so the wheels were set in motion for what had to be the most incredible (and luckiest) day of hunting in my long career.

Witness eased the car out of view of the buff and we set a decent pace back down the road from whence we just came. Three kilometers later. How we missed him before I don't know... but we didn't miss him this time. Martin suddenly began tapping on the roof to get Witness to stop the cruiser and began quizzing me on the elphant he just spotted. My city eyes had not adjusted to the bush yet but Martin guided my binocs back to the bull standing 400 yards off the road. Martin whistled softly to himself and said "four feet of ivory sticking out of his lip". Then he looked at me and said "wanna shoot this bull?". Shoot this bull? It didn't take me a second to blurt out a very unintelligent sounding... "uh yeah". Martin smiled and said great, we will collect him and then head over and whack the big buffalo. Damn, a good plan made even better...

We ran down the road another couple of kilometers and pulled off the road. Rifles came out, softs exchanged for solids, my Texas HuntCo belt strapped on, scope turned down to 2.5x and we were off. Martin explained to me we would work up to the elephant and try for a frontal brain and take a few quick pictures then head on to the buffalo bulls.

Fifteen short minutes later and we caught up to the elephant bull as he strode across the top of a hill. The terrain in the Omay has quite a bit of contour. We climbed up out of an arroyo and watched as the bull settled under a couple of tall, leafless mopane trees. With Steve in the lead, Martin and I crept closer. Several times we had to freeze as the old bull would stop flapping his ears to listen. We closed to fifteen yards and as we came broadside Steve set the sticks up and I had the opportunity for my first side brain shot on an elephant. Martin had explained earlier that he would not shoot at a client's trophy unless the shot placement looked bad or there was a follow-up on a wounded animal. I appreciated both his point of view and the transparent sharing of the same.

As I lined up on the bull the crosshairs settled a handwidth in front of the earhole and the trigger broke. At the shot the bull collapsed. We quickly advanced and Martin had me shoot the bull once more in the chest and then in the back of the head. And after a couple of hours of hunting, I had a super elephant trophy!







I never get nervous on the approach or at the shot on dangerous game but after the animal is down the shakes and emotions flood over me. The realization of what you have just accomplished can be overwhelming sometimes. And this was definitely one of those moments. But Martin's gentle urgings broke me out of my trance... we need to grab a few pictures and then get on those buffalo bulls. I had to pinch myself to make sure this was real. We cut the tail off to prove ownership just as it has been done since the days of the ivory hunters. Snapped a few pics and then we were off...

Some guys have all the luck. Congratulations on a fantastic elephant.

quote:

Some guys have all the luck.

LOL... yep only 14 safaris to pull this hat trick!

What a beautiful elephant! Congratulations!

Brett

Awsome elephant!

Great start to the week!!! Now we are waiting for the rest of the story.

Unbelievable! You have earned him with your days of pursuit over many years. Congratulations Russell!

Russell, congratulations--that is a tremendous bull!

Russell, way to go. Very nice unexpected ele.


Larry

Beautiful bull, Russ!!


Now get on with that BRUTE of a buff bull story!

That musta been some morning...

A well deserved bonus. Congratulations. Great to hear of the success with the 404 and factory ammo.

VERY nice Russ. What a time you had....and great story-telling. That is truly a fantastic bull. I hunted the Omay in the fall of 2006 and still have fond memories.

Gary
DRSS
NRA Lifer
SCI
DSC

Damn Russ, that is fantastic! What a great bull.

I drained a bottle of water and as the adrenaline began to wane, felt the heat as the mid-day sun bore down on our group. Steve and Martin set a blistering pace to try and intercept the buffalo... you could almost read their thoughts and concerns regarding the shots and wondering if the bulls picked up the distant sound of gunfire. All they had to do was ford the river and they would be safe in the confines of the national park.

After a hard 20 minutes we pulled up at the sight of the Ume and we began to cast about for tracks or a sighting of our boys. Martin and Steve held a brief conference, each trying to guess where the bulls might be. There were tracks all along the river's edge and finding the set that belonged to our group was no easy task. Finally, an agreement was reached and we headed out on a set of tracks that seemed to take a determined path along the river toward a shallow bay. We swept the bay and followed across a tributary and into thicker jess. After 45 minutes we began to realize we had been on the wrong set of tracks. There are always moments of exhilaration and impending defeat on most hunts... and at this point we were feeling the latter rather than the former.

The heat really began to work on me. I shed my cotton shirt and traded it for a lukewarm bottle of water in Steve's backpack. I was just wearing my Underarmor T and though I feared sun seared skin, the camo T was much cooler. We took a break when we reached the bay and I took the opportunity to wet my cap and shirt.

Another 45 minutes and we were back in the area we started in. We looped to the river and back away from it looking for the buffalo in the undulating folds of the terrain. It is amazing how easily they can disappear in the gullys and then magically reappear which is exactly what they did.

Martin spotted them first at 200 yards as they worked out of a depression and moved across a high point. We immediately began a wide sweeping arc around them to get the wind right and make our approach.

After 10 minutes our group turned into the wind and began to slink back toward the bulls. Every crease in the landscape was thoroughly investigated... or so we thought. How we missed them can only be explained by the terrain we were hunting in. We once again had the feeling we had passed the bulls. Martin and Steve stopped and glassed, then headed to the river once again. As we stalked through a gully and up on a ridge, I saw the bulls bust out of the crease just 100 yards in front of us and quartering our way.

I will never forget the sight as the first bull, a wide but soft bull galloped our way. The bull that followed him was the stuff dreams are made of. He was one of those buffalo that screamed "big"! Martin began quietly urging me to shoot... "shoot the big bull, shoot the big bull". In slow motion the gun came up and found the bull. At twenty five yards, the bulls pulled up confused. Obviously we had stalked past them and as they crossed our scent trail only minutes old, it caused them to run back our way. Now they picked up our scent on the wind. And they stopped and milled.

The big bull was broadside and I barely remember the sight picture as I found the shoulder automatically and fired offhand.

At the shot the bull's nose went down, tail corksrewing up and he began pushing dirt as the DGX broke both the onside and offside shoulders. Fifteen yards later he was down as his buddies bailed off the river embankment and headed for the safety of the park. The old bull never made it and had collapsed with his head facing down the slope and his hindquaters still at our level. Mortally wounded, he began his death bellow...



Martin and I looked at each other and asked ourselves the same question... was this the big bull? We cautiously headed his way and I shot him twice more. Martin touched his eye and then hopped down the slope and pulled the bulls head up. At the sight we both began to yell congratulations to anyone within earshot! The bull was beautiful and had the most amazing curls and bosses I have ever seen on a buffalo. He later measured 18"s across the bases and roughed right at 120 SCI. Score didn't matter... he is and probably will be the best buffalo I ever shoot!






After a long picture session we began the task of caping and quartering the buff. As we rolled him over the heat got the best of me and muscles cramped in places I didn't know had muscles... Luckily Martin carried Rehydrate in his pack. I poured a pack in a bottle of water, drained it and found some meager shade to sit in. Steve and the game scout finished up quartering the bull and we carried him down to the river's edge. A quick call by radio to Witness back at the truck and relayed across the valley brought a boat from camp and I experienced another first. Packing a buffalo out by boat!



As we boarded the boat and headed back to camp I reflected on the last four hours and the most amazing day of hunting I had ever experienced afield.

Russell,

Outstanding hunt and report. Congratulations!

David

Man what a great Buff-and I thought my 16.5 incher was big!!! Great story and great Buff-good on you man!!!!

Well done, great report and photos.

Well done. TORERO. MY UNCLE WILL REGRET FOREVER NOT TAKING THAT INCREDIBLE OFFER FROM MARTIN ON THE AR. OLE

Great Stuff and wonderful trophies. Congrats!!!

Truly amazing stuff! Congratulations on enjoying what most of us, even the veterans, may never achieve. The pics are outstanding as well. Thanks for sharing.

congratulations on a terrific hunt, can I ask what the tusks weighed? Sometimes it all just comes together.

That is one Great Buffalo!!

Great Ele and Buff, one after the other, very welldone, congratulations.

Congrats! What a hunt great Elephant and a fantasic buffalo.

I would assume you are pleased with the performance of the Hornady Ammo. in your 404 Jeffery? Having one built and interested in your opinion on the Hornady bullets.

Also, greatly appreciated your report...Man do I miss Africa, heading back in Sept/Oct. 2010....you just brought me back to it for a short while and that is much appreciated.

Best,

Jim

Thanks to everyone for your kind comments!

Believe it or not, I was so spent that I really couldn't celebrate Sunday evening. A combination of the heat, excitement and jet lag had me feeling beat down and I felt bad about not sharing a scotch and cigar with the guys but I just did not feel up to it. Call it the heat, age or just plain spent... all I wanted was supper, liquids, a shower and bed!

The next morning though I was back on my game. A couple of things I think are important in hunting during the hotter parts of the season are to keep hydrated and ask for a breather when you need one. I brought powdered gatoraid with me and had a bottle every morning, around noon and before I hit the rack to keep myself going. In between, plenty of H2O! Don't be emarassed to ask for water and a break when you need it. Even though I live in South Texas where warm is the status quo, I am still not out there 24/7 which you are when you hunt late season in southern Africa.

Another life saver in the evenings is a camp fan that runs off D batteries. The wind would blow from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm and then most nights would get still. The fan and a wet Frogg Toggs Chilly Pad allowed me to sleep without sweating out in the mosquito netting that choked off whatever breeze blew through camp. A word to the wise is sufficient....

The next days were a gas as we hunted for an exceptional bushbuck, waterbuck or warthog! We hunted hard. I saw a lot of Omay North and got to quiz Martin on his area and it's future. Martin has a long term lease on Omay North with seven years left on his ten year lease. Like others I have heard the Omay North has been hammered hard by a number of outfitters but was pleased to see and hear of Martin's committment to making it a true safari destination again. Folks, let me tell you, if you are after dangerous game, the Omay North has them. In the next five days I saw numerous hippo, croc ( some bruisers), plenty of buff and buff sign and herds of elephant. In fact I saw four shooter bull elephant on this trip including the bull I shot! I also saw a number of plainsgame like waterbuck, sable, bushbuck, impala, zebra, kudu and duikers, grysbok, etc. In one morning as we hunted the area close to Martin's Mackenzie Point camp we saw eleven species of game. I can tell you here Martin's management is paying off! Just take a look at some of the game we photographed!






The next morning was devoted to taking care of my elephant bull. Over 50 villagers showed up to take advantage of the nyama that was available. Word was they let school out so everyone including the kids could take part in the recovery. It was the typical bedlam after we removed the skin, ears and tusks... always a sight and we left soon after they began to work on the carcass to avoid being the culprits in any accidents that could occur. After the tusks were secured we headed back to camp!



In discussing what else was on my wishlist I mentioned to Martin that I loved to fish and had never caught a tigerfish. Having access to Lake kariba, Martin smiled. I had some great fishing experiences over the next five days and though we didn't catch size... we made up for it in numbers!






In the end, everyone enjoyed the fishing trip/booze cruises. Though they did not deter us from our primary objective of shooting buffalo and an assortment of other game!

By the second day of the trip, all of our party had buffalo down. Kelly added a bushbuck and impala to his bag.





Kelly and I also spent a day in the bush hunting for a tuskless cow. I still think dollar for dollar it is one of the most exciting hunts available in the jess!



Blanton took a really nice buffalo and tuskless elephant cow that had everyone on their toes in the jess. I will try and post some pictures of his trophies.

Johnny took a nice buffalo Tuesday evening way up in the hills with his Merkel .470 double. The experience had him spent when he pulled into camp that evening but he took his dugga boy the hard way and earned every inch of the old boy!

All in all we had a fantastic hunt in the Omay. Martin has a great DG area and has just signed up Omay South in a long term lease as well. I look forward to great things out of Martin and his crew in the future and will not hesitate to book with him again in the future!



As always, the end of the hunt came to soon... and as much as I enjoy the touchdown of the charter on the dirt strip the drone of the plane's engine as it comes to pick us up to take us back to Harare is rather melancholy!




It did allow me to reflect on a super safari however... and to remember the sights and sounds that call me back over and over again!

quote:

I would assume you are pleased with the performance of the Hornady Ammo. in your 404 Jeffery? Having one built and interested in your opinion on the Hornady bullets.

Jim,
Though I only took two animals on this safari, an elephant and buffalo, I was pleased with the performance of the factory Hornady Dangerous Game Series DGS and DGX bullets. I had corresponded with Ivan Carter who has as much experience with these bullets as anyone I know and he was very forthright with me about what he has seen in almost two seasons with both bullets. I was concerned over the bad reputation the old Interbond bullets had and asked him specifically about the DGX softs.

Again, I shot ONE animal with the DGX bullet but broke both shoulders of the buffalo I shot at 25 yards. That experience, plus the fact my .404 shoots them in an inch makes them the "go to" bullet for me in the future. The only bullet I recovered was a solid from my elephant and it reminded me of the Woodleigh solids I have recovered in the past. If I get the chance I will try and post a picture of the bullet... but it completely penetrated the bull's head. Enough said. I admit I am not a perfectionist when it comes to bullets. I don't shoot them into wet newspapers and dowel rods or dead carcasses and then retrieve them... I just hunt with them. And they worked and I will use them again. And as Forrest Gump said, "that's all I have to say about that"!

You will enjoy your .404 Jeff! Mild recoil, moderate velocity, great penetration!

Nice buff and ele-good shooting.

Russell,

Please quit posting these pictures, you are killing me. It makes me want to leave now to go back.

Congratulations on a great hunt, your pictures are fantastic and the account of the hunt is excellent.

I am speachless....a great ele and a fantastic bull in the same day

After so many trips you sure deserved a buffalo like that

Thanks for sharing.

L

What a wonderful hunt and well-written report! That buff is beautiful and the ele is first class! My ache for Africa just got a boot up. That was a safari to dream of.
Congratulations!

You only shot two animals but the quality was worth ten others, great trophies, great report and you gotta love those Hornady bullets they work extremely well and they don't cost an arm and a leg.

What a fantastic hunt, a super buff and elephant on the same hunt. I love to tiger fish almost as much as hunting, I have even considered making a trip just to fish. I too have had the same experience with the DGX on buff and the DGS on elephant and will use them again.

Congratulations on your hunt. I enjoyed the report and the great pictures. Your buffalo is amazing.

Thanks,

Greg

Waidmannsheil! Thank you for sharing that fantastic hunt with us.

Russel

Absolutely marvelous, I am in awe,

Looking forward too seeing you in Vic end of December,

Then we can have a couple of really good whiskey's on your great hunt

Fantastic, Russell, simply FANTASTIC!!!

I thought your buffalo looked huge.Now that i see your against the others WOW!! What a great animal.

Now that's the STUFF! Wow great hunt and fantastic trophies! Congratulations.

Bwanamrm:

Lovely Buff and Ele.
Hope the bullet did not excessively damage the horn.