It's my ten year anniversary of my Cape buffalo hunt in Zimbabwe and I have decided to share it with you.........Cheers, Tony.


My Life long dream of hunting in Africa was about to commence. It was August 1999 and the Qantas jumbo was heading west from Sydney to Harare via Perth and Johannesburg.
The build up over the last few months had been almost unbearable, counting down the days to the trip from 6 months out is enough to play on your mind - so much so, that you end up thinking of little else.

After all the load and accuracy testing, checking - then rechecking my gear, reading all I could on African hunting (really enjoyed the writing of Capstick) and watching videos of “Black Death” over and over again - made up the basis of my preparation.

A couple of short stops in both Perth and Jo’burg, the end of first flight was almost here. Anticipation had been building for so long now, that every hour was painful. The plane finally landed in Harare at midnight, and first thing next morning I had a connecting flight to Bulawayo where I was to be met by Charlie Stanton and his crew from Mbalabala safaris.

Charlie arrived just as I collected my luggage, relieved that my Sako AV .375 H&H has also arrived safely. After greeting the trackers - Koonoolookoo and Voiyt , we loaded my gear into Charlie’s Toyota land cruiser, and headed on an 8 hour drive to the Zambezi Valley, to the Omay concession near Lake Kariba.

My primary trophy was to be Cape buffalo, yes one of the big 5 of Africa, and whilst in this area I was also able to take other plains game during the hunt if the opportunity arised. This was to be a 5 day Buff hunt, however I had also organised a 10 day plains game hunt, again with Charlie back in the southern part of Zimbabwe at the conclusion of the buff hunt.

The 8 hour drive was like driving through outback Queensland, the main difference however was the amount of local black people travelling by foot along the sides of the road. Basically every few hundred meters there would be a few locals heading to God knows where by shanks pony - mainly dressed in clothing that looked like they picked up from St.Vinnies!
Charlie had picked up a local newspaper on the way and the front page news story was about a 17 year old English tourist who had just been dragged out of his tent, whilst on a canoe safari, by a lion and eaten alive! I asked Charlie where had this occurred, and he informed me that it happened in the Motsaduna National Park - which just happens to adjoin the Omay concession where we heading. Ok - this made me think of how real this safari was and you can take nothing for granted whilst in Africa!

Arriving in Camp that afternoon, we were taken to our sleeping quarters (which also happened to be a tent) where me and Charlie were to share one tent, whilst the trackers shared another. It was at this time that I suggested to Charlie if it was a good idea to keep my rifle next to my bed during the night - loaded - in case a lion came in and dragged one of us out. I said this with a bit of ‘tongue in cheek’, however Charlie’s response what not was I was expecting to hear. “Yeah that’s probably a good idea. Just make sure you shoot the lion and not me if it’s dragging me out”. That response was a little sobering to say the least!

There was time enough time to check my rifle and make sure it was shooting where it was suppose to, then a quick hunt to check a couple of water holes to see if there was any worth while sign of buffalo.

The most amazing thing about the terrain that we were hunting in was the fact that this was quite steep hilly county, not dissimilar to the terrain where one hunts sambar deer here in Victoria. Obviously the conditions were somewhat more tropical, dusty and arid - however thick with vegetation and a variety of wild life including the Big 5 of Africa - how exciting!!

We headed of in the Land cruiser, with the two trackers, a local government game scout and of course Charlie and me. The game scout came armed with a .223 - as this was his defence against possible poachers, Charlie had a Bruno in .375 (shooting solids) whilst I carried my trusty Sako using 300gn Barnes X hand loads.

We travelled a few k’s from camp along the Zambezi escarpment, before stopping the vehicle and heading into the scrub to check out a remote waterhole to see if any “duggaboys” had used it recently.
Duggaboy’s is the term used to describe a bachelor herd of mature bulls, which are generally past there prime - but by far the most sought after trophy Cape buffalo.

After trekking in single file along a used Elephant game trail - we arrived at the waterhole which showed a lot of sign of various animals - yet no fresh buff tracks. We turned and headed back towards the vehicle, when one of the trackers signalled to Charlie that there was something ahead. After a few moments Charlie called me over and said look down to the bottom of the gully.
Wow, my first look at a free ranging wild African Elephant.
“Would you like to get a bit closer for some photos?”

“Hell yes!” I replied. Although in the back of my head I had this nagging thought and flash back of when I was in primary school.
You see I was in year 3 at school and during class one morning a cockroach (or simular bug) was crawling along the class room floor with most of the girls screaming and shrieking in fear and disgust.
My first reaction was to be the “hero” so I jumped up and stomped on the bug - killing it instantly. At this point the teacher responded so the class would settle down - then turned to me and said “How would you like it if a Elephant stomped on you?” with my smart arsed answer being - “well I don’t live in Africa - so that’s not going to happen”. That statement all those years ago was now playing on my mind somewhat as we headed down to the dry riverbed to get some closer video footage of my first wild African Elephant.

We made our way to within a about 100 meters - which at this point was pretty close for me - as the cow elephant had a bit of family about including some young. I have to say that these are one incredible animal - and we constantly “bumped’ into elephant during our hunting in the “valley”.

After the ele encounter we then returned back to camp. It has to be said that the service and comfort in an African hunting camp has got to be the best there is the hunting world. With servants and helpers there to bring you drinks, have your clothes washed, even a human alarm clock in the mornings standing at the entrance to your tent gently saying “Knock Knock” to wake you before the start of each mornings hunt. Absolute luxury under the conditions of the African wild.
The first night around the campfire, talking about buff and other dangerous game, eating biltong and drinking Zambezi beer before dinner, it was almost surreal to hear Elephants trumpeting at the bottom of the valley. This is what Africa is all about.
After a lovely dinner of bushbuck medallions we retired to an early night before our first full day of hunting. Although very tired from all the travelling, sleep did not come that easy - what with the excitement of the hunting days ahead and the thought of man eating lions in the adjoining national park - no wonder.

“ Knock Knock” came the gentle whisper from one of the servants. I stirred and wondered where the hell was I, before instantly realising that my hunting dangerous game campaign was about to start. It was still dark outside, but I new we were having a early start to try and find some buff tracks so we could try and asses if they were worth following.
After a quick breakfast of toast and coffee, we grabbed the rifles and climbed into the Toyota to head out as my first African sunrise was ascending.

We travelled slowly along some of the dirt tracks, with the trackers on the back of the Toyota keeping a sharp look out for sign of buffalo that may have crossed the track. I personally thought that this would be difficult for them to do, however after about 20 minutes there was a tap on the roof and Charlie brought the cruiser to a stop.
The trackers jumped off and walked back to some scuff marks on the track. After examining them for a few minutes together with Charlie and me, they started talking in Mbele (African dialect) to Charlie.
They followed the tracks for a distance of 20 meters or so into the bush and were excitedly telling Charlie something.
Charlie then interpreted to me that a group of about 5 male buff (presumably duggaboys) had crossed the track about 4 hours ago heading slightly higher up the valley to bed down through the heat of the day.
Now I am no tracker - far from it - however I found it pretty hard to digest that the trackers could come up with all this information, just by looking at some scuff marks. I questioned Charlie “How the hell can they work all that out from some marks in the dirt?”
Charlie smiled as if to say ‘another non believer’ then proceeded to tell me the facts that they had in front of them.
The tracks were definitely those of older male buff about 5 or 6 in total, as the size and number of the tracks indicated this. After following the tracks for 20 or so meters, some droppings (bullshit) was found and the trackers agreed that the dung was about 3 hours old going by the fact that it was still ever so slightly warm, yet the sun had only just come up. Also fresh browsing along the game trail indicated that the buffs were slowly making their way back to their bedding area which was heading along a slightly winding uphill game trail.
“Ok - if you say so.” I replied, still doubting that this much evidence had presented itself. They must be pulling my leg somewhat - but what the hell lets follow the tracks and see.

With my Sako .375 H&H fully loaded with 4 rounds in the mag and one in the chamber, safety engaged, we proceeded to follow the tracks single file with Koonoolookoo and Voiyt leading the way, followed by Charlie then myself and the game scout bringing up the rear. Now I rarely - if ever hunt with my rifle loaded with one up the spout and safety on, especially with other hunters about - let alone stalking in front of me, yet Charlie had insisted that “this was Africa, this is how we hunt here for dangerous game, loaded and safety on - besides this is what safety catches are made for”. Fair enough I thought, who was I to tell them differently and besides it was their lives on the line as well.

The tracks were not to difficult to follow generally speaking, as 5 buff can and do leave behind clear marks in the dirt, however once onto some dry grass and vegetation , to me the tracks would disappear. Not so the trackers and Charlie, they would soon locate the trampled stuff and find scuff marks between the grass - indicating the direction the buff were heading.

We continued on for a few hours, stopping and having a drink every so often as the temperature started to climb. The breeze was beginning to slightly pick up and the trackers started to check the wind quite regularly. Unfortunately it was coming from behind us more so than from in front, as it swirled around us as hunting in mountain terrain the wind often does. We had little choice but to continue on as we needed to try and make up some ground on the buff who were still ahead of us somewhere.
Well before to much further, a group of (unseen) animals could be heard crashing away 80 meters of so ahead. The trackers froze and indicated with a scissor like action of their fingers that the buff were running and spooked.
It was decided then and there than we should stop and let them go, give them about half an hour before taking up the spoor again. We took this time out to have some lunch, (pre made sandwiches) have a couple of cigarettes (yes I did smoke back then) and also have a rest in the shade as it was now getting quite warm. Before to long we once again back on the trail and being ever so mind full of the wind direction we proceeded cautiously knowing the buffalo would not be too far away now.
Indeed half an hour or so further on, Voiyt dropped to a crouching position indicating to us that he could see the buff ahead. We instinctively all dropped down as well, trying to get a look at what was in front of us. Charlie had made out some buff, yet I was unable to see any in the thick Jesse vegetation.
Charlie indicated to me to slowly come up alongside of him, as I slowly made my way up to him.
He whispered to me to use my bino’s as the buff were blended in well with the bush. Before to much longer I started seeing parts of the buffalo as they were very uneasy and looking in our direction.
In the meantime Charlie had set up some shooting sticks for me to rest my rifle in, asking me if I could make out the buff directly in front 30 meters away.
I said “I can see half his head and one of his horns“. Instantly I could feel the shakes kicking in knowing how close these bulls were.
“As soon as you feel ready, put a bullet in that bull, as he has the best head of this bunch. Don’t rush, but they are certainly uneasy and know something is up”.
A million things raced through my head at this moment, particularly the fact that this was only my second day of the hunt, and only the first buff that I had laid eye’s on. On the other hand, before I left I had spoken to a number of Aussie hunters who had also made the journey to Africa - wanting a buffalo along with other plains game, yet missing out on the buff due to being fussy and passing up animals early in the hunt only to miss out altogether.
“Do you think he will make 40 inches Charlie?” I asked, hoping for some reassurance.
“He will go close, I think you should take him - but its up to you. Better make up your mind quick though as they know we are here.” he whispered.
I already had the rifle cradled in the shooting sticks, looking through the Leopold scope, I could clearly see half the buffs face and the curl of one of his shinny black horns - looking somewhat like half a helmet that a Viking would be wearing. I was tempted to put the bullet just above his eye, as the rifle was shooting very accurately and I was confident at that distance, however It was also drummed into me on the long drive to the hunting camp, that unless if the animal is charging, head shots generally have a too much of a chance of wounding and chest or spine shots were a better option on a standing buffalo.
The problem was I was unsure of exactly the angle that this bull was standing in relation to me. Was he broadside with his head turned facing me (this is what I was assuming) or was he front on - or even somewhere in-between? I decided to chance it and shoot through some scrub with the assumption of the buff being broadside, as the situation was becoming tense and I was feeling a bit of pressure to hurry up and take the shot before they spooked (or even charged maybe?).
I put the cross hairs on were I thought the bulls shoulder would be and gently squeezed the trigger.
Yep all hell broke loose, as animals started crashing off in every direction and my bull showed himself, kicking his rear legs out like a bull at a rodeo! I quickly worked the bolt, on the Sako, taking it off the shooting sticks and moving a couple of steps to the right. I put the cross hairs on the now fleeing buff (still acting like a bronco bull) as he angled away from me, just behind its ribs and squeezing the trigger once again, feeling very confident that this was going into the boiler room. The buffalo continued to crash off into the jesse and within less time that it take to write this sentence, the bush returned to silence.

Charlie then started firing the question’s at me, asking where I had hit him and was I confident with my shots?
“Well” I started, still shaking from the adrenalin rush that had just hit me, “I am not 100% sure of my first shot, as I shot through some scrub and could not see at what angle the buff was standing at, but he wasn’t happy and started kicking his back legs in the air, however I gave it to him with the second shot as he was bucking and carrying on and heading into that thick stuff!”
“Ok. Let just take a 15 minute break before we start following him up. He hopefully wont go to far and this will give him some time to stiffen up - maybe.”

We sat down, I lit a cigarette and went over and over the shots, although confident with the second shot, I should have been more mind full of my first shot’s bullet placement. Anyhow that was history now and we have a wounded buffalo on our hands that we have to go and track, knowing all to well that tracking a wounded buff in thick jesse is about as dangerous as Cape buffalo hunting gets.

The trackers had already found some blood where the buff had run, and as long as the blood continued to flow, Charlie was confident that the trackers would be able to follow it. Both Charlie and I had taken a flank on either side of the trackers and they painstakingly followed blood drops on the ground and on some foliage. The rifle were fully cocked and loaded with fingers hovering over the safety catches, looking intensely ahead - Charlie warning me to look ahead and not at the blood trail, as this was the trackers job and our job was to protect them if a charge eventuates. Bloody hell, how did I get us in this mess? I kept replaying the ‘Black death” video in my head, expecting at any moment a crazed wounded ton of mean - hell bent on revenge - Cape buffalo to charge through the scrub.

There was very little blood to follow, however the trackers used a combination of blood, spoor and the game trails and terrain to work out where the buff was heading, but it certainly was very slow and the concentration necessary was very difficult and tense. People’s lives could be at stake, and I could be responsible - not a good frame of mind to be in.

We stopped often to take a short break, the trackers talking amongst themselves, as the blood trail had just about dried up, and a lot of the tracking had resorted to following tracks, yet there was a number of buffalo tracks- how do we know it’s the right one?
I would light a smoke up again, thinking of how things seemed to be unravelling. A couple of hours had now past, feeling pretty low and the situation - possibly blowing my trophy fee, and not finding my buffalo - were all possibilities going through my head now. Shit it was hot!

Charlie suggested that as the terrain had opened up quite a bit that we split up and take a tracker each and follow two separate buffalo bulls and see if we could find more blood (or the bull) to indicate which was the correct set of tracks to follow. I had to say that these guys do not give up an a trail, where I must admit that I probably would have thrown the towel in by now if I was back home trying to track a deer or the like.
So we split up and Charlie and Koonolookoo headed over a separate ridge to the one that Voiyt and I took. Voiyt was constantly shaking his head, not being confident of being on the correct trail. Another 15 minutes past and I was about to give up all hope, when I heard a shot ring out!! I looked at Voiyt and then we both started running in the direction that Charlie and Koonolookoo had taken. As we crossed over the ridge we spotted Charlie waving to us calling us over towards him. My first reaction was relief as they had obviously found the wounded bull!
As we arrived alongside Charlie, he pointed onto the next ridge, 150 meters away, indicating a downed buffalo. I looked through my binoculars and indeed it was a downed bull.
“Are you sure that’s the right one?” I asked, feeling both relief and concern at the same time.
“Definitely your bull Tony” Charlie assured me. “He was standing on that ridge with his head hung low, blood coming from his nose, I put one in him because I was unsure of where you were and I didn’t want to follow him any further - I hope you understand.”

“Understand?, mate I couldn’t be any more relieved. Thank God you found him and put an end to this ordeal!”

We quickly headed over to the downed buffalo, still approaching cautiously . Yep the big beast was down for keeps and I marvelled at the sheer size of this truly great game animal.
“How tough are these bugger’s?” I asked looking at the animal and marvelling at how long and how far we had tracked this guy for. Almost 3 hours had past since my first shot, with both bullets having entered the chest, although my first shot was probably a little far back, the second shot however had entered behind the ribs, passing through a lung and coming to rest on the far side under the skin, having broken the off shoulder as well. We must have tracked him for at least 2 k’s.
Charlie’s finisher had also entered the chest cavity from the opposite side and breaking ribs and entering the lung cavity yet not passing through - even though he was using solids. (All projectiles were recovered).
The Bulls horns measured 38 inches in spread, but I couldn’t have cared less. This was certainly a hard earned trophy and although no world record by any stretch, he was mine and I could not have been happier.
Now the work was about to begin, yet I had left my camera in the Toyota, and to be honest I could not imagine carrying this buffalo head out as we had been hunting for at least 6 or 7 hours!
Surprisingly, local native people began turning up from everywhere, before you knew it there was 20 or so people coming to look at the buffalo. “Where the hell did these people come from?” I asked Charlie. “The local native men have probably been following us from a distance once you had fired the first shots and have been hanging back waiting for us to finish the hunt so they could share some of the meat from your bull.”
Well I’ll be buggered! Fancy being followed around without even knowing it? A bit spooky as an afterthought, but what the hell, its good to see nothing was going to go to waste.

“We need to go back and get the vehicle so we can get the trophy out of here. Is your camera in the car?”
“Sure is.” I replied “ But how in Gods name you going to get a car in here? How long will this take?” I asked.
“It will take us about an hour or so to get back to the car, plus about another 20 minutes to get it in here.” Charlie said in a mater of fact voice, and a dry smile as he could see the amazement in my eyes.
“You have got to be kidding? Get a vehicle in here?” I looked around at the various vegetation and more importantly the rocks and boulders that were just about everywhere.
“ Don’t you worry Tony” Charlie said again with a dry smile. “leave it to us Africans to work out the logistics.”

The two of us headed back to the Toyota, leaving the trackers and the game scout to mind the buffalo from all the locals, as I would hate to return to it and they had all hacked it up before we could return. But there was nothing to worry about as Charlie insisted that the locals were pleased to have some meat on the ground and respected the fact that it was my buffalo and all they wanted was a share of the meat once we were done with it.

We left to go back to the Toyota in totally different direction to where I thought it was and surprisingly we got to it in about an hours walk. It certainly felt like it was a lot further away considering how long we had been hunting, but as it was, we had almost done a full circle in tracking the buff.

We drove back along the track for about a kilometre, when I noticed some natives who were hacking down some vegetation, and believe it or not were clearing a path for us to bring the Toyota through!
Before you knew it they had cleared a path literally up to the downed buffalo!! Unbelievable!! Well this sure made life easier!

After taking heaps of photo’s and video footage, the trackers then began the task of cutting the animal in two, with us taking the front half of the beast back to camp to be caped out and butchered, whilst we left the back half to the locals to enjoy and squabble over.

Although my African Safari was far from over, as we spent the next two weeks hunting plains game in the southern part of Zimbabwe, including taking Kudu, Eland, Bushbuck, Impala, Zebra and warthog (also wounding and loosing a waterbuck) - the buffalo hunt had come to a early, albeit exciting but frustrating conclusion.
If there is more exciting hunting than that on the planet, then I am yet to experience it.

Great story - very well told!

Very cool, thanks for sharing.

Great story and a great buff. You definitely earned that one.

Excellent story, you made me experience a day of exciting with hunting without moving from Madrid, many thanks and I hope the story of the hunt on the plains of Africa.



Regards,

Oscar.

P.D: Great trophy. Clear.

Great story mate! Love hunting with the Stanton in Zim been three times now and can't wait to get back ang do it again

Thank you for all the kind remarks. The above story was written a couple of weeks ago, going off memory, however memory of a hunt that will never be forgotten.

Excellent!!

Well done and thank you Tony. I encourage AR readers to share this with others. The richness of the African hunting experience is hard to believe and unforgetable afterward. We seniors need to enthuse following generations so support continues for the safari companies.

Thanks, maybe, just maybe one day I'll get one.
Jeff

I just got back from my first buff hunt, which was 47 years in the making. I sincerely hope (and expect) that it will be as strong and vivid a memory in a decade's time as yours is. Congratulations!