Outfitter: Martin Pieters Safaris
PH: Pierre Hundermark
Date: 5-22 Oct 2014
Place: Omay North hunting concession

Great old buff, now tell us the stories about the hunt.

Congratulations, great pictures, and welcome to the forum!

great kudu!

Yes, show us some more pix--look like excellent trophies all around!

Please share with us. Would love to hear your hunt report.

Dutch

great photos tell us about the hunt

Thank you for your comments,

I'll try to write a little about this safari, but - excuse me for my English. This message will contain some errors


It was my 2nd safari in Zimbabwe - with the same company and the same PH. It is great to spend hunting days with well known crew - this is the way to obtain better trophies.

In October-2012 we harvested 2 buffalo bulls, 1 hyppo, 1 zebra and 1 waterbuck.

Here are phorograps ot trophies from season Y2012.














Right during that safari we build a plan for future hunts:
- elephant
- cats

This year we planned hunt trophy elephant bull, buffalo bull, bushbuck and impala. We planned spend 14 hunting days in Omay + 3 days in private Nehimba safari lodge (located in Hwange national park) - for photo safari. That camp is already a property of Martin Pieters (and I can recommend everybody this excellent place to take really beautiful photos of wild nature).

In reality we harvested:
- 1 elephant bull
- 2 buffalo bulls
- bushbuck
- impala
- klipspringer
- waterbuck
- kudu
- baboon

And we got our trophies too quickly so, I spend some days just fishing.

In next post I'll try to upload photos of these trophies and write small story about that excellent safari.

Here are photos of trophies from Oct2014:

Rifle is Sako75 .375H&H Mag,
scope used this saeson - Leupold VX-6 1-6x24,
Ammo: BarnesX 300 grs, Cutting Edge Safari Solid 300 grs, Woodleigh FMJ 350 grs.
I also made tests (under already dead buffalo's) with Woodleigh softpoints (SP and PP SP) in 350 grs and can't recommend these bullets for hard-skinned dangerous game like buffalo.
Below are photos of SP's made by Woodleigh recoverd from baffalo carcasses:





And this is my lovely BarnesTSX recovered from buffalo:

As for kudu bull - unfortunately I missed really big bull (it was an absolute monster) trying to hit em from 365 m with solid because I don't know how this bullet drops at such distance I hit a ground under that bull.
But we were able to fing this group of kudu's again and got that trophy.

Below are some photos of wild nature taken during safari in Omay:

Your lovely Barnes bullet placed on a shelve will be picked up, fondled and will rekindled as many memories as a mounted trophy or a picture...
Congrats on a successful Safari

And there are photos from Nehimba safari lodge.
This is absolutely perfect camp. If you will stay here, ask Mr. Rob to be your own guide and travel by legs, not by car...

Congrats on a great hunt. Love the pics, especially of the birds while they are flying.

Nice trophies and story. English not bad at all

Morten

Nice report,thanks fore sharing

Had the pleasure to hunt with Pierre there last year,with great success,great guy to hunt with

http://forums.accuratereloadin...6321043/m/6001062391

Also had the pleasure to be guided by mr Rob at Nehimba,great guy.

Did he show you his rifle,the Mauser 404?

Terje, good evening,

Thank you for your reply to my short message, I'll try to write something more about hunting process and about baby ele recovery from the mud in Umi river.

Yes, I saw Rob's rifle - it is very good example of very good old school devices. Very nice. I definetely need bigger caliber then 375 for next elephant safari



BTW - Terje, exellent report! Pierre, Mike, Furunga, Opet, David - all team here. Excellent guys - I want to have another experience with this crew. I hope our plans will be real.


Best regards,
Rinat

Another pic of Mr Rob and his rifle

Some very nice trophies there. Congratulations.

Very nice...I've had the pleasure of being with Rob and Pierre, although I hunt with Chap.

Great pictures!

I hunted with Pierre for buffalo in the Omay in 2011.

Great trophies - thanks for sharing. That kudu looks old. I would like to see a picture of its teeth.

Very nice.
Great photos tell a story as well as words if not better.

Pierre is a great guy to hunt with and he has a great crew! Ferunga and Orbet worked their butts off for me in June.

Great trophies and pictures.

I'll try post here some parts from my report about this safari. Original report already published at our local WWW conference, and it is 18 pages A4 (legal) in length
So, I'll try translate some parts to English.

First Buffalo-2014:

On the third day bushbok passed us Buffalo. More precisely, bushbok passed the elephant, and than he passed a Buffalo for us. Or something like this It does not matter, but I'll tell about it

In the morning of the third day of the hunt we decided to check the border of the national park, passing through the dried Umi river. Before the confluence of two rivers all at the left is the N.Park; and after this point the N.Park ends and the whole territory is ours.

Walking, looking. Elephants, fresh prints, but not heroic dimensions. Baboons. Waterbucks. Buffalo... wait a second. Oh! This is not an ordinary print, it looks like good kitchen plate.



Seeing such trail of the Buffalo, we stopped thinking about elephants. 2 new dagga boys came from N.Park. Nobody has ever seen these animals and their prints. One track is less (but it is enough for good, very good bull), the second is bigger. The 2nd bull may be monstrous.

Buffalo went on a slope upwards and to the left. This is already hunting territory. We decided to bring water (a lot of water), and go on the trail as long as it will require. Without any breaks.





We went really a lot. Boulders, stones. Tracker's work was impressive. For non-trained eye only fresh excrement confirm that the bulls were here recently. These "fingerprints" where fresh, but not the first freshness, which makes hands gripping the rifle stronger, heart beat faster, and making eyes to look at every bush as a potential shelter of Buffalo.

Usually in the midday heat, people sit in the shade and wait. But not now, not for our crew. Our bulls made small semi-circle, goes on basalt terrace along the dried river,



and pass on the left side, went down into the dried up riverbed. We went down too - and with the greatest regret we saw that two our friends crossed the stream and climbed to the opposite bank after drinking water from a small hole in the sand... They went to the Park.



It wasn't our day. Definitely.

We had only one choice - go back, along dried river, in order to reach the main dried river, and then walk to our vehicle. A narrow canyon with high stone walls was incredibly beautiful. During our way we overcame wade - in those places where water forms not deep swamps.









OK - what we can do now? We can spent the rest of the day in the camp - but it's not good to lose even few hours from hunting days. We can ride a boat to cross the Gulf and look for someone interesting. We will have around three hours before sunset. OK, let's go...


TBC

Congrats Rinat. It was a pleasure meeting you at the Ume river camp.

Larry, good evening!

It's a good surprize to meet you again - at virtual conference at this time

Yes, I was really pleasured too spent time with you near campfire in Umi. It was great time. Hope your travel home was without any problems, isn't it?

What's about new film with you about your safari? How are your cameramen - Murray?






Best regards,
Rinat

Thanks.

The travel home was fine. I hope yours was as well.

I just got my DVD today . It is pretty good.


The cameraman is coming to see me in about 2 week.

I hope you are well.

Nice report. Congratulations.

quote:

Originally posted by larryshores:
...

I hope you are well.

Larry, thank you,
Yes, this year travel back was fine.
Previous time aircompany temporary lost my luggage during the way to Zim; and temporary lost my rifle and cartridges during the way home

Best regards,
Rinat

There was another occupant at the camp except for us. Mike, the PH from Martin's team, spent some time here between his two safaris. In a few words Mike is a very good guy, merry-maker, inveterate fisherman and the owner of hi-speed boat Very nice guy, he is always in a good mood (I can't be so optimistic like Mike ).


Since Mike boring to stay in the camp without adventures, he decided to join us in an evening trip to the other side of Kariba's bay. Snacking on the run we loaded the whole our gang to the boat and swam to the other side to find a Bushbuck.

Our guys saw a bushbuck around 16:30. I can't distinguish it against the backdrop of local bush at such distance.

OK - landed on the coast at a respectful distance from our object of hunting, we decided to stalk it together with Mike: just me and Mike, rifle and sticks. That's all as we need to find our trophy.


Making a wide detour according for wind, we saw our Bushbuck. Yeah - here is it - but ... not in good trophy grade.
(like this one:
)



Oups... Our Bushbuck looked to the bush - and came off. We wondered who's else there?

Elephants. They are getting closer to small hill occupied by our small hunting team. They approached to us eating the trees. After some minutes we heard "rumbling" - some of them where very close. Five elephants. I distinctly (so far as the bush) saw 4 (one was a young male), the fifth hadn't any opinion to show us his head. Nobody knows - may be this 5th elephant is the elephant of my dream... It's unpredictable.

And here begins the show in Kariba lake Zoo - in the background, may be at distance around 4-5 hundred meters we saw buffalo herd coming from the bush to the water. Many buffalos.



Mike decides to quietly go back and call Pierre. Mike is a professional too; but we are talking now about main goal of our safari. Looking for Ele's and Buffs that time, I saw 1 good buffalo bull in the herd. His horns are quite good, but I can't see the details of his boss at such distance.

O, we saw our 5th Ele bull's head - no, he isn't our hero. OK - cartridges are already changed back to Barnes - let's go to the Buffalo



We quietly approached to the herd and spent few minutes at sunset to investigate our bull with binoculars. Bull was really thirsty - cows are already checked us, but bull still drink...



Quick race ahead - sticks - 80-90 meters - bull decided to run to the bush - shot - bull slightly bounces up and run quickly - 2nd shot.

It was the moment when I regret that there is no operator with a good camera behind me. It looked as if something pulled the rails away under the train - the bull falls in a cloud of dust, goes forward by inertia. 2nd shot was placed to the spine of running Buffalo.

Immediately followed third shot - to the chest - we run to our Buffalo - insurance shot with absolutely right comment from Pierre that I shouldn't be so impatient - now it's all.

Barnes TSX 300 grs done his job.
Exactly at sunset.




PS by the way - someone tried to shoot this bull before us. There is the old festering wound at the neck of our bull from a bullet with not big caliber.

Elephant recovery:

It was amazing how such huge animal can disappear in 3 hrs

Full set of photographs is available at Photobucket album

here are some photos from it:

Great trophies, beautiful photos.

RinatKV Looks like a good safari. I too did a late season Hunt with Martin's operation last year. It was hot and worth it.

I have seen that large Boab bab tree. Truely impressive. Your photo's bring back great memories.

For information Woodleigh now make a more strongly constructed soft point for DG. Me I just use a 416 Rigby.

If you have further photos please post.

quote:

Originally posted by Rule 303:

For information Woodleigh now make a more strongly constructed soft point for DG. Me I just use a 416 Rigby.

May be, may be...

There is Woodleigh W46B 350gr RN SN (with V0 == 2310 fps == 704 m/s ) at my first photo and 46C 350gr PP SN at the second (V0 is the same == 2310 fps == 704 m/s ).

The first bullet recovered from layed down buffalo. It went though skin between frontal ribs - lung - between (!) ribs again. We found the rest of bullet under skin at opposite side. So, no one bone was hitted, and bullet lost approx. 1/2 of it's weight.

The second bullet recovered from chest of 2nd buffalo. Shot was made to layed at his right side buffalo directly to spine. The rest of this bullet was recovered from lungs.

These 2 bullets are not suitable for such type of game, I guess.

OK

One day looking for our Elephant we saw very interesting scene - swimming elephants.
I don't know how to process video, so, I\ll show some photographs:













More pics are available in album at Photobucket


Best regards,
Rinat

A little bit about wild life conservancy and trophy hunting.

There are few photos which were made during hunting safari in Omay (Oct'2012). More pics are at Photobucket again.

After stalking of small buffalo herd hunting team went back to vehicle by the bed of dried Umi river. And... we saw small elephant stacked in the mud in dry bay. And... we saw small elephant stacked in the mud in dry bay.

Starring:
- Pierre Hundermark
- Allen Moodi
- their trackers and game scouts
- all Umi camp stuff
- client from the US
- baby ele
- mother Ele

Superb story and photos. Many thanks.