12 June 2014, 13:58
Neil DuckworthBuffalo hunt report with Mokore Safaris in SVC. May 2014
This was a 12 day double buffalo hunt on Mokore/Umkondo in the SVC ,starting late April going into May. I was going to be hunting with Billy and Austin Ainsworth and my brother Gary was guiding their friend Pat Wallace and his son in law Trey. This was my 6th hunt with the Ainsworth's and Gary's first with Pat and Trey.
As it was the first hunt of the season most of the big bulls were working the herds which was extremely exciting at times ,due to the late rains the bush was extremely thick and sometimes visability was reduced to a few meters. Finding buffalo was not a problem as there were buffalo every where yet getting to see a big bull in really thick cover with hundreds of buffalo and shifting winds was quite a challenge. After a couple days of very exciting hunting Gary and Pat came up with the first buffalo ,a beautiful bull over 41 " which Pat shot at 7 paces from a kneeling position.
We were next to strike after working a large herd late afternoon on the 3rd day. We came very close to shooting a monster bull which moved at the last second, when the herd shifted again I positioned Billy on the sticks as I could see another bull about to come out, he looked good from the side so told Billy to get ready, as the bull stepped out into the open perfectly broadside and looked at us I could see he wasn't what we were looking for and told him to wait ,Billy's hearing is not good at the best of times, kind of like my dad's hearing which must come with age and too many gun shots, heard otherwise and squeezed off hitting the bull perfectly. He disappeared into a cloud of buffalo , shortly thereafter we heard the blessed death bellow and knew he was down.
This was Billy's 7th buffalo with me so wasn't to fazed about the miscommunication saying the hunt was the most important thing. He was a decent bull measuring about 34 " but with some good drops and hooks scored 101" SCI so scraped into the book.
As they had both booked to hunt 2 bulls each we continued the next day . Again we spent a few more days working the herds trying to pick out another big bull. On day 5 Gary and Pat struck again on another magnificent bull in a smallish herd of 30 -40 animals. Another great shot from Pat and the bull gave the death bellow in a thicket. This bull also slightly over 41"also, a great dagga boy..
On day 6 we got onto another big group of buffalo the had come down to feed along one of the river floodplains. After working the herd for an hour or so , sometimes with buffalo under 10 yards from us I spotted a good looking bull. Austin, Billy's son was up for this one so got him up on the sticks . For a while the bull was feeding back and forth behind some sticks but eventually came out and presented Austin with a good broadside shot. Austin hit him good as you could see him hump up ,Austin reloaded quickly and hit him again as he disappeared up the bank. When we got there we found a decent blood trail, after following a short while we started entering some thick bush when we heard the bellow. We back out and came in from a better position ,a couple insurance shots and we had him. Another great bull ,also over 41" with some massive hooks.
So by the end of day six we had all 4 buffalo down, three of which were over 41" spread. SCI scores for the 4 bulls were 101, 107 ,111.5 and 116".
With the buffalo down we then concentrated on some sight seeing and some plainsgame hunting. Billy and Austin having hunted with me several times had shot all the plainsgame several times so just wanted some zebra rugs. Over the next few days we picked up 4 striped donkeys .
Pat had also shot most of the plains species yet a bushpig had always eluded him. Gary set up a bushpig bait and built an approach blind. On the first evening they went there they saw a Brown hyeana and some bushpigs but the boar never showed himself. They went back the next night and Pat got himself a nice boar. Something he'd always wanted.
For Trey this was his first trip to Africa so Gary set out to get him a couple different species with kudu at the top of his list. As Trey had only shot a couple Whitetail in the States this was quite an experience.
Trey's Zebra.
Trey's impala.
Trey's Wildebeest.
And finally Trey's 57" kudu bull.
Pat's friend Hank Price also came out at the same time but not to over crowd our Mokore camp we sent him to hunt his leopard in the Midlands area . He hunted with PH Ian Rutledge. Their main target was a big leopard and a sable. Unfortunately Hank missed 3 sable but got a beautiful 170 pound leopard.
So after 12 days of hunting we had all had a lot of fun and taken some great trophies and created some more great memories.
Both groups are booked to come for another adventure with Mokore for 2015.
