My wife and I just returned home from another great buffalo hunt with Myles McCollum and CMS in Dande (all over Dande). The hunt was bought at auction with the then Lubbock DSC Chapter (now the newest SCI Chapter)...long story there. My wife bought the hunt (10 day hunt) 3-4 years ago and CMS honored the donation after all of this time, due mainly to conflicts on our part. The hunt was scheduled for September, but another client needed the dates we were supposed to hunt, but as it was a donation, we were happy to move dates and I was looking for the oldest, ugliest, beat-up bull we could find.
Conditions were pretty dry, lots of leaves still on bush, but not a lot of water.
We arrived in Pedza camp on first hunting day and after checking zero on my CZ .416 Rigby, we went for a "stroll" near some nearby waterholes where we found a few dugga boy tracks which we followed, they soon joined a herd and that herd joined another herd and so on until we were alongside 300-400 buffalo, no chance at what we were looking for so we backed out...pretty exciting though!
The next day we were on dugga boy tracks at first light from a spring and tracked the single bull for about 2.5 hours when we heard from the truck driver that the bull had crossed a road and another PH and his client had started tracking the bull...Myles said this was the first time this had happened in almost 30 years of hunting, sort of disappointing after walking that distance, especially since the other PH and hunter gave up after about 45 minutes. But...every cloud has a silver lining, we went to another water point and found about 25 snares! And while we were gathering the snares two poachers walked up. The trackers and game scouts gave chase ($100 reward for each poacher apprehended) but those guys might have been able to outrun Usain Bolt! The next day started out the same, tracking dugga boys but all of them joined herds, we tracked several different ones and at last light we found a small herd with a bull that pretty much met my criteria, one shot at about 120 yards (.416 Rigby, 400 grain TSX) put the bull down. When we walked up on the bull, I noticed something odd about he animal and realized he had a snare embedded in his neck/face and head. Looked to have been there a long time. It was way after dark before we had the bull loaded and on the way back to camp. Te net couple of days were devoted to looking for a big kudu, Saw only cows and immature bulls. Then we hunted our way to Matombo Camp on the Zambezi, a beautiful camp, especially for the ladies, if your wife or significant other happens to come along definitely worth a couple of days for them. First day at camp we rode upstream in a boat looking for bushbuck, with no success saw lots of hippos and crocs, smugglers, too . The net day was devoted to fishing and relaxing with a very nice lunch on the river, Ms Rebecca caught the largest Tigerfish by far. The next day we hunted our way back to Pedza, finding more snares along the rivers near villages. The net day we hunted kudu, tracking from water points (without success) and found more snares near some villages. We also went by some hot springs and found a presumably lion killed half grown buffalo. Our 10th and final hunting day we hunted from Pedza to Mukunga Camp, saw a female leopard stalking some kudu cows in broad daylight but no kudu bull worthy of a second look. Headed back to Pedza, we decided to check one last water point and while walking to the water hole stumbled across two sets of elephant tracks with a large blood trail beside one of the tracks. We first followed the trail in the direction they had come from to see if we (tracker and Myles, not me) could figure out what had transpired. After a half mile or so the blood petered out, so we went the other way to see if we could find the animal. After less than a half mile we found the elephant, obviously sick, and we approached within about 30 yards, we couldn't see the wound and Myles asked our game scout to come forward and see what he thought, that SOB was scared shitless and wanted no part of the elephant. so we backed out and Myles called for the head Warden. That guy wanted Myles to walk up on the elephant and "assess" the condition of the animal but not to shoot it if it charged...Myles declined, so we left the wounded bull on his own.

We flew Emirates from DFW and I've never experienced a more efficient check in process with firearms at DFW. Also, Emirates offer a chauffeur drive option for business class, where they pick you up at your residence and bring you home after your trip, this is limited to a 50 mile radius of DFW...but we discovered one can pay a small "fee" and the service is available further out than 50 miles, we took advantage of this and the premium was actually less than paying for parking at DFW. When we departed from Harare home-bound, I was concerned because the check in crew were contract employees, not Emirates. They had no idea how to deal with a firearm and, even though I asked for a declaration and showed my paperwork from Emirates Group Security, they didn't complete a firearm declaration. Once on the plane, we explained our concerns to the head flight attendant and she went to the pilot to make sure we were OK, pilot verified he was OK with the firearm and all was good.
We got daily reports from Buzz, who was hunting elephant in Chewore, detailing how many kilometers they were tracking a broken tusk bull, really sort of comical the number of miles/K's they had walked (hunt report on here by others, finally got one. Good for him!!!

I'm still trying to get caught up around the place but will post a bunch of photos in the next couple of days.

Thanks for the report Karl. Glad you did well on the Buff. Hope you have pics to post of the embedded snares.
Did CMS think the numbers of snares you found was about the usual or has snaring seen a bit of an uptick recently ?

Nice buffalo you took - saw pictures on FB. Extremely dry year - August conditions in May. Poaching across the Zambezi Valley will be a challenge this year. Glad you found the daily K updates comical! Comical wasn't the word I looked for most days!

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That guy wanted Myles to walk up on the elephant and "assess" the condition of the animal but not to shoot it if it charged...Myles declined, so we left the wounded bull on his own.

That's asking a lot!

Thanks for the report, Karl.

It was very dry and poaching is definitely on the uptick, nearly all crops failed and locals don’t have a lot to eat. I’m sorting thru hundreds of photos and will post soon.

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Glad you found the daily K updates comical! Comical wasn't the word I looked for most days!

We did the same thing 3 years ago, wasn’t very comical then.

Well done on an old broken down bull... saw the post by Myles on FB and you should be in the running for the Rigby Award. Thanks for the report.

Thanks for sharing, Karl. Great hunt and great trophy.

Thanks for the report, Karl. I'm headed to Dande for leopard/croc/hippo at the beginning of July, so the report is of particular interest!

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Originally posted by Brandon.Gleason:
Thanks for sharing, Karl. Great hunt and great trophy.

Thanks, hopefully will have photos sorted pretty quickly and post a bunch of them…also have more to add to the original post.

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Thanks for the write up and look forward to the photos. Good to know that Myles is still getting out into the bush from the office (written with a big smile!).

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Originally posted by Hannay:
Thanks for the report, Karl. I'm headed to Dande for leopard/croc/hippo at the beginning of July, so the report is of particular interest!

We saw plenty of crocs on the river below Matombo Camp, dozens of hippo's, too. Plus, not a day went by that we didn't see leopard tracks in the roads or on the trails, probably saw 10 male leopard tracks (could've been the same one or two cats, but the trackers thought not) also, on the last morning we saw a female leopard stalking 4 kudu cows in broad daylight. We ruined her stalk...
Ive been asked a few questions that I'll try and answer, asked about cell service or internet, there was cell service in some areas near Pedza and Matombo for sure, based on the quickness with which the game scout whipped out his phone in certain areas and Pedza had internet on Starlink, other camps have it as well. That was a godsend for my wife as she needed connectivity daily to take care of business at home. Asked about numbers of buffalo seen; we saw literally hundreds of buffalo in herds and there were some pretty good bulls amongst them. Didn't see a lot of plains game, though I did shoot an Impala to mount above an old Rhodesian hunting area map that was given to me (I like old maps). Myles and the game scout thought the presence of quite a few wild dogs was having a detrimental affect on plains game.
This might be more appropriate in the travel forum but those headed to Zim in the near future might take heed, the police in Harare asked for a copy of my hunt invitation letter as we were departing (luckily I had copies) and then asked how many times I had hunted in Zim, with which outfitter and the year I hunted. police lady wrote all of this down on my invite letter. I suspect those hunting with CMS will get a heads up from them as Lynn from CMS was there to run interference for us. it was a first for her, too.
Ive got most photos sorted and will be posting pretty soon!

Morning K Evans. Please kindly add the picture of the old Rhodesian huntin map to all the photos you are going to upload. Would be great to see it, thank you

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Originally posted by ilitshe_zim:
Morning K Evans. Please kindly add the picture of the old Rhodesian huntin map to all the photos you are going to upload. Would be great to see it, thank you

Will do!

A nice recap of your hunt, Karl. I've seen pictures of your bull and he is a good one for sure.
Looking forward to more of the story and your posted pictures as well.

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Originally posted by K Evans:

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Originally posted by Hannay:
Thanks for the report, Karl. I'm headed to Dande for leopard/croc/hippo at the beginning of July, so the report is of particular interest!

We saw plenty of crocs on the river below Matombo Camp, dozens of hippo's, too. Plus, not a day went by that we didn't see leopard tracks in the roads or on the trails, probably saw 10 male leopard tracks (could've been the same one or two cats, but the trackers thought not) also, on the last morning we saw a female leopard stalking 4 kudu cows in broad daylight. We ruined her stalk...
Ive been asked a few questions that I'll try and answer, asked about cell service or internet, there was cell service in some areas near Pedza and Matombo for sure, based on the quickness with which the game scout whipped out his phone in certain areas and Pedza had internet on Starlink, other camps have it as well. That was a godsend for my wife as she needed connectivity daily to take care of business at home. Asked about numbers of buffalo seen; we saw literally hundreds of buffalo in herds and there were some pretty good bulls amongst them. Didn't see a lot of plains game, though I did shoot an Impala to mount above an old Rhodesian hunting area map that was given to me (I like old maps). Myles and the game scout thought the presence of quite a few wild dogs was having a detrimental affect on plains game.
This might be more appropriate in the travel forum but those headed to Zim in the near future might take heed, the police in Harare asked for a copy of my hunt invitation letter as we were departing (luckily I had copies) and then asked how many times I had hunted in Zim, with which outfitter and the year I hunted. police lady wrote all of this down on my invite letter. I suspect those hunting with CMS will get a heads up from them as Lynn from CMS was there to run interference for us. it was a first for her, too.
Ive got most photos sorted and will be posting pretty soon!

Thanks Karl, what about elephants?

Well done Karl. Congrats!

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Thanks Karl, what about elephants?

Well...didn't see a whole bunch of elephants, saw dozens of tracks, though, some very big. We saw several elephants along the Zambezi during our fishing/shore lunch trip, also saw a couple of bulls while driving looking for kudu, and of course, the wounded bull we found. Next to last day we went back to the water hole where we picked up the snares and pretty much walked into a small herd of cows, they seemed to be confused and ran, screaming, in our direction (pretty sure they had no idea exactly where we were) and we made a sort of graceful retreat, pretty exciting stuff for me, screaming cows at 30-40 feet (rifles up)! They left and we continued on...

Well done Karl. CMS always delivers a great hunting experience. I can't wait to get back there next year.

Sounds like a great trip!!

Congratulations Karl.
I am sorry you could not connect with a good Kudu, the best point of it is that you have a reason to go back for it.
Maybe we will have the chance to share camp one day, hopefully also with Todd.
Thanks for CMS to give us the chance of enjoy all this and for their hard work on conservation

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Congratulations Karl: Maybe we will have the chance to share camp one day, hopefully also with Todd.Thanks for CMS to give us the chance of enjoy all this and for their hard work on conservation

It would be a privilege to share a camp with you and Todd…maybe that can be worked out!

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Congratulations Karl: Maybe we will have the chance to share camp one day, hopefully also with Todd.Thanks for CMS to give us the chance of enjoy all this and for their hard work on conservation

It would be a privilege to share a camp with you and Todd…maybe that can be worked out!

CMS absolutely has one of the best anti poaching programs in Africa!

Congrats and thanks for posting!

Tried posting a bunch of photos and it didn't work out like I thought...back to work! I will get it done.

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Originally posted by K Evans:

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Congratulations Karl: Maybe we will have the chance to share camp one day, hopefully also with Todd.Thanks for CMS to give us the chance of enjoy all this and for their hard work on conservation

It would be a privilege to share a camp with you and Todd…maybe that can be worked out!

Sounds like a plan.