31 October 2014, 00:03
Doug DuckworthSwamp Men/Buffalo and Plainsgame with Mokore Safaris
Darren Allison came to Mozambique to hunt buffalo, sable, nyala and a whole bag of other plainsgame. His professional hunter was Doug Duckworth of Mokore Safaris.The Buffalo was to be shot in the Zambezi Delta one of the most inhospitable places to hunt.
Darren and his friend, Jerry, (who was hunting with Neil Duckworth) flew into Zambezi Delta Safaris main camp on a small charter aircraft. This in itself turned out to be an adventure, but that's for another day.
The group shook hands then piled into the trucks and were off to the fly camp on the edge of the delta - the factory shop of mosquitoes. 4am the following morning the camp stirred to life. After a cup of coffee and a small breakfast the team got into he Huglands (Tank type swamp machine). This is a truly remarkable vehicle and the only way to get anywhere in the delta. 3 hours later, the team arrived on a small patch of dry land and waited for the plane to fly over and confirm if there were indeed any buffalo close by. The plane buzzed the crew and small bottle was thrown from it - suspiciously accurately and close to our heads. As it turned out, there was a herd of Buffalo about 300 strong not too far from the crews location. They headed in the direction given to them, and before long, saw the cattle egrets flying - a sure indication that there were buffalo there. A little further and they could see the backs of a couple buffalo. Jerry and Darren drew straws to see who would be up first. Straws drawn, Darren was to be first try on the buffalo. The distance between the team and the buffalo could not have been more the 700 meters but 700 meters in the swamp is he equivalent of several miles in the savannah. With water up to waists and saw grass threatening to turn hands into a bloody mess they closed in on the buffalo. The final 200m was firm ground. If they thought it would be a blessing, they were wrong. What they thought to be flat ground at first turned out to be sun baked craters formed by hundreds of buffalo feet when it was once wet. The hunters persevered over the last 200m or so and finally got to a little tuft of reeds and were able to have a rest and take the first good look at the buffalo. Doug finally spotted a good bull with massive bosses. However, trying to single out one buffalo in a couple hundred was tough and by the time Doug and Darren were looking in the same area the bull had lay down. The hunters waited, scanning the herd. Finally the hunters spotted another bull on the outskirts of the herd. They eased the sticks up, Darren slowly stood up and got the gun on the sticks. The bull had started heading into he middle of the herd but was still visible. With urgent whispers from Doug along the lines of, "do you see it, it's the very black one, don't shoot the wrong one" his .375 bellowed and straight away you could tell it was a good hit. The rest of the herd thundered off and all the time you could see Darren's Dagga Boy struggling. They couldn't shoot again right away for fear of hitting another buffalo but soon as the last Nyati had cleared, Darren put another 2 shots in him and he was down. A very nice, solid, Dagga boy.
With that the hunt kept getting better. The next day in the open plains that border the swamps they shot a very nice waterbuck.
From there for their last day in the swamp areas they spent looking for some small stuff. Darren took this very nice red duiker.
After that, they headed to the Mokore Safaris camp that was inland. This area is more the Savannah type hunting that both Darren and Doug were used to. This area has been under Mokores care for about 12 years and it has come along in leaps and bound.
Darren's safari had no intentions of slowing, on the day they arrived, he took a fine Nyala bull, followed by an eland that he made an excellent long range shot on. A day later he took this fine sable off hand at less than 20 yards. All in all we had a great safari and a great time together. A group of very nice trophies were taken.
Frank arrived the day Darren left. Below are some of Franks trophies. A write up on this safari will follow in the next week or two.
Congratulations to you both.
From all at Mokore, thank you for coming and hope you have some wonderful memories.
