I spent 31 days running around Africa this year. Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique. Shot a little here and there, but mostly just chased clients with the video camera.

I have some footage of this hunt, but have not edited it together yet.

I spent some time up on Lake Kariba in the Gache Gache area. A serious Hippo and Croc area! We saw Hippo on the shoreline feeding in broad daylight every day. This is a great spot if you want a dry land Hippo and great Croc. Of course, he has Buffalo, Elephant Leopard and plainsgame as well.

As we drove through one of the fishing villages that surround the lake, we bumped into one of the anti- poaching teams. He mentioned that there was a Hippo that was turning over boats as they came in to sell their fish. This is a problem. This is my kind of problem!

So we set out in the boat that afternoon to find the offender. Sure enough, at 3:00 like clockwork, the Hippo is exactly where the fishermen said it would be.

We monitored the situation, and figured out that it would be impossible to shoot this Hippo from land. It would have to be from the boat. Now, anyone who has never tried to shoot something the size of an orange from a boat at 50 yards ... well, let me tell you, I would have rather tried a 150 yard shot from land. It is not easy!

The next day we went out with the .416 to see if we could take care of this Hippo. We found it, and spent quite a bit of time slowly poling towards it. We didn’t want to spook the Hippo out of the area, so, bit by bit, we inched closer to it and let it get comfortable with us.

There were “rollers” coming in off the lake. It was calm, but these rollers would prove to be a problem. The Hippo would surface, I would start to take up slack on the trigger, rolling with the waves to compensate and ... it would go down. I would cuss and we would start the 2 minute wait for the offender to come back up.

We repeated this dozens of time. Let me tell you, this is an adrenaline rush. You are “on” the entire time. You know that you have 10-15 seconds to make this shot when the head pops up. Get on him, compensate for the rollers, squeeze the trigger ... Doesn’t sound hard right? Try it! It’s not easy!

Everything sort of aligned at a small window in time and I squeezed off the shot. If the shot was 1” higher, this Hippo would have been DRT! But, it wasn’t. This was just low enough that the bullet ricocheted over the head.

Here is a freeze frame from the video.


That was it for this days hunt. This Hippo “Left the Building” so to speak. Try again this afternoon.

I have to say that the entire time this is going on, there is a group of 50-60 people on the shoreline cheering me on. I could hear the sigh of disgust when the Hippo goes down and I didn’t shoot. It was actually quite funny. I couldn’t understand what they were saying, but I would hear the PH laugh and he would relate to me that they said, “Just shoot it, just shoot it!”

This afternoon’s weather was better. The wind had shifted from the shoreline and most of the rollers were gone.

After about a dozen surfacing’s (is that a word?) I squeezed off a shot. The .416 entered the back of the head and broke the spine. Bounced off the skull and exited flying off somewhere into Lake Kariba.

It was much more fun than I had anticipated. Always having to be ready and making a perfect shot with small windows made the hunt more interesting. Certainly not your typical African hunt, but a very unique experience.

By the way, this Hippo turned out to be a very old Cow. She had a huge head and scars all over her, probably from boats hitting her. She had lost about 30% of her body weight and was an old mean cow. I guess it would have been nice if it was a bull, but this is a unique trophy earned in a unique way.



And of course, what kind of hunt report doesn't have the sunset picture?

Shit Wendell that is a big cow and well photographed. Shooting hippo both in and out water is always exciting for me. It is easy for a hippo to hide in water and you never really know where they will pop up. The recovery can also be tricky if there are others around.

Good shooting under quite difficult circumstances.

Great story, very cool. Makes you really appreciate the shots the seals made to save Captain Phillips.

Has to be the largest Hippo Cow I have ever seen! Well done...

Happy Holidays to you and yours my friend...Exciting hunt...well done!

And that 2nd photo stunning...love it

quote:

Originally posted by MANDLAZIM:

quote:

Originally posted by MANDLAZIM:
Has to be the largest Hippo Cow I have ever seen! Well done...

Had another look at your Hippo and I reckon that she is a he!!! Highly unlikely to have a cow with tusks that length and thickness, just my 2c......

Nice Hippo either way

Agreed and hell of a thick for a cow.

quote:

Originally posted by fairgame:

quote:

Originally posted by MANDLAZIM:

quote:

Originally posted by MANDLAZIM:
Has to be the largest Hippo Cow I have ever seen! Well done...

Had another look at your Hippo and I reckon that she is a he!!! Highly unlikely to have a cow with tusks that length and thickness, just my 2c......

Nice Hippo either way

Agreed and hell of a thick for a cow.

I know. She's an absolute toad of a Cow. But a Cow, nonetheless. I watched them butcher her. He is a she!

I also think that picture is a very good picture of a very big Cow.

Cool shot of the bullet on the water Wendell. Don't you just love those little "problems" that need sorting?!

quote:

Originally posted by Todd Williams:
Don't you just love those little "problems" that need sorting?!

I am a giver ... what can I say?

Nice Hippo - nice hunt . Well done !

Well done Wendell. I can imagine that the locals were about as excited about the meat as any thing else.

quote:

Originally posted by MJines:
Well done Wendell. I can imagine that the locals were about as excited about the meat as any thing else.

More excited about the meat as not all of them fished!

Let's just say they made very quick work of that Hippo.

Great story and pics Wendell. I had a similar experience back in 2006. Shooting a bull hippo from a very small boat at 80 yards, and contending with the water, the rest of the pod, crocodiles, the bull hippo surfacing and then going back down, really made for a very memorable hunt. I also had the first bullet enter the bull's head in the front "V", but the slight angle of his head up and out of the water caused the bullet to ricochet off of the bull's skull and exit the hide at the top of the head without penetrating the skull and killing him. At first we were congratulating each other thinking that he had been brained and was going to come up in a couple of hours, as his head went back and down he went. It didn't happen. Later on, however, we realized that I had given him a tremendous headache. Interestingly enough, the second time we got a shot on him (two days later) the bullet penetrated the brain. When we recovered him we knew it was the same bull from the two holes.

Hippo and Croc hunting can be a bit risky that way! I was using a borrowed 416 with a 1x-4x Leupold. I was told it was sighted in, but I never checked it.

Turns out, it was dead nuts on!

Congrats.

Well done. It's the experience that counts,not a bull or a cow, nor a dried land or in the water.

Well done wendell. Thats a beast of a cow. I think there might have been a sex change involved though.

Well done Wendell and isn't Gache Gache the bomb for dry land hippo and big croc? Will you be booking for Corris in the future?

MASSIVE COW !!
Me thinks she might be a he-she or a queen.

Good one Wendell.
Sounds like a very interesting experience.

Cheers

Arjun
www.huntersnetworks.com

You done good!

Nice work Wendell and I can relate (in a way). I missed a very large croc (I'm known for that) from a rocking boat in the Caprivi. A wave caused the barrel to drop as I pulled the trigger and the bullet went right below the croc's neck into the sand. I actually recovered the slug. It was a very big lizard, maybe in the 15 foot range, so I was sick about it but at least I didn't have to eat the trophy fee.

BTW professor, looks like you've gone full beard since Dallas. Very distinguished!

Gender issues again I see!!

Nice Hippo regardles of gender. Big teeth for sure. It could of become very interesting is she had turned on you blokes. Nice shooting from a boat.

Is your 416 a Reminton or Rigby? What is the stock on your 416.?

You cow killer! Did you miss the first shot as she was completely stationary, and then smash her on a dead run - through the noodle??

Just checkin bro!

Merry Christmas!!!

quote:

Originally posted by Aaron Neilson:
Did you miss the first shot as she was completely stationary, and then smash her on a dead run - through the noodle??

Just checkin bro!

Merry Christmas!!!

Check the footage Jack. I don't like to shoot them standing still. It just doesn't seem fair to me. Warning shot while on the run, then drill 'em when they think they are safe!

I can't accept it as a female. Apart from the death picture with teeth of that magnitude, the muzzle shape in the first picture points toward a male..........there is a definite difference, the male tends to have a flatter muzzle ( look from eye line to nostrils) whilst females have a more pronounced concave shape.

Also my 2c worth.........however, I cant argue against your eye witness accounts at the skinning shed.

Great photography by the way, Kariba certainly lends itself to picturesque sunsets.

quote:

Originally posted by Wendell Reich:
Hippo and Croc hunting can be a bit risky that way! I was using a borrowed 416 with a 1x-4x Leupold. I was told it was sighted in, but I never checked it.

Turns out, it was dead nuts on!

the picture shows a rifle without a scope. was it mounted mounted on QR mounts?

quote:

Originally posted by jdollar:
the picture shows a rifle without a scope. was it mounted mounted on QR mounts?

Yes, they were Leupold QD rings I think.

Does she look more like a cow here?

Very nice trophy Wendell and some tricky shooting! Well done. If you just put her tusks on a plaque no one will know he was a she unless you tell 'em. And it is no BFD anyway... a problem hippo is a problem hippo!

Damn, but if that's a cow, then for me, it will be cows only from now on. No more bulls!

Nice work, Wendell.

And hunting a problem animal is pure hard work. It's not the same as hunting any old animal.

Hunting one particular animal is so much work that it's really not even hunting. It's a mission from God. I well know and appreciate that, from personal experience.

Especially with a peanut gallery standing by, ready to give you the raspberry whenever things don't go as planned!

Nothing like a little pressure!

Congratulations, my friend!

You were up to the challenge and made good on it.
There's always some type hassle gets in the way
it seems like everytime don't it?
Great pics, sure don't look like that bullet should have missed. Amazing what water can and will do to them.
Enjoyed the read too, thanks for sharing.
George

Fine shooting and good read. The smile tells you are satisfied.

Mike