.





This one needs a bit of background information and explaining before getting to the main story.

A very, very close friend of mine, Coenie, who, like me, shares a deep passion for African hunting, had been dreaming and thinking about hunting buffalo for a long, long time. I guess like many of us did or do at some stage in our hunting lives. To spark the flame further, some fifteen years ago I sourced him a superb hardly used .470 Merkel double rifle in Germany and got it out to him in South Africa, where he lives in Stellenbosch.

This year was his 50th birthday and I basically told him that we would hunt buff together for his 50th. Everyone was paying their own way, but I was to do the planning.

It was to be a proper hunt, an old buff and nothing behind a fence. Plus as Coenie still has a kids in schooling and university and family bills to pay, the hunt was at a budget.

Seeing that CMS was marketing hunts in Gokwe at significantly lower day rates than any other area, I spoke to Buzz and we had a number of lengthy and very open and frank calls on a possible buddy hunt in Gokwe. I need to make it clear here that Gokwe is not a CMS concession and it is not a CMS camp. Buzz and Myles know the concession holder well and have agreed to market the area and see how things develop.

In short - Gokwe is a CAMPFIRE area (read Communal Area Management Programme For Indigenous Resources) and whilst game is there the area is pretty much surrounded by villages and was previously heavily poached. Buzz made it clear that this was not going to be a walk in the park and that we would need to hunt hard and put in the miles. 7 days for 2 buff with me taking the option to switch to a tuskless if we were struggling on the buff or happened to see a suitable tuskless. Coenie and I were happy with this and put in the deposits.

Coenie planned his holidays accordingly and started working on ammo and reloading for the hunt and the time seemed to fly by!



Cape Town / Stellenbosch

I finished up a hunt with my wife in the Eastern Cape (write up is on here too) and flew to Cape Town to spend a couple of days with Coenie and his family (one daughter being my god daughter) in Stellenbosch before flying to Zim.

We called in at Safari Outdoor in Stellies and we were greeted by a video on the big screen of Cal and Mark Sullivan on Cal´s last buff hunt in RSA. Yes, the one that was the feature of much debate and multiple threads here in AR before Cal´s passing. So Cal, that hunt lives on!











And what would time in Stellenbosch be without a visit to a winery! There are many great ones to enjoy and with Coenie being local he has an inside track to many of them!











After a final roast lamb dinner and superb wines at his home, we caught an AirLink flight to Harare from Cape Town with minimal luggage and one gun case with the two rifles we would be using.


The Guns

Coenie had his .470 Merkel firing handload Woodleigh softs and solids and I would be using one of his .375s topped with an older Leupold scope and shooting 300 grain SWIFTs and PMP solids.












Travel

We were met by CMSs Meet & Greet team and after claiming our luggage and gun case from the carousel, we had a bit of a wait for the rifles to be inspected, photographed and licensed.





A young David Mann, our PH met us in the arrivals area and we then hit the road for Gokwe. David, who had driven back from Vic Falls the day before, proposed that we overnight at his parents home an hour plus outside of Harare and then drive through the following morning. We opted to drive straight through not wanting to loose half a day in Gokwe. It was a rough 7 plus hour drive, only partly comforted by the cold Zambezis that Myles had packed in the cool box for us.





We finally got to camp around 23:00 hrs, tired and bumped and thrown around in the Cruiser from miles of never ending potholes! We had arrived!


The Camp











The camp was good and functional, situated on a river with three sleeping tents, a camp fire and a dining tent. Plus various staff tents, workshops areas and kitchens. Great views and comfortable but the water system / showers need working on. I fed this back to Buzz with my comments and it will be sorted. Evening meals were good and the bar was plentiful and beers cold but the lunches were not great and seemed to always feature onions and tomatoes! I guess someone must have told the chef that the foreigners like onions and tomatoes - even in the sandwiches! Again fed back to CMS and Buzz has said that they will be taking over the catering in future! Don’t get me wrong here not train wrecks and these were minor points in the week we spent there!





The Team








Besides David as PH, we had 2 trackers and his driver, then there was a GOKWE District Council Warden and a Parks Board Warden (as I had a license for a tuskless) and then the camp staff. All were fun and hard workers! A good team!


Plains Game




The plan was to focus on buff and be opportunistic as regards plains game. Gokwe is not Nyakasanga with herds of plains game around every bend in the road or river. Remember Gokwe is surrounded by villages and was heavily poached but nevertheless we saw good numbers of plains game. Good kudu, a few waterbuck, baboons (lots), bushbuck, bushpig (daytime), civet, dassie, hyena (lots), impala, klipspringer (good size), Sharps grysbok and vervet monkeys.





On two occasions we went after kudu. One morning glassing from the cliffs down onto the river basin, we spotted some 9 or 10 kudu including 3 good bulls following the cows. Too far for a shot off the cliffs, we climbed down and started following the spoor. The bulls and cows had gone into the jess. We followed. And then we cut fresh buff tracks and switched to buff!

On the second occasion, we had walked the river bed early morning at 06:00 looking for fresh buff tracks and driving, we spotted two kudu bulls, one guessed at 55 inches plus. We climbed off the Cruiser and followed. The bulls began to climb up the cliffs and at 230 m, I was on the sticks. David barked, the bull looked back, I fired, the bull hunched and fled up and over the cliffs. The trackers followed and came back with a blood splattered stone.





We followed the bull and an initially solid blood trail, which petered out after about 2 kms, for a total of 10 kms from 06:30 to 12:00 noon and then again from 15:00 to 17:00 and last light. We bumped him a number of times. We found beds where he had laid, with pools of wet blood and we found spoor where he had jumped fallen trees and wood in his flight, clearing 5 - 6 meters in a single bound. We could only guess / assume that the shot was low brisket and had hit a vein, hence pumping blood. But there was still plenty, plenty life in the bull and we never saw him again.







We called it a day at last light and went back to camp, me with that sour taste in my mouth of having wounded and lost an animal.






Baboon




On the final morning, I opted for the 'wooden spoon consolation prize' and took an old, old dog baboon, sitting out away from the main troop feeding in some long grass. An old warrior with worn and cracked fangs.





The Bait Tree





Day 2 ended without anything in the salt and as we both wanted to try for hyena, David suggested that he send someone to the villages to try and buy goats or a donkey. With the drought, goats were not cheap at USD 50,- a pop, but heck, we decided to get 4 and one of the camp staff was sent to town in the Landy to procure bait goats!





He returned with 2 billy goats at USD 30,- each. The villagers were reluctant to sell their goats due to the drought. One white and one brown billy.

One goat would be sacrificed straight away and the second held back in reserve to freshen the bait the following days. Coenie and I played 'Rock, Paper, Scissors' to see which goat would go first. I won and opted to keep the white billy alive. Having picked out a suitable bait tree, the brown goat was duly slaughtered, the blood sprayed over the tree trunk and the carcass hung in the tree and the guts dragged. A trail cam was set and we swept our footprints clean.

The next day Coenie shot his buff and we drove to the bait site with the rib cage and 'gear box‘ (read pelvic bone) from the bull.

Approaching the bait tree you could see the distinctive drag marks from a crocs tail and the camera confirmed the tracks. A big croc had come up from the river and checked out the bait tree but could not reach the goat bait!





We hung the ribs and pelvis and dragged the buff intestines and again swept our tracks. We would return the following morning at 04:00 to see if the bait had attracted hyenas! The up side of this was that the white goat was no longer needed as bait!

There were plenty of dog and other predator tracks on the roads and sandy river bed so David was very confident the hyena would find our bait!





At 03:00 the next and last day of the hunt we had a quick coffee and set off, driving slowly and as quietly as possible towards the bait site. A Kilometer out we stopped and quietly walked the road to the river bed and the bait tree. About 100 m out we sensed and then heard that they were there and more than one or two.

With the rifle on the sticks we waited for enough light to see to shot. We were seeing three or four hyena in the handheld thermals but the scope picture was black! And then one hyena whooped and ran and the others followed! Shit happens!





The camera confirmed that there were 4 hyena at the tree for a couple of hours along with some smaller predators.

Next time!


Buffalo





We tracked and came on buffalo every day bar the final day where we opted to try for bushbuck.The first couple of days we tracked herds and we put in the miles! Catching up with the herds there were no old bulls amongst the cows and calves, so we left the herds and focused on dagga boys.





A few highlights were tracking three bulls one day where one of them had lost his rear right leg below the knee joint I guess to a snare. We bumped them a couple of times in the thick stuff and they led us on a merry and long chase, at one point almost vertical up a cliff face! The three and a half legged bull opened his stump on the rocks so we were actually tracking a blood trail! Amazing how that bull moved on three legs and a stump! For good orders sake David pointed out the blood spots to the Scouts so that there ways no confusion about us possibly wounding a bull later on. We lost the three bulls at very last light.





Another memorable moment or better memorable hour was standing statue like 15 meters from an old old bull in the thickest jess with the breeze in our faces and nobody moving for close to 45 minutes. I could not see a tunnel to get a shot away it was just vines, leaf and jess. At one point a shooter of a bushbuck ram walked past the three of us - the trackers and scouts had stayed back - some 20 meters to the left of us on a game trail. David was so focussed on the dagga boy that he didn’t see the ram! We laughed about that one over a beer at the campfire that evening!

It was day four or five, I am not sure which, that Coenie finally got his buff! We were out early and the trackers picked up spoor from two bulls that had drunk at the river. We followed. After less than a couple of kilometres and less than an hour we found the bulls, resting up in a thicket up the bank of the river. David led Coenie in to some 15 meters and Coenie let loose with his .470 Merkel raining softs and solids into the bigger of the two bulls! I think it was 6 or 7 bullets in total and why not - that's what double rifles were built for!

Coenie finally had his (first) buff and the joy was clear to see on his face! I was and am super happy for him!





An old bull, with a .375 round lodged in his neck close to his spine. David commented later that the bull looked somewhat strange when they first spotted him with his tongue lolling out of his mouth! Maybe that was the why!








A good solid old bull to take and we celebrated with very early morning Zambizis whilst the guys cut a long recovery road and loaded the bull.

Back at camp the skinner set to work and managed to recover a number of the bullets including the .375 round. It always amazes me how tough African game is!





It was then interesting to see how meat began to ´appear ´all about the camp, hanging on wires to dry or simply hanging on trees next to tents and huts to be devoured that evening! Protein, nothing beats it in Africa!











The carcass was driven away in the old, old series Defender (which I also took for a spin a couple of times during the week!) to be distributed to the community and the Game Scouts.

That evening by the fire we enjoyed a plate of fried buff balls and cold beers, toasting Coenie´s first and certainly not his last Cape buffalo bull!






Ele





There was a decent number of ele in Gokwe and a good number of bulls. We would see 10 to 20 ele a day, in the river, around the camp and throughout the concession. Most of the bulls were in the 20 - 25 lb range. We all agreed that a non trophy ele bull hunt is on the cards for 2026!





Two amusing ele moments - the first one we were driving the flood plain on day one when we spotted a herd of ele in some palms and bush. We decided to have a closer look and got off the Cruiser. Walking single file, we set off into the thick bush where you could hear the herd feeding. As we approached, we slowed and watched our steps. Walking carefully along the game trail, a tracker, David, Coenie, myself and then the scouts, when suddenly the bush exploded 5 meters on our left! Our three rifles swung left and at the ready, all three of us and the others expecting to see an ele, when a seriously large bushpig, followed by a second equally large pig, bolted from the thick cover and away to the left! Sighs of relief and light laughter followed as the nerves settled! Daylight bushpig!

The second ele event other than seeing ele frequently was as we were tracking a herd through the bush, I spotted a piece of broken ivory on the ground, a foot long and a pound plus in weight. I picked it up and handed it over to the Game Scout, apologising for the paper work I had just caused him! He would have to write up and file a report and hand in the ivory! We all laughed and he put the ivory in his rucksack and formally thanked me for handing in the found ivory!


The Goat!





As mentioned, the white billy was spared. The camp staff were hoping that they would get the goat and could have a BBQ! We had other plans and gifted the goat to David, who in turn phoned his mum in Harare and told her she was now the happy owner of a goat!

One of the crew drove to the regional police station and for USD 10,- purchased a transport license for ´one male goat, not castrated and not reported stolen´.

On the last morning the goat was trussed up and tied on top of the luggage and gear on the back of the Cruiser for the 8 hour drive to Harare and his new home on David´s parents farm!

Our bit for nature conservation!



We settled up in camp and made the long drive back, overnighting at David's parent's farm with a marvellous steak dinner and drinks and great conversation about Zim and their farm. It was a great last evening and warm Zim hospitality!

Then it was the airport, weapons clearance (with the usual ´tips are acceptable' story which fell on deaf ears between Coenie and I ) and then AirLink back to Cape Town for Coenie and Joburg for me and then on to Germany!

The hunt was not a walk in the park and it was never marketed as such. Buzz told us from the outset that Gokwe would be tough and it was. And yet it was very rewarding! We hunted pretty hard, stalked buff most days and tracked kudu for hours and miles. Would I do it again? We will go again in 2026 for two non trophy ele bulls! The only thing we will have to look at is the drive in and out. Maybe a charter next time as it was a pain in the butt drive!

The other possibility would be a 10 day plains game hunt where you would have to hunt hard and long but could come away with an interesting bag of solid, old animals! Certainly not an area for the first time DG hunter wanting a big buff or ele but maybe for the guy/gal that has hunted a lot already and is open minded when it comes to expectations plus the benefit of a deeply discounted day rate!

A big thanks to David and all at CMS, along with the Gokwe team plus all AR readers that took the time to read this report!

Coenie and I had a great fun hunt, lots and lots of laughs! He took his first buff, hunted hard and properly and I got the consolation prize baboon!







Happy Holidays & Merry Christmas to all and all the best for 2025 and the next hunting season! 2024 has not been a bad one at all!

.

Charlie,
Thanks for the excellent, informative report and photos. Congratulations to Coenie on the successful buffalo hunt!
Cheers,
Jeff

Great report! Thanks for writing it up.

thank you for the report and great pictures.

Great report and pictures!

Well done on the buff!

Charlie

Glad you enjoyed it. Gokwe is quite different to the areas CMS hunts. I saw a couple of monster kudu there, at least one 58" but didn't spend proper time pursuing them. Also saw a couple of proper bushbuck.

That Land Rover is something else, it needs lots of love if you are inclined to struggling with Land Rovers. When I was there we got it running stuck in 2nd gear low without a clutch so they could drive it to the mechanic.
The driver used the tractor for supply runs leaving at midnight seeing it doesn't have a canopy for shade.

They didn't feed me all that much tomato and onion, but maybe they figured a South African as indigenous population.

Congrats to Coenie on the buffalo!

Enjoyed the report, Charles! Some of those Zim areas are extremely difficult for Buff. Well done!

Great writeup and report as always.

Always enjoy seeing your tales.

Enjoyed your hunt report! Sounds like a proper, tough hunt.

Great write up Charlie:

Enjoyed reading it.

George