This is just to supplement my buffalo hunt report.

Outfitter – Martin Pieters – Bulembi Safaris
PH – Pierre Hundermark
Trackers – Farunga and Steve
Rifle- Left Handed M70 in 375 H&H
Loads- Handloads 300 grain TSX and 300 Barnes Banded solids
Animals hunted – Buffalo, Bushbuck
Animals taken – Buffalo
Animals seen but not hunted – Kudu, Roan, Impala, Duiker, Baboon, Warthog, Hippo, Croc, Elephant (lots of elephants)

Tuesday - I landed in Johannesburg on the SA flight from JFK at 06:30. Sitting in the terminal I see what looks like an NFL noseguard walk by in a safari shirt. We recognize each other immediately and ARs own Karl Stumphe treats me to a cup of coffee and conversation while we both wait for our flights.

After a short flight I arrive at the beautiful Bulawayo airport terminal, unfortunately my rifle case doesn’t and the airline apparently has no way to check to see where it is.

In the terminal I see a young man dressed in safari clothing waiting so I ask him if he’s from Martin Pieters and he says that he is and introduces himself as Pierre Hundermark. I inform him of my missing rifle case and we both go over to the counter to start the lost baggage procedure
We drive into Bulawayo where I’m staying at the Safari Guest House with the instructions to call back tomorrow after the noon flight arrives to see if my rifle shows up.

Wednesday - I sleep in and Pierre picks me up about 10 AM and we go to the Bulembi Safari Co. office to try to get SA to help us locate my rifle case. After multiple phone calls by Pierre and Haley with no success we go to lunch at the Rooters Rugby Club where we’re joined by another PH, Martinus (Teeny) Koc . (I’m not kidding). My rifle is at the airport at 1:00 PM.

Thursday - We drive the 6 hours to the Chafudze Camp in the South Omay where I get settled in.

We meet at the truck where I’m introduced to the trackers, Steve and Farunga and we load up for a quick trip to the rifle range. Off the standing bench (which is too short for me) I’m shooting 4” high at 50 yards. I make a sight adjustment and shoot 2” low. Pierre says to try it off the sticks and that puts me dead on, center punching the bullseye.

Friday – We’re up at 05:30 and it is cold, probably under 40 degrees (F). We load up the truck and head west out of camp looking for buffalo. Farunga and Steve quickly find fresh tracks and everyone unloads to take a look. We’re close to the Matusadona Park boundary so we drive up to the boundary road to make sure that the buffalo haven’t crossed back into the park. Seeing the road clear we go back and start tracking the buffalo.
We follow the tracks for an hour or so and then just as we start to get close to them we hear them stampede off. Another half an hour of tracking and we start to close in on them again when we flush a mob of warthogs that run directly at the herd flushing them again. We start to follow again and finally get to the where we can see the herd feeding in a small valley below us. We hear more buffalo move uphill to our right as we look over the first herd. After a good 20 minutes of glassing the herd and only seeing young bulls, cows and calves the herd below us gets our scent and thunders off. We load up and follow the buff that disappeared over the hill to our right.
We catch up to the second group in half an hour or so and find another group of cows and calves. We leave them and start back for the truck. We stop for a water break and I ask Pierre if this was normal and he says that it is. I told him that I saw the warthogs that spooked the herd the second time and Pierre said that the lions did it the first time. “Lions, what lions?” Pierre looks at me and says “The two lions that were hunting the same herd that we were. They left after the herd spooked the first time.”
That certainly gave me something to think about on the 4+ miles walk back to the truck.

After lunch I shot a buffalo that we didn’t find until the next morning.


Saturday - First thing in the morning we recovered my bull and spent the morning processing it.
That afternoon we took the day off to decide what to do with the rest of the hunt and I told everyone to take Sunday off. I had a celebratory beer with Pierre and a new PH (Boet Vanarde) that came into camp for a leopard hunt tomorrow.

Sunday afternoon a nice couple came into camp for a leopard hunt (AR’s own JaegerFrank and his lovely wife). We had some great conversation over dinner and the around the Mopane fire about hunting and the AR crowd.


Monday – We packed up for the Ume River camp for fishing and some bushbuck hunting while Frank and his lovely bride went out for leopard bait. Driving the three hours to the Ume camp is interesting and on the way Pierre stops when he sees fresh elephant tracks and just off the road I get a look at my first wild elephants.

At camp I meet the camp manager Mike and the apprentice Dalton (Dalton’s famous from the U tube video of Cap’s leopard attack. He’s the one who kills the leopard as it’s tangled up with Cap). We get settled in, eat lunch and then go out in the river for some tilapia (bream) fishing. No bream are caught that day but I do get some barbell and show the locals the California long line release method on a big vundu.

That evening the other group (two French hunters, Eric and Lorette and their PH Mitch Bunce) get back after a day of hunting waterbuck and bushbuck and we swap hunting stories. Their limited English and my poor French language skills made for a challenging conversation. We did dine that evening on Hippo fillets from Eric’s bull that he had shot previously. The hippo was surprisingly good and a bunch was made into biltong while I was there.

Tuesday was spent fishing right off shore from camp and we were waiting for a load of fuel for the boat. That afternoon Eric, Lorette and Mitch left camp for a plains game hunt in southern Zimbabwe.



Wednesday was also spent fishing and that night we were treated to a total lunar eclipse. I can’t thank Martin Pieters enough for arranging that during my visit (jk).

Thursday was also a fishing and relaxing day.




Friday with fuel for the boat we went out looking for bushbuck/waterbuck but except for a couple of doe bushbuck all we saw were Elephant, Hippo and Crocs.



We also stopped at a native fish camp. Interesting boats there.

We also did some trolling for Tigerfish without luck but we kept getting distracted looking at elephants.


Saturday was the 9 hour drive back to Bulawayo for my flight Sunday.


I had a great time, getting a great bull and a relaxing vacation. I would have liked to see more plains game but I knew going into this hunt that the Omay is a serious DG area and that plains game would be few and far between.

Great hunt!

PS: A FREE cup of coffee from Karl Stumpfe? Are you SURE it was Karl??? :-)

Great stuff...congrats again!

Hi Frank,

It was sure a pleasure to meet with you in camp! Also nothing is more motivating than to meet someone on arrival who had a lucky hunt. Great story and pictures too, many thanks for bringing back recent memories.

Waidmannsheil Frank

Well done frank. Lake Kariba is a fun place for after hunting activities.

Something is just not right . . . that picture of you sitting in the chair . . . you do not have a beer in your hand. What's up with that?

Glad the trip lived up to your expectations!

quote:

Originally posted by MJines:
Something is just not right . . . that picture of you sitting in the chair . . . you do not have a beer in your hand. What's up with that?

Glad the trip lived up to your expectations!

More unusual is me not having a cigar in my hand. I had a beer that trip.

your pictures of the Ume camp brought back some great memories from last year. while i was there Pierre got a nasty spider bite and his leg blew up like a balloon. despite my best advice as a doctor he refused to go to Kariba for medical help. loaded him up with all the oral antibiotics i had and things worked out OK. those PH's are tough( and crazy) SOB's. Mike(the camp manager) is mad about fishing as I recall. congratulations on a great hunt in a great area with great people!!!

quote:

Originally posted by jdollar:
your pictures of the Ume camp brought back some great memories from last year. while i was there Pierre got a nasty spider bite and his leg blew up like a balloon. despite my best advice as a doctor he refused to go to Kariba for medical help. loaded him up with all the oral antibiotics i had and things worked out OK. those PH's are tough( and crazy) SOB's. Mike(the camp manager) is mad about fishing as I recall. congratulations on a great hunt in a great area with great people!!!

Mike's a fishing nut.

Wish I was on the river right now ! Great time it looked like. Congrats.

Congratulations on a great bull and a relaxing time. 'Love that corrugated tin "skiff".

Great pics! Our camp manager this year was also a fishing fanatic!

Thanks for the story and pictures. Looks like real "quality time."

quote:

Originally posted by Fjold:

quote:

Originally posted by jdollar:
your pictures of the Ume camp brought back some great memories from last year. while i was there Pierre got a nasty spider bite and his leg blew up like a balloon. despite my best advice as a doctor he refused to go to Kariba for medical help. loaded him up with all the oral antibiotics i had and things worked out OK. those PH's are tough( and crazy) SOB's. Mike(the camp manager) is mad about fishing as I recall. congratulations on a great hunt in a great area with great people!!!

Mike's a fishing nut.

i notice the lake level is up at least 5-6 vertical feet from when i was there last Oct. Mike dragged a dead hippo (that he found floating while he was out fishing) up on the beach around that small off shore island while we were there so we could watch the crocs feed and in one night the whole thing disappeared!

The water was higher than Pierre had ever seen it. that was part of the problem hunting waterbuck and bushbuck, no flood plains with fresh, young grass.

Good to see Mike doing well... we fished together for several days and then he came down with a bad bout of malaria! I had to rely on Martin's fishing skills the rest of the week, which are good, but not near so as Mike's!

Nice catches and fun times on Kariba! Way to go Frank.

Russell,

Do not exeggerate Martin's fishing skills. When he had Dalton and I gather small rocks to throw at the fish I started to get nervous. Fortunately Ross Johnson was in camp and took us to catch some fish....