This article regarding a cape buffalo hunt in Zimbabwe was originally published in SCI's Safari Magazine's September/October 2002 edition.

Cape Buffalo with Attitude

The country we were flying over looked beautiful and peaceful, perhaps too peaceful. Although there were quite a few roads there were very few vehicles on them. The years of civil unrest and the collapse of its economy has resulted in there being little fuel available in Zimbabwe and little reason for most people to drive anywhere. We had refueled the private plane in Harare, where we landed to clear Zimbabwe customs, but had purchased no more than was needed and paid for it in South African Rands. The Zimbabwean Dollar was not accepted for the purchase of fuel as it was worthless outside of the country.

 When I had booked the hunt for northern Zimbabwe, I had expected that we would be driving to the hunting area from Pietersburg in South Africa. Pietersburg is where McDonalds Pro-Hunting’s home base is located and where I had flown into the day before. The charter aircraft had been arranged by Sandy McDonald both to save time and to avoid the possibility of running into any of the problems that could arise in driving through Zimbabwe. Although flying in small aircraft does not rank among my favorite activities, it was definitely preferable to attempting to drive through an area in which refueling could prove impossible and which was potentially dangerous.

 It was early May 2001 and this was my third trip to Africa and my second hunt for a Cape buffalo. My first attempt for Cape buffalo had been the summer before in Central Mozambique and it had been unsuccessful. The hunt in Mozambique had been an interesting trip and the experience of visiting the country was quite unique, perhaps alone worth the trip, but it had been an unsuccessful hunt. There were buffalo in the area but they either winded or heard us before we could get close to them and I only heard them crashing off, never actually seeing a Cape Buffalo. Now I was going into the Dande hunting concession near the border of Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Zambia and the concession was reported to be one of the very best areas in Africa for Cape buffalo.

 As an avid hunter and reader of African hunting stories, I had dreamed of hunting Cape buffalo for more years than I care to remember. Descriptions of the fantastic tenacity of wounded Buffalo combined with the spot and stalk manner in which they are usually hunted seemed to me that they offered one of the greatest hunting experiences available in the world today.

 Accompanying me on the trip to Zimbabwe was Bob Young, a retired fireman from Denver who was helping out Sandy McDonald for the summer for the pure enjoyment of being in Africa. Bob is an avid hunter and had been on a number of African safaris that he had booked through the McDonalds. When I stayed overnight with the McDonalds, I showed them a new video camera which I planned to take along and with which I hoped to shoot some memorable footage of the hunt. While discussing after dinner, we concluded that it is difficult to both hunt and to take videos at the same time. The person hunting can concentrate on shooting either a gun or a camera, not both. The solution suggested by Sandy was that he could send Bob along on the trip as a representative of McDonalds and, incidentally, Bob could serve as a camera man while I was hunting.  Bob leaped at the opportunity to become part of the hunt and I had a companion for the trip as well as an “official” camera man.

 As it turned out, we got some great videos of the hunt that I could never have taken if I had had to operate the camera myself. As an experienced hunter, Bob knew how to move in the bush and where to place himself so that he didn’t interfere with either the stalking or the shooting. Bob also proved to be a great traveling companion and very competent “teller of tales” around the campfire.

 We were met at the grass landing strip by Buzz Charlton, who was to be my Professional Hunter, along with several of his staff. The plane was tied down, a native was assigned to stay and guard it and we left for the hunting camp which was located about 10 miles from the air strip.

 On the drive to camp I got to meet Buzz, a 28 year old resident of Zimbabwe with ten years of professional hunting experience. He is the son of Professional Hunter who had operated in Kenya before it was closed to hunting and it was apparent that hunting was “in his blood”. Buzz questioned me about the standards that I had envisaged for a Buffalo to qualify as a trophy and whether I felt that I wanted him to back me up on the shot. I told Buzz that I didn’t have to shoot the next world record Buffalo and was looking for a good, representative bull with, preferably, horns with a deep drop and wide boss. I asked him to back me up only if things really got out of hand and it looked like someone could get hurt.

 We arrived at camp in time for a late lunch and to settle in before checking out a herd that Buzz’s trackers had spotted earlier that day. It was evident that we wouldn’t be exactly “roughing it” in the camp. Large, well constructed thatched huts with full toilet and shower facilities were provided for each of the quests. Equally impressive was the dinning facility which included a well stocked bar and lounge area with skulls and horns decorating the walls. Additional buildings for the staff completed the compound. The original compound had been built to house the employees of a defunct uranium mining operation. The facility had been taken over by Swainson Safaris and converted to serve as one of its four hunting camps in the Dande concession. 

After verifying that my rifle, a 375 H&H Whitworth with a 1.5 x 5 Leupold, hadn’t shifted its zero during the trip from the United States we headed out for the herd which had bedded for the afternoon in some thick brush only a few miles from the camp. We met the tracker who had been following the herd and began the stalk.

 My adrenalin began rising as we moved through the brush. The intensity of the experience of moving into hand shaking distance of an animal that is as capable of killing you as a Cape buffalo has to be one of the major highlights of hunting in Africa. Knowing the potential results of misplacing his shot serves to uniquely focus a hunter’s mind to the task in front of him. The sweat staining my shirt may not have been caused entirely by the temperature.

 We heard the buffalo in the brush before we saw them. Buzz estimated that there were over 50 in the herd. Although we got within 15 yards of the nearest animals, the brush was too thick for us to see more than pieces of black moving in front of us. Recognizing the futility of trying to identify a trophy bull in these conditions, Buzz pulled us back from the edge of the herd and we moved down wind to get around and in front of them. I was quite pleased at Buzz’s decision as I had no wish to get any closer and wasn’t exactly anxious to attempt a shot in that jungle.

 Although the herd remained feeding in the brush, we did find a spot that was a bit more open and where a shot might be possible.  Shortly after we moved into position, the edge of the herd began drifting by us. I set up the rifle on the shooting sticks and began tracking some of the animals in the scope. For me, it was good practice and it became apparent that any opportunities for a shot at a buffalo were going to be very fleeting. Clear shots were rare as the herd milled around in the brush.

 We remained at the edge of the herd for some 20 minutes and saw two or three bulls that presented the opportunity for a shot. However, they were young bulls and didn’t meet the criteria for a trophy that we’d established even though one of them had a nearly 40” spread. We pulled out as the sun was setting and it was getting too late in the day to shoot. It was the end of my first two hours of hunting buffalo in Zimbabwe and I had already seen many more buffalo than in an entire week of hunting in Mozambique. It was looking like Sandy McDonald’s statement that he was putting me into one of the best buffalo areas in Africa was not just another case of “outfitter hype”. Unquestionably, there were a lot of buffalo here.

 That evening we had a great dinner served with a choice of wines in a setting that you can only find on a hunt in Africa. The staging of a dinner which rivals that of a first class restaurant while being miles from anywhere in the bush, is a skill that the good African outfitters have developed to a fine art. It’s certainly an outstanding way in which to end a hunting day.

 Over sundowners, we mapped out the next day’s hunt. Buzz’s plan was to drive to an area about 30 miles from camp where there were several buffalo herds and the brush was more open. He felt that the chances for us finding a trophy bull and getting a shot were better there than they were in the area which we had hunted that afternoon. However, he stated that if we were to come across some good tracks on the way we probably would take advantage of the opportunity and follow them up.

 I was awakened in the morning by the sound of a Hyena cackling in the brush behind my hutch. Evidently, it had been startled by the arrival of the native boy who was bringing me a pot of hot coffee to help me start the day. The cook had remembered that I was fond of coffee in the morning and had arranged the wakeup with coffee for me. I never did find out how she managed to coordinate the wakeup call with the Hyena. Maybe it too was a coffee drinker?

 The sky was lighting as we started the drive to the new hunting area. It was promising to be a warm but pleasant hunting day. We hadn’t been on the road for more than 5 miles before excited cries erupted from the trackers in our truck. They had spotted the signs of 5 dugga boys who had crossed the road within the last several hours. It was too good an opportunity to pass and it was decided that we should try to find them.

 Since we were tracking a small group of bulls rather than a herd, I loaded my 375 with solids. Buzz filled the magazine of his well used Ruger with 416 Rigby solids and the native trackers led us off. The tracks led off through open brush over some very hard ground. Several times the tracks disappeared and Bob and I waited while Buzz’s crew searched to find the bulls’ direction. The ability of the native trackers to sort out the faint spoor of the bulls in the hard and rocky terrain was amazing.

 More than an hour on the track had passed when our little column was halted. The sound of buffalo had been heard in the brush ahead of us. Evidently, the 5 dugga boys had joined a herd and were now mixed in with them. It was beginning to look like a replay of the day before.

 Once again, Buzz signaled to back off and we headed downwind to get ahead of the herd’s direction of travel. Getting ahead of the herd, we located ourselves on a small, rocky mound that was surrounded by relatively open brush and waited.

 In a few minutes, the lead members of the herd started coming into view as they topped a small rise to our front. Shortly there were about a dozen buffalo in view as they fed almost directly toward us. The first group of buffalo consisted of cows and a couple of young bulls, nothing shootable. Then, moving in behind a cow was a bull that clearly dwarfed the others. Big bodied with deep, wide horns it definitely met my criteria.

 I started tracking the big buff in the scope but with a cow both in front of and behind him it was becoming questionable that he would present a clear shot before we were spotted by others of the herd. A young bull, no more than 15 yards away, was feeding directly toward us. He couldn’t fail to see us if he but looked up. I hoped that when he did, that he’d leave in the opposite direction. He was getting too close for my comfort.

 After seconds that seemed to take forever, the bull moved ahead of the cow and at 25 yards gave me a clear shot at his front shoulder with nothing behind him. He was already spinning into the brush when I came down from recoil and there was no chance to put in another shot. The young bull that had nearly been on top of us was disappearing along with the rest of the herd. He may have been close enough to have caught some muzzle blast and, thankfully, decided that he didn’t want anything more to do with us.

 Buzz and Bob both had big smiles on their faces and were congratulating me on the shot. The bull had kicked his hind legs high at the hit and they were confident that it had been a heart shot. I lit a cigarette and started to calm down. Bob’s description of me as “shaking like a dog passing peach pits” may have been accurate. I wouldn’t know as I have never seen a dog doing that!

 The smiles became universal when the bull gave his death bellow a few minutes later. Now we all knew that we weren’t going to have to deal with a wounded buffalo. Giving him another 20 minutes to “really” die, we set off claim the trophy.

 The old bull had gone less than 100 yards back into the brush and then waited for his tormentors. The 300 grain solid had broken his near front shoulder, blew out his heart and exited. Weighing nearly a ton, he looked even bigger on the ground than he had in the bush. He definitely met my criteria for a trophy bull.

 I had some time to inspect the bull while we waited for Buzz to find a way to bring in the vehicle. A ton of hardwood dense muscle built like a tank. Its odor was the only thing resembling domestic cattle. Even dead, it still had an “attitude”.

 That evening, Buzz and I waited along a nearly dry river bed in hopes of a Bushbuck. We saw several females but nothing with horns. Driving back in the dark, an unseen elephant screamed at us in rage as we passed it. It was a neat ending to a great day in Africa.

 The next morning we flew back to South Africa where I spent the next several weeks hunting plains game in different ranches. In the months since this hunt, the U.S. recession has deepened, I have retired and the worldwide war on terrorists erupted. Traveling has become riskier and my personal finances are somewhat more constrained. Regardless, a return to Africa is in my plans.