The African Hunter Magazine Volume 19 # 5 | Seite 7

I n March 2014 I had the pleasure of doing a buffalo safari in the Sengwa Research Area of Zimbabwe with Steve Machin. It was a short safari for a non-trophy buffalo (34” or less). Driving down the rough dirt track from Gokwe, it was hot and humid and I knew it was going to be thick and possibly wet. Steve arrived no problem and the first evening we went to the range so Steve could test fire the rifle he hired. The range went fine and we were ready for the next morning. Leaving camp at first light the first morning we found tracks from the evening before within the first thirty minutes. Driving around the block they had gone into we soon found where they had bedded the night before and so we started out on foot. By 09.00 we had contact but the shifting wind set the buffalo off. We did get a nice view of about a dozen or so when they crossed the Lutope River but there were no mature bulls in view. Crossing the river into the thick jesse on the other side we tried again. Again the wind spooked them and so we decided to give them ten minutes or so to relax a bit. Waiting we heard another group back across the river and so decided to check them out since they were undisturbed. Re-crossing over we were soon in position about fifty yards from them but could only see bits and pieces of them due to the thick bush. I told Steve we should just observe them for a while and be ready as at this time of the year the bulls were still actively seeking cows in oestrous and so moved around quite a bit. After watching them for about fifteen minutes or so the perfect bull came into view for a brief moment but then disappeared again. Getting Steve onto the sticks, we waited. The bull soon came back into view but was in the dark shadows of the jesse and so seeing where to place the shot exactly was tough for Steve. The bull was facing us quartering on head towards us. African Hunter Vol. 19 No. 5 [email protected] Telling Steve to shoot under the point of its right ear, as this is where I figured the point of the shoulder was, Steve squeezed off a shot and the bull humped beautifully as they do on a perfect shot. Steve was confident he had hit where he aimed. Listening intently for a couple of minutes for the death bellow, as I was sure it was dead, we heard nothing. I explained to Steve that they didn’t always bellow, however, I was sure it was down judging by its reaction to the shot. After a few minutes we started into the thick jesse cautiously to try and find the buffalo. We searched for blood or other indications of a hit but couldn’t find anything. We followed the herd for about a kilometre or so to see if he was still in it, and maybe showing blood - but again nothing. It was very concerning as to the lack of even a drop of blood being found as we were sure it was a good shot from his reaction and Steve’s confidence in his bullet placement. We decided that possibly it had dropped somewhere in the thick bush close to where we had taken the shot hence why we couldn’t find blood. Returning to the beginning, we started looping around and around the area trying to find single tracks leaving the herd or just some indication of a hit. We couldn’t find anything, but at around midday after looking in vain for three hours - we saw some vultures descending. They landed in a big sausage tree close to us and so we went and concentrated our search there again, although we had been through that patch numerous times already. Still nothing, so I decided to go back to the truck and have some lunch which would hopefully give the vultures some time to descend onto the kill and then hopefully we could find it. Going back in a couple of hours later produced nothing, though, and so we kept searching until dark. While on the way back to camp it started raining and I thought we had really even less chance of finding the bull. Spending a restless night, we returned early the next morning to give another few hours of searching even though by now I was beginning to believe that we had possibly missed the buffalo as in six hours of searching we hadn’t found even one drop of blood. On the drive in the next morning we found a fresh leopard track from the night before and stopped to look at it as it was a big tom’s spoor. Other than that the trip back was rather muddy, but we got to the end point OK. Leaving the truck and walking in to where we had shot the morning before, we came across fresh tracks, from after the rain storm, of a big dagga boy. Discussing and deciding that there was a good chance of these being made by “our” [email protected] Page 7