Anyone wanna see pics of my Zimbabwe Buff hunt?

[12-34hom]

Rich - Good luck - Good hunting.

Pics will be the icing on the cake.

12-34hom.

[ammo.crafter]

Love to see 'em.

THX

[HankL]

How about a check-in there Richard.

[Rich Lucibella]

Guys-
I’m here at Mokore and required a few days before sending in some reports. The following are excerpted directly from my personal journal….so I apologize for the detail.

It was a rough go at first as I immediately wound up in a Cold War with my PH. The reasons are still unknown to me. I provide here the hunts on Sunday and Tuesday. Monday is in the Journal as “Come to Jesus Day”….that’s when I confronted my PH and got things squared away.

As a result, you’ll see a big difference in the reports from Sunday and Tuesday. My shooting has NOT been good, as you'll see (especially you 'neck shots only" guys). But I'm not about to post only my upcoming World Class feats .
Regards-
Rich

[Rich Lucibella]

Sunday, September 3: The Zebra
5am wakeup call came too late….I’d been up and ready since 4! I was resigned to the fact that I would not be making any close friends in the hunting vehicle; what the hell, I already have too many “close” friends. I’d simply observe what I observed and shoot what I chose. 14 more days; let’s make it a good 14.

The morning hunt went poorly. We hunted for Buff and Pete insisted that the first shot be with a solid. I’m personally against this, except with lesser calibers or scoped rifles. The 500 grain bonded bullet has plenty of energy for Buff and will do a heck of a lot more internal damage, I reckon. But I was certainly not going to argue the point. He turned to “Shssh” me several times on the trail, though I could swear his foot fall, twig breaks and rock stumbles were louder and more frequent than mine.

Never saw buff but, returning to the truck, we came upon a herd of Zebra. Pete asked me if I was ready to shoot a Zebra….sure, I owed it to the last Zebra I shot so poorly to do one right. He jammed the sticks into the ground and pointed out the target. “Shoot! Shoot quickly”. At 60 yards, the animal was behind brush nearly up to the spine. I dropped the sights just below the top of the brush, looking for a lung shot and touched one off. The Zebra dropped and I knew the sound immediately.

I’d spined him and that is often not good, especially with a solid, I thought as I took off thru the brush in his direction. Sure enough, halfway there, he recovered from the temporary shock and bolted. I flung two more rounds at him and called both a miss.

What was I thinking?!!!!! Shoot a trophy animal with the vitals covered by 60 yards of brush? I’ve never done that. Use a solid on a Zebra? Truth of the matter is I didn’t realize there wasn’t a jacketed bullet in the pipe until after I pulled the trigger.

I turned to a disgusted Pete. “Why didn’t you shoot lower for the heart; you don’t have to see it to know where it is.” “Because, Pete, as I told you yesterday, I once lost a gorgeous Nyala to this very rifle because I hadn’t seen one small branch midway between us.” “Ack, if I tell you to shoot, I can guarantee the bullet will go where you shoot it.”

After two hours of tracking a 90 minute gone blood trail, Pete called it quits. I don’t blame him. It was a stupid bad shot; and the second time I’ve wounded a Zebra. At least we found the first and finished him proper.

Lesson Learned: Just because you’re on a foreign continent, in the hands of a Professional Hunter, there is no reason at all to break common sense rules of hunting. I pulled the trigger. I bear the responsibility for that.

The afternoon hunting was ugly. Pete told me to jump out of the truck quick. The trackers handed me my scoped .338 and I loaded the chamber. Pete grabbed the back of my collar and dragged me in front of the sticks. “Shoot!”, he said. “Shoot what?” “The Waterbuck”, he replied grabbing the forend of the rifle and slamming it onto the sticks.

Well, I didn’t see a Waterbuck. What I saw was only red. I’m not used to being dragged around or having my rifle manhandled while in my shoulder. Pete reached over me for the stock and pointed the rifle somewhere for me….it didn’t matter where to me. I turned and looked him in the eye. “You need to calm down”. I assume he walked back to the truck because the Waterbuck had run off. Personally, I might shoot one if they’ll promise to COOK IT FOR DINNER, but I think the only sporting way to hunt Waterbuck is with a slingshot and pen knife.

Another 3 hunters showed up in camp tonight with the sons and daughter-in-laws of Mokori’s owner. Nice people. Dinner was Kudu steak. Pete was gregarious and pleasant with all concerned. I exchanged conversation and niceties with all, had a few drinks with Danny and went to bed knowing I had a real problem with my PH. Was it because of the un-scoped Lever Action 50 AK? The fact that my Blaser was not dead on at sight-in? The wounded Zebra? Perhaps it was because he’d had one tracker mauled by a wounded Buff and another killed by a rogue Elephant this year. Thinking back, I realized he was unhappy with me from the beginning. For whatever his reasons, Pete either doesn’t think much of me or simply no longer enjoys his job; perhaps both. I’ll live with it…..passive aggression is no match for me when I know what I’m up against.

[Rich Lucibella]

Tuesday, September 5th: The Buff.
We had known that there were several small herds of bachelor bulls spotted in various areas. Dugga Boys. We headed out early to pick up their trail at first light and were successful. Pete explained that we'd be moving very fast until we got close and he wanted me to load solids with a 500gr jacketed ready, in case we needed to shoot into the herd.

We followed the tracks for about an hour until Churo pointed at something ahead. Pete motioned me to get low and we crawled forward of Churo and Taka about 20 yards. Pete looked thru the glass and signaled me to “assume the position”; unlike many PH's who crawl forward on hands and knees, I was happy to learn that Pete uses a technique that I learned from Danie Van Graan in Tanzania. We sat in single file, feet forward, with our rifles across our laps. To move forward, you simply stretch your legs, dig your heels in, and, palms to the ground a your sides, you lift your butt from the ground and move it forward. This allows you to cover a fair distance quickly, without dragging and scraping. It also allows you to shoot, if necessary and generally makes you feel less like a grass eater.

We got to within about a hundred yards and Pete turned to me, signaling “Do you see them?” “Yes”, I whispered. Looking over his shoulder I'd spotted two separate pieces of Buff….irregular round shapes in the linear brush. We crawled forward a bit more and they vanished. I believe they heard my rifle barrel drag and scrape on a branch. We stood.

“There were 5 of them”, Pete whispered. “They're skittish, but not running. Rich, how far out are you comfortable with that rifle?”
“We'll I've done Buff at 104 yards with iron sights, but I'd certainly prefer to be closer. Let's call it 80 yards, in this brush. But if you need me to shoot more quickly, you can drop the shooting sticks and get me to a tree; I'm pretty comfortable in sit, kneel or stand using a tree 'barricade' position.”
“OK, let's go.”

And off we went. We were rewarded about a half our later by Churo's characteristic point and we got down. The brush was fairly thick, but over Pete's shoulder I spotted three Bits-o-Buff in the brush at about 150 yards.
“Do you see them, Rich?”
“Yes”, I whispered.
Pete got a quizzical look on his face. A day ago I couldn't see a whole Waterbuck posing at 40 yards. Today I'm seeing pieces of game.
“Note that I see game far better when you remove your Tampon, Peter”, I whispered. I'm not certain, but I think he almost smiled….maybe.

We left the trackers to spot for us and moved, asses and heels in a long, lazy semi-circle. We finally got to about 80 yards and Pete pointed out my target, looking straight at us. Anyone who has hunted Buff knows that they tend to post “sentries”. I don't believe you can ever sneak up on them without being seen or scented; the best you can hope for is not alarming them enough to cause them to run…or charge. One of the beauties of the feet-forward crawl is this: When that Buff is looking right at you, you only need to lie down on your back to get out of sight and greatly lower your scent cone.

“Rich, don't look directly at him when he's watching us. But can you take him from here?”, Pete asked.
“No, not thru all this brush.”
“OK, take your rifle and move over to that tree….slowly!”

I did so with Pete following. The Dugga Boy turned broadside and presented a perfect shot at 70 yards. Then he just plopped down in the grass at the edge of a thicket.
“Can you see him now?” I studied the animal thru my binoculars. The top of his head and one horn were barely visible in the shadows. The butt was hidden. But I could spot a triangle of dark and shadow that appeared to be the right shoulder where it narrows to the ribs.
“Pete, is that his shoulder just behind those red leaves”.
“Yes, he's lying broadside. Those leaves are your aiming point.”
“If I stand, I can do it”, I whispered. (The bullet would have less chance of being deflected that way, traveling less distance thru potential obstacles.)
“Wait! There's another one just behind him.” Another Buff moved from the right to left, just behind my target.
“Which one?”
Pete studied the two. “Take the one laying down”.

[Rich Lucibella]

I stood, placed my left palm against a 4 inch tree, leaned and cradled the lever gun in the web of my thumb as I cocked the hammer. I confirmed my aiming point and touched one off. The entire herd tore off as I levered another solid into the barrel and tracked for a follow up.
“Wait, don't shoot!” Pete ordered. Teamwork, finally! I knew enough not to shoot at a running Buff in a herd. Pete knew enough to make the call the instant he saw me ready to fire.

What follows is a description of events as honestly as I can recall them, confirmed by Pete's memory. When relating a hunting story, “reporting” the events without coloring our own actions and reactions is more important to me than attractive prose and high drama. Too many hunters turn running, reloading gun battles into first shot kills by the time they return to camp. They always seem to accomplish 1 shot stops. I've had my share of these and killed two of my previous three Buff with the first shot, though one required two more hits to make up his mind that he was dead. This Dugga Boy would not go down so easily.

Those who shoot with me know that, unless I really flinch, I'm pretty good at calling my shots. Flinching a rifle has never been an issue in the field for me, though it can become so at the bench. The shot taken on this Buff broke without flinch, but it did not provide that perfect “surprise break” that pretty much guarantees our ability to call the shot. In retrospect, I believe I snatched the trigger a bit; but I was fairly confident that the hit was centerline of the body (high) and over the front shoulder. I called it a lung shot and hoped for the top of the heart and other lung as the bullet traversed the animal.

The news was good when we found the blood trail a couple of hundred yards away. Lung blood….red and bubbly. A half mile later the news got bad. The blood trail had disappeared and the Buff was still in the herd of 5. Another half hour of stalking and the news got worse; the Buff had left the herd. This meant that he was hurting for certain and very dangerous.

Much of what I report, I only learned from Pete after the hunt, such as the habits of wounded Buff. Due to the need for economy of noise in the stalk, we were not in a position to sit down for a long wildlife lecture. But what I did know was that the Dugga Boy had turned downwind into heavy brush where he could scent us and see us. At any given time there would be 6 or 10 clumps of brush within 50 yards in which he could hide and Pete kept trying to “hopscotch” the animal to a crosswind position, while maintaining contact with the track…and that the buff kept turning to keep us upwind, moving in a wide arc.

We stopped for a sitrep.
“Rich, this is a very, very dangerous situation. This Buff is wounded and knows we're on him. Sooner or later he's going to come for us. If we see him, do you want Taka and I to shoot.”
“Use your own best judgment, Pete.”
“Well, if you want to shoot him, you need to go in front.”
“I can't track him, Pete. Use your own best judgment.”
“OK, I want you to follow directly behind the trackers and be ready. If you see him, you must move to the side so that we're not shooting over each other. If he gets in the middle of us, DO NOT shoot one of us.” I was silent and just nodded my head. I've done more live fire in dynamic team situations than most hunters, but this was the real deal. Pete's admonition was well taken.

Reality check:
I always wanted to know what it would be like to stalk a wounded Cape Buff in the “thick stuff”. I just never wanted to be the one to CREATE the situation.
Am I frightened? Yes.
Am I shaking? No.
That's good.
Am I thinking clearly about the task at hand or worrying about the shot I took? Nope, I understand that the next shot is the only one that counts..
Also good. I was a ready as I was gonna be.

Realizing that I would never spot a Buff hiding in thicket in front of us before Pete, Taka or Churo, I concentrated on our sides and flanks, just in case The Hunted had grown tired of the game and made a sharp J-Hook to become The Hunter. I had given up my belief that wounded Buff “hunting the hunter” was just a myth.

About 20 minutes later, Pete separated to our right by about 30 yards to check out a heavy thicket in a small ravine. I heard a thunder of hooves and a shot, not _ second later. Pete had flushed the Buff and took a snap-shot with his .470 Nitro double. He would repeat this separation twice more this day, instinctively routing the Buff.
“Did you hit him?”
“SHHHHHSH!”
We sat and Pete came over. He whispered, “I think I missed him. I may have caught him in the guts but I don't think so.”

We moved on to where the animal crossed a road into more heavy brush.
“Rich, he's moving forward and hiding in these small thickets. This is very, very dangerous and I think we should call in another PH. We'll leave Danny with the truck and go in with four guns: you, me, Hilton and Taka.”
“Your call Pete.” The only problem was that I knew Pete had forgotten his radio in camp. The nearest radio was at Pete's truck, probably 2 miles away.
“OK, I'll tell you what. Let's go in and see what it's like. When we get up to the thickets, we're going to spread out in a skirmish like.”

We moved on. With Taka and Churo to my left and Pete on my right, Pete once again moved off about thirty yards. As I angled off toward the thicket he was heading toward, he suddenly raised his rifle. Two shots in very rapid succession. This time I knew better than to ask for a hit report. In describing it to the trackers, I saw a rare smile from Pete. He turned to me.
“He was just standing there. I think I got him in the left shoulder. The second shot I'm not certain of. I shot at his ass as he ran off.”

Once again, we moved off; this time with Pete on the left, me on the right and the trackers in the middle, separated at about 10 yards each. A short time later, Pete urgently motioned me to his position. I moved over to where he was pointing his rifle and there was the Dugga Boy, broadside in the brush 20 yards away. None of the other three of us could see it, though we were a matter of steps from Pete's position.

“SHOOT” he whispered. I shot for the right shoulder as Pete's gun went off just behind mine. The Buff ran to our right about 15 yards and turned left more than180 degrees quartering toward us, as if (I swear it!) searching for us.

“Shoot him again!”. I fired forward of the left shoulder this time….460 grains of Belt Mountain solid at 2,000 fps that hadn't seemed to impress him yet. The far side shoulder crumbled and the animal headed almost directly toward us, stumbling along the way.

“Finish him!” I fired into the center of the chest and he went down. We watched for a minute as his blood spilled onto the ground from the chest shot. “He's just being a Buff, Pete said…..meaning, “Even though he was dying before the chest shot, he's still not gonna accept that fact easily.”

[Rich Lucibella]

After Action Report:
42.5” horns. Pete has taken only one larger in this camp; Hilton, none.

Should we shoot a Cape Buffalo while it is lying down? It never occurred to me at the time. No one here feels it is un-sporting. I guess I'm OK with that. We generally shoot Leopard while they're lying down; Lion, too.

The Buff had 11 holes in him. 3 in the shoulder of the right side; 4 in the neck/shoulder of the left side. 1 high in the gut on left and 1 centerline in the gut on right. 1 right of the spine in the back and 1 in the chest. Based on the degree of blood drying and reaction from the shots, Pete and I agree that the following account is as honest as possible.

The Buff was hit by me, centerline and behind the diaphragm, almost amidships. I suspect that the animal was not broadside when laying down. His front half was quartered away from us; otherwise there is no way it would have caught lung. The bullet took him left of my intended placement and most likely caught the left lung without exit. Not good. Pete claims it probably would have died during the night, but I'm not at all certain this wasn't just for my benefit.

Pete's first snap shot did, in fact, catch him in the gut, high on the left side. It did not exit. He later shot it thru the left shoulder and the bullet passed out the right shoulder. As the Buff ran he hit it high on the back, right side. The bullet did not exit.

Next we each shot it thu the right shoulder, both bullets exiting on left. I then shot it thru the neck/shoulder on the left side, the bullet lodging in and breaking the right one. Finally was the heart shot.

Tough animals? I never would have believed just how tough!

The hunt of a lifetime? Well, how many people have ever hunted a wounded Dugga Boy in thicket as it continued to circle for wind advantage?

A necessary follow-up stalk? Yes, but only if you blow your first shot.

Is a telescopic sight an advantage to the first shot on Buff? To the extent that it allows you to “see better”, one might better find obstructions to bullet path and determine the exact position of the game when obscured (as it always seems to be here in Zim). But at 70 yards, the difference in bullet placement between scope and iron sights should be no more than an inch, if the shooter does his job properly. I hadn't.

I had wanted to blood the 50 AK with Buff. That's been done. Next time: My Blaser .416 with world class iron sights and quick release scope. First shot with the scope. If a follow up stalk is necessary, the scope comes off in less then 5 seconds. I don't ever intend a follow-up stalk on Cape Buffalo; but then, we never do.

[12-34hom]

Excellent!

Those are the types of situations some folks live for.

Could the phrase "I never felt more alive" be applicable?

Hoka Hey!

12-34hom.

[iudoug]

My next trip to Africa is for a buff. (cmon money ) What a great story....hopefully the PH and you get along....nothing worse then being with a guide that doesn't click with you.....good luck the rest of the way and am looking forward to some more stories, Doug

[Dave R]

Wow.

Well, you have a great story about blooding the .50 AK. Richly earned. Thanks for sharing it. Vicarious hunts like this are my favorite part of TFL.

Wow.

[HankL]

Great report Rich. I'm glad that you and the PH were able to get squared away.

[maas]

all i have to say is wow! very good writing rich, you made me believe i was there next to you.

[MEDDAC19]

Congratulations! The moral I take from your story, even with enough gun, is never piss off a buff. It is amazing that that fellow just didn't know he was supposed to go down. I assume that you were happy with the 50 Alaskan?

[Rich Lucibella]

The .50 performed well enough, for sure. This was an adrenalized Buff that took 4 hits from a .470 Nitro also, one to the shoulder and STILL ran off and waited on us. Pete is impressed by the 50, particularly because of the 7 round magazine. The next to the last shot went from base of neck on left thru to break the shoulder on the other side....an't ask for much better than that.

Tomorrow I'll post pics and (much shorter) stories of yesterday's Klipspringer and about 2,000 lbs of Eland from today. Off to the autopsy!
Rich

[formerflyer]

Nice dugga boy, Rich. You may some day shoot one bigger than that, but to me the trophy is in the experience, and you'll not likely ever bag a finer trophy than that. Nice work.

[Rich Lucibella]

Thursday, September 7th: The Klipspringer [Excerpts from journal]

We headed out for Klippy and called in three….yes, they actually call them in with a typical predator call. The Klipspringer comes in out of curiosity. These came in almost immediately; two females and a male. I did get one momentary shot at the male, but dismissed my initial sighting as a rock (it wasn’t) and he disappeared when I came out of the scope. We stalked him around the side of a high hill and I shot him with the .338.
Distance: @90 yards per Pete, though it looked like 150 to me….they really ARE small.
Position: From sticks, standing
Surprise break
Called it in the left shoulder, quartering.
The call was correct, but the Blaser is sighted 2” high at 100 yards and the Klippie is just a bit of a guy. The bullet entered the top of the back, behind the left shoulder and raked toward the right haunch. Not exactly where I wanted it, but perfect for a shoulder mount, since the Barnes X all but gutted the little fellow from behind the shoulder to tail.

We stopped for pics and headed back to camp. Pete had me jump out of the truck for a herd of Zebra and set me on the sticks. “The stallion in the rear he said.” I sighted on him at 70 yards, but never cocked the gun. “What am I doing”, I wondered. “It’s not even 7:30am; I’ve just shot a great Klipspringer. Do I really want to end this Zebra’s life shooting it from a road?” I put the rifle up.

“No good, Pete. I’m sorry. I’m just not ready to kill another animal.”
“OK, it’s your hunt. We just won’t hunt any more Zebra unless you tell me.”

The ride back was at Pete-be-Pissed speeds. I didn’t mind…I got to think of the Zebra I wounded and the payback to the one that just became a catch and release. Bit-o-Balance there.

Dinner was Cape Buff steaks….there was some controversy as to whether it was my Buff or Danny’s. I resolved it by determining that the more tender pieces were mine…..which is as it should be!

Besides, had I shot that Zebra, I’d never have seen the Giraffes!

[Rich Lucibella]

Friday, September 8th: Eland

Again we tried the river stalk. Saw some Bushbuck and Warthog, but no shooters. We returned to camp at 9am and left at 10:30, hoping to catch Kudu on the river in the midday heat. Before 11am Churo spotted 4 Eland bulls…one very large. Pete was going to radio Hilton for Danny, but I decided to take it just to bust Danny’s chops. (Besides, there is no lack of fresh Eland tracks here…it’s just tough to run them down.) Pete was all excited….Eland is fairly high dollar; proof positive that he’s on commission.

Despite being heavier than a Cape Buff, Eland are very wary and elusive. We tracked this herd until we spotted tracks of a larger bull and then began to follow that one. We caught up to him three times over 3 hours and he got away twice. The third time we found him (where else?)….in semi-dense thicket.

There he was at 43 yards. Huge. Sticks up. Rifle up. I held up my left hand to Pete as if to say, “wait”. “Shoot him”, Pete whispered from behind me. I pointed my left index finger to my butt and held up my hand again. He was facing away from us on the other side of the brush. Pete has evidently learned that he needn’t be concerned about me being too frugal with the lead; he punched a “Thumbs Up” sign over my shoulder: “OK, when you’re ready.”

I was concerned about the animal bolting. Pete later confirmed that the wind was working against us. I had time to study the shooting lane and to power up the scope to 6X then back down to about 3X. A narrow tunnel, but it was a short shoot. The Eland turned just a bit to the left, then turned his head in our direction, presenting his left shoulder. The crosshairs were steady, but I might have waited to see if he would turn his whole body. In any case, I didn’t. I placed the cross hairs just behind the left shoulder for an exit out the chest and squeezed.

Mentally, I called the shot a bit further back, perhaps even just behind the diaphragm. But I was certain it was good. I would later learn that, as I recoiled and ran the bolt, this 2,000 lb beast leaped straight up, about 7 feet! Then, to my amazement, he turned to his right and simply started to stroll off from my left to right at the edge of the woods. Churu grabbed the sticks and set them up on an intercept. There was no lane….no chance. I bent down to look…”Got it!”

I opted for a squat position, feet flat on the ground, triceps on knees, butt on my ankles and I waited the few seconds for the sauntering mass to reach my window. As he approached I got in the scope….head….chest…..right shoulder….POW. I didn’t even run the gun. Perfect broadside low shoulder shot. I stood and called the shot only to see the Eland, which never dropped to my knowledge, turn and run straight away from us about 60 yards. We ran thru the wooded area to the other side. There he was, behind a bush at 50 yards. But which way is he facing? Ahhh, got him! He was nearly broadside his neck pointing to my left, his head turned back toward us, ….amazing how well an enormous animal can conceal himself!

Offhand shot under 50 yards, mentally called high in the shoulder due to brush below that point. He dropped like a piano had fallen on him. When I approached him, he was struggling to get up off his left side and I shot him point blank in the chest. In death, his eyes remained open and the left one bore a triangular patch of we tears. It truly saddened me; the shooting was over in less than three minutes, but I wished it had been done more quickly. Eland are magnificent. This one was huge, just two weeks before the rut, yet the 31 inch horns hardly matched the body. He deserved a quicker end. What went wrong?

After Action Report:
The first bullet never touched this pickup-truck scaled beast, though called behind the left shoulder. It remains a mystery, despite the fact that he jumped like he’d been hit with a cattle prod and just walked off like he had a bad belly ache. I went as far as to lift his tail to see if I might have performed the perfect Ashley Ass Shot. Nothing. On skinning and gutting, nothing. I had completely missed an Eland, from a steady rest at 43 yards with no sense of rush at all!

The second bullet, absolutely, for certain thru the left shoulder, would have made the Warren Commission proud. It hit him center of the chest and broke his left shoulder without exiting...from a BROADSIDE position! The only way this could have happened is if I had shot him 10 yards prior to broadside and missed that shoulder by 2 feet!

The third bullet, called high on the left shoulder smashed thru the spine in the center of his neck….again about 15 inches from the intended spot.

We went back to the first two shooting positions to take a look. We found nothing definitive in the first lane, but located the ¾ inch, center-punched sapling dead center of the second lane. I was so disgusted that I never looked at the third position.

Here’s what I suspect:
The first shot was deflected by brush early in flight. It went into the Great Void. I’m pretty self-effacing about my shooting skills, but even in my darkest moments, I can’t believe I missed by more than 3 feet in one direction or another from a rest at half a hundred yards.

Pete confirms the second shot was taken broadside. The only explanation is that it was deflected to the right by the sapling, just catching the left front of his chest, and was “snagged” back to the left due to deformation of tip or spin. It broke his left shoulder. I nearly threw a fit when the skinners reported that they couldn’t retrieve the bullet! Pete didn’t assist in pushing the issue.

The third bullet is anyone’s guess. Three for three deflected? Even I’m not that unlucky. Call it a huge miss from a rifle that I call game shots with correctly 90% of the time.

But I do know this. The next morning I demanded that we recheck zero. One round from the .338 Blaser at an empty pack of cigarettes, over a hot truck hood, in less time than I took on that Eland. I center-punched the pack off the tree. There is nothing wrong with my rifle.


Dinner was Warthog chops; there’s a reason why every other camp I’ve been to uses Warthog only for biltong: I’d rather eat a microwaved, 7-11 pork chop sandwich.

[Rich Lucibella]

Saturday, September 9th: Bushpig

Pete had informed me that he wanted to take a box lunch for today and stay out.
“You mean hunt from 5am ‘till 6pm?”, I asked.
“Well, there’s a big international Rugby game on at two. I thought you might want to drop by my parents and watch it with me.”
“Ummm, why don’t you guys take the afternoon off.”

So, we headed out for the morning hunt, hiking the river for Bushbuck. We saw several, but no males. At about 9am we came along a herd of Bushpig, which run smaller than Warthog and much smaller than Texas hog. Pete pointed out the boar (a good one, I’m told by others in camp) and I shot it as it walked, left to right, just like that Eland. Only this one reacted as it should. He jumped up and fell over….graveyard dead.

Position: Standing from sticks
Range: 80 yards
Angle: Shooting Downward
Rifle: Blaser .338
Call: “High in the heart”
Hit: High in the heart, thru both lungs before exit

Danny got his Eland today. An absolutely handsome one, smaller than mine, but with larger, finer horns. Way to go, Danny!

We took the rest of the day off.

[Socrates]

Rich
In defense of your pro hunter, here's a clip from an email from one of the more famous hunters I know, Lee Jurras:

"....On my first trip to Africa I took a 458 Browning and a SuperBlackHawk 44 Mag. 20 Rds of 500gr. SP and 20 rds of 500 Solids plus 100 rds of 180 gr. JSP for the 44 Mag... When my Pro Hunter saw the 500gr, Soft Points for the 458 he said, "what are you going to do with those", told him I thought probably Lion...He said, "you been reading too much Jack O'Conner"...then he said what are you going to do if a Cape Buff charges without notice of we come up on an Elephant? He said "we only use solids ", solids will kill a Lion OK, but you don't want to get caught with SP's in the magazine when you need solids...Think about it....Well I said I'll trade you these 20 SP's for 20 Solids, he said NO we'll sell you 20 solids, take the SP's home and shoot them at Deer or something..."

Guess Pete might have been Lee Jurras' pro h, on his trip?

I will say, after reading your accounts, that I'm giving serious thought to a .510 Wells(600 grains, at 2200 fps, and using the 458 Lott, with 350-450 grain Barnes X bullets, at 2500-2900 fps, for plains game.

The bullet deflections on the Eland are certainly something I will learn from. That Eland is simply huge, and beautiful.
2000 pound animal? WOW!!!
Looks like when plains game weigh as much as my car, a 458 Lott isn't unreasonable...

Your buffalo is AWESOME!!!

I've a couple buffalo stories for ya. First is a guy built a 4 bore, gut shot a big buffalo, and he still went 60 yards before going down.

Another is O'Connor had one buffalo that took 11 rounds from 450-470 Nitro Expresses, before going down.

TOUGH animals. Enjoy the rest of the hunt, and, thanks for the pics, and great writing. Makes me wish I was there.

S

[12-34hom]

Thanks Rich, throughly enjoy reading your exploits and feelings on this trek.

12-34hom.

[oldbillthundercheif]

Those bastards are tough. Good job.

[Trip20]

It was as if I were there. The ups... the downs... I laughed, I cried... I wanted to sock the PH in the nose.

Thanks for the read and pics. Beautiful place.

[FirstFreedom]

Just awesome, Rich; congrats!

[Wild Bill Bucks]

I don't think I'm going to be able to like Rich anymore.