It was the deep end for me.
In 1999, in the Zambezi valley, Zimbabwe. It was my first trip to Africa, and I was on a 7 day Buff, Tuskless and hyena hunt. I was using a Win model 70 375 H&H Mag, with Trophy Bonded Bear Claw solids for the Buff and Ele. Softs for the Hyena. I was accompanied by my wife.
On the third day of the hunt, having seen absolutely nothing thus far, we spotted a lone Buffalo Bull, about 400 yards away, as we drove along a track in the Land Cruiser.
The Buff turned and ran into the Jesse, and we soon followed up on foot.
To cut it short, after tracking the Buff for about two hours, only getting the odd glimpse of him, he brought us back to virtually where we initially picked up his tracks, by a wallow.
He offered me a quartering away shot at about 50 yards, which I took.I put the shot in behind the left shoulder, aiming for the opposite shoulder.The shot pole axed him , and I remember thinking that all this talk about the toughness of the beast being grossly exaggerated. The PH ran up the side of the hill for a better look, and told me to follow. The video cameraman and my wife, sort of walked up behind us, the next thing I heard was my wife shout out and on turning around , I saw the charging Buff. He was headed for the spot where we had fired from , about 30 yards away, and gave me the chance to put a shot into his neck , which finished him off. My wife had dived head first into the bushes, and had to be helped out, and to his credit, the cameraman captured almost all of it on film.
The Buff was an old Daggaboy, not a wide spread, 35", but boy, did he give us a thrill.
Wish I knew how to post his pics up.
Needless to say, I was hooked on Buff hunting , and though I am on Buff no. 5 so far, that first one will always be the one that sticks out the most.
M.