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Thanks Tophet1,
Well, I'm still a bit short of private computing time and wondering if I should write something for a hunting mag to help defray costs, but here goes.

After spending three days in Bethlehem with Jason and his wife, Michelle, the big road trip began about 3am. Jason and his off-sider, Tumo, drove the 3800km to Pemba, Moz, in three days. We rarely stopped because without safe compounds to protect the twin-cab. One place we did stop was for lunch in Nelspruit with Steve Robinson, who later took us to the massive Lifeform taxidermy concern for a look around.

After a couple of days in Pemba we drove the last seven hours into the M'tsewa hunting concession, maybe 150km south of the Tanzania border.

Hunting from a permanent camp each day, we followed buffalo around for almost a week. One day Estevao picked up the trail near the concession border. It took us out in a 10-15km loop and brought us back to the car around 4pm - very considerate, I thought. We stalked some bulls to about 100 metres on one occasion but Jason said the best one was still soft in the boss. The weather was dry enough but became increasingly humid as the month went on. It may only have got to about 35C but, day after day, tramping around or sitting in a closed hide, that was hot enough.

About the sixth day we found a track early and followed it until about 2.30pm when it became hard to follow where the nine animals had milled around for a while. We were heading down into a creek meander. The ground rose more steeply on the other side and the normally undaunted Jason and Estevao were thinking of turning around.

Across the creek an elephant trumpeted and then, around a bit, another one. Cracking sticks and bamboo could be heard a bit closer and Jason yelled 'Run!' - as you do when no one has an elephant licence and you don't want to be trampled or explain dead elephants.

So, we charged up the hill for about 60 metres before stopping to look back. But instead of grey heading our way, all we could see was black. It was not us the elephants were angry with but a herd of buffalo. Our nine buff had joined about 40 others, all running up the hill behind us. Most ran past on our right but a number of bulls stopped about 20 yards down the hill. Jason suggested I take the third one. This one had stopped with a front leg just behind a 10-centimetre-plus tree trunk as I aimed for a high-heart placement.

At the shot he jumped and ran around to the left. I fired again but he kept going. We could hear him breathing heavily as he disappeared.

We waited some time to let his adrenalin subside before following the easy blood trail.

Sorry guys, I've gotta go home. More later

- Paul

Edited by Paul (06/10/09 09:14 PM)