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"The First Daggaboy, 1999"

by Geoff Devine-Jones

As a young lad, I was brought up in the Kumaon hills of India, at the foothills of the Himalayas. I spent virtually every non school day, stalking the Deodar forests, with my Hornet 22, in company with an old shikari, my mentor. From him I learnt about the art of taking the spoor of an animal, the need for patience, shot placement and the respect for ones quarry.

We shot mainly barking deer, ghooral and the axis deer.

My love for hunting and being in the countryside was deeply ingrained at an early stage.

I had, from an early stage a fascination for the cape buffalo, sparked by pictures of the Cape Buffalo, being drawn to the sheer size and beauty of these beasts. I believed I had missed the boat to go out and hunt an old dagga boy, as I thought all hunting was banned in Africa.

In early 1999, I was asked by my wife, what my greatest dream was. I obviously said it was the hunting of a cape buffalo. But said it was to remain a dream as all hunting in Africa was banned.This was obviously a mistaken belief. Two weeks later, after dinner, she put on a video of a cape buffalo and tuskless elephant hunt, and we watched it in silence. The video, along with relevant information had come from a sporting agent based in the UK, and the footage was of a hunt that had taken place a year previous. My wife had been busy researching.

In August 1999, we landed in Harare, Zimbabwe, walked to the domestic terminal, and took a flight into the Zambezi Valley. We were to hunt cape buffalo and a tuskless for seven days in Chewore North. The outfitter was Big Five Safaris.

As the plane banked in to turn into its approach to the airstrip, we got our first view of the Zambezi, snaking its way along the valley floor. On the opposite side of the river was a steeply sided hill, part of a long range of hills in Zambia. The plane swooped low over the runway to chase off a small herd of waterbuck, and then we landed in a great cloud of dust.

We were met by the camp staff and were driven the half mile to camp , sat on the top of an amazon, scattering baboons as we went. Walking down the steps to the dining area, we had a breathtaking view of the river, its pods of Hippo basking in the sun, the odd old bull making his grunting call and a lone juvenile bull elephant quietly sucking water into his trunk at the river, about 80 metres away.

It was an amazing dream like introduction into the wilds of Africa.

After sighting in the Brno .416, on the eve of the hunt, I spent the rest of the evening discussing all aspects of the hunt with the professional hunter, Johan Carinus.

We drove out of camp at day break on the first morning, to the sounds of the waking African bush, the calls of guinea fowl, francolin and doves filled the air. The terrain was, almost bleak, as we drove mile after mile looking for spoor that may have crossed the sandy track. We saw nothing.

We had lunch under the shade of sausage tree, and rested for a while, before we resumed the drive.

In the late afternoon, we came upon the tracks of a small herd of buffalo and spent some time going over the spoor. There was no bull apparent with the herd, so we extended the search to the surrounding area, but still we had no luck. So we gave up on the stalk. I shot an impala late in the afternoon, and drove back to camp, dropping the ram off at the skinning shed.

We covered a lot of miles on day three with no luck. I felt we needed to widen the search and walk around the water holes as opposed to driving the tracks. We ended the day with no luck, and that night we decided to try my suggested way of looking for the elusive dagga boy. We needed a change of tactics.

We drove out of camp on day four, and within about five miles, we pulled up, parked the truck , armed ourselves and walked to a known spring about three miles away. We had covered about two miles to the spring, when we came across very fresh buffalo dung, and tracks cutting across our path into some fairly dense jesse.

The tracks were of a solitary buffalo bull, and he appeared to be wandering about in the general direction of the spring. My rifle had open sights, and i was very grateful for it. We took up the tracks and entered the jesse. The visibility was about five yards and progress was very slow.

After about a mile or so, we followed the bull out of the jesse and walked along the edge of a dry river bed, turning right into a mopane woodland area that ran along the base of a steep sided hill. We just caught sight of the back end of the old boy in the distance as he disappeared from view. He didn’t seem to be in any rush.

The tracking took us through different types of vegetation as we followed at a safe distance. After about an hour the old boys pace slowed as he stopped to feed here and there. The tracks led into a bit of light jesse when I saw an ox pecker rise and settle out of sight in the cover ahead of us, as did the tracker. We crept forward very carefully, the head wind was perfect. A few yards more, and I had my first proper sight of a dagga boy. standing stock still, slightly quartering away from us. He was about 20 yards away.

He had wide horns with a deep curl. His body looked to be one big mass of muscle. He had clearly wallowed in mud recently as his back end was covered caked in dry mud.

Getting on the sticks I lined up and placed my shot just behind his shoulder and had the pleasure of seeing him collapse out of sight of us. We ran about twenty yards up the slope to our right to get a better look at where he had fallen, when I heard the thunder of hooves on the hard ground behind us. Looking back I saw the bull charge out to where I had taken the shot from. Looking down at him, I had enough time to put in a high shoulder shot that collapsed the old boy and then put a final killing shot into him.

I had my first daggaboy boy.

He was an old bull, with wide well worn bosses and a nice drop and curl to his horns. He carried many old battle wounds , mainly claw marks of Lion to his face, back quarters and shoulders .

After much picture taking , we cut a path from the parked vehicle through to where the old boy lay.

Loading the dagga boy on to the back of the truck was no mean feat, which we eventually achieved. The drive back to the skinning shed was a most pleasant journey.

This was the start of an incredible journey into the world of Cape Buffalo hunting.

Edited by NitroX (19/09/24 10:04 PM)