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Got back from Zimbabwe a couple of weeks ago. Had a 21 day safari with Roger Whittall Safaris on Humani, in the Save Conservancy. I booked a 14 day Buffalo/Plains Game hunt initially and then bought 7 days Plains Game hunting at the SCI convention in Brisbane.
The first four or five days were spent in the very thick riverine hunting Bush Buck, Nyala and Bush Pig without success. The thickness of the bush and the cunning of the animals combined to thwart us, and when these factors weren’t in play, the bloody Ele were, they were every where. One day we saw a herd of 40, comprising mostly cows and calves with a few young bulls. Made for some hairy moments in the thick stuff.

The hairiest moment of the safari was provided by a Dugga Boy. We had been sneaking through some thick and prickly riverine, when we walked down into an open, washed gully that led to the River as we were going to go to see what tracks we could find. We had only taken about five steps down the gully when we heard a rustling and a stick break on the bank above us (15 feet above us) the trackers said it was Buffalo. We took two more steps and we heard a huffing/puffing coming from above and then about ten feet in front of us a Dugga Boy boiled down the game trail. The trackers made an Olympic sprinter look lazy. The PH put his back against the bank; I took a couple of steps to make some room and waited to see what he would do. The bull steamed across the gully and up the other side, all the while glaring at us out the corner of his eye. He wasn’t charging, although at the time I wasn’t sure, but the wind was swirling and he had got our wind and was just trying to get out of Dodge.

We left the riverine and the Ele alone for a while and I took a nice Water Buck and an Impala. The PH I had been hunting with went down with a severe dose of Tick Fever. I ended up with an apprentice PH and another PH for the remaining few days of the Plains Game only hunt. I took a very big Zebra stallion after a good stalk (no photos, every photo was out of focus) and a Bull Giraffe. A bull Giraffe is a big critter when you get up close, and the trackers and skinners that had been summoned from the main house, made short work of him. Eating as much meat as they could half cook on the fire before they returned to the freezer where Roger would take control of the meat and their feast would be curtailed.

Day 8 saw a change of PH. I hunted for the remainder of the safari with Collen Van Der Linden, a great bloke and a very good hunter. After the amount of Elephant we had been seeing, I was a little dubious about going back into the riverine, but in we went anyway. We hardly saw an Elephant for four or five days.
On a previous safari, Collen had seen a Dugga Boy come to water hole sporting a snare securely attached to one of his back hooves. We spent a lot of time looking for his tracks and one morning we found where he had watered and the trackers, Capazi and Gabriel set about following him on his wanderings through the riverine. He joined up with another bull and we found them, only trouble was there was a dirty big wall of green between us and them. We could hear them grumbling and sort of woofing and then the wind changed and they smashed off through the bush, never to be seen again.
On day 10 we finally found a Bush Buck that stood still long enough to have a look and Collen said he was a good one and I should take him. I had been carrying my .458 because of the above bull. I took a shot and missed. We searched for 20 minutes and found no sign of blood and the trackers found where he had been running. I mentally beat myself and trudged on behind Collen and the trackers, telling myself that I had missed my chance at a Bush Buck on this trip. As we made our way through the bush, I looked to my left from my position at the back of the procession and looked at a gap in the bush at the same time as a black shape moved through it. I whistled Collen and he threw his binos up as the Ram came into a small opening. He took about 1 milli-second to say “Shoot when he comes out on the left of that bush” trouble was, I am as deaf as post and missed the “on the left”. I was on the sticks, looking where I thought the ram should be when movement about 20 yards to my left attracted my eye. It was the ram; I moved a little and fired. The 500 grain solid did its job. Not wanting to be bumping round in the bush in the dark with a snared Buffalo and a pride of Lions that were trying to sort out who the boss was after an American client had taken the dominant male the week before, we hauled arse and Bush Buck back to the truck, hence the darkness of the photo. What a beautiful little animal.

We continued our search for Buffalo. It wasn’t until day 13, after a lot of miles and lost tracks and spooked Buffalo that a bull finally stood still in some of the thickest bush I have been in. The 500 grain solid did its work. At the shot the bull left. I was shaking like the proverbial leaf. Collen said we should give him some time for the shot to do its work. I hadn’t got half way through the nerve settling cigarette when we heard the death bellow.

We took a circular route to find the bull. When we found him, he was only about 20 yards from where I had shot him, but he got there in a circle. The cunning bugger was coming back to wait beside his tracks for us, but had expired before he got the chance. He is not the classic shape and doesn’t have a huge boss, but he is mine.
From day 13 until the last 3 minutes of light on day 18, we hunted hard for Eland, Nyala and Bush Pig without success.

On the evening of the 18th day, we found a good size herd of Eland and commenced a stalk. We duck walked, crawled, walked bent in half and shuffled trying to get a look at the herd bull. We had just about been beaten by the light when we saw a cow walk through a gap in the Mopane, about 130 yards away. I was standing next to a tree with a fork in it that would have been a foot too high for normal people, but was just the right height for an abnormal person like me. For no other reason than to have a look at the Eland cow through the scope, I put the .458 in the fork. As I did, the herd bull walked into the gap. Collen said “He’s a shooter, can you see him?” I replied with a boom, the bull hunched up and then took off, but he only got about 30 yards and folded in a heap.

The next morning we found a Duiker that was staying out a little too late after sunrise. Having only seen one other in daylight, I took him, broken horn and all.
That afternoon, we found the Nyala we had been searching so hard for. A lovely old bull with 29 inch horns and next to none of the trademark belly hair and not much more on his neck. The general consensus was that he had worn at least an inch and one half off his horns.

On the morning of the 20th day, we found a mob of Bush Pig about twenty strong following a troupe of Baboons along in the bush. An ancient, white boar stood just long enough to get a shot off. Lovely old boar, he had about one and three-quarters to two inches of tusk protruding from his jaw.

Then in the evening, with about 15 minutes of legal light left, I had a shot at a Klipspringer. The trackers thought I missed, Collen though I had connected. The shot felt good but I lost him with the recoil. We climbed up into the rocks and looked and looked. The trackers found some hair but said it was from a leg or something and the Klippy had left. We continued looking until it was just about dark (half expecting a Leopard to come busting out of one of the caves we were looking in for the Klippy). Collen had gone down the back of the rock pile to see what he could find and the trackers and I stayed on the top looking. Then blow me down if Gabriel didn't find him dead in a gap in the rock.

What a way to end a safari. I kept telling Collen in the 5 days that we kept getting stuffed up by wind and other game that persistency is the key, and it worked out better than I could have asked for.
We caught our charter flight from Humani to Harare and then onto Johannesburg with no problems, killed a few hours and then boarded our flight back to Oz. The 11 hours went pretty quick.
Then we came across the only stuff up, flights wise. It seemed some erstwhile baggage handler had left a container of luggage on the tarmac in Jo’burg and our rifles where in it. A visit with customs and QANTAS lost baggage had us heading home sans our rifles. They turned up a few days later, none the worse for wear save the cut locks that customs “had” to cut to make sure the firearms were clear.
Cannot recommend Roger Whittall Safaris highly enough. Collen Van Der Linden is a great bloke to be in the bush with. I can recommend him also and I will hunt with him again for sure.

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