By Alessandro Cabella

Bushbuck hunting… as they always say, that’s bushbuck hunting for you. Whether you’re a seasoned professional or stepping into the veld for the very first time, the bushbuck has a way of humbling you. It’s not just a hunt – it’s a test of patience, awareness, and quiet determination. And on March 24, 2026, in the Eastern Cape, that lesson came alive once again.

I was hunting alongside my good friend and professional hunter, Ryan Beattie from Dubula Hunting Safaris with his Zimbabwean tracker, Alex – a man whose eyes seemed to read the bush like a book written just for him.

The morning broke slowly over the river valley, a soft light creeping through the thorn trees. The air was cool, carrying just enough moisture to hold scent low to the ground. Perfect conditions – but bushbuck country always has the final say.

We moved carefully along the river’s edge, where thick brush meets open patches of sunlight. Ryan set the pace – slow, deliberate – while Alex scanned ahead, picking up signs most would walk straight past. A bent blade of grass, a faint track in the soft soil -the kind of details that separate a hopeful hunter from a successful one. Bushbuck don’t give themselves away easily.

We had already worked that ridge above the river at least four times. Up and down. Slow, methodical passes. Each time convinced the next sweep might reveal what we were looking for. But the bush stayed quiet. Too quiet. By around 11:30 a.m., the sun had climbed high enough to change the mood completely. The shadows shrank, the air warmed, and the bush seemed to shut down. We paused, looking back over the valley, and, for a moment, the decision almost made itself – we’d head back to Malweni.

Waiting for us there was something special: a blue wildebeest lasagna, prepared by the chef at the stone cottage in Malweni. A meal we had been talking about all morning. Not just food, but a reflection of real passion – game meat handled with care, transformed into something memorable. The kind of culinary talent that deserves recognition, built on respect for the hunt and the ingredients it provides.

It was tempting. Very tempting. But bushbuck hunting has a way of asking one more question before you leave. Do you give it one last try? So, we stayed.

And that’s when it happened. Alex’s voice came through in a whisper over the radio – he had spotted a good bushbuck ram. Ryan and I moved back quickly but carefully, every step measured. We settled in, watching as the ram moved in and out of the bush… appearing for a second, then gone again. In and out. Always just enough to keep you locked in, never enough for a clean shot. We waited. Time stretched.

Then Ryan quietly set the sticks and signaled. Slowly, slowly, I moved in behind him and eased the .270 WSM onto the rest. The heat had built up by then. The humidity clung to everything. Sweat ran down my face, my hair dripping onto the scope, blurring the sight picture. It was hard to stay focused, harder still to stay steady.

Down below us, about 150 meters off the ridge, the bushbuck stood half-hidden in the dark, tangled brush. I could see one horn clearly through the scope – but that was it. The rest of him was concealed.

He was quartering slightly, alert. I had to picture it – build the shape in my mind, anticipate where the body lay beyond what I could see. In that kind of terrain, you don’t always get a full picture. You get fragments – and you trust your experience to fill in the rest.

Seconds felt like minutes. Then, suddenly, it happened. He stepped forward – just enough. A split second. That was all. The shot broke clean. And the bushbuck dropped instantly. Silence followed. A moment that held everything – the patience, the pressure, the precision.

But the hunt wasn’t over yet. The recent heavy rains had swollen the river below, turning what would normally be a simple crossing into one more challenge. We made our way down carefully, picking our line, feeling the strength of the current as we crossed, slow, deliberate, making sure every step held. On the other side, we found him. A beautiful ram, lying exactly where he had fallen. A quiet moment of respect followed – one that every true hunt carries. With success behind us, we made our way back to Malweni.

And there it was, waiting just as promised – the blue wildebeest lasagna, rich and full of flavor, prepared by the chef at the stone cottage. After a hunt like that, it was more than a meal – it was a reward earned the hard way. We sat down, tired but satisfied, and devoured it alongside a fresh bottle of South African rosé wine, the perfect end to a day that had demanded everything and given something unforgettable in return.

That’s bushbuck hunting for you. Unpredictable. Demanding. And unforgettable.

By Glenn W. Geelhoed

“Can you hear that? That’s Ole Charlie, the most experienced of the hounds, and he only makes that baying sound when the dogs have treed a cat!” Jeff Ford said to me and my PH Charl Watts. “Already?” I asked, incredulous. This time, it happened in the reverse of my usual hunting pattern.

Charl and I had joked, not altogether without serious intent on his end: “Just once, instead of waiting until the very last minute to score, could we do it up front this time to take the pressure off?

“But that way I would miss the hunt! There are days that one has a good hunt, and there are days that one has a good shoot, and they are not always the same day!” I had said. This day, the good shoot preceded the good hunt.

The dawn was ideal, as this coastal area of the Southern Ocean along Eastern Cape Province had had unusual rainfall and was greener and with better morning scent-holding dew than usual. That meant that the three teams of dog handlers had put out the hounds after they had paused at 4:00 a.m. to listen in the dark for the barking of a bushbuck as a warning that danger was near. It could be one of the diurnal predators like the African Crowned Eagle that picks off the newborns of the bushbuck, or nocturnal pack hunters like the jackals. But these predators are nowhere near as efficient as the caracal, a predator with a kill rate of over 95% with its incredible pounces of three to five meters high, snatching flying grouse and taking on almost all newborns of game species and domestic livestock.

The dew held the scent, and the pre-dawn darkness was just glimmering in the east as an orange ball rose over the mountain horizon. The fynbos (the unique regional flora that contains 80% of the species in the continent of Africa) was so dense with various species that I could look in each direction and count a dozen kinds I had never seen before. The volcanic loam was good for raising pineapples, the biggest agricultural industry here.

We were going through Bathurst, a town that looked like a proper English country village with an advertised historic pub named the “Pig and Whistle” established in 1832 – the oldest in the country.  I was asking lots of questions about caracal behavior when I heard the walkie-talkie radio crackle. Jeff was talking in the “click language” of Xhosa to Marone, his lifelong childhood friend and hunting playmate on the family farm that was established in 1837.  Marone had cut a hot track!

We went to collect Tim, a dog-handler Jeff had brought in from another PH in the year 2000. These are all one family and are treated with utmost respect because they know what they are doing and one can simply turn them loose and know that each will be doing the right thing. We got Tim, who was carrying an old double-barrel shotgun for defense, and a few hounds that stay with him – small groups of the 16-hound pack remain with their respective handlers – and we drove to an abandoned pineapple slope. We eased on down the edge as the sun had not yet crested the mountain at the east, but left a pink glow behind us as we would be going in the opposite direction from the din of bellowing hounds.

Jeff took out the vintage autoloader 12-guage without any explanation except to say that the first shell was ‘triple-A’ and the next one was threes, which made no sense to me as a 00-buck, No. 2 goose shot, and No. 6 birdshot guy. But there was no time to chat, and we hustled off upwind in the direction of the excited hounds. We slipped behind some cactus and yucca and looked through the leaves at a tree with a big cat ten meters up and looking away. Its head was turned to the hounds on the right side of my line of vision. He was 37 meters away and, unaware of our presence, instead was looking down on two of the hounds that had tried to climb the tree and were five meters below him, and slipping off and bawling.

Jeff handed me the 12-guage and said, “Shoot the body and not the head which is facing right.” It was 7:03 a.m. in a glimmer of dawn’s ruby light.

I shot, the cat swayed, and then the front half swung upside down with the rear legs caught in the fork of branches. I was close enough to see that I had shot a big tomcat. After the hounds’ hard effort tracking and treeing, their bloodlust was up, but I was told the handlers were quite ready nearby to pull the dogs off as they would maul the cat.

Tim climbed up the lower branches of the tree in his gum boots and poked with a broken-off branch to dislodge the cat, easing it down into his grasp, and handing it to me without a dog ever getting to it. Charl had my phone and took a video as I turned to him holding the cat with its tufted ears and face toward the camera. It was a five-year-old male with a lot of kills to its credit.  Its 14-kilogram heft proved it hadn’t gone hungry.

The hunt was our first, and it was over in four minutes. This contrasted with my last-minute leopard after going without a sighting for 14-days, or the last-minute greater kudu in Limpopo at sunset after a full week of hunting the specific bull. More significantly, Jeff had hunted here with John Maclaurin who had not seen a cat or crossed a track in the first four days of the hunt, so we threatened to send a photo to John with the date changed to 5 September to show we had put in our time on this hunt!

Now that we had experienced the good shoot, we would invest the time and waiting and further scouting to have a good hunt. We went over the fynbos as the sun rose and we could admire the surroundings with the cat in the bag. And I had a whole mount done by Tim Owage of Timoland Taxidermy.

I had flown to South Africa from Kigali, Rwanda, after I had run the Rwenzori Marathon, starting at the Equatorial marker in Kasese, Uganda, running pre-dawn at the 2,850-meter altitude of the Mountains of the Moon. Charl had introduced me to Jeff Ford, who heads the Predator Control in the part of the Eastern Cape near Port Alfred. He is welcomed by all his farming neighbors to range his hounds on their lands because they often lose more than fifty percent of their goats’ kids in this late August springtime in the southern hemisphere. For some farmers who have the elusive blue duiker on their properties, the bigger loss is the two-thirds of the duiker young to caracal and jackals, as the blue duiker is a coveted trophy they hope to conserve.

Charl and I went in pursuit of black-backed jackal and scored, immediately adjacent to a site of a historic calamity: Near the small Eastern Cape village of Martindale, right at the site of our successful jackal hunts, was the renowned tragedy of South African history’s worst rail disaster where one of the goods trucks derailed on the Blaauwkrantz Bridge over the Blaauwkrantz Pass and, with the three carriages and the guard’s van, plunged into the ravine 200 feet (61 metres) below. Of the 55 passengers, 28 were killed and 22 seriously injured. The bridge was rebuilt in 1928.

We climbed the nearby mountain slopes in search of mountain reedbuck, with several days of “good hunts,” but not the same as the “good shoot” with which we had started with a bang. We could enjoy these hunts without pressure, since we already had the cat in the bag.

After a full week of further hunts exploring the fynbos of the Eastern Cape, we got together and did most of what is one of the primary reasons for going hunting – swapping good fireside stories and sharing good meals among great friends, while making plans for the next good hunt/good shoot adventure.

By Hendrik White

I recently read a book by Wilbur Smith called Assegai. In a nutshell, it’s about Leon Courtney, a professional hunter and his adventures. During his tenure as professional hunter, he guided none other than Theodore Rooseveldt and his son. They hunted for weeks on end. They shot a plethora of game, big and small. The book describes incredible hunting stories where the hunter takes his time, pursues his quarry for days on end and eventually – the moment all hunters dream about – the culmination of days of blood, sweat, and tears for the perfect opportunity, the perfect shot.

This was not that.

In today’s world, the luxury of time is, well, a luxury. And to be honest, a luxury I can scarcely afford. Most of us don’t have the time anymore to take a couple of weeks for our very own safari. Make no mistake, though, when the opportunity came along to go hunting, I grabbed it with both hands. Even though it was only for a weekend and nearly 500 km away, and very, very late in the hunting season – September.

This hunt was different in that I wasnt the one who was going to be pulling the trigger. My little sister had been gifted an impala ram for her birthday. Having recently shot with my .30-06, she wanted to hunt it with “boeta se geweer”. This is what merited me the invitation to go hunt with her on a picturesque farm north of Louis Trichardt.

Time was flying and before I knew it, it’s the Monday, the week before the hunt. I had nothing prepared. I had recently worked up a load and decided that I was going to just load a couple of rounds using said load and we’d be off to the races. Well, that was until I was gifted a box of 180 grain Nosler E-Tips by my hunting and reloading mentor – I simply had to try them. So I hastily loaded up a few loads Monday evening, using a combination of Gordons Reloading Tool and QuickLoad. I drove to Irene Arms the Tuesday during my lunch hour to go test the loads. Lucky me! The first load was right on the node with the group size increasing slightly as i veered away from the node.

Wednesday evening, I loaded up the balance of the E-tips. Thursday evening, I was packed and ready to leave Friday morning at 04:00 am – I would be driving to Polokwane, working there until the afternoon when we would leave for the hunt.

We arrived at about 21:00 on the incredibly beautiful, albeit dark, farm. As we idle through the “tweespoor” road, we admire the massive Boababs scattered among the Mopanie littered bush. The sight of red, sandy earth combined with the green, fluttering leaves of Mopanie makes me forget about time just for a short while. I snapped back to reality as we near the farmhouse. We had to hurry to get the fire going as we had to still braai up some delicious beef short rib and garlic bread and of course, start the donkey so we could have a shower before settling in and falling asleep to the tranquil bushveld’s night noises. As flames of our fire started to dwindle, we confirmed a couple of final arrangements for the day’s hunt ahead. “You can shoot two impala rams, our host said.” “Please try and do so early, as tomorrow’s temperatures are in the high thirties and we need to get the carcasses hanging in the cold room asap”. “Dankie oom,” I replied.

My main goal for the hunt was to get my little sister onto an impala ram, but I would lie if I said I wasn’t excited that maybe I could also have the opportunity to take a ram. As I started falling asleep, the thought of the searing heat lingered with me – “what if we take too long to get the carcass gutted and it goes off?” “What if there isn’t enough time for the carcass to cool down enough for transport? “Again – time is the enemy.

05:00 am Saturday, the alarm I set on my mobile rings, I am quick to stop it as I was already awake, too excited to sleep. I quickly grab a coffee, and we hastily make our way to the shooting range – a final zero check. My father had also brought his .243 Winchester Sako L579 with. It used to belong to his father and still had the “ancient” 4×32 Nikko Sterling as optic. Since little sis insists on using my .30-06, I carried the .243, just in case I got an opportunity. It is a fantastic little rifle, perfect for carrying in the bush – lightweight, well balanced and the low magnification scope aided in this regard. And the 100grain PMP factory ammo made for a decent punch in the bushveld (although some may argue).

Little sis however, was carrying a bit heavier – the .30-06 is a Husqvarna 640 built on an FN commercial 98 action with quite a heavy contour 24” barrel. It has a lightweight scope on though – Leupold VX Freedom 3-9×40 Duplex CDS.

After we checked zero on the rifles, we followed our guide (required by rules – as there were also buffalo on the farm) as we started off checking for spoor near the watering holes.

We found some tracks and started making our way through the dense bush. It was tough going, especially for little sis. Not only was it already 27 degrees Celsius at 06:00 am, but walk and stalk style of hunting is a first for her – having only ever hunted from a hide or a vehicle. As you might know, walk-and-stalk hunting is a totally different beast.

As we zigzag through the mopanie trees, we finally see them. There are 3 rams in the herd, 2 younger rams and one very old ram. He does not have the biggest set of horns, but they are old and worn. As I look at little sis, I see those telltale signs of buck fever. She takes rest against a tree, aims. Bark! The herd melts away in the thick bush. We slowly follow, sneaking from tree to tree to hide our silhouette and also try and hide from the scorching sun. The Impala seems to be just one step ahead of us. Each time we get our sights on them, either the ram is behind a tree or brush, or there are ewes directly behind him. We followed the herd until about 12:30. The heat was now almost unbearable, I had a quick look at my cellphone – 38 degrees. Yep, it was time for a lunch break.

We started the journey back to the farmhouse. Usually, you would have a nice lunch, take a dip in the pool, tell some hunting stories and then much later in the afternoon go for a walk again. However, like I mentioned – time was against us, the longer we take to get our quarry, the less time the carcass will have to cool. We had to get going again.

To try and win some time, we decided to take the cruiser and spot the herd, where after we would put a stalk on them. We jumped on the back of the cruiser, ready to go, sunscreen applied, rehydrated – but still hot. Through the deafening cicada we can barely hear the well-known sound of starter fighting against a flat battery. Not now ! I thought to myself, we are already running out of time. A couple of precious minutes later we managed to switch batteries from another vehicle. The hunt is back on.

Time ticks away so quickly, we spot a couple of wildebeest, a small herd of kudu cows, some warthogs. But no Impala. We try and shift on the back of the cruiser to try and hide our legs and arms under our shadows – however the African sun is way too clever for this and I can feel my calves baking.

Finally, we spot them. We jump from the bakkie and start our stalk. Trying to ignore the flies buzzing around our faces, we dare not wave them away in fear of the impala seeing us. This time there isn’t much cover to rest against for little sis when we saw the ram. She rested the rifle on the guide’s shoulder, me standing behind her to film it. Before she could take the shot, the wind direction switches and we are made. The ram’s bark is followed by a clattering of hooves as they make their way over a koppie.

This was our chance to get ahead of them, I gestured to the driver to quickly drive around the koppie so we could intercept them. I knew it was a gamble, because if they had heard us go around, they might be spooked the other way.

As luck would have it, we intercepted them perfectly, however – when we got stalking again on the other side, we had no idea if it worked yet, as we couldn’t see them when we drove around.

We took a game trail in the direction of where we guessed they would be coming down. As we sat for a few seconds listening, I suddenly see little sis and the guide slowly pointing and getting ready. She again slowly put the rifle on his shoulder as he starts covering his ears. She slowly racks the bolt just like I showed her – getting a round in the chamber.

The next 3 seconds seemed like 30 – the only time during the past week I felt time went slowly.

Bang Flop! She jumps up in excitement and starts making her way to her quarry. A high lung and spine shot instantly killed the ram.

With smiles all around we grabbed a couple of pictures together. Immensely proud not only with the E-tip’s performance but especially proud of little sis. She had done it, her first stalked animal. A very special hunt indeed. I looked at the clock on my phone – 17:30. We carried the ram to the nearest road and then drove to the cold room.

We quickly gutted and skinned the ram, as out of the blue a massive thunderstorm was approaching the speed at which only a bushveld storm can. The temperature dropped drastically with the howling wind and scattered raindrops. We recognised this type of storm, the rainy season has started – and with a vengeance. It was going to rain like this for the coming days.

As we tried moving the carcass to the cold room, we noticed that it was hot inside. Upon closer inspection, some of the wiring had been chewed by mice, and the cold room was out of action! We now had no choice, we had to hope that the evening air along with the stormy wind cooled by the rain, passing through the shade netting which covered the sides of the butchering area, would be cool enough to get the carcass’ temperature out of the danger zone.

I realized then and there that this whole time, the timing was perfect, had we shot the animal earlier, it would have been too hot and it would have definitely spoiled. Had the rain not come at this exact time, and, for example, a day later, the same thing would’ve happened. But luckily for us, and our freezers at home, the Impala carcass cooled down enough to be transported. It was cold and miserable all the way to Polokwane where we the carcass was processed by a butcher.

Timing isn’t always what we want it to be, but sometimes it’s what we need it to be.

By Ken Moody

‘What’s my setup need to be?’ was the question offered by an excited client on the other end of the phone. ‘Heavy,’ was my response. For months, Joe and I had spent hours on the phone as he peppered me with questions regarding his upcoming bowhunt for Cape Buffalo. With his New England accent, most of my time was spent deciphering his dialect, but eventually, we got all the questions answered and all the preparations made. I was happy to meet Joe as he arrived in our bush camp, big and brawny, with a wingspan like a condor. ‘Now here’s a man that can handle the heavy bow,’ I thought. After the obligatory salutations, Joe reached into his bow case and presented for my approval, his monstrosity of a bow. 90lbs of killing machine, with an axle-to-axle length of 44”, and a draw length of 32”, the bow held heavy in my hands. Reaching into the case again, Joe pulled from its clutches a full length, 1000 grain aluminum projectile topped with a razor-sharp, two-blade, steel broadhead. This was an impressive arsenal for 1997 and with it, we hoped to survive the next few days as we pursued ‘black death’ in and out of the thickets of the lowveld. ‘Think that will do it?’ he grinned, knowing that his stick was exactly what we’d discussed. ‘Provided we find a willing participant,’ I quipped back. The rest of the evening was filled with stories and jokes around the fire as we both anticipated the upcoming adventure. Hunting buffalo with a bow and arrow…what could go wrong?

The next morning was brisk, with a hint of frost upon the ground. As we loaded the bakkie and prepared for the day’s events, I told Joe that we’d first get in a few shots with his bow to make sure all was still good to go with his equipment. ‘Whack’, struck the first arrow, its momentum carrying it thru the foam target and up to the fletching. ‘Whack’, the second arrow struck, colliding with the first as it too smoothly penetrated the block. ‘I think you’re good,’ I said, happy with my client’s shooting abilities. ‘Now if you can do that while shaking uncontrollably and pinching your butt cheeks together, we might stand a chance.’ Joe laughed out loud as his long form climbed the steps of the cruiser and positioned himself on the frost covered seat.

The drive was a bit far on the large reserve we were hunting, and our PH Jaco and I passed the time by discussing the hunt and what we might encounter. Eventually, we came to our first waterhole, where we scoured the area for fresh tracks. Finding nothing suitable, we remounted the bakkie and proceeded to the next one. In about two hours’ time, we came across a natural pan that was littered with buffalo spoor. From here, we found a nice saucer of track, square toed and heading off alone, into a western block of thorns and sickle bush. ‘Let’s walk this one,’ I said, the temptation of seeing the old brute at the end of this track too much to pass up.

About a quarter mile into the track, we found the bull as he joined a herd of others, the lot of them feeding within a small marshy bottom which fed into a dense thicket. I sized the bull up and after conferring with our PH Jaco, we decided to give him a pass. He was an old, mature buffalo, but his horn shape was flat across the tops with no drops whatsoever. We could do better.

The next few days, we continued spotting, tracking, crawling, and being ‘busted’ by a few hundred buffalo. With a rifle, we’d had our trophy by day three, but a bowhunter must be very close and have an unobstructed path for his arrow to fly true. It’s a very difficult thing to stalk within 25 yards of an ever-wary buffalo, but that was the mission, and we were determined to accomplish it.

Day four broke with a sunlit horizon and steady wind whistling through the camp. A good, constant wind is always a bonus when stalking, as the sounds made by the rustling of the leaves and grass help cover a hunter’s approach. Like all the previous mornings, we began by sorting tracks found at the waterholes. We were lucky this day as we found the perfect track at our second stop, fresh and still wet with the mud gathered and dropped from an enormous, blunted foot clearly visible, the sun’s rays glistening off the undried clay. ‘Bingo,’ I thought. We had found this bull early enough so that he was only about an hour or so in front of us. We’d need to move at a careful but steady pace to close the gap before he bedded.

Walking track is always exciting for the first mile or so, but with each passing step afterwards, it can become a bit tedious. Step after step we continued, the midday sun beginning to take a toll on our sweat covered bodies. This bull had not meandered and fed as we expected, but had moved steadily in one direction, determined to get somewhere quickly. Around 11am we stopped and found a bit of shade where we’d lunch and rest until about 2pm or so before continuing. I figured this buffalo would eventually bed down and following a track midday is pointless as tracking them to their beds will nearly always result in being ‘busted’ by an alert and usually unseen animal. Fortunately for us, this bull was alone, which increased our odds greatly, and I didn’t want to blow it by stumbling onto him. We’d rest now and refocus our efforts in the afternoon.

At 2:30, I rose and put on my Courtney’s, the laces worn but still holding together. The old boots and I had shared many a mile at this stage and, though blemished and faded, the tough Zimbabwean leather showed no signs of quitting. ‘If you can do it, so can I,’ I thought, chuckling to myself. I gathered the group and, now fresh from our respite, hit the track again, determined to see what lay at the end. Our tracker, Samuel, led the way, with Jaco close behind. Joe followed Jaco and I, as usual, brought up the end of the procession. We snaked our way through the thick bush, weaving and bobbing to miss the ever-present sickle thorns determined to pierce everything they contacted.

Onward we trudged, the pace a bit quickened now as we needed to close on the bull before darkness deterred our efforts. The buffalo seemed to be making for a large, open section of fields, strategically positioned in the center of the reserve’s thickest and thorniest block. Time and again a thorn would snag a loose, hanging shirt corner, hampering our movements, but through it all we pushed on. Just as the last minutes of daylight forced its way into the tangles of bush, Samuel raised his hand and slowly pointed  to our front.

There he was, muddy and damp from a recent wallow, the object of our march. As he fed along the edges of the fields, I admired the massive beast before us, his hard-bossed horns the prominent feature adorning his bulbous head. Jaco smiled as he turned to Joe and gave him a slowly turning thumbs up. We were going to give him a go.

We moved quickly to gain a favorable shooting position, the terrain in our favor as we could use the thickets to move onto the flank of the bull, the wind perfect for the maneuver. We crawled around to the right, using the wind and noise of the feeding buffalo to full advantage. Our final approach was slow but deliberate, the unsuspecting bull fully occupied with consuming the fresh grass before him. We crept up to 20 yards, but the slowness of our movement had taken time and only the last few minutes of shooting light remained. Getting into position alerted the bull and as he turned to stare at us, Joe raised and settled his 20-yard pin onto the shoulder of the broadside beast and released the shaft. The arrow flew with dart-like precision, finding its mark and burying up to the visible white fletching. We had done it!

With a thunderous surge, the death-stricken buffalo spun to his left and crashed through the thickets directly opposite of our position. We all stood quietly in place, straining to hear the sure-to-come death bellow of a dying buffalo, but all was silent. Minutes passed and only the sounds of the night seeped through the thorns. Having viewed the shot, I assured Joe that the buffalo was fatally hit and that we would certainly find him the following morning. We just needed to mark the position and find our way back to camp.

The following morning was met with exuberant anticipation as we loaded up and headed to the place of the buffalo’s last track. All of us expected to find the bull dead within a few hundred yards, but when those yards grew into miles, we knew we had a problem. How this old buff could still be on his feet was a complete mystery, as the shot could not have been more perfect, or so we thought. On we pressed, the track easy to follow with the sporadic drops of blood further assurance of our route. When we stopped for lunch, Joe queried me about the situation and, for once, I had no answers. I replayed the shot over and over in my head and after each sequence, the same conclusion was met, dead buffalo. Picking up the track after lunch, we continued until darkness forced us back to camp, the ride giving me time to re-evaluate our predicament.

The next day, reality hit us hard, as we knew the buffalo wasn’t yet dead and that something had gone wrong in our evaluation. Before returning to the track, our PH phoned a pilot nearby and asked if he was available to give us a hand. The pilot had a microlight aircraft and might possibly be able to spot the bull and direct us to his whereabouts. Fortunately, his response was positive, as he told us he could be on site within the hour. ‘Great!’ I thought, the knowledge of ‘eyes in the sky’ giving all of us a boost of confidence. About an hour or so back on the track, we heard the whining pitch of the little micro’s engine as it slowly crept towards us, circling like a vulture waiting on the currents to lift it up into the air. After spotting us, the tiny aircraft floated away, its aerial survey and search underway. All our fingers were crossed as it flew from sight.

‘I have a buffalo spotted here, down by the river,’ crackled the handheld, our pilot reporting on the other end. ‘He’s lying down with his head swaying from side to side. Something’s not right with him.’ ‘On our way,’ we replied, new hope and determination forefront in our actions. The river was miles from us, so we backtracked to the truck and headed towards it as fast as the terrain would allow. ‘I’m circling the bull now,’ reported our pilot, his voice and signal now stronger than before. We parked the cruiser and began moving rapidly towards the sounds of the engine hovering above. About a quarter of a mile in, we spotted the aircraft slowly circling a specific spot along the banks of the murky water. ‘He’s directly below me,’ came the report. ‘Doesn’t seem to have any interest in me.’ Once the location was pinpointed, we waved the plane off and began our slow traverse to the buffalo. This had to be him.

The three of us moved like soldiers as we crawled into the high grass leading to the river. We snaked our way ever closer, eyes and ears on full alert. When we could hear the faint sounds of the slow-moving water, we peered over the grass and saw what the pilot had reported, a bedded buffalo moving his head back and forth in a precise, methodical sway. ‘It’s him,’ I whispered to our PH, his binos trained on the bull. ‘Yes, most definitely,’ he replied. With Joe by my side, I moved forward and the three of us proceeded, anticipating another opportunity with the bow. We closed the distance to within 30 yards, but before any further progress could be made, the wind shifted, a slight breeze hitting the back of my neck and filtering its way to our wounded bull.

With a tremendous surge, the buffalo gained his feet and quickly sorted out our location. Though mortally wounded, he charged his last, determined  to go out on his feet. At 10 steps, the sound of Jaco’s .458 echoed down the river as the buffalo fell, a warrior till the end. It was over.

When we arrived at the skinning shed, we all stood by, anxious to see why the arrow hadn’t killed the beast initially. Once the lungs were removed, our amazed faces couldn’t fathom what we were seeing. Before us on the ground were two pierced lungs, one green and totally collapsed and the other only three quarters collapsed, a hint of red still visible in the frontal lobe. The buffalo had survived a double lung shot for two days on one partial lung, which hadn’t fully succumbed to the perforation of the two-blade head. I have never seen such a will to live in anything else. Cape Buffalo are different and my respect for them only continues to grow with each passing year on the track. They just don’t come any tougher.

First published in 1957, Stuart Cloete’s novel is a serious work (belied by its sensational cover) guaranteed to give any herpetophobe nightmares. It’s all part of the charm.

By Terry Wieland

A Flowering of Serpents

One of the first questions you hear, when you announce that you’re going to Africa, is a tremulous, “But aren’t you afraid of snakes?”

Answer:  “Yep.  Terrified!  What of it?”

If I let my life-long dislike of reptiles deter me, I would not hunt in south Texas, I’d avoid Alabama, and Australia would be out of the question.  For that matter, I wouldn’t live in Missouri, where we have copperheads, water moccasins, and the occasional rattler.

Every so often, I sit back and count on my fingers the number of times, during 14 or 15 trips to Africa, totalling more than three years of my life, that I have even seen a snake.  I have yet to run out of fingers.  Snakes there certainly are, but they just haven’t bothered me.

Now, stories about snakes?  You done come to the right place, pal.  Where do you want me to start?  Oh, wait:  First, a word of advice.  If you are a herpetephobe, fearing snakes to an irrational degree, the first question you should ask a prospective professional hunter is how he feels about them.  If his face lights up and he assures you that he loves snakes and plays with them every chance he gets, thank him politely, back away, and sign on with someone else.  Trust me on that one.  I speak from experience.

People who actually like snakes can’t fathom people who don’t, just as cat lovers can’t relate to the benighted few who find cats repellent.  Fortunately, there aren’t that many snake lovers; unfortunately, most of them seem to be PHs.

One time in Botswana I was waist-deep in a hippo pool, which was home to (by actual count) 14 hippos and one large crocodile.  We were hunting ducks and geese, and my guide would fire a shot over the reeds, and birds would flush.  One duck came zipping by and I dropped it into the water a few yards behind me.  When I went to retrieve it, I found a large python curled around it, contemplating duck recipes.  With whoops of joy, my PH handed me his gun, grabbed the python by the tail, and hauled it ashore, yelling at me all the while to be sure to get the duck.

The python turned out to be a young one — only 12 feet long, but he looked bigger to me — and we “played” with it on the bank for an hour, then allowed it to slither back into the water, shaking its serpentine head in disbelief and making reptilian mutterings.  I knew how it felt.  We kept the duck, which I thought was a trifle unfair.

Another tiime, I was staying with a friend on the edge of the Okavango.  He had a permanent tent camp, and I had a mattress on the floor of the cook tent.  Cook tents generally contain mice, and mice attract snakes.  The night we arrived, around dusk, Clint pulled into his usual parking spot.  I opened the door and jumped out, looking down as I did at a cobra, right under my feet.  You can, I found, change trajectory in mid-air, and my feet missed the cobra by at least a yard.

“Oh,” Clint said, “I forgot to tell you.  I killed that snake this morning.  Found it behind the cook tent.  Sorry.”

It was dead, but still.  I can’t say I slept all that well the first couple of nights, but then I settled in and all was fine.  The memory receded.

My particular horror is the Mozambique spitting cobra, which rears up and lets fly a stream of venom, aimed at your eyes, and is reputed to be accurate from several yards out.  Blindness does not appeal to me.  A friend who has a game ranch outside Bulaweyo had her buildings constructed around an inner courtyard, one of which contained the shower and another a privy.  As is normal in Africa (don’t ask me why) the privy was at the far end of a narrow room, with a tiny window in the wall above.  She went out in the dead of night to do what people do in the dead of night.  The generator was not running, but there was a full moon, so she didn’t bother with a flashlight.

As she settled in, she felt a stream of cool liquid hit her thigh.  A spitting cobra was in there with her, probably right beside her in the darkness.  The room was illuminated only by thin moonlight through the high window.  What did she do?

“I closed my eyes and waited,” she said.  “Then I made a dash for the door.  Don’t let anyone tell you you can’t run with your pants around your ankles.”  The cobra also made its escape.  The privy now has its very own flashlight, hanging outside the door.

Cobras are one thing.  Mambas are another.  Mambas make cobras seem almost friendly.  Stuart Cloete, the great South African writer, wrote a blood-chilling novel called Mamba, which is about a love triangle, with the snake playing the same role it’s enjoyed since Genesis.  Ever since reading that, 40 or 50 years ago, the mamba has haunted my dreams.

At the risk of overstating, they are reputed to be able to outrun a horse (if snakes can be said to run), outclimb a monkey, be extraordinarily deadly, and have the personality of a wolverine.  There are black mambas and green mambas.  The black is the most common, and is actually a dark brownish-grey.

The editor of one of the Big Three went to Botswana back in the early ‘90s.  He was sleeping in his tent one night when something woke him up.  He heard scurrying.  A mouse.  It scurried here.  It scurried there.  Eventually, he dropped back to sleep.  In the morning, they went out hunting, and returned to camp for lunch.  He walked into his tent and out through the back to the adjoining privy, which had the toilet on one side and the shower on the other.  He glanced into the shower and there, halfway in through the drain hole, was the front half of a black mamba.  At the sight of him, it reared up, but was unable to perform with mamba-like dexterity until it had pulled itself in through the drain, which was a tight fit.  By the time it cleared the drain, our fearless editor was out through the front and calling for help.

The PH returned with some trackers and a shotgun, found the tent empty, and proceeded to beat the brush behind it.  The mamba made tracks (so to speak) and got its head blown off.

Piecing it together, they concluded that the scurrying noises the editor heard the night before was a mouse, seeking to escape, while the mamba stalked it under the bed and over the wardrobe.  This realization was too much.  The editor was packed and heading for the airport before dark, and has never returned.

Another mamba story:  I was in Tanzania on the edge of the Rift Valley, driving along a track past a Masai camp.  We saw a mamba cross the track and go into a grain-storage hut through a crack in the wall.  We stopped and advised the residents.  Soon, a bunch of budding Masai morani, complete with spears and robes, had gathered around and were debating who was going to go in after it.  Our trackers, both Masai themselves (and who insist on spelling it with one ‘a’) looked disgusted with the whole thing, and finally one climbed down, pulled aside the door frame, and went in.  There was loud clattering as he beat his walking stick against the grain baskets.  The mamba came out the way he went in, scattering the teenagers, while our other tracker nailed it.  There then began the debate about who had panicked and run first, while we drove away.

Just so there is no mistake, yours truly would not have entered that hut for a 50-inch buffalo.

By scientific analysis, per gram of venom, the boomslang is (or was) reputed to be the deadliest snake in Africa, although I believe now some obscure adder from West Africa is considered deadlier.  The boomslang (it means “tree snake” in Afrikaans) is a medium-sized green fellow with a shy and retiring nature.  Not aggressive like the mamba (I guess you don’t need to be when you’re that well armed), he is made less deadly by the fact that his fangs are in the back of his mouth, and it’s tough for him to get a good grip and inject much venom.

One time, staying on a farm outside Arusha, my PH was called to deal with “A snake! A snake!” in one of the store rooms.  Having no idea what it might be, we grabbed a club and bucket and went to investigate.  It turned out to be a baby boomslang, no more than eight or nine inches long, vivid green against the shavings on the floor.  My PH was no snake lover, but he believed that all creatures have their place.  We herded the little guy into the bucket, then released him in some brush on the edge of the farm.

I have other snake tales — cobras, mambas, puff adders — but we’ll save them for another time.  Funny thing, though, thinking about all this has made me realize that, much as I dislike snakes, Africa would not be the same without them.  If only to terrorize the folks at home.

Chapter Fourteen

The Family

Part 2

George Sibanda

When I used to visit the Landreys at Matetsi during the school holidays, one of the young “picannins” who sometimes got dragged along on our adventures was a son of the Denda Safaris “mechanic”. I put inverted commas around the word mechanic because as amazingly skilled as some of these bush mechanics were, they had little, if any, formal mechanical training. This young fellow’s name was George Sibanda. He did not attend school, instead, he helped his father in the Denda Safari garages at Matetsi, and later graduated to “spanner boy,” drawing a very meagre salary.

Anybody who has lived in the wilderness will know the true value of “bush mechanics”, and there is no short cut to being a bush mechanic – you have to first do the time as “spanner boy”.

When I returned to hunt at Denda in 1983 as a licensed professional, I bumped into George who was no longer a skinny boy, but a strong, happy young man but still spanner boy at Denda.

In 1985 when we started our own safari company, I employed a cook from Victoria Falls, named Edward Mathe. Edward had only been with us a few months when he asked me if I knew George Sibanda. I did not recall the name but when Edward mentioned where he worked I remembered him. Edward told me that George’s father said that George was ready to go out and find a job – he could “spanner boy” at Denda no more. We agreed to give him a try, and Edward sent a message up to Victoria Falls, and in due course he arrived.

This man turned out to be the best worker we ever had. Peter Sebele was a tracker, a specialist. His work situation was different to all our other employees. When there was a safari underway, he worked. When there was no safari, he went home. But George was a worker. He was a mechanic, driver, gun bearer, Number Two tracker, and general handy man. In due course he obtained his driver’s license and he became an excellent welder too. He was honest, reliable, and even tempered. He is dead now. He has been dead five years, and I miss him terribly.

Even though he could not read or write, he was a clever, gifted individual. One of those people who can patiently sit and take a gearbox apart, study it, and know how it works. He had the dogged patience necessary to lie in the hot sand underneath an ailing Land Cruiser far out in the bush, mopane flies swarming around his eyes, and make that truck well again. I cannot count the times on safari where I said to myself “Thank God we’ve got this man”.

Like Peter, George became part of the family. When he married we knew his kids. When they were sick, they went to our doctor – when they were in need, they received our help. In fact George’s second wife was the daughter of our maid who worked for us for fifteen years before she passed away. As George became more skilled, and more reliable, without our really consciously noticing it, he absorbed more of the duties which I used to have to carry out, many of which I hated. He had maturity and self-confidence – surprising in one who is illiterate.

We found ourselves passing duties on to him which basically gave more free time to me. He would drive several hours to National Parks offices and collect game scouts, or deliver ivory or collect permits. He would go with one helper to town to purchase fuel, or groceries or hardware. Much later, when we started operating in Tanzania in 1995, George would share the driving with me on that tedious five-day journey between Bulawayo and Arusha.

George loved his work. He was not much of a tracker – in fact when Peter became tired on the trail it was usually I who took over from him – but George contributed to the success of the hunt in so many other ways. He was always ready to try something different, something out of the ordinary, and it seemed that he was always the one who came up with valuable information from the locals. George spoke Shona, English, Sindebele, Kalanga, Lozwi and Mnambia fluently. When we began operating in Tanzania he quickly picked up enough Swahili to get by and later, when I went into business in Mocambique he wasted no time in learning a smattering of Portuguese. A gifted man indeed.

George had worked for us for about thirteen years when he was helping me build a trading store for Peter out at Peter’s home near Tsholotsho. Whilst we were engaged in this task I realised that George, even though he had not yet given us the years that Peter had, was a big part of our business, and had given us sterling service. I asked him if he would like to own a store at his home near Victoria Falls. Initially he said yes, but a few weeks later he said that he would prefer it if we could help him purchase a car. We promptly gave him an old Toyota Hilux which had given us more hard safari service than Peter and George combined! A few weeks later, when George drove into my yard in a snazzy little Renault town car I asked him whose it was. “It’s mine” he replied. He had done a little work on the old Toyota, sold it, bought a much newer, more fuel-efficient runabout, and had some cash left over! After a little thought about the whole thing, I wasn’t really surprised.

When we finally phased our business into total leopard hunting, George became virtually indispensable. He was mature enough, keen enough, and reliable enough for me to be able to send him off with one helper, fuel, baits, and a long-range radio into remote areas, in order to find large unhunted male leopards. And find them he did.

I remember clearly, even today, five years after his death, watching him drive up the steep incline into the mountain camp trying his best to act bored and nonchalant as he reported his findings. Translated from Sindebele, our conversation would go something like this.

“I see you George.”

“I see you also, Baba.”

“If you have come all the way back to camp, it means that you have encountered some problem, or it could mean that you have found the sign of a large leopard.”

Delaying the finale as much as he could he would announce tiredly “I have had some problems with the radio – which is why I did not speak with you yesterday. I have looked into the piece which you use to speak, and I have seen some wires loose there. But I have not tried to fix it.”

“George. You have come all the way here, a three-hour drive, to tell me that the radio is broken? Why did you not go to Mr. AJ’s house and ask to use his phone?”

Now he would be battling to suppress his grin. George had prominent top front teeth with a large gap between them, and he had an infectious open laugh to boot. He would reach into his top pocket, but I already knew what was in there. With great ceremony followed by suppressed laughter, and egged on by the watching staff, he would hand me the two sticks representing the length and width of the front track of a supercat.

“This leopard fed on my bait last night” he would announce. (I liked the “my”) “He ate much meat. I cleared a shooting lane before placing the bait, and there is a good position for the blind.”

Sometimes George positioned the blind site in a spot slightly different than the place I would have chosen but most times he had it dead on. He was an observant man and very seldom had to be shown something twice. He took great pride, and I believe pleasure, in being able to successfully coerce leopard onto bait. He was content in the satisfaction of knowing that he was doing his job well.

When 2002 came around, George, like forty percent of all Zimbabweans, must have been carrying the AIDS virus. A bout of malaria left him emaciated, and his painstakingly slow recovery had us worried. We took him for tests and the news was the worst. Unlike Peter at a later stage, George never really seemed to accept, or believe that with good food and antiretroviral drugs he could still live a good life. It was upsetting to see such a once strong, alert, willing person, try to tackle his job with his tank on empty.

I was on safari in Tanzania when my wife told me via the radio that things had taken a dive for George. He was on a hunt at Marula with our friend Neil Lindsay when he “went crazy”. Neil said that his sense of balance had deserted him and he had a wild look in his eye and he was talking gibberish.

My wife went out to Marula with her friend’s son along to help, and she brought George back to town. She said that journey was heartbreaking. She put him in hospital in Bulawayo but the care and attention he received there was so poor that we put him in a cottage at our home, and hired a nurse to attend to him. His mind cleared, but maybe sitting there helplessly in the morning sun, like an old man with nothing to do, sapped his spirit as much as the hospital did. George’s wife died in July and I believe he saw the end coming. I was out in the bush when my wife decided he was just too ill and we could not give him the medical attention he needed, and he was admitted to the infectious disease’s hospital. I came back from safari and sat with him at the hospital trying my best to convince him not to give up, but he died of meningitis in August.

We drove his body up to Victoria Falls and we attended the funeral, where I was asked to speak. But I could not. All I could see was George’s happy face, his gap-tooth smile, the countless fires we had shared, the camps we had built, and the mishaps, adventures and triumphs we had seen during seventeen years of safari together.

I promised myself that one day I will return to George’s grave and there I will place a headstone:

‘George Sibanda. Born 3rd June 1963 Died 23 August 2002. Honest, brave, gifted, a much loved man who never shirked a job. Rest in peace.’

Bee Ngwenya

In 1989 we returned to the Matobo Hills, and began construction on the camp at the southern end of AJ’s property on the Ingwezi river. It was a beautiful, tranquil place tucked in against a big koppie, right on the edge of the Ingwezi which was mostly just white sand for most of the year. Giant acacia albida trees shaded the spot.

The bush telegraph directed a stream of men from the neighbouring communal lands to our camp. They were looking for work and we hired about a dozen of them.

Homesickness, drinking problems, wanderlust and poor work, resulting in firing, thinned these people out and kept bringing in new faces. One of the few who survived right from the beginning was a fellow named Bee Ngwenya. I had very little to do with Bee in those early days. I was running the big game concession up at Matetsi in the far northwest of the country and a fellow named Gerald Oosthuizen was building the Ingwezi Camp. Gerald gradually took Bee under his wing when he began exploring the area and cutting hunting roads, and as it turned out, Bee knew the place quite well. It was obvious that he had been actively poaching these ranches on and off for some years. He knew most of the waterholes and just about all of the overgrown bush roads. His knowledge was valuable and he was an asset to Gerald, and of course to our operation.

Bee knew nothing about safaris, leopard hunting or trophy hunting, but he was a hunter none-the-less, and he was quick to learn. Gerald took some beautiful big leopard in those early days and it was a learning curve for both Bee and Gerald.

When we pulled out of the Matetsi concession and decided to expand the operation at Marula, I began to do more of the leopard hunts myself. I had Peter as my number one tracker and George as my right-hand man, so there was no real need for Bee as part of my own hunting staff. But he was extremely useful in helping other professional hunters who were unfamiliar with the area. Bee was always keen. In all the years we have known him that is the one trait in his character that stands out – his eagerness and his keenness to take on a task, no matter how daunting or unpleasant, nor how far that task may be.

As Bee’s safari experience grew, so his tracking ability improved. He had many opportunities to work with Peter and this gave him the confidence he needed to step into the role of genuine safari tracker.

With the decline of Peter’s health and the demise of George, we found ourselves more and more reliant on Bee. Although he never possessed the mechanical aptitude that George had, he developed into a very good reliable driver and he took on the leopard baiting duties with enthusiasm and, surprisingly, with good success.

The highlight of Bee’s safari is when he has baited a large leopard and, just like George used to, hands over the measuring sticks to me with great ceremony, beaming from ear to ear. Excited, pleased, and proud.

Bee is a great character at our leopard parties. Sometimes the staff will stage a play after the singing where they act out the whole hunt. Bee always takes the part of myself and he takes the opportunity to portray my character, especially my bad qualities, mercilessly. He pretends that the staff have made stupid mistakes when building the blind or hanging the bait, and he remembers every insulting phrase or curse word I have used in all the years he has known me, and he uses them to berate the others. It is hilarious. He is a pretty wild dancer too and he stamps up a good dust storm during the festivities.

In my years as a soldier and as a professional hunter, I have not come across many native Africans who are proficient riflemen. But Bee is one. I commenced teaching Peter, George and Bee to shoot at around the same time, but Bee progressed a lot more quickly than the other two. This was an added bonus for me when sending him on baiting duties because he could hunt and kill impala, and shoot bait cattle without having to return to camp for bait meat.

Like his mentors, Peter and George, Bee is not loud, obnoxious, unreliable or a troublemaker. He is a pleasant, keen talented hunter and he has a good future ahead of him in the safari industry. The guard is changing, but I feel certain that Bee Ngwenya will forge his own special place in safari life in the western Matobo, and I am proud to be able to say that we were able to start him on that path.

Luka Maphosa

In 1989 after finalising a deal with the incumbent concessionaire on Matetsi Unit Two, we commenced operations in that well known big game area. The concessionaire, Innocent Dube, already had several of his own staff in place at the camp near the Guyu River, and one of these was a cook named Luka Maphosa. At that time Maphosa was about 27 years old. He was a hardworking individual who got along with everybody, and like Bee Ngwenya, no task was too much to ask of him. Maphosa’s cooking skills, however, were of the very basic garden variety. If Maphosa were a car, he would be the go forward never-give-up Land Rover. But he would not be the Porsche or the Maserati. But that was fine with me. Hard working and good natured would always take my vote way ahead of brilliant-but-temperamental.

We did our darndest to decrease the weight of Maphosa’s bread rolls and add a bit of zest to his stew. We tried like hell to imagine the moisture still in the roast. But the food stayed the same. Medium, okay, Land Rover food. I’ve never been one for fancy starters and four-course safari meals. I am usually just too damned tired once we return to camp. I suppose it is a failing of sorts. I’ve hunted in many safari camps where the vittles laid on would not be out of place in the Ritz. They were wonderful. But unfortunately not in my camp. But I liked Maphosa and he liked us and for eighteen years very few of my clients have ever complained about the food. I go to bed at night with a full, happy belly and I would say that just about all of my clients have too. When we left Unit Two in 1995 Maphosa came with us, much to the chagrin of Innocent Dube. In safari camps there is usually an order of rank, or structure of hierarchy. Of course not all operations are the same, but most have a similar arrangement. Sometimes there is a native camp manager who is top dog amongst the safari staff – especially up in the East African hunting areas – but in many operations this post is also held by the chief cook.

In our outfit the most respected and senior man has been Peter, but he has always eschewed any managerial “head man” type roles – he just does not need or want the extra responsibilities. So Peter, George and Maphosa have evolved purely by circumstance, into “head staff’ in our company and Maphosa I think, enjoys that role a lot more than the other two do.

Luka Maphosa has been a faithful hard-working part of our safari life for many years and I hope he remains with us for many more.

In our years of running safaris in four different countries we have worked with many natives, and it’s not my intention to bore everyone to death by giving the life story of each one of them. We have seen so many amazing, funny, good, and often bad, incidents over the years with our staff and other peoples’ staff, that I could fill another book recounting them. But I cannot resist briefly mentioning just a few.

Graham’s tracker, Tshani, is a tall gangly unkempt individual who loves to show off in front of the other staff. He also loves strong drink, and at one of our leopard parties up at the mountain camp one of the clients offered Tshani some whisky. “Hot stuff’ as Tshani calls it.

Tshani answered “Yes, please Suh!” He then commenced downing whiskies chased with beer, becoming louder every minute, regaling all the other workers with his many adventures and tales of derring-do. Needless to say he was unable to present himself for hunting the next morning, and Graham set off without him.

That night, Tshani had still not returned and nobody at the camp, or at Graham’s ranch headquarters, knew where he was. The next evening, forty-eight hours after the leopard party, Tshani presented himself for duties. His eyes were blood red and his woolly hair and scraggly beard were matted with grass and dirt. He had also lost his shoes. White mucus crusted his eyes, nose and lips.

“Where have you been?” Graham asked him.

“I have been in the bush Bwana,” he replied, “the drink.”

He stood there like we were all supposed to know exactly what had happened.

“Where are your shoes?” was Graham’s next question.

“I do not know Bwana, I cannot find them. First I lost my shoes, then I lost myself, but now I am back.”

His simple explanation coupled with the simple look on his bemused face was too much for Graham and I and we just cracked up.

When I was still hunting for our friends the Landreys up at Matetsi, Kim returned late one evening from the lion blind. They did not have the lion but they did have a funny story.

Between camp and the blind Kim and his client came across a large waterbuck bull which the client shot. They loaded the trophy and continued on to where they had the lion feeding. Kim parked the vehicle about a mile downwind from the bait, and he and the client walked quietly to the blind, leaving the tracker in the car. The francolins fossicked around getting ready to roost. The first hyena called. Lion hour approached quickly.

But on this particular day the lion decided not to approach Kim’s bait via the elephant trail that it had been using for the previous two days. It decided to use the road which had fresh droplets of blood on it – the waterbuck blood which had seeped out from the back of the Land Cruiser! Kim’s tracker was asleep up on the hunting seat when a thud and a snuffling noise, coupled with the squeak of the sagging Land Cruiser springs woke him. He looked down – three feet away at the tailgate, a huge full-maned lion was standing there with its front feet up on the truck, its giant fluffy dark head monstrous in the twilight as it found the source of the blood.

The lion saw the tracker move and grunted in surprise, dropping back down onto the ground where it began to growl ominously. Time to go. The tracker leapt out of the Land Cruiser and he must have streaked through that mopane woodland as if on fire.

Kim and his hunter, oblivious of the goings on back at the vehicle, sat quietly in the blind being eaten by mosquitoes. Finally they had had enough and walked back to the road. The lion by this time had moved off. Kim was puzzled as to the whereabouts of the tracker. He whistled for him a few times but received no answer. Maybe, for some reason, he had gone back to camp, but that was unlikely. It was a long walk in the dark, with all sorts of nasties wandering around the bush. Kim started the vehicle, turned it around, and suddenly heard a shout. He turned the car off and then he heard the shout again from the high branches of a mopane tree about fifty yards away. “What are you doing there?” Kim asked the tracker “Why do you not answer when I call you?”

The tracker told Kim about his unpleasant meeting with the lion and he said that he did not want to answer for fear that the beast was still nearby. He refused to come down until Kim drove the vehicle near to the tree: He then sprang straight from the branches down into the truck. From that day on he refused to wait in an open Land Cruiser at night. A Land Cruiser with cab and doors was fine.

We were sitting around the fire down at our Bubye River camp in the southern lowveld enjoying our drinks waiting for the cook’s call for supper. We were trying out a new “town” cook who had assured us that he could cope with safari life in the bush.

I heard George’s hysterical laughter up near the kitchen, followed by Peter’s muffled chortling, so I wandered over to see what the occasion was. George was sitting on a box by the kitchen fire with his hand to his mouth, doubled over with suppressed laughter. The new cook, however, was not wrapped up in fits of mirth and was going about his business with a bemused frown.

“What’s the joke George?” I asked, and to the cook, “Come on Joseph, we’re all still waiting for our snacks!” This sent George into renewed spasms and he rolled about with Peter following suit.

Finally when he could speak, he answered, “The new cook says he doesn’t want this job Bwana” more laughter.

“Why?”

“He came back from speaking to you at the lounge and told us that you had told him to ‘hurry up and bring the snakes!’ – now he says he doesn’t want to go out in the bush to find the snakes you want, he says he is scared of snakes!”

At this they rolled about in more laughter while I just stood there with my beer in my hand contemplating Africa.

Snakes, Snacks.

I shook my head. Was it possible that this fellow really believed that I wanted him to go out into the bush at night and collect snakes?! Needless to say, he never made it.

By Terry Wieland

Old-Time Wisdom

In his book, African Rifles and Cartridges, John “Pondoro” Taylor often mentioned “cheap Continental magazine rifles,” and his comments were usually disparaging.  Taylor set great store by reliability, not only of the rifles he used, but the cartridges and bullets they employed.

The two major names in “Continental magazine rifles” were Mauser of Germany, and Mannlicher-Schönauer of Austria.  No one could knock either on the grounds of workmanship or materials; they were legendary then, and they’re legendary now.  Where Taylor did have a point was with Mauser sporters (or sporterized military rifles) chambered for some eminently forgettable cartridges.

Today, most hunters have never heard of the 10.75×68 Mauser or the 11.2×60 Mauser.  There were several, mostly rimless, in the 9mm to 11.5mm range (.358 to .44 or .45, roughly.)  In the case of the Mauser, many appeared in East Africa between 1919 and 1939, built on surplus military actions, and produced in one- and two-man shops across Germany.  These were most likely the rifles Taylor had in mind.

In the years after the Great War, the British gun trade was struggling and the German trade was desperate.  Tanganyika, of course, had been a German colony until 1919, with many European settlers.  Once it joined Kenya and Uganda in what came to be known as British East Africa, the greatest big-game hunting region in the world, it was natural that German gunmakers would look there for new markets.  And, with ex-military Mausers readily available, those naturally became the basis for building inexpensive hunting rifles.

If you look at the cartridges themselves, there is nothing much wrong with them except bullet construction.  Often, the bullets were flimsy, flew apart, and didn’t penetrate.  This was not true of all, but there was enough to lend the rifles a nasty reputation.

John Taylor himself was not anti-Mauser, by any means.  His Rhodesian friend, Fletcher Jamieson, owned a .500 Jeffery on a Mauser action, which Taylor used and like very much.  If a Mauser-actioned rifle came with the name Rigby, Jeffery, or Holland & Holland on the barrel, it immediately got Taylor’s vote.

This is where it becomes very tangled, because all the actions in those days were made by Mauser at Oberndorf.  Firms like Rigby and Jeffery used them to build some pretty flossy rifles.  So what do you call them, a Jeffery or a Mauser?

And the cartridges?  The .500 Jeffery is actually the 12.5×70 Schuler, designed in the 1920s by the firm of August Schuler to create an elephant round that could be chambered in a standard military Mauseer 98.  W.J. Jeffery adopted it and renamed it, yet when Taylor was writing, and praising the cartridge at length, the only ammunition available came from Germany.  Conversely, the .404 Jeffery was probably a Jeffery design, but it was adopted by Mauser as a standard chambering, and renamed the 10.75×73.

As you can see, there was considerable cross-over and adoption of each others’ designs.  The great London gunmakers had nothing but respect for Mauser Oberndorf, and the compliment was heartily returned.  Both probably considered the periods 1914-18 and 1939-45 as highly inconvenient impediments to trade.

After 1946, the supply of Oberndorf-made Mauser 98 bolt-action rifles dried up, although other manufacturers stepped in to produce Mauser actions, and sometimes entire rifles.  The London trade built rifles on whatever they could get — the Enfield P-14 and P-17, Brevex Magnum Mausers from France, Czech Mausers from Brno, Santa Barbara actions from Spain.  Even with Rigby or Holland & Holland engraved on the barrel, however, these never carried the cachet of, say, a .416 Rigby, made in St. James’s Street, on an Oberndorf magnum action.

Since the war, a lot has happened with both Mauser and its first and greatest associate in London, John Rigby & Co.  The Mauser factory was razed in 1946 on orders of the French occupation forces, and its name and trademark passed through various hands before, in 2000, becoming part of Michael Luke’s Blaser conglomerate based in Isny im Allgäu.  Rigby also changed hands, and was moved to the U.S in 1997.  There it became the centre of varying levels of fraud and ignominy before being purchased in 2012 and moved back to London.  The purchaser was the Blaser group, which put Rigby under the management of Marc Newton with a mandate to return the Rigby name to glory.

One way to do this was to resume manufacture of the famous Mauser 98 action, so that Rigby could once again built its .416s on an action with the Mauser banner on the ring, and make its traditional stalking rifles in .275 Rigby (the name Rigby bestowed on the 7×57 Mauser when it adopted it in the early 1900s.)

Since 1946, the various owners of the Mauser name steadfastly refused to make any of the company’s most famous (and, in my opinion, by far the best and greatest) product:  The turnbolt 98.  Even after it took up residence in Isny, making the 98 once again was not on its immediate list of projects.  As far as I know, it was not until the Rigby acquisition that it began seriously looking at it.  Whether it was Marc Newton who persuaded Mauser, or whether that was the secret plan all along, hardly matters.

Around 2010, Mauser had taken a hesitant step towards making a 98 again.  Using a magnum 98 clone produced by Prechtl, Mauser made a few .416s, but with a price tag of $40,000, I don’t imagine they sold many.  Then they acquired Rigby and, in a surprise move two years ago, Mauser announced it would once again make the magnum action, supply it to Rigby, and also make entire rifles in Isny.  Now, they have added the standard-length action to the line.  In London Rigby is using it to make its Highland stalking rifle in .275 Rigby, while in Isny, Mauser is chambering it in the venerable 7×57, 8×57 JS, 9.3×62, .308 Winchester, and .30-06.

Whatever John Taylor might think of these, he could never call them cheap.  The standard model in the less expensive “Expert” grade lists for $9,100.

All of these calibres are familiar to Americans except, perhaps, the 9.3×62.  This is an old and highly respected big-game cartridge in Europe.  It was designed in 1905, and became a standard Mauser chambering.  Even John Taylor thought quite highly of it, with the right bullets, and today ammunition is loaded by Norma, among others, in a wide variety of bullet weights and types.

Now, for the first time in many years, a hunter can go to Africa with a complete battery bearing the Mauser banner — a .416 Rigby for the big stuff, a 7×57 for plains game, and a 9.3×62 for in between.

* * *

It’s a funny thing, but in 1956 when Winchester introduced the .458 Winchester Magnum, and hired East African professional David Ommanney to tout the rifle for them, all predictions were that this was the end of the line for the big nitro-express cartridges, for the magnificent double rifles that fired them, and for all those “archaic” rounds like the .404 Jeffery.  The .416 Rigby was consigned to the trash bin, and even the .375 Holland & Holland was put on the list of threatened species.

It’s now 60 years later, and look what’s happened:  The .416 Rigby came roaring back, and has become a standard chambering; the .375 H&H is stronger than ever; there is a very vigorous market in double rifles, both old and new.  Many of the nitro express cartridges are being made by Kynamco, loaded with Woodleigh bullets from Australia.  The Mauser 98 — an action that is now 120 years old — is still the most popular bolt-action basis for a dangerous-game or plains-game rifle.

Anyone who buys a new Mauser, however, is not merely wallowing in nostalgia.  There is still no better, more reliable, or versatile action on which to build a rifle, whether you’re culling wildebeeste or pursuing pachyderms.

Through the 1960s, African Rifles and Cartridges and even John Taylor himself were disparaged.  As an ivory poacher, Taylor did not command the reverence of professionals like Sid Downey or W.D.M. Bell.  He died in 1955, and his books, Big Game and Big Game Rifles (1948) and African Rifles and Cartridges (1948) went out of print.  It seemed to be the end for everything.

As it turned out, the books were reprinted, first by Trophy Room Books and The Gun Room Press, respectively, and Taylor’s reputation was gradually rehabilitated.  Today, anyone interested in the history of African hunting and the actual performance of rifles, and of bullets on big game, should read Taylor.  His earlier, smaller book, Big Game and Big Game Rifles, is unfairly neglected, in my view.  I bought it from Ray Riling Arms Books in 1966, for $6.  I was absorbed by it then, and still go back to it now when I want to recapture some of the magic.

What the old-timers learned and knew is still worth learning, and well worth knowing.   Many years ago, boxing writer A.J. Liebling wrote in the New Yorker, quoting Heywood Broun, an even earlier writer, “After all, the old masters did know something.  There is still a kick in style, and tradition carries a nasty wallop.”  It seems that every new generation of boxers needs to learn this, and while Liebling and Broun were both writing about boxing, it could just as well have been big game and big-game rifles.

By Larry Collins

My Namibian safari was the best vacation/hunting trip my wife Pat and I have ever taken.

We left Atlanta, with the usual long flight via Joburg to Windhoek where, after collecting luggage, we met my PH, Dirk de Bod, at the Firearm Check-Out office. He collected our firearms and luggage, and we were soon in his SUV on our way to his hunting area.

On arrival, we went to our tent and unpacked. When I say tent, it was more like a luxurious one-bedroom apartment. Apart from the king-sized bed, large bathroom with a big shower and usual furniture, there was a safe, small refrigerator, and an air conditioner.

After unpacking, we walked to the hunting lodge for drinks and sat around the fire pit until supper and talked hunting.

Dirk asked what my point of aim would be, and when I told him I normally tried to make a heart shot, he said he had trouble with American hunters shooting too low and recommended aiming three or four inches higher than the heart shot, toward the center of the lungs. I told him I had Leupold VX6HD 4×24 Rifle Scope with a custom CDS Ranging dial, and he offered to set it for me before the shoot. We had supper and we were tired from the trip, so we called it a day.

The next morning we woke to find the temperature had dropped below freezing overnight and dressed in layers accordingly, then walked down to the lodge for breakfast.

For the morning hunt, Dirk, the two trackers, the two tracking dogs, Pat, and myself loaded into a Toyota truck with a shooting bench over the cab built into the bed of the truck. We drove for about two hours and saw giraffes, guinea fowl, and other animals. I was feeling a little uncomfortable and found I had an upset stomach. For lunch the others had sandwiches while my lunch was an Imodium!

On the afternoon hunt we saw many animals including giraffe, zebra, waterbuck and gemsbok.  At about 5:00 p.m. Dirk spotted three Cape eland, and the oldest was a shooter. We tracked them up a wide canyon and the two younger bulls moved to the right side of the canyon; the older one moved to the left.  I had still not seen them at that point, but we walked in single file up the canyon about 800 meters.  Dirk set up the shooting sticks and said the animal would be coming out from behind a set of bushes on the left about 120 meters in front of us. I got set, Dirk steadied me on the sticks, and about 15 seconds later the eland came out and stopped broadside to us, his fatal mistake.  I squeezed the trigger, and he took off running over a small knoll. The shot was good. The tracking dogs heard the shot and came running past. About three seconds later I heard a sound I hadn’t heard since I was a teenager squirrel-hunting with my uncle’s dogs: 

“Yap, Yap, Yap, Yap, Yap.”  I knew what it meant.  We walked over and there was a nice Cape eland bull about 50 meters from where I shot him, about 1800 pounds according to Dirk. I got extra credit for dropping him about 10 feet from a road!  I was on an adrenaline high. Dirk and the trackers loaded him in the back of the truck and strapped him in.

We returned to the hunting lodge for drinks around the fire pit, hunting tales, and another three-course meal. But Dirk’s future daughter-in-law, Anka, made a “from scratch” tomato soup that was perfect for me. 

The next day after toast and coffee for me, we loaded into the Toyota. We saw several animals not on my list – gemsbok cows with horns bigger than the bulls, groups of kudu cows, then Dirk and the trackers spotted a sable bull at about 250 meters out. Dirk stopped, I got out, a tracker handed me the rifle.  Dirk adjusted the CDS dial on the scope, and I adjusted the parallax dial to match. I squeezed the trigger.  Nothing happened. I had forgotten to release the safety. I moved the safety to “Fire”.  Yanked the trigger.  Missed the shot. We went to check but found no animal, no blood, no nothing.

For the afternoon hunt, we sat in a raised blind and saw a few animals but no shooter bulls. Later we had another great evening at the lodge.

to fire.  I squeezed the trigger and the bull disappeared. Dirk figured where the bull had gone. He took my gun and he, the trackers and the dogs went after the animal.  About seven minutes later I heard the dogs start barking. The bull had traveled about 100 yards and was standing in a bush.  Dirk fired a finishing shot and we returned to the lodge for another pleasant evening.

The following day we bade farewell to Ace, then worked our way back through hills and valleys, sighting several herds of animals as many as 50 each – gemsbok, impala, kudu, roan, sable, waterbuck, wildebeest, and hartebeest, cows and bulls. We did not find the old kudu bull we were looking for and decided to try again in the afternoon.

We saw lots of everything, but nothing worth shooting, so returned for our sundowners and supper.

Before the next day’s hunt we traveled to the utility area and helped load some meat for workers and drove around the 10 sections adjacent to the utility area for several hours.  We saw four groups of kudu bulls and in the last group, one of the trackers noticed something in the brush. It was an old kudu bull standing dead still in the shadows of a bush, difficult to see.  He was 100 meters away, and Dirk got me on him, a shooter.  At first, I only saw a silhouette that looked like an animal. He was facing the base of the bush he was standing under and his horns looked like a tree branch. Dirk said, “Take him.”  The bull looked back over his right shoulder. I saw the “V” of his horns and as he took a step to the right and presented his shoulder, I took the shot.  He ran off less than 50 yards.  Dirk started after the bull with his dogs. He didn’t take my rifle along; he knew the kudu was down. There was a small problem, though. The animal was piled up in the middle of a bunch of catclaw bushes.  Dirk got on the radio and called in reinforcements to help hack the kudu out of the brush.

On the way to the lodge for lunch we went for some guinea fowl with my Benelli SBE shotgun. We drove up on a group of about 100 birds. I pointed to the middle of the group and fired once and got 10 birds. Pot shot.

On the afternoon hunt we drove through the “Nursery” where Dirk had hundreds of breeding stock to supply the rest of the ranch with huntable trophy animals.  Then we drove around the ranch shooting guinea fowl. I fired a total of eight shots, and we came away with a total of 25 birds.

After the hunt, we returned for drinks at the Fire Pit, and another wonderful meal of eland steaks.

On the way to the lodge for lunch we went for some guinea fowl with my Benelli SBE shotgun. We drove up on a group of about 100 birds. I pointed to the middle of the group and fired once and got 10 birds. Pot shot.

On the afternoon hunt e drove through the “Nursery” where Dirk had hundreds of breeding stock living there supplying the rest of the ranch with huntable trophy animals.  Then we drove around the ranch shooting guinea fowl. I fired eight shots, and we came away with 25 birds.

After the hunt, we returned for more drinks at the fire pit, and another wonderful meal with eland steaks.