Kwa-Zulu Game Reserve: Part I

Monday: Blue Wildebeest Taken & Several Cape Buffalo Stalks

Our hunt started Monday morning. Six of us loaded into a 4-door diesel Toyota Land Cruiser pickup equipped with a high seat bench, various bars and affixments, a bull bumper and a heavy duty winch. These vehicles are the workhorses of the African safari. While South Africa has the world's highest car jacking rate, these are very seldom touched. The parts are not interchangeable with other Toyota vehicles on the road, they are easily recognizable, and the government frowns upon people that impact the tourist trade. They are also relatively safe in the other African countries. However, Zimbabwe is a totally different story - here Mugabe's thugs (AKA the army) steal them at an alarming rate. While we were there, our safari operator learned that the government had approved their tourism grant and they would receive four new fully equipped Land Cruisers free of charge – a $240K value.

The six individuals in the Land Cruiser were: Justin Stretton, my PH for the Kwa-Zulu; Bob Cunningham, owner of Global Sportsman's Outfitters; Sculk Devliers, another PH and one of the cameramen; Tommy, Justin's head man and tracker; a tracker from Kwa-Zulu, and me. We had a lot of area to cover and planned to drive and glass to find our main quarry - Cape Buffalo.

We started just before sunrise and drove into an area that had alternating areas of thick bush (bushveld), open grassy plains, rolling hills, small mountains, and low-lying bush and rock covered ridges. We immediately came upon fresh Buffalo dung, but decided to keep driving as the amount was relatively small and led into a thick bushy ridge. We were then fortunate to see a large number of Blue Wildebeest, perhaps over one hundred, running across a wide tall grass plain. It was a very impressive sight. At the same time, we glassed a small group of Cape Buffalo high atop a small grass covered mountain. Small groups of Buffs are often old males that have been pushed out of the herd by younger, stronger bulls. These types of Buffs are called Duga Boys - and often have large, old, worn bosses and can be quite aggressive. We slowly worked our way up to the top of the mountains in the Land Cruiser.

Kudu Family

Reedbuck Family

We saw a good number of Blue Wildebeest, Reedbucks, and Kudu during our slow climb. When we got to the top it was essentially a flat-valley like area that was very open. All of the sudden Justin tapped the roof of the truck, which signaled the driver to stop. He had seen a large group of Blue Wildebeest resting and sunning at - as it was quite cold in the morning, perhaps in the 40's. Justin, Sculk, and I climbed up a steep grade covered with large square ice-chest sized rocks. We moved up about 200 yards and then worked our way down to our left until we were in a very jagged rock outcropping overlooking the herd of Blue Wildebeest. We ducked walked about 50 yards and then crawled on our bottoms another 30 or so yards to get into position. Justin picked out the largest of the herd. He was lying down, but slowly stood up to butt horns with some of the other bulls, nothing serious, just some fun and games. Once he was clear I took the shot - about 150 yards from an elevation of 60-70 feet. The shot went thru both lungs and the heart. He ran in a circle and dropped over. The .375 H&H 300 grain Swift A-Square did the trick.

Blue Wildebeest

We got some good video of the stalk up to the point of the shot, footage of the shot, and then an interview where the Wildebeest fell. We proceeded to bring the truck around and take pictures. It was now around 9 AM in the morning. Not bad and we had a 28" Blue Wildebeest on the ground. These animals are called the "poor man's Cape Buffalo" as they are the toughest animal in all of Africa pound for pound. We estimated the hoof weight at around 600 lbs.

We loaded up and were off to look for Cape Buffalo. While driving we sighted a large Warthog by himself. He was grazing on an old field of crops that had many years ago be abandoned, but still yielded some residual harvest. We slowly stalked to within 150 yards or so. Unfortunately, his tusks were not quite big enough so we passed.

We proceeded on our long drive back to camp to deliver our animal to the skinners when we happened upon a herd of Buffalo. We initially saw them from a mile or so away and made our way towards them. We got close enough to glass the herd, but found there were not mature, trophy bulls for us to take. We proceeded closer to the herd and they quickly moved on, alerted by our approach. It was at this moment that we saw several large bulls that were separate from the herd quickly move along side of us in a dry creek bed. At this point all the Buffalo quickly disappeared over a bush covered ridge. We regrouped and continued our trip back.

Again we saw the same herd in the distance. They had left the cover of the bush and moved into a large open green field with a watering hole - natural for mid day.... and the bulls had moved into the herd. Justin, Sculk, and I dismounted and started our stalk. We approached directly towards the herd and water hole with only a small stand of trees between us and them to cover our approach. We evaluated going into the dense bush on either side of the field to approach, but decided not to as there was a large troop of baboons crossing from one side of the field to the other - and our approach thru either side would have set off alarms from the troop. Once we made it to stand of trees, the herd had moved on, just out of shooting range - probably 200 yards or so. We wanted to be no further than 100-150 yards if possible, even closer would be better.

At this point we thought of moving down to our left to hide behind the bank of the water hole when we saw a large Duga Boy come out of the bush and join the herd - a good thing we didn't go down there. About this time we also spied a large bull in the herd with a very wide spread, over 43" from Justin's estimate. Unfortunately the herd continued to move on and soon put some serious speed on alerted by our presence and irritated by the baboons that were crossing amongst them. Bob counted exactly 67. We decided to make our way back before the Wildebeest got warm and look for the big bull and herd after lunch.

Buffalo Herd

After dropping the Wildebeest off with the skinners, we made our way back to the lodge for lunch. While waiting for lunch, Justin and I jumped into the small and very cold pool built into the deck of the main building of the lodge - it felt refreshing - especially given that the temperature had risen from the 40's to the 90's by lunch time. We have a nice casual lunch served outdoors and then took some quick cat naps on the couches and chairs in the outdoor living room. We left camp for the afternoon hunt around 2:30.

Rhinos

We quickly spotted a herd of buffalo grazing on the side of a large hill after we had been out about 30 minutes. We decided to dismount and approach thru the bush to get a better look as they were over a half mile away. On the way there we picked up the sight of a second herd to investigate as well. The stalk was quite easy from the perspective of not alerting the buffalo, but the area we were moving thru had just had the company of a very large single bull elephant. The bush was sufficiently thick as to mask to elephant as few as 20 yards away. Justin, Tommy, and the local tracker were quite concerned with the possibility of a blind charge thru the bush. Everyone loaded up their rifles as we started the stalk. We literally stopped at every noise and made our way slowly. Then we heard something….. what we initially thought was the elephant coming at us was a lone Hartebeest - whew! When we got close enough to glass we spent 20 minutes or so and determined there were no trophy bulls in the herd. We walked back thru the "Elephant's bush", remounted the truck, and proceeded along.

Buffalo Herd Relaxing Above "Elephant's Bush"

Elephant

We quickly came to the same field and watering hole where we had seen the herd before lunch. The herd was not there, but in its place was another herd. We spent several minutes glassing and determined it was a smaller, different herd. After another 30+ minutes of driving we came along a ridge located in the middle of a long line of hills with bush and grassy plains on both sides. We immediately spotted a large herd of Buffalo grazing and resting slightly up from the bottom of one of the hills, right near where a low ridge met the hill. After glassing the herd for several minutes from a distance of over a mile, we decided that it was the same herd with the trophy bull. We continued along the ridge and into the edge of the grassy plain that ran into the base of the hill were the buffalo were. We kept our distance to about 2/3 of a mile of more and slowly moved the truck around out of sight.

At this point Justin, Schulk, and I dismounted and started a stalk half-way up the tree covered ridge that met the hill side where the buffalo were. By this time they had stopped grazing and were lying about - making a stalk any closer than 400 yards nearly impossible. We couldn't approach any closer on our current route due to noise of dry leaves under our feet and the keen sight and smell of the buffalo. So we waited. Our plan was to wait until the buffalo got up and started moving and then planned to move to intercept them. After about an hour, as the sun began to set, they got up and started to move to our right into a large grassy plain. We had initially thought about setting up to cover this angle, but opted not to. We made a plan to move back towards were we parked the truck, take a short-cut across a small bush covered ridge and ambush the buffalo from the edge of the ridge where it met the grassy plain. We had to wait until all the Buffalo had moved off the hill and into the tall grass until we could move and then we hauled ass.

We moved back towards the truck and road in the tall grass to hide us, up the road, and then up and over the small ridge to where the buffalo were crossing. It was probably a distance equal to mile and a half or so. We covered it very quickly. I don't believe we could have covered it any more quickly running as we were walking and sprinting at an incredible pace - even the PH's that do this everyday were getting winded. We made it up and over the small ridge, but the Buffalo were further away than we expected in the grass and it was getting dark. We squatted and quickly moved several hundred yards at an angle perpendicular to the buffalo. With the grass, low light, and wind noise they did not detect us. We got to within 30 yards of the herd.

Unfortunately, at this point the buffalo made a 90 degree turn - in line with our direction but away from us - to head for the bush before dark. They had still not seen us. We setup quickly to take a shot at the big buffalo we had seen before lunch, but for some reason he moved quickly to ahead of the herd, with the other buffs keeping a normal pace, and out of shooting range. Had we made it to our intersection with the herd a minute earlier he would have been on the ground. We got ready to leave when we herd something move out of the grass. A very large monitor lizard, perhaps four feet long. Ah, bad luck as the trackers would say. They would use this as the reason we couldn't get the buff.

Bad JuJu

We made it back to the lodge well after dark. A quick hot bath (the staff always had one waiting) and a nice dinner followed by drinks and replays of the video from the day. It was off to bed.