Report by: Barron Brittingham
Location: Madaba Camp
Date: 30 August 2006
Buffalo #1
As we came to the Madaba camp in TWC’s area of the Selous Game Reserve, my main focus was on cape buffalo. Having taken my first buffalo last year in Zimbabwe, I was hooked from that very moment, and, luckily, I had a license to take three buffalo bulls on this safari.
Our first evening at Madaba consisted of checking leopard baits with some signs of two very big cats feeding. The next morning, I set out with my PH, Peter, his trackers, Meshak and Abdala, Bwana Nyama, our game scout, and my girlfriend Jill. As we were driving along the road, Meshak spotted the track of a lone buffalo bull crossing the road. We parked the truck, put on our walking shoes, and set out on the trail.
The tracking abilities of Meshak and Abdala were uncanny. We moved along at a swift walk, and these guys were seeing buffalo signs that I would never have seen. They even tried a few times to point the signs out to me, but I still couldn’t see what they were talking about.
The stalk continued for over three hours, stopping occasionally for the trackers to find the trail where it had gotten lost in heavy grass or other difficult terrain. After about three and a half hours, we decided to take a ten-minute break, so the trackers could rest their eyes.
Our short break ended, and we continued on the trail. It could not have been fifty yards before Abdala stopped us and pointed to a small patch of trees ahead. Hard as we tried, Peter and I could not see the buffalo that he swore was there. After another minute of looking, Jill said she also saw the bull, so Peter and I moved in. We were about forty yards away when the bull stood up behind the trees, directly in front of his right shoulder. There was a small gap in the trees to the right of the shoulder, and I set my sights there, in case the bull turned. After a tense stare-down, the bull turned to his left, and I let him have a soft-point from my CZ .458 Lott right on the point of the shoulder. He ran about ten yards to the right, where he stumbled and fell behind some brush, got back up and continued running. I shot again, and maybe a third time; the whole memory is sort of a blur. He disappeared, and we took a moment to compose ourselves and for me to reload my rifle. After a short fifty yards, we came upon the bull again. He was down, facing away from us, and I raised my rifle. He tried to get up to run away, but I put an anchoring solid-point just on his right hip, and back down he went. I rushed forward and delivered a finishing shot to ensure that the bull didn’t lay there in pain any longer than he had to. I later discovered that the same solid I had used to anchor the bull had gone into the back right hip, come out the front left shoulder, and gone through the left horn. I still haven’t decided whether or not I’ll have the taxidermist fix it, but, regardless, it’s definitely a testament to the penetrating power of the .458 Lott!
When the hunt was over, we took plenty of pictures and measured the bull, whose horns spread 41.5 inches across and whose bosses were 15 inches from front to back. It is a gorgeous animal with deep curling horns that come all the way up and then turn toward the rear at the tip. On my first hunting day at Madaba camp, I could not have asked for a more perfect trophy.