Hunting Report by Brian Arrington

To me Africa is the pinnacle of big game hunting, and Tanzania is the pinnacle of African hunting. This is only my second trip to the Dark Continent, and therefore no expert, but I really don’t know how it could get any better.

After a very successful trip to Zambia in 2000 which I had booked with Fred Williams, I decided that one trip to Africa just wasn’t enough, and asked Fred to book me a Safari in Tanzania. He booked me with the same outfitter as Zambia and with the same PH, which is what I had requested, since the PH and I got along very well, and liked each other. We were to be hunting the Selous game reserve on a 21 day hunt, but I had not booked any of the cats, however the license allowed me to shoot three Cape Buffalo, my main priority. I had purchased an Austrian Custom Ferlach .500 Nitro Express double rifle specifically for this safari, and was very anxious to break it in!

I guess it never dawned on me that Tanzania’s location on the globe placed it in the tropics, although Fred had warned me several times about the high temperatures. We would often be hunting in palm tree groves under the intense tropical sun. It was nothing, if not HOT! We did have a mixed blessing however, in the daily afternoon rains, which were highly unusual for the time of year I was hunting - October. Although this was the worst thing for hunting, as the grass was still high and green, making burning impossible, but it did help by briefly cooling off the afternoons. As my PH and my trackers cursed the rains, I secretly welcomed them, even though their cooling effect was short lived.

We were on Buffalos from the first day onward. On day two, we had put one down. It was a difficult hunt, however, because of the tall grass, and with him being in a large herd.

The many eyes of the herd had spotted us, and kept moving slowly away, just out of range. All we could make out was the tops of their backs, but decided to slowly keep pushing them in hopes that an opportunity would present itself. Finally one did, when a bull stepped out from the herd to get a better look at us…but he was too far away for a double rifle with iron sights, but it was the best chance we had. I fired, but my first barrel went too high, but my second was a hit. Then the exciting part – I followed him up in the tall grass.

My PH also had a .500 double, so we were properly armed for the pursuit. We were lucky to find him not far off, laid up in a small clearing facing away from us. I put two more in him and Adam fired one also. Remembering what I had read so often, that it’s the dead buffalo that will kill you, so I put one more insurance round into him. That was that, and I had my first Buff!

Although this was a fine buffalo, I decided that chasing them in the herd was not what I wanted to do, so I told my PH that I wanted to concentrate on finding old “Dugga Boys”. Stalking these old guys when solo, or in small groups, with a double in hand was the image of British East Africa that I had in my mind, the idea taken from the pages of the many books I had read.
A small river flowed through our hunting area, and its banks were choked with thick jungle. On the advice of our trackers, we decided to walk the river bank in search of old Duggas. In the stifling heat, we spent many days hunting the river banks, nerve racking and exciting at times, as we on many occasions would have to slowly back track away from hippos or elephants. Often times, we were so close to elephants that we could hear their stomachs churning, but still could not see them. The plan finally came together when we found an old, solo bull, and I dispatched him quickly. The river walks also yielded me an excellent East African Bushbuck, and a crocodile.

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