On the first day we looked for a small herd of buffalo that was seen on the last hunt with a good bull. We did a good bit of walking and glassing, but could not fin any fresh sign.  Day 2 started off with a slow morning. We looked for a resident herd of buffalo, but couldn’t find them either, so we proceeded toward the lower end of Makuti. Saw lots of elephant. We found some tracks on a small stream and stopped to check them out. Nyati and Martin were sorting out the tracks when they spotted four buffalo bulls lying in a burnt area. We quickly got our gear together and went to look at them. There was only on old mature bull in the group. He had good bosses, so we decided to have a go at him. We made a difficult approach to +/-60 yards when he stood up and gave us a broadside shot. Matt used a 900g woodleigh soft on his first shot, hitting it a little forward in the shoulder breaking it and stopping under the skin (perfectly mushroomed) on the opposite shoulder. The buffalo turned around and ran, collected a perfect shoulder shot through heart with solid, which exited and fell after running 40 yards. It then got up and ran a further 20 yards before stopping and facing away. A sold in the back leg (exited stomach) dropped it. We then went up and put in a ‘coupe de gras’.

The third day we went down to the Ruyese and searched for a herd of buffalo, which we found late afternoon, so left them as we saw some good bulls in the herd, so we could fin them the next day. We found them the next morning and after a long walk they all lay down in the jesse bush so we retreated to a flowing spring and had lunch and relaxed for a few hours. When we returned the buffalo had moved to an even thicker patch of bush. We worked around them and spotted a really decent bull, it was laying down, so we had to wait for it to stand before shooting it quartering on slightly. The shot was +/-80 yards and the bullet hit the jugular and stopped behind the opposite shoulder just under the skin (perfect mushroom). After a +/-10 minute wait we followed up, there was blood spray all over the trees and grass. As we walked +/-100 yards we saw a few buffalo standing together, so looked for Matt’s bull. We then heard a death bellow and the other buffalo ran off. Amazingly when we approached the buffalo was still standing, so took another 4 shots to finish him off. Two frontal shots with solids were recovered in the back legs. One solid exited a broadside ‘coupe de gras’ and another soft point entered the stomach at an angle and was found in the back leg (perfect mushroom). We had to carry the trophy for 3.5km to get it back to the truck.

Matt shot a baboon at +/-150 yards with his416 Rigby on day 6. on day 8 Matt shot a buffalo cow at 50 yards with 416. broadside bullet recovered on opposite shoulder (barnes TSX) well mushroomed. Another 2 finishing shots were taken. Buffalo went 5 yards.

We had various opportunities at other game, namely warthog, impala, kudu, and a lot of zebra and eland were seen over the duration of the hunt. We tried for hyena, but no luck.

Day 9 Matt shot an impala ram at +/-120 yards with 416.