TW - Dande

PH Comment - Alan Shearing

TW was wanting an old warm down dagga boy which is like looking for holly grail in Dande. We knew it was probably not possible, but we set out to look for it regardless. We followed a few different bulls/groups of bulls and had one amazing viewing of 9 bulls joining a herd late afternoon of the 2nd or 3rd day. We got beaten “hand down” by some bulls, that managed to elude us every time. Other bulls gave us fleeting glimpses, but nothing worn down. On day 4 TW secured an extra buffalo tag for his son AW, who was celebrating his birthday. AW was on sticks a few times with a great old lone bull, but eventually he left us in the “dust”. The following morning, we came across a herd close to camp. We got in front of the herd and a bull was feeding 60 yards from us, so we decided it was a first buff for AW to take. He made a great shot, it ran +/- 100 yards, and stood long enough for us to get closer and put a few extra shots in. The next day we decided to try a different area and found tracks of 4 bulls early. We tracked them for about 1 hour and found them lying down in a fairly open area. The only one we could see looked to be worn down on his right tip, so decided straight away to take him. We closed the distance to about 40 yards. TW made short work of him with his VC 500 NE. It turned out that not only was the bull worn down, but broken off on the left side. What a stunning buff – the “holy grail”. The same afternoon we set up a hyena bait and built a blind. We walked early morning the next day and TW shot his hyena. We then went to the river for the rest of the day. It was very hot at times, but we did get some rain, so, a few days were pleasant enough. A great time spent with TW and AW.