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Cape buffalo (Syncerus caffer)
"He looks at you as if you owe him money"
This one nearly gave me a hard time. It would have been the dream Cape buffalo hunt for a visitor as this dude new all the tricks. He was aggressive, resolute to get me, and kept on advancing - keeping brush between us which would have made any shot risky. Hunting pressure is high in this area and the fact that I was shooting with my Nikon 5100 still cheesed him off.
An ex Air Force colleague was after nyala here with his .303 Brit. Leon likes the light, fast Impala 130gr machined bullets. On entering the dense brush the guide gave him his own .375 H&H, saying that the 300 gr. Peregrines would be better. They had not gone 200 yards when they were charged by a buffalo cow from behind a dense bush and Leon brained her at 7 yards, even remembering to aim 1.5 inches high for the scope above the bore line. She was still charging with the nose high (a sign of aggression and focus) just before that last moment they lower the head to scoop you up with one horn.
One often reads debates in US gun forums by inexperienced buffalo-hunters-to-be analysing the merits of soft points and solids - which to shoot first and why. A soft nose bullet will only be an asset if a slight rear angled shot can be put into the heart. The hunter must always be prepared to put the bullet through the shoulder bone or the brain, so I do not even carry soft points. The flat mephlat Peregrine VRG-2 or GS Custom, or Rhino from .37" calibre and higher creates a large enough wound channel and no further expansion is needed on any animal. You do not plan to let the animal die from blood being pumped out by the heart - you want to stop the brain from functioning within seconds after the shot by stopping the heart - if it had not been a brain shot in the first instance.
Hunting is such a little, minutely small part of outdoor's activity here. Photo safari's need not be expensive, and more so if it is only 1 person who is not afraid of sleeping in a tent. Communal ablutions are amazingly luxurious. Then we take my single cab truck. Look here:
As a young man my passion was to someday afford a trip to Africa hunting. At this point in my life I'd still like to do it but shoot with a camera. I have a young nephew that has made five or six trip's over there shooting photo's. Beautiful animals but he hasn't really got into the antelope's yet. Maybe one day I'll find way to afford that trip, hope so. He's into some kind of rhino rescue or something like that. He told me that they are dying the horn to discourage the poacher's! Someday maybe. Keep hoping till the day I die!