There are really two types of Cape buffalo hunting: Hunting them in large herds or hunting small groups of bachelor bulls. Fate doesn't always allow you to choose between the two, but in either case, what you're looking for is a fully mature bull with wide spread, deep hooks and heavy bosses.

When a herd moves, you may play cat-and-mouse with the bull you want for some time.

In recent years far too much has been written about hunting "dagga boys," and some of it is misleading. A buffalo bull may grow incredibly wide horns at a young age, and all younger bulls tend to have long, sharp horn tips. But the mark of maturity is for that helmet-like growth at the base of the horns, the boss, to be fully hard and completely developed. This doesn't happen until a buffalo is about 9 1/2 years old.

By the time he's eleven, a bull's horn tips are wearing, and gains in horn mass don't keep pace with wear. No one can say how long a buffalo lives in the wild, but few exceed thirteen or fourteen years of age.

In Shona, "dagga" is mud, so a mud bull is an old outcast bull, past his prime and probably covered in mud. An old timer with a massive, polished boss and worn tips is a true dagga bull. A fully mature bull with a hard boss, but whose horns retain the long, sharp tips that maximize record book score, is properly a herd bull. Here's the confusion: These days any bull found outside of a mixed herd is often referred to as a "dagga boy," but you can find younger bulls, mature and immature, in bachelor groups. They aren't outcast; they're just traveling with the boys.

Zimbabwe's Dande North has a very high density of buffalo. Tracking remains the favored technique, but sometimes herds can be glassed while they're moving and feeding.

And you can find genuine old dagga bulls traveling with big herds. This is especially true during the primary mating season, which varies from area to area but, in Zimbabwe, is pretty much May and June. This is important if you really like buffalo hunting, because hunting them in big herds is far more interesting and challenging than hunting bachelor groups.

True dagga bulls are very solitary, and when you catch up with them there are far fewer eyes, ears and noses to contend with. When you go into a herd, however, the real trick is seeing all the bulls and finding an old-timer. He might not be there, so whenever you track a herd you have to accept that you may not see what you're looking for, and if you do, you may not get a shot. Your odds are much, much better when tracking a group of three or four big-footed old bulls. But the most excitement lies in sorting the herds.

Last year was a good rainfall year in the Zambezi Valley, and in June the buffalo were behaving normally. I was there most of the month, during which we took three very fine bulls out of big herds--three great hunts and three altogether different experiences.