The right rear of the herd was spread out on a knoll with good cover, so with the wind in our faces we crept in close. Very close. We had two bulls bedded not twenty-five yards in front of us, but the grass was too tall to properly judge their bosses. Then the herd started to get up to feed.

Steve Hornady's magnificient old "dagga boy" had extremely heavy bosses. In the mating season, old bulls often shadow the herds. This is the first buffalo taken with the new .375 Ruger cartridge.

Instead of moving away from us, they began feeding to our right, so we stood dead still while buffalo passed at ten yards. As they passed Andrew and his great trackers, Lumuc and Mucosa, identified a massive old bull in our quarter of the herd. His boss was polished and his patchy coat was covered with light mud.

We made four half-circles, usually within fifty yards of sharp-eyed cows. We never once spooked them, a tribute to good wind and careful movement and a strong testament to a well-managed, lightly hunted area. But not spooking them and getting a clear shot weren't the same. They fed down off the knoll, and now dozens of buffalo were in plain view feeding up the far slope.

The mud-caked bull we wanted was out of sight for the moment, almost certainly in a creek bed at the base of the hill. Mucosa took a chance, leading us slowly toward the creek and somehow avoiding detection. Two buffalo came up out of the creek bed and Andrew set up the sticks. The mud-caked bull clambered out of the creek and walked slowly along the opposite bank, maybe fifty yards away. When he stopped, I took great care to shoot him through the shoulder.

He took the bullet hard, but still managed to run up the hill. I was shooting a Ruger No. 1 with Hornady's new .450/.400 3-inch load, so he was among other buffalo before I could reload and fire again. Fortunately, he went down in plain view a few dozen yards up the slope. Although I fired the obligatory insurance shot, it was over. Not yet 8 o'clock--almost certainly the shortest buffalo hunt in my career.

The Cursed Spot
I guess you have to pay for the easy hunts with tough ones. A couple days later in Dande with Paul Smith, we took the tracks of another huge herd. This would be my partner, Donna Grey's, first buffalo, provided we could find one we wanted, isolate him and close for the shot.

We'd done some filming that morning, so it was late when we took the tracks. This often means a long day, and it was, but not because it was nearly midmorning when we started. After a half-hour we found where the herd had bedded on an open rock shelf, safe from lions. Dung lay in heaps; obviously a big herd that had been there for a long time. We caught up to them within the hour, which isn't unusual. Provided the grass is good, big herds with lots of calves move slowly and stop frequently.