Scott's Asiatic water buffalo
of which I saw several in the skinning shed, were really close
to what a small Cape buff would look like. I saw only one
skull cap from a Dwarf Forest buffalo and it was markedly
smaller than the typical Central Savanna. The typical width
is between the high twenties t o the high thirties.
And then there is the Asiatic water buffalo. A friend of
mine here in Arizona, Scott Kendrix, phoned me one night
late in 2011 and asked me if I wanted to go shoot some buffalo
in Australia. My reaction was to say, “Count me in” and we
found ourselves in Darwin, Australia, in June of 2012. The
hunt was to be a double rifle-only affair which was fine by
me. I brought along my beloved Armeria de Madrid .500 NE
back action sidelock and a 1892 vintage Charles Osborne
boxlock .450-400 31/4. Noted double rifle author and friend
Cal Pappas was also in the group and brought his 1914 vintage
John Wilkes .600 NE.
We were to hunt on a ranch in the Northern Territory
called Conway's Cattle Station. It is a working cattle ranch
of 365,000 acres. I really didn't know what to expect on this
hunt, as it was to be my first buffalo hunt outside Africa. Our
guide, George Stewart, assured us on the drive from Darwin,
there are, “Plenty of buffalo around.”
As we started the hunt we saw buffalo right off, all the
time, nearly everywhere we went. George said the larger
breeding bulls like to be alone and that when we go a long
time without seeing buffalo, that is where the big boys
were likely to be.
No tracking here. We simply drove until we saw
buffalo and checked them out to see if there was a
shooter. If not, we would just continue on. The first
buffalo we stalked looked fine to me. George kicked off
his Crocs and we continued. The cover was eucalyptus
forest and the wind was good. We got to within twenty
yards and George put the shooting sticks up. I motioned
for him to get closer. George smiled, picked up the
sticks, and we silently moved on up. We ran out of
cover at just under ten yards. George again put the
sticks up but he wanted one last look at the buffalo’s
width before I took him so we waited for him to turn
his head. Without saying a word George just gathered
up the sticks turned away, and then said in his quiet
diminutive voice, “Too small.”
Page 10
We drove around most of the day and looked at perhaps
250 buffalo. No kidding! We had just finished lunch when
we crossed yet another watercourse when we saw a group
of perhaps eight cows - we did not see a bull with them but
we stopped to look at them nonetheless. Out from under
a small palm island came this bull. My gosh, what a bull!
Here's where a new and different behaviour I had never seen
in Africa was observed. This large, dominant breeding bull
began to walk at me! I think, and George concurs, that they
are passively-aggressively trying to move us away from their
harem of cows. It's not a charge, just a slow deliberate walk.
I was now outside the ‘Cruiser and the bull was about
80 yards out. I had already decided to take him but also to
allow him to keep coming as long as he would. At a mere
twelve yards he stopped, slightly quartering to me. The first
570 grain Woodleigh soft thumped him hard in the chest and
he ran away bucking. George was then shouting for me to
shoot him again so I hit him with a raking shot in his right
hip. He ran another thirty yards and fell over dead.
As far as hunting buffalo goes, Cape buffalo are certainly
the most difficult to approach and most likely the most
aggressive when wounded or pushed too hard. The Central
Savanna buffalo is relatively easy to hunt in the savannas
but in the CAR the bush is very remote to get to. CAR is a
flat out dangerous destination and the road system is terrible.
The capitol city of Bangui is serviced only once weekly by
Air France from Paris. The Asiatic Water buffalo is an easy
hunt, low key, and a great hunt for a group of pals.
As far as body size goes, I would say the Australian
variant is nearly the same as a Cape buffalo. The horn
configuration is vastly different. There are mainly two types,
sweepers like Scott's bull pictured here and “aeroplane”
bulls like mine. As far as aggression goes, I'm sure when
wounded they will charge. The younger bulls seem oblivious
to humans. We drove by literally hundreds of them and they
just watched us go on by. Perhaps the fact that there are nearly
no predators except for dingo accounts for the fact that they
act as they do.
Australia is a long journey from the western United
States. Most buffalo hunts there are short. Ours was four and
a half days of hunting which was plenty long. I shot three
buffalo, a scrub bull - basically a wild cow - and a donkey in
two days of hunting. Problem is three days of travel for less
than five days of hunting is questionable at best.
Scott with a nice Australian Asiatic water buffalo
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African Hunter Vol. 19 No. 1