To meet a Dugga Boy

BLACK Death and Widow Maker may fire the imagination, conjuring up a beast who should only be stalked in its home territories forewarned. You wonder if those names are realistic reflections or simply tales of a bygone era. I had the privilege of hunting Black Death - the Dagga Boy - I can affirm he lives up to name in every respect.

I only ever dreamed of hunting buffalo in far-off locales like the Selous in Tanzania, the Caprivi Strip in Namibia or the Luangwa Valley in Zambia; they all filled my boyhood imagination of trekking off on Safari for a member of the big five. The challenge was to make this dream a reality?

I had befriended Andrew Pringle, who owns and operates Crusader Safari, whose mission is to only offer full free range hunting in South Africa; a unique opportunity presented for me to hunt free ranging buffalo. There is a limited quota of tags issued to harvest old buffalo bulls from the fringes of Kruger National Park or what is referred