In Africa, we normally refrain from hunting during the summer months simply because it is very hot, with temperatures soaring to over 40 ºC. Early-morning temperatures can easily reach into the high thirties, and it doesn’t take much to go even higher. I was startled when a fellow .404 Jeffery hunting friend phoned me in mid-February, inviting me to join him on a buffalo hunt the following week. The month of February in the northern Bushveld and Lowveld of South Africa is at the height of our summer, and hunting at this time of year is not for the faint-hearted. However, it only took one call to my wife to explain the unique opportunity. Twenty minutes later, Iwas part of a “.404 Jeffery buffalo bull hunt” in the South African Lowveld!
NOT FOR THE FAINT-HEARTED
Buffalo hunting during the hot African summer months can be an unnerving exercise. Soaring temperatures during the windless midday hours in thick “jesse” or mopane woodland can become a near-suffocating affair. Lone or small groups of old dagha boys generally bed down to ruminate in thick, impenetrable foliage during the middle of the day.
The only way to hunt these bulls is to get chillingly close to your quarry. Nearly murky mopane woodland forms the most authentic stage imaginable for such encounters. Mopane has a distinctive,in the Fabaceae family that grows in hot, dry, low-lying areas.
