EARLY one mid-winter morning during 2012, on Zimbabwe’s Bubye Valley Conservancy, we stopped to check for buffalo sign at a waterhole. In the heavy sand at the water’s edge, we found the spoor of a solitary old bull. He’d been regularly moving along a well-worn track to and from the water. The tracks were fairly fresh so we decided to follow them, although when tracking a solitary bull, there is always the chance it might prove an unsuitable trophy. However, to my mind, old buffalo bulls with worn down or ‘broomed’ horns also make worthy trophies. A few sport hunters specialise in collecting ‘scrumcap’ trophy buffalo and I think this is noble.
Why were we following a solitary buffalo? Well, trying to secure a buffalo trophy out of large breeding herds was never my forte, perhaps because I’ve always considered it a bit unethical due to disturbance and pressure on cows and new-born calves. A personal thing, I guess. In addition, trying
