Hunting day three will take us to one of York’s honey holes. The place we were headed to yesterday morning before we cut the fresh tracks. Again 30 minutes into the 2-hour drive, we stop. This time not because we cut fresh tracks but because we see fresh butt- a buffalo cow butt to be exact. She’s standing in the road in the shine of the headlights. We stop and let her proceed across. We slowly move forward and hear the herd off in the bush just to our right. We drive another half mile forward and stop. It’s breaking daylight but too early to wade into the bush with the herd so close. We mill around 30 minutes or so then assemble the party for the task at hand. We walk back down the road until we get to where the herd crossed over. 200 yards in we hear them rustling around. The early morning wind can’t make up its mind on which direction to blow just yet. We spot a cow then two, but the herd is nervous and breaks for thicker cover. We’ll come back later in the day. Ah real buffalo hunting. My first up-close, real-life hunting encounter with the query. I’m relived we weren’t successful. I still wanted to “earn it” a little more. Be careful what you ask for they say.
Although delayed, we finally make it to the honey hole. We are overlooking a drainage that holds water with a small open, flood plain around it. It’s quiet, all too quiet. Not a single animal is spotted and no fresh buffalo spoor. It is the moon, the finicky wind, or the hunting gods having their say ? It’s a gorgeous view though and one that was worth the effort to reach. On the way back out, we seemingly light the place on fire. It’s catches quickly in the dry, matted grass, thick from the very good winter rains. It’s takes off and we speed ahead to light a few more.
You want to talk about some stuff quickly blazing up- fire, fire everywhere
Although delayed, we finally make it to the honey hole. We are overlooking a drainage that holds water with a small open, flood plain around it. It’s quiet, all too quiet. Not a single animal is spotted and no fresh buffalo spoor. It is the moon, the finicky wind, or the hunting gods having their say ? It’s a gorgeous view though and one that was worth the effort to reach. On the way back out, we seemingly light the place on fire. It’s catches quickly in the dry, matted grass, thick from the very good winter rains. It’s takes off and we speed ahead to light a few more.
You want to talk about some stuff quickly blazing up- fire, fire everywhere
. Once word got around we were hunting for buffalo, the texts were flowing non-stop. BI’s were reporting multiple dagga boys near their fields. As noted from yesterday, they would often put them to bed in the mornings and knew exactly where they were despite grass and bush so thick you couldn’t see 5 feet. One morning we creeped unbeknownst to us, within 10 steps of a large bull that was bedded in a deep impression at the end of a bush chocked field. That was a bit unnerving. We tracked him and a buddy across two other fields where they came to bed up again in another dense draw. We let them settle down and walked back in a couple hours later. Again, we flushed them, but no clear shot presented itself. I mentioned to York that I did not enjoy this buffalo wing shooting technique and that perhaps we could skip that part. 
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