MOZAMBIQUE 2020 – a narrow window of opportunity!

I overnighted in Maputo and flew to Beira via Tete the next morning. Grant met me and escorted me to a Cessna, with the pilot waiting. The pilot took off and we got clear of Maputo. He then gave me the controls and pointed out the course on a GPS, and I flew much of the way to wherever it was we were going. I guess the assumption was that if I could get to Mozambique despite the Chinese virus, I could do anything! Fortunately I was never called on to walk on water, so I didn’t disillusion anyone.
After an hour of modest turbulence and a strong crosswind, we arrived at an airstrip where my PH, Martin Snyman, was waiting. We drove half an hour to the camp in the Zambezi delta, had lunch, zeroed a loaner .375 with my ammo, and went out to find buffalo.
An hour or so later we sighted several small groups of buffalo grazing on new grass coming up on recently-burned areas. Leaving the truck, we walked to the edge of the scattered timber. We left the trackers there, and Martin and I crawled to within 30 yards of five bulls. One had a decent spread but was immature. Another had a great boss but nothing else. So we left them to their snooze and checked out a mixed herd of about 30. The herd bull and his buddy were not noteworthy, so we left them and circled around the burn to another group of bulls, six in number.
We crawled to the last clump of grass and looked them over. One looked like a shooter. When we stood up and I got on the sticks, the targeted bull ran about 10 yards, stopped and looked back, probably wondering “Why did I do that?” I plunked a 300 grain Barnes into his shoulder and he went down, never to rise again. A few more Barnes bullets insured he would stay down.
When it came to cameras, Martin was trigger happy. Perhaps it was fortunate that I forgot to put the recharged battery back into my Canon. That left only his Nikon and cell phone, and my Kodak. The bull went down at 5 p.m., so recovery of the animal would have to wait until the next morning.
It actually got a bit chilly during the night but the days were hot. We recovered the bull, made the vultures happy and had some croc bait. We went back to the camp for lunch, and spent the afternoon zeroing a different .375 with my ammo. We then went out and stalked dagga boys just for entertainment.
Next morning we drove two hours to Catapu Camp, where we would hunt nyala, croc, bush pig, red duiker and suni. We had lunch and went out hunting. Within a short time a nyala presented itself. We set up the sticks and I placed a 270 grain Hornady into a vital area. Per-haps the heat had made the nyala rather groggy (we had had coffee just before heading out, so we were on the ball) or perhaps he was just tired of battling whatever his problem was. He was emaciated and his coat was quite dull. His teeth showed he had a few years of life left, so his condition was not due to just age. Martin speculated that he may have got pretty badly beaten up during the rut. Or perhaps he had an internal parasite. In any event we got an easy trophy. Certainly his horns left nothing to be desired as a trophy.

Next morning we were up at 3 a.m. to go hunting for crocodiles on the Zambezi. Our chunk of buffalo spine and ribs was nicely ripened. The trackers didn’t seem to mind riding along with the bait. We arrived at the river, took a boat and went looking for some crocs. We found a nice sand bar with a couple of decent crocs. They left, and we put up the bait and a blind. A long wait began. However, some local fishermen showed great interest in the bait, thus keeping any croc away from it.
Late in the afternoon we started cruising for crocs. A couple were spotted and the stalk began. We landed the boat behind an inlet, and waded ankle-deep in mud across to the island. We then waded hip-deep in the Zambezi to another inlet, and set up to wait for the crocs to emerge. The smaller crocs co-operated and came out to perch on a sand bar.
The big one was reluctant to leave the water but he finally emerged partially. I got a shot at the brain but missed and clipped the spine instead. He thrashed his way into the current and was gone.
I was really missing my Leupold scope, as the one on the borrowed rifle had really fussy eye relief, which gave me fits at times. At 6x it was completely unusable for me. At 4x I could usually manage it but it was sometimes totally incompatible with my old eyes. Old age sucks! The alternative does not allow hunting in Mozambique, so suck it up, buttercup!
Early to bed and early to rise catches the bush pig dawdling near the road. NOT! We did, however, see a variety of game I wasn’t interested in. As usual we took a break of 3–4 hours during the worst of the day’s heat. We had our wake-up coffee and headed out in the late afternoon. We drove past a sawmill and spotted a red duiker that usually hung out on the logging-area side of the road – where hunting was not allowed. A short stalk, and he was my second, and last, easy trophy.
Shortly after the duiker photos were taken we came upon an old female warthog with a crippled back, and I put her out of her misery.

We finally spotted a good suni at about 5 p.m. Most of my kills occurred at about 5 p.m. – so why get up at 4 a.m.?
We had to stalk this little rascal for a while before get-ting a shot. Then the little beggar got up and ran. We figured that he was identifying as a rhinoceros that day! We were lucky he didn’t attack the truck! Anyway, a tracker spotted him again and I put a round into his ham, which was the only part exposed. This could be a top ten suni as the horns were over 10 inches (SCI) and very heavy. My 2005 suni was #13 and a bit shorter, and definitely thinner.

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