South Africa Buffalo

Length

5–7 days

Where

South Africa

Party size

1–6 hunters

Season

April to October

Cape buffalo on the Limpopo property, priced well below the Zambezi Delta hunt. Easy logistics through Johannesburg, no charter flights, and plains game can be added on the same ground. If you want a buffalo and the Mozambique cost is out of reach, this is the honest answer.

The sensible first buffalo

We send more first-time buffalo hunters here than to the Zambezi Delta, and we do it deliberately.

The Delta is the better buffalo hunt and we will say so on its own page. It is also hot, wet, hard walking, and frequently a close-range shot into grass you cannot see through. That is a great deal to take on the first time you stand in front of a buffalo.

Here you hunt the same animal in country where you can see him, at a distance you choose, with time to look at him properly before anything happens. You learn what a buffalo is before you learn what a buffalo in high grass is.

How it runs

Five to seven days, on the Limpopo ground, usually tracking from first light. Buffalo move at night and feed early, so the day starts with cutting tracks and working out which herd crossed where and how long ago.

The walking is real but the ground is dry and open compared with the Delta, and you will be shooting at a sensible distance off sticks.

What to know

There are legal minimum calibres for buffalo and they are not negotiable. Within that, bring the rifle you shoot well rather than the heaviest one you own — a flinch costs more than a hundred grains.

Buffalo is not CITES-listed, which makes it one of the more straightforward dangerous game animals to get home.

Many hunters add this to a plains game week rather than travelling for it alone. That combination is one of the most common things we book.

What you would be hunting

Every animal below links to its own page, where the trophy judging, rifle and season are covered properly. The figures here are the same ones we would quote you in writing.

Also on this safari: Plus 2–3 plains game. The exact list is built around what you want and what is on quota when you travel.

What is included

Your professional hunter, trackers and skinners, hunting vehicle and fuel, accommodation, all meals, laundry, standard drinks in camp, and field preparation of your trophies. We help arrange airport transfers, though the transport cost is for your account.

Not included: gratuities, trophy fees (including on any animal wounded but not recovered), dip and pack, shipping, taxidermy, charter flights, international flights and rifle rental. Each of these appears as its own line on your written proposal, so nothing arrives as a surprise. Full detail is on the what's included page.

On price

We do not publish prices. Trophy fees and government licence fees change annually, and a fourteen-day elephant hunt and a seven-day plains game safari are not comparable numbers. What we will do is send you a written proposal with the daily rate and every trophy fee itemised separately. Gratuities are never included and never expected; the tipping guide sets out sensible amounts if you would like to.

This is a starting point rather than a fixed menu. Most of our safaris end up as something between two of these.