"Mpofu and the Lion"
 
 

by "Mpofu"

In the Sindebele language of the Matabele of Zimbabwe "Mpofu" is the name of the giant antelope of the bushveld, the Eland. The eland is a favourite prey of lions but here Mpofu turns the tables on the largest carnivore of Africa.

1999 saw my first sojourn into Africa, a 7day ‘special’ for Cape buffalo, Tuskless Elephant cow, and plainsgame. The agent had sent us a copy of his hunt with the same outfitters, and it all looked very good. 

The hunt lived up its promise and turned out to be a dream trip. It introduced my wife and I to the Zambezi Valley, in Zimbabwe, and some memorable moments, not least, the experience of being charged by a wounded Cape Buffalo Bull, and later helping my wife out of a rather thorny bush that she had dived into, headfirst, a few moments earlier. 

During one of the many conversations by the campfire, I had expressed an interest in coming back for a Buffalo/Lion combination hunt, but had balked at the prohibitive cost of such a hunt. I was told that there was a way around the cost, if I was prepared to travel at short notice, and take advantage of a late cancellation. I registered an immediate interest in this, but thought no more of it.

In August, the following year, I received a call from the outfitters asking if I was interested in a 15 day Lion / Buffalo late cancellation hunt. The deal was too good to pass up. Having accepted the offer, it was then a case of  frantic rearrangements of one’s calendar, to free up the hunt dates that was due to start in three weeks time. I decided on a ‘one rifle’ safari, and chose the 375 H&H mag, Winchester Mod 70, with a combination of  Swift A frame softs and  solids. Then it was a long, second by second wait for the departure date.

The flight to Harare was of little consequence.  I spent most of the time going through shot placement on Lion, courtesy of Kevin Robertson’s  ‘Perfect Shot’.  At Harare airport, we walked the two hundred yards to the local terminal, and transferred to the charter plane. An hour later, we were touching down on what appeared to be no more than a dirt track, by the banks of the Mighty Zambezi. The views of the river, virtually choked with pods of Hippo, and the riverbank littered with crocodile were breathtaking. 

The PH was young, but had developed an enviable reputation as one of the best in the country. During the next 15 days, I was to learn why that reputation was a justifiable one. Over breakfast, we got to know each other, discussed the hunt, and established the type of hunt I was looking for, fair chase in the main. 

We decided the best plan was to move to a fly camp on the river, as there were a lot of buffalo in the area, both herds which attracted the lion, and the odd group of old bachelor bulls. By mid morning we were on the way to the fly camp by boat. A one-hour journey, that doubled up as more of a game-viewing trip than anything else.

After settling into our new home, a tent on the banks of the Zambezi, we sighted in the rifle, and then went in search of a suitable animal for Lion bait. The PH claimed his favourite bait animal was zebra, as lion were particularly partial to them. Inside an hour, and not very long before the famous African sunset, we had crept up on a small herd of zebra on a floodplain, and I dropped an old stallion at 150 yards. Most African hunters I have spoken to frown upon the high shoulder shot, however, I will continue to use it till I learn otherwise.

Early on the first official day of the hunt, the rear half of the zebra was hung up in a fig tree on a steep slope, by a small flood plain. The hide, if the bait was hit, was to be placed about 80 yards away, on the opposite bank. The second half of the bait was hung up on a tree on the banks of a dry riverbed, about 600 yards from its confluence with the Zambezi. Both banks of this river were covered in thick jesse .The baits were covered with branches, and we then walked into the hills looking for spoor of the old daggaboys. 

Within the hour, we had spotted a herd of about 80 buffalo, making their way slowly into the hills. We got down wind of them, and waited for them to walk by. The herd came on, till they were about 40 yards away. The only decent bull would probably have gone 43”, but he was a youngster and was soft on top. A wise old cow in the herd spotted us in the bushes, and she alarmed the herd, which turned tail and ran away in the opposite direction.

We walked back towards camp, along a riverbed, and walking around a bend, we were confronted by a family herd of elephant, about fifteen strong, and led by a grizzled old matriarch. The game scout took off into the bush, and waited for us there. The herd gently ambled their way towards us, and made for some extraordinary pictures. Even though the wind was in our favour, we got the impression that they were aware of our presence. We made a discreet exit from the scene when they got to about 80 yards.

Back at camp, it was drinks by the campfire, and an excellent dinner. That night we were entertained by the haunting call of a hyena, which was echoed by another on the opposite side of the river, in Zambia. They spoke to each other for over an hour. Early next morning, on inspection, we found the bait in the floodplain had been hit, so we spent a while building a hide on the opposite bank and the rest of the day looking, unsuccessfully, for fresh buffalo spoor. 

We were in the hide by 4pm, and within an hour, an old lioness materialised out of nowhere, and started to feed on the bait. She was the only visitor to the bait, and as the sun began to drop, we made a discreet exit from the hide, and left the area. 

We managed to get some good video footage of the old girl.

At sunrise, we were on the Zambezi, and on glassing the bait on the river, noticed a couple of branches missing. We walked up to the bait, and found that it had quite clearly been hit.  A couple of decent length mane hairs on the bait, had us building a hide on the opposite bank, within a Jesse bush. As the distance from the hide to the bait was about  120 yards. A trip to the range was called for where I sighted in for the 120-yard shot.

We were in the hide by 4pm, and did not wait long before a lioness in her prime appeared and sat under the bait tree. She stayed there, panting with the heat and flicking her tail for about half an hour, and then got up and walked straight to the front of our hide. 

She stopped when she was about 20 yards away, then walked around the side of the hide, and disappeared behind us, much to the discomfort of the wife who was sitting at the back of the hide.

I was reassuring the wife, when the PH nudged me and whispered - ‘There is a very shootable male under the bait tree, take him when you are ready”. The light was fading, but was good enough to enable me to make out a big male lion sat under the bait tree doing a very good impersonation of one of the lions at Trafalgar Square. He was quartering on to me, and at my shot, fired into his left shoulder towards his right hip, he somersaulted backwards, several feet in the air, ran sideways, fell over, got up, and staggered towards a bush on the riverbank. 

I was ready to fire the second shot but was told it was hit hard and not to bother. 

The lion crashed sideways into the bush and disappeared from view.  Within moments, literally, the sun had set, and it was very dark indeed. We made our way along the middle of the riverbed, towards the Zambezi, where the PH radioed for camp staff to join us with relevant lighting equipment. The fly camp was no more than half a mile away, by boat.
 
 

Half a dozen camp staff, three of them equipped with million candlepower lamps, a game scout and another PH joined us, and we walked towards the bait tree. The lamps lit the area up like daylight, and I was astonished to see three lionesses and another male, milling about under the tree.

On our approach, a lioness charged to about 30 yards from us, and the rest of them gave a pretty intimidating display of mock charging, snarling and growling.  We were under strict instructions not to shoot to kill unless told to do so by the PH. It took a lot of shots being fired in the air, screaming and shouting by the camp staff, and stone throwing before the pride left the scene.

On approaching the bush, a tracker got on all fours and looked in, and to my utter delight, said the lion was dead. I looked in and saw him close up, about eight feet away, the front of his mane covered in blood. 

The lion was dragged out by the tail to where I stood staring at him in total awe of the sheer size and beauty of the beast.  Eight of us half carried half dragged him in the hessian sacking we had used for the blind along the fine white sand of the river bed to the edge of the Zambezi, where after numerous photographs, he was loaded into a boat and taken to the fly camp. He was ‘in the salt’ before midnight.

The lion measured 10’ 2” in length, and was estimated by people in the know, to be well in excess of 500lbs in weight.

The next day was spent tiger fishing and chilling out on the Zambezi. Watching the sun set over the Zambezi, is a moment that remains etched in one’s memory.
 
 

On the day after, we were up at the crack of dawn, and after a long walk into the hills behind the fly camp, we picked up the spoor of a couple of old boys at a spring. From the freshness of the dung, it was clear that they had only recently been there.

We tracked the bulls for about a mile or so, the two trackers, who took turns taking up the spoor, never once lost the spoor. We tracked on through some light jesse and a couple of ditches, then, as we crept over the rise of a hill, we saw them, standing about 40 yards away. The lead bull was the bigger of the two, and presented a perfect side on shot, which I took.

 At the shot, the old Bull hunched up and ran a few yards, with an odd ‘rocking horse’ action, his tail in the air, with his bosses actually butting the ground. He then stopped and stood still, I noticed his right leg was broken, and he was struggling to breathe. There was no need for a back up shot, as he gently keeled over and stopped moving. The second bull was long gone. 
 
 

After a couple of minutes we walked up to the old boy, and after stabbing the end of the barrel in his eye a couple of times, and establishing he was dead, we relaxed, and admired a very fine looking trophy.

I had just enough time to shoot a hyena off the buffalo carcass, which we used as bait.
A bit more fishing for Tiger, and we were on our way back home, full of memories and plans for the next trip.