by Jackson Engel
I walked in circles around the fallen old warrior for several minutes, studying the scars and characteristics that told the 14- year story of a rugged life lived in the furtherest shag of Mozambique’s northern Zambezi Delta. From the prominent snare marks encircling his neck and right hindfoot, to the smallest tick bites, each blemish in the bull’s weathered skin offered a glimpse into what he had endured since the day he was born, long ago when I was just eleven years old. As much as I wanted to know every episode of his feral life, imagination and speculation would be as close as I could get. The now-forgotten details of the battle that had once been so forceful as to snap his left horn in half will forever remain a mystery.
As I rubbed my hand across the polished bosses, my fingertips interpreting every crack and crevice, the gravity of having just hunted an old bull of this caliber began to sink into my still-shaking hands. It was the culmination of a life-long dream. I thought back to my childhood and imagined what my little-boyself would have thought about kneeling next to a bull of this quality as tears began to well up in my eyes. I think little Jackson would be proud. Very proud.
This particular hunt had started several days earlier, but the journey had actually begun over twenty years ago when I first accompanied my parents on a safari. Later, as my hunting interests continued to grow, I remember watching African hunting films with my dad and hearing stories about his buffalo hunting adventures, all of which inspired me to become a dangerous game hunter myself one day. I will never forget the most moving film of them all – In the Blood – the one that truly awakened my desire to hunt buffalo more than any other. This epic story of a then modern safari in the mid 1980s, which harkened back to the days of President Theodore Roosevelt’s historic 1909 safari in East Africa, planted a hot coal in my hunter’s heart, the embers of which have never been extinguished.
Growing up in Africa as I did made fulfilling that dream somewhat easier. I had lived vicariously by accompanying friends and family on numerous dangerous game safaris and spent several years apprenticing on buffalo, hippo and croc hunts under a wellknown professional hunter in Namibia – the land where I was raised and which will forever be my home. I had collected quite a bit of experience on dangerous game, but the fact that I had never been the one to pull the trigger on a buffalo always left a nagging void in my hunter’s soul. Finally, after more than two decades of hunting all over southern Africa, my chance to fill that void had come to fruition.
In August of 2024, I embarked on a journey to Mahimba, my family’s newly acquired hunting area in Mozambique. I was filled with a tangible anticipation that I hadn’t felt on previous safaris. Everything about this hunt was going to be special from start to finish. I would be sharing camp with my good friend Everett Headley, led by my “big brother”, PH Kyne Edwards, and filmed by his younger brother Kolby who, like Kyne, I count as a brother of my own. Most importantly, I would have my dad and favorite hunting buddy by my side. I couldn’t have picked a better group to surround me during this momentous experience.
The first week of this safari had been filled with adventures of its own. Everett and I both harvested huge crocodiles on the beautiful Mucarau River which runs along Mahimba’s northern border. The hunt for Everett’s Cape buffalo was an adrenaline-packed adventure in its own right, with some too-close-for-comfort moments that ended with a magnificent bull being dispatched in the thickest stuff one could imagine.
On day nine of the safari, I awoke to the pitter-patter of rain on my bungalow’s corrugated roof. As I lay there in the early morning darkness, a grin began to form across my face and a knot of excitement churned in my stomach. Today would be another day “on buffalo” and the rain would be good for cutting fresh tracks. Carefully slipping out from under the mosquito net, my legs and back screamed in aching defiance from the hard miles of buffalo tracking in the previous day’s oppressive heat, and from the backbreaking work of hauling countless pounds of Everett’s buffalo carcass through the thick mud and matted riverine vegetation the day before that.
At the breakfast table, Kyne paused from his chewing and turned towards me. “Just think, Jack, your bull is somewhere out there right now. He’s walking around with that swagger that only old bulls have and he’s been out there for years, doing that very same thing every day. I have a feeling that this might be his last one though.” I chuckled at his optimism and something inside of me agreed that this might very well be our day. Sipping my coffee, I sat there pondering the image that Kyne had painted. I envisioned my dream bull – old beyond the telling with polished bosses and a hairless face, slowly moving through the grass somewhere out there not too far from where I now sat. Little did I know then that the buffalo manifesting itself within my imagination would be the bull that I would end up shooting.
With a light drizzle of rain still falling, we loaded up the Cruiser and set off to find fresh tracks. Standing on the back of the Toyota as we weaved our way through a wetted landscape, I told our head tracker, Joào, that I had a feeling today was going to be a “buffalo day”. He gave me a cheeky grin while gesturing to an imaginary watch on his wrist and saying, “8 o’clock” repeatedly. True to his word, it was 07:55 when we cut the first spoor and Joào jumped off the vehicle to investigate. The track was from a lone dagga boy – exactly what I wanted – but signs of rain on top of the tracks were a clear indicator that it wasn’t fresh enough to follow.
We continued onward to find another lone dagga boy track an hour later. Although slightly fresher and normally worth following, the bull’s tracks were headed in the direction of a massive thicket that our team was all too familiar with. A day earlier, we had spent several gruelling hours tracking a large herd into the same thick jungle. Twice, we had a hundred or more buffaloes a mere twenty yards away and never even saw a glimpse of them. Our only knowledge of their presence had been the telltale bovine stench, their intermittent bellowing, and finally the thunderous roar of a spooked herd crashing through the nearby brush. To find a lone bull in that same thicket would be nearly impossible. That said, we gave it a go and followed the track for nearly two hours only to confirm that this bull had indeed retreated into the hellish rat’s nest. With a familiar sting of disappointment, we turned around and headed back to the waiting Cruiser.
As midday approached, most tracks from the early hours of the morning were beginning to grow stale, so we decided to change tactics and drive a long, tedious loop to a large treeless area that we had dubbed “Buffalo Pan”. This open stretch of land had a few small pools of water and mud that buffalo frequented, along with some supple new-growth grass resulting from burns that our team had conducted earlier in the season. Despite these favourable conditions, finding buffalo in the open during the middle of the day is a rare occurrence, so we went in with relatively low expectations.
A first glance of the pan from a distance yielded a lifeless scene, but the northwestern corner was hidden by a small row of Lala and Borassus palms and required a closer look. We approached slowly, straining our eyes to see through the thick palm leaves and hoping to uncover what the other side might hold. Suddenly, the flash of a flitting oxpecker, followed by the swishing of dark tails, broke the visual silence. “Buffalo!” I croaked in a hushed tone.
Sure enough, a herd of fifty-some buffalo were grazing two hundred yards away. Although it was not the lone dagga boy or bachelor group that I had hoped for, we knew that the old bulls often filter in and out of the larger herds this time of year, so there was still a chance that one of the old boys could be mixed up between the cows and young bulls.
With a complete lack of cover, unfavourable wind, and the herd methodically moving away from us, a frantic stalk ensued. Ash and dust filled my lungs and coated my eyes as we leopard-crawled on hands and knees like madmen across the fire-scorched pan. The black earth burned my hands and radiated the already intense heat that was beating down on us from above. The floodgates of adrenaline began to unleash and course through my body. My stomach felt unsettled, and yet I remember thinking that this was one of the greatest stalks of my life.
A short wall of reeds in front of us was now the only thing that separated us from the buffalo. Every thirty yards or so, Kyne would stop to poke his head up and see where the herd was, then continue crawling at breakneck speed. When we finally reached the reeds, Kyne set up the shooting sticks and we slowly rose into position. Instead of a single bull standing perfectly in front of me as I had so often envisioned, I faced a chaotic sea of black bodies.
The large, undulating black blob of buffaloes looked like one monotonous shape, punctuated here or there by a bull’s head that would suddenly appear above the backs of the cows. Each time Kyne and I would call it out to one another only to be met with the disappointment of a soft-bossed bull. Minutes went by and nausea started to set in as my eyes strained through the scope, panning left and right, hoping to catch a glimpse of something shootable I had not yet seen. I lifted my head and began scanning the herd with my naked eye instead. In my mind, it was the final act before admitting defeat.
I slowly took inventory of every single bull I could see, panning from left to right. I had nearly reached the far end of the herd when the black sea of beasts parted to create a gap that serendipitously framed a single buffalo, lingering behind the chaos of the large herd. The ghostly figure stood silhouetted in a thick cloud of dust, its silvery face and polished horn bosses glinting in a midday mirage. I immediately knew I was looking at my bull. “There’s an ancient old dagga boy at the back of the herd! A definite shooter”, I said excitedly. By the time I described where the bull was, the sea of animals had swallowed him up again and he had vanished before Kyne could locate him. I kept my crosshairs locked onto the spot, desperately waiting for another gap to appear, with the memory of a white, balding face and what had looked to be a broken horn replaying in my mind.
Finally, a weathered, hairless rump appeared behind some cows. Without even seeing the head, I knew it was him. Kyne had seen the same, and we waited in nervous anticipation for the cow in front of him to move. My thumb was applying pressure to the safety, waiting for Kyne to call the shot. The cow eventually took a step forward and I had an open view of the bull standing broadside. “That’s a freaking awesome bull, Jack – take him on the shoulder”, Kyne said. Without hesitation, I steadied the crosshairs as best I could and focused on the sensation of my lungs exhaling. The shot broke the silence, followed by the meaty thwaap of the bullet penetrating the buffalo’s muscular shoulder. The herd erupted and the bull immediately disappeared in the ensuing cloud of dust, but I knew that he was finished. Several seconds later, lingering far to the back of the now departing herd, my bull stumbled in the ash. Two quick insurance shots ended the battle, and the grand old brigadier fell to his final resting place. A hand on my back and the familiar sound of my dad’s voice saying, “You just shot your first buffalo, Jackson”, was all I remember hearing after that, followed by a storm of back slaps and heartfelt bear hugs.
Minutes later, we walked up to the fallen buffalo. What lay before me was truly mind-blowing. From a traditional trophy perspective, the bull was below mediocre and would not stand a chance in any record book, even if he still had two full horns. Yet, the old warrior was more than I ever could have hoped for and exactly what I had dreamt of. His polished bosses reflected the clear Mozambique sky, and the remaining half of his broken left horn was worn into a rounded stump. The gray, grizzled face told the story of a long, well-lived life in what is now one of my favourite places in all of Africa. I then noticed the scar on his ankle from an old snare wound, and another on his throat. It was sobering and angering, as it was a visible reminder of the war on poaching in our area, but it also added to the bull’s story of survival. My dad and Kyne were in just as much awe of the bull’s grandeur, with Kyne calling me the “luckiest bugger alive”. Dad and Kyne encouraged me to sit in quiet reflection before we started the long process of capturing photos and skinning the bull.
As I sat next to the wizened old nyati, my hand gently stroking its side, I waxed into a state of reverent contemplation. To many, the ethos of hunting older animals is merely a means to justify the conservation benefits of hunting. While conservation will always be at the core of my desire to hunt older animals, there is also an intangible reward that cannot be so easily explained. I believe that old things have a spirit which can be felt by the person holding it, just like old rifles or antique furniture have. Yes, the wear-and-tear and unique visible characteristics tell a more substantive story than something of lesser years, but there is also a more subtle story within those items that is beyond what merely meets the eye. Hunting an old buffalo like this one is no different for me. His battle scars and aged appearance tell dozens of stories, but the untold stories of a long-lived spirit create a lasting soberness that weighs heavily on the discerning hunter.
After my time of reflection, we carried on with the other rituals so common to a hunt of this nature: the seemingly endless photos, the countless retelling of the story, and then the preservation of the trophy and the butchering of the great animal. Having already fetched the Cruiser from where it was last parked hours ago, Kyne turned the key only to hear a silent, but deafening click. The battery was flat, and the ground made it impossible to push-start the vehicle. We were now stuck in the middle of nowhere and faced a long wait for help to arrive from camp – a perfect finale to an already unforgettable saga. As the sun began its relentless slide over the western horizon, a fire was lit, and we were hungry.
Dusk turned quickly into darkness, and I sat listening to the crackling of the fire under a star-filled sky, looking at my bull’s horns glistening in the flickering light of the flames. The smell of fresh buffalo meat cooking over the open fire evoked my deepest instincts as a hunter. Roughly 175 years earlier, the great Scottish explorer David Livingstone had trekked through what is now Mahimba and at some point likely found himself in a similar setting under the same timeless stars. A day like this has a feeling that one cannot bottle up. It can only be felt by living it, then living it again over and over in our memories. I am eternally grateful to that old dagga boy for beckoning me to this special patch of earth, and for inviting me into one of the greatest adventures a man can experience.
From the 2026 issue of Huntinamibia
We were kneeling in the hot sand. It was early April, yet the sun was burning down on us mercilessly. Poldi was sitting behind me. It was his second visit to Namibia and therefore he now knew that in Africa, too, the scorching heat and biting flies do come to
From the rural reaches of Namibia’s expansive wilderness to the often monotonous moments spent collating data at a cluttered desk, Richard Freyer’s work rarely follows a routine. As a Control Warden with the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism (MEFT), Freyer is part of a team tasked with maintaining one
I walked in circles around the fallen old warrior for several minutes, studying the scars and characteristics that told the 14- year story of a rugged life lived in the furtherest shag of Mozambique’s northern Zambezi Delta. From the prominent snare marks encircling his neck and right hindfoot, to the
