As E-Mail Extra subscribers already know, Rohwer was following up a buffalo a client shot broadside at 25 meters with a .505 Gibbs. After three hours of tracking, Rohwer found the animal in a dry stream bed where it charged him, and he shot it again. At the time, he thought he had shot high due to the animal stepping down from solid ground to sand at the same moment he fired. But a later examination of the skull showed he shot the animal perfectly between the eyes at the bottom of the boss. Somehow the bullet missed the brainpan by a breath, allowing the animal to continue its charge.
Rohwer says the buffalo hit him in the chest and then threw him up, goring him in the back of his thigh before flinging him through the air. He says he has a dim memory of lying face down in the riverbed and seeing the buffalo a ways off preparing to attack again. Thankfully, his tracker, Issa, shot the buffalo at that point with the client's rifle, and the animal ran off another 400 yards before dying.
Rohwer says he will fully investigate what went wrong with his perfect shot and will be writing about it in the various publications to which he contributes. In the meantime, he tells us he has acquired the services of a South African PH named Klynhans to conduct his safaris. Rohwer assures his clients that Klynhans is as preoccupied with honorable and ethical hunting as he is, and that they will be in good hands.........(continued)
