ZIMBABWE: Elephant On Fire

Dear Vaughan, and Gary, thank you for everything!

Special thanks to Bill, Jurgen and Troy, for mentoring me along the way, and tolerating my annoying questions!

Without all of you, this hunt would not have happened!

THE RIFLE. WHICH ONE TO USE_

I was looking for a hunt, trying to get an offer book a schedule from some of the sponsors here, but the offer wasnt materializing despite my efforts.
But luck played its role!

Euroepan summer came, and by know deep in African hunting season, and without anything in hand I already thought I will need to postopone my hopes for next year. Then, Bill sent me the message to contact Vaughan for his special offer for this year.

And as the messages started being exchanged, the hunt came suddenly as a realisitc option, and I had 3 months to prepare, with one off shore working shift in between.
That meant two months to prep.

Getting prescribed medicines, travel insurance, booking the tickets, endless number of small things to check, and of course to keep in shape with some rifle training.

I decided with great sadness to travell to Zim, without my rifle, and rental double rifle was the option.

This created my biggest pre travel concern.
There was a double rifle waiting for me in camp.

About double rifles I had no knowledge at all and had absoultue zero experience, thus zero DR skill. But that double was 416, and under the old adage, of using enough gun, I was almost certain I will use that one.
Because the next one available was bolt action in 375. And my querry was very big.

Ele.

While everything was gradually falling into place before departure, I trained at home whenever I could.

Shooting from stick, and trying to find the double rifle, to see what is that philospohy all about.
At home, I borrowed my friends Dražen’s Russian double rifle in 30-06 and tried shooting it. Standing position, both with shooting sticks and without. And of course, training for fast reloading technique
I liked the two-trigger arrangement, but I was clumsy when it came to reloading.
The Russian rifle had no ejectors and had some kind of spring pushing the barrels slightly upward, so I had to improvise by pressing the barrel against a table while reloading.
And all in all, when it came to reloading in the field, at this point, based on available russian sample the double rifle simply did not feel natural to me.

Besides the double rifle familiarisation, I regularly finished my normal sporting practice sessions at the shooting range by firing 10–15-20 rounds of .30-06 FMJ, followed by another five to ten shots from the sticks with my .375 H&H buffalo rifle, practising various field positions.

So, on the day of travel, that was the plan I took with me to Zimbabwe to use the largest gun available in camp, having no idea how I will handle recoil.

Thus everybody who knows something about the recoil, and flinching, is aware now of my greatest concern.

So, I boarded the plane intending to hunt elephant with the Merkel double rifle in .416 Rigby—provided, of course, that the rifle will accept me.
The backup plan was that, if the double rifle really did not suit me because of either the recoil or the way it had to be reloaded, I would switch to a scoped Winchester Model 70 in .375 H&H which was next option.
Bolt action is most preferable, but yet somehow the .375 H&H still seemed a little too light for the task at hand
That, once again, gave priority to the Merkel.

And so I kept going around in circles in my own thoughts switching and balancing in my mind between 416 DR and Winchester in 375, while Emirates’ Airbus carried me from Zagreb, via Dubai, to Harare.

But fate had other plans.
Neither of those two I will use

I arrived, and Vaughan met me at the airport, and as we drove away, naturally, we started talking about rifles, which was my prime concern.
Then, in the car, he told me that the Winchester was not available because it was currently being held by the police for routine registration.

Surprise, surprise!
Damn...., I thought...
Before I had even finished my next thought, he added:
“The Winchester isn’t available, but I have another rifle in camp—a bolt-action in .416 Rigby!”

He had simply forgotten to mention it before I arrived. But being proffesional as he is, he prepared a back up option.

In fact, when the Winchester got stuck in the registration process, he had prepared another .416 Rigby bolt action as a backup rifle.

Okay.
Although that sounded reassuring, as we drove along I was still undecided about what I was going to use.

The choice was now .416 Rigby or .416 Rigby, and the unavoidable question of recoil remained—except now I no longer had any alternative.

We arrived at camp, and the moment I saw the rifle, I fell in love with it.

It was a Dakota rifle, built on a magnum-length action, chambered in .416 Rigby. Controlled-round feed, a Mauser 98 system—the quintessential African dangerous-game rifle. Four rounds in the magazine and a fifth in the chamber, if needed.
It had everything a proper safari rifle was supposed to have: a low-power, wide-angle scope, a black fore-end, iron sights, a Dakota safety, and a crisp, light trigger.
It was a rifle that screamed “Safari” and practically begged me to pick it up.
It looked like a Holland & Holland to me!

We went to the shooting range—which, in this case, was a tree in the forest beside a forest road.

We zeroed and tested:
- Brno Model 1 in .22 LR,
- Blaser R8 in .30-06,
- Dakota in .416 Rigby,
and the Merkel double rifle in .416 Rigby with a red-dot sight.

Vaughan also checked his ZKK 602 in .500 Jeffery, fitted with iron sights.

I picked up the Dakota first.

It had a pleasant, substantial weight and a robust, heavy stock that helped absorb the recoil. In terms of felt recoil, it was comparable to my own .375 H&H.
The groups fired with both softs and solids were almost touching on the target. My first shot with a solid, from this unfamiliar Dakota, with the rifle positioned slightly wrong on my shoulder, knocked a little wind out of me—but there was no bruise and no other discomfort. For the second shot, I seated the rifle properly into my shoulder, and fired without any discomfort at all.

At that point, I definitely ruled out the double rifle.

I thought to myself: I have spent my whole life shooting bolt-action rifles, and competing with bolt-action rifles.

I am not going to start learning how to handle a double rifle on an elephant!

And here I had a Dakota in .416 Rigby available, with perfectly manageable recoil, with solids and softs touching each other at target.
For me, it was an easy choice.

THE SAFARI BEGINS

When I landed in Harare, Vaughan was there to meet me on arrival. Because of the traffic, we spent the night in the city.

We left the city at four o’clock the following morning.

On the way to the Maninga consevrancy, mostly along dirt roads and poorly maintained surfaces, we did not see a single wild animal.

The countryside seemed completely devoid of wildlife.

During the several-hour drive, we passed large tobacco and barley or maize fields.

Occasionally, a Chinese motorcycle would go by, or we would come across a cow or a goat on the road. Together with the fine dust hanging in the air, it all made for a monotonous landscape.

Zimbabwe. Doma area. Maninga Conservancy is located in the north of the country, near Lower Zambezi National Park and downstream from Lake Kariba, the largest man-made lake in the world by volume of water, fed by the mighty Zambezi River.

The hunting area is a 40,000-hectare conservancy formed from former farms. (if I remember the acreage correctly, so please do not hold me for my word)

These farms were nationalised by President Robert Mugabe after the Rhodesian Bush War, taken from their then owners and handed over to new owners. The farmhouses were abandoned, have fallen into disrepair, and were never inhabited again.

Following Mugabe’s land reform, agriculture and the agricultural economy never truly recovered, and the country entered a period of economic collapse. The new farm owners later joined their properties together to form a hunting conservancy, creating one large, jointly managed private hunting area operated under concession.

The conservancy lies close to both Mana Pools and Lower Zambezi National Parks.
Zimbabwe’s national parks are largely situated in the more remote border regions of the country, while hunting safari areas serve as something of a buffer zone, helping to manage the conflict between wildlife and the human population in the densely populated rural interior of the country.

The hunting area of Maninga is hilly and mountainous, cut through by dry riverbeds and covered with open miombo woodland.

Some parts of the area are inaccessible even by four-wheel-drive vehicle.

Vaughan is PH, The camp manager is his father, Gary.

Gary knows everything. Electricity, mechanics, vehicle mechanics, welding, hunting, shooting, firearms. A former warrior, a former policeman, and a former farmer. And for me, during my stay, a wonderful companion on the fire pit, and history teacher.

Gary, thank you so much for your time and kindness!

My conversations with Gary around the fire at night made it difficult to go to bed. He is a window into another world—the Africa of another era. With Gary, I would sit around the campfire and talk deep into the night, long after everyone else had gone to sleep.

Vaughan is the head PH—and the only professional hunter in the operation.

There were seven staff members in camp, plus thirteen game scouts stationed in their own field camps throughout the hunting area.
Including Vaughan and Gary, that makes a total of twenty-two people. The game scouts are new; some of them come from the local village.

When hunting elephant, lion, or leopard, having a Zimbabwe park ranger present is a legal requirement.
Our official Zim Parks ranger carried his AK-47 with one magazine.

Behind him, in the back of the vehicle, were four of our trackers. That made a hunting party of seven people.

On the rear rack in the cargo area of the Toyota were my rifles—Blaser in .30-06 and the Dakota in .416. Behind our seats was Vaughan’s ZKK 602 in .500 Jeffery, while in front of me, beside the lowered windscreen, was the Brno Model 1 in .22 LR.

I strapped my backpack to the rear rack, containing my everyday field gear. Behind us were several coolers filled with water, beer, soft drinks, and ice.

And, of course, we had our faithful companions with us—the dogs. Two Jack Russell females, and Trigger, a cross between an English hound and something else.

Dingela, jack russel girl and me, took immediate liking of each other

The Toyota was a 1976 Land Cruiser.

So that was the place where I had just arrived.

And that same morning, after we had finished sighting in the rifles, we headed out to hunt.

According to the beliefs of the Shona people of Zimbabwe, the safari begins when the first game is taken for the cooking pot. Before that, nothing else should be shot, because doing so would bring bad luck to the safari.
That is the common knowledge, I heard.

So, at the beginning of the safari, you do not shoot baboons, jackals, or hyenas.

During the morning, I passed up shots at baboons twice because of this.
But if that is what the Shona people say, then that is how we did it too—when in Rome, do as the Romans do.

The baboons also seemed calmer to me than those in Namibia. They were less likely to run away.
On the first morning of the hunt, I passed up the baboons, hunted guinea fowl, and spent the morning driving around and checking tracks along the forest roads. The morning went by quickly.

The afternoon hunt after lunch dragged on lazily, without us seeing anything worth mentioning, and I was already beginning to think that my main job was going to be collecting small game for the camp staff with the rimfire.


The vehicle stopped.

— What is it?
— Duiker! A good one!

A duiker is one of the ten dwarf antelope species—the Tiny Ten—and this one was supposed to become my second, after the steenbok I had taken in 2022.

— What do I do now? What shall I do? Gimme the .30-06!
— No! Shoot with the .22!

Plink! (the 22 „roared“)
There was no sound of a hit!

But we weren’t sure.
We let the dogs loose and jumped out of the vehicle.
I was carrying the .22.

The dogs picked up his scent and took off after him!
But there was no blood.

I was carrying the .22, while the Zimbabwe Parks ranger was lugging his AK-47.

Nobody was carrying anything else, not even shooting sticks.
We spread out through the bush, watching what the dogs were doing and searching for even a single drop of blood.

No duiker. No blood anywhere!
We stopped above a canyon formed by a dry riverbed.

Suddenly, the PH froze.

- “Bushbuck!”
- “Where?”
- “There!”

The bushbuck was standing on the opposite bank of the dry riverbed, partially hidden behind a branch.

He had frozen completely and was staring straight at us.

The dogs were racing through the bush after the duiker, barking. They had not picked up the bushbuck’s scent, and the echo of their barking was reverberating through the trees.

The bushbuck just stood there, frozen, staring at us.
I ranged him: 68 metres.

What now?
I didn’t have a rifle!

Damn the .22! The bushbuck was at least 40–50 kilos. About the size of a fallow deer. I needed something more powerful!

He didn’t move. Neither did we.
Five of us stood completely frozen.
Minutes passed in mexican stand off!

The dogs were still barking somewhere in the bush, the whole forest echoing with their voices. The bushbuck didn’t move, and we all stood there frozen in place.

And I didn’t have a rifle!
What a situation!

Little by little, the dogs gave up on the duiker and came back to us.

The scouts grabbed them firmly by the neck. I thought they were going to strangle them just to stop them barking.

Meanwhile, we were still having a Mexican standoff with the bushbuck.

He didn’t move.
We didn’t move.

We all stared at each other.
Nobody moved.

The PH quietly said something in the Shona language, then added:
“Thirty-ought-six!”

Tracker Michael stood up and quietly hurried back toward the vehicle.

Now we waited.
Minutes passed.

I had the feeling that the rifle was on the other side of the world rather than sitting in the vehicle.

Michael just wouldn’t arrive.
The bushbuck moved deeper into the thicket, but he wasn’t running. I could still see him, but there was no clear shooting lane because of the branches. He slowly retreated farther into the bush.
One step.

Then he stopped.

Finally, the rifle arrived.

But without the shooting sticks.
Now I got ready to shoot.

The bushbuck took another two steps deeper into the thicket.

We repositioned ourselves.

I had him in the scope, but now the branches were blocking him.

I took a sitting position, trying to shoot off the PH’s shoulder.
Again, I couldn’t see him.
Covered by the bush.

I moved two metres to the left and braced myself against a tree.
Still couldn’t see him.

I moved four metres to the right.

The PH was now standing, and I braced the rifle against his shoulder.

The bushbuck was slowly moving uphill through the bush.
I put the crosshairs on the middle of him.

Bang!
The Blaser’s recoil was comfortable, and the trigger broke cleanly.

He dropped on the spot.
We ran towards him.

He was trying to get back up!
“Don’t use the Blaser,” Vaughan said. “You’ll ruin the hide!”

He handed me over the .22.

He had been carrying the .22 behind us while I carried the Blaser.
“Okay, let’s swap rifles.”
The dogs were now on the bushbuck. I felt more comfortable knowing they had him pinned down.
He was trying to stab them with his horns, but he couldn’t get back on his feet.

He was a fighter.
When the dogs moved slightly away, I fired three shots with the .22.

Thump, thump, thump...

Into the grass.
Hit.

The Leupold scope was a little hazy in the thick bush.
Two .22 rounds behind the shoulder, one in the neck.

And bushbuck in the salt!

“Everything happens for a reason!” Vaughan said. “That duiker led us straight to the bushbuck!”

Bushbuck!

My third spiral-horned species! The first two were eland and kudu from previous safaris.

We then headed back to camp with our first game for the cooking pot.

The sun had already set by the time we arrived. The fire was burning in the fire pit, and dinner was served quickly.

And tomorrow—tomorrow, everything was on the table. Baboons included, if the opportunity arose.
The Shona tradition had been honoured!

The first day of hunting had promised a lot.

NEW CLIENT HUNTING ELEPHANT

The location of the hunting area deep in the wilderness, lone hunter in camp with PH, the remote logistics, the large number of people working in camp, and the game scouts spread throughout the area create a very distinctive environment. Different. This is my 5th safari, but second hunt in the wild. Previous year, I was in the Caprivi Strip in Namibia.

Zimbabwe is different again from Caprivi—rougher, wilder.

There is no way of knowing in advance what will await for me. While looking for recommendations, I had several in depth references from my forementioned friends but still everything was new.

The hunting area is hilly and mountainous, cut through by dry channels of rivers and streams that swell during the rainy season. The habitat is predominantly miombo woodland.

Miombo woodland could be compared to a young oak forest back home, where the relatively open spacing between the trees can provide visibility of up to 100 or even 150 metres. It is not an overly dense forest. For shooting, visibility is generally quite adequate.

The part of the hunting area surrounding the camp has three large dams, created by artificial embankments and replenished during the rainy season. There are also boreholes drilled for pumping water, dating back to around 1970, which look like were never actually put into use. They were originally intended to support a new irrigation system.


Then, in the 1970s, the Bush War began. The farmers were mobilised into military units, and the development of the farms took second place.

Several ruined farm buildings remain scattered throughout the hunting area. Today, they stand abandoned, or in some cases serve as camps for the game scouts. One of the dams is home to a crocodile.

Water is the key to keeping wildlife in an open, unfenced hunting area.

On one side of the hunting area there is a scattered village inhabited by locals. Mud or brick huts with thatched roofs and survive through cattle keeping, some small-scale agriculture, and poaching for bushmeat is unfortunately present.

Vaughans team had collected several hundred wires and snares around the hunting area

Considering the main nature of hunting in this camp—which, typically for Zimbabwe, is focused on dangerous game—the camp does not cater to large “hunting groups.” Only one hunter is booked per hunting at the time, with the option of bringing a second hunter, but if they come and there are two clients, Vaughan has to bring in another hunting guide—a second PH. Dangerous game is always hunted on a 1:1 basis, meaning one hunter and one PH.

In other words, twenty-two people in and around the camp provide the full logistical support for a single client.

The camp has solar power, running water pumped from a borehole and supplied by gravity from a storage tank on the hill, as well as Starlink and Wi-Fi for communication.

The client tents, as well as the owner's tent, are built on concrete foundations, with a roughly one-metre-high wall around the base and then a proper canvas tent above it.

The camp staff sleep in camping tents around the camp. The game scouts have three separate base camps positioned at different ends of the hunting area, allowing them to control poaching as best they can.

The camp has a separate kitchen, a dedicated skin-salting area, and, about 100 metres outside the camp, a skinning area with a chain hoist for lifting and skinning game.

At the centre of the camp is a comfortable mess room and dining area, with a dining table, a coffee table, and a few armchairs, all under a thatched roof.

Laundry is done by hand. Cecilia, the camp maid, makes the bed and collects the clothes from the laundry basket. By ten in the morning, the clothes are washed, ironed, and returned.


Hot water for the showers is provided by wood-fired boilers—large water containers with a firebox underneath, connected by pipes to the shower in the tent. The fires under the boilers are lit at around five in the morning and again at five in the afternoon.

The cook follows a well-established routine. Before dawn, coffee is brewed in two pots and left warm over the embers in the fire pit, ready when we wake up. Breakfast is served in the mess room at 6:30 a.m., and we leave for the hunt at 7:00.

Lunch is at noon. The daily break lasts until 3:00 p.m., and then we head out hunting again.

We return to camp from the afternoon hunt after sunset, and dinner is usually served between 7:00 and 8:00 p.m.

After that, we gather around the campfire, discussing the plans for the following day, going over the events of the day, and listening to Gary's history lessons.

Vaughan always turns in early. Then Gary and I stay by the fire deep into the night, listening to the jackals—or to baboons panicking when a leopard is hunting nearby—and to the calls of birds in the darkness.

The day passes quickly.

STRATEGY: SPOTTING AND TRACKING

In the morning, we went to check the dams and waterholes. At the second dam, we found elephant tracks.

The tracks were from eight o’clock the previous evening—about twelve hours old.

An elephant can walk at around 8 km/h. That gives an elephant a theoretical radius of 100 kilometres in twelve hours.

Now all we had to do was find an elephant with a twelve-hour head start.

A piece of cake.

The thing is, during the morning an elephant will stop to browse, feeding on leaves and breaking young trees. Around midday, it will usually look for shade and rest. So although its theoretical radius may be 100 kilometres, in reality it could still be very close.

There are no rules.

But you do need luck.

We sent three trackers and the ranger onto the tracks. Vaughan, one tracker, and I took the vehicle and drove along the local bush roads, trying to see where the elephants had crossed a track or road, or to spot them from the hill. Then we would use the radio to direct the scouts in the general direction. Most likely it is most effective effective way, on hilly terrain crossed with river beds, bushes dry creeks and tall grass.

It was a group of several elephants, and two or three of the tracks looked promising in terms of size.

That was how we carried out our own kind of triangulation.

Yet still, I looked at this as a not so simple endevour. The tracking was going to take a while. They say that, on average, you have to walk one mile for every pound of ivory.

Anything less than that would be a bonus for me!

The heat was already building, and I was starting to sweat. I wondered how it is here in November?

THE TRACK

A cow can weigh around three tonnes, while a bull can reach up to seven tonnes. The large tracks belonged to a bull.

The front footprint is more rounded, while the rear footprint is more elongated and elliptical. When tracking elephants, the length of a promising rear track should be roughly one and a half times the length of a human foot.

Two of the tracks looked particularly good and promising.

Vaughan told me early that morning that, with a little luck, we might catch up with them by midday. Then the question would be what kind of tusks the bull had—and whether he was worth taking.

A large, physically impressive bull does not necessarily mean good tusks, nor does it necessarily mean that he is of the right age.

Once again, luck would have a role to play.

An elephant can live for up to around sixty years in the wild. By about the age of forty, it begins to move beyond its prime reproductive years.

During its lifetime, an elephant goes through six sets of molars—its grinding teeth—one set after another in each jaw. When the sixth and final set erupts, there are no more replacements. Once those last molars wear out, the animal eventually dies of starvation, usually at around sixty years of age.

According to Vaughan, tusks weighing more than 22 pounds are what we look for. Tusks continue growing throughout an elephant’s life. The poaching epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s had a serious impact on elephant populations and their genetics, and truly large tuskers became increasingly rare. However, poaching has declined over the past decades, and the generation of elephants born after the 1990s—now reaching maturity—appears to be showing signs of improvement, at least in some areas.

And that morning, in a hunting area covering 40,000 hectares, Vaughan told me:
“We’ll catch up with them by midday.”

A small group of elephants, with a twelve-hour head start, somewhere in a hilly, forested hunting area with limited visibility and constantly changing wind—and we were going to catch up with them by noon?

I had my doubts. But I was deteremined to follow suit

Smoke had been stinging my eyes all morning. Bushfires were burning all around us. I had never experienced this on my previous safaris. There had been fires in Caprivi too, but they were mostly localised.

I was still getting used to everything and local conditions new to me.

Quite often, we drove through blackened ground that was still smoking from a fire that had passed through the area the previous day. By the time I got back to camp, I smelled like a smoked ham.
At first, I assumed it was simply dry grass catching fire—somewhere, somehow, a spark starting a blaze.

Maybe that was true in some cases.
But many of these fires were deliberately started by people.

The local village survives partly through poaching for food. They do not have firearms. Instead, they hunt game in two main ways: with wire snares placed along game trails and approaches to water, and by deliberately burning sections of the bush.

The grass and undergrowth burn away while most of the larger trees remain standing. Then, at night, they go out with dogs and flashlights.

In the open woodland, stripped of its lower vegetation and blackened by fire, they illuminate animals with their lights. The animals freeze in fear under the lights and in front of the dogs, and are then killed with spears and clubs.

This is how many non-hunting areas in Zimbabwe, and elsewhere in Africa, have been depleted of wildlife.

Game survives mainly in hunting concessions, protected by privately funded game scouts employed by safari operators, or in national parks protected by government rangers.

The fight against poaching is a policy of both carrot and stick.
The carrot is that the hunting area is now starting a programme of donating meat from animals taken by hunters to the local community, reducing the need for subsistence poaching.

The stick is the game-scout service, which has enforcement powers. They are authorised to apprehend, while poachers face prosecution.

Vaughan is now looking to upgrade on anti poaching equipment for night patrols. The camp has only just started operating, and this is its first season. Everything is still new, and the entire outfit is still being equipped and developed.

The village has an established tradition of poaching that needs to be brought under control, while Vaughan must also build a working relationship with the local community.

That was the situation I had arrived in.

Through the smoke, and across occasional stretches of burnt ground, we continued following the elephant tracks, while I grew increasingly tense, wondering how all of this was going to turn out.
While the trackers were busy working the elephant tracks and we were separated from them, I tried to stalk a zebra.

Without success.

We returned to the vehicle and continued along the dusty road to the next point the trackers had radioed to us, where we would check for a possible place where the elephants had crossed.

Everything happens for a reason.

Just like with the duiker that led me to the bushbuck! If I had shot the zebra, we would have spent the rest of the morning recovering it, and the elephant hunt would have been lost for the day.

We had been tracking them all morning, apart from that interruption and the unsuccessful attempt at the zebra.

Finally!


The trackers located a relatively small area where the elephants had to be.

They guided us in.

We got out of the vehicle and followed slowly, and the tracking began to heat up. All seven of us regrouped on a dusty road, left the vehicle behind, and set off on foot.

Vaughan was first in line, carrying my shooting sticks. I followed him, carrying the .416, with our scouts and the park ranger behind us.

While we still had the opportunity to do so beside the vehicle, I checked the rifle and put the safety on.

It did not take long before we came within roughly 200–300 metres of a group of ten elephants. They were on the opposite hillside, with a dry streambed below us and between us.

Hilly terrain, cut through by the dry riverbed. Open miombo woodland, with occasional patches of tall grass reaching three metres in height.

Ten elephants, all bulls, across on opposite hill.

We had a good view of them from the opposite hillside.

This was what is known as a “bachelor herd.”

True elephant herds are family groups with a matriarchal hierarchy, led by the oldest female. The herd consists of other females, aunts, and young elephants and calves. Mature bulls leave the family herd and form their own loose “male herds,” without the same close social structure.

These are the bachelor herds.

When the breeding season comes, during what is known as musth, the bulls approach females and compete with one another for mating rights. Under the influence of the hormones associated with musth, they can become nervous and highly aggressive.

We moved slowly after them. In places, the grass was so tall that we would lose sight of them temporarily, only to see them again a moment later.

We crossed the dry streambed separating us from them and continued uphill, eventually moving into the final stalk.

As we got closer, they continued browsing on young leaves and slowly moving away from us, one step at a time.

That meant that, essentially, we were looking at nothing but their backs, leaving us only the option of what is known as a “Texas Heart Shot”—in other words, no shot at all. With browsing stopover, then moving to next tree, they still kept remarkable pace of movement

On this terrain, every step taken by an elephant meant roughly ten steps for us.

They were giving us no opportunity for a shot, but Vaughan had singled out the best bull and kept his eye on him continuously.

The bull drew attention to himself.

At one point, two younger bulls moved in close beside him, apparently crowding or annoying him while he calmly browsed his tree. He suddenly reacted and, with two movements of his head and a loud rumble, pushed the two younger bulls aside.

They immediately backed off and gave him room.

His tusks were considerably larger than those of the others, and they looked especially impressive in the reflection of the sunlight—symmetrical, evenly shaped, and beautifully curved.

We marked him as our bull.

It was almost as if I had designed the tusks by myself!

The shooting sticks were raised several times, but every time they would turn away and continue moving.

Still no opportunity for a shot.

The tension was building around us.

The sparse trees provided little shade as the sun climbed to its zenith, and the elephants were looking for shade themselves. So they continued browsing and moving, never really stopping, while we followed them.

The wind was blowing directly into our faces—which was a very good thing.

At one point, the bull with the greatest body mass and the best tusks—the one we had been keeping under constant visual observation—turned broadside.

His left side was facing us.

Vaughan said, “Shoot!”

I had him in the sights, fully exposed from the side. At that moment, in an open patch with no tall grass, I had two options—a shot into the heart and lungs, or a side brain shot.

I chose the brain.

I found the opening of his ear, imagined a diagonal line from there toward the eye, and placed the crosshairs in the middle of that imaginary diagonal line.

In fact, while I was preparing for u hunt analizing the shot placement, this definition was never desrcibed (halfway bewteen ear hole and eye), it just came out, and flashed through my mind, being right or wrong, not sure but I followed that idea.

I exhaled, steadied the sights, and fired!

Because of the rifle’s recoil, I did not see the effect of the shot.

But my PH took off towards the elephant like at full speed!

From his body language, I immediately sensed that the elephant had been hit and had gone down.

A PH’s reaction when dealing with wounded big game is completely different. It usually starts with a string of expletives, and courses.

Before I could properly process what had happened, I had lost a moment.
I recovered quickly, and then I ran after him, chambering the next round, and switching the safety on.

I ran as fast as I could, jumping over rocks and bushes, using my hand and rifle to push aside clumps of tall grass.

The thought flashed through my mind: If he has gone down, please, God, just don't let him stand up.

Oh God—Hubert, Diana, all the saints—help me now! I just need few more moments to make a securing shot!

But—not so fast, even with the best of my wishful thinking!

Now the earth erupted!

After a few steps, the tall grass on the uneven ground, on the downhill slope toward us, suddenly opened as if it had exploded.

The remaining nine elephants, packed tightly together, pushing sideways against one another in close formation, suddenly charged straight at us.

Forty metres! Or less!

At the beginning, before the hunt, Vaughan had told me that if we were ever charged, I was not to shoot unless he fired first or told me to shoot.

He had his .500 Jeffery in his hands, but he was not aiming.

The Zimbabwe Parks ranger was with us, in his official capacity—to confirm the circumstances should a genuine self-defence situation arise.

For three months I had been thinking about elephants and wondering how this hunt would unfold. They are impressive creatures that command both respect and fear.

Craig Boddington wrote in his book Elephant: “The hunt for elephant, and the final approach to an elephant, can be a frightening experience, especially for the less experienced hunter.”

That thought—and that image—had been in my mind for the entire three months.

How would I react when I finally found myself face-to-face with a giant? Damn it, I read too much!

When I saw elephants in the Caprivi last year, I knew my legs had gone weak beneath me.

But as soon as we actually started hunting on that first day, the fear disappeared and my composure returned.

I cannot explain it.

But nine elephants charging towards us at close range should have been terrifying. While Boddington mentions „approach“ experience for inexperienced hunter, I wonder what he would say about a herd stampedo meters away?

But there was no time for fear.

I only remember thinking that I really did not need this stampede right now, especially with the elephant I had just shot lying only metres in front of me, which badly needed an isnurance shot!

My improvised, split-second plan was this:

The moment the PH fired, I would fire too.

I would have time for only one shot—at the nearest elephant, or at whichever one he chose—and then I would throw myself into the first hole or depression in the uneven ground, hoping the stampede would pass over me.

Elephants have poor eyesight. Perhaps they would not notice me if I crawled into one of the depressions in the uneven terrain, or under some rock...

Vaughan raised both arms into the air, rifle in hand, and began shouting. The elephants became confused, turned around, and fled in the opposite direction.



They passed through the open ground at a distance of only about 20 metres or less from us before turning away. As they turned, they pushed and jostled against one another, their tails held high, and disappeared into a cloud of dust.

Vaughan kept running, and I followed him!

We approached my elephant. He was down, lying motionless on his left side.

I put another shot into his spine.

For me, at that moment, the safari was complete. This was what I had come for. Every remaining day in the field would now be something I would accept as a gift—a bonus experience, deeply grateful to
God and to pure luck for the privilege of that moment.

What had I done to deserve it?
Somehow, I felt very small, and very humble under the stars.

We stayed with the elephant for a while, discussing the details, while the PH gave instructions to mobilise the recovery and butchering team. He called the camp on the radio and began issuing instructions to Gary, while our scouts gathered around me, hugging me and shaking my hand.

The team’s celebration cut through the dust that was still settling around us.

When everything had calmed down, the traditional tail-cutting ceremony followed.

Vaughan congratulated me with a few appropriate words:

“In the hundred-year-old tradition that dates back to Frederick Courteney Selous, ivory hunters cut the tail of an elephant to establish their claim to the animal. In the old days, rifles were black-powder weapons and considerably less powerful, and wounded elephants could travel a long way before dying. If someone found such an elephant with its tail intact, they had the right to claim the ivory. But an elephant with its tail cut meant that it belonged to someone already. Marko, congratulations on your first elephant! Now, please cut the tail and confirm your claim to the elephant.”

The ceremony was soon completed.

The next part of the tradition would be to ask the camp’s head skinner with complicated name, whom I called Johnny, to make me bracelets from the hair of the elephant’s tail as soon as I saw him back at camp.

However, I still did not fully understand what I had just accomplished. I only realised it later, back at camp.

We returned to camp for lunch and gathered the whole team—scouts, trackers, skinners, everyone. We took three Toyotas, one of them with a trailer.

I was the first to finish lunch and sat down in a corner at a small table in the dining room, checking my messages. The PH came to lunch with his father, and they sat down at the table. They did not say much.

Vaughan raised his head, looked his father Gary in the eye, and said:

- “Dad, we had a side brain shot, at 100 metres!”

The old man put down his fork and knife.

- “Uh!”

After lunch, I asked him what that was about.

Vaughan told me that in twenty years he had never had a client who had taken a side brain shot on an elephant at 100 metres.

He had probably expected me to go for the heart and lungs.

But that was only the first part.

The rest of the day was no less dramatic.

We returned to the place to begin the hardest part of the job—the recovery and processing of the elephant and field dressing.

The terrain was rocky and mountainous, with a riverbed to cross and miombo woodland that had to be cleared.

The camp team had to cut a path with machetes and axes so that we could get the vehicles to the elephant.

We advanced slowly.

Very slowly.

We needed to clear about 700 metres of road in a straight line—or roughly a kilometre through the bush, following the contours of the terrain to make the passage easier.

It took quite some time. Finally, we reached the elephant.

We took a few more photographs, and then the second vehicle, with Gary, radioed us:

“Bushfire, coming in our direction! Close!”

Smoke had been rising around us every day and often irritating my eyes, so, still caught up in the emotion and adrenaline, I had not even noticed that the smoke was becoming increasingly dense.

Now the thick smoke was clearly visible from where we stood. The wind was blowing and carrying the fire towards us.

What now?

The PH said:

“We need to clear the grass around us and burn a firebreak before the main fire reaches us, otherwise it could burn the vehicle and the elephant.”

“How much time do we have?”

He said:

“Maybe twenty minutes before the fire gets here.”

By now I could see flames beneath the smoke. The fire was obviously approaching fast.

We cleared an area, perhaps 15–20 metres in radius, around the elephant and the vehicle.

The second Land Cruiser was at a safe distance on the main road, with the old man and his team.

Then we started the fire.

At one point, all of us found ourselves with one vehicle, one elephant, and fifteen members of the team, surrounded by a ring of fire roughly 50 metres in diameter, which was continuing to spread outward from us.

Our fire was spreading slowly towards the main fire, moving against the wind, but downwind it travelled rapidly.

Dry grass burns like gunpowder!

Within an hour, the situation had calmed down. Smoke was still everywhere, and the surrounding area was scorched and blackened.

I was smoked like a ham!


But we were safe, and the danger from the fire was moving away from us.



The second vehicle arrived with Gary and his team, and we continued processing the elephant until late, after sunset. About three-quarters of the work was completed, and we left the rest for the morning.

Temperatures dropped at night to just above freezing and into the low teens Celsius, so the meat would not spoil.


The trunk will go to the village chief.

The meat will be distributed among the camp, the local village, the authorities, and a local orphanage.

The hunter—that is, me—cut the tail and will have a bracelet made from the elephant’s tail hair. Or rather, I will ask Johnny to make it for me.

The tail will go into a stew for the PH, Gary, and me.

Elephant cheeks are the most tender part of the meat and are traditionally used to make kebabs or skewers. Normally, they are prepared on the spot while the meat is being butchered and distributed among the entire team. But this time we took them back to camp, because night caught us deep in the work, and the fire had also taken up a significant amount of our time. We were running late.

The elephant went down at 11 a.m., a little earlier than Vaughan had predicted at eight that morning.

Our initial estimate put his age at 48 years, but we would know more precisely once we examined his remaining molars later.

THE DAY AFTER — A CHARITY MISSION

The hunting area had only started operating under Vaughan this year.

It needed to become integrated into the local community, so that the local population would have a direct interest in the hunting area and poaching could be reduced. If people receive meat, there is one less reason for them to poach for food.

The meat was distributed to:

- the local village,

- the authorities,

- the village chief,

- the orphanage,

and some was kept for biltong at our camp.

One Toyota, with Gary, went back to finish butchering the elephant. The other two vehicles went to deliver meat to the village and the orphanage.

I went with Vaughan to the orphanage.

To distribute the meat to the kids.

This was the first meat donation from this hunting camp to the orphanage, and after the distribution, an agreement was reached with the orphanage management for future cooperation.

There were several children playing with a ball in the courtyard. The building was in considerably better condition than the local average, and the kitchen maintained a high standard of hygiene.

The orphanage’s educational programme focuses on agriculture, so next to the main building there was a beautiful green garden of several thousand square metres, growing vegetables.

The orphanage has 65 children. The youngest is just four months old.

The oldest group, consisting of about 15 children as I was told, is being trained to become agricultural engineers.

If one adult serving is 200 grams of meat, then our first donation of 200 kilograms represents 1,000 meals for the children.

And once the hunting operation becomes fully established and regular meat deliveries begin, the orphanage will no longer have to spend its limited funds on meat. Those resources can then be redirected toward other needs.

We had a meeting with the orphanage management to discuss the details and future meat donations. They are planning to produce a report about the donation and the role of the hunting area within the local community.

There are far more people in the village, so a larger share of the meat goes there.



The visit ended with handshakes, a group photograph, and an agreement to continue working together in the future.

One hour there, one hour back by truck, and the morning passed quickly.

By the time we returned to camp, it was already lunchtime.

After lunch, during the afternoon hunt, there were no major adventures. We did, however, pick up some francolins, guinea fowl, and green pigeons along the way for an evening snack back at camp.

MONKEY BUSINESS

The second morning, we headed out to check the waterholes for tracks. The goal was a sable to take home, or a zebra to use as bait for leopard.

There was already an elephant, a bushbuck, and a village donkey on the bait. But, as they say, zebra is the best bait for leopard.

I had swapped the buffalo from my package for a leopard, and now I needed bait. So, I needed a zebra.

As we drove around, Vaughan and I had a little competition going. If a bird was on the left, I shot; if it was on the right, he shot. We were hunting for snacks and keeping score—francolins, guinea fowl, and green pigeons.

We had collected a few birds that way when the vehicle stopped.

The trackers were waving their hands, whispering and pointing.

“What is it?”

“Baboon! Baboon!”

Aha! The moment had finally arrived!

The bushbuck was down. The Shona belief had been honored, and game that was not destined for the cooking pot was now officially on the list!

This was my fifth safari, and I still didn't have a baboon. On safari number four, I had missed one. Sooner or later, it had to be his turn.

We got out and walked from the vehicle to the first tree.

The shooting sticks went up.

“There he is!”

“Where? I can't see him!”

“The tree there, this one, that branch over there, the one on the left, the dark tree, to the right…”

Okay. Finally I spotted him. He was sitting broadside, half-covered by a fallen branch. He was looking away from us and hadn't noticed us.

In my hands was the Blaser R8 in .30-06.

I was still having doubts about the rifle after the bushbuck. I had hit the bushbuck about a handspan away from my point of aim at 68 metres. He had dropped immediately, but I still had doubts about the shot. I had my explanation—the bushbuck had been moving and may have shifted as I fired—but that little seed of doubt about the Blaser, or the accuracy of the ammunition, remained.

The distance to the baboon was roughly 100 metres. I didn't have time to measure it. I knew I had told Vaughan that if the shot was going to be beyond 100 metres, he should tell me.

The rifle felt steady in my hands.

I let the pill fly.

I was aiming just behind the front leg.

I didn't see whether he went down.

“Is he down?”

“Down! Good old male baboon,” Vaughan said with a smile.

His lower right canine had fallen out. The upper canines were worn down.

Old!

On the way back, we checked the leopard baits—the elephant and the bushbuck.

On our return, we stopped at the site where Gary and the team were installing a new water pump and solar panels. After some time, we all headed back to camp for lunch.

A successful morning.

The baboon was in the salt.

The search for sable was still ongoing. The leopard hunt was heating up.

I still needed that zebra. Apparently, it was the best bait.

This was the day four of the hunt and plenty of days left.

THE TRESSPASSERS

This morning, we were back on our quest for poultry snacks. We collected a few birds during the morning.

The previous evening, alongside the birds, they had prepared a homemade chilli. They sliced the breast fillets from the birds we had shot, and we dipped them into the chilli as an appetiser.

The morning passed uneventfully until lunch.

In the afternoon, we headed out again, continuing our unofficial poultry service along the way while searching for sable and zebra.

We were heading down towards the waterhole where we had first found the elephant tracks.

About 400 metres from the waterhole, through the sparse trees, we suddenly saw them.

And they saw us!

Poachers! Or at least we thought so!

The chase was on.


They bolted instantly!

We raced downhill over the rough, bumpy track towards the dam, trying to block them from the right.

They ran left along the water because they couldn't cross the dam!

Vaughan stopped for a moment and let everyone out of the vehicle—four trackers and a scout.

The Jack Russells and Trigger (dog) took off with the group.

As our men jumped out of the vehicle with the dogs, we continued towards the dam to block their route on the right. While the presumed poachers ran left along the shoreline, our team ran diagonally towards the far left end of the waterhole, while we drove downhill to block the right-hand escape route.

Michael from our team ran like a gazelle!

The others spread out according to who was falling behind, but in doing so they covered the diagonal route, properly spaced out.

The Zimbabwe Parks ranger was running too.

As we charged steeply downhill towards the dam in the Land Cruiser, I had no idea what was going to happen.

I didn't know whether these were just village hunters carrying wire snares, or professional armed poachers who actually carried firearms and shot at wildlife.

Everything was new to me. I didn't know the local customs.

I was running through my options in my head.

There was commotion in the bush. I could see silhouettes running through the sparse branches and the undergrowth.

Aha!

They had caught them.

They were unarmed. No wires.

I commented on the situation to Vaughan. He was remarkably calm, with a smile on his face.

“Shall we go and see?”

“No need, they will bring them and will see the situation,”

Aha. Okay...

PH was calm, so I calmed down too.

I even lit a cigarette.

I waited to see how the situation would develop. It was clear that everything was under control.

Apparently, encounters like this were simply part of the local folklore.

Investigation has shown, without the wire snares, there was no evidence for an official charges to the authorities or a court case for poaching. And two guys caught trespassing were allegedly looking for lost cattle from the village. At least they said so.

Back at camp, Vaughan retired early for the night, while the old man and I stayed up talking deep into the night.

The fire in the fire pit was dying down, so we moved into the messroom. I connected my laptop to the Wi-Fi, and Gary and me watched a safari film on YouTube, “In the Blood“.

Tommorow is new day. Who knows what it will bring?

THE DAY WHEN THE .416 SPOKE AGAIN


Last night, they started three fires.

The game scouts were in action.

They chased the poachers away. They followed their tracks and located the house where the poachers had fled.

While escaping, the poachers changed their shoes in an attempt to confuse the trackers by leaving different footprints.

That was the morning report.

Our morning began by checking the waterholes and picking off the occasional bird for a snack.

We climbed to the highest hill to survey the terrain.


From the highest hill, we could see one of the three new fire sites.

The view down into the valley from the highest hill is breathtaking. In the valley behind me, I had taken my elephant.

Over the Motorola, Vaughan coordinates three game-scout teams from the hill, and then we turn our full attention to the hunt.

On several occasions, we passed close to the fires, and I got thoroughly smoked again.

Smoke was everywhere in the air.

The sable had narrowly slipped away from me a few days earlier. I hadn't mentioned it before, but I had put in some serious mileage tracking them that day.

Along the road, we would occasionally see groups of young sable, females, and younger males. If there was one thing we saw regularly, it was herds of sable, along with smaller groups of three to five plains zebra.

The vehicle stopped.

10 a.m.

Sable! A herd!

In the miombo woodland, precisely where I needed it to be open enough for a shot, it was dense.

Vaughan pointed them out to me.

I could make out perhaps a few black backs, a horn here and there, and the occasional brown body through the thin young trees.

Vaughan had already spotted a mature bull in the background. His horns showed secondary growth, a repeated growth of horn that is a sign of maturity. Essentially, this means that the horn material at the base grows over the old horn, like a sock being pulled over it. Like most antelope, sable are hollow-horned animals.

We quietly got out of the vehicle.

A few days earlier, I had told Vaughan that I would not shoot a zebra—around 400 kg—nor a sable—around 250 kg—with the .30-06. I wanted to use the .416. That was the agreement.

“Use enough gun.”

That is Robert Ruark's philosophy, and I stick to it.

The scout quietly handed me the .416. I checked whether there was a round in the chamber.

There wasn't.

I cycled the action.

I had two soft-points on top, with two solids underneath in the magazine. That was the ammunition arrangement Vaughan had told me to prepare for buffalo.

Vaughan opened my shooting sticks.

Mine are a Jim Shockey Primos tripod that I carry everywhere. They are telescopic, and I can shoot from them kneeling, prone, sitting, or standing. Whenever possible, I shoot from the lowest position I can. I'm more stable that way.

In this case, however, I couldn't kneel.

The herd was slowly moving away, but they were not alarmed. They kept their distance and remained alert. Among the miombo trees, I could barely see them.

They held at about 100 metres.

Vaughan placed the sticks against a tree.

“By the white tree, to the right of the dark tree. He's yours. Shoot.”

“I can't see him. What tree? It's all woodland! Which tree?”

“Over there to the left, a little to the right, underneath that branch…”

I made out a black body—the front half of the sable.

“I've got him! Should I shoot?”

“Wait. I can't see the horn. Let me check the secondary growth!”

Seconds ticked by.

I thought to myself: I can barely see the animal, and he's checking for secondary growth?!

“Good horn,” he said. “The secondary growth is visible. When you can, take him.”

But the sable had moved too.

Now I could see only the tip of the horn, part of the neck, and the front of the shoulder.

90 metres.

I had nothing to wait for.

In another minute, he would be gone.

I aimed at what I could see.

The neck.

I fired!

By now, the rifle felt comfortable in recoil. I had found a good position.

And this time, I saw the effect of the shot through the recoil!

I saw him drop in his tracks!

We ran over to him.

He was still showing signs of life, so I put another shot into the spine.

Done.

Excellent story and well told my friend. I felt like I was along for the adventure!

FISHING DAY

Today was fishing day.

We went fishing. I wanted to try fishing in Africa, an experience that was often a natural part of the classic safaris of the golden age of safari.

I would have loved to try for tigerfish, but the location was simply too far away for that.

So we went after bass and catfish instead.

In the morning, we loaded up the vehicle. Two trackers from the camp came with us, along with Johnny, my skinner.

The dogs came too, as did the fishing equipment that Gary had meticulously prepared the night before.

The first location was an hour’s drive outside the hunting area, at a former tourist safari resort on a small artificial lake.

We passed through a local village and a large area of rural farmland, cultivated by hand and with horse-drawn ploughs, before reaching the old resort on the shore of the artificial lake.


All the water I had seen locally—both here and in the hunting area—was created by artificial dams, built back in the days before the war.

The resort was abandoned after Mugabe’s reforms and nationalisation, and was never resettled. The buildings were slowly deteriorating, with damaged roofs and broken windows, but the overall infrastructure had retained its original African charm.

A few trees in the park had been cut down for firewood for the local village. It was simply closer to carry firewood from there than to cut it in the bush.

“How come nobody moved into the resort after nationalisation?” I asked Gary.



“They believe evil spirits of the white people live in the abandoned buildings. They won't move in.”

We prepared artificial lures and cast our lines along the reeds, retrieving them repeatedly until noon.

Gary and Vaughan had some success, while Trigger (dog) stepped onto a lily pad and fell straight into the water, apparently believing it was solid ground!

Seven months old and already a grown-up puppy.

A few local people from the village were hanging around the resort. We paid them a small amount and borrowed a local plastic boat, but the catch was still modest.

It was time to move on and try our luck for catfish at one of the ponds in the hunting area where we hunted every day.

An hour later, rods baited with game offal were sitting on the bottom of the pond.

I made myself comfortable, leaning back in a camp chair while our trackers enjoyed their day off around the Toyota.

I took off my shoes, sat barefoot, sipped a beer, and waited for the catfish to take.

Gary and Vaughan were doing exactly the same.

Three rods.

At the opposite end of the pond, a crocodile was lazily sunning itself with its mouth wide open, accompanied by several Egyptian geese.

Gary was the only one who got lucky. After two hours, a catfish of around four kilograms finally took his bait.

The fish were not really biting, but after a full day's effort, we managed to bring home four bass from the lake and one catfish during the afternoon.

We gathered up the fish and set off while there was still daylight to check the baits.

A LECTURE IN NATURE SCIENCES:

Along the way, beside a termite mound, there was a lesson in nature science during our daily check of the leopard baits and tracks.

A termite mound has the best natural ventilation system in the world.

The termites build large ventilation shafts.

Deep inside the mound, they bring in grass and leaves, where the material is exposed to moisture rising from underground.

As it decomposes and ferments, it produces warm gases that rise and escape through the ventilation shafts, while fresh air is drawn into the mound.

This creates constant air circulation and helps maintain a stable temperature inside the mound—around 20°C.

The monitor lizard takes advantage of this system. It lays its eggs inside the termite mound, and the termites leave it alone, just as it leaves them alone.

The eggs remain in the warmth of the mound, and when they hatch, the young lizards eventually emerge without disturbing the termites.

THE DAY WHEN THE .22 WHISPERED AND THE .416 ROARED

If I had to define myself as a hunter in Africa, I would say that I am a selective trophy hunter who supports sustainable wildlife management. That also means I am not inclined to take the same species twice without a good reason. I told Vaughan that I would only shoot a kudu or an eland if the horns were among the best that the area could realistically offer. Otherwise, no. I already have both species, and I do not like taking the life of a noble animal unnecessarily when I already have the trophies.

When I arrived, a zebra was not part of my plan. At home, I already have a Hartmann’s mountain zebra, an endemic species from Namibia, and I did not really need another zebra.

However, everyone I spoke to kept telling me: shoot a zebra for leopard bait. Bill, Troy, Jürgen, and Vaughan all said the same thing. According to them, zebra is one of the best baits for leopard because the meat spoils slowly and lasts longer than most other animals.

Hmmmm...

And besides, this was a plains zebra. Not a mountain zebra. They differ in their markings: the plains zebra has stripes extending across the belly, while the mountain zebra has a white belly.

So, although somewhat reluctantly, two days earlier I decided that I would take a zebra if the opportunity presented itself. The leopard needed bait, even though other animals had already been placed on the baits. The leopard was there. The tracks were there. I still had time, and I had exchanged my buffalo tag for a leopard, so the quota was available.


Besides, this was a plains zebra, not a mountain zebra. They differ in their markings: the plains zebra has stripes extending onto the belly, while the mountain zebra has a white belly.

So, although somewhat reluctantly, few days earlier I had decided that I would shoot a zebra if the opportunity presented itself. It was needed for the leopard. Even though baits from other animals had already been set, the leopard was there. The tracks were there. I still had time, and I had swapped my buffalo permit for a leopard permit.

Yesterday, after fishing, we had talked about sitting in a blind near the water until lunchtime, waiting for guineafowl and baboons while discussing other.

So that was what I had prepared for.

Adequatly prepared.

I packed some magazines to read in my backpack. I kept my Crocs slippers on, planning for complete comfort in the blind: barefoot, reading material, and a small cooler bag full of beer on a lazy morning beside the water.

But something told me not to get too comfortable, so I clipped my 5.11 boots to my backpack with a carabiner.

You never know what might be behind the next bush. There might be something unexpected. There might be tracking involved. I honestly cannot remember the last time a hunting day in Africa ended according to plan. Every day brings something unexpected.

We all piled into the vehicle. I found it a little suspicious that all five scouts were coming with us. I did not need that many people just to drop me off at a blind. But anyway, off we went.

I noticed we were driving away from the water.

Vaughan clearly had something else planned.

Aha!

I recognized the road, and we headed toward the first bait to check it. The leopard had been there—but it was a female.

Then we realized it was a different female. We could tell from the camera pictures because she had an injured right leg, and the wound was clearly visible.

We continued until the vehicle stopped.

Buffalo tracks had crossed the road.

I did not even want to think about buffalo. I would have gladly shot one, but I had traded my buffalo permit for the leopard, and I was hunting on a budget with its own merciless limits.

We had not gone more than fifty metres along the road when I spotted a buffalo horn in the tall grass to the left.

“Buffalo!” I whispered to Vaughan.

He stopped.

We backed the vehicle up slightly. He got out with his binoculars, and what else could I do? I followed him.

Fortunately, when I saw that a different scenario might be developing—with all five scouts sitting behind us in the vehicle—I had already changed out of my Crocs and into my 5.11 boots while we were checking the bait. The Crocs had gone into the backpack, so at least I was ready for a walk.

We went after the buffalo without rifles.

Just to observe them.

A little deeper in the bush, we found a herd of perhaps twenty-five to thirty buffalo, standing peacefully about fifty metres from us.

They watched us cautiously while chewing grass.

We observed them. Cows, youngsters, and only one bull.

They tolerated our presence for perhaps ten minutes, and then they moved off at a trot, packed tightly together, pushing against one another as they disappeared into the thicker bush.

We returned to the vehicle and continued.

We checked the remaining baits and kept patrolling through the hunting area.

I was discussing something with Vaughan about those buffalo when suddenly the scouts stopped him.

“Zebra!”

They were whispering so quietly that I could barely hear them.

Vaughan said softly:

“.416!”

I spent most of the time riding in the front passenger seat, while the team sat in the back and handed me whichever rifle was needed. That was how the operation was organized. I did not particularly like having someone hand me a rifle — it cost us time—but that was the system.

Soon, my Dakota was quietly passed into my hands.

I got out.

The zebra was to the right.

Vaughan pointed toward the centre of its chest and whispered:

“In the chest!”

I had nothing to rest the rifle on, and nobody handed me the shooting sticks.

Complete silence.

The audience in the vehicle watched tensely.

I looked for a rest, but there was none. I had no shooting sticks. I could not walk to the nearest tree because the zebra was watching me.

So, for lack of a better option, I knelt beside the front bumper of the Toyota. I placed my left elbow on my left knee and rested the fingers of my left hand against the bumper, giving the rifle at least some soft support.

By the time I got the zebra in my sights, it started moving. It began walking away from us. Now it was broadside, but its shoulder and front leg disappeared behind a tree as it took another step.

The opportunity was slipping away.

I was running short of hunting days, and the leopard was waiting for me. I needed that zebra. I could not leave it for tomorrow.

And there she was, slowly walking downhill, disappearing behind the rise and the tree.

Instinctively, I lifted the crosshairs slightly above the point where her shoulder had been before she passed behind the tree—and squeezed the trigger.

The zebra dropped on the spot!

Vaughan jumped out of the vehicle, and I ran after him toward the zebra.

When we reached her, she was trying to get up but could not. She had managed to move a little after the shot, but the bullet had struck her in the spine.

Vaughan shouted:

“Thirty-ought-six! Thirty-ought-six!”

One of the scouts, Michael, who was already halfway toward us, turned around, ran back to the vehicle, and brought us the Blaser.

With the .30-06, I gave the zebra one more shot behind the shoulder. Then, finally, everything became still.


“Vaughan, have our chances of getting a leopard just gone up?”

“The chances have just jumped from 25 percent to 75 percent that we get a leopard.”


At the moment, we had one male and two female leopards working on one of the baits. The other two baits, which were set near water, had not yet started attracting any leopard activity.

Besides those, we also had two more baits set out for civet and hyena.

We would see whether anything changed by tomorrow.

One of the female leopards had visited the first active bait at around four o’clock in the afternoon.

The afternoon was still young. We carried on, and eventually we approached the waterhole.

From a distance, I spotted some guineafowl, and immediately reached for the .22.

“Guineafowl!” I said to Vaughan.

He replied:

“No! Monkeys!”

And then I saw them too—running through the bush, their long tails swinging behind them as they ran.

Vaughan released the dogs about 200 metres from the monkeys—vervet monkeys.

“Ta-ta!”

“Ta-ta!”

“Ta-ta!”

The dogs obeyed the command and charged after the monkeys. Chaos erupted in the open woodland!

Just when I had started to think that nothing would come of it, the dogs managed to drive one of the monkeys up a tree.

There it was, surrounded by a cluster of five trees, with fresh young leaves near the tops. The trees were relatively tall.

I thought to myself: he has nowhere to go.

By the time we ran up, the dogs were jumping against the tree, trying to climb it. I would not have been surprised if Trigger had actually managed to get up there—he was jumping the highest!

But the vervet monkey suddenly leapt across the canopy onto another tree.

Then onto another one!

Now I was starting to panic. It looked as though even this situation was not as secure as I had thought.

Then he tried to come down. He raced toward the ground, but the dogs were waiting for him and immediately drove him back up into the canopy. He wanted to get down, but he simply could not!

Vaughan told me not to shoot yet.

“Let’s wait and see if the poachers’ dogs come in because of all the barking.”

So we waited for about ten minutes. I was getting nervous, worried that the monkey might escape while I was not allowed to shoot.

But he stayed high in the canopy and jumped from one tree to another. Those five trees, however, were isolated from the rest of the forest, so he was basically going around in circles, looking for an opportunity to race down to the ground and make a run for the bush.

But by then the three dogs had spread out and covered different sectors. There was nowhere he could go.

The poachers’ dogs never appeared.

“Okay, take him!” Vaughan said.

Just as I was about to shoot, he jumped into another tree.

He knew exactly what I was doing!

First shot—nothing. A miss.

Second shot—nothing!

I had left the vehicle with a magazine that was not completely full. Its capacity was ten rounds, and we had probably already fired a few shots at guineafowl earlier.

Whenever the monkey stopped long enough for me to aim, he was high up in the densest part of the tree, covered by leaves and branches. I could see little more than a silhouette through the foliage, more than twenty metres above the ground.

Fourth shot—he flinched, but he did not fall.

Fifth shot from the .22—and he went limp and dropped out of the tree.

The rifle was empty.

Vervet monkey!



This completed my first African “slam.” I now had the complete monkey collection: a vervet monkey and a baboon!

Now I just have to figure out where to put the primates in the permanent display at home. I will have to discuss that with mrs Mark-hunter when she is in a good mood!

We checked one more bait. Nothing had touched it since yesterday, and then we slowly headed back to camp as darkness began to fall.

As soon as we arrived, the skinners got to work. The zebra and the vervet monkey went straight to the skinning area. The zebra would be divided into five pieces for five different baits, set at five separate locations.

Unless I happened to come across something by chance—or encountered a leopard unexpectedly—the hunting was essentially over. I had nothing else planned, apart from a few more days before my flight home.

So far, the safari had already turned out better than I had expected.

The hyenas were hanging around, though, so perhaps I would try for one of them as well.

A night hunt for predators over a call.

Another day had passed.

And tomorrow would be a new day!

A feeling of melancholy was beginning to creep over me. The days were passing far too quickly.

I did not want to think about going home.

DAILY PATROL, BUSINESS AS USUAL!

Over our morning coffee, we discussed the zebra.

Since I had no room for another zebra skin, I gave it to Vaughan for decoration in the camp mess room. I told him to send me some photos once it had been tanned and mounted on the wall at camp.
That afternoon, there was nothing particularly noteworthy.

I had an unsuccessful attempt at an oribi, a small antelope. By the time I raised the rifle, it had already disappeared into the bush.

For the past few days, Vaughan and I had also had an informal competition going—a little challenge. If a bird appeared on the right, he shot. If it appeared on the left, I shot.
In short, today he missed one guineafowl, and I missed another.
So, in the missed-shot department, we were 1–1.

When I arrived back at camp, I saw that they had dug the elephant’s tusks out of the sand that afternoon.

Tomorrow I would have to perform an autopsy of the skull to determine the exact point of impact.

That also told me that I had already been hunting for eight days. They had told me that the head had to remain buried in the sand for seven days.

Since I had ended up with some room in the budget after giving up the buffalo, I upgraded the elephant to a CITES export permit—making the trophy “exportable.”

Before leaving for Africa, I had asked the Croatian Ministry of Environmental Protection what was required to import an elephant trophy into Croatia.

I translated their response into English and gave it to Vaughan so that he could prepare the necessary documentation.

The Ministry stated the following:
The species Loxodonta africana is listed in Annex A to Council Regulation (EC) No. 338/97 and in Appendix I to the CITES Convention, with the exception of the populations from Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe, which are listed in Annex B to the Regulation and in Appendix II to the CITES Convention.

The import of ivory from third countries is strictly regulated at the European Union level. The import of ivory for commercial purposes is prohibited, except in the case of antiques dating from before 1947 and the re-import of pre-Convention specimens that were previously legally imported into the EU.

To obtain a CITES import permit, you must complete the application form attached to this message and submit it together with copies of the CITES export permit, which you must first obtain in Zimbabwe from their competent CITES authority; your passport (the first page and the page showing when you stayed in Zimbabwe, i.e. your visa); your hunting permit; hunting and trophy documentation; and all other documentation and permits that you will receive during the hunt. You should also provide photographs of the tusks showing the engraved identification markings required under the Convention.

The documents can be sent by post to:

Ministry of Environmental Protection and Green Transition
Street
City

Or, more simply, they can be submitted digitally to the following email address: xxxxx @ xxx

On the application form, you must provide your OIB (Personal Identification Number), as well as your contact details in case they will require additional information. No administrative fee is charged.

A CITES import permit for raw ivory or worked ivory specimens may be issued for hunting trophies intended exclusively for personal use, once all required documentation has been submitted and all necessary evidence has been provided—particularly evidence that the specimen will not be used for commercial purposes—and after consultation with the competent scientific authority and confirmation that there are no other detrimental factors affecting the conservation of the species that would preclude the issuance of an import permit.
Please bear in mind that, due to the strict regulatory framework, the procedure may take some time. Before bringing the trophy into the territory of the European Union, you must obtain both the export permit and the import permit.
More detailed information can be found on the European Commission's website under: “Revised Guidance document on EU regime governing intra-EU trade and re-export of ivory.”
Yours sincerely,

End of qoute.

The sunset came, and the darkness invited the fire in firepit.
A calm camp night followed.

CAMP RAIDER!

The real action happened after lunch, during the afternoon siesta.

Vaughan had disappeared into his tent. The scouts were out setting the baits.

Gary, Vaughan’s father, and I had fallen asleep in the armchairs in the mess room after lunch. Two of the dogs were sleeping at my feet. Dingela, the female, had found some shade beneath a tree in the centre of camp.

My head had started to droop as I watched a YouTube film, Safari 1933, by Martin and Osa Johnson—the first documentaries about Africa ever filmed. They were among the pioneering adventurers who made documentary films during the golden age of safari, using the best equipment available at the time.

Suddenly, Dingela sprang to her feet and started barking like a maniac!

She put the entire canine team on alert.

Now there was a commotion and chaos in the first bushes just outside camp!

Gary got up.

So did I.

“What is it?”

Haha!

A vervet monkey had been sneaking around the camp. Apparently, he did this every day after lunch, when everyone was asleep. He would sneak into the kitchen and steal food, and while he was at it, he would drink from the birds’ water dish so he would not have to walk all the way to the waterhole!

That was what Gary told me later.

Late in the morning, the monkey would climb into a tree somewhere and observe the situation. Once everything settled down, he would go into action and start making his rounds through the camp.

Now I was the one who did not know what the rules were.

Were we allowed to shoot inside the camp?

Gary snapped me out of my thoughts.

“I’ll get the .22!”

By the time the rifle arrived, the vervet monkey had started performing Tarzan-style acrobatics with the dogs attacking below him.

He jumped from canopy to canopy!

The dogs chased after him, but to no avail.

He ran along the branches as if they were a paved road.

The dogs went totally crazy.

He crossed the dry streambed on the ground—the same streambed where the buffalo had passed through two nights earlier—then climbed the first tree on the other side while the dogs chased him at full speed, right on his heels!

I raised the rifle.

Fifty metres away, up in the tree!

He knew exactly where the main danger was. He spotted me, raced down the tree, and took off again with the dogs right behind him.

The dogs chased him step for step.

He climbed the next tree, jumped from branch to branch, reached the forest canopy—and disappeared from sight.

We were left without him!

Gary just said:

“Don’t worry. He’ll be back tomorrow for the food and water!”

NEW DAY

Yesterday, a female and a male leopard came to the zebra bait. The zebra is working. Whoever came up with the idea of using zebra for leopard bait was right!

A leopard will carefully observe an area to determine whether the bait is safe.

Determining whether it is safe essentially means defining the boundaries of that “box” or boundary area in which the bait is located.

That “box” may end between two forest tracks or roads, at a road, in a gully, on a rocky slope, or on a hill.

The blind has to be positioned outside this imaginary “box,” so that the leopard does not detect or react to the threat.

Thats what I have learnt, from readinng about spotted cat. Forum, and books

Vaughan and I went over the instructions for shooting a leopard back at camp. If it stands on its hind legs to feed, shoot for the center between the two shoulders. If it stands broadside on the branch, shoot through both shoulders.
Avoid diagonal shots.

And so we sat there in silence, saying nothing, spending hours waiting!

We settled into the blind at three in the afternoon.
The leopard came!

Just as darkness was beginning to fall.

He probably had picked up our scent in the unfavorable wind. Suspiciously, it kept looking toward the blind and circling around the bait.

From our observation point, we could not tell whether it was a male or a female.

He left after a minute.

During that one minute, I had two opportunities to shoot in total just of about 30 seconds:

one at the shoulder, and another chance at the chest while he was facing us.

Vaughan did not confirm the shot. I did not fire.



Back at camp, around the campfire, we worked out a new plan for tomorrow.


NEW PLAN

Backup plan: when he comes onto the bait, we switch on the spotlight and take the shot as soon as his sex can be positively identified, if we cannot determine it through the thermal scope.

The lamp is mounted to a tree, with the battery pack inside the blind, and can simply be switched on. It is not the preferred option, but it is the only possible backup.

Yesterday he scented us. Because of the terrain configuration, the blind cannot be positioned any farther away. It is now 42 meters from the bait.

According to the cameras, half an hour after we left, he came back to the bait. We cold see his testicles clearly on the camera.

Tonight, we have a double trick.

Second part of the plan: the scouts will go in and cover the blind with canvas to reduce our scent.

Third part of the plan:

if he does not come out by ten o’clock, we will call the scouts and have them drive the vehicle up to the blind and make a little noise.

Then they will drive away and leave the area.
We will remain there for another hour or two.

In the cold, scent lingers in the air longer.

If he behaves the way he did tonight, he may come out once the scouts have driven away, and the scent of the scouts lingering in the air might fool him.
That’s the plan.

Two tricks, plus the backup spotlight if we absolutely need it.

The fortunate thing is that my flight is tomorrow evening. If I shoot at night, and we need to search, I can still go in the bush, next morning.

Otherwise, I thought I would not shoot.

FIRST SHOOT, ASK QUESTIONS LATER!

This morning, on the last hunting day, we first checked all the baits. Driving from bait to bait, the vehicle stopped.

We came across a duiker. Roughly 100 meters away by eye.

Vaughan said:

— Shoot!

— .30-06?

— No! .22!

I took the .22. I still have an aversion to the .22, considering what happened on the first day of the hunt when I missed one!

The duiker was standing quartering away on my left rear, meaning diagonally behind me, and I had to turn around and stand up because I couldn't get a proper rest inside the vehicle.

— But that's a female!? I said.

— Shoot! Aim for the head!

The reticle was trembling. I was standing awkwardly and was unstable, but when everything came together, I squeezed the trigger and the Winchester High Velocity .22 LR hit exactly where it needed to.

The duiker performed the classic “Bang — plop!”

All I saw were four legs sticking up in the air!

Vaughan released the dogs and gave the command:

— Ta-ta! Ta-ta! Ta-ta!

Michael took off running, and that man really does run like a gazelle!

As we ran, we naturally sorted ourselves according to running ability: Michael, the dogs, and then me.

When we got there, I took the opportunity to measure the distance back to the vehicle: 72 meters.

All right. I had redeemed myself a little with the .22.

Finally, I asked Vaughan why we had shot it.

— A female?

He said:

— The scouts asked for a duiker for the cooking pot!

And so, my second of the “Tiny Ten,” the ten dwarf antelopes — the duiker — is not coming home with me. It is going into the cooking pot. Not a trophy.



But at least, when I counted everything I have taken so far, across these five safaris, this became my twenty-fifth African species!



THE LAST STAND

The last hunting day. The last night.

In the afternoon, we headed out to the blind. Early — three o’clock in the afternoon.

We prepared the rifle, secured it on two rests, and took the safety off. I spent the time until dark reading a book.

As the sun went down, the temperature dropped in the shade of the covered blind, and I swapped my short sleeves for a warm fleece.

The night was warmer than the previous one and unusually quiet.

My suspicions were starting to grow. No sound of baboons, no birds, no jackals to be heard.

The day before, the baboons had announced the leopard's arrival. We had heard birds and jackals, but tonight there were none of the usual nocturnal sounds coming from the bush.

The animals were silent.

The leopard did not appear by ten o’clock that night.

We called the scouts to come in, keeping in mind the trick we had planned.

But when the scouts arrived with the vehicle, they told us that another fire had started.

Right next to us.

Because we were sitting down in a hollow with very little wind, we had not smelled the smoke.

When we drove up and over the ridge, we could see the fire burning through the bush, only a few hundred meters from the blind.

We had not smelled the smoke because the wind was carrying it in the opposite direction.

I assume the animals had withdrawn because of the fire.

Leopard will have to wait till my next call to Africa.