My all time favorite! I have chased all 4 species and taken multiples of each except Cape Eland. LDE is my favorite!
"I have hunted the Livingstone’s eland twice: once with my father and once by myself in Zimbabwe. One was in a conservancy in 1999 and the other in Chirisa in '90. It is my absolute favorite hunt, and its meat is my favorite as well. Incredibly difficult to hunt, with no comparison to other antelopes, kudu included. A true ghost. It sees us like a mouflon, winds you like an elephant, and hears you like a red stag.
The first time, shot by my father in Chirisa with a .375 Winchester Model 70 African using a 300-grain KS bullet (a bit too soft) from behind. It bolted wounded, but I managed to lean out from a hill and place two 285-grain solids right into its shoulder while it was running, using my open-sighted Beretta O/U express rifle in 9.3x74R... It then stopped behind a bush, already dead on its feet, and I finished it off from 10 meters away. I was well-trained back then...
The second one, which I hunted alone in a conservancy, I shot on the second-to-last day after exhausting tracking sessions that had almost made me lose hope. I hit it at 250 meters with the same rifle, but this time using a 293-grain TUG bullet behind the shoulder. It staggered, and I fired another one, again behind the shoulder. At that point, it bolted, but after 20 meters, it was already down. Seeing us approach, it got back up, leaving a pool of blood, and after another 30 to 40 meters, it stopped again, leaning against a rock. It took off again at a trot, but it was too late to continue the pursuit, which we resumed early the next morning, finding it dead after two hundred meters. One of the most beautiful hunts I've ever experienced, right up there with elephant and buffalo. A truly special animal.
An acquaintance of mine had the luck of hunting the Lord Derby eland 47 times. To him, it was the number one of all the trophies he had ever hunted around the world!"
