Hunt Report: Elephant with Buzz Charlton, late-season Maitengwe, Zimbabwe

I just got back from my first elephant safari, and what a great hunt it was!

We hunted in the Maitengwe concession on the Botswana border. According to Buzz, this has been a very unusual year weather-wise, with a heavy early rain in May and another unseasonal rain in early September. Buzz called these conditions "unprecedented," and continually remarked on the fact that we were seeing leafed-out vegetation in areas that "should be all dry branches without a single green leaf" at this time of year. I don't know if it's an El Niño effect or what, but the upshot has been a huge reduction in the movement of elephant bulls in the entire NW part of Zimbabwe this season. CMS has had a couple of failed elephant hunts, and basically every hunt has been a struggle, seeing 10-20 bulls for a hunt that would traditionally look at 300 bulls.

This was my first elephant hunt, and had been booked two years in advance. But you hunt in the conditions you have, and do your best with the cards you're dealt!

We "rolled tires" along the roads at the main Maitengwe Camp for a couple of days, looking for tracks to follow. The movement patterns were just not there, and Buzz was very concerned because the previous hunter who had just completed his 15 day hunt had gone home without a bull. I met the gentleman in camp and he was a great guy who had enjoyed his time there but sadly was not able to find his bull.

After a couple of days without finding good tracks to follow, Buzz made the call to relocate to a fly camp, about 3 hours south but in the same Maitengwe concession.

This is an area with more villagers and cows and people, and Buzz warned me it's also much more thorny. He advised me to wear long pants and gloves; that turned out to be great advice.

The fly camp was at an old abandoned farm stead; you could see it was once someone's dream property, set at the edge of a lake with beautiful sunsets and swallows on the lake.

The homestead had the roof and windows missing and Buzz had nicknamed it The Alamo.

We pitched our tents in the old rooms, open to the sky, and set up a bar and a dining table in front of the old brick fireplace that had a beautiful wall mural with elephants, chipped and fading.

We caught some catfish from the lake, and enjoyed cigars and G&T sundowners in the coolest fly camp imaginable.

Don't stop now!!

It was such a cool atmosphere that we took the opportunity to take some good photos with our guns; desperados making our last stand at The Alamo!

That is a epic fly camp

Look forward to the rest. Like the pics. Just need a big knife and a coon hat with a few sombreros waving in the background

Marc Newton and the @RIGBY crew had been in the same camp on the previous hunt with Buzz and Marc had earned the respect of all by wearing a proper Scottish kilt through the vicious thorns in the southern region fly camp. Buzz said he figured that Marc would wear it for the first day and then abandon it, but Marc soldiered on with the kilt every day. Buzz said his legs took the punishment, but he wouldn't let them have the satisfaction of changing to long pants, LOL.

Marc shot a very nice bull that was estimated at 65# but had a larger nerve and had weighed in at 59# for the final weigh-in.

I was shooting with my newly delivered Westley Richards 470NE, so we joked that we had to beat the Rigby crew, and a friendly rivalry was born.

The Rigby guys had only had a shower bag hanging from a tree, and a roll of toilet paper and a shovel for latrine facilities... but by the time I arrived the awesome Maitengwe crew had arranged a proper stand-up shower and a throne. So of course Buzz messaged Marc that once they knew they had a Westley Richards coming into camp, they had arranged the "Westley Richards Package" with upgraded facilities, LOL.

We took a photo of Buzz sitting on the fly camp throne with the WR double and he sent it to Marc and I sent to Trigger at WR, and the rivalry was on!

I had a case of whatever the Zimbabwe version of "Montezuma's Revenge" would be called when we arrived at fly camp, and this was before they had the new latrine throne set up, so I had the TP and the shovel arrangement for the first night in camp. Traveler's malady; I'm sure some of you have experienced this before but it was no fun, that's for sure! Buzz had some Imodium and I tried to keep up with my hydration with electrolytes and pushed on.

The next day we found good tracks but never caught up to the herd. At least there was more movement in the area, and we were encouraged. After practicing my "bush dump" skills (Dude Wipes are a good thing to have in your safari bag...) several times that day, the Imodium started to kick in and I was feeling better.

On the following night I was awakened at 1am by the sound of a donkey sounding off down by the other side of the lake, and then heard branches breaking...

At breakfast Buzz said he had heard elephants drinking by the lake at the same time (that must have been what the donkey was complaining about) and we found their tracks by the lake, including a nice big 23" track with lots of wear and deep cracks. And the hunt was on.

We split up, with Nyati in one Cruiser, and me with Buzz and Criton and Eddie in the other one, driving the roads and trying to pin down which block they were in to save walking and have a chance to catch the herd. After we narrowed it down to a particular large block, we loaded up and started following the tracks. It was the densest thorn brambles I have ever seen; the long straight acacia thorns and the little green-leafed wait-a-bit thorns (vicious little fishhook arrangement) at literally every step. I can tell you, that country is PUNISHING.

It was about 105F and the thorns were unrelenting. Buzz tore his pants leg, and of course then it just started catching more and more thorns until eventually his pants leg was just hanging, and Criton (one of his lead trackers) had to cut it off. We cautioned him to be very careful what he was cutting down there, and Buzz carried on with one long trouser leg and one short!

towserthemouser said:

Marc Newton and the @RIGBY crew had been in the same camp on the previous hunt with Buzz and Marc had earned the respect of all by wearing a proper Scottish kilt through the vicious thorns in the southern region fly camp. Buzz said he figured that Marc would wear it for the first day and then abandon it, but Marc soldiered on with the kilt every day. Buzz said his legs took the punishment, but he wouldn't let them have the satisfaction of changing to long pants, LOL.

Marc shot a very nice bull that was estimated at 65# but had a larger nerve and had weighed in at 59# for the final weigh-in.

I was shooting with my newly delivered Westley Richards 470NE, so we joked that we had to beat the Rigby crew, and a friendly rivalry was born.

The Rigby guys had only had a shower bag hanging from a tree, and a roll of toilet paper and a shovel for latrine facilities... but by the time I arrived the awesome Maitengwe crew had arranged a proper stand-up shower and a throne. So of course Buzz messaged Marc that once they knew they had a Westley Richards coming into camp, they had arranged the "Westley Richards Package" with upgraded facilities, LOL.

We took a photo of Buzz sitting on the fly camp throne with the WR double and he sent it to Marc and I sent to Trigger at WR, and the rivalry was on!

Click to expand...

As a plumbing contractor I'm quite impressed with the facilities. Looks like something right off the showroom floor. Hahaha

After about 10km, we finally caught up to the herd of about 15 bulls. We scrambled up on some rocks to glass them, and quickly noticed one bull that had a noticeably larger body, standing 2-3' taller at the shoulder. He had very widely splayed tusks, something Buzz said he had only seen one other time. His tusks were obviously very thick, but the splaying made them appear a bit fore-shortened in the binos and tough to judge. The bull moved off to the left, so we climbed down and moved left to get another look at him.

At this point another, different bull must have sensed us, because all of a sudden he flared his ears, raised his trunk, and started shuffling directly towards us with a very intimidating body language.

Buzz said, "Back off, back off, back off!"

I had the local scout and the government game scout in front of me, and they had nowhere to go in the thorns and couldn't move very quickly. And I could feel a very firm hand in my back and very fervent voice in my ear, saying, "Move, move, move!"

When I looked back over my shoulder, the bull was about 15 yards behind us and coming fast. Fortunately he relented at the last second and we didn't have to shoot him...

We decided to have a rest in what shade we could find, which amounted to a dried-out tree trunk in a sea of thorn bushes. We hydrated and ate a stale bacon sandwich and rested for half an hour to let the herd settle down after the challenge we'd had from that other bull.

After a bit of rest we resumed the track, and caught up to the herd again after only half an hour or so.

They were standing under a big chestnut tree; that tree and a small baobab were the only trees around.

And there was our thick, wide-splayed bull again, standing in deep shadow right next to the trunk of the tree.

Buzz said, "I think we really have to consider this bull carefully. It's a tough year with not much movement, and he's nice and thick. I know it's only Day 4, but to be honest, he is a nice bull and we might regret it later if we don't see anything better."

As a first-time elephant hunter, and knowing that Buzz is one of the best at this game, I just said, "I trust you to make the call, whatever you think."

Buzz said, "Let's take him."

He and I worked our way forward; we managed to get to within about 35 yards but didn't have the cover to get any closer.

Our bull was offering a quartering frontal shot, leaning up against the tree trunk in deep shadow.

Buzz offered some advice about the quartering shot angle, and I drew the bead and touched it off. The bull moved his head to the side just as I shot, and the shot was a hair further left than I would have preferred. He threw his head up and buckled his hindquarters at the shot and we all thought he was going down. But then he struggled back up and I gave him the second barrel. The shot went behind the shoulder, but in full disclosure I was just shooting at "gray" at that point and cannot claim precision aiming, LOL. Buzz had no shot initially because a smaller bull stepped in front, but he was able to get another shot in after the other bull cleared, and then the whole herd thundered off.

We reloaded and just about that time we heard him fall with a thud, and we found him down about 35 yards away.

When we walked up, Buzz and the trackers all got kind of quiet, and Buzz said, "I guess the splayed tusks were throwing us off a bit, but I can't believe we ever hesitated for even a moment; this is a great bull! The tusks were very thick, and carried their weight well forward, with lots of nice staining and blunt tips. They were very symmetrical and evenly matched, and smooth and beautiful to see and touch. To be honest, I think I was still in a state of shock at the sheer size of the animal on the ground. I had seen elephants before on a photo safari in Kenya, but seeing them from an elevated position in a Land Cruiser is a whole different experience... when you walk up to them on foot they're about three times bigger!