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Jo and his wife have hunted with me several times and have returned this year to hunt two elephant bulls. After arriving in Victoria falls we made the hour and a half drive into camp. Sighted in Jo's .450 ackly. Then got prepared for the next days hunting.
We would be hunting my Hwange communal land and a new concession called colliery and option. The first day we spent following a big herd of buffalo but being early season the bush was still so thick the buff kept spooking before we Could even get a look at them. We also bumped two ele bulls but both were still young but it was a good start to the Safari. We spent the next two days following various elephant but finding nothing worth shooting.
Day four we got a message from one of the locals to say they had spotted a huge bodied bull in a certain area. We decided to check it out and see what he looked like. We arrived in the area an hour later and began the three mile walk to a spring that the bull had been spotted. Once arriving at the spring we found his tracks everywhere around the spring, it looked like he had been living there for several days. We found his tracks from the previous day and decided to follow from there as we could see he wasn't moving far judging from all the sign of broken trees and branches we saw.
Tracking was slow due to all his previous tracks and sign. After two hours of tracking we spotted where his tracks went down into a small thick valley. We sat on the ridge above the all for a few minutes listening to hear and breaking of branches or his grumbling. It wasn't long before we heard him breaking branches a few hundred meters away.
We followed the edge of the ridge until we could hear him about 80 meters away. After figuring out exactly where he was we descended into the valley to get a closer look at him. Very cautiously we crept up to where we had last hear him, we stopped and listened, nothing! We took five paces forward and there he was standing listening. He had obviously had heard us but couldn't see us or smell us. It felt like forever before he moved of and started to feed again. Jo and I crept forward to get into a shooting position and to judge his ivory. He must have heard us because he came charging through some this brush to see what we were. Jo raised his rifle and took a shot at 15 paces which stopped the bull but never put him down,he then dropped his head and started to come for us. I then decided to shoot and dropped him with a frontal brain shot at five paces. Jo placed two more shots in the bull just for insurance. He was a huge bodied bull very old with ivory a little over thirty pounds. After photos we began the long and hard process of skinning the elephant.
We spent the rest of the hunt looking for a second bull but we found nothing that we wanted to shoot only cows and calves.
We would be hunting my Hwange communal land and a new concession called colliery and option. The first day we spent following a big herd of buffalo but being early season the bush was still so thick the buff kept spooking before we Could even get a look at them. We also bumped two ele bulls but both were still young but it was a good start to the Safari. We spent the next two days following various elephant but finding nothing worth shooting.
Day four we got a message from one of the locals to say they had spotted a huge bodied bull in a certain area. We decided to check it out and see what he looked like. We arrived in the area an hour later and began the three mile walk to a spring that the bull had been spotted. Once arriving at the spring we found his tracks everywhere around the spring, it looked like he had been living there for several days. We found his tracks from the previous day and decided to follow from there as we could see he wasn't moving far judging from all the sign of broken trees and branches we saw.
Tracking was slow due to all his previous tracks and sign. After two hours of tracking we spotted where his tracks went down into a small thick valley. We sat on the ridge above the all for a few minutes listening to hear and breaking of branches or his grumbling. It wasn't long before we heard him breaking branches a few hundred meters away.
We followed the edge of the ridge until we could hear him about 80 meters away. After figuring out exactly where he was we descended into the valley to get a closer look at him. Very cautiously we crept up to where we had last hear him, we stopped and listened, nothing! We took five paces forward and there he was standing listening. He had obviously had heard us but couldn't see us or smell us. It felt like forever before he moved of and started to feed again. Jo and I crept forward to get into a shooting position and to judge his ivory. He must have heard us because he came charging through some this brush to see what we were. Jo raised his rifle and took a shot at 15 paces which stopped the bull but never put him down,he then dropped his head and started to come for us. I then decided to shoot and dropped him with a frontal brain shot at five paces. Jo placed two more shots in the bull just for insurance. He was a huge bodied bull very old with ivory a little over thirty pounds. After photos we began the long and hard process of skinning the elephant.
We spent the rest of the hunt looking for a second bull but we found nothing that we wanted to shoot only cows and calves.
