Day 16:
Up at 5AM again breakfast and we are off. We wonder around looking for tracks and do not see anything fresh. Roads are really narrow, guys have to get off the truck and chop branches often.
We have lunch at a spring. See Impala and Kudu cows coming for drinks. After lunch we head to a different area, close to Mozambique border away from villages.
As we are driving another tap on the truck. "Elephant track". It is very fresh. However, it is just one young bull. Keith says, "There are tuskless bulls in this area and we have nothing to lose." We gear up and start tracking. The bull picks up another bull, now there are two. Keith and the trackers are power walking as Mozambique is only a couple of miles away. I do my best to keep up. The bulls picked up a couple of cows on the way, now there are 4 elephants. We catch up.
At this point we are being very careful and quite. The wind is in our favor. Keith glasses for a long while it is pretty heavy jess and hard to tell. He confirms that the bulls have tusks. He glasses the two cows on our left. They are facing towards the bulls. He says both are tuskless. We get within 25 yards. He says to take the one that is closest to the bulls, side brain.
At this point the other one moves forward. I have a better side brain shot on that one as the other is behind foliage. However, I can't take the one as the solid would go through and hit the other one. Not interested in buying two elephants.
The one that just moved turns towards us, Keith says, "Frontal brain, take it". I aim in the middle of the imaginary line between the ear holes and squeeze the trigger. .500 booms, I roll with the recoil and Keith tells me to duck. The other elephant is pissed, ears are flaring and it is looking around. Finally it takes off.
Keith says, "I saw the rear legs drop first", but we hear some noise. He tells me to shoot again if it gets up. We approach to where it was lying down and I put an insurance shot between the shoulder blades.
Congratulations all around.
Just as I was pressing the trigger the elephant was turning its head. So, did not have a clean brain shot.
During recovery, the next day when they roll the elephant over I see the impact location. Right by the eye though correct elevation for a brain shot. When they open the elephant up we see that the bullet went into the spine. Insurance shot took out the lungs and we found that bullet on the ground at the other side.
Keith says, "Pondoro was right, if you had shot a .375 instead of the .500 it would have been in Mozambique by now." I concur.
We are about a mile and a half from the road. Too late to do recovery, we head to camp.
Shower, wine and dinner. Keith will take the guys out early morning to start making a road, He will get me around 7:30.
14,920 steps, 5.5 miles and 19 floors of incline.
To be continued...
Up at 5AM again breakfast and we are off. We wonder around looking for tracks and do not see anything fresh. Roads are really narrow, guys have to get off the truck and chop branches often.
We have lunch at a spring. See Impala and Kudu cows coming for drinks. After lunch we head to a different area, close to Mozambique border away from villages.
As we are driving another tap on the truck. "Elephant track". It is very fresh. However, it is just one young bull. Keith says, "There are tuskless bulls in this area and we have nothing to lose." We gear up and start tracking. The bull picks up another bull, now there are two. Keith and the trackers are power walking as Mozambique is only a couple of miles away. I do my best to keep up. The bulls picked up a couple of cows on the way, now there are 4 elephants. We catch up.
At this point we are being very careful and quite. The wind is in our favor. Keith glasses for a long while it is pretty heavy jess and hard to tell. He confirms that the bulls have tusks. He glasses the two cows on our left. They are facing towards the bulls. He says both are tuskless. We get within 25 yards. He says to take the one that is closest to the bulls, side brain.
At this point the other one moves forward. I have a better side brain shot on that one as the other is behind foliage. However, I can't take the one as the solid would go through and hit the other one. Not interested in buying two elephants.
The one that just moved turns towards us, Keith says, "Frontal brain, take it". I aim in the middle of the imaginary line between the ear holes and squeeze the trigger. .500 booms, I roll with the recoil and Keith tells me to duck. The other elephant is pissed, ears are flaring and it is looking around. Finally it takes off.
Keith says, "I saw the rear legs drop first", but we hear some noise. He tells me to shoot again if it gets up. We approach to where it was lying down and I put an insurance shot between the shoulder blades.
Congratulations all around.
Just as I was pressing the trigger the elephant was turning its head. So, did not have a clean brain shot.
During recovery, the next day when they roll the elephant over I see the impact location. Right by the eye though correct elevation for a brain shot. When they open the elephant up we see that the bullet went into the spine. Insurance shot took out the lungs and we found that bullet on the ground at the other side.
Keith says, "Pondoro was right, if you had shot a .375 instead of the .500 it would have been in Mozambique by now." I concur.
We are about a mile and a half from the road. Too late to do recovery, we head to camp.
Shower, wine and dinner. Keith will take the guys out early morning to start making a road, He will get me around 7:30.
14,920 steps, 5.5 miles and 19 floors of incline.
To be continued...
