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Dates: July 19, 2011 – August 1, 2011
Areas: Dande Safari Area, Zimbabwe and Dande East, Zimbabwe
Outfitter: Charlton McCallum Safaris
Professional Hunter: Buzz Charlton
Videographer: Justin Drainer
Travel Agent: Steve Turner, Travel With Guns
Trophies Taken: Tuskless Elephant, Buffalo
Rifles: Heym PH 450/400 NE 3,” Heym SR20 Carbine 9,3 x 62

The Hunt

When I booked the hunt with Buzz, I laid out my priorities – I wanted to take a large old tuskless, and I wanted to get in close with the double. I wanted to take a solid boss bull buff with bosses that were close together; and I wanted to get in close enough to kill it with my double. Above all, I was coming for the experience – I wanted time in close to the critters.

DSA is thick with elephants (and lions) and by the afternoon of day two we had already tracked, approached, and been in close to three or four herds of ele, including being rushed at close range by a group of bulls who wanted to be at the waterhole where we were taking a break – the largest bull (about 40#) came down the trail I was standing on to within 15yds – that was an experience I doubt I’ll forget.

While we were hiking to another spring, Criton the lead tracker and Buzz went on high alert after crossing a trail, where they found a few small pea-sized balls of sand. Buzz turned, looked me in the eye and said, “There are elephant here.” He later explained that a jumbo had just crossed the path and had dribbled water from its trunk – those dribbles formed the balls when they struck the sand. Within a few minutes we were on smokin’ hot spoor and within 15 minutes or so, we could hear the herd feeding.

When we approached the herd, it was clear they were spread out and feeding in a thinly wooded area. Buzz began dissecting the situation and identified a tuskless, but soon noted that she had a calf. Criton had separated from us and soon signaled that he had seen another tuskless, so we moved 40 or 50 yards toward him. Buzz studied the cow for several minutes and determined that she did not have a calf. I think we were about 40 yards away. He turned to me and we had a hushed and frank discussion. I was very hesitant to take this cow because it was only day two; I wanted more time amongst the ele. Buzz was very patient and left the decision to me, but pointed out that it was a large and old cow and that she was in a perfect position for a close approach. I was vaguely aware that Justin was over my right shoulder filming and that I would be hearing this discussion on many future occasions. To be honest, it took me longer to make a decision than it should have, but while I was hemmin’-n-hawin,’ the cow changed positions from broadside to facing away – all the better for an approach.

After some wise counsel from Buzz, I finally said, “Let’s do it” or something like that, and Buzz, Justin and I started easing toward the cow. Buzz was on my left, with the back of my left shirt sleeve clenched in his fist, whispering, “Wait till she turns around and you can give her a frontal”. We picked our way closer and closer until Buzz stopped me and indicated that this was close enough. In a fraction of a second, the cow spun, Buzz blurted out, “get ready!” and I raised the double to my shoulder.

As the trigger broke and the muzzles started to rise, I saw the cow falling. I heard a distinct thump as I recovered from recoil and the rifle came down. It was over in a blink – a perfect frontal brain shot. Years of watching videos (Buzz’s & Boddington’s), studying books, and practicing with the double had paid off – and I could not even remember aiming. The next day during the recovery we stepped it off; it was 11 yards. Yeah …that was close enough.

After recovery of the tuskless, we focused our efforts on buffalo. We would start each morning looking for fresh tracks on the road or at springs. We tracked every day, saw a lot of buff, and looked over several nice bulls. We tracked herds, bachelor groups, and once a lone dugga boy. It didn’t take long for me to understand that if Criton, Nyati, and Buzz started on a track, in all likelihood we would eventually see those critters. They were typically in the jesse when we approached and this time of year the ground is covered in a layer of crackle-dry leaves. So, between the thick veg and the noisy leaves it was a fun game. We were regularly within 40 yards of buffalo and could only see an ear here, a leg there, maybe a nose over there. Oh, remember when I said Dande is thick with lions? These buff were switched on. It sometimes appeared as though they would bust and run just because they hadn’t done that in a while - I was beginning to wonder if there was some genetic link between Cape buffalo and caribou.

After lunch on day five we stumbled on some fresh tracks and we were off. After tracking for quite a while Criton or Nyati signaled Buzz (and by this time I had learned this signal) they had heard elephant close by. These guys are hunters to the core and love tracking anything, but they really light-up for jumbo. We diverted from the buff tracks for just a few minutes and we were sneaking up on a large bull that was facing away from us in a thick stand of hardwoods. We got in pretty close and after a look from a couple of angles, Buzz guessed that the bull was in the 50 pound class with long, even ivory. I think we were all jazzed to be that close to a good bull. We backed out and left him undisturbed and went back to bird-dogging the buffalo spoor. It wasn’t long before we heard the herd busting through brush maybe 60 yards away; they had winded us.

We spent most of the afternoon tracking, spotting, sneaking in close, usually not seeing much, and then hearing them run off. I think we bumped them two, maybe three more times. On our last approach they ran out of the thick stuff and through more open terrain. From the thicket I got a look at some of the herd about 100 yards away running from left to right, but when they were out of sight, Buzz said he had gotten a look at all of the bulls, but one at the front. None of the bulls seen were that great. It was getting late and when Buzz said, “How about one more try,” I was thinking, “You gotta be kidding…those buff are buggered.” But, Buzz thought we should hustle through the woods, paralleling the herd and see if we could get a look at that bull up front.

I’m not sure how far we humped, but eventually Buzz noticed a termite mound that might give him a quick peek their direction. Based on where we last saw the herd, they should have been around 100 yards distant. He was moving quickly upslope with his binocs and started to stand up to glass, when he jerked his head down and spun around in one motion. He quickly called for the sticks and motioned us up the rise. “There’s a good bull right here” he whispered, “Get on the sticks.” As I got the double on the sticks, I saw a bull facing right about 35 yards away staring at us; his body was quartering, slightly to me, but his shoulders were quartering hard. I was asking Buzz for confirmation that this was really a good bull, and he was making sure I was on the bull, when he hurriedly said, “Take him, he’s gonna go.”

I pounded his right shoulder with the first shot and trying to get another bullet in him, I fired the second barrel as he bolted to the right. I heard the second shot hit hard and based on my sight picture I guessed I had hit the paunch or the right hind quarter. He had run down slope and we didn’t wait very long before picking up the trail and some blood. We were moving downhill toward a wooded draw when we heard movement and in a second, through the trees, saw a buffalo running up the opposite hillside. My first thought was panic, but within seconds Criton was signaling that he could see our bull and that it was dead. Buzz said another bull must have been keeping watch over my bull. He had only gone 60 yards and hadn’t made it to the creek bed. We were almost on him before I saw him, though I think everyone else had already seen him. I had been pretty focused on the other side of the dry creek after seeing the other bull leaving the scene.

The first shot had crushed the right shoulder, got both lungs, but didn’t penetrate the off ribs (I’ll eventually have a separate post on the bullet performance). There was no evidence of the second shot, so after dinner that night we looked at the video frame by frame and could see a piece of strawgrass in front of the bull’s hind quarter being cut by the shot. The next day during the recovery we walked up the hill to recreate the deed. We found where the bullet had hit a small tree about two feet above the bull’s back. Going back over the video you can see where the tree splashes white the frame after the grass was cut. It’s pretty amazing that a 400gr bullet can deflect that much off a piece of grass. Just supports what I always say – bullets do weird stuff.

After the two main objectives were achieved, I told Buzz that I was very satisfied and didn’t care if we killed anything else – the hunt was all gravy from here forward. As long as we were sneaking up on critters, I’d be happy. I offered that if we saw a nice bull ele track and Buzz wanted to check it out, I didn’t care if we spent all day on the track. “Let’s just have some fun,” I said. During this conversation, Buzz told me of a bull elephant that the PHs were hoping to get a close look at. It seems there was rumor of a bull with small feet and big ivory on the unit; the guys had seen the small track with deep cracks, but no one had been able to track him down. Buzz hadn’t seen the track this season yet, but wondered if I would mind tracking the bull if we happened on the track. “Sounds like fun to me,” I responded.

Shortly after this conversation, the guys in the back of the truck tapped on the cab roof and after slowing down, Buzz excitedly relayed that they had seen the small track. “Let’s go,” I said. “Are you sure you don’t mind?” he asked. I was already getting out of the cruiser.

The fresh track

Everyone seemed excited to be on this track and we followed at a pretty quick pace, but twice the trackers and Buzz struggled to sort out this lone bull from two different cow herds that he intermingled with as he fed. The guys were determined though, and the track was so distinct that when the bull separated we eventually picked him back up.

After a couple of hours on the track we spooked an elephant on the other side of the draw we were moving down. The ele was behind us over our left shoulder when it busted out of there. Criton indicated it had been a tuskless cow. When the trackers and Buzz started back on the spoor, I noticed that Justin was chuckling behind me. I turned and he whispered that the infamous bull was actually an old tuskless cow. We stayed on the track only a little while when the sign took us across the draw and back toward where the cow had spooked. In a few minutes the trackers signaled that they had found where the “bull” had spooked and ran and the sign had confirmed Justin’s suspicions. There were smiles all around and I’m afraid Buzz caught a bit of good-humored grief for this one. But, I think the next time he has a client looking for a tuskless cow, this old girl will be in the forefront of his mind – you know what they say about payback.

We had eight days left and I thought it would be fun to try and find a nice kudu and take it with the double rifle and I definitely would take a warthog with the double if we could locate a large boar. We stayed a Mururu Camp for several more days and hunted hard for kudu; we saw quite a bit of sign, but did not connect. Buzz offered that we could move to Dande East and Karunga Camp and might have a better chance at a kudu, so we packed up the whole crew and half the camp the next morning and drove the Cruiser east.
Loaded up

Dande East has more open woodlands and in fact, we did see much more kudu sign. We chased kudu and warthogs and came very close a couple of times, but it never came together. I was not at all disappointed; we had hunted hard and had a lot of fun sneaking up on stuff.

For some overall context, I was probably atypical for a first-timer, as I wasn’t interested in many of the typical antelope and I passed several opportunities at very nice impala, grysbok, duiker, klipspringer, and lots of not-big-enough warthogs. We did see a couple of waterbuck, a big beautiful roan, a civet, a genet, a number of immature kudu bulls, and lots of baboons. We did see one exceptional kudu bull shortly after moving to Dande East; however we ran out of light before we caught up to him.

The Team

Nyati, me, Criton, Buzz, Thomas (Justin behind the camera)

Though this was my first safari and my first real exposure to the biz, I find it hard to believe any group of individuals could have worked harder than Buzz’s team did to make my hunt successful, fun, and memorable. They were very accommodating to my admittedly picky diet and personal quirks. In fact, they were very patient and acted like they dealt with folks like me everyday…I knew better. From the waiters, cook staff, skinner (Goodfun – what a great name!), camp managers, Eddy the driver, Criton and Nyati the superb trackers, to Justin and Buzz, everyone was hardworking, very pleasant, flexible, and just plain fun to be around.

Eddy played a critical role everyday saving the team from walking over “dead ground,” meeting us with the truck no matter where we trekked. He was always ready to hand me my rifle, a cold bottle of water, whatever - and you could always count on Eddy for his beaming smile. It didn’t matter if it was before the crack of dawn, or if he was posing with a hindquarter (that weighed as much as he did) slung over his shoulder.

Eddy in “the office”

Thomas was our game scout in the DSA and he faithfully carried my daypack and was a quiet and very friendly sort. He was curious about the embroidered moose on the caps I brought for everyone; but I could tell my descriptions just weren’t getting through until I thought of describing it as an eland with very long legs – that brought the smile of recognition. One afternoon we had an unplanned confrontation with a herd of cow elephants who wanted to run through us to get to a nearby spring. We beat a pretty hasty retreat, but I noticed that as our group hustled in reverse, Thomas was gone in a flash. After it was all over I could tell that the trackers and Buzz were picking at Thomas about his sprinting ability. We took a water break and Thomas proceeded to tell a frightening story (in Shona, with Buzz interpreting for me) of being run over, tusked, and crushed into the ground by a cow early in his career. He unbuttoned his shirt and showed us the scar under his right collar bone where the tusk had gone all the way through. No one made fun of his running ability after that.

Thomas telling the story

Nyati is a former school teacher who speaks English very well. We shared quite a few conversations in the down time – he was curious about Alaska and I was curious about Africa. He is very friendly and a kind man who happens to be a fine tracker. His name portends his skill on the trail of nyati.

Criton is the man – and he knows it. He’s a very proud and confident man with a strong personality – the kind you want on your side. His ability to follow elephant sign especially boggles the mind; he is a gifted tracker.

Justin’s part was a great deal more than being the videographer. He added immensely to the experience for me since he knows a great deal about the natural history of flora and fauna of the area. This played right into my well developed fascination, being a wildlife biologist. Buzz’s and Justin’s personalities play well off of each other and there’s always a laugh in the works. He’s the artsy piece of the machine; but showed how tough he was, working through at least one full day battling a pretty bad case of malaria. I was impressed…and appreciative.

One of my favorite pics – Buzz’s, too..

We “discovered” some cave paintings one day – we all thought it was very cool

From the start it was very clear to me that Buzz was going to do whatever was necessary to help me achieve my goals; he hunts hard for his clients. I realized how bad he wanted me to take a kudu when, as time grew short, he suggested we sit a couple of times at waterholes. I think Buzz would rather sit in a dentist’s chair than hunt like this. As they say in Alabama, “...it just ain’t in him.” But, he did it for me.

Buzz is a driven professional who is detail oriented. I respect his forthrightness and honesty. He would be successful in any enterprise he chose to pursue. He is quite the joker and I left feeling like my straight-laced presence had somehow squelched some of his creativity. He is what I would classify as a hardcore hunter (that’s high praise) and I’d share a camp anywhere with him. I’d love to take him to my home territory to close in on an Alaskan brown bear.

The Rifles

The Credits

This was my first safari and I had been in the planning stages for several years. I had a great deal of assistance in the planning from lots of folks here, but the following members were very patient with me, helped immensely by introducing me to folks, recommended strategies, and were always responsive to my inquiries: MJines (he went the extra mile), Mark Young, Kelly Gill, N E 450 no2, JudgeG, Tim Herald, 470Evans, & KPete. I’d like to thank them especially. I’d also like to put in a plug for the DSC convention. I’ve been to the convention for the last few years and besides being a great time with good friends, the conventions have provided an invaluable networking opportunity and I have identified several safari companies and PHs that I would have every confidence using.

Last, but not least I’d like to give credit to Monty Kalogeras, his practical instruction, and the realistic shooting courses he has developed for his Safari Shooting School. All of my time with Monty proved very applicable and valuable for my first safari and I’m sure for future ones as well. I can’t recommend his service enough – and it’s a ton of fun.

Some Misc Pics

Remains of an old dugga boy in a riverbed