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Gentlemen: My firend and PH John Sharp just emailed me this report and pictures. Good read.

The client was Ola Donnem from Norway. His rifle and clothing never arrived in Bulawayo so he had to borrow a rifle from me. He eventually recovered his luggage in London on his way home. He was not aware of the pitfalls of traveling through London with firearms and did not make use of the courier service!

The area is called Sengwe II and it borders onto Mozambique and Kruger National Park (South Africa). These Elephant cross into the communal area from Kruger and our Gona re Zhou National Park to feed as the food in the Parks is depleted at this time of the year. The bulls mostly cross in and out at night and some hunters do shoot them at night with a light but this is not my scene! Like Tsholotsho, this is a hit or miss area and you do need a certain amount of luck.

We ascertained that the most movement was across the Limpopo from Kruger as opposed to Gona re Zhou on the other side. We camped in the dry Limpopo riverbed the night before and waking very early we started walking towards Mozambique at first light (4.45am). Pretty close to the boundary of Mozambique we saw this lone bull as he was about to cross the river back into Kruger – there was little doubt that he was a shooter! We advanced on him as quickly as we could and he soon became nervous as there is not much cover in the riverbed - then to our amazement he turned back onto our side. I instructed the client to take a 50-yard body shot with my .375 H&H and as the bull took off he followed up with two more shots, the third solid clipping the spine as the animal disappeared over the bank. We saw it collapse with the spine shot and it was dead by the time we got to it. Ola’s first shot had been perfect, taking it in the heart/lung area. This magnificent bull was taken at 5.45am.

We have managed so far to pull the longest tusk which weighed in at 89lbs. The shorter tusk is not yet free but I estimate that it should be around the 85lb mark as it is considerably thicker than the other one. Both tusks measured 20” at the lip. This was an old bull on his last set of teeth, probably around 65 to 75 years old, and my personal best.

For the aficionados, John's rifle is a Rigby sidelock 470 made in 1926. jorge