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I hunted June 1-10 in Zimbabwe with Charlton-McCallum Safaris. Kathi Klimes of Wild Travel arranged my flights.

The Concession

I hunted in the Makuti Hunting Area, which is a fairly easy four hour drive from Harare. The concession is about 250,000 acres but although it is trite to say so it hunts like an even larger area due to the relief in the terrain. Adjacent to the concession are the Charara Hunting Area, Mana Pools, and the Nyakasanga Hunting Area. During my hunt the temperatures varied from cool nights and mornings (estimated 40s-50s) to warm days (estimated 70s-80s). The terrain is not all steep mountains, but includes rolling hills, some level areas, steep gorges, high hills, sandy riverbeds, and rock-filled river beds.

Hills:

Riverbed:

The Camp

The camp was mostly built from scratch under the direction of apprentice PH Guy Ferreira just before the season started, and he did a good job. The camp is a traditional tented camp with thatched roofs and thatched ensuite baths. The tents are roomy and are equipped with real beds, storage for your clothes, and a small table next to each bed. The ensuite bath area includes a shower, sink, and commode. There was plenty of hot water for a shower whenever I tried it. The dining area is thatch-roofed with open sides and cement/stone walls with a cement floor. The camp area is on the national grid and there is a generator (the "Makuti Grid") for when the national grid is down.

My Tent:

Inside the Tent:

Dining Area:

The Staff

My PH was Myles McCallum and he had Bongi and Norest, his trackers, assisting him. Sam, the driver, was fresh from Harare into the bush but seemed to really enjoy the job. Myles is knowledgeable, experienced, and personable, and did a great job of getting the most out of me and making the hunt a success.

Myles:

Norest (Top) and Bongi:

Sam:

The Hunt

CM Safaris offered a seven-day, one tuskless hunt and I extended it to ten days with the possibility of two. It takes a while to get to Africa and I like to stay as long as I can once I am there. This hunt was more or less a personal test. I wanted more exposure to dangerous game, not really knowing how I would react. I knew that this would be a physical hunt, and since I have held a desk job since 1988 I knew that getting ready for the hunt and surviving it would be a challenge even without the dangerous game being involved.

The trip over took quite a while but the Harare airport at the end of the road was the easiest to get through and Myles was there for the drive to camp. After three days of travel I was exhausted so a hot shower and a nice dinner and I hit the sack. The concession is close to the Parks office so we started the hunt by picking up our game scout and finalizing the permits for the hunt. We checked the rifles and then started hunting.

Before the day was over we had tracked a small herd for 4-1/2 hours and located a ¾ grown tuskless in the group. Either a vagrant wind shift gave them our scent or one of them heard something, but as we watched them water downhill from us at a small spring one or two got suspicious and gave us the evil eye, making one of those annoyed elephant sounds.

We were trying to quietly back away without drawing too much attention to ourselves when we all heard the loud sounds of the game scout loading his AK-47 – not the best plan at the time! The herd bailed out and we followed them, but they were in high gear and it was too late in the day to do any more.

Day Two we planned to walk down a riverbed to the edge of the concession, meeting the LandCruiser where the river opens out. We had not gone far when we saw a small herd leaving the riverbed after watering at a spring. Although we did not see a tuskless in the group we followed to see if there were more in the group than we had seen. Not long on the trail we flushed two dagga boys out of the long grass to our left. The crossed the trail very close in front of us and headed up the hillside. We had a great view and although they were the first cape buffalo I had seen in the flesh it was apparent the lead bull was very nice.

We continued tracking the herd up the hill but they had started moving at speed and we decided to head back to the river. As we turned around the trackers spotted a second group of elephant across the river, up the other side of the valley. There was a tuskless in the group. We hurried across and up, heading even higher up the slope to get the advantage on the herd. Unfortunately they had fed off away from us and the chase was on. Again, the trackers spotted them moving on the other side of a ridgeline, so we took up the chase again. When we caught up to them they were feeding in some riverine jess, in an area bounded by the riverbed on one side and the steep slopes of a gorge on the other sides. We slid down the slopes, went around on the river side of the herd to keep the wind to our advantage, and closed on the group.

Myles got me within about 30 meters of the tuskless but as she fed she swung her head around and spotted us. I tried the frontal brain shot before she could move off and she staggered at the shot but did not go down. I had missed low and left, but the bullet ended up at the spine and that is what staggered her. Myles gave me time to shoot but I had some difficulty extracting the first round (probably just failed to pull the bolt back at full speed due to the adrenaline). Seeing that, Myles fired a couple of rounds before she could disappear into the jess.

We soon heard what sounded like her going down, followed by trumpeting as the other cows came in to investigate. We made a strategic withdrawal to the other side of the riverbed and waited for the other cows to disperse. Then we went back across, moving up the side of the ravine to check on the cow from above her. She was down for the count but at Myles suggestion I put a shot in the chest. After maybe 1-1/2 days we had one tuskless down. We confirmed that she was down and I cut off the tail.

After a couple of pictures we headed back down the river to find a place to radio the LandCruiser. The game scout suggested that we could cross to the truck faster than it could drive the roads back to us, and we started off. That is when my thoughts of a relaxing afternoon of elephant recovery went out the door. Instead of the one-hour trek the game scout had promised it turned out to be closer to five hours back to the truck. Of course it might have been less but you have to account for dragging me up some pretty steep hills…

Day three was taken up with elephant recovery and days four and five we spent mostly tracking cow herds. We were frustrated by an elephant bull that was pushing the cows along and keeping us from catching up to them. On the way back to camp after about 7-1/2 hours of tracking on day five we spotted a herd to the left of the road. As we got out to glass them the remainder of the herd came up from the right side of the road, very close to us. It was late in the day but we immediately followed the herd. There were over twenty elephant in the group. We got to within 100-200 yards of the herd and found that there were two tuskless in the group. Part of the group suspected us and they moved off, but then turned and came back through the brush in our direction. Apparently the wind had swirled and pushed our scent off the hills behind them, causing them to move into us.

Although we had located the two tuskless they were close to 200 yards away and the closer groups had spotted us. We left them as evening closed in, planning to return in the morning.

Myles felt they would not go far as some of the cows had young calves. We returned the next morning and Bongi and Norest found the track quickly. The herd had moved up out of the valley and down a long trail (a disused road) into the next valley. The herd had broken up into some smaller groups, and we moved into position to get close to one of them. It turned out to have both tuskless from the night before.

We moved down the valley and across the dry streambed at its center. Myles and I moved up close to a group of about five elephant that included a large tuskless. As we moved closer in the high, dry grass they became suspicious of something and moved off a bit, leaving one calf behind. This calf was not concerned and trumpeted loudly for the rest to come back. He then had a nice dust bath. Of course, I could not see the calf, just the dust flying up in the air very close to us in the grass. As we waited for the cows to return I wondered how close they would get to us in that grass before we saw them, and if they would be unhappy to find us so close to the calf…

When the cows returned we were able to get close enough to get a decent look at them. Myles looked carefully at the large tuskless and her calf. He decided that the calf was too young and we could not shoot her. Before we moved away he was able to get a closer look at another cow on the right side of a large tree which separated her from the other tuskless., This one was a tuskless as well, although not as large as the first. He then carefully looked over her calf. We stood there, close to the elephants, some of which we could not easily see, while he made up his mind. To my surprise, he turned to indicate the first cow and said we were going to shoot her. He later explained that the calf had not been too young, just lower down a slope from the cow, making it appear smaller than it was. When he told me to shoot the cow was about thirty meters off. She gave me a side brain shot and I took it. The cow went right down. She was at a bit of an angle and the shot went in a bit left, crossed through the brain, and exited to the rear on the far side, passing though the off-side ear on the way.

Myles told me to go up to her and put an insurance shot in her chest and "then we are going to get out of here."

I fired the second shot and we began an orderly withdrawal. As we caught up to the trackers and the game scout we heard the unmistakable, branch-breaking sounds of elephant on the advance. We then moved with a little more purpose as the cows were clearly coming back in our direction with a little speed.

I am not the most graceful at the best of times, and I managed to slip down not once, but twice -- the first time in the grass which has been pushed down and was still slick in the early morning, and the second time crossing the dry watercourse where the walls were steep. Those were probably my times of greatest concern on the hunt so far – but Myles was there to be sure I was not left behind.

Once we got to the other side of the dry streambed we waited quietly until the other elephants left. We went back and I cut off the tail. The grass where we had all been standing was trampled flat by the unhappy cows.

We made our way back to the truck, returned to camp, and picked up the extra LandCruiser and the skinners. On the way back to the elephant we passed a herd dozing in the shade. There was an old tuskless in that group.

The guys reopened the old road and we drove down into the little valley. The road hugged the edge of a hill with big rocks on one side and a goodly drop on the other side. When we reached the bottom the guys cut a path across the valley floor, though the streambed, and to the elephant. After a few pictures the recovery began. We left just before dark with two LandCruisers full of elephant meat, back up the steep, narrow road.

Waiting for the road to be cut in:

Cruiser in the Long Grass Near the Elephant:

The Road Out (It is Steeper and Higher that it Looks):

On the way back to camp, on the paved Kariba Road, we found the lead Cruiser slowed down on the road as a young male lion crossed in front of it. As you can imagine, the skinners in the back of the Cruiser with all the meat were looking a bit anxious but the lion just went into the tall grass on the Makuti side of the road.

Two tuskless in six days and we were done with what I had planned. We messed around and hung leopard baits on day 7, then headed to Lake Kariba on day 8 with all the guys in camp who had never been there. They got the guided tour of the Dam and then talked their way onto the Southern Belle, a floating hotel on Lake Kariba, for a guided tour of it.

Lake Kariba:

The Southern Belle:

The Guys On Tour:

On the way back Myles had a chat with the Parks Department that led to a full agenda for day 9, but that deserves its own post.

Day 10 we headed back to Harare, and had piri piri chicken with Myles wife, daughter, in-laws, boyfriends, and family friends at a restaurant. All that was left was to buy some souvenirs the next morning and return home after a very successful, challenging, and fulfilling hunt.

Equipment

A few notes on equipment. I took my Whitworth .458 Win Mag and Interarms .375 H&H. Despite having spent a fair amount of time with them before the hunt, when I arrived the .375 was shooting too low with the iron sights and I found the .458 did not cycle as well in the field as it had at home or at the range. Probably haste on my part but I will be going through it again before it returns. The lighter.458 is nice to carry and I cannot recall recoil from any of the shots while I was there. Both were using North Fork Flat Point Solids loaded by Superior Ammo.

I took my Leica Trinovid 8x20s which were easy to carry and did what I needed for the trip, although I would not use them for extended glassing. I took My Nikon D70 with two lenses and extra memory and batteries as well as my old Olympus D400Z and they did a good job for me on their second trip to Africa.

I wore Russell boots, the Short PH version in all leather with the thorn-proof lining in the sole and the brown Vibram Air-Bob sole. They worked okay but on long walks in the heat the sole insert would fold up, which was not very comfortable.

My Boyt Harness gaiters and "hunting suspenders" came in handy once again.

My Surefire was nice and light to carry and bright when I needed it.

I won’t bore you with all the other gear but most everything held up well.

Conclusions/Suggestions

This was a great albeit challenging hunt. Myles managed to get more out of me than I thought possible. We had good luck and a good hunting team. If you hunt Makuti it would be a good idea to ensure that your knees and ankles can handle the terrain and if you need more ankle support that your footwear provides it. If you read Norbert Hansen's report from last year it shows that later in the year, when more elephant come into the concession and the foliage is down, spotting and stalking become easier and the long tracking days may not be necessary. Of course it will be hotter!

I would gladly hunt Makuti again and would be pleased to hunt with Myles. The concession and camp were everything I could have expected and the only way to improve the hunt would be for me to have been more physically prepared.

Because of the high grass we did not see a lot of plainsgame, and I do not think Makuti is necessarily the place for a plainsgame-only hunt (although this season should tell us a lot more about that), but in and around the concession and on the roads outside we saw Grysbok, Duiker, Waterbuck (at Rifa), Warthog, Kudu, Mongoose, Genet, Cape buffalo, Elephant, Jackal, Hyena, Hippo (at Rifa), Crocodile (at Rifa), Zebra, Baboon, Bushpig, and Porcupine. In addition we heard Bushbuck and saw tracks of lion, leopard, sable, and a civet cat. A lioness stole the leopard bait we hung close to camp and at night you might hear lion, leopard, or hyena.

I took too many pictures and you can see more of them here.

Sorry for the long-winded report!

[Click pictures for larger versions.]

[Annoyed Elephant sound from elephantcountryweb.com.]

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Some pictures from Namibia

Some pictures from Zimbabwe

An Elephant Story