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"30 Hunting Days, 9 Elephants"
by JPK

continued ...

Forgot to mention that we ran into a huge snare line on the return trip to the truck on Day 3. Buzz, the Game Scout and I picked up 38 snares, while the other guys went to the scout best routes for recovery for Day 4. If I have a photo I will insert it here.

{My camera went of commission just as I was arriving at Chete. We used Buzz's til it went tits up too and then used the video camera for stills. A bad memory chip didn't help the situation but I've got most of the photos I need except for the series of photos of the charge Richard and I face on my last day. I stopped the elephant at 7yds. These need to be emailed from Zim and I haven't got them yet}

Now we had a problem, and a nice one to have. It was day three with Buzz at Chete and we were finished with our main quarry. There was a leopard and some plains game left on quota and we had the go ahead to hunt them. In fact we'd hung the carcass of the bushbuck for leopard.

Buzz had a hell of a Plan B that I just couldn't refuse. He was 80% sure that there were two PAC bulls available in Omay but said he wouldn't be 100% sure til the papaer work was in hand. It was a no brainer, we packed up and headed out after recovery on Day 4. On our way out, we gave a lift to a patrol of half a dozen Game Scouts who were going to stake out the snare line.

We arrived in Omay late Day 4.

In the morning, Day 5 we went to the council and found that all was in order and picked up our game scout. We were restricted to hunting Ward 10. Buzz was worried that this would be a serious handicap, it wasn't!

By 10:00 we are in Ward 10 and we have found a local who tells us he has seen and was chased by a bull at 8:00am this morning. Buzz is doubtful but we go take a look. Clearly the fellow was off on the time, but there is bull sign and cow sing where he takes us. We try tracking for a couple of hours but the going is slow and difficult and cows have obscurred many of the bull's tracks. We suspend the effort for the day with plans to start early the next day.

We have lunch and then take a drive looking for locals with some intel on any other bulls. A fellow volunteers to show us where he saw a bull the prior day. Its about an hours walk. Within a half hour, I know that the intel is good. There is elepahnt sign and plenty of it.

After an hour the fellow tells Buzz that we are where he saw the bull the afternoon prior and we comence a sweep through some riverine bush and grass, looking for some sign fresh enough to warrant tracking. We come upon a huge dump, steaming hot, and we are just about to take up the tracks when we here a branch crack a couple of hundred yards off. We go directly to the sound and find a perfect PAC bull: pumpkin seeds in his dung, old, small ivory.

We approach and he vears around some brush to investigate the noise and stands at ten or twelve yards bobbing his head. I take the frontal brain shot and I'm low. As he whirls, Buzz puts a 416 Woodleigh into his heart and just about simultaneously I put my second barrel in the same place. He is down inside thirty yards. Its 4:30 or 5:00 so we cut the tale and head back.

{You all will be able to see this footage in the future I bet since I gotta beleive that Buzz's planning another video}

We get a gift from above in the form of just enough rain to wipe out old tracks this evening and our prospects for tommorow are looking better.

Day 6 has on the tracks of bull we'd abandoned Day 5. We are on his tracks by 6:00. The tracking is difficult in long knocked over grass and mixed vegatation. We bump this bull four times, we have had three very fleeting "nearly" shot opportunities. He is very, very skittish.

At times his tracks pass through a herd of cows and we are close enough to the cows, in thick enough cover that we need to look under the brush to see feet, trunks and the tips of tusk. If a cow were to come, the shot would be way under ten yards, at time under five. Fortunately, no cow comes, but they don't give ground either and we need to go around.

We continue on, though were thinking he's got to be headed for Kenya by now. Remarkably we find him after another forty minutes. He has joined a herd of cows, and this is probably what keeps him from getting out of Dodge. We make our approach and can get no closer than 25yds when the cows take notice. I take the frontal brain shot, but again, I'm off, this time just high. As he whirls, Buzz gives him a 416 in the heart and I give him my right barrel in the smae place. He goes less than fifty yards and is down. WHAT A HUNT, WHAT A DAY! I'm not sure I have a photo of this bull and might have to pull a photo off the DVD, I'm sure the footage, which is fantastic, will be in a future Charlton McCollum production too.

THIS IS DAY 6, WE RECOVERED AND MOVED ALL OF DAY 4. THIS MEANS THAT WE HAVE HUNTED FOR FIVE DAYS AND TAKEN FIVE ELEPHANTS. PHENOMINAL!

We spend the morning of Day 7 recovering the ivory and hides and whatching the recovery mayhem, then head on to Kwe Kwe to drink beer, shoot some zebra and impala and give a try for a leopard. What a phenominal time!

We relax at Kwe Kwe and I speak with Roger Whittall. Rich and I had discussed the possibility of hunting a couple of the nasty tuskless at Humani in the Save after my hunt with Buzz. All is a go, but Roger warns that many elephants have moved off Humani and we may struggle. I decide to give it a try, at Buzz's urging, since, with my new job, time will be very limited for a year or two.

I fly on Oct 11 from Kwe Kwe to Humani to join Richard for four or five days.

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