What are these animals like? Their habits?Their size?What kind of habitat? How tough are they?And should they be whacked with a bit stiffer gun/load then the standard plains game?

I also hear they are great eating............10

Big. They are Very BIG.

I doubt you could find a more gentle animal however. They do take some killing. The 375 H&H is about perfect for them although they have been shot with much smaller guns. I would not hesitate to shoot any plains game animal with a 308, except the Eland.

There has been a lot of exageration about their size but I believe a full grown Bull can outweigh your average Buffalo.

I have only shot one and he was abnormally huge.

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Wendell Reich
Hunter's Quest International

[This message has been edited by Buffalobwana (edited 01-31-2002).]

10point,

This link has some info on the eland:

http://www.safaribwana.com/ANIMALS/indexanml.htm

Regards,

Terry

If I am not mistaken there 4 species of eland, Cape, Livingstone, East African and Lord Derby. I have been lucky and taken all excep the East African. They are browsers and travel large distances during each day. The habitat vary from mountainous with very cold temperatures in South Africa to very arid brush country in Cameroon with very high temperatures.

They are very large antelope with my largest weighing an estimated 1800 pounds with a measurement taken from the top of the shoulder to ground of 6ft. 2 inches.

The Cape and Livingstone were taken with .375 H&H, 270 grain X bullet. The Lord Derby was taken with a 450 Ackley, 500 grn X bullet. The Derby was shot directly through the shoulders at a distance of about 150 yards. At the shot there was no reaction. The rest of the troupe ran off and he just slowly turned and walked a short distance and fell over. I recovered the bullet under the hide on the opposite shoulder.

Mike

The largest antelope in the world the Eland .. below is a hunter client from Hungary with his trophy, taken at the ranch in SA ... we have Livingstone Eland in Zambia but none taken yet

www.balla-balla.co.nz/eland.jpg

happy hunting,

Peter

I love hunting eland. They can cover a lot of ground in a day, and it can be a real challenge to track them from water early in the morning. The first time you see an old blue bull you won't forget it. They are big. A bull I shot in 1995 weighed over 1800 pounds. When alarmed or wounded, they move off through the bush at a steady trot. If you ever wound one, you'll likely be in for a very long tracking job. I don't think they're particularly tough and any of the premium bullets in .30 caliber are okay, but I think the .375 is ideal.

My experience with Eland was similar to MLindsays. I used a .416 remington and hit him right through the top of the heart. There was almost no reaction from the beast and I thought I had missed. I immediately reloaded to fire again but my PH stopped me and said, "watch this". The animal then wobbled a bit and collapsed. You are probably OK with a quality/heavy .30 cal. bullet at moderate velocity but I don't see the point in risking it. My 400 grian .416 at 2400 fps came to rest just under the skin of the opposite shoudler.
Horn size also seems to take a back seat to body size and color when hunting Eland. Personally, I would much rather take a completely blue bull with huge bases and worn tips than a less mature animal with better length.
They are also without a doubt the best eating to be had!

Regards,

JohnTheGreek

Thanks fellas, they look like great animals to hunt. The next time I go to Africa I'd like to extend by a week just to eat off the animals I whacked. I do love eating my game and find Africa's bounty to be particularly tasty.

Would any of you hesitate to take such a beastie with a handgun? Say a 44 mag on up ? Peter the coloration of that Bull is fabulous......10

Neat site Terry. Thanks!

I think Eland are one of the neatest animals, and probably the one I am most looking forward to hunting.

It amazes me that they are reported to be such good jumpers, despite all that bulk.

Canuck

Tough to hunt but a lot of fun if you like walking (I do). I prefer a .375 for Eland. One interesting thing about them is that they can be tamed easily. In Zimbabwe, we had one that was saved after it's mother was killed in a snare. It's quite a large, but young bull. He will charge you with his head down, but all he wants is a good scratch. After he gets enough scratching, he'll knock over the cold box for a couple of Sprites. Pop the top and put it in his mouth and he'll do all the rest. He has a green ear tag to keep anyone from shooting him. I hope it works. I will bring a pic to the office tomorrow and try to get it posted of him drinking a Sprite.

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Greg Rodriguez
Mombasa Trading Company
www.mbogo.net
(281) 494-4151

10Point,

And wow can they jump! I watched a young cow eland standing next to the herd bull. She just jumped right over his back from his left to his right, starting flat footed. I was impressed, because this guy was about six foot at the withers.

I was so impressed with the Livingstone eland I shot in Zimbabwe in September, 2001that I use the photo on my web site. See http://www.safari21.com.

This animal weighed in the neighborhood of 2,000 pounds. We loaded it in the recovery truck with a winch, and it took eight guys to get it our of the truck at the butchery.

We tried to stalk one herd that had probably 30 eland, but also included five zebra and a giraffe. We could not do any good at all, because those "bodyguards" kept spooking the eland.

After taking a .375/270 grain Hornady in the right shoulder and left hip, this old blue bull was on the ground. When I came up to him from his quarter, he turned his head away as if he was giving me an open shot in his neck to finish it. I thought of him as a fine old gentleman.

jim dodd

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"if you are to busy to
hunt, you are too busy."

Gentlemen,

I have decided that eland are my favorite animals to hunt. The one that I am with on the front page of our website was taken after 3 solid days of tracking with two excellent bushmen. This was in Eastern Namibia very near the Botswana Border (NE of Gobabis).

I took this one with one shot from my 7mm Rem Mag with 175 gr. Nosler Partitions. Range was 35 yards. The thick bush where we hunt there would be much better served with a heavier gun, such as a .338, .375, or what I am taking in July, a hot .45-70.

Joel Slate
Slate & Associates, LLC
The Safari Specialists
www.slatesafaris.com

7mm Rem Mag Page www.slatesafaris.com/7mm.htm

The Eland on my web page was the largest that I have ever shot and he weighed 2473 lbs. on the scales, and has 36.? horns as I recall..He was a real eland and fat as a hog...

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Ray Atkinson

ray@atkinsonhunting.com
atkinsonhunting.com

Well, I remembered to bring the pic of the Eland drinking Sprite. If anyone wants to see it, I will e-mail it to one of you more capable users to post. I have not had good success posting pics.

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Greg Rodriguez
Mombasa Trading Company
www.mbogo.net
(281) 494-4151

My friends in Namibia, a father and son with 70 years or so of hunting and culling between them, had this to say... "eland are sissies, anything from .308 up works fine" They couldnt begin to guess the numbers they have shot. A hot loaded 45/70 worked just fine for me.

The Eland was my first animal hunted in Africa. It was in the Eastern Cape for a ten day hunt on several government preserves. Like everyone else, I had a list of desired animals which included Eland and Bushbuk. I remember the ph telling me that there are no guarantees on the above animals, especially on the Eland. Amazingly, on Sunday morning within 50 mins of the hunt start, we had a huge Eland bull on the ground. When the news spread, I never say so many people assembled to help carry out the Eland. Note: there was no help with the rest of the animals. Reason unknown--until I tasted the Eland meat a few days later. Very, very tasty!! Used 7mm Mag 175 gr, which I felt was a little under gunned for this animal. Cheers!

Eland is my favourite game animal, they are not very hard to kill if you place the bullet in the right place, my brother shot a lot with a 270 win, I have used it and it worked fine. But if your bullet don�t damage the lungs/heart or spine enough you have problems, they are fast movers when wounded. I prefer a 9.3x62 when hunting them. It don't make sense to me to hunt them with small calibres when you have a bigger gun.

I know that some years ago and maybe still, Russia was experimenting with the eland as a domesticated farm animal for meat purposes. That tells you that they can be sufficiently gentled and being that they are built like an ox, have great fleshing ability for producing meat.

Excellent post's all, and lovely trophys for those who linked pics. I really love the forehead coloration on these old bulls.

I admire this trophy, and the next time Im there Im going to put a really large hole ,in a really large one, with a really large bullet.

Frankly I am simply mad about these African Antelopes. I dont tell my friends here this but its getting really hard to think about hunting big game except to go to Africa.

I love that place so much it hurts........good shooting...10

I have to say that the Eland I shot was about the best trophy I got in South Africa. He weighed 2048 pounds on the scales, was estimated at 17 to 20 years old, and had worn his horns way down. He was with two younger bulls with larger horns, but he was far and away the biggest bodied. The PH I was with guessed that in late summer, after feeding on lots of green grass, he probably would have weighed another 300 or so pounds. He was shot through the lungs with a .375 H&H and a 300 grain A-frame at about 200 yards. In my opinion, Eland make one of the nicest looking trophies of any African animal. If I can figure out how, I will post a picture.

[This message has been edited by loud-n-boomer (edited 02-03-2002).]

My Eland. Maybe my best trophy. 37 1/8 on the longest horn.

210 grn nosler partition for my 8.59 galaxy at about 200 yds. Had chased thes guys for 4 days. My hands and knees were a little bloody from all the crawling in the sand.

God the "second" from the time I squeezed the trigger to hearing the bullet "thwack" seemed long.

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MED

The sole purpose of a rifle is to please its owner

[This message has been edited by Mike Dettorre (edited 02-04-2002).]

Eland meat is the best antelope meat by far.
Bjorn

Yep they sure eat good. They are available in Texas so that you get your game and get to eat it too. I got one last year. And I thought elk tasted good. Good hunting. "D"