We had a fantastic time in Botswanna with Johan Calitz Safaris. We hunted the Mababe area just outside of the Chobe Game preserve. I was supposed to hunt with Terry Palmer,but unfortunately Terry injured his back the day before we arrived and had to go to Joburg for treatment. Johan asked John Young to be our PH and it turned out super. I just can't say enough good things about John and I really enjoyed hunting with him! We hunted hard for five days and tracked about 25-30 bulls. On day four we saw a nice one but passed and on day five we got on the track of three big bulls. We caught up to them after about 4 miles and John felt that the second one would easily go 55lbs. I should mention that when we started tracking the temperature was a comfortable 70 degrees F, but by the time we found the Bulls it was about 90 degrees and climbing. By mid day it was 100 plus! We then got into a good ambush as the bulls fed past us and I was perfectly set up for a high heart lung shot at about 20 FEET. Things then went WRONG. REALLY WRONG! The bull turned to face me at the last moment( game scout apparantly moved) and I had no shot at anything vital. THEY ARE REALLY BIG AT 20 ft! The angle was terrible for a frontal brain and the right leg was covering all the vitals. NOW WHAT DO I DO! I quickly deceided that I needed to turn that elephant and NOW! I shot it with the .470NE at the heart level but just inside the right leg hoping the bullet would get past the bone and into the chest area. THAT WORKED and the ele turned left and went into HYPERDRIVE. He got the second barrel at about 25 feet in the area of the heart/lungs somewhere. Now he was cooking and I was reloading like lightning. Before he got another 25 yrds I was able to shoot him twice trying to break the right back leg. The ele visably reacted to both shots and I thought he was going down but it just didn't happen. He was busy making tracks for Mozambique! We tracked him for about a mile till we caught up to him again and finished him with two shots thru the heart/lung area at about 25 yrds. He made a final turn towards us trumpeted and screemed his rage at me at the shots, but I could tell he had had it. He was essentially done for at this point, blowing clouds of blood and tissue from his trunk and the goal now was to finish him as quickly as possible.
He was a very pretty bull with one tusk going 61.2lbs and the other 55lbs.
In the end I have learned why the double rifle is the king of elephant guns. There is no way in the world I would have been able to shoot as quickly or instinctively with a bolt gun. Trust me I've spent lots of time stroking bolt actions and when time is of the essence no bolt gun will ever shoot as fast as a double! I used John Mcmorrows Bridger flat nosed brass solids and recovered three bullets later. One was just under the offside hide and. I also had two complete pass thru's. Thats over four feet of penetration. I honestly think that even if I was using my .600 overkill. the results would not be any different. I know I would not have been able to hit that elephant as many times with the bolt gun though!
After recovering the tusks and meat for the Mababe village we spent the next 5 days hunting for duiker and jackal, unsuccessfully. We would see duiker ( rear ends moving at warp speed) but no decent shots and the same for jackals. Why diker and jackal? Well there were the only things left on license that I didn't have and I thought it would be fun!
After 5 days of duiker patrol I deceided it was time to go fishing. We chartered a plane to NGUMA camp in the Okavango delta and fished for Tigers in the Okavango river. We got about 15-20 tigers per day with my wife catching a 5 lb fish. Not bad considering it isn't yet tiger fishing season in the delta, This was a super way to wind down and get ready for the long flights home.
All in all a fantastic Safari!-Rob




While tracking ELE we ran into a very nice herd of Cape Buffalo,about 300 animals looking desparately for water. Here is a picture of one nice one. lucky for him I didn't have a license for Buff.

Congratulations! Sounds like an outstanding hunt.

Outstanding! Please give us some pictures.

Edited: Thank you sir may I have another.

(Very nice Elephant.)

Good show Rob.
Thanks for sharing.


Kyler

Congratulations, sounds like you had a blast. Nice looking elephant. Yes, more pictures please. Do you have any pictures of the recovered Bridger solids?

Good looking elephant you got there. Congrats

I just added a few pics including one of the recovered bridger solids from JUST UNDER the hide on the off side. Two others whisled trough the ELE with complete pentetration.-Rob

Very good. Congrats.

Rob

WTFG, dude. Very nice tusks and good report.

That's a great ele. congrats and nice report!

Rob,

Looking forward to hearing your story first hand, when you come down in Nov.

Hog Killer

Rob,

Congratulations on a great hunt and a great elephant!

Rob,

Sounds like an exiting hunt. Congratulations on your very nice elephant!

Nice Elephant and tough looking double! [what brand is it ?] looks like you need some new safari boots !

Outstanding Bull! Lung shot is the way to go! Great point about the double vs the bolt! Now you have me thinking!!

By the way, interesting "safari" shoes!!!

Rob, those Bridger's sure do a lot of penetration...Great shooting and super trophy...

Mike

Congratulations on the elephant!!! Great report and photos.

Phil

Nice going, Rob!

Why no buff license?

George

Great Ele, and with a great guy Calitz! By the way, the shoes are fine, nothing beats a light walking shoe for long treks after Ele, or Buffalo. I generally wear New Ballance Walkers, they are light, good foot support, and quiet!
Your rifle looks like a nice sidelock double!What is it?

Guys- The double is a Searcy built for me about 10 years ago with false side plates. It's really a boxlock. I used a load of 106 grs of H4831 SC with the 500 gr Bridgers. The load is slightly compressed and heavily crimped. It chrono's at 2200fps and groups pretty well at 40 yrds. I have no complaints about it's penetration.
I ALWAYS wear sneakers when huinting.Period. I am very very particular about walking quietly when hunting( I practice this extensively) and I have never found anything (other than Mocasins) that lets me walk as quietly as an old pair of well worn sneakers. Also when they get full of blood and stuff during the autopsy phase ( gotta recover some bullets you know), I can just throw them away at the end of each safari! I save my nice courtneys for SCI that way!-Rob

Man, oh man... Youve gone and done it... My heart is racing and longing for Africa, but I have 11 months before my trip. My PH has two leftover ele in the TULI area to sell at discount this year and I am seriously thinking about going myself!! I am also kicking myself for not buying that .475#2 that I kept ogling and fawning over at SCI last year. And here I was going to have a nice restful day and weekend. I had better go take my BP pill Thanks a ton for the post and the photo's, MAJOR CONGRATUALTIONS from me, as well!!!

Rob

Nice bull! We hunted out of that same camp last year. Lots of elephant, easy tracking and walking. That area is also very wild. We actually had wild dogs chase an impala into camp in the daylight. Also we videoed a male leopard lying under a tree for over 15 minutes at 25 yards. That stuff does not happen everywhere in Africa.

Good show!

Mark

nice jumbo

Congratulations! Very nice bull and very well written story.

What DR did you use in.470???

Great elephant--and that buff you had to pass on is a definite shooter in anyone's book, too.

Congratulations!

Rob job well done. What a great story and a beautiful elephant to boot. How old did your Ph feel the old boy was? Sounds like a bit of excitement at 20 ft. After doing the autopsy where did the bullets pass inside? That was one tenacious elephant to go a mile with that much lead in him.

I guess it’s time for me to get busy building a double. I can certainly see where you could have been in a bit of trouble with a bolt especially with the recoil of the 600. Still it would have been nice to break it in. I’m planning to take it to TZ in 07 for just such a situation.

I think it’s great that your wife joins you on your hunts. I think if more women would give it a try we would have more female hunters. That’s another topic.

I’ll try again to give you a call later. I’m having a short stay at the hospital and although I smuggled in my laptop there is limited cell service.

From the picture it looks like the solid could be loaded again. Those were the same nose shape as 500grains used in his 500 last year. A lot less radius on the nose so a much bigger meplat.

Again, congratulations and welcome home.

John

Rob,
Exciting hunt and good ivory too, 60+ is not shabby for ele. Funny how all the shot plans and anatomy study doesn't quite prepare you for the angle and shot on the ground and you are right, their size is really intimidating at close range.
Again it emphasizes that you must know your weapon and practice so you can be on automatic in the tight situations. I feel that I never ever reach that level completely, but do keep trying.
Congrats on a great looking bull, those tusks will look great.

Dak

Neat! I like the sneakers, too. Reeboks?

Great Hunt--See you in Nov and would love to see the recovered bullets also. Thanks for the report.

Good bull.

Jolly Good Show Rob! Damn nice bull.
Good report & photos!

What a great memory.
Congrats.

Hi Rob,
Sounds like you had an awesome time. What a great experience having everything work out at such close range. I sure hope you bring photos to Texas with you. Chris and I just sent off the ATF forms today and are really looking forward to meeting up with everyone.
Take good care
Dave

Congratulations Rob that would have been amazing !!

You hunted with the best of the best, Johan cannot be beat for good elephants..and how about those Bridgers, ain't they something to get excited about..My favorite solid and combined with a Northfork cup point your ------ in tall cotton...

BTW if any of you are interrested I can book you with Johan Calitz safaris but you have to book at least a year ahead of time...

Rob,
Sounds like a double was the perfect thing to have... jesus.. 20 feet? is there anything in your field of view BUT grey hide?



Can't wait to see you in nov,

Yep, nothing can stop one of john's bullet short of 6ft of ele!!

jeffe

One other thing I learned is that shooting an elephant is like shooting a TIRE. You make big holes but they all seal up immediately. Not much blood trail till it started to blow blood out its trunk about a 1/2 mile later. The only holes that bled were the two that I tried to break its hind leg as it was boogieing away from me. Yup you see a lot of grey stuff up that close. Open sights are nice but when stuff goes bad you shoot without looking at the sights. thats why you need to have a double that will shoot where you look. You don't have time to get a sight picture really.
Before the hunt I practiced shooting by just keeping my eyes on a target 25 yrds away and firing the gun without really trying to get a sight picture. Just pure instinctive shooting. It's actually amazing how well you can do. I'm taking Pie plate accuracy of course, but you don't need more than that for ELE at 20 ft.
470 Mbogo and Jeffe-I am really looking foreward to seeing you guys again in Nov. in Texas. I'll bring more pictures with me then. I've got quite a bunch. You will love them.-Rob

Congratulatons on a successful safari ad thank you for the fantastic report.

THAT ELE BULL IS A SOD, CONGRATULATIONS! Sounds like you had an fantastic trip in Botswana. Bots is without a doubt THE place to find big tuskers today and it sounds like you did exactly that!