Using weight and/or length of ivory as the criteria, who are todays top trophy producers? I'll start with two: Thys De Vries and Johan Calitz.

Gerard Pasanisi comes straight to mind and more recently Jumbo Moore has taken some exceptional bulls in Niassa reserve area.

Has anyone hunted in Namibia with Kai-Uwe Denker? While slightly "focused" about hunting the right way, it seems he is always averaging in the upper 60's or better. Sometimes quite a bit better, at that!

quote:

Originally posted by Ahmed Sultan:
Gerard Pasanisi comes straight to mind and more recently Jumbo Moore has taken some exceptional bulls in Niassa reserve area.

Yes Jumbo has a great Ele area but his top Ele PHs are Johnny Johnson, Stu Taylor and George Hallimore.
Buzz Charlton has a good name for him self when it come to Elephant hunting.
As does Luke Samaris.

The best I know are Johan Calitz in Botswana, and Mozambique, and Pierre van Tonder in Tanzania, they both get really nice elephants in their respective areas..

Nixon Dzingai in Zimbabwe is excellent and his hunts are less than most mentioned by at least half.

Jeff

SBT,

If you are asking for today's top produces and length/weight of the ivory are the criteria then there are a couple of names that should be mentioned.

A couple have posted on "their favorite, or who is excellent" but I don't think this was really SBT's point in the posting. I believe he wants to know not just who is good, or who people have hunted with before, but who is a known producer, the kind of guy that is not only well liked among hunting clients, but also known among his peers for being an elephant hunter.

For example, someone mentioned Buzz Charlton. Buzz is a great hunter, and a very good personal friend of mine, but he has really made his name specializing in a different type of elephant hunting, and he will be the first to admit it is not for producing the biggest ivory coming out of Africa.

A question about Nixon Dzingai- I am sure he is a very good hunter and his hunts are reasonably priced, but what are his credentials? I am always looking for guys that produce big ivory, and if he specializes in this I would like to visit with him. Has he year in and year out produced some big bulls?

Some of the names that should be on any Big Ivory list are the following- and please note these are in no specific order. I believe each of these guys are known not just to the international hunting community as professional elephant hunters, but are also respected among their peers as being elephant specialists

Johan Calitz- Botswana (and some of his PHs as well)

Peter Holbrow- Botswana (in 2005 he produced the biggest bull in Botswana, in 2006 he took the top 5 biggest bulls in Bots, and in 2007 all 12 of his bulls went over 60 pounds- this is amazingly impressive).

Thys DeVries- Zimbabwe/Botswana (several 70, 80, 90+ pounders, and the 100 pounder this year)

Pen DeVries- He has produced big bulls for his clients from Zimbabwe to Tanzania. He won several of the Zimbabwe trophy awards for biggest elephant, top 3 elephant, etc. with several of the bulls he shot in Tsholotsho South over the years. He moved to Tanzania when things started getting bad in Zim and he resumed elephant hunting there last year- taking some beautiful ivory.

Kai Uwe Denker- I read something that he produced the heaviest ivory average for the entire decade of the 90's

Jeff Rann- I am not very familiar with his operation, but he has definitely made a very good name for himself with elephant.

There are others that I have left off- I know some of the Tanzania names I have seen mentioned before were Federico Gellini, Pano Calvarias, Luke Samaras, etc., but I am not very familar with their operations.

Regards,
JB

If weight and length of ivory are the only two criteria you are using to gauge a trophy elephant hunt, then I fear someone is really missing out on what makes an elephant hunt so unique and memorable.

For example, to sit over a waterhole at night and shoot a large tusker that wanders in from a national park with a spot light, that is not a trophy elephant hunt in my opinion. I guess my only point is simply this, there is so much more that goes into making any hunt a trophy hunt than just the physical trophy itself. I am not suggesting that SBT views it any differently -- his question was limited to ivory as the defining criteria -- but just wanted to give my perspective that the ivory is only a small part of what makes a hunt a trophy hunt. I suspect most of the others on this thread would agree.

Agreed MJ,
Nothing like tuskless ele hunting in deep jesse where you look over 200+ ele in 8 days and pass on 17 tuskless, babies or too young, before finding one. Buzz Charlton seems to be the most experienced in this kind of specialty hunt.

Dak

JC,

Nixon Dzingai has taken 110 tuskers around Gonerezhou average weight of 50 plus pounds. Average length of his hunts is 3 days. Occaisonal big eles, but not the shorter thicker ivory of Botswana and the Caprive.

Jeff