Would have posted sooner but left the hunt early partly to get back to Houston a day before Ike hit. With preparation the storm, and then cleanup, things have been pretty hectic.

Went with Coenraad Vermak Safaris in his Sankuko area in Botswana. PH was Lee Potter - truely superb. Very knowledgeable, has excellent well maintained equipment coupled with a great team, hunts hard every day and is real good company.

Got in some nice dove shooting a few evenings. Sporty flyers with few easy shots. Lee went 9 for 10 two straight outings and would have certainly extended the streaks if he hadn't let me start picking his shots after the first five or six hits.



Worked damn hard a few days for a large Impala ram. Actually were hunting one of two specific rams and got stemied once by an elephant and once by a group of Zebra - latter while we could hear, and sometimes glimpse our ram fighting another about 50 yds away. Didn't get one of the two biggies, but happy to settle on this one next to departure day as enough better than the only other I have shot; and I have a whole lot better perspective for Impala than before. (If someone could clean up the picture I would appreciate it - enough of a challenge just trying to post photos. - that's the entry side of 450/400).


Had a Kudu on quota and was looking for something bigger than the two I have in the 53" - 54" range. Saw several over the hunt, including one about like those I have. Didn't shoot but glad I had it on quota because that kept things real right up through the last evening.

Also got one of those large grey things...


Which is about as exciting as anything I've ever closed on. Saw about 12-14 more bulls but none as symmetrical.


Can hardly wait to get these home and properly displayed.


First attempt posting photos so hope this works. Seeing as I got back before the Hurricane and have been real good about cleanup chores, might get another kitchen pass - this could become addictive!

Regards,
Emory

Congratulations on your elephant!

Any estimate on the weight of the tusks? How close were you when you shot?

CVS seems to always field a good group of PH's.

Emory,

Very Nice!

Mark

I'm very jealous. Love the photo of the ivory and double, it screams Africa.

i didn't know Lee was working for Conrad Vermak now. met him a few years ago when he worked for Greg Butler Safaris, although he wasn't my PH. helluva nice guy and fun to be around.

Congratulations! It seems you had a great hunt.

Awesome hunt.

Congrats

Emory,

Outstanding bull... Mike

Nice ele. Congrats on your hunt.

Great looking ele! Congrats on the hunt!

Nice ele for sure.

Jeff

Congratulations. I look forward to the rest of your report. Lee is a great guy. He was one of the guides that we had this year on our Buffalo hunt in the Delta with Mark Kyriacou. He guided my buddy to a nice Buffalo. Does a nice warthog on a spit also.

TerryR

Very jealous. Has Lee left Greg Butler? I hunted with Garreth Flemix as PH and Lee was my father's PH last August. Lee is a superb hunter and fireside companion. Did Gareth happen to be on this hunt? Cheers, CC

Pretty Dam nice Bull Emory. Looks like the one I passed up saving him for you ;-) Congratulations. You deserve it! This is a pretty neat place to hunt. I'll post our story. Keith

I believe that Lee is hunting for Mark Kyriacou primarily, and at times for Vermak.

Was the elephant killed with the 450/400?

Please tell the details of that rifle and
the specifics of the stalk and shot!

Emory - Well done, very nice bull and I'm sure even better memories. Go to the Global Hunting Resources website, they do professional photo clean up's starting about $30, may be what your looking for.

Nice elephant! Congrats!

I hope you can post more details of your elephant appraoch, etc.

JPK

Sorry it's been a while getting back on a couple of questions, but didn't get back on our floor of the office until Monday, and just got power back at home later that night.

On day one we saw cow and small bull tracks but nothing particularly interesting. Early the second day we followed very large (~24" long) tracks until they went out of the area a couple of miles from where we crossed them. Later that morning we found another set of equally large tracks that left the area. Around 2PM we saw what became my bull probably 3-400 yards away in the brush fringe across a large but almost dry pan. Obviously he looked pretty good but I was not sure I wanted to go after him on just the second afternoon of the hunt.

Lee was perfectly willing to go with my decision to hold out for possibly something bigger, but fortunately after some careful glassing, a closer look, and more discussion I went along with his recommendation that we go after that bull. As I told him later, a PH's job is obviously to protect clients from more than physical danger - in my case at least, I could have suffered from some pretty bad and inexperienced personal judgement.

The wind was swirling pretty good and the bull moving so after going around the far side of the pan, we had to hustle to somewhat parallel and converge on the bull. Part of the time we were actually running and I only caught a few glimpses of his head and back over the tops of the brush. When we finally got close and ahead of him Lee said I would probably have to take a shot while he was walking. The bull stopped just before he stepped into a fairly narrow lane and I held the rifle up waiting for the couple of steps that would clear his left shoulder. After some period of time (60 seconds?) I had to slowly lower the rifle to rest my left elbow on my hip. During that wait, I could clearly see his head angled slightly away. The range was possibly 35 yards and I would ordinarly be quite certain of hitting a business card with both barrels of my 450/400 at that distance. When I realized it was my heart I was clearly hearing, I ruled out any consideration of attempting a brain shot!

I raised the rifle again when the bull started walking and fired when the shoulder cleared. He turned almost directly away and had brush around him so quickly I almost waited too long for a followup. I could just see the top of his hips/back and got a shot that hit maybe 2-3 inches left of the spine ridge. There was no discernable effect but 2-300 yards from there he fell and dragged his hind legs a short distance. He stood up when we approached but looked pretty sick. I missed a quarter facing brain attempt, then he went down, though not with a classic brain hit reaction, with a second attempt between the eyes - these were maybe from 40 yds. (I need to re-study Will's book). I used a insurance shot to the top of head and one to center of chest when we got to him. The only bullet recovered was from under the hide on the right shoulder - almost a perfect 400 gn Woodleigh solid, but with groves.

The tusks are 69" and 67" long and both right at 17" circumference at the lipline.I expect they will weigh at least 50 lbs each. That is just what Lee estimated within a few minutes of the first sighting. I could not be happier if they were 80 lbs... All in all a great experience, and I'm damn glad I took Keith Atcheson's advise to book this when it came up on relatively short notice. It's also great that I followed Lee's advice. Filling early allowed several more days of hunting while CVS and Gracy reworked return travel, but I was still able to get back to Houston early to go through the hurricane. That was real luck! And, will probably pay big dividends on the home front when it's time to talk about the next one...

Regards,
Emory

Regards,
Emory

Dam that is what its all about!

Glad Keith dug this oldie but goodie up.. musta missed it the first go-round..

Congrats on taking a helluva bull with a NICE looking pea shooter!!

I missed this one the first time around, too.

Great bull elephant, Emory. Congratulations!

Dam Nice Tembo.
Congratulation Emory !

Seloushunter

I love the picture with the double rifle/tusks and the tent i the background..Nice ele too !

Emory
Really glad you had such a great safari ! Beautiful bull,great memories, and a wonderful pair of tusks to rub every day of your life.
Good for you.

Great stuff!

CVS sure knows how to put on a good hunt. No wonder they've been in the business for as long as they have.

Congrats!

Chris

Emory, What great tusks, Look the pics
Congrats.

I appreciate the comments.

Just to keep the record straight though, there was a downside to that hunt. Before going I thought one elephant would surely be enough. Now, everytime I try to focus on another hunt plan, I keep thinking, " ... or, I could get back in touch with Coenraad and see when Lee Potter could be available for another Botswana elephant hunt..."

Best wishes,
Emory

Great bull Emory... a worthy post to the African Hunting Board! Well done!

Congrats on the large gray thing. Also beautiful pictures.

Congratulations Emory, that is a splendid bull.

David