Kota Gombé, The Story of Marc Pechenart, Wilderness Explorer and Big-Game Hunter.

Many sport hunters have pursued elephants in the post-World War II era, yet it is unlikely that any sport hunter was more successful in obtaining large ivory than Marc Pechenart, a Frenchman who hunted in Africa in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. It is often said that if you undertake to hunt an elephant, you either do it once and never again, or you become obsessed to the point that it becomes a passion that lasts a lifetime. Marc’s father passed along the Africa virus to his children and three of his four sons became great hunters who ventured into Central Africa in search of big game in areas that, at the time, were nearly unknown to Western guides and hunters. Kota Gombé ’s first trips to Africa in the 1950s included visits to Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, and Madagascar. While these were exploratory trips to soak up the atmosphere so particular to Africa, business, not hunting, was on the agenda. He also took trips in his early years to Australia and the United States, and each time he returned to Europe, he naturally continued to hunt on a weekly basis. In the late 1950s, Marc started hunting in West Africa, taking his first elephant in the Ivory Coast in 1959. From the West Coast of Africa, Marc moved to East Africa, lured by tales of the great hunting grounds of Kenya and Tanzania. In the beginning he hunted with well-known elephant guides like PH Bob Foster, PH Terry Irwin, and PH Brian Nicholson, the latter two in the Selous Reserve of southern Tanzania. Marc became such a regular that he was soon trusted to hunt on his own without a guide. In East Africa Marc obtained a number of 100-pounders, a much sought-after weight that was only ever achieved by a few hundred sport hunters after World War II. In the 1960s his brothers Xavier and Claude persuaded him to go along on one of their self-guided hunts in the Central African Republic. Once Marc got a good idea of what kind of ivory was available there, he stopped hunting for elephants anywhere else and concentrated on this fabulous stretch of wild Africa that contained a high density of large bull elephants. It was there that he obtained his best elephant ever, one that carried a pair of tusks weighing in at 154 x 148 pounds, a truly astonishing tusker. His choice of weapon to take down these immense tuskers was always a double rifle, most often a .500/.465 Holland & Holland. In total Marc shot nine elephants that are recorded in Rowland Ward’s Records of Big Game, all of which are over 100 pounds. This feat has never been matched by any other hunter. Marc remains the apotheosis of elephant hunting in the vast bakos of Central Africa. Marc’s book, Kota Gombé, will be the first narrative hunting book published by Rowland Ward in over a decade. The proceeds of this book will go to the Rowland Ward Foundation for the benefit of its charitable works worldwide. A very limited special edition of only 375 numbered copies will ever be issued for sale. It will be 6x9 inches in size, have Rowland Ward zebra endpapers, a map, and be approximately 270 pages with 125 color photos. It will be a hard cover, custom
bound and a collector’s item. This is sure to become an instant elephant hunting classic.
This Book can be ordered here https://simplecirc.com/rowland...-and-big-game-hunter