24 July 2016, 18:38
Lin StantonNon trophy Elephant Bull - Mbalabala Safaris 2016
Operator- Mbalabala SafarisArea- Hwange communal land
PH-Lin Stanton
Hunter-Peter
Dates-12-21 July
Camp-Sidinda lodge
Pete had hunted with me six years previously. We had spoken several times about doing a non trophy elephant bull. Finally he booked a ten day hunt for a non trophy bull and a leopard. Being Australian a non trophy would be perfect as he cannot import the ivory into Australia.
The first two day we spent hanging baits and checking river beds and roads for any sign of big toms in the area. Finding a few nice tracks we hung several baits. Having a young male and a female feed on two different baits we had our hopes up.
On the third day we decided to follow a herd of elephant that looked like it had a few Bulls in it. We followed for three or four hours before the herd got our wind and took off. We decided to leave them to settle and go check a few baits in the area. Arriving at one of the baits we could see it had been fed on so we set a trail camera up. Returning to the elephant later that day we followed them for another two hours before catching them feeding at about four o'clock. Getting the wind right we moved in front of them and waited for them to walk onto us. When they got to about forty yards from us a noise from our left got my attention and looking across we saw 14 elephant bulls walking towards us. Most of them younger bulls but one stood out with odd shaped tusks. We decide that this would be our bull to take. As it got within shooting distance Peter shot, the shot hit a little far back to drop him with a side brain shot he reloaded quickly and putting another shot into him which dropped him in the perfect position. Putting in the final shot and it was all done handshakes all round. Peter was ecstatic with this lovely elephant bull he had taken.
Being a communal land the following morning we did the recovery there must have been 150 villagers or more to collect the meat.
The next few days was spent refreshing baits and looking for a Chobe bushbuck. We had a good male knocking around one of our baits the tracks looked big but he seemed to be very camera shy and could never get a good picture of him. We decided to concentrate on the bushbuck and catching a few fish as the main animal was done.
Pete ended up shooting a beautiful bushbuck and catching some great catfish unfortunately we tried to get a tigerfish but the water was just to cold
