Return to the Nyae Nyae, the land of the giants

Namibia
Nyae Nyae Concession
SMJ Safaris Stephan Jacobs
PH Ben Van Wyk
June 24 - July 4 2017
Non-trophy bull elephant

First, Stephan Jacobs of SMJ Safaris is giving away this hunt for a non-trophy bull elephant as a fund raiser for his son's school. It is a private, Christian school which receives no public funds. It is extremely generous of Stephan and gives you a chance to win one of the best elephant hunts in Africa. I have been twice and am booked for the third. Nickh has been twice and is also booked for the third one. This is a great opportunity for some lucky hunter. This is the link :
https://www.tsumeb-gimnasium.c...hant-hunt-in-namibia

Now, back to the show. Somebody famous says that.

This was my second trip to the Nyae Nyae, it is truly the land of the giants. This years hunting was totally different than 2 years ago due to a lot of rain in April. Water was in every little pan, in fact there were areas in the southern part that were flooded and you could not hunt there. Not only was there water everywhere but the brush was thick and green not to mention the grass was like a mat which made the tracking very difficult.
The first day we went south and it was very difficult to hunt because of the water. We didn't see an elephant or a track. So, if they are not south, they have to be north. What a difference a day makes. 10 min. out of camp we found hot dung in the road. As we got on the tracks I told Ben," Now we are elephant hunting." A short tracking job and we come up on a nice 55# - 60#. Later that morning we followed a group of bulls with two old bulls in it. The trackers said there was 9 bulls in this group, well, they were wrong, there was ten. How could they tell there was that many from just reading the tracks? There was two real old bulls in the group, one had some of the longest tusks we saw, the other had long tusks but was thin. We spent about 45 min. looking them over. That was one thing that made this hunt so special. We would get in on bulls and Ben and I would discuss the different bulls, which ones were old, how much certain bulls tusks weighed. Ben taught me so much about how to judge the weight of the tusks and what to look for in aging them. It's hard to put into words, this was my 8th elephant hunt and has developed into much more than tracking something to shoot. I felt such a peace and contentment when we would get in close on these magnificent animals. I was not interested in any PG so after I got our bull we continued to track bulls just to observe them. I dearly love it and praise the Lord for blessing me where I'm able to do it.

The day I got my bull we picked up tracks of two bulls on the road. Big 24" with deep lugs so we decided to follow. We tracked them for a while but lost them. The high grass makes tracking very difficult but after about 30 minutes the guys figured it out. The dung was hot so we knew the bulls were not far. That's when the adrenaline level starts to climb, your senses are elevated, you strain to hear a branch break or the rumbling that is music to an elephant hunter's ears. Twee, the young tracker heard it first but it would be a little while before my old ears could distinguish it. That's when you can feel your heart beating in your neck. We made sure the wind was right and went to the sounds and came up on a group of five bulls, two big bulls with three younger bulls. Nothing we wanted but heard some more to our right. After a short walk, we saw two bulls, one of which was the "PERFECT" bull for me. Very old, big body with tusks that were just trash, 32# and 27#. The problem was he was out in an opening where there was no cover whatsoever between us and him. The wind was good, when he moved we moved, he stopped we froze. Several times he turned to face us and we didn't dare move and after a few minutes, which seemed like hours, he would go back to feeding. Once, when we had closed to about 50 yards, he turned to face us, ears out staring at us. I was in mid-step and froze, the bull took two or three steps toward us. I didn't dare bat an eye but was playing out in my mind what to do if he decided to come. Fortunately, after a moment, he went back to feeding and with a big sigh of relief we slowly closed the distance to 30 yards and that was as close as we could get. He was aware that something was not right so we stopped and waited for him to give us a side brain shot. Let me say this, Ben was the master on this approach. It was touchy from the very beginning and the closer we got the more intense it became. Ben did a great job to get me in close.
I dearly love hunting elephants, especially these huge Nyae Nyae bulls. There is no greater high.

A big foot and no hair on his tail.

These guys were on the carcass three days after I shot the bull. That's three days in the hot sun, two days of vultures eating on it. But they were happy to get some meat.

The Nyae Nyae is known for it's elephant, but they also have excellent buffalo and leopard.

Ben keeps a log on the different leopards, he measures each track and cuts a stick and labels it, writes down the stride. That way he can determine the tom's home rage. SMJ is 100% on leopard for the 6 years Stephan has had the concession.

If you look at the dark spot above the rifle, that is mud rubbed by elephants. That's over 12 feet, just shows you how big these bulls are.

This name was carved into the tree in the previous picture, it was dated as 1898. You wonder if this was an ivory hunter from days gone by. Things have changed very little in the Nyae Nyae .

A black momba was seen in that clump of brush. Ben has his 416 after it, the phrase "Use enough gun" comes to mind. Never did get the snake though.

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