Outfitter-Jamy Traut Safaris
Area Hunted-Caprivi, Mayuni & Kwandy Namibia
PH Jamy Traut and Kabous (does not have his DC permit yet).

This is the second leg of a double non-trophy bull elephant hunt. The first leg was with Mokore Safaris in the Sengwa Research Area. See the report. This hunt was special for several reasons, the main one was my grandson (Cody) will be with me. I had never hunted in Namibia and was looking forward to hunting the BIG body bulls of the Caprivi. There is a lot of difference between hunting in Zimbabwe and Namibia. One of the first things I noticed while riding from the airport in Windhoek to the B & B was the roads weren't full of pot holes. Another difference was, while hunting in the Caprivi, the game scout was the tracker. The PH didn't have his personal trackers. That seemed so strange. Another oddity in the Caprivi is EVERYBODY has a cell phone, the game scout, the lady in the village tending her garden. In a way, the phone helped, people call the game scout telling them about the elephant movement, but that part of the rat race I could have done with out. I don't even own a cell phone.

Jamy and Kabous picked us up at the airport in Mpacha and drove to camp. Along the way I wondered what Cody was thinking as he looked at the villages and the huts made out of mud and cow dung. I'm sure it was a culture shock. Camp was set up right next to the river and the hippos were going full blast. I told Cody I was going to let him have the bed next to the tent flap in case a hippo visited, he gave a nervous laugh and had a question in his eyes. His first time in the African bush, first time to hear hippos, this was going to be a special time.

The first morning out we found three big tracks and followed them but they soon went into a neighboring concession. Mayuni is a very small concession and we would see the elephants moving through and into the different areas. With an own use permit, we were limited to this one concession where as with a trophy permit Jamy could go to his other areas if the elephant moved. We saw giraffe and wildebeest which was a first for me.

ON the second day, Cody saw his first real (wild) elephant, up close and personal. Early that morning, Mr. Frank, the game scout, got a call on his cell phone from a lady in a nearby village saying there was an elephant near her hut. When we got there a little boy took us to where the elephant had been. When we heard it, the boy got to the back of the line. It was in some extremely thick brush but we were able to move toward the elephant on a path. Once we got close enough (15-20 Yds) to see bits and pieces of it the boy took off. He was probably the smartest one in the group. The elephant moved into an opening and we saw it was a cow, then she got on the same path we were on and turned and faced us at 15 yds. Fortunately, she spun and ran away from us. After it was over we laughed some to release the tension, if she had come down the path toward us it would have gotten exciting quick. I was proud of how Cody handled his first encounter, said it was a feeling he never had experienced, it was scary but exciting, his mind said run but he knew we had said stay with the group. I told him, "That's a little bit different than hunting whitetails", his eyes got big and he said "Yea"!! Late that afternoon we were lined out walking and just about ready to call it quits for the day when a long snake came slithering right in the middle of us. Jamy hollered "Snake" and we scattered like a covey of quail. We made some dance moves that the world had never seen. Isn't it strange how we are so afraid of snakes but willing to walk right into a group of elephants. We got back to the cruiser just as the sun was setting and while I was taking pictures, some body says, "there's a bull." About 200 yds away was a young bull. Jamy told me he was young but asked if I wanted to make a practice run so we grabbed the rifle and took off. The bull had seen us and entered the edge of the trees. I thought he would go on but when we got within 50 yds he turned, head held high with his ears out, kicked dirt and trumpeted. He was feeling full of himself and Jamy had to shout him down. It had been an exciting day and provided plenty of conversation at the fire pit.

The next couple of days were real slow. We rode in a boat to check islands for elephant but there wasn't any fresh sign. It's clear the elephant have moved out of this concession but being on the water was fun and very different from the elephant hunting I have done. Seeing hippos, crocs and even one OLD, OLD Buf that had one tip broken off and his bosses worn slick, I wish I had a buffalo tag. The night of the fourth day we heard a herd of elephant cross the river while we were at the fire pit. We hunt in Mayuni but camp is in Kwandu and there is a lot of elephant on this side of the road but my "Own Use" permit is not good here.

On the fifth morning at breakfast, Jamy said he had a bull around his tent last night. We went to check the islands and found no elephants but were seeing a lot of lechwe which I have never seen. While we were on the island, Colin, the chef, calls on his cell phone and says there is a group of elephant near camp, evidently the herd that crossed the river last night was still around. Jamy gets on the phone with the council of Kwandu trying to work out something so I could hunt this concession. Anyway, we head back to camp not knowing but we were not seeing elephants here. When we got back Colin takes us to the elephants which were in some real thick stuff, we could hear them but couldn't get a look so we didn't know if it was cows or if a bull was in the group. We followed them along the edge until they fed into a small opening. There was seven bulls and no cows. Jamy was on the phone again with the council and they worked a deal that I could afford but they still wanted the weight of the tusk to be under 40#. We got in close to the bulls and decided there wasn't anything we wanted to shoot, there was a real old bull with broken tusks which would have been a great own use bull but with the raised TF Jamy wanted me to take something better so we slowly backed out. Cody got the full experience, inside of 50 yds watching seven bulls. We saw one bull break a limb using his tusk and watched them strip leaves off, it was quite a show. Early the next morning, Jamy heard elephants breaking limbs near camp, we also got a call about elephants coming back into the Mayuni concession so the plan is to check out the ones near camp and if that doesn't work go to the Mayuni. Either way, I think we will be in elephants today. We walk out form camp checking the blocks of brush and find tracks of several bulls and two or three are big tracks that are about three hours ahead of us. We follow them to a stream that was to deep to cross so a dug out canoe is used. That was another first for us, Michael, the game scout, standing in the back poling us along and having the water within two or three inches from coming over the sides. Tracking up till now has been easy, sandy soil and the bulls were going pretty much in a straight line, but now they have entered a big block of thick thorn bush. That stuff was awful, after awhile I felt like I was leaving a blood trail not to mention trying to be quiet. Now the bulls were feeding and meandering so we were going round and round and back and forth and it seemed like we weren't making any progress then we heard that wonderful sound of a limb breaking. I think everybody pointed to the sound at the same time and the intensity skyrocketed. Fortunately, we were able to use an elephant path to approach the bulls with the wind in our face and were able to move in quietly. This is where Jamy taught me PATIENCE, we could see bits and pieces of the bulls so we would just stand still for several minutes then move in a few feet, then glass some more, move and glass and after what seemed like an eternity we came to an opening about 10 yds across where we could see the backs and heads of most of the bulls. The best we could tell there were nine bulls and luckily they were feeing close together so we were able to look them over. From time to time you would get a glimpse of the tusks when they reached up to get a branch. We were whispering in each others ear, this bull has this, that bull has that. The bull that was standing closest to us was very old, sunk in temples and broken tusk and I asked Jamy what he thought and we agreed he would be a very good bull to take. His body was HUGH and probably the biggest body bull in the group. Once it was decided that was the bull we wanted to take, we walked in a little closer and waited for him to give me a good shot. I could see his ear hole but with the sun shinning in our face and his ear in the shadow with branches in the way I didn't have a good shot, so we waited some more hoping he would take a couple of steps forward. Well, the bull saw or sensed something and spun toward us, stepping out from behind the tree and stood facing us with his head held high and his ears out. At 16 steps he looked big as a mountain. When I shot, he collapsed, after a couple of insurance shots the celebrating began. Cody was a few yards behind me and saw the whole thing. Thank heavens the other bulls ran away from us!!

After we settled down some, Jamy looks at the tusks and says, "They are thicker than I thought". They were close to 18" at the lip and he said could push 50#. Not to bad for an own use. It wasn't long before the villagers started to arrive. The recovery of the meat would be difficult with the bull being on an island but by dark all the meat was gone. The next day we left for Jamy's ranch to hunt some PG. They are having an extreme drought in parts of Namibia so Jamy was interested in reducing the number of animals, he didn't have to twist our arms much. We would take non-trophy springbok, blue wildebeest, and gemsbok giving us some trigger time and Cody took his first African game. Jamy's lodge was 5 star with a beautiful view. One morning I got up and the full moon was just touching the distant mountain. It was stunningly beautiful. This trip was unique with Cody being with me and seeing a different part of Africa with different wildlife. I can picture us years down the road, telling his kids about the trip we took together.

Since it was Cody's first African game

Relaxing after a day of hunting

Took this pic at the park

Gathering fire wood on a sled

Left out this shot of Jamy's lodge

Congratulations. Excellent report and hunt. Great memories.

Congrats on your bull! Sounds like a great experience. Thanks for sharing it!

Beautiful elephant! Got to love hunting with Jamy. I just stayed in that exact bungalow last week after shooting a very nice buffalo in the caprivi!

Nice!

Fantastic hunt report!

What was non trophy about that? Great elephant and report.

Randy,

That old bull has a lot of character... a superb trophy indeed. Congratulations to you and your grandson

Roland

Very good. Thank you


CF

Any chance you'll have reproduction tusks made? If so, please share the results with us. I'm considering a similar hunt to keep costs down.

quote:

Originally posted by Badger Matt:
Any chance you'll have reproduction tusks made? If so, please share the results with us. I'm considering a similar hunt to keep costs down.

I don't think so. I have the tusks from the trophy bull I got last year. Cost was the reason I did this non-trophy hunt. You can't bring anything back but you get to hunt elephant. That is the most important point to me. I was concerned that it would not be a proper hunt but it is the REAL DEAL.

Randy,
Looked like you had a great hunt, my wife and i are going on that same hunt with Jamy, the beginning of September. Can't wait, time is moving slowly!!
We have never hunted in Africa where there is that much water. do you have any recommendations of anything special we should take??

Leo

Leo, I've hunted that area twice with Jamy. First hunt was in the Balyerwa concession. That area in June of the year had a lot of channels that we waded. I wore some shoes that were made for being in water. Last August I hunted the Mayuni concession. It is along the Kawando river, but does not have the marshy areas and channels that Balyerwa does. I wore regular boots unless we would take the boat out on the river. The Kawando concession is north of the Mayuni, also along the river, and from what I understand the area is like the Mayuni. I would suggest a pair of regular boots and a pair of shoes that are made to be in and out of the water.

Leo, MCM300 had the same experience as we did. We hunted in Mayuni and Kwandu and it was not swampy. I wore regular boots but did bring another pair in case we had to wade but we never did. The water was going down quickly so by the time you get there it will be down considerably. Only time you will get wet is if the dugout canoe turns over!

Thanks guys. We can't wait to get there..