11 March 2014, 09:52
Tim HeraldElephant bull/Croc with SSG Safaris Zim- Sept 2013- late report
Dates: Sept 11-17, 2013Outfitter- SSG Safaris- Nixon Dzingai PH
Malapati Safari Area= Malapati Communal Area SE Zim
Agent- Myself
Travel- Steve Turner Travel with Guns
Overnights- Africa Sky Guesthouse- Bulawayo Club
Sorry this is so late. Had quite a bit of time on a long travel day today and was able to finally put this all together.
On Sept. 10, I met up with my then client, now good friend, Rod Belsham in Atlanta, and we flew over together. We stayed at Africa Sky Guesthouse as usual. It is a part of the trip I now look forward to; great food and drink, and great friends.
The next day we flew over to Bulawayo, cleared customs with no problems and went to the historic Bulawayo Club. From reading reports here about this piece of history, I wanted to make sure to give ourselves time to experience it. I am so glad we did this. The rooms were certainly nothing special, but walking the halls, seeing the history throughout, and simply eating at the restaurant and having a few drinks and a cigar at the bar were be pieces of this trip I will never forget.
The next day we chartered from Bulawayo to Malapati. I say without a doubt, this was the worst flight of my life. The pilot just chucked all our stuff in the plane with no regard for weight or balance, I heard him tell the guy at the fuel pump that he was worried that we were way overweight, and then it took us 10 minutes to get to 2500 feet. The stall alarm went off every time we tried to climb, and he zig zagged back and forth looking for thermals to ride higher. It was really hot and midday, so the whole ride was bumpy, and I have never been so relieved to be on the ground in my life. To top it off, after we unloaded, Rod found two 50 lb bags of sand in the belly of the plane, and the pilot didn’t know they were there. I usually love small aircraft rides, but this one really scared me.
We got settled into SSG’s camp, tested guns, and then Simon took us out for a ride. This was Rod’s first trip to the bush ever, and it was great to experience it with him. He shot an impala that just barely missed 24”, and I figured it was a good omen for the trip.
I hunted buff with Rod the next day, and we came up empty. That night Nixon rolled in with Chris (from here on AR). They had just completed a successful elephant hunt, and it was a pleasure to spend a couple hours around the fire with Chris.
The next day we were off to look for an elephant for me, while Rod went with Simon to hunt buffalo, and anything else good they came across.
I am not going to make this report an every day blow by blow, but will cut to the action, and photos. Rod killed a nice old dugga boy on day 2, and then he started hammering plainsgame.
On day 4 or 5 we were in at lunch, and I asked Rod if he wanted to go with us during the afternoon to look for elephant. He had taken something nice that morning, so was happy to go.
We had seen a group of elephant leaving our area and going in to Gonarezhou that morning, so we planned to go back to the crossing and see if they would come back in the evening. We did not get to our intended location as we spotted a lone bull elephant taking a bath in a small pool on our side. We were a long way away, and I immediately saw that his right tusk was broken upon glassing, and I asked Nixon what he judged his left tusk would weigh. He told me he thought it should go 55 lbs. Then he asked me what I thought, and when I told him I wanted to go make a play for the bull, his big smile just lit up. I had hunted the area for 12 days in 2012 and went home empty handed, so I had decided I would not pass any elephant over 50 pounds, but was sure hoping to hit 60.
We drove way in behind the bull and made a quarter mile walk to the high river bank. When we peaked over, the bull was there, but he was starting to head back across the river to the park. As he was slowly going straight away, I piled off the bank, and when we hit the bottom, the sticks went up. I wasn’t going to shoot him in the back end, so I whistled a couple of times. The second one brought his great head around to his right, and as soon as I could see the earhole, I squeezed the trigger.
I never felt the .416Rem, and it was like time stood still. The bull’s back end dropped, and his masisve head went up. When I snapped back to reality, I cranked another into his shoulder, but it was not needed. He settled upright, and then slowly he tipped over to his right as the shorter tusk did not balance him. His weight drove that tusk completely into the sand. It was 2 hours before dark, so we got to take photos with some good light.
As with most folks, I was really moved when we walked up to him. I had taken a tuskless cow with Buzz a few years back, but this bull just looked ancient to me. His wrinkles were so many and deep. His pads were worn, and he certainly did not have a lot of tail hair left. He was magnificent, and then there was the ivory. I think there was 43” sticking out, and the cool smooth feel was a life memory for sure. He was my dream come true. It was really great that Rod had been able to go and be a part of it as well.
Sure I would have rather had two full tusks, but the obvious age more than made up for it, and the short side has lots of character and will be a reminder of this special animal for decades to come.
On the way back that evening, we ran into a group of bulls leaving the park and coming in to our area. Two were over 60 lbs and one we thought would go 80lds. They were incredible, and we got to see them for a long time at 25-50 yards.
His tusks ended up at 48” and 72” exactly, and they weighed 40lbs and 60lbs on the nose. I didn’t really care at that point, but it made the bull just all the better to me.
The next day we took a few more photos early, and then the butchering began. We spent the whole day recovering the elephant, and ferrying as many of the locals back home as possible. They showed up from miles and miles away, and we loaded as many folks as we could into the cruisers and gave them rides home. This was a wonderful day as far as Rod and I were concerned, and it was great to interact with all the locals and feel like you had helped them in some small way.
Two days later we drove through the villages, and every single house or dwelling had strips of elephant meet hanging and drying. I loved seeing how hunters can positively affect an area.
The next morning Nixon and I went out looking for buff. We didn’t get on anything fresh, and as we were driving back to camp for lunch he asked me what else I Africa I really wanted to hunt as he knew I had been fortunate enough to take an old lion a month before. I thought a minute and told him I would like to kill a croc, but I didn’t want to shoot just a croc, I wanted a big one. He asked me what big was, and I explained I didn’t have a cutoff on length, I just wanted one that was huge bodied.
I knew this area generally didn’t produce big crocs and most were in the 10-12’ range and didn’t look massive. Nixon told me that he had seen a really big croc a few times in the vicinity, and asked if I wanted to look around for him. Of course I told him that I was interested, but I didn’t think a lot about it.
That afternoon, we went out and walked some stretches of river, and saw a few crocs. Some looked pretty good, but nothing had a wow factor. We ended up going to a decent sized pool with a big island in it, and when we crept up to a huge rock on the bank, we could see maybe a dozen crocs. There were a few 12 footers, but then there was a monster off to one side that just dwarfed them all. I pointed him out to Nixon and said, “The buff hunt is over, I want to hunt that croc.” Again, he just smiled.
The way the croc was laying didn’t give me a good shot. His shoulders were so big, they blocked a neck or brain shot. Eventually a waterbuck ran across the island and all the crocs splashed into the water.
The next day we went back, and the wind was just horrible. I am talking about sustained winds down the river corridor of over 30mph with gusts to 40. The sand was blowing, and everything we had was literally sand blasted. The big croc was 75 yards away, but I wasn’t crazy about the angle, and I did not feel confident about shooting. I had sand in my teeth, ears, my eyes, and every crevice in my gun was full. We eventually backed out.
The following day was crazy for Zim in September. Most days had been 95 and a couple had broken 100 degrees, and this day started out in the 40’s and never got out of the 50’s. To top that, it drizzled almost all day. I figured the crocs would be staying in the warm water, so we did not go hunt him.
The next day started off cool and damp, and it didn’t seem ideal either. Rod had been plainsgame hunting the area of the big croc, and when he came in at noon, he told us that crocs were out on the banks. So after lunch, we decided to go see if we could get on him. I asked Rod if he wanted to go shoot backup, and we would try to double tap the big lizard. He jumped at the chance, and a couple hours later, we were hunkered behind the big rock on the riverbank about 70 yards from the big croc. He was lying quartering away with just his tail in the water, and it looked like a done deal.
I got Rod down prone beside the rock, and the plan was that when he was settled in, I would slip up on top and use the rock as a rest. I told Rod when he heard my safety click to be ready to shoot. This all worked perfectly except it looked too easy, I didn’t take my time, and I pulled the shot. I was going for behind the smile, and I pulled to the right and hit him in the lower jaw. He flipped straight up, Rod wasn’t expecting that and shot over him as he tried to come up with the rifle, and the croc hit the water with what I figured was a very expensive splash. I was obviously sick, and we spent the rest of the day hoping to get a good finishing shot, but to no avail.
Nixon and Simon both told me to not worry. He would come out on the bank the next day as the wound was not even close to fatal, and they said the fish would pick at the wound and drive him out onto land. Nixon always says don’t worry, so I didn’t have much hope.
We waited until about 9:00AM the next morning and went back. We sat at a distance and glassed all the crocs on the island, and none of them stood out as much larger than the others. We decided to sneak closer to glass some little pockets back in the reeds, and I just happened to look way upstream to the next pool. On a sandbar at the far end there was something big, but I thought it might be a log. When the binos came up, it was obvious it was a big croc lying with his mouth open.
We definitely had to go check him out, but when we got closer, he sure looked big, but he was facing the opposite direction, and I couldn’t see the jaw on the side where my shot would have been. Nixon was convinced it was the same croc, but I couldn’t tell, even trying to look through his open mouth.
We began crawling into a position that would have me 60 yards from the croc, and I told Nixon I wasn’t going to shoot. He told me it was the same croc, and if I shot it and it was the wrong one, he would pay for it. He was that sure.
So I slipped up as close as possible, took my time, and shot him behind the smile. His mouth closed, his tail twitched, and that was that. Nixon looked at me and said, “Why didn’t you do that yesterday?” Then the smile again.
I wasn’t overly ecstatic as I was still afraid I had shot a second croc, but when we got around to him, sure enough, there was the hole in his other jaw. Then I was ecstatic!
He was the kind of big croc I had always wanted. Huge bodied, it took 6 of us to spin him around for photos. He was a nice yellow green with plenty of markings, and when measured, he would be 14’. He had a good bit of the end of his tail missing as well.
I was done, two great animals, and a super trip. Rod ended up with a ton of plainsgame. He took a 30” waterbuck, 2 impala, a bushbuck, a warthog, a great old nyala, baboon, huge hyena of my ele, and of course his dugga boy. He also was with me on both my animals, so he had just an incredible first safari.
We had a great last day with the crew. We went to town and bought the staff a couple cases of beer and made a plan. Everyone raced in the riverbed for prize money, we had a great dinner and a party around the fire. The singing and dancing went well after midnight, and it was a special treat to watch the crew that had worked so hard for us blow off a little steam and have a good time.
We had an uneventful charter back to Bulawayo and overnighted again at the Bulawayo Club. I am very saddened to hear that it has since shut down. I hope that is not for good. We did get a treat in doing a tour of the Courtney Boot factory. I found this very interesting to say the least, and I love their products. I was able to pick up some boots, shoes and belts there, and some styles I had never seen. I had been asking to come film there for about 3 years, and it finally all worked out.
Nixon and SSG provided us a great safari with some great animals. The camp had been updated some since I was there, and the food was improved as well. It was very good, and there was lots of it. The staff was friendly and absolutely worked their tails off for us. Rod is obviously hooked on Africa and is going back in 2015.
Just a few final thoughts, I had a great experience on this trip, but I prefer a non-border elephant hunt. I would rather hunt elephants the tracking way rather than to hope to kill one that you catch out of the park. This was exciting, and I took a great bull, but after doing both, I like tracking better. I am not saying anything negative about this, just a preference.
Croc hunting, especially when you pick out a specific croc, was very exciting and enjoyable to me. It did take us a few days to get the big guy, and that added to the whole thing, but I see why many say they are an underappreciated game animal.
Malapati is a great area and can net hunters some incredible trophies. The staff knows how to hunt there, you just need a touch of luck to have the hunt of a lifetime…Cheers
So far I have been exempted from shooting this lovely game.