22 March 2011, 07:52
MartyTrophy Bull Elephant, CM Safaris Dande East-Pictures added.
Outfitter- CM SafarisPH Buzz- Buzz Charlton
Videographer- Justin Drainer
Trackers- Criton, Nyati
Driver- Eddie
Location- Dande East
Species Taken- Bull elephant, Sharp’s Grysbok
My wife Sue and I got home last night after a 14 day trophy bull elephant hunt with Buzz Charlton at the Dande East communal area. This was what I considered to be a highly specialized hunt, to catch an early season bull coming across from Mozambique. Cutting to the chase, this was accomplished early, on day four. Buzz thought he might go 50, depending on the nerve. It was the nerve from Hell, and he estimates 45 and 40. They will be weighed before shipping.
I hunted tuskless with Buzz in 2009, and booked this trip immediately on my return. I’ve been smitten with elephant hunting, and taking a bull went to the top of my bucket list. It may be the most self-indulgent thing I’ve ever done, but there you have it.
A few days before leaving, I got an email from Buzz that a pride of lions was killing cattle at one of the villages, and that lioness was a possibility for me. My feet didn’t touch the ground for two days.
The East was a very different safari experience for me. This was my fifth trip over, and my first to a communal area. I really relished the exposure to village life and being able to rub elbows with rural Africans at their homes, schools, and businesses. I met kids, teachers, shopkeepers, even a spirit-man. I think the East is a great destination for someone with a few trips under his belt to take a good bull and have some new experiences. Other game is somewhat scarce, but with aggressive anti-poaching efforts being undertaken, this will get better as time goes on. As it is, we saw warthog, kudu, and buffalo, just not in large numbers. We saw several Sharp’s grysbok. We saw a herd of sable of at least twenty individuals. The jesse is very thick, and the jesse blocks very large, but more on that later. The land is quite flat, a boon to my aging knees. I can still walk all day, climbing is another story.
Everyone here knows CM Safaris’ reputation, and it is well deserved. We were well cared for at every turn, and these guys worked their tails off to provide us with the best possible experience, as guests as well as hunters. Buzz conducts a great hunt, and Justin does so much more than take pictures. Sue and I would want Justin along even if he wasn’t taking pictures. Sue and I were very happy to spend time with our friends again, and are already looking forward to next time, but again more on that later.
Camp was comfortable in all ways.
Crispin kept us well fed.
Alpha and Didi tended to us.
This is a true, classic tracking hunt. At Makuti where we did our cow hunt, things are a bit more spot and stalk. The stalks there are long and arduous, but chances are good you’ve seen what you are after. In the jesse at Dande, you’ve seen tracks. At this time of year, the jesse is very, very thick. You get a pretty good idea what “hunting in the thick stuff” is all about. Visibility is extremely limited, and movement slow. There is a lot of thorn. Things happen really fast when they happen. You will be walked into the ground. All in all, a wonderful experience to hunt elephant the old fashioned way. If you want to get your Walter Mitty on and think you are Bell or Taylor walking mile after mile in the thick stuff, you can get that here. I loved it.
I don’t think I will ever again book a big trip like this during storm season in South Dakota. We got away with it, but just only. We had a sixteen inch storm six days before departure.
We left home on Saturday the 26th of February, driving to Minneapolis. Flying out of the commuter airport in Aberdeen trying to make connections can be dicey at the best of times. We overnighted in Minneapolis, and flew out on Delta Sunday morning. We connected to SAA at Dulles, and flew to Joberg. There was enough time to pick up some Cubanos at the Joberg duty free, which has become a part of my safari tradition. Two hours later, we were aboard SAA to Harare. We bought our visas, picked up our bags (all of them including rifles) and Buzz collected us. It was great for Sue and I to see him again, and a great relief to be in tow in a foreign city. We were deposited again in the B&B run by Karen Harrison. It is cozy and friendly, and the full English breakfast served in the garden is lovely.
The next morning Myles stopped by for a chat. Buzz picked us up for the drive to camp. With us were Justin and Nyati. What fun to see Justin again, and meeting Nyati was a real pleasure. Nyati was Alan’s tracker for several years before his temporary retirement. He is a real gentleman, soft-spoken, and a real addition to the team.
It was fantastic being back in the high seat again, even if we did get a little rain on the road. I’ve chartered into camp before, but I truly enjoy seeing a bit of country by driving in if logistics permit.
We bought a bit of fruit on the way.
Buzz bought an ax from some guy selling them along the road.
We arrived at camp and unpacked, and had enough time for a cup of tea before I had to shoot my guns. I told Sue that I must be getting experienced as a client hunter, because for the first time I didn’t stress out over having to take those opening shots with the PH, trackers, the camp staff, and my wife looking on.
We got into the swing of our hunting routine the first day of hunting, March 2nd. Up at five, breakfast at 0530, out of camp about six. We cut some tracks on the road, and started following. We eventually caught up to and saw a bull with one long slender tusk and one broken tusk. I saw him through the understory at about twenty yards or so. At various times I saw a leg, a tusk, and his trunk. I never saw more than one body part at a time. This was getting interesting already. We backed away without incident and started tracking again. Justin got some horrid little caterpillar in his shirt.
At some point a radio message came through that the lion had killed another cow. We broke off the elephant tracks and got back to the Cruiser mid-afternoon. All in all it seemed OK to stop pushing those elephant back to Mozambique and look after that possibility of lioness! We had walked six or seven hours. Unfortunately, it turned out that the incident had occurred on the wrong side of the road, and not in the hunting area where a tourist hunter would be permitted to shoot. Blake, Buzz’s appy hunter would try to take a problem animal. After sitting up a couple of nights, he didn’t connect.
Here’s Blake, being an appy.
Our second day was spent driving around, getting oriented, looking for tracks, and visiting with locals asking for information about elephant activity. I got to meet a mudzimu, or spirit-man. He was a bit younger than I was expecting. These fellows have a great deal of influence in the community, and it’s hard for a westerner to really understand their role. Soothsayer, blesser of various and sundry things, collector of tributes, hard to know, exactly.
Day three we got on tracks again.
After slugging it out through the jesse for awhile something was moving nearby to our left. Then something was crashing. It turned out to be a couple of buffalo cows, who really didn’t want to have anything to do with us. A few minutes later, an elephant was close on, ahead of us. We got close enough to get a good look. He was facing us, through the jesse. He had one tusk, about 45lbs. The other was broken off at the lip. It looked like a bus with eyes. The eyes looked like they were six feet apart. Every furrow on his trunk looked an inch deep. We regarded one another for a few moments. I imagined where I would shoot him. We backed quietly away before anybody got too stressed out, him or us.
A bit later on, another bull was detected. I tried to stay as close to Buzz and Criton as I could, and not be in their way as they tried to get a look at him.. This animal was within about 15 yards, and I couldn’t see him, standing a foot away from Buzz. It’s hard, because it’s your hunt and you really want a look. If you move much that close to an animal, he’ll make you and scram. You stand still, and your pulse starts to race. I saw a bit of leg. He started to move. An urgent voice from Buzz said “Marty, side brain!” A trunk and enormous tusk came into view moving across an elephant trail as I mounted my double 470. The safety was off and my brain tried to assemble a picture of an elephant’s head and where his ear was. My brain couldn’t do it before the head was gone. Had I an understanding of just how big he was, and had had just a second to consider, I probably could have lunged him as his body moved across the trail. I had neither, and could only say “no shot” and unmounted my rifle. The look on Buzz’s face said it all. He said that bull ran at least seventy pounds.
We were right on the border with Mozambique. Criton announced that we were going to kill that elephant. We started following. We happened on a very nice grysbok, posing for us within double rifle range. While I didn’t yet have one, he didn’t seem too interesting with a fabulous elephant in front of us somewhere. We followed and followed until that bull headed off into forbidden territory. We finally had to break off. We were about five kilometers from the Cruiser. Keep in mind that the GPS tells you the distance in a straight line, and that’s not the way you walk in the jesse. We got back to the Cruiser sometime around five o’clock. We had walked about nine hours. I had given in and turned my rifle over to Nyati sometime along the way back to the truck. After a break, I took it back for the last kilometer. I wanted to go back with my flag flying. I had been walked into the ground. I was hot, hungry, thirsty, and scratched by thorns. I had nearly had a shot at the bull that dreams are made of. The proverbial “pig in shit” came to mind. What a day! Sue and Eddy had stayed with the truck. Sue had spent the day in Mopane fly hell. The expression “long suffering wife” comes to mind. Here’s picture of my mug, to give you an idea what these little bastards can be like.
They are a type of miniature non-stinging bee, and seem to be attracted by sweat.Day four was a Saturday. Our plan was to go back to the area where we had seen Mr. Big, and start to walk. We stopped at a school first to distribute some supplies that we had brought. Thanks KPete for the suggestion! We had brought a gross each of pens and pencils and a quantity of notebooks. We also brought three soccer balls. We realized when we got to the village that it was Saturday, and school wasn’t in session, so we were directed to the home of the assistant headmaster and left half the supplies with his wife.
We proceeded on with tracking, and things got pretty exciting within the first hour or so. First we encountered a cow herd with a young bull or two and some calves. After we made them and decided what they were we rather decidedly withdrew. These are, after all, the “Zambezi Ladies!” As we withdrew, they cut our trail. This was a tense moment, because if they smelled us and panicked they might run either direction. No problem, fortunately. Not long after, we were near elephant again. We approached, and there were two young bulls. We withdrew. As we withdrew, we became aware of another elephant. This was the older bull the two askaris were attending. I could hear him, I couldn’t see him. Buzz and Criton were kneeling next to me peering through the thick jesse. I couldn’t move. Time passing became vague, I couldn’t say it was going fast or slow, more like it just wasn’t there at all. The next thing I was aware of was an urgent voice saying “Marty, frontal brain, frontal brain!” The double was up before I saw the bull. His head swung around in front of me from behind a small tree and thick bush, into the only clear space within earshot. His face was exposed, and my God, he was coming straight for us! Don’t screw this up! I had a moment to look for the zygomatic arches, split the difference, and fire a Woodleigh solid from the right barrel. The next thing I saw was that his primary direction was down. As I followed him down with the rifle, Buzz fired a backing shot. Through the retrospectoscope, it wasn’t needed. Replay that night in camp showed that he was going down. For that reason, the backing shot struck above the brain. It was the right thing to do given where we were, as I’m not sure just how many toes where on what side of the Mozambique border. We were ON the border! I had shot just under the brain, probably spining him, and he collapsed from the front. From Buzz’s perspective, he might have been turning. In any case, he was down, and my fragile ego remains intact. We ran up, and I fired a couple of insurance shots, one into the front of his chest, and the other between his ears from behind. I had been preparing for the moment for years. Reading. Loading. Shooting. Exercising. What I hadn’t been prepared for was how fast this would all go down. I had always thought that approaching my bull would be a bit more deliberate. That’s jesse, for you! This still of the kill shot was from Justin's video. If you look closely, you can just make the puff of dust from the bullet strike, about the second wrinkle down. We paced it off at thirteen steps. That was close and confrontational enough for me. It was not a self defense shot, but easily enough might have become one in half a second.
The bull had this old scar on his abdomen, likely from a poacher's muzzle loader.
We cut off the tail, and had our little “glory talk” for the video. It had all happened so quickly that all I could muster were some rather generic comments, leaving it to Buzz to synopse the hunt for the camera.
I had shot at around 1130. We took pictures, covered the ele up with branches to keep the sun off, and started walking back. Buzz radioed Bongi, who is managing the camp when not hunting with Myles, to start cutting toward the elephant. After a quick lunch, we drove to meet him at the edge of the jesse. We were about three kilometers from the elephant. Eight cutters worked until nearly dark. We left camp at six the next morning. We had brought a number of pairs of leather work gloves as staff gifts, and that turned out to have been an inspiration. Bongi thought we would be wrapped up in five hours. Bongi is an optimist. Cutting continued until 1100, when we were maybe half a km from the ele. Sue, Buzz, Justin, Criton, Nyati and I broke off from the group, walked to the elephant, took some more pictures, and skinning was commenced. The cutters and two cruisers didn’t arrive until nearly three.
Usually elephant recoveries are festive, almost a party atmosphere. This was a little more subdued, everyone was bushed before they got there. Still a few good photo ops.
As hot as it was, the meat was getting questionable, and the cruisers were already overloaded, so not quite 100% was recovered, and the elephant wasn’t gutted. The first cruiser pulled out. I was next to the carcass, leaning out the passenger window of the second cruiser, pouring water on Bongi’s hands preparing to pull out. We noticed that the belly of the carcass was swelling, growing visibly as we watched. He stepped back, and I pulled my head back inside just in time. The belly had begun to swell so quickly, we had a half second’s warning that it was going to blow. It exploded, covering the side of the cruiser only a few feet away. It smelled truly disgusting. It took Bongi and me fully a minute to stop laughing. The guys who had left a few minutes earlier heard the blast! The meat was received by villagers, and life was good. I only wished I had stopped laughing long enough to get a photo of the side of that cruiser.
Nyati asked me what went through my mind as I pulled the trigger. At that moment, the feeling was great relief that I had been able to do my part, and not let the team down. Buzz, Justin, and the trackers really make you feel like a team member, not just some guy they are dragging along to shoot an elephant. You don’t want to let them down. By the way, this particular team member is in awe over what the trackers can do. It’s magic. Criton is stunning, Nyati superb.
We had done it. My bull was down, and we had ten hunting days left. What to do? Our plan had been to spend about five days in the East, and then move to the North if we hadn’t found what we wanted. I had told Buzz that of all possibilities, hunting a cat excited me most. There are some leopard in the East, and a lioness had not yet been shot. We drove around a bit, and saw a lot of lion track in sandy watercourses. Since there is not a lot to shoot for bait, we went to some villages and bought a few very pretty goats, and one cow. We bought a couple of goats from this old guy, who said that now he would now have money to buy some sugar for his tea. The things you take for granted!
We set some baits.
We spent four days checking baits, and all those lion tracks we had seen were the last ones we ever saw.
I found out why Buzz's rifle looks like he uses it for a shovel.
The camp helped me celebrate my birthday.
We found buffalo tracks, and followed them. And followed them. We caught them once in very thick jesse, and Criton said one of them looked very wide. We followed them for five more hours, and they never stopped.
It seems that moving constantly is what the buffalo in Dande East do. We went to another village to distribute the rest of the school supplies, and hand out most of the eight pounds of hard candies we had brought. This was the most fun I have ever had for so little money.
I thought the crowd of kids might eat Justin while he was taking the video.
I’m not quite sure what the headmaster thought of the goings on.
Sue is a dog breeder (basset hounds, of all things) and checked out all the village dogs. She said they are basenjis.
We decided to drive to Buzz’s fishing camp on the Zambezi. The sights were interesting, and the road was terrible. The gates at Kariba had been opened, and the river was very high. Parts of Buzz’s camp were, er, damp, and the wiring was under water, which meant no water for bathing or flushing.
A plan was made. Buzz contacted a friend, who owns Chewalo Safaris. This is a fishing/hunting camp a few clicks downstream, past Zumbo in Mozambique. A boat was dispatched, and Sue, I, Buzz and Justin relocated for a couple of days. We were taken in as refugees by Henno and Lizemarie Cronje, who manage the camp at Chewalo. The camp is extraordinary, and Henno and Lizemarie are lovely people.
Henno has built much of the camp, and Lizemarie is a nurse practitioner who heads up a program delivering outreach medical care to several remote villages in the vicinity. It is called project Care For Zumbo.
We spent some time getting wet and trying our hand at tiger fishing. Given the high, murky water we were fortunate to catch a couple of small ones.
We enjoyed viewing several pods of hippo.
We got to watch Africa going about its business.
The next day Lizemarie took us into Zumbo, and I got to tour the clinic and meet the doctor. There is no X-ray machine, and the only labs available are snap tests. No chemistries, CBC, and so on. Remember Dr. Schweitzer? It makes a fellow pretty grateful. 
By the next day, Eddie had repaired the wiring, so we went back to Buzz’s camp for the night, after taking his boat up the river to view the Red Cliffs. Maputo gorge will have to wait until next time. 
This camp was a little too close to the river. Shame, that.
We stopped at Kanyemba, Eddie's village, and met his wife and youngest daughter.
We saw the hair salon they have opened for her to run. It's rather a new concept in Kanyemba.
We drove back to Karunga in the East for the remaining two hunting days. We picked Criton up at his home, and met his father, Bashop, who was a highly regarded tracker in his day. We chased buffalo some more. We tried calling hyena after dinner. I had decided to shoot a Sharp’s grysbok if given a chance, and we spotted one from the road. We drove on a couple hundred yards, hopped out, and walked back. He walked out into the road, and I took advantage of an easy opportunity to add him to my collection. I had taken the largest land mammal, and the smallest antelope in Zimbabwe.
We had the usual last day shooting competition. I loved the picture of Eddie under recoil.
Bongi won the prize of the last remaining soccer ball.
Next day it was time for farewells, and the drive back to Harare with Sue, Me, Buzz, Nyati, and Crispin on the cruiser. We saw this little creation along the way. God, I love Africa.
We went to Buzz’s house. Here’s his housekeeper, Latwin (spelling?) managing one of my tusks.
That night Sue and I had the pleasure enjoying dinner with Buzz, Justin and his girlfriend Tammy, and Richard and Brita Harland. Brita is absolutely charming, and enjoying a cigar with Richard was a fantastic conclusion to a dream elephant hunt I have been getting ready for the last several years. A significant part of getting ready had been reading all three of his excellent books. It is surprising that such a soft-spoken cultivated man should have had such a testosterone charged career.
For those of you who don’t know, Richard and Brita were forced off their farm a couple of years ago. They now live in Harare, and Richard has begun a second career as a piano technician, tuning, repairing and restoring instruments.
We retired to Buzz’s home, The Charlton Arms, for the night. The next day we stopped by the CM Safaris office for a cup of tea and visit with Myles and Kirsty, and were taken to the Harare airport by Justin and put on the plane for home.
My gun case got here two days after we did. Whew.
We met wonderful people, and saw and did a lot. We were well cared for and in the company of good friends. After the ele was down on day four, we just sort of let things happen. It was a great trip. These guys have delayed my retirement again, and I am looking at tuskless/leopard in 2013.
My tuskless hunt in 2009 was a life changing experience. I’ve become obsessed with these beasts and am fortunate to have a loving wife who supports this madness. She told her sister, who stayed and cared for our house and kennel, that “He hangs out on an internet forum with a bunch of guys who think just like he does.” I wonder who she could have meant by that.
