20 May 2009, 06:21
ArnietZim Bull Elephants
Night hunting for PAC elephant bulls in Zimbabwe, first week of May 2009. The professional hunter was Dean Kendall, and it was booked by Mark Young through Adam Clements. The first thing I have to say is that they are all gentlemen of their word. The hunt and hunting conditions were exactly as described. It was a blast, and I would recommend it to anyone that wants to chase ele bulls though cornfields in the middle of the night. The hunt was in a Campfire area near Lupane. We encountered large numbers of bulls in the crops at night. There were probably several groups of 5 to 12, which is a just a guess in the dark. We had warm days and light jacket cold at night.
The base camp was in a village, with a real bed, toilet and shower. Food was excellent and tasty. The local folks are really friendly, and they all want you to kill an elephant. In fact, since the elephants eat their corn and melons (they are subsistence farmers and I could see no aid from the outside world) they want you to shoot all of the elephants. The villagers act as spotters for the hunters, and we commonly follow the crop raiders with spike camps where the action is.
Dean Kendall was kind enough to loan me a rifle and some clothes, when the airlines delivered my rifle, but no clothes or cartridges. We could not find any 375 Solids for love or money. I have discovered two things. One I cannot shoot open sights for squat. Two the 458 Lott does not kick as hard as I have been told.
Following a poor shot of mine with the open sighted Lott; we failed to recover an elephant, despite one heck of an effort by all concerned. Our second try was more successful, and after obtaining my clothes and solids we got a real welcome to Africa.
In a spike camp in an isolated village, we were awakened by one of the locals that had heard an ele breaking melons in the night, at about 2 am. This was unusual, since it was so late and that the ele was alone.
We closed to about 30 yards in the melon patch, and while we were setting up the elephant decided to come for us instead. Dean went for a snap brain shot to protect us all, which made the ele straighten up and flare his ears. This allowed me to make a heart shot, under his chin at 15 yards as the head was coming back down. It takes forever to get the crosshairs on the right spot under those conditions and I went for the biggest target. I also learned just how fast an elephant can turn and run since he made the 40 to 50 yards to the fence before I could jack in a second shot. Dean had taken a second raking shot we found in the liver. I also popped him again as he went through the fence, but I failed to break the hip joint.
At dawn we followed up, and found the old boy after about 250 yards. He had knocked over trees up to 8 inches in diameter on his mad dash. After butchering, the local politicians divided him up among about 500 people. You could see meat drying in a lot of villages. This will help a little bit, to make up for the damages that the eles commit.
Dean also noticed the reason for the bull’s bad temper. He had lost a couple of feet of his trunk, probably to a snare set with a melon in a tree. This made the old boy crabby and he was probably the one that had been chasing the villagers. Heck, he was such a grouch that even other elephants would not associate with him.
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Some observations, I would use a bigger gun than the 375. The Hornady steel jacket solids seemed to penetrate well. My shot cut the vessels above the heart, but we recovered none of the DGS . We recovered the two Barnes solids fired by the Pro Hunter. Those 416’s look like they could be reloaded again! I also need to relearn to shoot iron sights, or not shoot at all. The first ele was only the second big game animal that I have failed to recover in a long life of hunting and I am still disappointed with my shooting.
