Dates: August 7th-24th (hunted 10th-22nd)

Area: Sengwa Research and Lake Kariba

Operator: Ivory Trail Safaris

Professional Hunter: Phillip Smythe (the man they call “Klipspringer”)

Booking Agent: Wendell Reich (Hunter’s Quest)

Travel Agent: Gracy Travel

Species Hunted: Elephant, Crocodile, Hippo, Hyena, Eland, Grysbok

Species Taken: Elephant, Crocodile, Hippo, Eland, Birds (Guinea fowl, Francolin, Sand Grouse)

Species Seen: Buffalo, Zebra, Grysbok, Common Duiker, Waterbuck, Elephant, Eland, Kudu, Bushbuck, Impala, Crocodile, Hippo, Warthog, Baboon (lots), Vervet Monkey, Civet, lots of small game including three species of mongoose.

Rifles: Pre-64 Winchester Model 70 in .375 H&H shooting 350 grain Woodleigh solids/softs

I’m finally getting around to posting the details of this fantastic hunt that I went on back in August. The rule seems to be that for every week you‘re away hunting it takes three weeks to catch up when you return to work, hence the delay. The great thing about this hunt was that it was really two safaris in one in that I got to hunt two distinctly different areas in very different ways. Funny thing is, I initially rejected this operator because I didn’t want to have the hassle of having to move camps. I’m glad I didn’t since it made for twice the memories. I’ll also confess in advance that I did the worse piss-poor shooting of my life on this hunt, even after a lot of practice. Can’t explain it, but maybe God decided to show mercy on me, or I was just plain lucky this time since we managed to recover everything I shot at. So I guess it is better to be lucky than be a good shot, at least in my case and on this trip.

Pre-Hunt & Travel
This is the second time I have used Wendell Reich at Hunters Quest as my booking agent and I’m certain to do so again. His communication with the client is great and I feel like he really cares about the success of your hunt. If you aren’t already familiar with his unique sense of humor from his AR forum posts then I suggest that you stop by his booth at DSC or SCI.

I used Gracy Travel as always and everything went flawlessly. Left Dulles on SAA on the 7th and after a long 19 hour flight I arrived in JoBerg on the afternoon of the 8th and had to overnight there since it was too late to catch a flight to Zimbabwe. I chose the City Lodge at the airport for the “walk to” convenience. Because this was the first time that I had to clear guns in South Africa, I use the VIP greeting service (BIDS) sold by Gracy and they met me when I arrived and walked me through the entire SAPS process. Well worth it! They even took me as far as the hotel desk. The next morning I took a short flight to Harare and Phil’s smiling face was waiting for me at customs with the forms I needed to get signed. Customs and gun registration seemed a little disorganized there but I got through it no problem and we were off on his Land Cruiser for an 8-9 hour drive to camp, with a quick stop in Gokwe to pick up our tracker Leonard.


Loading up at Harare Airport


Lovely downtown Harare

Sengwa Research
First let me clear something up for anyone that knows these concessions and is shaking their head. The Sengwa Research concession is allocated to the Duckworths of Mokore Safaris, NOT Phil Smythe of Ivory Trail Safaris. Phil has the adjacent Chirisa concession, which is to the west of Sengwa. I’m lead to believe that the habitat is basically the same, with some differences in some numbers of various game species. Phil had determined from scouting trips that bigger bull elephant tracks were showing up in Sengwa (turned out to be true), so he made an agreement with Mokore to use their area and camp. Go where the big ones are! I liked that. I’m telling you this so you know that this area is not Phil’s core area and I can’t really evaluate Chirisa or his camp there, although everything I saw makes me believe that there is very little difference from a hunter’s viewpoint. When I was there the bigger bulls seemed to be in Sengwa, but I was told that there were more tuskless in Chirisa. At another time of year the opposite may be true, I don’t know. You’ll have to talk to Phil about specifics.


The Sengwa Research Area

The Mokore camp was very well kept with new chalets just recently built, including nicely tiled bathrooms.


Apprentice PH David in front of my hut


Roughing it, Mokore style!

The food was good and game meat was often served as I requested. No complaints at all, and this would be a great location to bring your kids or spouse. In fact, a Belgian couple shared camp for most of my stay and seemed to have had a ball. BTW, this was the first time I had met a Belgian and they were two very friendly and generous people (even though they did speak French) that were great to spend evenings with in camp. The dinning and lounge area overlooked a scenic dry riverbed that was nice for viewing game depending on the time of day.


Lounge and campfire area

The area was mostly Mopane scrub and woodlands with some floodplains mixed in near the rivers, and a nice road system throughout. The rivers were mostly dry this time of year, but I’m told they always have water flowing underground. This photo of elephant drinking from holes in the riverbed proves that to be true.


Elephants using their trunks as living straws

It’s funny how certain areas in Africa hold large concentrations of a certain kind of plains game and not others. This was true of here as well. Saw many elephants (everyday), Impala, Waterbuck, and Eland almost every day. Also at times I saw some large herds of buffalo. Not too often, but then again we weren’t hunting them.


Buffalo encountered during a bird hunt. Can they then be called a covey?

Saw a fair amount of Bushbuck, Duiker, Kudu and Grysbok here as well, with a few Zebra, Reedbuck and Warthog encountered. Heard a lion once and there seems to be a good number of leopard around, but again, we weren’t baiting them. The place is simply crawling with baboons, more than you could count, along with some fairly large males. If you are looking for a nice baboon mount (I have one, doesn’t everyone?) or just some shooting fun during off hours then you can’t go wrong here. The staff and locals have no love for them either, the results shown here when a troop decided to raid camp.


That's what you get for going first!

This area is restricted to development, so there are no villages here and the quantity of plains game testifies to that. The other nice thing about Sengwa was that there were no Tsetse flies and very few mosquitos, although Mopane flies could be annoying at times.

Elephant Hunting at Sengwa
This was my first elephant hunt and I had chosen to hunt with Phil because he loves elephant hunting the classic way, following tracks. The plan for day one was to scout the overall area and try to find the big tracks to determine where the bulls were moving. Mostly this was along the roads and the riverbed, but we did listen as we went along for the telltale sounds of elephants feeding.


Looking for trophy tracks

In fact, the very first morning, Leonard our tracker saw some promising tracks only a few hours old and off we went. After a couple of hours of tracking we dropped into a valley that had a spring where a couple of zebra were drinking. All of the sudden everyone literally hit the deck and I followed suit without knowing why. Immediately a herd of elephant came down off the adjacent hill and crossed through the valley where we were, only a couple of hundred yards away. Immediately Phil could see that both tusks on the bull we were following were broken off at the lip. Even so, he estimated that each broken tusk would go 35 pounds, so this bull would have been something to see if they were whole. Nice first morning and you don’t want to shoot your bull on the first day anyway!

The next five days we followed that routine and were always into tracks. Sometimes young bulls, lots of cows, and occasional a big bull track. Often we would go to high overlooks and glass down into the concession looking for elephants.


Glassing for bulls on one of the many overlooks


Fresh spoor!

It was a fantastic cat and mouse game of finding fresh tracks, and then trying to figure out where the big bulls were headed. Sometimes we would follow tracks, sometimes we would spot elephants from the truck and follow them, and sometimes we would quietly sneak along the thick cover along the rivers in the evening looking and listening, basically still hunting for elephant. I particularly enjoyed this since we also would run into all kinds of other unsuspecting game, especially kudu and bushbuck. We even walked up on a sleeping Civet Cat at one point. I’m telling you, sneaking along a riverbank and quietly coming up on the grey shapes of a group of feeding elephants has to be experienced to be believed. Everything shut down during the heat of midday and we would find a shady spot to take a short siesta and have lunch. What a life!


My two PH’s busy planning the afternoon hunt

The moment of truth
On the morning of day five we left before light as usual and headed toward the river to look for tracks. Honestly, I was ready! We had approached a number smaller 25-35 pound bulls and had seen more cows than you can shake a stick at, so I was mentally at that point just before you start to have a hunters doubts about whether it is going to happen. Time to kill an elephant! We drove along the river and found two promising bull tracks and decided to scout down the river a bit further and then return to follow them up. Before we got very far, a call came in over the radio from the other PH in camp (Pete) that was guiding the Belgian couple that I mentioned. His tracker Tsongora had spotted a big bull, something around 40-50 pounds. Off to the races! We flew across the concession hoping to get there before he moved off. Great I thought; I’m finally going to catch a break, a bull in sight and no long tracking job. Well, you know about the best laid plans of mice and elephant hunters… the truck suddenly stopped. We had a flat! The guys got out and proceeded to change the tire in Nascar pit stop time while I mumbled over and over again “this is a bad sign!”. Time seemed to stop, but I’d guess that in 10 minutes we were on our way again, and when we arrived the bull had indeed moved off into the thick jess. No worries! We had a smoking hot track and we knew what was at the end of it.


Be prepared for a lot of this on safari

I had prepared for the possibility of a long tracking job before this trip, averaging 4-5 miles of power walking every other day for 3 months. What you can’t prepare yourself for is five straight hours of tiptoeing through the jess quietly listening for the sound of a snapping branch and hoping that you don’t snap one yourself. Now I used to read writers like Boddington describe the mental fatigue that comes from hunting something like Bongo, and thought it was a bit overplayed. It’s not. Throw in the midday heat and I’ll take five hours of straight hiking over five hours of sneaking anytime. So for five hours we slowly followed the tracks and on three occasions actually came up on the bull (and his 4 askaris), but he was always on the far side of the group. Occasionally the trackers lost the track and Phil would pick up the direction by sounds alone and we would head off in that direction.


Tracking in the jess

At one point we bumped into another herd that had been feeding in the jess and they caught our wind and busted out of there, sending our bulls running as well. I even had my first real “close encounter” with an angry young bull that got to within 10 yards and had to be shouted off. Yea, I’ve seen enough Ivan Carter videos to know that it was probably a bluff charge, but my tip-off mounted scope was down and the safety was off. It was wild. My only regret was that it happened so fast that I forgot to turn on my hat mounted camera. Stupid!

Anyway, after our bulls had blown out of there my hopes were dashed a bit. But Phil followed their general direction and before long heard them feeding and we slowly moved in. It was now midday and getting very hot and the bulls had found a shade tree in the middle of the jess. We continued to track and as we turned a corner in the trail there he was, maybe 35 yards away. I know you’ve heard it before, but it’s amazing how well they can hide in sparse cover until you are right on top of them. We moved a bit closer and it was time. Let me digress for a second. After 40 years of dreaming, 5 days of hunting, and then 5 hours of intense tracking, it’s really hard to convey the feeling I had at the moment that Phil whispered “side brain!”. I’ve hunted 4 African countries and all over North America and I can honestly say I’ve never really had that “moment of truth” feeling until that day. I only wish I could have bottled up that feeling for when I get old, uhh, older!

So, I had studied for this test for months and watched every video I could find, from Boddington to Charlton and I knew where the side brain shot should go. So I let loose and yep, I missed it! But I was close, and the bull dropped his head and stood there which allowed me to get in a shoulder shot and a rear spine shot while Phil managed to put two .500 NE solids in him as well, which is something we agreed on in advance. The bull dropped and at that moment a 40 year old dream came true. After an insurance shot to the back of his head I touched MY ivory for the first time. Phil instructed the staff to stand back and give me a few moments. Yes Phil, I noticed that. Nice touch. The ivory was beautiful and fairly uniform, and I’m told very good for this area.




Shown above: Lifelong dream fulfillment

Congratulations was followed by the traditional tail cutting ceremony and then we went back to camp for lunch to notify the recovery team. We returned that evening for photos in better light and watched as the recovery team took this beast apart leaving little more than a stain on the ground.


The recovery crew. Probably smiling because of all this meat!


I think they’ve done this before…


Loaded and gone!

Dinner never tasted so good that evening and hey, they even made me a cake!


My new favorite dessert!

The Unexpected Eland
I originally had no intention of hunting Eland on this hunt, but two weeks before I left home I had a conversation with a fellow hunter that had just returned from the area and he mentioned how many eland he had seen on his hunt. So when I arrived in Harare I didn’t waste any time asking Phil if there were quota available and the answer was yes. But I knew we were here to elephant hunt, so an Eland was to either be a target of opportunity, or at least wait until jumbo was on the ground. On day two we were driving the river looking for tracks and up ahead we spotted about a dozen Eland in the riverbed accompanied by a monster old grey bodied bull. We tried and failed a stalk on him, but he is quite a bull and he is still out there guys (I think).

That same evening we decided to do one of the riverine brush sneaks for elephant that I described earlier. Well after bumping a buffalo and reedbuck we got to a place along the river where we spotted two eland bulls out in the floodplain. It was getting near dusk and we were unlikely to spot an elephant at this point so we decided to put on a stalk. Not much of a stalk later and before I knew it the sticks were up and I took a shot at about 150 yards. We heard the distinctive “whomp” of a hit (a little far forward it turns out) and the Eland ran off into the higher grass of the flood plain. Next came some embarrassingly missed running shots followed by a sprint across the sand to get closer. When we came up on him his head was till up and I told Phil to go ahead and finish him with his new .500 double, the first animal to be shot with it. He was hesitant of course, not wanting to shoot his clients animal, but I insisted. After all, you never want to approach elephants with a PH that has not “bloodied” his gun yet. Bad luck!


Unexpected surprises sometimes come in big packages!

Only when approaching an Eland can you really grasp the size of these things. The team had to cut it in half to load it into the truck and even then it took five of us. For those hunters that have never had it, the good news is that Eland is about the best tasting meat in Africa, at least what I have tried so far. In fact the next day for lunch Phil prepared Eland steaks over a fire in the sand of the Sengwa River. Like I said, what a life!


Master Chef Phillip and my Eland steaks. Simply perfect!

Hyena troubles
Interspersed throughout the days of elephant hunting we attempted to collect a trophy that I have been unsuccessfully after on four separate safaris, a hyena. Phil’s staff had located an active den in the side of a cliff and we attempted a couple of stalks to see if we could get a shot. At one point the trackers came running and said that a large hyena was sunning himself outside of the den, on his back and all four feet in the air, just like a dog. But by the time we got there he was long gone. Bad luck. We also baited them with an elephant leg and although it was hit we never did see a hyena on it. In the end the hyenas were a no show, but that’s OK. Every hunter has to have “the animal” that always eludes them and I guess the hyena is it for me. Besides, we all need an excuse to keep coming back.

Birds, Baboons and Monkey business
One of things I love about Africa is that there is so much to do after your primary quarry is down, and even before that while traveling to and from the hunting area. Here are a few highlights of our extracurricular activities at Sengwa Research.

>>Bird hunting (Guinea Fowl) – I had reserved some loaner shotguns and shells before arriving and had a great time with these birds as the staff put on drives. Sort of a combination of wing shooting and still hunting in that it required some stalking and anticipating where the birds would run/fly. And the truck staff would run after cripples like birds dogs, fun to watch.


Phil and I after a well-executed ambush

Most of the birds we gave to the staff but our chef prepared some for us one night for dinner.


Tastes like chicken!

>>Bird hunting (Sand Grouse) – This is something I had never done before and didn’t know what to expect. I have been hunting birds my whole life and consider myself a better than average wingshot, but these birds are the hardest things to hit that I have ever experienced. A couple of different evenings we would head down to some open water a half an hour before dark, sometimes at the riverbed and once at a waterhole. Just as it got near dark the birds would come screaming over the treeline and drop to the water’s edge. Damn near impossible to see, much less hit, but great fun. If you love hunting birds I strongly recommend that you try this if available. Plan on missing as many as you hit!

>>Baboons – When I got to camp I meet an apprentice hunter named David who was working for Mokore and was bored to death doing camp chores, so I invited him along on the truck each day. I’m so glad I did. The older I get the more I enjoy seeing the excitement that young hunters get when experiencing their “firsts”. And most of all this was new to him, so he couldn’t wait to tag along. Besides, he lives in England most of the year and it gave me a chance to get to know more about his culture. Did you know that the English call both jelly and jam the same thing, “jelly”? Weird! Anyway, back to baboons. I had no intention of shooting another but I offered to pay the minor trophy fee to allow David to shoot one, and being 19 years old he was gung ho! My only stipulation was that he had to shoot one with Phil’s open sighted .500 NE double, something he had never shot before! Cruel I know. We had fun with this throughout the week and he finally got a shot at a big male and missed, but the look on his face as he pulled that trigger was priceless.

>>Technology run amuck! – OK, I’m a computer geek by profession, so I love technology and am always looking for new ways to use it when possible. For many months before this hunt I had watched all the elephant hunt videos I could find and knew that PH’s liked to walk their clients up to some elephants to get them used to being near something so big, and also as a learning method to point out shot placement. Well my wheels started to turn and thought “why have the PH try to describe shot placement based on eyes and wrinkles, etc. when he could just do this with a laser pointer?”. So I proceeded to find the brightest “green” laser pointer that I could and gave it to Phil for when the right moment came along. Well as luck would have it the right moment came along the first evening as we were driving through the concession. Someone tapped on the roof to signal that elephants had been sighted. We quickly jumped out and put on a stalk of a group of more than a dozen bulls and cows, and we managed to get within 20 yards of a 35 pounder. We stared at him for a while and since the ivory wouldn’t grow I mentioned to Phil that this would be a good time for the laser. Well he clicked on that laser and aimed it at that bull’s heart/lung region and all hell broke loose. No delay, no hesitation, just panic. That bull stampeded and so did the rest of the herd. We stood there dumbfounded for a minute. I guess they don’t like green light. Anyway, we never tried that again, but on the up side I may have just discovered a new product to drive off problem elephants. Look for my booth at DSC.

>>Boys and their toys! – So the laser was a failure and even though we continued to have fun with it (David used it to scare every monkey, vulture, baboon and staff member in the concession), we needed something more from it. So after my bull was down and we had some spare time, someone asked the question “I wonder if we could mount this on a rifle?”. Being guys, of course the answer came back “don’t know, but we have to try!”, so we yanked the scope off of the camp .22, a Ruger 10/22 and after a couple hours of Phil’s shimming the laser in the scope mount and sighting it in through trial and error it worked! From that point on beware any Guinea Fowl that crossed the road.


Phil proceeding to void the warranty on the green laser I brought

And then our hunt at Sengwa was over.


Watching the sunset and drinking Amarula on the Sengwa River. A perfect moment in time!

Lake Kariba
By the 9th day we were all ready to leave Sengwa, and we said our goodbyes and left for Lake Kariba, about a six hour drive. On the way we picked up the camp manager and drove along the Zambezi Valley. It’s amazing how much of the road infrastructure has deteriorated since Zimbabwe’s independence, with the asphalt missing from many parts of the highway and the bush growing out into the road. At this rate it will all be dirt roads in 20 years if nothing is done. The drive was uneventful, but I could see as we got closer to the lake that the local villages were more numerous. As we were to see later, this would have a very negative impact on the plains game around the lake, which I am told was plentiful until recently. It seems like this part of the lake is now only a specialty area where a hunter would go for a few days to try to pick up a crocodile and/or hippo. And that is how Phil uses this area, as a fill in hunt for these species, both of which can be found everywhere in the lake.



That being the case, this was not an Ivory Trails camp, but a fishing camp that we were able to use for a few days. The camp was adequate but didn’t have the amenities of the Mokore camp, which was fine for us. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this camp for a spouse or family on a first trip.


Hut ventilation is not a problem in this camp!

The lake is huge and was until recently the largest man-made body of water in the world. On a clear day you can just see Zambia. It’s a beautiful lake with the original Mopane tree branches still sticking out of the lake after 50 years, which tells you something about the density of Mopane wood. The lake is peaceful and calm when the wind lets off, especially in the moonlight, but that is deceiving. Some careful observation will show that it is infested with crocodile and we were warned not to hang too close to the shore. I’m not sure how dangerous it really is during the day, but I would never get near that water at night!


Evening swims not recommended!

The dog is saved!
When we arrived we quickly got settled and then took a boat out to scout the lake and to set a few baits with elephant meat that we had hauled all the way from Sengwa.



We found a promising cove and while we were chaining up some meat, Teak our game scout uttered “This won’t work. These crocodiles will suspect something. We need to go to the village and get a live dog and chain it up here.” Well my eyes popped open at that statement. I kept thinking “I will never be able to tell the kids about this at home!” and “I’ll have to hide the photos!”. But, I had come all this way so “when in Rome…”. Besides, most of those mangy village dogs were in bad shape, so I guess we would be doing them a favor. Yea right!

Turns out that the next day we were able to find a large croc in a lagoon that was open to a stalking approach, so the village dog was safe, at least for this safari. Just as well, I have to look my dog in the face when I return home…


Shown: Two of the luckiest dogs in Zimbabwe in August

A “Goat Rope”
We spotted the big croc on a sandbar, but they don’t get big by being stupid and this croc, along with a few others, had decided to use a sandbar on a tiny island in the middle of the lagoon that had no land approach. We did see however one side that was close enough to get a possible shot and Phil lead us on a couple of stalks, one of which required me to walk barefoot over rocks for a few hundred yards. Somehow I had missed his instructions on preparing for this scenario and the bottoms of my feet hurt for days. African memories! Anyway, we managed to get within 100 yards or so by crawling and yes, rolling into place (a first for me) and I leaned my rifle against a small sapling. And then, as Wendell Reich would put it, the “goat rope” started. The croc was facing me at an angle and I missed the brain and the croc rolled into the lake. My heart sunk and I knew what that meant. But something odd happened. Maybe because of the angle my shot, but the bullet must have entered the lungs because he kept resurfacing in that lagoon to gasp for air. This went on for hours. We would see him on one side and hustle over there and get a shot or two off, followed by the same on the opposite side of the lagoon. I can’t tell you how many times we shot at him during those brief “Whack a Mole” events, but I know we hit him at least three or four more visible times. It was mentally exhausting and our nerves were frayed. In the end we gave up and decided to come back in the morning. Besides, I was running out of ammo.

The next morning the trackers procured a small boat (don’t know how they find these things) and Phil poled that lagoon for a couple of hours trying to feel for the croc. No luck.


Phil, Leonard and crew poking for crocodiles

I knew the deal and had pretty much given up on taking this trophy home, but as we left Phil sent Leonard our tracker to a nearby village with the promise of a $100 reward for anyone who found our croc. Off we went to look for Hippo and I mentally closed the book on this trophy. Oh, did I mention that this is the second time this has happened to me, the first time in Zambia. We never saw that croc again. The Crocodile curse I guess.

Hippo on Land
Kariba has a huge hippo population and in certain areas they come out on the floodplains to feed in the evening. And that’s just how we found our hippo. That evening we walked in the jess along the lake and would pop out from time to time to look for feeding hippo. At some point we popped out and there he was, a couple of hundred yards away and feeding along the lake.


My hippo peacefully grazing. The peace is about to be broken!

After a quick stalk that involved some crawling (again) we got with 75 yards of him and I thought “here is my chance to make up for my poor shooting up till now!’. So I got steady on a shooting rest that I had brought with me and yep, missed the brain again. But we did manage to get a number of shots in him before he hit the water and amazingly he floated up in 20 minutes. So I guess that I can say that I took a hippo on land. Sort of.


They roll easier in the water



The really interesting part was what happened after. First two guys showed up. Then a few more. And then boats started to appear on the horizon, and within an hour there were over a dozen villagers there butchering that hippo under the direction of our tracker.


This boat came from further than you could see

I have no idea how they knew. I assume that it was the gunshots, but some of these boats came from miles away. In any case, by the time they were finished there was nothing left of that hippo except some blood in the sand. Amazing and of course nothing goes to waste in Africa.



Scaled Redemption
It was the final day of my hunt and Phil suggested that we take a ride to the lake and have one final look to see if my croc had magically popped up somewhere. I remember saying to him “Maybe God will show mercy on my poor soul and we will find him”, but knowing God usually helps those who help themselves, I figured that there was a fat chance in hell we would ever see that lizard again. About half way there we see a little old villager furiously peddling his bike our way and waving his hand. I thought nothing of it since we would routinely be asked for a ride, but after some conversation with him in Shona, Phil turns to me and gives me the best high five of my life. They found my croc! I was on cloud nine and we hustled there to find him belly up in the reeds, amazingly at the very last place that we saw him pop up.

Now came the fun part, wading into waist high water to retrieve him. He didn’t look too thrilled about it, especially after I fired a few rounds in the water and crocs scurried off, but with David (the apprentice PH) Phil walked out there and tied a rope to it and pulled it in. Thanks Phil, but then again I guess you get no tip if the client gets pulled under!


Phil and David headed in their preferred direction, out of the deeper water.

On land he measured a little under thirteen feet with the string method that we used. As luck would have it, the little guy that found the croc also turned out to be an experienced croc skinner and did all the work necessary. What a day and the best $100 I ever spent.


Proof that God suffers fools and poor shots!

After that we returned to camp for hippo stew and the usual end of hunt gift giving and goodbyes. My only regret is that we didn’t have time to fish for Tigerfish and Breem. If you ever get a chance to hunt this area I would add in a day or two for fishing.


Mandatory hunt report sunset photo: End of safari, sunset over Zambia on Lake Kariba

Travel & Post-Hunt
I got a ride back to Harare with Charles Ndondo, owner of AfroPride, a partner with Ivory Trails. They handle all the CITES paperwork and shipping of the trophies for Phil. Charles used to be a District Attorney in Zimbabwe and eventually left public service to form Afropride. As you can imagine, he had some interesting stories about the criminal justice system in Zimbabwe and the drive time just flew by. That’s one of the great things about traveling, meeting new and interesting folks like Charles. He dropped me at the “Guinea Fowl Bed & Breakfast “(appropriate name) and I finally got my first real shower in two weeks. The next morning I headed home the same route that I came.

Since then I have been in touch with Charles a number of times regarding my trophies and it seems like they are right on top of things, a first class operation. I’m told they will ship by December, which is amazing considering some of the stories that come out of Zimbabwe. Time will tell of course, but so far I’m impressed.

A little about Phillip Smythe
I think as hunters we necessarily concentrate our research on the area and game numbers, and rarely do much evaluation of the PH, at least that has been my pattern in the past. I’ve come to realize that the skills, and particularly the personality of the PH can have a huge impact not only on the success of the hunt, but on the enjoyment factor as well. Phil is a PH that seems to find the perfect balance between the energy and excitement of youth with the knowledge and organization of more experienced PH. He was extremely knowledgeable about the flora and fauna and never seemed to mind answering your questions over and over, and he was always in good spirits even when I wasn’t. He was a serious professional when he needed to be but still had enough of that “little boy” in him to be fun companion.


Shown above: Phil displaying his “little boy” side, bowling using elephant dung balls

But perhaps what I liked best about him was his communications skills. I’m the type of guy that loves planning and hates uncertainties unless it can’t be helped. And Africa has enough of those. Phil was in constant email contact with me in the year and a half leading up to my hunt, and with the exception of a few times when he had no Wi-Fi in the bush, he always answered back promptly. I left the States with a confidence that is sometimes lacking with other outfitters.

I think you’ll enjoy hunting with him if you have the chance. Just don’t tell him I said any of this about him, he doesn’t need a bigger head than he already has…

Congratulations on making a dream come true! You certainly had a great safari. Very nice elephant indeed, so too are your other trophies.

Well done Phil ( Ace Ventura )Mushi hunt.

Congratulations-looks like a really nice hunt!

Outstanding! Love the the crocodile redemption!

Very nice report!..Thanks

Congratulations on your Trophies!

Nice pictures and a great write up. Congrats on the croc. Luck was definitely on your side.

Fantastic report and great trophys.

Sounds like a great time.


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Well done!!!!

Really enjoyed this report, glad your dreams came true! Sounds like a fantastic, camp, a fine PH. Well done!

Your report was a fun read. Enjoy your style. Great hunt and trophies. Congratulations

Congratulation, very nice ele bull & report, must be over 60lb?
IH

Congrats... and thanks for the report.

Great report and some very nice trophies! Elephant and eland are two of my favorite animals to hunt and you shot great specimen of both species!

Kudos to you! Great safari and a really nice report. Thanks

Nicely done. Thank you for sharing.

Enjoyed the report. Thanks for sharing.

Great report. You couldn't have picked a finer PH then Phil! Knowledgeable and a great guy to hunt with. Leonard is also a first class tracker and I have no doubt you enjoyed your time with the gang.

Well done! I have hunted twice with Phil, he has a great staff and camps. I will be looking at going next year for my third attempt at Leopard/Hippo.

Congrats on a great hunt and fine writing; I felt like I was there with you! My wife & I hunted with the Barrie Duckworth in the Save & then Coutada 9 in Moz. just before your hunt at Sangwa. David is a distant cousin of the Duckworths. He was a fun lad to hunt with, he really enjoyed going out on night hunts with us for small predators.

Excellent report. Congratulations on a great safari, and great success - I love your elephant and eland. Super!

Safari by the ton!!!

Jeff

Bunduki, that's funny, I never thought about it that way before. Even doing conservative estimates, I guess this safari netted well over 10,000 pounds easy, probably quite a bit more. That's a whole lotta Whitetails...

Nice hunt! Congrats!

Fantastic report, really an enjoyable read.

Excellent report on an excellent adventure with excellent photos..congratulations

BTW, I'm stealing that sunset photo for my screensaver!

Thanks you for sharing,

Paul

Gordo,

What a legend of a trip - you forgot to mention that I am 7 foot 5 and wrestle crocodiles with my baby finger!!

Well done my friend! What a great hunt we had!!
See you in January!

Phil

Yes Phil, I have often heard about your famous exploits! I've heard this mostly from you, but I have heard.

A "Legend of a trip". I like that. See you soon in Dallas.

Nice hunt report. Congrats on all.

GL,

Great hunt with great folks. Gotta love those multi area safaris as each can offer a totally different experience.

Big congrats!

Mark

Congrats on your hunt, and thanks for the report.

G just wonderful.

Mike

quote:

Originally posted by Phillip Smythe:
Gordo,

What a legend of a trip - you forgot to mention that I am 7 foot 5 and wrestle crocodiles with my baby finger!!

Well done my friend! What a great hunt we had!!

See you in January!

Phil

Good job to all involved