Elephant hunting with Shawn Buffee in ZA - March 2012

2012 Hunt Report

Charlie and Jeanne Widdicombe

Rifle used Blaser R8 in 458 lott and R 93 7mm mag

Areas hunted Debshan/ Bubye Valley Conservancy

Outfitter Shaun Buffee Safaris

Ph Shaun Buffee
Tracker Becki Ndlovu

Background:

This would be our third hunt with Shaun Buffee in as many years and my fifth African Safari. Having successfully hunted leopard, hippo, buffalo and most Plains game trophies with Shaun in previous safaris, we asked him to look at different options on a trophy elephant hunt for us. After countless emails going back and forth discussing all the pros and cons of every option available to us, W decided on an elephant option he had available in southern Zimbabwe (Debshan).

The Hunt:

We arrived in Bulawayo on the South African Airways noon flight. All our luggage guns etc arrived and Shaun was there to help us through customs. We were on the road March 16th , which is still in the height of the rainy season. Arriving in Camp that afternoon, we got settled in and then went out to sight the rifles. We had not made it a mile before the heavens opened, however we carried on. In between the showers, managed to get a few shots off with both rifles, all good.

That evening we settled in very excited about what lay ahead. Our aim was to look for a bull elephant in the 50lbs range. I have hunted my whole life growing up in Montana so understand how fair chase hunting works, we had 160,000 acres to hunt with elephant moving in and out all the time. As Shaun explained, this is a safe haven for bulls that come out of the National Park for whatever reason, whether it be crop raiding or pressure in the National Park. We would have to hunt hard and the reality was, the more Bulls we looked at, the better our chances at big ivory. Ultimately, to track up and be in amongst elephant every day was the reason Jeanne and I were here.

Day 1

By 7am, we had looked at six separate elephant bull tracks, all young bulls not worth tracking. Having had rain most of the night, all the roads were clean and any tracks would be fresh. About 9am, we cut tracks of 12 bulls, two with huge tracks. After about an hour of tracking, they headed into some of the thickest brush I have seen. Suddenly, Becki froze. The wind was all over the place. Shaun turned and said lets go with the prevailing wind and get in to have a look before the wind swirls. I nodded, checked the power on my scope and in we went. All of a sudden, we were in amongst a herd of elephant bulls and all we could see were pieces of elephant. We slowly started looking over the bulls one by one. At one stage, we had elephant on either side of us. The closest bull could not have been more than 10 yards away and still I could only see the odd bit of grey. We moved forward a few meters to where we could hear another elephant. Then suddenly, there was one fast asleep on his side, snoring! It looked like he had a very nice tusk, it was long but not thick enough, we figured about 40lbs. It was the morning of day one, so opted to leave him sleeping. Having looked at most of the elephants in that group, we pulled out and had a lovely cup of coffee, a sandwich and carried on.

One of the advantages was the area has an excellent road network. By checking the blocks, we could pin point which block our elephant had held up in, which reduced the time it took us to find each elephant and allowed us to track and look at multiple groups of bulls every day.

The days flew by, having fun every day. We tracked and looked at possible elephants every day; I mean big tracks with all the signs of an old elephant. Over the next 14 days, we tracked and looked at a total of 96 elephant bulls, turning down a few in the 35 – 40 pound range.

The amazing thing is, we never felt pressured into shooting, the fact that we had so many elephant there, it was bound to happen.

Our Bull:

There was a particular elephant, which we called Houdini, with a huge track that we had been trying to get on for about a week, his track was so distinctive there was no mistaking him. On two occasions, we cut his fresh track. The first time, he joined a group of 20 bulls and when we finally caught up with them at last light, he had somehow slipped away. The second time, he winded us in thick brush and all we heard was him disappearing through the brush. After that, he vanished we could not find him and figured he had left the area. On the second last morning, driving down the main road, Becki suddenly got very excited. It was two fresh elephant bull tracks and one of them was Houdini! After about an hour of tracking, there they were standing across an opening about 60 yards away. We had discussed the shot and the plan was to get close for a frontal brain shot. At about 30 yards, the wind suddenly swirled and the smaller bull turned to leave. Our Bull took a few steps quartering away, with his head behind a tree, Shaun turned to me and I knew it was now or never. I brought the Blaser up and centered it behind the shoulder. I heard the smaller bull take off just as I pulled the trigger. At the shot my bull hunch up and took off. I gave him a going away shot and suddenly he was gone, swallowed up by the thick brush. Then came a pat on my back with Shaun saying,"good shot he is down." The rest of the team had heard him fall about 40 yards away. We went straight up and I gave him one insurance shot behind the head and he was mine.

My entire elephant hunt is one of the highlights of my hunting career. Not that it was the focus of the hunt, but his tusks weighed in at 58/52 pounds. He had about ten hairs on his tail, the perfect animal to take.

The second half of the Safari:

After the Elephant hunt, we moved to the Bubye Valley Conservancy for a few days of plains game hunting, relaxing and exploring. This was my first trip to the BVC. Shaun is very excited over securing some of the limited hunting quota with in the BVC.

In all my years of hunting I have never seen a concentration of wildlife that matches what we saw in the BVC. The camps were excellent and all the staff were highly professional. In five days of hunting, we had 10 separate lion sightings. The only member of the big five we did not see was a rhino, although we did see fresh sign.

While in the BVC, we hunted Wildebeest, Giraffe, Zebra, Jackal, and porcupine. Jeanne, my wife, took a 31inch Wildebeest, to date the second biggest Shaun has guided with a client.

We had an awesome finish to another wonderful safari. We have planned a lion hunt with Shaun next season and simply cannot wait to get back.

Charles and Jeanne Widdicombe
Billings, Montana

Posts: 2 | Registered: 02 May 2012

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