I booked this hunt through Keith Atcheson. My objectives were to get both cats, if possible, and possibly a bigger elephant than I'd gotten in 2008. Gavin Rorke has leased most of Dande North and was recommended as a good "cat man." I hunted out of Camp Mukanga, a beautiful and remote area. There were almost no natives around and you could hear lion, leopard, baboon, hyena, and baboon at night.

The place was literally crawling with cats. Their tracks were everywhere.



But the rains had come late and the prey animals were not concentrated, so it was hard to pin down bait sites.

First order of business was to get some bait. I shot three impala but we had no luck with buffalo, playing tag in the jesse at ranges of 20 yards or so with them. Good adrenalin fix but no meat. So we drove down to the Zambezi River for some hippo meat.



Next, while driving around looking for tracks we saw patches of an elephant in the bush. The tracks were good so we followed them and two hours later, after nearly blundering into two smaller bulls, we got an uphill crossing shot as the elephant went through an opening at about 80 yards. Yes, it was moving. We ran after it and heard a loud "thud." Here was the result, which Gavin estimated was 48# to the side.



Most days we checked and replenished bait and looked for tracks while doing so. We came across tracks of a buffalo herd with lion tracks on top of them. After much maneuvering and sneaking around, we got next to a clear lane and the herd, about 60 animals, started walking toward us. They would have passed about 25 feet away. But suddenly they took off to the right. I "wing shot" from the offhand position a bull bringing up the rear. The shot broke high, the bull immediately fell down, and gave the death bellow. But its head was not on the ground, so I kept shooting, hitting the buff in the chest, with Gavin saying to use the shooting sticks.

Here was the result.



As we went up to the dead bull, a lion stepped out of the bush. I got on the sticks but it was a very small male. Another lion growled at us from the bush and we got glimpses of about 5 or 6 of them moving off. We had stolen their dinner.

We finally got a couple of male lions coming to one of our baits. We decided to sit up in a tree with a camoflaged blind. We left camp at 3:00 PM and I felt like Gary Cooper in High Noon (scared). We were in the blind from 4:00 to 10:00. Before nightfall, a couple of vultures came but did not go near the bait. A civet came and then a hyena. All this time I was trying to remain motionless and not make any "creaking" noises. Finally, we heard a wet bone crunching sound and some growls. Gavin slowly turned on his light (it's legal to shoot at night on council-owned land) and we saw three lions. We spent a few minutes deciding which to shoot in the dim light. Finally, as one stretched up to the bait and was clear of the others, I shot it. It growled and snarled and ran into the tall grass. Then silence.

The other two came back! One started eating the bait and the other lay down at the base of our ladder and looked at us. Gavin turned on his bright spotlight and tried to locate the one I'd shot. Finally, he called the trackers in the truck. On the way in they spotted my lion--dead (thank goodness). The other two slunk off a bit and we quickly scurried down the tree, got the lion into the truck, and left. The next day we returned to get our stuff and there was still a male lion there, guarding his meat.

When we got to camp, the staff was cheering and beating drums and saying, in Shona, "he is a man, he has killed the mighty lion," or words to that effect.



In addition, I shot a zebra. We saw leopard, two good bull kudus, a waterbuck, honey badgers, two pangolins, mongooses, civets, several herds of cow elephants, a couple of shootable bulls, two puff adders, a black mamba, and African lynxes. Also a gazillion buffalo, fleetingly, in the jesse.

So here is the "king of Mukanga."



The lion skull, I'm told, will make the SCI minimum if I were to apply.



All game was shot with North Fork 300 grain bullets from my .375 H&H. Six were recovered.



The first two softs were lengthwise shots at impala, right front shoulder to left hip, being found just under the skin, and vice versa.

The third soft point was my 65 yard shot at the moving buffalo. I could tell the shot broke a little high. It turned out to be a shoulder/spinal shot, bang-flop. I think that's pretty impressive because you can't tell the three bullets apart. They weighed between 271 and 291 grains and expanded to about .75 inches.

The first two solids were follow up shots on the buffalo, which was lying down. Both penetrated at an angle, quartering from the rear, and one hit the spine.

The final solid, a bit mashed up, penetrated both shoulders of my large ZAmbezi Valley Bull elephant. It was found in the flesh of the off shoulder.

Gavin Rorke runs an excellent camp. the food was great. Gavin and his apprentice, Jeremy Mason, were good conversationalists, and everything was ship shape. I very much recommend Gavin Rorke's company for safaris in Zimbabwe.

I have heard rumors that Dande North was overhunted, but apparently they were wrong. Congrats on some great trophies and a fine adventure.

Thanks for the great report and congrats on your successes. Where the North Fork Solids Flat Points or Cup Points

Great report, Indy.

Nice to see you figured out the pic-posting thing. They look great!

Congratulations on a great hunt, thanks for the report.

Congrats on a successful safari!

Very nice, thanks.

Congrats and thank you very much for sharing!

Congratulations on your amazing safari
Beatufil animals, and amazing memories by the sound of it
Thanks for sharing
Orvar

Great hunt & nice trophies. Thanks for sharing.

Well done on your safari and thanks for sharing

Congrats on your safari. Thanks for the report and pictures.

Damn nice bag on your safari! Elephant, buff, lion and hippo just to cover the big stuff! Well done!

Congratulations, what a great hunt! Highly proficient and experienced PH is Mr Gavin Rorke, and Mr Jeremy Mason is a promising young learner, is he not?

David,

I assume you know them. Gavin is great. He gave me a pair of gaiters and an elephant-hide cartridge wallet. He's a good naturalist as well as a PH. He's also very knowledgeable about bullet developments and talks with all the makers when he comes to the States every year. Jeremy is 18 years old, looks like he's 15, and has the judgement of a 45-year old. He'll make an outstanding PH.

quote:

Originally posted by BigBoreCore:
I have heard rumors that Dande North was overhunted, but apparently they were wrong. Congrats on some great trophies and a fine adventure.

BigCoreBore,

It's definitely not shot out. Dande North is about 70 miles by 40 miles. Gevin Rorke has the top and bottom third, with CM Safaris having the middle. Based on the lion tracks we saw, there were enough lions in the south 1/3 to eat over 700 buffalo per year. Gavin's quota is only 15 bulls. It's also only two male lions and three lionesses. The northern part is the realm of the Kanyemba man eaters of 2010. I heard that the No. 3 kudu was taken a couple of years ago in Dande North. I don't think CM's area is shot out either. I would have heard about that.

Congrats. What a great hunt. I hunted the north in 2008 and the south this year. I love the place.

Congrats. What a great hunt.

Very nice bag of animals.

Hello Indy and All,

Congratulations on your hunt. Very exciting.

Gavin is an excellent PH. We have been working with him for two years and he is part of our PH program. We know have 15 PH through out the world in which we draw upon their input on how to make our product better and what weights they would like to see their clients with. As you can see from the front of our solid, hitting a buff through both shoulder bones is very distrupting to a bullet. They are very tough, heavy boned critters and this is why our hunters need to use the best bullets (our of course ) to give them the confidence for these kinds of shots.

Not only is Gavin a big man, he is deceptively nimble on his feet but even more nible with his wit.

Again, congratulations on a successful hunt.

Regards,
North Fork

Congratulations on a very, very successful safari!

Best regards, D. Nelson

Congratulations ,and thanks for the report of Dande north.

Hi Indy

Congrats on a great hunt. We are fortunate to have Gav as our next door neibour. He is indeed a well repected PH who provides the goods as your safari attests to!

Your buff and ele are fantastic. Did you get the ele near the River. Mkanga is one of my favourite camps. I infacted sited the camp and nearly got biten by a cobra while I sat on an anthill which is still situated right by the dinning room and has that tamarind tree growing out of it!

I have just returned from the Dande Safari Area after getting a nice buff and tuskless with Tim Haugh and had a great hunt and am off tommorrow to Makuti. Thanks for the great report!

Hi Buzz,

I don't know how far the elephant was from the river, but not close, I think. I could not see the river from where we started the stalk, or during it, or when I shot the elephant, or on the way back to camp. Most of the tracking/stalking was up a slight hill (it always seems to be up hill).

I recall the ant hill and the big tamarind tree by the dining room. Glad I didn't know about the cobra. We saw a black mamba and two puff adders out in the bush.

Congrats on a great hunt and some excellent trophies. Always a fun time to hunt with Gavin. He also likes to eat and makes sure the camp always has good food and plenty of it. How Gavin can sit so still in those damn tree blinds is beyond me. They also always seem so high in the air.

Reading this makes me want to go back, oh well one of these days.

BigB