Russell, I wanted to follow-up and post the contact information for Buzz Charlton:

WEBSITE: Buzz Charlon Website

EMAIL: buzzcharlton@zol.co.zw

Regards,

Bill

Dates Hunted: July 22 - August 1, 2004<br />Location: Dande Communal Lands, Zambezi Valley, Zimbabwe<br />Camp: Ingwe Safari's Karunga Camp was adequate and quite comfortable. Based on a dry pan, the camp is scenic with buff feeding through the camp one evening. Hyena serenades free of charge! Lion grunts and roars extra.<br />Conditions: Bright, dry and clear. Temps from low 50's to mid-80's<br />Terrain: Varied from thick jess blocks in the east of the concession to mopane scrub in the south to rolling hills with scattered mopane and thornbrush close to the Escarpment. Tsetses minimal in the east, thick in the south.<br />Outfitter: Buzz Charlton Safaris<br />PH: I hunted with Buzz, Steve hunted with John Greeff, my dad hunted with Ryan an apprentice PH getting experience working as camp manager.<br /><br />First, everything you read here about the Afton House is true. When we were booking flights, the "in-transit" issue hadn't been solved so we played it safe and spent an extra day in Jo'burg to work through the bullshit and decompress for24 hours. Louis and his staff had us through in an hour and a half. We were moved through customs as efficiently as possible. Would rather be safe than sorry and miss a connecting flight and have to wait 24 hours to catch the next one anyway! The Afton House is comfortable, not fancy but will use them again!<br /><br />Day one found us on the east side of the concession. Our plan was to travel the Beyna road which is a misnomer for the word "road". It runs parallel to the Mozambique border which was about three klicks further east. We looked for tracks coming into Zim and checked them going out. This time of year, the masol (sic) berries are starting to ripen along the rivers in Zim and eles come in to take advantage of them as well as the small shambas with cotton and stored mealies. We saw lots of cow tracks coming in but few bulls. Made a couple of small recon runs in the morning to look at some small pans. About eleven, Buzz found what we wanted and we put our gear together for a stalk. About three hours later after staying on a track that meandered and twisted mixing in and out with other elephants we found where our ladies had just departed to begin to feed again. We were close and the circus smell of elephant hung in the air. After crossing a small dry creek, we heard a branch break and eased up in time to see a bull with about 30-35 pound ivory feeding along. We eased up as quitely as possible in the jess. For a guy who is 6'4", easier said than done! Fallen leaves made approaches extremely difficult. We discussed the bull and Buzz determined he was too young to shoot and not a "first day" bull. I'm not an expert, but it seems eles are like buff. Younger breeding bulls may run with cows but usually are not shooters. Old bulls are loners or run with one to three younger bulls that have been pushed out of the herds (askaris). Ganyana probably has a lot more info on this!<br /><br />We worked around the bull and began to catch glimpses of cows feeding. Our goal was an old cow without a calf. In this area we could shoot tusked or tuskless cows. In the south, only tuskless cows could be shot. It is an amazing experience to be thirty yards from fifteen to twenty elephant. We selected a cow and began to ease up. The jess requires close shots because of all the obstructions to a clean shot and Buzz only wanted brain shots on cows since they were plentiful. We got to twenty yards when the wind kissed the back of my neck. The herd turned as one and crashed through the brush. We gave them five minutes and followed. The jig was up. They knew we were following. We bumped them once more and they crashed away again. We decided to head back to the 'cruiser, which was in the general direction the cows went. As we walked along, Morgan spotted a bushbuck ram, and we left our predetermined path to try to get a shot. A fortuitous event! The cows had walked out of the jess and into a cotton patch several hundred meters ahead of us. The locals, shouting at them drove them back in and to us! They were set to cross about a hundred meters in front of us so Buzz and I take off (sorta, remember, thick jess) and get twenty yards from them. They stopped just before crossing a small water course and we looked them over quickly. Buzz whispered to take the cow in the back. Her head was obstructed by a small tree but she was watching us. Suddenly, she ducks around the tree and starts for us. It's really strange, but time seems to pass so very slowly when this happens. It's like slow motion, only slower. The gun comes up, the scope set at 1.75x finds ths "spot" just below and between the eyes. The guns fires on its own and the cow crashes to the ground. You blink your eyes a couple of times and then realize she was coming for us. Buzz looks at me with a wide-eyed stare and then breaks into a grin. Morgan and Crispin are slapping me on the back and shaking my hand. What an experience! And the best thing of all, Sean, our cameraman caught it on film! Elephant cows are worth the money, boys, don't discount 'em. I'll write more when I have time. I tried to post a picture of my cow, but I can't get Hunt101.com up right now. Will do it ASAP.

Russell's Elephant Cow: