NAMIBIA: We Are Back! Namibia Hunt With Elandpro Safaris

Lori at Travel Express handled all of our travel. We booked with Delta for the domestic and overseas, with SAA from JO to WDK. There was adequate time between flights to not have to hurry. I cannot say I was overly impressed with Delta's so called Comfort Seating however. It does offer a tad more legroom, but no extra width so its still squeeze time, so not sure its worth the extra bucks. One thing that was different at my home airport of SeaTac was that instead of being snagged by an employee the minute I got into line with a rifle case, and taken to a TSA booth, I was directed to a Special Handling section. There I spent about 20 minutes with a Delta chap who didn't seem to have any idea the procedure of checking firearms. He had to use the phone and ask what to do. In the end, I opened the case and I put the red card in it, locked it up and took it down to the oversize baggage place, wherein they wiped it with some type of detection cloth, pronounced it good and said BYE. Didn't touch it again till I got to WDK, just the way I like it. Upon return of course we had to clear customs in ATL, so the rifle case had to be inspected by CBP, but other than having to wait my turn behind about 8 other hunter, it was no problem. Showed them my 4457's for the rifles, got our boots sprayed and then another CBP type wheeled our case over to TSA, they swiped it as before and shipped it home. At SeaTac I expected it to come out on one oversize baggage dump, but it came out another, I grabbed it as I walked by, no one checked my luggage tags, even though I offered, we grabbed our two bags, found our bus for home and piled on.
 
Lori at Travel Express handled all of our travel. We booked with Delta for the domestic and overseas, with SAA from JO to WDK. There was adequate time between flights to not have to hurry. I cannot say I was overly impressed with Delta's so called Comfort Seating however. It does offer a tad more legroom, but no extra width so its still squeeze time, so not sure its worth the extra bucks. One thing that was different at my home airport of SeaTac was that instead of being snagged by an employee the minute I got into line with a rifle case, and taken to a TSA booth, I was directed to a Special Handling section. There I spent about 20 minutes with a Delta chap who didn't seem to have any idea the procedure of checking firearms. He had to use the phone and ask what to do. In the end, I opened the case and I put the red card in it, locked it up and took it down to the oversize baggage place, wherein they wiped it with some type of detection cloth, pronounced it good and said BYE. Didn't touch it again till I got to WDK, just the way I like it. Upon return of course we had to clear customs in ATL, so the rifle case had to be inspected by CBP, but other than having to wait my turn behind about 8 other hunter, it was no problem. Showed them my 4457's for the rifles, got our boots sprayed and then another CBP type wheeled our case over to TSA, they swiped it as before and shipped it home. At SeaTac I expected it to come out on one oversize baggage dump, but it came out another, I grabbed it as I walked by, no one checked my luggage tags, even though I offered, we grabbed our two bags, found our bus for home and piled on.

I have to clear US CBP in Montreal where they check my serial numbers and export permit and wish me a good hunt. Now the rules are that once it clears CBP it gets checked through but the baggage monkeys don't read "cleared tags" and send it to TSA. Like death and taxes I get a call in the departure lounge to come to TSA for inspection, leave the secure area tell TSA it is already cleared then the wipe for the ion scanner and I have to clear security all over again.

At least it makes losing my gun in the transfer less likely, at least that is my hope.

BTW Comfort Plus was $240 each way (I paid $60 3 tears ago) so I passed and didn't notice an appreciable difference
 
Thanks sestoppelman for sharing! That is one fine eland! I think I need one with the pin stripes too!
Best
 
Really enjoyed the report Ses!

Great Eland for sure.

Working on trip nine yet?
 
Really enjoyed the report Ses!

Great Eland for sure.

Working on trip nine yet?
Not at this time...Takes me about 3 years to fully recover from the travel part:eek::rolleyes::(:(:(
 
Fantastic! Very glad you got your Eland! Congratulations on what sounds like a very memorable trip.
 
Congratz! Thank you for the great write up. Fantastic Eland(y)
 
Very beautiful eland! Your son's warthog is very nice! Congrats on all the memories with your son!
 
Dear sestoppelman
...enjoy being back home again...
One good thing about travelling, is appreciate what you have all over again.
Cherish your memories that you have created.
 
Thanks for sharing, you have some awesome trophies and memories! I bow hunted with Eland Pro last year and for free range eland it was incredible, in 3 days I had 5 different mature bulls in front of me.
 
Outstanding eland!
 
Outstanding eland!
I have never entered any of my animals into any record books, but this eland may be the first. By the numbers I have it would rough score about a 106 SCI, which would place it quite high in either Cape or Livingstone's. Its very high in my '93 edition of the book, but not near as high now. Lot of eland taken since then.
 
Snakes!! We had several encounters with puff adders this trip. My previous exposure was fairly limited being one very large python in Zim in 1996 and a couple of little snakes I took out of my tent in TZ much to the hilarious reaction:LOL::ROFLMAO: of the some of the camp staff! But we saw one or two dead adders in the road, and our tracker Joseph said he spotted a black mamba, but no one else saw it, no problem for me, not fond of snakes anyway. :whistle:One day driving along one of the main dirt roads near camp, an adder was trying to slither across the road, Joseph pointed it out to Rommel and he slowed and proceeded to try to run over with the right front tire, when he slowed a bit I went to snap a picture of the snake, just as Erwin hit the brakes! Well, my arm hit the roll bar and my little Canon digi went flying thru the air with the greatest of ease and landed on its open lense! I went into my swearing like a sailor routine:mad::mad:, Joseph and Rommel got out and grabbed the camera and the pieces from it and off we went back to camp where he promptly put it all back together, just like he knew what he was doingo_O! Those little leaves that form the open and close protection thingie had sprung off as well as the cap that holds them all on the lense, but he fitted them back on and mixed up some epoxy and its still holding together.:D
 
Congratulations on some very nice trophies. Very nice eland. Don't you just love Namibia? I know I did when I hunted there. Hope to go back one day soon.
 

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Grz63 wrote on Werty's profile.
(cont'd)
Rockies museum,
CM Russel museum and lewis and Clark interpretative center
Horseback riding in Summer star ranch
Charlo bison range and Garnet ghost town
Flathead lake, road to the sun and hiking in Glacier NP
and back to SLC (via Ogden and Logan)
Grz63 wrote on Werty's profile.
Good Morning,
I plan to visit MT next Sept.
May I ask you to give me your comments; do I forget something ? are my choices worthy ? Thank you in advance
Philippe (France)

Start in Billings, Then visit little big horn battlefield,
MT grizzly encounter,
a hot springs (do you have good spots ?)
Looking to buy a 375 H&H or .416 Rem Mag if anyone has anything they want to let go of
Erling Søvik wrote on dankykang's profile.
Nice Z, 1975 ?
Tintin wrote on JNevada's profile.
Hi Jay,

Hope you're well.

I'm headed your way in January.

Attending SHOT Show has been a long time bucket list item for me.

Finally made it happen and I'm headed to Vegas.

I know you're some distance from Vegas - but would be keen to catch up if it works out.

Have a good one.

Mark
 
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