Accidental Villain
AH veteran
Dear AH members and readers! I just got back from a super exciting, very action-packed hunt with @Nyamazana Safaris. And, it sure has to be shared!
In my mind, there is nothing that compares to elephant hunting in terms of the danger, risk factor, challenge, and sheer drama all combined. Now, add the potential action factor that you might experience during night hunting these juggernauts..
Please excuse if I formulate my self a little clumsy at times. English is not my native language.
I got two elephants. The first one on my arrival day in pitch darkness after a super exciting and good stalk up to a cornfield, where we found 3 elephants and got the best one of them.
Most exciting moments: Lights on ☺ The stalk in fast fading light and immediately start tracking the elephant after it disappeared over the cornfield and into the dark bush. Mother of all nightmares!
Best moment: Seeing the elephant thru the muzzle flash of my old Rigby!
I got my elephant even before the hunt was supposed to start, so then what? Well, the good thing here is that Wayne often takes care of problem animals for the Rural District Council. Be it lions, crocs, elephant, hyenas etc. The RDC has its own quota of licenses, and I was so lucky to get one of those licenses for one more elephant. In the area I hunted some of the villages have really big problems with elephants. Some of the crops I saw looked like parking lots. The elephants also sometimes kill villagers. The last one only a couple of days prior to my arrival.
Amazing scenery when my elephant was butchered. Around 100 – 150 villagers showed up early in the morning. Supervised by Wayne’s trackers/skinners around 20-30 men from the village started to work on the elephant. All the women from the village sat around in the bush and made small fires chatting and laughing. There were many happy faces to see among those poor people. The village chief approached me and thanked me in a very humble way for shooting an elephant on their grounds. It felt quite special for me that a foreign hunter could come there and make a difference for these people. Now the elephant was a very important source of protein for them and they got something back for their destroyed crops. The elephant was no longer just a Monster vermin that decimated their crops and sometimes kill the villagers but a valuable resource. I must add that absolutely nothing was left of the elephant. They even picked out “eatable” pieces out of the stomach content..
While this was going on Wayne was approached by two guys from a neighboring village. They said they had many elephants in their cornfields every night… Okay, so we`d better pay them a visit then.
When at this second village we were in for really wild elephant action. I will estimate that there was something in the order of maybe 30 or more elephants in and around this village`s fields. When the elephants are in the fields in numbers, they kind of possess the area. I have to commend Wayne and his trackers. Going in under such conditions are needless to say very very dangerous. The PH must be exceptionally good at "reading" the elephant, tactical maneuvers between the elephants (we were quite a few people), safety, and at the same look for a good shootable elephant while he is commanding his trackers who need to be very disciplined and very brave. I think I only saw maybe one of the trackers loose it once (they must keep an eye backwards and sides), but that was under extreme conditions. We were literally boxed in against a fence by 5 elephants. In the cornfield in front of us we had one elephant above us at the edge of the field blocking us, and three in front of us (the closest at about 15 yards) and then an elephant crashes thru the fence 100 yards below us with a huge bang and advances towards us so we had to go backwards. Then, out of the blue an elephant slams into the fence behind us with an incredible noise tops 2 – 3 yards (maybe less) behind us..DAMN that was scary!! Other than that, the trackers were very good and brave. On several occasions, we had to back out of situations with guns ready and the lights on and the trackers stood their ground. One of the most memorable encounters was when we were in the bush between two cornfields when 3 elephants were advancing on us. 2 in front and one from the side. I overheard one of the trackers say they were “friends”. These juggernauts was communicating. The two in front screamed (sounds like the T-Rex monster in Jurassic Park) and hitting the trees. I was a little further back and noticed that the scouts from the village started to get panic, and frankly I don't blame them. It was shit scary! On one occasion we stood maybe 20-30 yards away from an elephant with good wind against us, then the wind turned, …then the elephant goes silent…just standing there ears out, trunk up and I am certain he was thinking “fart and I`ll kill you” afraid of us it was definitely not! Another occasion we were standing at a fence between two fields close to an elephant. Good wind against us, then I noticed an elephant walking up the field behind us. When it caught our wind obviously, it stopped and went silent. I turned around. I had a really bad feeling about this one. Then one of the trackers light him up (excellent, thanks, thumbs up!!) and it was standing there trying to focus on us, it was really threatening, and I was sure he was coming for us. I said: SHOOT? Glad I heared Wayne`s NO!! and the juggernaut just stood there for a couple of more seconds and then it took off…
We kept on like that for little over 4 hours, never being more than tops 100 yards from an elephant at any time. At the last cornfield when not finding a good elephant, (One must also consider the security, it’s not just to shoot. There were many elephants around us. According to Wayne 15 in that field alone..). It is also very difficult to judge an elephant standing in 6-7 feet high cornfield, and me being a stubborn ass donkey that won't shoot anything else than a good mature bull ☺. At 00:15 AM we took a break. Couple of the guys feel asleep. I could hear at least one of them snoring..Nyoni?☺. We`d been on the move since 04:30 AM.
The next couple of days was spent sitting on lion baits. There was 2 lions taking livestock every other night. They never showed up, but it sure was exciting! There were also few elephants out in the fields. A couple of loners but when they are alone they are very vary and behave quite different from when they are there in numbers.
On the 8th day just after dusk we went down to the last village again to sit for most of the night, waiting. After just a couple of minutes we got message about elephants on their way. We rushed out in the bush to intercept them, and we did. It was a cow elephant..and a really grumpy Mrs she was. Don`t know what happened but the trackers had to light her several times and she crashed away. We pulled back to the car and the Mrs came back and went into the field. We knew there were two of them and hoped the other one would be a good bull. We had a very good stalk thru heavy bush and even managed to get into the cornfield and got close to the other one and then we could clearly see that it was young elephant and probably hers. One of the trackers lighted JR ele and it froze stiff. Now all hell broke loose when the Mrs from about 100 yards away saw this and she came flat out towards us. It might as well be a M1A1 Abrahms coming thru the field. The trackers lighted her up but she just kept coming. Remember we were in the middle of a high cornfield. Another “mother of all nightmares”! Luckily, Jr finally ran into the bush and the Mrs broke off and followed Jr, and hopefully they will never ever enter a cornfield again!
Then we stand there. This could have been one of the last opportunities. Then, my blood freezes cold. Right there in the bush not more than 100 yds away comes the well-known T-Rex scream again. Another group of elephants is entering the cornfield next to the one we are at. We immediately start stalking them. It is cloudy so no starlight, it's so dark as can be but still we manage to approach the edge of the other cornfield almost completely silent. But, this is a very wide cornfield and the elephants had gone over to the other side. We again manage to circle the field with very little noise and get close. AND, there is a good one there! Wayne is standing about 10 yards further out in the field seizing them up. I get up besides Wayne, got Tracker Graham behind me with a flashlight. Safety off, Ready! Lights on and as I pull the trigger, Wayne also fires immediately after. Some of the villagers must have gotten the tea or whatever down the wrong tube. We were quite close to the village and 5 heavy caliber shots within maybe 3-4 seconds makes some noise. After my second shot I hear a rumbling noise and locating the source I see maybe 8 – 10 elephants running flat out straight towards us…if a sight like that don't make you really hold onto your rifle…nothing will! Both Graham and Sam lights them up but they kept on coming and didn't break off before maybe 25-30 yards in front of us and they thundered thru the fence and out of the field… Then I see my elephant is down. Wayne had brain shot it without my knowledge but it fell with the trunk curled up under the head so it really sticks up and I think it still is alive so at the same time Wayne say “I`ve brain sh…” Boom, and I see the head dipped down a few inches. It was a very dead elephant. I later counted 5 deadly hits. But that’s the way you do it under such circumstances. You hammer it until it’s down and then you hit it once more just to be sure.
Wayne and his trackers are very good hunters. Later I got one more license from the District Council (zebra) and after a 2 hour track & stalk in high tempo we found the herd and in very dense bush Wayne got me in a good shooting position and I shot it at about 80 yards thru a small opening in the bush. And it was no coincidence that it was the big one, the herd stallion. The zebra actually stopped the 375 H&H Barnes X bullet. Crushed the right shoulder, thru the lungs and stopped in the skin on opposite side. It was a very big and nice zebra. I only have pictures of it on my camera, and the pictures are of course stored in the internal memory, and I can`t find the damn cable.. otherwise I would have posted pictures of it.
Later we went up to Wayne`s camp in Marula were I hunted Impala for Leopard bait with 2 trackers and it’s a true pleasure to hunt with such good hunters. The Impalas there are regularly hunted and are very vary. There is also very dense bush. We found a small herd. Stalked them for maybe 30 – 45 minutes or so before we managed to get in position ahead of the herd and I got a very good set up and shot one.
BTW there are some very good spotted cats up there in Marula for those who might be innterested, maybe one of them is eating my impala as I'm writing this..☺
Nyamazana Safaris camps are very nice and well organized and the food is great. Good staff. Even though this comes from someone you can put in a doghouse as long as the hunting is good..haha anyways, I`m probably a returning customer.
All the best,
Bjorn
In my mind, there is nothing that compares to elephant hunting in terms of the danger, risk factor, challenge, and sheer drama all combined. Now, add the potential action factor that you might experience during night hunting these juggernauts..
Please excuse if I formulate my self a little clumsy at times. English is not my native language.
I got two elephants. The first one on my arrival day in pitch darkness after a super exciting and good stalk up to a cornfield, where we found 3 elephants and got the best one of them.
Most exciting moments: Lights on ☺ The stalk in fast fading light and immediately start tracking the elephant after it disappeared over the cornfield and into the dark bush. Mother of all nightmares!
Best moment: Seeing the elephant thru the muzzle flash of my old Rigby!
I got my elephant even before the hunt was supposed to start, so then what? Well, the good thing here is that Wayne often takes care of problem animals for the Rural District Council. Be it lions, crocs, elephant, hyenas etc. The RDC has its own quota of licenses, and I was so lucky to get one of those licenses for one more elephant. In the area I hunted some of the villages have really big problems with elephants. Some of the crops I saw looked like parking lots. The elephants also sometimes kill villagers. The last one only a couple of days prior to my arrival.
Amazing scenery when my elephant was butchered. Around 100 – 150 villagers showed up early in the morning. Supervised by Wayne’s trackers/skinners around 20-30 men from the village started to work on the elephant. All the women from the village sat around in the bush and made small fires chatting and laughing. There were many happy faces to see among those poor people. The village chief approached me and thanked me in a very humble way for shooting an elephant on their grounds. It felt quite special for me that a foreign hunter could come there and make a difference for these people. Now the elephant was a very important source of protein for them and they got something back for their destroyed crops. The elephant was no longer just a Monster vermin that decimated their crops and sometimes kill the villagers but a valuable resource. I must add that absolutely nothing was left of the elephant. They even picked out “eatable” pieces out of the stomach content..
While this was going on Wayne was approached by two guys from a neighboring village. They said they had many elephants in their cornfields every night… Okay, so we`d better pay them a visit then.
When at this second village we were in for really wild elephant action. I will estimate that there was something in the order of maybe 30 or more elephants in and around this village`s fields. When the elephants are in the fields in numbers, they kind of possess the area. I have to commend Wayne and his trackers. Going in under such conditions are needless to say very very dangerous. The PH must be exceptionally good at "reading" the elephant, tactical maneuvers between the elephants (we were quite a few people), safety, and at the same look for a good shootable elephant while he is commanding his trackers who need to be very disciplined and very brave. I think I only saw maybe one of the trackers loose it once (they must keep an eye backwards and sides), but that was under extreme conditions. We were literally boxed in against a fence by 5 elephants. In the cornfield in front of us we had one elephant above us at the edge of the field blocking us, and three in front of us (the closest at about 15 yards) and then an elephant crashes thru the fence 100 yards below us with a huge bang and advances towards us so we had to go backwards. Then, out of the blue an elephant slams into the fence behind us with an incredible noise tops 2 – 3 yards (maybe less) behind us..DAMN that was scary!! Other than that, the trackers were very good and brave. On several occasions, we had to back out of situations with guns ready and the lights on and the trackers stood their ground. One of the most memorable encounters was when we were in the bush between two cornfields when 3 elephants were advancing on us. 2 in front and one from the side. I overheard one of the trackers say they were “friends”. These juggernauts was communicating. The two in front screamed (sounds like the T-Rex monster in Jurassic Park) and hitting the trees. I was a little further back and noticed that the scouts from the village started to get panic, and frankly I don't blame them. It was shit scary! On one occasion we stood maybe 20-30 yards away from an elephant with good wind against us, then the wind turned, …then the elephant goes silent…just standing there ears out, trunk up and I am certain he was thinking “fart and I`ll kill you” afraid of us it was definitely not! Another occasion we were standing at a fence between two fields close to an elephant. Good wind against us, then I noticed an elephant walking up the field behind us. When it caught our wind obviously, it stopped and went silent. I turned around. I had a really bad feeling about this one. Then one of the trackers light him up (excellent, thanks, thumbs up!!) and it was standing there trying to focus on us, it was really threatening, and I was sure he was coming for us. I said: SHOOT? Glad I heared Wayne`s NO!! and the juggernaut just stood there for a couple of more seconds and then it took off…
We kept on like that for little over 4 hours, never being more than tops 100 yards from an elephant at any time. At the last cornfield when not finding a good elephant, (One must also consider the security, it’s not just to shoot. There were many elephants around us. According to Wayne 15 in that field alone..). It is also very difficult to judge an elephant standing in 6-7 feet high cornfield, and me being a stubborn ass donkey that won't shoot anything else than a good mature bull ☺. At 00:15 AM we took a break. Couple of the guys feel asleep. I could hear at least one of them snoring..Nyoni?☺. We`d been on the move since 04:30 AM.
The next couple of days was spent sitting on lion baits. There was 2 lions taking livestock every other night. They never showed up, but it sure was exciting! There were also few elephants out in the fields. A couple of loners but when they are alone they are very vary and behave quite different from when they are there in numbers.
On the 8th day just after dusk we went down to the last village again to sit for most of the night, waiting. After just a couple of minutes we got message about elephants on their way. We rushed out in the bush to intercept them, and we did. It was a cow elephant..and a really grumpy Mrs she was. Don`t know what happened but the trackers had to light her several times and she crashed away. We pulled back to the car and the Mrs came back and went into the field. We knew there were two of them and hoped the other one would be a good bull. We had a very good stalk thru heavy bush and even managed to get into the cornfield and got close to the other one and then we could clearly see that it was young elephant and probably hers. One of the trackers lighted JR ele and it froze stiff. Now all hell broke loose when the Mrs from about 100 yards away saw this and she came flat out towards us. It might as well be a M1A1 Abrahms coming thru the field. The trackers lighted her up but she just kept coming. Remember we were in the middle of a high cornfield. Another “mother of all nightmares”! Luckily, Jr finally ran into the bush and the Mrs broke off and followed Jr, and hopefully they will never ever enter a cornfield again!
Then we stand there. This could have been one of the last opportunities. Then, my blood freezes cold. Right there in the bush not more than 100 yds away comes the well-known T-Rex scream again. Another group of elephants is entering the cornfield next to the one we are at. We immediately start stalking them. It is cloudy so no starlight, it's so dark as can be but still we manage to approach the edge of the other cornfield almost completely silent. But, this is a very wide cornfield and the elephants had gone over to the other side. We again manage to circle the field with very little noise and get close. AND, there is a good one there! Wayne is standing about 10 yards further out in the field seizing them up. I get up besides Wayne, got Tracker Graham behind me with a flashlight. Safety off, Ready! Lights on and as I pull the trigger, Wayne also fires immediately after. Some of the villagers must have gotten the tea or whatever down the wrong tube. We were quite close to the village and 5 heavy caliber shots within maybe 3-4 seconds makes some noise. After my second shot I hear a rumbling noise and locating the source I see maybe 8 – 10 elephants running flat out straight towards us…if a sight like that don't make you really hold onto your rifle…nothing will! Both Graham and Sam lights them up but they kept on coming and didn't break off before maybe 25-30 yards in front of us and they thundered thru the fence and out of the field… Then I see my elephant is down. Wayne had brain shot it without my knowledge but it fell with the trunk curled up under the head so it really sticks up and I think it still is alive so at the same time Wayne say “I`ve brain sh…” Boom, and I see the head dipped down a few inches. It was a very dead elephant. I later counted 5 deadly hits. But that’s the way you do it under such circumstances. You hammer it until it’s down and then you hit it once more just to be sure.
Wayne and his trackers are very good hunters. Later I got one more license from the District Council (zebra) and after a 2 hour track & stalk in high tempo we found the herd and in very dense bush Wayne got me in a good shooting position and I shot it at about 80 yards thru a small opening in the bush. And it was no coincidence that it was the big one, the herd stallion. The zebra actually stopped the 375 H&H Barnes X bullet. Crushed the right shoulder, thru the lungs and stopped in the skin on opposite side. It was a very big and nice zebra. I only have pictures of it on my camera, and the pictures are of course stored in the internal memory, and I can`t find the damn cable.. otherwise I would have posted pictures of it.
Later we went up to Wayne`s camp in Marula were I hunted Impala for Leopard bait with 2 trackers and it’s a true pleasure to hunt with such good hunters. The Impalas there are regularly hunted and are very vary. There is also very dense bush. We found a small herd. Stalked them for maybe 30 – 45 minutes or so before we managed to get in position ahead of the herd and I got a very good set up and shot one.
BTW there are some very good spotted cats up there in Marula for those who might be innterested, maybe one of them is eating my impala as I'm writing this..☺
Nyamazana Safaris camps are very nice and well organized and the food is great. Good staff. Even though this comes from someone you can put in a doghouse as long as the hunting is good..haha anyways, I`m probably a returning customer.
All the best,
Bjorn
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