japantiger said:

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Courtesy Flush said:

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Pretty sure I would be more accurate in 60 yards than I would be 10 yards. At 10 yards my heart would be racing and my hands would be shaking like a crack addict needed a hit.

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The issue gets down to how dense the brush is and needing to see the full animal. As I recounted, the animal was 10 yds aways before we could verify he only had one tusk.

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Dang, that's crazy. I've never been to Africa, but I always pictured African elephants being in wide open spaces. I've seen videos of elephants in India crashing through thick jungle, but I never really thought you could be 10 yards away from one in Africa and not see him clearly.

My family doctor when I was a kid, was a 1936 grad of t.u. Picture Mark Twain, cigar and all. He was a big game hunter in the 50s and 60s. Can you imagine what it was like back then?

All that to say, he shot an elephant that had three tusks. Skull is now in Hale County Farm and Ranch Museum, Hale Center, Texas.

I know I keep bringing up books by Peter Capstick, but if you have not read "Death In The Long Grass", get a copy and check it out. There is a chapter on Elephants, in which he describes how hard it is to make out the size and shape of one even from 10-15 yards away. His theory was the sheer size combined with the dirt they roll in and the bush all combine to confuse your eye. Nealan said it earlier, add that book to your reading list. I would suggest any of his books.

I cannot fathom being that close to elephants. They'd hear my knees knocking.

They will literally disappear into the thick stuff, same as a herd of cape buffaloes. Now you see them and now you don't.

I figured the first time I went to Africa that zebra would just stand out like a sore thumb.....nope. They also disappear.

I've never been on the ground close to elephant but have been damn close in a truck. They are flat out scary - actually I think they scare me more than any African animal.

It is an adrenaline rush to be that close. I have only shot an "own use" elephant that was destroying a village garden. 10 yards and a little in front of the ear hole.

Today was just a long hot day...About 5:00 pm we finally saw a really big bull and went to pursue him. At about 50 yds you could see both tusks we're broken...no joy. He was BIG. other than that, today consisted of a few monkeys, kudu, roan and some gemsbok (or Oryx)....

Googled "elephant in African brushland" and this popped up.

agrams said:

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how many days do you have planned on the elephant hunt? and if you don't find what you are after, do you not harvest one? or come try again another time?

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With 40 days left he'll probably get one.

Gives new meaning to a really bad dad joke I like to tell.

Why don't you ever see an elephant hiding in a tree? Because they're really good at it.

Tx95Ag said:

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Gives new meaning to a really bad dad joke I like to tell.

Why don't you ever see an elephant hiding in a tree? Because they're really good at it.

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can't wait to unleash this one tonight.

I love this thread! The taxidermy conversation reminded me of a time when I was working for a taxidermist on the Mexican border. The owner was originally from Mexico. One day he came to me and said we had a job on the Mexico side of the border. It turned out that one of the richest men in Mexico hired him to repair some of his shoulder mounts.

This client was so wealthy (another thread someday) that when his doctor told him to change his diet and eat healthier and suggested Chinese food, he imported a chef from China and opened up a restaurant where he could get good "healthy" Chinese food when he wanted. My boss told me that this guy had hunted around the world so much that his large house was overflowing with taxidermy so he used the restaurant to house his "leftover mounts".

We drive across the border to the restaurant and sure enough, it was loaded with full size a croc mount, African plains game mounts, and animals from around the world. Anyone would love that collection. It turned out that the repair job we were tasked with was to repair and conceal bullet holes in a shoulder mounted hippo. The owner was alone at his large house one night and drank so much wine that he turned around and thought the hippo was attacking him so he shot it several times with a large caliber handgun!

Repairing .45 caliber bullet holes on the jaw of a shoulder mounted hippo owned by one of the richest men in Mexico was a pretty cool story so I thought I'd share.

Back to Africa, sorry for the derail!

Got on a big bull early. Tracked it South and East...it was moving away from the waterhole near camp towards either the Botswana border or the Kaudhum park. The trail was good and everything pointed to a great animal. We arrived at the "corner" where Botswana and the Park meet. 50 yds to our right walking just inside the Park was a magnificent bull, two great tusks....out of reach. He continued away from us with the border fence on his left and the Park on his right.

The Botswana border is a 3 row barbed wire fence in various stages of falling down either by neglect or the Elephants decided they wanted to go there instead. It is the Eastern boundary to the Conservancy we are hunting in. Kaudhum Park is a Namibia game park that borders us to the South.

Last day in Namibia is the 31st...then to Zambia.

When the Game Warden arrived this morning he'd been up most of the night working 2 incidents involving Hippos over around Rundu (on the Okavango River) N and W of here.

A couple were killed. The wife was attacked while pulling in fishing nets...the husband went to her aid.

In a separate incident, A male had his leg bit thru and broken and his genitals bitten off.

In both cases the people were between the hippo and water.

Ouch

hippos are dicks... they also bite of the tails of other hippos to stop them from flinging poo (how they mark territory, and hilarious to see in a zoo if they helicopter it into a crowd of people).

https://www.statista.com/statistics/448169/deadliest-creatures-in-the-world-by-number-of-human-deaths/

Says that hippos and elephants each kill about 500 people a year. Lions 250.

Sharks? Not on this chart, but about 4-5 deaths a year.

japantiger said:

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When the Game Warden arrived this morning he'd been up most of the night working 2 incidents involving Hippos over around Rundu (on the Okavango River) N and W of here.

A couple were killed. The wife was attacked while pulling in fishing nets...the husband went to her aid.

In a separate incident, A male had his leg bit thru and broken and his genitals bitten off.

In both cases the people were between the hippo and water.

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https://www.nature.org/en-us/magazine/magazine-articles/okavango-delta-african-oasis/

Sounds like japantiger is not in botswana but close by… and for good reason.

The Okavango Delta is a pretty fascinating natural wonder. The river just disappears into the desert. With the seasons the delta expands and contracts. The nature conservancy link above was the first best descriptor i could find.

I am on the Botswana border with Kaudhum as our Southern border. The Okavango runs South out of Angola across N Namibia and cuts South into Botswana in the Eastern Caprivi. I have hunted on the Okavango on the Botswana border on a previous trip. The river at that point is about 500 yds across.

The dream team:
Left to right:Max, Bongani, Pietro (Hatchetman), Longman and the Conservancy Warden .

Longman raises goats and subsistence farms when not hunting. A hyena broke into his goat pens and killed all his goats. He tracked the hyena for 6 miles and crawled into it's burrow with a knife and killed it. He then cooked and ate it. Said the only way to have his goats was to eat what ate his goats.

They are amazing trackers and we all know that's "bad as#!"

Quote:

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He tracked the hyena for 6 miles and crawled into it's burrow with a knife and killed it. He then cooked and ate it. Said the only way to have his goats was to eat what ate his goats.

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There's a lot of phenomenal stories to come out of this thread., but this might be my favorite.

A group of 8-10 greet us at this waterhole every day, sunup and the Botswana border defenses.

I spy a Kudu!

I hate this game..


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japantiger said:

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The dream team:
Left to right:Max, Bongani, Pietro (Hatchetman), Longman and the Conservancy Warden .

Longman raises goats and subsistence farms when not hunting. A hyena broke into his goat pens and killed all his goats. He tracked the hyena for 6 miles and crawled into it's burrow with a knife and killed it. He then cooked and ate it. Said the only way to have his goats was to eat what ate his goats.

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When all this I over, I'm going to start a line of camouflage clothing based on what Pietro wears ... He got to within 10 yds of an elephant wearing that....Camo clothing is a raquet

Are Pietro's nutz sore from dragging the ground? LOL Jesus that is crazy