Oh, Those Golden Days Of East African Safaris
My PH leading the way, I am crawling through the hot sand to my oblivious quarry, not 200 yards distant. He is a bull giant eland, and I can barely see him for the maze of bushy obstacles. We peak our heads around a small outcropping, and there it is, a giraffe! The giraffe studies us for a second, turns and runs, taking every other animal in the vicinity with him. I never saw that eland again, nor any other eland during that safari in Kenya, some 33 years ago. Fast forward to May, 2009. My wife, Mary and I are hunting on our third safari with Fanie Steyn of Thaba Mmoyo Safaris. Once again, my quest is eland. But wait, I am going too fast. This is how we got here, today.
On our first trip to Thaba Mmoyo in 2004, we were fortunate enough to harvest 10 animals, 5 each for Mary and me, in 8 days. Focusing on kudu, eland was not on our list that year; and, of course, Mary shot a much larger kudu than I did. Some things never change. We returned in 2006, and I wanted an eland. Unfortunately for me, but lucky for the eland, I have coronary artery disease. I was not in the walking shape that I should have been in to hunt an animal that almost walks while sleeping, trots while eating, and runs when it has nothing to do! There I was, with a great guide, excellent trackers, a wife who completed the 26.2 miles of the New York City Marathon twice, and I was out of gas. I am not a fan of hunting in blinds; however, because of Fanie’s skill, and in spite of me, we were still able to harvest 6 great animals in 7 days by spot and stalk; still, no eland.
After a few additional stents in my coronary arteries, and some more serious aerobic training, it is May 26, 2009, and I am ready to go after eland. We leave camp in the afternoon, cross the river in the safari vehicle and look for tracks. The truck comes to a stop. Fanie and trackers Edmore and Tafara scrutinize some tracks. Fanie looks up at Mary and me perched on the elevated safari seat of the Land Cruiser and says, "let's go for a walk."
We dismounted. I chamber a 260 grain Accubond into my .375 Blaser, uncocked the mechanism, and we are off in a line, Fanie, me, Mary and Tafara while Edmore drove away. We are following some big eland tracks etched in the warm sand, but none of the tracks indicate that a large bull might be present. I try to step where Fanie steps to avoid making noise. I watch him for any hand signal that he occasionally presents behind his back while walking. We continue for about 30 minutes until Fanie give me the “stop” hand signal, turns to us and whispers, "stay quiet, we are getting close." I am thinking, "close to what?" I thought there wasn't a big bull in the group. Suddenly, we see an eland cow. It is about 75 yards away, and we are downwind of her. Fanie signals us to get low, and to sit on the sandy ground. I am beginning to experience déjà vu.
The light is starting to wane, and we have been motionless in the sand for about 40 minutes. The eland cow has been grazing in a direction to where she will eventually get our wind. I really do not understand why we have been still so long for a cow, and I actually am looking forward towards her discovering our position so that I can stand and stretch.
I, obviously, am no PH; but Fanie Steyn is. The moment the wind drifted our scent to the eland cow, she began to trot off, as did the rest of the unseen herd in her wake. Unknown to me, the cow was on the edge of a herd of about 40 eland that chose to follow her escape path. When a huge old bull presented himself through the brush, Fanie urgently whispered, “shoot, shoot him!” I quickly found the bull in my Leupold 1.75 X 6 Vari XIII set at 2X, but he was covered in branches. I continued to follow him in the scope and kept seeing obstructions that prohibited a shot. Finally, I lifted my head off the rifle stock, looked ahead, observed an opening and put the crosshairs on the gap in brush. When the bull’s shoulder appeared in the scope, I fired.
Eland scattered in every direction, and disappeared quickly. Fanie and Tafara immediately went to the area where the bull was hit by the bullet, followed by me and then Mary with the video camera. We immediately saw large splatters of blood in the sand that led to the old bull, about 60 yards from where he was hit. That was the end of a 33 year, on and off quest.
They say that the golden days of East African safaris ended in 1977. That is not true. The experience still exists at Thaba Mmoyo Safaris in the Republic of South Africa.
Story by: Mark Zuckerman
