ZIMBABWE: Charlton McCallum Safaris Oct 2021

[Kevin Peacocke]

Great report so far @375Fox, thank you. It never fails to amaze me how hard the PH and his men work to put it all together, driving around, making blinds, hanging bait etc, they really love their work. Great animals, especially love that roan. Were there many tsetse flies?

 

[Tanks]

...Were there many tsetse flies?

When I was at Dande East a month earlier there were hardly any Tsetse flies. Now, Zambezi valley was a different story.

 

[375Fox]

Great report so far @375Fox, thank you. It never fails to amaze me how hard the PH and his men work to put it all together, driving around, making blinds, hanging bait etc, they really love their work. Great animals, especially love that roan. Were there many tsetse flies?

I never did see a tsetse fly. Alan told me there are none in Dande East. This was a really great team to hunt with. Maplan and Martin are Alan’s trackers and Dube his driver. They’ve been working together a long time and show each other a lot of respect which made a great hunt and was really nice to see. Everyone worked really hard throughout the hunt.

 

[375Fox]

Sept 29 Day 9 - I’ve been getting a daylight hyena quite regularly before 6 am on camera at Nemwa so we decide to go sit in blind early. We get in our blind at exactly 0522. No hyena today. At about 0830 activity really starts at the water hole, including some really nice kudu bulls. Activity slows at 11. Alan asks what I’d like to do, it appears bushbucks are most active here 11 am-1 pm so we stay. At noon the cattle that aren’t supposed to be here start coming in (and continue in various groups until around 4 pm). At 1230 the cattle move off and suddenly we have several female bushbuck and a young ram. At 1 pm activity slows again, I have photos of bushbuck around 3:30 pm too, so we stay in blind. Another female bushbuck, interesting they use the baboons to come in to water to feel safe. I’m realizing I have at most 60 seconds to shoot a bushbuck if a nice ram does come in to water. It is painfully hot today. After about 3 pm our shade blanket roof no longer provides relief from the sun. I have photos at 530 pm so we stay longer again. The whole day has really been “we’ve stayed this long, we will give it another hour.” We just kept extending this hour and punishing ourselves in terrible heat today. At 5:30 pm still no bushbuck, I look at Alan and ask if he’s ready to call truck. He starts to step out of blind to call our Driver. There is our bushbuck! He’s on far side of pan. I put up sticks and shoot. Alan is a couple steps away and doesn’t see the shot but sees what I’m doing and hears bullet impact. I get up to where I shot and can see bushbuck down about 20 yards away. This is actually the first bushbuck harvested in Dande East in the 11 years they’ve had the concession. The permanent water they’ve put in is allowing bushbuck population to grow here. We identified several female bushbuck (at least 4) with young and three rams at this water hole, including two nice rams with my camera. This was the longest I’ve ever spent in a blind in these temperatures 12+ hours but we have our bushbuck. We drop our hyena bait to the ground end of today and move it closer to blind. The hyenas are definitely interested but still haven’t touched it. It’s really tough to sleep initially at night, hottest day we’ve had so far in trip. End of day 9.

 

[375Fox]

Sept 30 Day 10 - We decide to go sit at the cattle ranch pan for a change of scenery and to see what’s in that area. Unfortunately not many roads opened up on the ranch. We sit 8-11 which is usually prime time but don’t see much and head back to camp. As soon as we turn on to camp access road, our trackers stop us because they see a really wide kudu. We stop truck and stalk back. Alan looks at this kudu and said he has potential. I thought he meant it’s a younger bull with potential, he meant it’s potentially our second bull! We stalk in to about 75 yards and get set up on sticks. Kudu bull has no idea we are there. He’s just hanging out under shade, quartering away. I shoot, he runs about 100 yards, and I put in a finishing shot broadside. Our second kudu is down! Huge bull 56” long 47” tip to tip spread. I’ve gotten a longer kudu before but this is my best one.

We head back to camp and rest until afternoon. We head to Nemwa again. Hyena are chewing on bait now that it’s on ground. We check our normal pans. I put a camera up at pan 2. There are a few eland tracks at pan 1 again, but pretty quiet evening. Heading back towards camp at very last light there is a hyena running down the road. I get a shot off and we have our first hyena of trip!

 

[Kevin Peacocke]

Wow, what a kudu! The bushbuck has good colour.

 

[cpr0312]

Awesome roan., congrats!

 

[Philip Glass]

I’m sitting in Harare now after just completing a really great safari. Here is a quick summary. Full report and photos to follow once I return home.

Outfitter: Charlton McCallum Safaris
PH: Alan Shearing
Concession: Dande East

Hunt Dates: Sept 21-Oct 6 2021
Arrive Sept 20 and Depart Oct 8

Rifle: 375 H&H Sako 85 with 1.5-5 Leupold
Ammo: Federal Premium Safari 300 grain Trophy Bonded Bear Claws and 406 ammo 300 gr Woodleigh Protected Points

Game Taken: Buffalo, Sable, Roan, 2 kudu, impala, bushbuck, 3 hyena, eland

Game Seen: Buffalo, baboons, bushbuck, bushpig, duiker, eland, grysbok, hyena, impala, roan, jackal, kudu, sable, warthog

Addition game animals seen on trail camera: Elephant, Civet, porcupine, serval, honey badger

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This is awesome!

 

[Philip Glass]

Sept 20 Day 0 - Land in Harare on Ethiopian flight. I’m met by an expediter immediately off the plane inside the airport who takes me to the front of every line. CMS has sent me all forms needed to be filled out prior to landing, so this goes very quickly. I am given my visa and proceed to baggage claim. I’m met by my charter pilots in baggage claim and we wait on my firearm and bag. Both arrive and I’m given my firearm permit no problems. We proceed to the small charter plane. I think from time I land in Harare to time I’m sitting in charter plane is maybe 45 minutes. This was a very smooth process. It’s a 1 hour flight to the airstrip on Dande East. We land no issues and within 2.5 hours of landing in Harare (maybe less) I’m at camp. I decided on charter to eliminate any problems or anxiety resulting from changing covid restrictions, but being in camp 2.5 hours after landing on a long series of international flights was really where it showed it’s value. Alan and crew were there to meet me on the airstrip. I met Alan at DSC in January 2020, after introductions to crew, we head 5 minutes to camp. Camp is really nice. I get settled in and take a quick nap. Just before dark, I shoot the rifle off sticks. Two shots touching just slightly low of center at 50 yards, perfect. Me and Alan discuss expectations and plan for the hunt. I’m glad I met Alan at DSC when booking this hunt because I already know who I’m dealing with and we share a lot of same goals. We eat dinner and I get some sleep before hunt starts tomorrow.
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What a cool safari camp! Love those wood stoves. Everything tastes good that comes out of there.

 

[375Fox]

What a cool safari camp! Love those wood stoves. Everything tastes good that comes out of there.

You’ll never guess who initially paid to build this safari camp in the early 2000s. The food was very good, simple but perfect. Usually meat, a green vegetable, and a starchy vegetable or rice. These were some of the best dishes I had, roan kabobs, eland kabobs, eland filet steaks. Part of my consideration to shoot an eland was just for eland meat. After our eland was down, we made it a point only eland from then on. I wish I had shot it earlier in trip. Roan and sable was very good as well.

 

[375Fox]

I think this is a good photo to add as well. Roan look deceptively small in photos cause of the large body. Here is roan and sable side by side.

 

[375Fox]

Oct 1 Day 11 - We start day heading to pan 1 to check for eland tracks, but no fresh sign today. We make our normal loop of the pans along the Mozambique border. We decide to sit at pan 3 hoping for a warthog coming to water. A decent boar (the first we’ve seen this trip) actually comes in but stops short of pan. I do have shot but not 100% stable. I tell Alan I’ll take him when he comes to the water. He backs out and circles down wind of us never coming in. I’m glad I didn’t shoot because 5 minutes later a herd of roan comes in to drink with a nice bull. These are actually the first roan I’ve gotten a good look at this trip. They spend about 20 minutes at waterhole less than 50 yards from us. There were 8 adults and 4 calves. Really cool getting to watch them this close after we put so much work into getting a roan earlier in the trip. We check our hyena bait at Nemwa and the hyenas are very actively eating it now and more hyenas on camera than in previous days. We set up a motion green light over the bait. We head back to camp for lunch and to relax. We get in the blind at 5 pm. It gets dark about 615 pm. The smell is terrible from our buffalo ribs I shot on day 2, but at least we know wind is good. I check water several times but no activity. At 6 pm Alan checks and says hyena at the water. I get up and actually have to relax before I can shoot. I shoot hyena and he drops instantly. Then he gets up and dives into the water! Our hyena has disappeared! We go up and pull him out of the water. Alan says he’s a very old male and large for a male. We got him in daylight, quite glad to not have to sit here in the dark with all the elephants regularly coming in. Usually hyenas didn’t appear on camera until around 7:30-8 pm then were around at all hours after that. We load him up and head back to camp. I think the skinner is getting very tired of us returning to camp at this point. End of day 11.

 

[375Fox]

Oct 2 Day 12 - This trip has already been more successful than I imagined. Biggest goal left at this point is an eland. This will be difficult. They’ve never taken an eland in Dande East since they acquired the concession 10 years before. We start today going to pan 1, the only pan we regularly find eland tracks. We do find eland tracks from the night before with a favorable wind. Finding eland tracks is both exciting and the realization of what a long hot day might be ahead of you. Finding no eland tracks is both a relief and disappointment. We start tracking at 615 am. We see a lot of sign eland are regularly feeding and living in this area. Unfortunately buffalo came into this pan last night (they did not entire trip until now) and we lose our eland tracks at 11 am. It is getting extremely hot today. We get back to truck and drive to what I’ll call pan 4. We saw some bushpig sign here yesterday, so we are checking our bait and camera but no new activity. We go back to camp with plans to go to pan on cattle ranch in the evening for bushpigs. We head to ranch. We refresh our bushpig bait that the cattle boys have been maintaining for us and build a quick blind. We see impala, kudu, jackal, lots of duikers just before dark. Also a huge amount of birds. Ten minutes before dark we see 8 bushpigs coming straight in. They stop short of the pan in the brush, can’t believe it! We thought they were coming straight in with decent light. As it starts to get very dark the bushpigs finally come in to drink, but it’s too dark to judge male or female (quota specifies male only) and they are not at our bait with motion light. We take a risk and decide to put red light on them, but they run off. An hour later, we decide to head back to truck. We thought we could see alright so we are not using lights, then the big stick in front of us moves. We both lose our composure temporarily deciding if we need to run! It’s a big python it goes straight to water. We use our lights now. No pictures of this python available. I’ll trust Alan 100% with a charging elephant, but snakes and wasps, it’s every man for himself I learn. End of Day 12.
Here are photos finding tracks at pan 1.

 

[VertigoBE]

What an adventure! Thanks for sharing! And waidmannsheil for the amazing set of animals taken!

 

[375Fox]

Oct 3 Day 13 - We start at pan 1 and find the eland tracks again. They look very fresh today. Appears to be 4 eland today instead of usual two. We start tracking first thing in morning. It turned out they were just a couple hundred yards from pan to start when we pulled in. Continue tracking. They are managing to keep ahead of us but the wet droppings and fresh leaves from feeding definitely keep me motivated that we are close behind them. They are really sticking to the thick stuff. About 11 we lose their track in buffalo tracks again. We let the trackers do their thing and get us back on the track. We start tracking again and about 1130 there is an eland fight in the brush 100 yards in front of us. We can hear their horns. We move in trying to evaluate and get a shot. Alan can see two bulls, neither are old, but both are bulls we can take. I tell Alan I’ll shoot. He says take either on shoulder if there’s a shot. It’s very thick. I have a small window when one steps and I take the shot at about 50/60 yards. I’m confident on the shot, Alan not so much because of thick brush. We hear eland go down about 20 yards from the shot and we walk up. This is the first eland taken in Dande East since they’ve had the concession. We were very lucky to have the eland fight in front of us or they probably would have seen us first because so noisy to walk, photo attached of the torn up ground from fight and type of ground we were walking on for the majority of the tracking. This isn’t my biggest or oldest bull, but definitely my best tracking experience and one we worked very hard for. I’m also very glad to have eland meat in camp now too. We get back into camp about 3 pm and have cook make eland filets for dinner. We try at the ranch again tonight for bushpigs, but no luck, just a repeat of duikers, baboons, and kudu, no python. End of day 13.

 

[VertigoBE]

Oct 3 Day 13 - We start at pan 1 and find the eland tracks again. They look very fresh today. Appears to be 4 eland today instead of usual two. We start tracking first thing in morning. It turned out they were just a couple hundred yards from pan to start when we pulled in. Continue tracking. They are managing to keep ahead of us but the wet droppings and fresh leaves from feeding definitely keep me motivated that we are close behind them. They are really sticking to the thick stuff. About 11 we lose their track in buffalo tracks again. We let the trackers do their thing and get us back on the track. We start tracking again and about 1130 there is an eland fight in the brush 100 yards in front of us. We can hear their horns. We move in trying to evaluate and get a shot. Alan can see two bulls, neither are old, but both are bulls we can take. I tell Alan I’ll shoot. He says take either on shoulder if there’s a shot. It’s very thick. I have a small window when one steps and I take the shot at about 50/60 yards. I’m confident on the shot, Alan not so much because of thick brush. We hear eland go down about 20 yards from the shot and we walk up. This is the first eland taken in Dande East since they’ve had the concession. We were very lucky to have the eland fight in front of us or they probably would have seen us first because so noisy to walk, photo attached of the torn up ground from fight and type of ground we were walking on for the majority of the tracking. This isn’t my biggest or oldest bull, but definitely my best tracking experience and one we worked very hard for. I’m also very glad to have eland meat in camp now too. We get back into camp about 3 pm and have cook make eland filets for dinner. We try at the ranch again tonight for bushpigs, but no luck, just a repeat of duikers, baboons, and kudu, no python. End of day 13.
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Wow that is a gorgeous Eland! Is that a Livingstone's Eland?

Congratulations! and Wow again!

 

[375Fox]

Oct 14 Day 14 - Our trackers noted a honey bee hive on our original eland track at start of hunt. I was telling Alan how great I thought caprivi honey was and he said we could collect some here. The tracking team enjoys hunting but they love gathering honey. This was their show, I was just there to watch as a different experience. They were 100% focused on gathering honey. I could see they’ve done this a few times before. Surprisingly, Dube and Maplan only got stung once each and Martin never got stung. The trackers and staff got most of the honey. We pressed a little of it into a jar for the dinner table. It was really overcast today didn’t see much game, really only interested in a warthog or bushpig now, or a 60” kudu.

 

[375Fox]

Oct 5 and 6 Days 15 and 16 - We finally have bushpig hitting our bait at pan 4. We put our effort into getting a bushpig here in evenings but they don’t return unfortunately. See some nice kudu come in and drink just before dark and have an opportunity at a good warthog boar just before dark but holding out for the bushpigs. A herd of buffalo drinks at dark too right in front of us. On final evening, with almost no visible light left, a hyena comes in to drink and I take it. It’s a big female. That’s the end of hunting, was a great hunt.

Oct 7 charting out today at 10:30. This is what’s at the camp waterhole in daylight! A bushpig.

 

[375Fox]

That’s the end of the hunting, 16 full days. I’m going to add in a few sections on travel, equipment, shots I think will provide some value to others.

 

[MAdcox]

Great hunt and wonderful animals. Congratulations and thanks for sharing.