Namibia Nights- The Dark Continent Chapter III

[lil 2 sleepy]

Tembo, Jumbo, Elephant, he’s known by other names …. but for me he means the pinnacle of animals. The biggest, the baddest, the true king of the jungle.

Since my first trip to Africa in 2017, I’ve been hooked on the idea that Elephant was the one hunt I must do before I die. I’ve been researching every in and out of the hunt, from the people to the places and the costs.

Elephant hunts range in price from less than $10k for a tuskless cow to $250k for a chance at a 100# bull in Botswana.
I narrowed down what type of hunt was available to me and my budget and identified that my two options were Zimbabwe and Namibia. I would be looking at a non-trophy or in the case of Namibia an “Own Use” bull. This means that no portion of it can be brought back to the US as a trophy, no tusks, tail, hide. All parts of the animal must stay with the communities. I was OK with this, because it’s more about the experience and the time spent. It didn’t seem logical to do much else when the chances of me killing a 100-pound bull we’re just north of 0.01%.

I reached out to and began researching about eight different outfitters in Zimbabwe and Namibia. I created a list of costs, locations, options for my wife to come along, and a number of other things. I vetted and did research on each one’s capabilities, camps, and references. All eight seemed equal in their abilities, and then it really kind of came down to what it was going to cost and when would I be able to do it?

A few weeks after I had gotten my spreadsheet together and ranked my outfitters, the exact hunt I had gotten quoted popped up for auction at an SCI banquet in Texas it was with Zana Botes Safaris, one of my Namibian Outfitter that I had already vetted. I placed a bid on the auction and to my surprise it went for significantly less than any of my options up to that point.

Well, I guess we’re off on an elephant hunt.


Luckily, I just went to Australia last year, so all of my gear and guns are ready to go with the exception of working up a few loads for solids for the elephant. After tinkering with some options and scopes on the 375 and 416 I got them both where they needed to be and were ready.

After talking to Zana,

Due to Zana’s already busy hunting schedule and a few things in my life, September was the only time we can make work. This isn’t perfect for me because both of my boys play football and that meant mom and I were going miss a few games. I hate that but, in this instance, the boys understood we had to go. I was able to add to our hunt the opportunity for an own use crocodile and a trophy or own use hippo. This meant that our 10-day safari was going to be pretty busy.

We booked flights with the same routes we already knew. We flew from Charleston into Joburg and spent a much-needed night at the City lodge at the airport. The flights absolutely are brutal. I tried something new and booked the middle seat in coach as an extra seat. It actually came out cheaper than comfort plus that only gives you 5-6” of recline. My wife was able to lay down the whole flight. I was able to stretch out some as well and it seemed better than the economy plus we’ve used before.

The next day we flew into Windhoek and grabbed a hotel there with an absolutely fantastic restaurant next door. After a nice meal and some crème brûlée, we got one more good night’s sleep before we flew into Katima Mulilo in the Caprivi Strip.

The Caprivi has the reputation of old school deep rural dark Capstick/Ruark Africa. I don’t know if its quite that far in the sticks, but it’s out there

[lil 2 sleepy]

[lil 2 sleepy]

This is the day I’ve been dreaming of for nearly 10 years. You can’t explain or express to those who’ve never been the feelings of being in Africa. Walking out of the tent about to do something you’ve only dreamed of is hard to fathom. Success is just being here and having hope.

The morning starts off early. We have a fantastic breakfast and are off in the dark to go pick up our game Scouts. Just like most countries in Africa, Namibia has game Scouts that accompany you on public land concessions while you hunt. They are there to help guide you, communicate with the locals, and make sure you’re doing what youre supposed to be doing. This particular unit must’ve been slow lately because we were accompanied by five game Scout/trackers/Skinners/media correspondents, you name it. 😊

The old saying is that for every pound of ivory you will drive 10 miles and walk one. That seems to be the case for us on the first morning. We’ve seen a lot of tracks but nothing that stands out as a big bull. What we are looking for is one or two huge solitary tracks that are going in a direction that we can hunt. The area we can hunt borders Angola and Zambia. Finding a bull on the border means you are risking a long stalk for nothing.

The first morning actually turns out to be a little slow without much live elephant activity. We see some areas that elephants are using but just not a great track to go after.

After a quick lunch back at the lodge, we get back out around 3 PM to try to put an eye on a hippo. The game Scouts know where there are numbers of hippos that have some bulls in the pod and might give us an opportunity.

I didn’t really know what to expect from hippo Hunting. Most hippos are hunted while they’re in the water but occasionally you can hunt them on dry ground. That would be the ultimate way to do it, but in areas with human conflict it doesn’t happen much. We see some hippo, but nothing wants to play ball where we could possibly get a shot. They stick their noses out of the water and then drop back down for 15-20 mins.

We did this same pattern for the next two days. We would cut some elephant tracks and give them a look for a few hours and if a big enough bull didn’t pan out, we would try to the Hippos for a while. Covered a lot of country and got close to some elephant but no cigars.

[lil 2 sleepy]

Hippo Day
We’ve fallen into a pattern. It’s clear that all the elephants are using the river and going back and forth between Namibia and Angola or back to the park. Each morning, we check on two or three different elephant areas that hopefully we can make a play on them. These spots also have had the most elephant sign we have seen. There has been one really big track that kept coming across at night to a water hole and then heading back across the river in the am.

Not this day. No elephant signs today and the hippos we’ve been on aren’t cooperating.
The game scouts say there is another spot we should go check for a good bull hippo. When we get there, we can immediately tell that there’s a good bull in the bunch and he’s in a pretty good spot for a stalk.

We were able to ease into a good spot that let us get on the sticks easily and let Zana confirm he was a shooter. Zana gave me the go ahead if I got the chance. After what felt like 15 mins of looking at crosshairs, he finally picked his head up and I squeezed the trigger. The water erupted with spinning and flopping like you’ve never imagined. A 6000# animal can really muddy up the waters.
The shot was about an inch low and left, so I had to put a few more into him, but he wasn’t going anywhere.

Now the fun starts. A big dead hippo in the water means someone has to go get him in croc and hippo infested waters. We called in the Namibian navy to help with the recovery with a hand made Mokoro.

No idea how heavy he is, but the head had to weigh 1000#s

[lil 2 sleepy]

Croc day.
Same play as the day before, looking for elephants in the AM but today it’s croc as the afternoon snack if we can’t get on elephants.

Elephant hunting is slow. We put in 5 good hours of riding and tracking in the am with little movement. Today is 94 on the thermometer and the elephants are most likely in the shade of the Jess.
That afternoon we made the decision to try a spot with a good croc that fits the own use criteria. This is a decent size croc, but not one that would be true Trophy size. Think 11-12’ and not 14-16. I wasn’t planning to bring anything home from this trip so we didn’t have a trophy croc on the permit, so it didn’t make sense to spend days upon days looking for one 2-3’ larger.

Immediately when we get up to the grass we can see the croc sunning on a sand bar on the river. We made a plan to sneak around the hill and I crawled through the grass to where I could see him well enough. I didn’t really envision shooting a croc with a belly crawl off the ground, but here we are. I got to within 5 yards of the bank and was able to make a shot off the ground with the 375.
The 300 grain A-frame did its work and the croc never even flinched.

Recovery was even more interesting than the day before, we put a local mokoro in the water and that’s when the fun started. There was a young hippo bull that had made this area his territory and he wanted nothing to do with people being there. He kept swimming through the area and make a show of how tough he was. He would go down for a minute and then rush up out of the water snorting and throwing water everywhere. Finally the crew was able to get him isolated from the croc and they were able to distract him with rocks and sticks.

This gave us enough time to get a rope on his head 2 separate times and get him across the river. Nice croc and a short but cool little hunt.

For all you alligator hunters, 300 grain a-frames under the skull does some damage.

[lil 2 sleepy]

Day 7 we spent the day traveling ~50 miles of the Namibia/Zambia border looking for elephant, to no avail. We did find and burn a poachers hide that was at a waterhole.

Buckshot is the ammo of choice for poachers in the area. Most likely they are Zambian poachers using homemade firearms. Basically, single shot pipe guns.

[lil 2 sleepy]

Day 8, I was starting to worry if we were going to get back on elephant. Movement had been down the last few days to almost nothing in the hunting areas. The positive was that during the night the animal activity of all species had absolutely switched on around camp. There were lions roaring and a hyena on my porch trying to steal my shoes, hippos at the campfire, sitatunga in the grass, and Elephant numbers in the river were way higher than all the other nights combined.

This gave hope for the day to come. First thing this morning we are on Elephant tracks .
Finally, a nice group of bulls showed up.

Things have changed. With each step closer you can hear your heart beating. You don’t see the elephants but somehow you know they are there. A strange scent starts to form, you can’t place it right away…. but quickly “we can smell them”. They’re close. At 30 yards you can Start to make out the shape of what might be an elephant. Then a trunk shoots up 20’ in the air and snaps a branch. …. We are definitely not in Kansas.

Somehow our group of 3 bulls has grown into a full class of 8 adult bull elephant. No question that 2-3 of them are old big bodied bulls that we want to go after.

We tried to move down wind and circle the bulls to get a shot on the one we wanted. Right as we were moving into place, the wind shifted…..and Now when I say the “Shit hit the fan”. There isn’t enough shit or a big enough fan to emphasize what happens when 8 bull elephants decide to make a run for it. The woods literally exploded. Trees uprooting, trumpeting, dust, pure chaos. Thank the Lord, they all went the other way and didn’t know where we were. The best I can describe it; it looked like the scene from Jumanji when all the jungle animals fly through the tv and destroy the house. We give chase for 6-700 yards but there is no keeping up with them.

Hard to not be Super bummed at this point, I had no experience as to whether elephants will go 200 yards or 200 miles. Faith is fleeting sometimes, but the trackers keep at them and straighten out that 5-6 went on into the forest.

After them we head for the next 2 hours walking as hard as we can. Finally, about 430pm the trackers motioned that the bulls have stopped in a shaded area. It looks like a spot where we can get another look. This time there are exactly 2 shooter bulls. The Jess is thick and the visuals are tough. All we can do is wait for them to make a move. Finally, 5 bulls move off feeding, but one of the shooters for some reason was content to just stay behind. He’s all by himself and not a care in the world.

We are able to get within 30 yds and onto the sticks. I was going to take a heart lung if it presented itself, but after 10-15 mins of staring through the scope. It was pretty clear that was not to be in the thick. We made the decision to go for a side brain shot. The 416 Remington rang out and through the scope I could see the bull stagger and wave but didn’t go right down. That is not what you want to see. Luckily, he was rocked pretty hard. I racked another and this time I saw the back legs go out, head fly backwards, and he disappeared from the scope.

There has probably been more emotions for me hunting over the years than almost anything in my life . Excitement, heartbreak, anger, sadness, and pure joy can all happen in a moment. This feeling was different, it was none of those things and all of those things at the same time. It’s a feeling of awe that is hard to explain. No screaming excitement, no heart racing adrenaline, not shakes. These animals are beyond impressive when you walk up to them and I had to take a minute to gather everything in.

There will never be another time I will ever stand over my first elephant. It marked the end of years of planning and dreaming to be here, and I was finally here.

The long walk back to the truck didn’t seem long or hard. It was just the end of the journey.

[lil 2 sleepy]

The next day is picture day.

We made sure no one knew about the downed elephant the afternoon before, so that it would be there when we showed up the next morning to get pics and handle the elephant. Once we were back onsite, it was off to clearing brush to get photos and to drive the truck to the site to move the elephant.
It didn’t take long and once word got out that the elephant was down, we had all the help we could possibly want. We went from just the people on the truck to 4-500 people all waiting to get a piece of meat from the elephant.
The local leaders sent an envoy of police to guard the elephant so that fighting wouldn’t break out over the meat and it would be divided fairly. Within 4 hours, we went from a full elephant to not even a spot of blood on the ground. You couldn’t tell he was even there. As always, Africa takes what she wants or needs.

[lil 2 sleepy]

On our last day of safari, we made the decision to ride up to the Zambian border and give the tiger fish a try. Word was that it was super slow fishing that time of year, but when in Rome you might as well try what the Romans do.

A fun day getting to explore the river and see crocs, elephant, hippo and everything .

No tiger fish but an excellent day, nonetheless. Since our trip, Zana has gone back a few times and has torn them up. It’s just like anything else, it’s fishing not catching.
One more good night in camp and it’s back to the US. Everything going back was just as good as coming.

[lil 2 sleepy]

In conclusion, before I say something surprising, let me say that this trip was everything I could have asked for. The outfitter was 100% perfect. I got to share a wonderful camp with a great outfitter, a super nice other hunter with his outfitter and camera man.

Food was top notch, scenery was excellent, we saw a total of 5 of the Dangerous 7 and animals of all shapes and sizes.

With that said, I did some things I slightly regret. I think I was so caught up in the elephant that I missed what makes the hunting part great to me. The outcome was bigger than the experience and that is not why I hunt. I strive to enjoy the hunt and the memories more than the trophy. On this trip I didn’t remember that until I was at the campfire when it was over.

I’ve since decided that hunting in some of these once in a lifetime kind of places for dangerous game is something that I enjoy very much, but the emotional rollercoaster makes me miss out on what I enjoy most about hunting. I’ve got to do a much better job of appreciating the here and now and not the “Bucket List”.

I still have a few left in the Dangerous 7 and a Mountain Goat hunt for 2026 that I’m going to try to savor every minute of it. Life is getting shorter each day, don’t miss it.

[Big Time]

Thank you very much for sharing your experience. And the poetry of the hunt.

[Saltydog235]

Man, that's a great trip for you, congratulations on achieving your goals and dreams. Heck of a write up, best post of 2026 so far.

[Glenn]

The pictures are incredible. I don't have time to read it all right now but will take care of that later.

Congrats on a great trip and thank you as always for sharing.

[2thDoc]

i have zero desire to shoot an elephant but everything you say makes sense.

Does that make sense?

Its hard to take it all in. It seems like you did, to me.
Great adventure. Kudos to you!

[ecu1984]

Friggin awesome pics! Thanks for sharing
Did those guys walk around in the crocodile waters when retrieving the hippo?

[Carolina Counsel]

Great write up and glad your hunt was successful.

[4THEGIRLS]

Outstanding and impressive! You are right about that flight to Joburg. It’s not for sissies. Great photos to accompany your stories. Thx for sharing.

[Duck Nitz]

glad you had a great and successful hunt.

[murraywader]

Really great write up thank you for sharing.

[duckcommander727]

Absolutely awesome experience! Great post


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