Into Africa More To Safari Than Trophy Game

Rom led the way through the yellow grass, his leathery soles padding silently. A blue balaclava hid his head, despite the sunshine and 60 degree temperature. It was July, winter in southern Africa, and, although we found it pleasantly cool, the locals were downright cold.

Rom kept his nose pointed at the ground, his eyes reading the travels of an eland bull, THE eland bull, the biggest bull on the sprawling, 30,000-acre Zimbabwe ranch we hunted.

“He’s huge,” Rusty Labuschagne, our guide and professional hunter, had said when describing the nearly mythical beast. “Two thousand pounds if he’s an ounce, and we can’t seem to catch him.”

It was our second day of eland hunting. We’d glimpsed the huge animal, the world’s largest antelope, the evening before, but an hour of tracking by the sharp-eyed natives yielded naught but fresh hoof prints, and everyone knows you can’t eat tracks.

Eland are reputedly wild Africa’s finest meat, succulent and flavorful. Alan Sands, Elizabeth Hazelwood and I were out to sample it as part of a three-week adventure that included a week of self-guided touring in Hwange National Park and Victoria Falls and five days canoe safari on the Zambezi River. This was followed by a week hunting on Highveld ranches, where native ungulates are rapidly replacing beef cattle as environmentally benign grazers when maintained in balance with forage.

“We switched from cattle to game ranching several years ago and make more money off hunting and game viewing than we ever did off cattle,” said Steve Chatham, a fourth-generation rancher we met in a roadhouse pub one evening. His sentiments were echoed by our professional hunter, whose job it was to guide visiting hunters like us to game and cull herds to environmentally sustainable sizes. Despite the game his hunters would kill during nearly an eight-month season, Labuschagne would still have to shoot several hundred additional animals to knock herds down to size.

“Tock,” Rom said by sucking his tongue off his palate, a common communication between trackers and Labuschagne. Rom swept his arm forward dense, thorny shrubs, indicating the direction the bull had veered. Rusty nodded and we pressed on, Alan and Elizabeth following 50 yards back so as to observe without interfering.

“Tock.”

I looked at Rom, then followed his nod toward a distant clearing. A giraffe studied us nervously from the edge of a wood, whirled, and ran, its long neck rocking back and forth like a chicken’s head in super slow motion.

An hour into the hunt, with fresh droppings and branches freshly twisted from trees showing where the bull had been feeding moments before, a baboon began coughing. An alarm bark. Labuschagne turned and glared in its direction, then shrugged his shoulders. Part of the game. Widening tracks suggested the eland had indeed grown suspicious and increased its pace. We kept walking, the sun arcing toward mid-day.

Zimbabwe hunting is different from Rocky Mountain hunting. For one thing, you don’t buy permits and then pursue the animal specified on that permit. Instead you hunt with the option of shooting nearly any animal that interests you, then pay a trophy fee varying from $100 for the smallest antelope to $2,000 for more dramatic, hard-to-hunt game like sable.

This can be a money saver if you don’t find your quarry, but it can also be like a credit card in the hand of a shopaholic. Impulse hunting.

Two days before our eland hunt, Alan and I both turned down a beautiful old sable bull with tremendous horns. Labuschagne said it was the largest he’d ever seen on that ranch, larger than any he’d ever shot, and he’s been hunting that country since age eight. “Two thousand dollars if you want him,” was all he said.

We had the beast in our crosshairs within 150 yards, broadside. True to our tight-fisted natures, we both resisted.

Despite such high trophy fees for the “glamour” species, one can collect nearly a dozen species and enjoy an incredible ten-day hunt for less than $8,000, including round-trip air fare. A moose and dall sheep hunt in Alaska costs that much in outfitter fees alone.

Alan and I took 14 animals representing 10 species. Personally, I felt like a game hog after dropping my fourth animal in a single morning. This ran contrary to American hunting ethics. Yet it is normal procedure in Zimbabwe, where big game is seemingly as abundant as upland birds are in Idaho.

The meat was butchered in camp, select cuts served at lunch and dinner (one course at a time, waiters in tuxedos!), and the remainder provided to ranch families or sold commercially in the village at the discretion of the ranch owner, who technically owned the game.

Altogether, the safari was an odd mix of the wild and civilized. While we dined beneath thatch roofs, hippos bellowed from the river shimmering black and silver in the moonlight. While we slept under mosquito netting on thick mattresses, lions roared and leopards coughed deep within the riverine brush.

In the forenoon our trackers gutted our game, popping tidbits of raw organs into their mouths, a traditional treat. In the evening we drank from crystal goblets and chewed chunks of tenderloin, our culture’s favored flesh.

Each morning began with a wake-up call at 5:30. Coffee, tea and toast waited by the campfire. By 6:30 we were off, checking trails for fresh tracks, scanning the brush for game.

Some days we looked over dozens of rams and bulls and took only a bushpig. Some days we tracked wart hogs through grasslands or found them digging for water in the dry river sands.

One day we came upon recordclass impala, steinbok, tsessebe, duiker and bushpig and bagged all five.

Every day we heard and saw myriad birds, from rainbow colored kingfishers to toucan-like hornbills.

“Tock.” Rom squatted and looked back, his eyes wide. Rusty lifted his binocular and studied the far brush. “There he is!” he hissed and waved me forward, pointing to a distant bush and the dark backline of a beast bigger than a moose.

This was one disappointment, letting others do our tracking and game finding for us. The greatest satisfaction in hunting for Alan and me has always been finding the game and maneuvering for the shot. In Africa we felt more like hired guns than hunters, but, given the cost of the safari, our unfamiliarity with the game, and laws that require nonresidents employ professional hunters, we had little choice in the matter.

Our hunts were comprised, but we tried to make up for it by soaking up the scents, sounds and feel of the land.

Rusty and the trackers were doing most of the hunting. Only they knew which rams and bulls were old enough to be culled and which should be left to procreate another year.

It wasn’t ideal, but perhaps it is the best one can expect as an alien. You go intending to drink deeply, but you find the cup larger than you imagined. You return with a taste and an urge to sample it again.

“Do you see him?” Behind that yellow bush. About 200 yards. He’s seen us. He’s suspicious. You’ve got to shoot him now.”

I raised the rifle, searching for the familiar image of crosshairs meeting the shadowy pocket behind an ungulate’s shoulder, wishing that I’d seen it first.

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: BOOKING YOUR OWN ADVENTURE American hunting consultants have the resources to help you plan an African safari. For example, Cabela’s Outdoor Adventures in Sidney, Neb., (800) 346-8747, offers free services. The company is paid by outfitters after you book your hunt. Experienced consultants can save you considerable time and money because they are local, easy to reach, and able to direct you toward professional hunters who fit your budget, hunting style and game preference. Best hunting in southern Africa is June through October. Airline fares halfway around the world are expensive. Bargain hunting is worthwhile. We saved several hundred dollars off lowest locally advertised fares by working through Sky First International Travel in Los Angeles (213) 368-2946. I paid $2,008 for round-trip tickets from Spokane to Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. -Ron Spomer