Buzz Charlton

470 Merkel

Federal Trophy Bonded sledge hammers - 500g

Several years ago Gary came out and hunted a Buffalo in Dande with us. He then decided to come out and shoot a trophy elephant bull. Gary's expectaion was an elephant bull of over 40lbs. We tracked up and looked at over 30 elephant bulls in the first 5 days. We did pass up on one bull in a group of ten that was a solid 40 as we decided it was still early on in the safari.

On day 5 we followed serveral bulls one of which we had been trying to find as he had been drinking on a fairly regular basis at on of the dams. We found their tracks at around lunch time and immedietly started following them, 2.5 hours later we caught them resting in a jess patch. The particular bull that we wanted to shoot was at the back of the group. After some tense moments he eventually moved forward and Gary gave it a side brain shot at 20 yards which rocked the elephant and then his second put it down.

It was bigger than we expected as the ivory was very thick, 17.5" at the lip and very little taper. It officialy weighed 54 & 57 lbs, which was much bigger than Gary had ever hoped for.

We then spent several days hunting tuskless which however all seemed to have dependable calves. Gary did shoot a very nice 23" impala. We got some very nice pictures in Hwange National Park.

I came with the intention of shooting a 45lbs and ended up getting a 57lbs - much higher then my most hopeful expectations - thanks to Buzz and CM team for a great hunt.

- Gary Weber, September 2007