WILD MATETSI

By Bryan Fitzgerald

Mabalengwe Game Lodge

The day had been very hot, but now that the sun had set, and it was comfortable setting around the evening fire enjoying a cold beer. We were sharing the camp with a hunter from California, Jeff Stanley, and his PH, Richard Cooke. My PH was Heath Jardine. I have been hunting Africa for over twenty years and have been on almost that many safaris. I was just asked which had been my favorite hunt. This has been a frequent question for which I had a quick answer. But now I paused, and reflected on the past few days. I no longer had a quick answer. I have seen lioness on three occasions. Once we were chased by three lionesses as we drove back to camp at dark. The trackers, Frank Sibianda and Roy Pinduka, and game scout, Boyd Musara, were shouting loudly. The lioness on my side of the vehicle was chasing us! Heath was playing with her as he kept the safari vehicle just ahead of her. Then he heard a noise to his right and turned to look out his side of the vehicle. Two lionesses had caught up with us on that side. I heard the Boyd chamber a round into his AK-47. Heath speeds up. We escaped! On another day, we stopped at the Matetsi River to look for a crock. There was a large pool of water to the left of the road. At the close end of the pool was a family of about twelve hippos. We made a big loop around the hippos to look at the upstream end of this pool. We failed to notice that the hippos had moved upstream as well. As we walked to the rivers edge, there was a

loud bark and the splashing of water. I retrieved my 375 H&H rifle from Roy. The bull hippo who called this pool his home was in no mood to share it with us. We made a hasty retreat to our vehicle. Then there was this evening as we neared camp and saw a herd of elephants crossing the road about 100 yards in front of us. We parked the safari vehicle and followed the herd into the bush. We stayed about 75 yards from the elephants as we tried to find a bull. We had no idea how many elephant were in the herd, but it was getting too dark to see clearly. We had wandered about 200 yards from the road. As we started to return to the vehicle, we discovered that this was a very large herd. We no longer had a 75 yard separation. In fact we were now very close to a very cheeky female. It was time to run! I followed Frank through a ravine and up the bank on the other side. We were joined by Heath. We made it safely back to the safari vehicle, and started to drive off. There was a lot of shouting in the back of the vehicle. We looked behind us and found that there are five very mad cow elephants in hot pursuit of us! Heath put the peddle to the metal. Boyd chambered a round and fired into the air. We got out safely. Until now, I had put Tanzania and Zambia in a class above all others for being wild and remote. After my twelve day elephant hunt in the Matetsi

Private Thatched Suites

Unit 1 of Zimbabwe, I have to move this hunt to the top of my list as well. The hunting area was very wild. I saw more elephant, lion and buffalo on this hunt than on any other hunt that I have taken. Matetsi is not remote. Unlike hunting in the Selous Game Reserve in Tanzania or the Northern Luangwa area of Zambia, there is no charter flights involved. Its only a 1 hour drive from Victoria Falls. The concession is very large (99,000 acres), and there are no locals nor cattle within the hunting area as you will find in the Masai Steppe. I was on a 12 day elephant hunt that Rodger Madangure donated to the Arkansas SCI Chapter. I bought the hunt at our March 6, 2010 Fund Raiser. I wanted a spotted hyena and croc, as well. My wife, Marilynn, joined me on this hunt. As usual, we added a couple of days to the trip to allow time for sightseeing. We spent a total of 15 nights at the Mabalengwe Game Lodge (www.mabalengwe.com). My contact before the hunt was Rodgers sister, Elisabeth Freeman, (elisabeth@mabalengwe.com) who lives in California. I told her that I was looking forward to a real elephant hunt. I told her that I was 73 years old in good health. I didnt tell her that I was in good shape because I was not. This was a real concern for me. Beginning the first of June, I put myself on a carbohydrate diet. By the time I caught my flight to Zimbabwe on October 15th, I had lost 55 pounds and was walking four miles a day. Heath met Marilynn and me at the Victoria Falls Airport. We had arrived on a small SAA plane. Although a larger British Air plane arrived about the same time, there were no long lines. The paper work was simple compared to the hassle we had in Johannesburg. In a short time, we were on our way to Mabalengwe Game Lodge. We were greeted by Rodger and Gaynor Madangure, the owners of Mabalengwe Safari & Tours. The lodge was spacious and very

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up scale. It had been used for photo safaris in the past. It was built to pamper larger groups than you usually see in a hunting camp. It exceeded our expectations. Rodgers and Gaynors generosity exceeded our expectations, as well. As is normal with well run safaris, we sighted in my rifle upon arriving in camp. There was a concrete shooting bench and a short range for this activity. I was sighted in at 25 yards, but Heath wanted me to change this to 50 yards. The first morning of hunting started our routine - up at 4:30 am, breakfast at 5:00 am, leave camp at 5:30 am. We started our hunt by driving the boundary roads. We were looking for the tracks of new elephants entering our concession. Unit 1 is blessed with water. There were two rivers still flowing at the end of the dry season, the Matetsi River and the Manyati River. These rivers are fed by numerous springs found throughout the concession. Its the abundance of water that draws the large number of elephant and buffalo to Unit 1. We found three different groups of elephant that day. We watched a herd of cows from about 400 yards but could not find a bull. We found two bulls and video them from 150 yards. Neither would go over 30#s. We found another group of cows without a good bull. We were told that night we had done better than the other hunters had been doing the past several days. The next day we took a short cut through a forest area where we could not hunt. We found a large track near an old camping spot. We followed the track toward our concession and

Bryan & Marilynn Fitzgerald

Spotted Hyena

found where a herd of cow elephant had been. Our bull followed the cows back into the forest area. That afternoon we found three bulls together. One had heavy but short tusk and another had longer but thin tusk. None would go over 30#s. On Wednesday we explored the far northwest corner of the concession. I thought that this was the prettiest area. The land rose as we went north over ancient lava flows. There were springs on the edge of open fields with numerous waterbuck, blue wildebeest, impala and reedbuck feeding on the green shoots of grass. Beyond the lava flows were the remains of rock fences and the foundations of an old settlers home. Heath and I discussed the challenges these settlers faced with the elephants feeding on their crops and lions feeding on their livestock. Our road left our concession and entered the adjacent concession. This road would parallel our boundary for several miles. We were looking for elephants coming to our water. We found lots of tracks but no elephants. We did find lion, several lionesses in fact. We saw two going and two returning. They were probably from the same pride, although we saw then in different places. Jeff Stanley and his PH were on a lion and three (thats 3) elephant hunt. He had ten lion baits scattered across the concession. They -2-

were finding spotted hyena at several locations and suggested that we look there for a hyena. We waited for him to shoot his lion before we started using his baits. He shot the biggest MGM lion that I have seen. I did not believe that you could get this quality of a loin on a free ranging hunt, but he did. On our second day of checking lion baits, we went to the bait where the lion was shot. We shut off the vehicle a mile from the bait and slipped in before dawn. No hyena. There was a lone jackal feeding. Heath told me earlier that no self-respecting jackal would hang abound if hyena were feeding. As we started to leave, Roy spotted a hyena trotting up the ravine toward the bait. I put my rifle on the sticks and waited for the hyena to come around a large bush. He showed his right shoulder as he slowed to come around the bush. That was as far as he got. We left camp on the ninth morning of the hunt at daylight, as usual. Near the old Safari Camp we found the tracks of a small herd of bulls entering our concession. We started tracking this herd. We caught up with the bulls around 11:00am. We were on a ridge above them about 400 yards away. We could see two bulls resting under a lone tree. The front bull was the best that we had seen. The rest of the herd was hidden in the bush. We decided to make a stalk. We were in thigh high grass with only a leafless dead tree for cover. Because of the wind, our only approach was from the front. We slipped in to within 20-25 yards. My only shot was a frontal brain shot. The elephants head was turned slightly to my left. I recalled all the instructions Heath had given me about the frontal brain shots, including his estimate that 70% of the time his clients have missed. I slowly placed my 375 H&H rifle on the shooting sticks. I took careful aim and squeezed the trigger. The elephant threw his trunk up and his hips collapsed. The elephant was dead!