It was late October and the Tanzanian tsetse flies were murder.
The sweat was rolling down Jim Ellison’s face as he peered ahead through the swamp grass, ignoring the cigarette burn bite of another winged devil on his neck, eyes fixed on the three looming shapes ahead.
Had his hearing not been battered to near oblivion from years of rifle blasts he might have heard the strange droning gurgle of the three bull elephant ahead of him swaying back and forth as their trunks plucked juicy grass roots from the swampy marsh beneath their feet.
The drone, suspected to be a type of communication allowing herds to track individual members in thick cover across long distances, is almost inaudible to humans unless within very close distances.
The intervening mile had taken three hours, much of it scurrying over, around and through marshy potholes left by the legs of the ponderous pachyderms. At 69 years of age at the time of this hunt in 2010, the exercise was manageable, the heat, bearable, the tsetse ignorable, but the immensity before him was unimaginable.
Now that he was within 50 yards it suddenly felt too close. “It’s the most scared I’ve ever been,” Jim would say later about what the next few minutes would bring him. “Elephant hunting is a moment of moments.”
Ellison, a Portales native and Jal resident, was on his ninth safari in Africa, the largest of the three bulls ahead would be the only African elephant among his 474 confirmed big game kills, but it holds a place in his mind as one of the greatest experiences of his life.
Jaco Oosthuizen, Ellison’s PH, leaned in close and whispered, “The bull in the middle,” the sound of Jaco’s voice so low Ellison could barely understand the words. “Can you see his eye?”
“Yes.” Ellison was sure through his Leupold scope he could make out the large ocular organ set deeply in the tear-stained folds of the black/gray lids.
“Aim halfway between the eye and the ear. You have to brain him.”
In Ellison’s hands a CZ550 in .416 Rigby sat nestled like a viper ready to strike… or perhaps a tomahawk missile.
“The .416 Rigby is not a sporting weapon. It is strictly a killing weapon,” Ellison said of a caliber that has become synonymous with the dark continent and dangerous game hunting. “You don’t enjoy shooting it.”
Loaded with a full complement 400-grain solids, the Rigby zings out death and punishment at some 2,300 feet per second. In the CZ550, at just a hair over 9 pounds, the rifle punishes its handler.
“I had it loaded to the max. If you are going to shoot something like that, shoot the max,” Ellison said. “It is a killer on both ends.”
Ellison was confident in the gun, its proven track record in African dangerous game hunting history was solid. He was confident in his ability to make the shot. The only question left unanswered was his ability to run in swamp grass.
If he thought he was confident, it didn’t preclude him from being afraid. His eye crept closer and closer to the scope as his nerves frayed, Jaco’s words echoing in his mind, “You have to brain him.”
The rifle boomed and the middle tusker let out a grunt and, as if in slow motion, began to fall. The twin bulls beside him however, trumpeted in terror and hatred, turning on the five men — Ellison, two trackers, Jaco and a game officer for the Kisigo Game Reserve.
“Run,” Jaco yelled, but the trackers were already fleeing and Ellison didn’t need to be told twice.
It was 200 meters (218 yards) to the long grass and a mile to the tree line. The 10-foot-tall grass was the only hope the quintet had of avoiding the twin terrors now in hot pursuit.
“I think we set a record for the 200 meters,” Ellison said.
The screams of the angry elephants seemed on top of him as Ellison broke through the marshes into the long grass. A maze of green engulfed him, just ahead he could just make out Jaco, or was it the game ranger, running and zigzagging ahead. Ellison attempted to follow.
“The only thing I could think was, ‘I got to get out of here,’” he said. “When those two bulls came after us, it was probably the scared-est I’ve ever been.”
How long he ran before the screams of the elephant bulls faded far enough away to allow him a moment to catch his breath he couldn’t say, but it was about then he realized it wasn’t sweat rolling into his eyes. It was blood.
He’d crept too close to the scope and taken a battering to the eyebrow from the Leupold, what old-timers called “Weaver tracks,” from the unmistakable ring cut left by the eyepiece of a Weaver scope.
The recoil had shoved the scope rearward with nearly 60 foot-pounds of free recoil energy. By comparison a .30-06 averages a moderate 19 foot-pounds.
Eventually Jaco found Ellison and, with a scarf, bandaged his bloody brow. Once again gathered into their quintet, the men inched their way back to the edge of the long grass.
After many long minutes of surveying the area to ensure the vindictive elephants were no longer in sight, the men retraced their trail to where Ellison’s bull, some 40-pounds per tusk, lay half submerged in the swamp.
“It was overwhelming,” Ellison said, his eyes surveying the mountain of flesh laid out before him. “You look there and think, ‘Look what I did.’ It is beyond imagination to see the biggest thing on earth dead.”
“If I was physically able I would do it again,” the 84-year-old said. “It is a hunt that is the maximum. The rush is greater, scarier (than cape buffalo).”
The trackers had just finished cutting out the tusks and removing the ears, tail and feet when a group of poachers illegally hunting on the game reserve accidentally stumbled into the group. The game officer immediately took the men into custody at gunpoint and conscripted them into carrying the trophies from the big bull the mile back to the truck.
The poachers were then tied up and left to the mercy of the tsetse flies until they could be collected by local law enforcement. Tsetse flies, as any African will tell you, are merciless in the extreme in their quest to chew and bite the blood from their victims.
“On another hunt we caught a poacher and tied him up in the back of the truck. The tsetse had nearly killed him before we got back to the camp,” Ellison said.
The tusks now adorn places of honor on either side of the fireplace in Ellison’s extensive trophy room — home to 62 African trophies, including a male lion that makes the Safari Club International record books. The .416 has been regulated to the role of “safe queen” where she has sat unused for the better part of two decades, taking only one cape buffalo since the elephant.
Today, an elephant hunting license will run the gamut from $20,000 to $50,000 or more, depending on factors such as location, male or female, tusk size, and fees imposed by both the country, reserves and outfitters.
In Ellison’s case, the hefty price tag for the elephant meant four things.
Firstly, Ellison had a chance at a trophy bull in an area where all hunting is heavily controlled.
Second, the elephant population in the park would remain in check and not over populate and over graze the vegetation causing starvation for all herbivore species on the reserve.
Third, the reserve would receive a huge payout for Ellison’s tag to fund ongoing operations.
And finally, and perhaps most importantly, an entire village of native people would be eating well for the next several weeks.
“Hunters feed more people in Africa every year than any other group,” Ellison said.
Laws prohibiting the export of African game meat outside the respective countries means it stays to feed the multitudes of hungry people.
“Nothing goes to waste,” Ellison said, adding that more than 20 villagers showed up to collect the elephant’s remains. “The next day there was just a dark stain where he’d been. They took the meat, intestines, bones, everything. They use it all.”
Ellison recently learned he has some $16,000 in credit with Game Trackers Africa, his guide service on seven of his 10 safaris — all of them Ellison’s wife Melba stalwartly by his side. But it looks as if the funds will go unused.
“I didn’t feel it when I turned 60. I didn’t feel it when I turned 70. But when I turned 80, I noticed a difference,” Ellison said.
Ellison doesn’t see another safari in his future and Melba is no longer there to share in the adventure with him.
“The only regret I have about Africa is, I didn’t go before I did. The reason I went was the books I read about Africa and hunting. I made the first hunt in 1997 to Zimbabwe and killed a cape buffalo and a kudu. It is a fever that has no cure.”
Levi Hill is an award-winning journalist, outdoorsman and gunsmith from Jal, N.M. He began shooting at the age of two and writing for press while in high school. He can be reached at levi@africassportsman.com.
