Years Apart By Conrad Miller

HUNTING

with the Ellements…

Fathers and Sons -Two Safaris Twenty Years Apart

Part I of the story of two safaris twenty years apart at the same camp with fathers as a professional hunter and client, then their sons as a professional hunter and client. Many things remained the same, many things changed, and many coincidences link the two trips.

As a kid I was glued to the TV when “Wild Kingdom” came on, as well as

“Tarzan” movies. There were no African hunting shows on TV back then, only the occasional Discovery Channel programs about African wildlife in national parks.

In 1997, I was a thirty-year-old Sheriff’s detective dreaming at the Dallas Safari Club show. I went home from that DSC show with masses of brochures and magazines. One guy took extra time to make me believe I could afford to make an African hunt on a cop’s salary. Tommy Morrison of Sporting International made a good sales pitch. Now I just had to convince my wife how “affordable” a quick ten-day safari would be. It worked with one stipulation. Once I got back, she did not want to hear “Africa” again. Deal!

A ten-day plains-game hunt turned into a twelve-day buffalo/plains game hunt. I counted down the days for 18 months. I sold nearly all my guns, a four-wheeler, and anything else I could, and worked as many off-duty hours as possible, working security details for extra cash. My wife, my parents and all my friends didn’t understand all this, and thought this Louisiana duck-hunter had lost his mind. Next thing I knew had I left my wife, five-year-old daughter and one-yearold son and was off on the longest flight of my life with my first-ever passport, my new Win. Mod. 70 .375 H&H and a bunch of disposable Kodak cameras, off to meet some guy named Mark “Ellos” Ellement to whom I had never spoken or seen a picture of, and who would be my professional hunter. All I knew about what I was doing was from the Capstick and Ruark books I’d read, as well as some Zimbabwean history and political books. Those days in 1998 were before WhatsApp and email! I don’t think Matapula Hunters (which Ellos owned half of) even had a website back then. Mr Morrison told me that Mark Ellement usually only did elephant hunts for repeat customers, but had a window in his schedule, and had taken my hunt because I was a young first-timer.

After a sleepless night in Johannesburg, I was on a plane to Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. I was SO nervous and began questioning my own sanity. I was no world-traveler and totally out of my comfort zone. Once I got my bag and gun and made my way to the final exit, I was thinking “ now what?”

Outside was this lanky guy with leathery skin, wearing short shorts, who walked

towards me, removed his cap and extended his hand. “You must be Conrad,” he said. I wondered who he was. I was half expecting to see Tarzan or someone in khakis and a terai hat. “Yes, that’s me, how did you know?”

“I’m Mark Ellement,” he said, “and I’m here to pick up my young hunter, and seeing you with a lost look and a gun case, I figured you may be the one, hey”. Boy, what a great first impression I made! He must have thought he had a real idiot on his hands. Off we went to the camp. If I recall, Ellos offered me a beer from the cooler box for the two-to-three-hour drive. It was the first time I had ever ridden in a vehicle with the steering wheel on the “wrong” side. I felt as if I were on another planet. Once we turned off the tar road towards camp at the intersection of the Zambezi and Sidinda Rivers and I began seeing the rural villages and their mud-under-thatch huts, I was speechless. I had seen this on TV, but it didn’t seem as real as it did now. Ellos pulled off the dirt road to a small white building with a few guys loitering around outside, and Sevi the game scout got into the back of the truck. Ellos spoke in a strange language with these locals - again, culture shock and awe. Then in English he said, “Let us know about the PAC (problem animal control) elephant, because Mr Miller here would like to shoot it.” Oh boy, I think, this Ellos guy had picked up the wrong person at the airport!

“Uh, Mr Ellement, I’m not an elephant hunter and I can’t afford whatever a PAC elephant is.” Ellos explained that PAC animals are shot because they are either crop raiders or a danger to local people, but that the hide and ivory goes to the government. I secretly hoped I would not get this opportunity. I had never even seen a wild elephant and had even less desire to shoot one. At that point I had never even seen an African animal until after the next curve when some impala bounded across the road. I think Ellos got a kick out of my amazement at everything. He answered each of my million questions and seemed somewhat impressed that I knew so much about his country. After the long, dry, dusty road, down a hill, across a small bridge and up again we arrived at a lush green lawn, and a beautifully landscaped camp (with plants and flowers from the local bush) - I thought I was dreaming. A camp with six chalets and me the only one there - Ellos explained that they do not mix clients. I was still pinching myself at that point. Along the path to my chalet there was a beautiful sabi star plant that Ellos said was much older than me, and nearby baboons were barking. Such a beautiful place that had Ellos built with some local labor. He and his wife and kids lived there until his kids were of school age, then they moved to Victoria Falls. I could not imagine actually living in this paradise, but I was about to try it for the next twelve days.

There is nothing like your first safari, especially when you don’t know what you’re truly in for. I was in total awe with everything every day, and already began to dread my last day!

My professional hunter Mark “Ellos” Ellement had walked me from dawn to dusk from day one, only stopping for a quick snack and siesta in the bush, rarely ever returning to the truck. He wore sandal-like ‘rafting shoes’ and smoked a lot of Madison cigarettes. Though in pretty good shape, I was totally worn out each day, and both feet were blistered by the fourth day. That was when I started wrapping my feet with duct tape before putting on socks each morning!

It was Day 7 of my first ever safari and I had not yet taken an animal. Mopane flies by the hundreds in the heat of the afternoon, swarmed around my head, in my eyes, in my ears, in my nose seeking moisture everywhere, causing a need to swat and twitch - but I dared not.

We had just started out walking from camp. We’d previously come into contact with buffalo on a few occasions in the thick bush and even ‘butt-scooted for what seemed like a mile, then sat motionless for an eternity while a few watched us as ants crawled up my arms, into my arm pits, as I tried to remain motionless. Then the wind swirled, a thunder of hooves erupted, leaving clouds of dust to obscure their magical disappearing act…

We were crouched down behind a small hill between us and them only about 60 yards away. I didn’t even notice the mopane flies. The big buffalo was lying down totally unaware of our presence. Ellos rose very slowly to peer over the hill.

“Stand slowly, he’s lying down right over that hill, do you see him?” I did so, and nervously said I could. “OK, Conrad, we’ll go up together and I’ll put up the sticks. But be sure your shot clears that hill. Don’t hit the ground, hey.” I got onto the shooting sticks and crouched back down. I cannot mess this up. I have come too far, spent too much and walked way too many miles. “Ellos, where is the ground?” I asked.

“Do you see that little white stick between us and them? Where that white stick disappears at the bottom is the ground. So, actually if you aim for that white stick about an inch up from the bottom, you’ll connect properly, hey.”

I stood up slowly and did as he said, and at the crack of the shot, I saw the big buffalo’s legs stiffen in the air as he rolled over, much to my astonishment. I chambered another round and fired another shot just as I had heard you had to do with buffalo, and I cleanly missed in my state of panic.

“Wait, wait, wait! OK, calm down, hey. Now chamber another round and shoot him in the neck.” As soon as I shot, I chambered another round, only to hear the same, “Wait, wait, wait,” command.

“Conrad, you’re unloaded?”

“NO, I’m ready to shoot again!”

The value of having an experienced photographer/videographer along for great photo's. (Note Jay the tracker lying behind the eland to hold it in position).

“No, you’re done.” He removed his cap, extended his hand, and said with a big smile, “Congratulations, Conrad, you just got your first buffalo.” My knees went weak. My heart was about to explode! Then I had feelings of relief, elation, and a bit of sadness at the death of a dream. I will never hunt my first buffalo again, but I could not have planned this first one any better. I was overcome with emotion. Suddenly I was happy to have walked so many miles for so many days because it made the ending so much more rewarding. No surprise, the last two hours of walking on clouds today were much easier than the first ten walked in the bush.

We made it back to the truck well after dark, with trackers Jackson and Kiddeus carrying all the meat they could handle to take for their families. The head, wrapped with the hide and tied to a pole with strips of tree bark was carried by Sevi the game scout and Alfred the skinner. Meat that could not be carried was hung up in the tree. On the way back to camp Ellos stopped the truck and began yelling. A few men come running from some huts in the dark. They had a conversation in Shona, and we drove off. Ellos said he had told them where the meat was hung. I thought it impossible that they could find where the kill was - three hours walk into the bush from the nearest trail! He assured me that they would be there in the dark of the morning awaiting daylight to collect the meat.

The next day we took the morning off to rest and sober up, then drove to Victoria Falls where Ellos dropped me off at the entrance to the Falls while he picked up camp supplies. The Falls were the most spectacular sight I had ever seen in my life. Ellos fetched his family and I met them in the local market where we had lunch together then drove through Victoria Falls Game Park where I saw my first lion tracks and wild elephants.

Back at camp and hunting, and I managed to take a nice kudu and an exceptional impala over the next few days. I did not realize at the time how good the kudu was and how exceptional the impala was for that area. With still a few days left in the hunt, the original plan was to make a ten-hour trek to another area in the south where Matapula Hunters had a plains-game area, because eland was high on my wish list and there were none in the Hwange Communal area where we had been hunting. However, I was loathe to leave this beautiful place. After all, besides my buffalo, I already had a kudu and impala and could afford trophy fees for little else. I also wanted to shoot a few birds and catch tiger fish, so Ellos got in touch with his office via shortwave radio (no cell or satellite phones then) and had my flight changed to fly out of Victoria Falls rather than Bulawayo. On one of the last nights in camp we were joined by another professional hunter, Derek “Gomez” Adams who was passing through the area from one hunt to his next. He and Gomez were old friends who worked together for the National Parks Department and fought in the Rhodesian war. It was nice to hear those two talk about old times. I told them that I had with me a book about the Rhodesian Light Infantry by Chris Cocks entitled “Fireforce” and Gomez found a picture of himself in the book. I would learn later that Ellos and Gomez were two of many men who worked for the National Parks Department before the Rhodesian war, and lost their jobs to indigenous workers after the majority-rule government took over. Many of those guys were pioneers in making the safari industry what it has been in Zimbabwe for the last forty years. After Gomez left early the next morning Ellos told me a story about Gomez being attacked by a lion when they worked for National Parks. A huge male lion had charged Gomez and his trackers, and his gun jammed as the lion came full-on. He quickly grabbed his gun by its barrel and swung it like a cricket bat at the lion’s head as its four-hundred-pound body slammed him to the ground. The blow Gomez was able to

inflict broke the lion’s lower jaw, so it was unable to get a good killing bite on him. Gomez thought this would just prolong the inevitable, until one of his trackers returned with his gun and was able to kill the lion. Ellos said Gomez suffered some PTSD from the incident for quite some time afterwards.

The dreaded last day came, and the following day I began my long journey home. After tips and thanks to the staff I gave Ellos what I had budgeted for his tip. Because no amount of money could justly convey my thanks, I offered him my rifle in addition to the money, but he refused because he said I’d be back and would need my rifle - something many had told me, but I did not believe, not from lack of desire, but rather lack of funds.

That drive to the airport was such a sad trip. Ellos had surely sunken the claws of Africa deep into me. What a great man he was. We kept in touch for years via hand-written letters until email emerged. From the time I had left home for that trip up until I returned, I kept daily notes on everything from dawn to dusk, to every meal we had, every bird and flower that Ellos identified. I later mailed him a copy of my transcribed journal just so he knew the things that impressed a first-time client. He would send me offers of end-of-season deals of animals left on quota, but at the time I was not even able to afford the airfare, nor afford to break my promise and mention Africa to my wife just yet. But Ellos was correct in his prediction that this would not be my last trip.

As of this writing I’ve been on five safaris. I took my daughter, and later my son on their first hunts but because of hunting areas and schedules, I was not able to hunt with Ellos before his untimely death in 2014.

But my son and I would come close to doing just that in 2017 in the second part of this story.

Fast forward twenty years from my first safari with Mark “Ellos” Ellement in 1998 in a camp called Sidinda in the Hwange Communal (CAMPFIRE) area. By now I’d taken my daughter Taylor in 2009 to Zambia on a twelve-day plains-game hunt where she took a magnificent 49” sable at 7 a.m. on the first day! I’d also been back again with my son Asa on his first safari in the Makuti Safari Area of Zimbabwe where he got his first buffalo in 2011.

Now was to be my turn to hunt again. With my wife’s permission (again!), I was planning to do a self-driving tour in Zimbabwe meeting up with friends along the way with maybe a short plains-game hunt at some point. When I told my son of my plans, he begged to come along. I told him I’d taken his sister and then him, and now they were on their own if they decided to return. Well, he offered to pay a good Took five trips to get a trophy eland.

portion of a leopard hunt if I would allow him along. After quoting some of my own statements from years past, like, “You always said never put off to tomorrow what you can do now while you’re young”, and, “But Dad, you know lion and elephant trophies can no longer be imported into the U.S. and you said that leopard would be next”, he had me. So, leopard for the boy it was.

Michelle Buchannan of Buchannan Hunts sharpened her pencil and gave me options, one being at a camp called Sidinda run by a new outfitter Mbalabala Safaris where one leopard was left on quota. I jumped at the opportunity to have my son return with me to my first safari camp. Michelle sent me a link to Mbalabala Safaris, and I come across the face of a young man I had seen as sixyear-old child twenty years before when I was hunting with his dad! Brian Ellement was one of the available professional hunters for my son’s leopard hunt at Sidinda! I immediately asked Michelle to book our hunt at Sidinda, and with Brian as our PH if possible. I just knew it would be so special for my son to now be hunting with Ellos’s son at the same camp where I spent my first safari with the legendary Mark “Ellos” Ellement.

I got in touch with Brian, and he was equally excited about the upcoming safari. At 4 a.m. one morning as I got into my truck to head to the gym before work, I had a WhatsApp message from Brian asking, “Does this look familiar?” Attached was a picture of the journal of my hunt at Sidinda that I had mailed to his dad twenty years previously! Brian explained that he told his mum, Karen, about one of his dad’s clients from twenty years ago returning with his son to hunt with Brian. She retrieved the copy of my journal that she had packed away with his deceased father’s things. I could not believe it had been kept for so many years. The moment gave me chills. Stand by. The coincidences just got started.

We added a few days to the beginning of our trip to do some touristy things in beautiful Cape Town with Michelle as our personal tour guide. We toured picturesque wineries and Table Mountain. Cape Town was a very worthy stop-off along our way. After a few days of too much wine, we made it to Victoria Falls where we were greeted by PH Brian Ellement whom I’d last seen as a six-year-old boy. We were equally excited to re-connect, and the next fourteen days would be filled with thoughts as well as stories of Ellos.

Once we arrived at camp I truly felt as though I had gone back in time twenty years to 1998 when I was there last. I was hardpressed to find anything different apart from the faces of the staff. Same fire pit, dining/ bar hut and chalets. All the same, even my favorite tree, a sabi star on the path to the same chalet I was in twenty years ago, beautiful as ever but had not grown an inch. I don’t think Brian had been back since 2014 when his dad passed away.

An apprentice PH Dean Peele was in camp and had been there for a few days, prebaiting for leopard, with the exciting news of two baits being hit, one within a five-minute drive from camp. (Ellos would have walked!) We were excited and waiting for our friend and videographer Andy Buchannan to arrive

Sunset on a Zambezi fisherman.

in camp that afternoon to be with us in the blind that evening. Brian decided the bait near the camp was the better one, so we built a natural three-sided blind. Chills and fever that had started in Cape Town for Asa and me got worse, so with my coughing un-controllable, I reluctantly bowed out of the blind-sitting until I was not a risk of ruining the chance at the leopard of a lifetime. At 4 p.m. Brian, Asa, and Andy quietly sneaked into the blind which was tucked into the bush overlooking a small, dry riverbed opposite the bait tree on the other bank. (I could swear Ellos had pointed at an old kudu carcass hanging as leopard bait from that same tree twenty years ago). All bundled up for the impending long, cold, black night they sat, the minutes turning into hours. Would the cat come back that night? Perhaps he has gone on his territory patrol? Perhaps he had a kill of his own elsewhere? Then at 9 p.m. loud crunching was heard, and every hair stood on end. The leopard was feeding!

Brian had warned Asa earlier that patience would be key. Heavy breathing, twitching muscles, pounding hearts - then Asa was on the gun, and Andy slowly turned up his rheostat infrared light that was earlier mounted near the bait tree to allow his camera to “see.” Through his camera Andy saw the cat standing on hind legs behind the bait tree and feeding through a fork in the tree. Then it sat down periodically behind the tree, then resumed feeding, safely half hidden by the fork. This continued for over an hour until the leopard vanished into the darkness.

By 4 a.m. Asa was trembling with fever and needed Brian’s support to stand. Whatever the bug was that we picked up on our last night in Cape Town had Asa and me man down the next day. While we tried to sleep off the flulike symptoms, Brian, Andy and Dean went checking and refreshing baits with goats bought from a nearby village. They piled up branches and thorn bushes behind the bait tree and put a log strategically propped up on the front of the tree to make feeding on the right side of the tree a little more inviting. Asa was also coughing uncontrollably which would be no good in a leopard blind. I had asked Brian why he was baiting with goats rather than impala - in 1998 there had been scores of them. Brian said that virtually the only animals left on this huge tribal concession were the elephants that came out of Hwange Park, and a few leopards and kudu. The rest had been totally poached out when his dad’s company (Matapula Hunters) lost the concession not long after the farm invasions. Those who temporarily took over were ineffective at keeping poaching at bay, and very quickly practically all the game was gone in an area of roughly one million acres. The only animal I saw going to and from camp in daylight or darkness was one hare. No baboons near camp. No hippos grunting in the river below or any night animal sounds. Incredibly sad. But the good news was that Mbalabala Safaris, now renamed Sidinda Conservancy, had recently fenced up to ten-thousand acres and relocated scores of buffalo and a variety of plains game, including sable, to re-stock the area. They were making a valiant effort. On Day 3, Asa seemed to be feeling better, but I was not. They checked the trail-cam on the hot bait and found that the leopard fed the previous night for several hours beginning from 9 p.m. and we wondered how many consecutive nights the cat would continue to feed. Asa, Brian and Andy went back to the blind bundled up again for the long, cold night ahead. Just as the sun was setting, Brian took a last daylight peek at the bait tree, and there was the big tom leopard standing perfectly broadside on the branch they set up for him, exactly according to plan!

“Can you see him, Asa?”

“Yes!” “Can you see him in your lens Andy?”

“No, the light is too bright for the rheostat and too dim for my camera to pick up. Can we wait a couple of minutes?” Finally, it was dark enough for Andy to get in focus and he told Brian and Asa that the cat had jumped down from his perfect perch and was sitting facing them at the base of the tree staring at the blind. He stood to feed for a second, then sat again, once more looking towards the blind.

“Asa, he is facing dead at us,” whispered Brian, “sitting at about seventy yards. Can you make that shot in the center of his chest? You must be sure.” “Yeah, yeah, I can.”

“I’ll switch on the light, and when you’re ready let him have it in the center of his chest.” As Brian switched the light on, the leopard dropped his right head down.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Brian warned. As the cat lifted his head Asa took the shot and the leopard immediately charged directly at the blind, grunting with each bound. Asa’s rifle was tied to the hole in the blind and he yanked it, trying to free it. Brian went for his gun leaning at the back of the blind, while Andy assumed a fetal position with his hands locked behind his neck. Dust and sticks and leaves flew as the mad cat brushed against the side of the blind. He stopped about twenty yards behind the open back. With the light off they could hear him grunting and growling, keeping them trapped for several minutes. Each time Brian slowly reached for his gun, the grunting and growling got louder and more threatening. Brian kept the light off until the leopard decided to charge, while Asa waited to shoot again. The noise died down, and by now Brian had his gun shouldered alongside Asa, while Andy cautiously turned on the light. Nothing in sight. Not a sound. No movement. They sat and waited. Nothing. Brian radioed his tracker Big Mike at the truck and instructed him to drive as far as he could into the bush directly toward the blind. When he was close enough with truck lights shining, they quietly escaped from the blind and exited around the front towards the bait tree – the opposite direction from which they lad last heard the sound of the leopard. Brian decided only to return in the morning as there were no hyenas there to worry about feeding overnight on a possibly dead leopard.

After they arrived back in camp everyone dived into the bar and watched Andy’s footage many times, in full “blurring leopard speed” and again in slow motion. The shot was in the chest. At worst, a little to the right. A long sleepless night awaited. Morning came and everyone was ready to go back for a look. Brian, Dean and PH Tiene Kok who had joined us in camp that night all left their med-evac and insurance information in a pile on the dash of Brian’s truck in case someone got hurt. They went into the bush “Elmer Fudd style” with guns pointed forward. Asa followed behind, and I chose to linger by the truck. About five minutes later, Brian yelled, “Asa, come get your cat!” We sprinted off.

What an incredible trophy! It was a big, beautiful mature leopard with an old snare wound around his middle – surprisingly it hadn’t crippled him. The beers flowed early that day. We just knew Brian’s dad was looking down on us, laughing at our good luck and all the coincidences between my hunt with him and my son’s hunt with his son. Brian was carrying his dad’s .500 Jeffery given to Ellos by a good client. My son was hunting with my Mod. 70 .375 H&H. The next couple of days after some vundu fishing in front of camp in the Zambezi, we drove our side of the Hwange National Park boundary trying to cut buffalo tracks, but with no success. We did, however, get lucky and came across a few kudu, and Asa made a great shot at a fantastic kudu bull with very distinct and beautiful colors. Before departing from Sidinda Camp, I took names and pictures of the staff to remember them. Only Joe Shako, the cook, remained in camp from my last trip here in 1998, and he was training his son, Doubt, to take over. I had brought my picture album and showed it to the staff and they all pointed at and commented on trackers Jackson and Kiddeus, and Alexis the maître d’, as well as others who had since passed away. We made the eight-hour drive to Brian’s family home in Bulawayo. Ellos had invited me there years ago, an invitation I regret not taking before he died. But I was there now. We overnighted, then headed out early to Mashure, the property bordering Lindon Stanton’s ranch near West Nicholson, a plains-game camp I had hunted with Brian’s dad in 1998. This camp on the banks of a big, beautiful dam was very primitive, which we liked. The two camp staff used a cooking pit in the ground as an oven, with a tin sheet as a lid with coals on it to create some excellent meals, as well as pastries for desserts. Always impressive what safari camp cooks can do with the bare basics!

It was my fourth safari, and a trophy eland continued to be my nemesis. We cut tracks and found eland a couple of times in the first days, but never a big bull. We got in some bass fishing on the dam as well as watching a pair of legavaan (rock monitors) wrestling on the banks, and we left after much story re-telling and reviving all the coincidences between the two safaris.

On our way home, Asa and I stayed with some friends in Victoria Falls. One evening we ended up at the Vic Falls Boat Club with some locals planning a weekend bike ride in the bush. I told my friends Ian and Mary-Linda Gloss of all the similarities between my hunt in 1998 with Mark “Ellos” Ellement, and now my son Asa’s hunt with his son Brian Ellement, and I mentioned that Brian, like his dad, had a professional hunter friend in camp with us. I asked Ian if he knew Ellos’s friend, Derek “Gomez” Adams who I had met at Sidinda twenty years ago.

“Yes,” Ian said, “have you spoken to him yet? Gomez is here, hey!” and he pointed him out. Asa and I walked over, and before I could introduce ourselves he recognized me, even without my hair!

It was just one more coincidence between those two hunts to reminisce about our mutual friend Mark “Ellos” Ellement.

The element of surprising coincidences of “hunting with the Ellements” was now complete! Taking notes making daily journal entries.