Twenty-six kilometers, four bulls missed
Monday, 3 September 2012
A big old-bull spoor with deep cranks at the bushman's pans. We start at twenty to seven. Another big old bull joins at seven point four kilometers. Another young bull joins at eleven point six. Half past nine, twelve point seven kilometers in, the tracks begin to loop.
Two new pans near the bushman’s place. A big old-bull spoor from yesterday afternoon — deep cranks in the print. We went after him at twenty to seven.
At seven point four kilometers a second big-bull track joined in. At eleven point six a younger bull joined them. Half past nine, twelve point seven kilometers in, the tracks began to turn left and right. Robert caught the sound of an elephant rumble on a knoll to our left, but the line we were following went straight.
Felix thought the bulls had looped. We checked the knoll first. Very thick bush, ground carpeted with dried leaves — impossible to approach quietly. Felix went in alone. He came back: four bulls together, one young with both tusks more than four feet but thin and tapered; the other three in the fifty-pound class. Not ours. We resumed the original line.
We caught this other group in a dried-leaf thicket. A young bull at fifty pounds. We tried to close; the wind swirled in every direction. We moved out fast and looped — they winded us and ran. We walked in more; no glimpse of the two big bulls. Total distance now twenty-six point eight kilometers. Four-thirty in the afternoon.
After a quick lunch, a new water hole in the northeast. A big old-bull spoor on the road near it. Young bull drinking on our arrival. On the way back we met Stefan of SMJ Safaris.
Felix’s staff pulled the first bull’s tusks that night. Right sixty-five point six. Left sixty point seven.
