Elephant country. Two ways to hunt them at two very different price points, plus lion and leopard on the same ground, and hippo and crocodile further north near Lake Kariba.
Elephant season
March – July
Safari length
7 – 14 days
Focus
Elephant
Also available
Lion, leopard, croc, hippo
Zimbabwe is where we hunt elephant, and at present that is what we offer there. We book Zimbabwe for elephant and the cats. South Africa covers plains game far better, and Mozambique is the buffalo hunt worth travelling for.
What Zimbabwe has is free-range elephant on wild, unfenced ground, and two genuinely different ways to hunt them. Lion and leopard are hunted on the same ground as the elephant, and sometimes in the Hwange area as well. Further north, closer to Lake Kariba, we also hunt hippo and crocodile.
Hot, low-lying valley country broken by dry sand rivers and thick jesse bush, with mopane woodland on the higher ground. Visibility drops to a few metres in the thick stuff, which is exactly where elephant spend the middle of the day.
Hunting is on foot, following tracks cut at first light in the riverbeds and along cutlines. Elephant move across enormous distances following water and browse, and the bull you find on day nine may be a long way from where you started on day one.
Lion and leopard are hunted in Zimbabwe on whichever block the permit is issued for — we apply, and the quota comes back allocated to a particular area. Further north, on the southern shore of Lake Kariba near Binga, the country changes — more broken, closer to permanent water — and that is where hippo and crocodile are hunted.
The elephant hunt comes two ways and the difference is worth understanding before you enquire — see below. Lion and leopard are hunted on the same ground as the elephant, sometimes in the Hwange area too. Hippo and crocodile are hunted separately, further north near Lake Kariba.
Also available in Zimbabwe
Both are free-range hunts on the same ground, hunted the same way, with the same professional hunters. What differs is which bull you are permitted to take, and that drives a substantial difference in price.
Premium
The full trophy hunt. You hunt for the best bull the area holds and you are not restricted on ivory. That means passing on animals — most clients turn down at least one bull before taking the right one — and being prepared to hunt the full fourteen days without a guarantee. This is the hunt if the ivory matters to you.
Significantly lower
A genuinely more affordable way to hunt free-range elephant. The hunt is identical — same ground, same tracking, same close-quarters approach — but you take an old bull of around 30lb a side rather than hunting for the biggest ivory in the area. For a hunter who wants the elephant experience rather than the tusks, this is what makes it possible.
To be plain about it: the non-trophy option is not a lesser hunt. It is the same kilometres a day on the tracks and the same thirty-metre approach through jesse. The difference is what you are permitted to shoot at the end of it, and what that costs.
Permanent tented camp on the hunting ground itself — canvas under shade, proper beds, en-suite bathrooms, generator and solar power. You are not transferring to a separate concession each morning. There is no phone signal across most of the area, and in our experience nobody misses it after the second day.
Tell us roughly when you can travel and what you want to take. We will come back with what is genuinely available in Zimbabwe and whether another country might suit you better.
Zimbabwe safaris run 7 – 14 days.
Enquire — Zimbabwe
