Over the past month in Africa, we traveled over 2,000 miles driving to hunting areas, took three in country flights and not to mention the days spent driving while actually hunting.
This trip was far from the typical vacation type safari this trip was to check out new operations and new areas to find top shelf outfitters for people like yourself that want to go to Africa but don’t know who to go with or don’t want to have a bad experience. I’ve been on a few bad international hunting trips in my life and know how that can put a sour taste in someone’s mouth about going abroad hunting and I’ve listened to many stories of hunters returning from Africa and swearing they will never go back. I don’t want that for any of you, Africa is one of the greatest if not the greatest hunting destinations on earth from the diversity in habitat, to the game, to the way you are treated in camps with the un matched hospitality. I don’t like to look at myself as the typical booking agent that doesn’t show case the outfitter they book with our keeps clients in the dark on where they are really going to just make sure they get their commission, sure this as probably cost me some serious cash over time but I know I provide a better service to the hunter and outfitter by be upfront with who the client is going with and showcasing outfitters who I have been with and believe are top shelf and trust worthy. This trip was to add more outfitters to my list of trusted pre vetted outfitters and to be honest it was a trip to eliminate a few as well.
When I go on these trips to vet an outfitter, I look at a number of things.
1. Personal
2. Accommodations/food
3. Area
4. Game
To name the core groups, but they all have smaller buckets inside each of them that I look at and see how full they get. The fuller each bucket gets the better the overall rating I give an outfitter. Now no outfitter ever rates a 10 out of 10. Some outfitters are world class in the field of hunting while they lack some of the admin and outfitter rolls and some are vice versa. In the following weeks I will introduce you to each of the outfitters I visited and beak down my thoughts on each of them in greater detail, but for this week I want to just break down my thoughts on the overall trip.
Hospitality:
The first thing that stands out to me and something I have already preached a lot about but it’s the overall experience of a safari and being on this trip with multiple outfitters one thing rings true, the way you are treated on safari out does any other hunting experience I have ever had. For reference I’ve done 18 safaris and over 33 international hunts from Asia, Europe, South Pacific and many hunts throughout Mexico and Canda and the hospitality of an Africa Safari is something that no one else can replicate and it doesn’t matter if you’re in South Africa hunting a private game farm or in the most remote parts of Tanzania or Ethiopia you are taken care of an treated well, from daily laundry services, to showers each day, to incredible meals they don’t cut corners and they make a plan. Don’t get me wrong I don’t mind roughing it in the back country hunts for elk, mule deer or sheep but even on the roughing it style hunts in Africa a plan is made to give you the creature comforts of home and for many people that is what will keep the spirts high. On this trip we had laundry service available daily we had full stocked cool boxes on the truck with water, coke, and a beer of choice for celebration and bush sundowners. We enjoyed bush braais of wild game meat, we had 3 course dinners with appetizers, main dishes, and incredible deserts.
Varity is the spice of life:
On this month-long journey across 4 provinces in South Africa we visited several areas within the provinces both game farms and low fenced cattle and farming country and the amount of game we have seen in each area was incredible and far outweighs the amount of game you will see on any given hunt in the USA. On any given day we would see 8-20 different species of antelope, and small game, not to mention the bird numbers. While hunting the banks of the Limpopo River we would see Impala, Kudu, Bushbuck, Vervet monkey, baboon, Hippo’s, Crocodiles, waterbuck, southern bush duiker, even a daylight sighting of jackal, plus the snakes and lizards we seen. This all in a 100% free range environment with only the river separating South Africa from Botswana even in this area elephants would cross from Botswana and night to try and break into the farming plantations on the south Africa side we never seen them, but the sigh of their nightly adventures was easily visible each morning. While on a game farm consisting of 8,000 hectors (19786.43 acers) in a 24-hour time span we seen Kudu, Impala, Kalahari springbok, copper springbok, black springbok, roan, sable, giraffe, bontebok, waterbuck, nyala, Zebra, aardwolf, bush duiker, vervet monkeys, and springhare. Experiences like this can’t be matched hunting here in North America
Opportunity:
I chuckled at this, while in Africa I was explaining to two of my PH’s and cameraman that the opportunity difference in Africa and North America and they were completely shocked even saying “nope I couldn’t live there” referring to the USA I explained to them that for most people in the US they will have one maybe two hunting permits a year for big game such as deer, and elk. I also explained to them the draw system and how long it takes to get a tag such as the moose tag, I have this year that I burned 16 years of points on in my home state of Wyoming, they couldn’t believe I waited 16 years to get a permit and the cost of building points and finally burning them. Another point they couldn’t believe is that when you book a elk or deer hunt you pay the full price up front regardless if your successful or not and their jaws dropped when I explained that it’s the same thing on the more expensive Moose, Bear and sheep hunts. Because in South Africa you only pay trophy fees for animals taken or wounded and you pay that after the fact, and as far as permits go there are very few species that require anything special and for the most part you can get a permit if you apply for them with enough time. A point I brought up is that someone who goes to Africa can get more trigger time (shot opportunities) and have more (tags) in their pockets than they might have in 10-15 years here in the united states.
I do love hunting here in North America and in other parts of the world but Africa Is something special, something I believe everyone must experience at least once in their lives. I believe if you go with a great outfitter and get a incredible African experience it could change your life.
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