mac21,
I too am a Hunting Outfitter that does not own my own hunting land. Yes, the term �Suitcase HO� is a very good description for someone like myself: The hunting regulations demand that a HO and PH must have a whole bunch of documents and licenses �on his person� while on a hunt � and a suitcase or briefcase is just handy to have everything required in one place � behind the Land Cruiser seat!
Not having your own hunting area is a great advantage if you are prepared to live with the limitations the situation demands. Well, you simply �have� to put up with them, but I mean you must learn to �live� with them and with joy make the best of the situation. I can speak from the experience gained over quite a number of decades that I�ve been busy arranging hunts as a Hunting Outfitter.
I hope to here give visiting hunters from abroad and considering coming to South Africa on a plains game safari some insight into the situation here.
Firstly I do agree with mac21 that the majority of the Hunting Outfitters in South Africa are honest and decent people that I, and anyone else who wants a fair deal, can live with and happily do business with. Unfortunately there is a minority, and most unfortunately a not so small minority, of Hunting Outfitters that I don�t ever want any dealings with, for the first time or again. How does a potential client recognize a decent Hunting Outfitter? Or, more important, how does he recognize a hunting outfitter that decent hunters would want to avoid? I specifically address only �decent hunters� here. If you fall into the �tape-measure reigns supreme trophy collecting� group, or just if you are one of the group of shooters [I refuse to call them hunters] who wants to just shoot the buggers as quickly and with the least effort, then this is not meant for you. This posting is a small attempt to help real sport hunters, who by definition wants to uphold high ethical standards in their conduct, to recognize a �good�, and be warned against a �bad�, Hunting Outfitters. I will attempt to do this from the perspective where mac21 and I both come from: We are Hunting Outfitters that do not own our own hunting areas.
Let me attempt to describe the typical �developmental history� of many Hunting Outfitters who does own their own piece of land on which they take their clients to hunt. By inheritance, hard work, speculation or whatever means a guy acquires a piece of land, gets it properly fenced and stocked with game. Initially he can only hunt very limited numbers, as the populations needs to grow. In this period many get their house in order: They attend a PH school, get registered, advertise and do some freelance work and start advertising their Hunting Outfitting business. Like all beginners they have few clients, but this suits them well as the also have few trophies to offer. These guys have one important personality characteristic in common: They are financially successful! It is due to their hard work, entrepreneurial undertakings or whatever that they succeeded in getting enough money together to be able to afford the property in the first place. This personality traits and abilities generally make them successful Hunting Outfitters too: Their clients enjoy the hunt and facilities that they offer, and recommend them to friends and family. Business is good and growing! Very soon the Hunting Outfitter starts to get more clients that he has trophies for on his own piece of land.
Our land� owning HO must now get more trophy animals than his own land can provide, as for a person with the personality and abilities to make a financial success the choice of �not growing big and staying a small operator� is mostly simply a NO-NO!
But he now has more clients than trophies, and he must get more trophies! How? He becomes a �Put&Take� operator! He buys suitable trophies from game auctions and releases them into his fenced game area before the hunting clients arrive. Now if there is one thing that I really detest it is the thought of having to shoot an animal that was very recently released into a strange environment. That poor thing does not know where the fences are, he does not �own� or hold any territory yet, the bulls/rams that are resident on the property chase him off their established territories. In short the shooting of him by the client is probably a good outcome for the poor creature. But the hunting clients usually get their trophies and are happy as they usually do not know or realize that the essentially shot a �canned trophy�! A word of warning: Put&Take operators are much more commonplace than the average guy thinks! I am able to speak a few words in one of the indigenous languages, not enough to hold a decent conversation, but enough to earn some respect for �trying� from the typical game farm laborers. A walk to the skinning shed, or wherever the laborers have lunch or a break, a greeting and joke in their own language, passing cigarettes all around and some friendly chat about how often trophy animals are delivered to the farm soon reveals this unfortunate truth about the hunting outfitter operating on that farm.
But another method of getting more trophies for his growing clientele is for him to join the ranks of the �Tarmac Safari Presenters�! This subset of Hunting Outfitters will source suitable animals at neighbor�s and elsewhere, use his own accommodation facilities and drive the hunting client many kilometers to a hunting area every day! The client gets to spend a considerable part of his potential hunting time on the road going to some concession to hunt or returning back to �home base�. In a way these are in exactly the same bout as the non-land owning HO�s: They also depend on the continued good relations between themselves and the land owners on whose properties they hunt.
Naturally there are a few land owner HO�s that have enough land to provide a good number of real trophies every year. These are the really big properties, but one should realize that any fenced area can only provide a limited number of true trophy animals each year. The holders of small areas can very quickly over-exploit the trophy potential, but the fact that a hunting farm is xyz thousands of acres in size is absolutely no guarantee that there is not some Put&Take going on! Less likely, yes. But no guarantee!
But how does the prospective visiting hunter recognize which is which from the web pages and Internet discussions? Only with some difficulty! A few observations may be in order. These are my own feelings: not hard rules that always hold true: The glossier the brochures, or the �smarter� the web page, the more likely it is a Put&Take operation. The big advertisers, and those that donate hunts at places like SCI conventions, are my likely that others to be Put&Take operators. The guy who does not mention the size of his hunting area is probably operating from a far to small area, and therefore compelled to use Pute&Take methods to ensure that his clients get their trophies. The fact that any HO even implies some �guarantee� on trophy animals should ring alarm bells of caution.
I�m afraid that the true scoundrel who is prepared to tell blatant lies is difficult to catch, but very few fall into this category. A prospective hunter should ask a few very straightforward questions in his discussions with a prospective choice of Hunting Outfitter: �Do you do an Put&Take on the property where I�m going to be taken hunting?� In a personal interview the reaction will very possibly be a give-away. If the same question was posed by e-mail, it will be more difficult to evaluate the reply. A reply in strong denial should then be followed by another question: �If I find any evidence that I was indeed offered a Put&Take trophy �I will refuse to pay for it, is that acceptable to you?� There are very few Hunting Outfitters that will be prepared to say that if there was any evidence of Put&Take you don�t need to pay for the trophy: These are either the real lying scoundrels who will look you into the eye and lie through his teeth, as said, it�s very difficult to catch this type of guy. A few of the guys, like myself and others that I know, who really try hard to make sure that his clients do not ever get to shoot a Put&Take trophy will also be quite prepared to accept a condition of: Any evidence of Put&Take negates any responsibility to pay at all!
How does the Hunting Outfitter that does not own his own hunting area compare in general to those who operate [mostly] on their own land? IMHO in most cases very well, provided the HO who does not use his own land does not create unreasonable expectations for his clients. Many HO�s live on or manage a game farm, even though they do not own it. Others have developed long term relationships with land owners on whose properties they hunt. One big advantage is that such a HO can, and does, take a visiting hunter to at a place where the trophy fee for any particular trophy is low. Also they can, and generally will, take you anywhere, depending on what your requirements are.
Anyone who may want to ask more about how to recognise Put&Take operators need only ask: I'll be glad to help control these malpractices!
In good hunting.
Andrew McLaren
