Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Africa Wingshooting...?

Please share any wing-shooting experience you may have while hunting plains game in Africa. Did you take a shotgun or use an outfitters? If you used a provided gun, what sort were available? How available are shotshells? Was the time wing-shooting worthwhile? Thank you.

During my first trip to Africa in 2002, South for plains game, we buried the truck in deep mud. I had two PH's (partners in the business), one took off his pants and with the "blacks" commenced to work to get the truck out. The other PH asked if I wanted to go hunt geese. "Yep". He had a bag of decoys put away in the brush and two shotguns with shells. I used a very well abused Webley and Scott 12 gauge (tape and screws through the grip) and he used a British hammer gun of unknown make. We had an absolute blast and I have thought to include a number of days for birds while there for big game.

If booking a hunt in the future would you set aside a day for some bird shooting? Every day has value and I am trying to make the best use of my time. But I do love some wingshooting.

Went on a wing shooting safari with Grassland Safaris in Free State RSA. In April, harvest time for sunflowers. We shot spur wing geese, Egyptians, ducks, guinea fowl, quail, doves and rock and speckled rock pigeons. Had a PH and an assistant PH, two groups, some shot plans game while the other group of bird shooters went wing shooting. Had a great time at a very nice lodge. Carl's wife Careel is a RN, a nice person to have for an out back trip.

They provided guns, mostly borrowed, unexpectedly, and thankful to get them, were a mixture, of sxs and O/U guns of European make. For us with long arms, the LOP was short by a bunch. Arrived on Sunday, got our own guns and luggage, lost by the airlines, on Thursday night. Fr, Sat and Sunday morning was a totally different shoot. Careel picked us up at Joeberg airport, by the time we arrived at the lodge everyone, all 8 in our group, had a shotgun and hunt clothes. That is pretty good service.

The Grassland folks were great hosts, had bird dogs, the food was very good, rooms were modern, good beds and hot showers, with dual plugs, 110 and 220.

Rapier,

Hunted with Grasslands in 2015, and had a great shoot. But it was a hunt with Benelli to work their then-new Ethos shotguns, to see how they worked in hard, repeated shooting, so didn't use any of the Grasslands guns. But the shooting was even better and more varied than I've seen in my two trips to Argentina.

Just returned 3 days ago from a plains game hunt in Namibia. 2 mid mornings we shot sand grouse at a waterhole after the morning PG hunt using a Browning O/U. Sporty shooting with lots of birds. I’ve done the same thing in Botswana. Sand grouse are VERY predictable in their appearance at a waterhole, always showing up within a few minutes of their expected time. Also about 5 years ago did a wing shooting safari in SA, hunting from northern Limpopo all the way down to Cape Town. Shot everything from doves, francolin, partridge, Guinea fowl to multiple species of waterfowl. Outfitter supplied guns, ammo, and dogs. Great fun. Bird shooting in Southern Africa is superb.

I always took some sort of combination gun in 12ga and 9,3X74R. I used it for PG and once on purpose for buffalo, and once to help clean up a wounded buffalo, gut shot by another hunter.

I shot Guinea fowl, several varieties of francolin (great eating), and sand grouse. My advice is to arrange to have a shotgun in camp and a box or two of ammo, high base 6 shot. The countries were RSA/Botswana (right on the border), Zimbabwe, and Tanzania. Your PH can arrange to have shotgun shells.

Francolin brochettes over acacia coals and a cold Tusker are a perfect sundowner combination.



Why they call francolin Spur-fowl:

Great information, thank you gentlemen.

I shot doves on my last night in Botswana. The pH dropped me off and picked me up at dark. It was a nice way to end the trip.

First time I hunted Namibia I couldn't get over the number of doves and sand grouse coming into the water. I borrowed the owner's old Winchester single barrel and shot a mess of birds. It was just the tracker and me and he retrieved all the birds.

Second and third trips we took our shotguns. We got a mess of birds on the second trip but didn't do that well on the third trip. Second trip was with a very good friend and we pushed the limits. We shot birds while driving around from the back of the truck. The owner was with us and commented how much more fun we were than the German hunters who historically hunted there. We let the owner shoot a dove with the 300 Ultra Mag.

I no longer take a shotgun, although fun shooting birds, I find it more enjoyable to sit and watch birds. One never knows what might show up that last night.