Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Africa What is the draw of Africa, and after having done it a lot what do you cherish

Figured it would be closer to 150K for the 5. They are not cheap or even reasonable by many accounts, but it all depends on what you want really. Just like life.

I'd pay more for something in AK than I would in Africa because I like one and have no desire for the other.

As to vacations where you shoot... maybe when I'm old, we want to burn the candle at both ends. Do it hard and rough when possible and flat get out and find nature.

interesting they'd let me skin, gut and cape. I'd figure that would be out of the question.

I'd be offended if the meat wasn't mine in the end, but being that it might be costly to ship back guess I'd have to forgo the eat anything we shoot mantra.

Do go prepared to AK though. Wife and my luggage are coolers.... stuffed with gear. Good hunt, meat comes home frozen, what we don't share, and clothes gets boxed and USPS'd home

You will not skin gut and cape, As I said here:

There would be no fight over the game, it's not "your game" you get the hide and horns. The meat belongs to the land owner, the government, the locals, or the outfitter

I would not want my clients to waste one second working on game when they can be hunting. It's why we have staff for this labour. I want you hunting not working!

My hunters do not have to load or pack game, skin game, Cape heads, butcher game, Salt the capes and skins. My hunters are hunting or resting up to hunt more!

The USA does not allow meat into America from any country in Africa. You could not bring it home if you wanted to for any cost.

I didn't understand that part.

For me, if I can't touch it, as I do my own taxidermy, then the deal is off. It should be my call on issues like that IMHO.

Its part of the experience to me. To drive/walk up, shoot something, take pictures and leave, ain't it for me.

OTOH my buddy would love nothing more than a wakeup, breakfast and coffee supplied, clothes washed, and drive around to find something, shoot it, then leave and let others do the work.

Whats really interesting is how the countries can differ in how they approach some things. I often wonder what the bottom lines were to come to different conclusions.

I also know a buddy that goes to Africa quite often and really enjoys all the personal service.

And again my bottom line is not due to cost, its just due to the experience. We often have folks look at us like we are nuts as we hike off into the wilderness areas with big packs on. How will you get the meat out? Where do you sleep etc... told one once we rarely do anything but lay a bag out and go to sleep unless the weather calls for it.... they about passed out and said no way as they road off down the road on the ATV "huntnig" elk.

But in your shoes after guiding a long time in AK, I could understand the change of pace. A guide buddy of mine is 30, has been in AK since he was 18 or so. Says he enjoys the roughing it part so much, its much a part of it, but says each year, getting back home to a shower and warm bed gets better all the time.

I"m just fortunate that he was with me when we each put half a bou in our packs and a head on top of that for mine, and went almost 5.5 miles back to landing strip, crossing creeks, tussock fields and such. He totally understood it was about being there, with God and the total output required to make that trip a success.

And this is NOT a ding at all on those that enjoy riding around, shooting things and never getting bloody. Not at all. I'm generally alwyas pleased that not everyone has my feelings or the places I go and things we do would be well overcrowded.

JJ, BTW tell me what the best meat is from game in Africa? I"ve heard bits and pieces but never thought to ask a guide what they consider the best.

Thanks, Jeff

Black wildebeest, eland, springbok are at the tip for me. After those there are a lot that are really good.

Waterbuck big warthogs and zebra less then desirable to me. The equal to sagebrush mulies.

After a 15 mile day on your feet in hot weather, land strewn with rocks and thornbush, you may consider the hunt a little more than drive and shoot. There are days when the stalk works out to be short. Take those days wth a grin.

Talk with your PH and let them know your preferences. Most will be more than willing to wear out a good pair of boots for you. Enjoy your hunts wherever they take you.

Jeff,

I've done plenty of the kind of hunting you describe, and not just in Montana but what is loosely called The North. I still do it some, especially here in Montana, but not as much as I used to, since I'm now 60. I can still cut 'em up and pack 'em out of the mountains, but would hate to do it with an elk as far as I used to.

As somebody noted, Africa can be done DIY--but not in the most common safaro countries. But it requires more help than hiring an air taxi service in Alaska, usually several natives to help pack in the necessary stuff, since the places DIY can be done are typically thicker forest in places like Camaroon.

As a side note, I totally agree with JJ about the best-tasting African game. Not many people try enough black wildebeest to know how good they are, and springbok are at least as good as eland when not over-cooked. That can be a problem in some hunting camps over there, especially in Namibia where the German theory of cooking the living snot out of meat sometimes prevails. (I know this because of spending some time in Germany as well.)

Rost I have a Tx taxidermist who hunts with me and to save cost he skins his own animals. I am waiting for the day when I can sit back and watch him skin an elephant.

I have a dream of hunting Alaska one day.

Pieter
Not doing the things I like to save money, just that I care for the complete experience.

Medicman, not necc so at 48 so far. We've been 12-15 miles one way with packs at 10K altitude(living daily at 200 feet ASL that says a bit) and the next the same another way and kept that up for a number of days looking for elk. Finally found em and had shorter trips messing with em, but I rarely have the desire for a ride around quick hunt. Exception when its time to harvest meat for the season and time is running out, then I"m up for an ATV around a couple places and pop a bunch of does real quick. but thats all subject to change with age.

JJ, much appreciate that input. And you opened my eyes to muleys with that statement. We hunted them a few times with bows up higher and thought the meat was better than WT. In laws put em in sausage... but they never would bowhunt and shot em with rifles and not nearly in the mountains from what I could figure out. Must have been teh differences in diets.

John, as noted I'm only 48 and at this time, I'm still good to go. Subject to change with age. But I'd be surprised if I ever have the desire to do it an easier way than I can handle. But as noted, could happen.
The DIY stuff is interesting, but since I have no desire for Africa still at this time, I'm going to be reading a few books from Rattler, and that will suffice I suspect.

Thanks for all the comments and putting up wiht me over here!

jeff

There are places you can DIY in Africa. My greatest hunt was with the pygmies in the Cameroon rainforest. If you have an interest , drop me a PM.

one of the books im loaning him is Reinald von Meurers' book on doing just that.....

Understood. I was leaning toward the size of the skinning job at hand and the weight of the skin. Flipping an elephant onto the other side is also an interesting experience.

I was amazed at the workers carting off the critter insides and leg parts in wheel barrows to be used for family food. Yep, everything gets used.

That's the truth!
Last year I shot an elephant in Zimbabwe and while we were waiting for the truck, people just started coming out of the woods in every direction. Some walked, some rode bicycles, others came on donkey carts. It was like trying to hold back the ocean while we took trophy pictures. After 3-4 hours of butchering, there was nothing left of that elephant but a wet spot on the ground. I didn't count, but I estimate that there were well over 200 people that ate very well for the next couple of days.

As much as it pains me to admit, Chui is 100% spot on. Went the first time 25 years ago, and think about Africa, and the many trips since most every day.

Dang, I hate when Chui is right!

I have always felt that becoming wed to a particular environment is a form of imprisonment. In international relations we call it ethnocentric behavior, and is something of which Americans can be particularly guilty. I suppose it is because of our large country and relatively limited exposure to alternative cultures.

Growing up in South Louisiana, I fell in love with all things waterfowl. I have friends, who, to this day, couldn't imagine hunting anything else anywhere else. Why would they? I could have been one of then as well.

Thanks to a career in the Army, however, I spent 29 years banging around the world and hunting most of it (including a dove shoot with a Saudi Prince over an oasis near Hofuf). Before retiring, I had been on informal drive hunts on farms in Northern Bavaria and estate shoots in Austria. I had taken roe deer and red stag in Europe and I had hunted whitetail, turkey, quail, and pigs on installations across the US.

Since retiring, I have the good fortune to hunt Africa, Canada, and Argentina. With each hunt, the geography, the people, the quarry, and the culture changes. It is that very change which I find so stimulating. Such experiences also are guaranteed to be an education in the limitations of self-imposed cultural and behavioral norms.

Over Christmas, I shot ducks with an old college friend who has probably never fired a round outside of Cameron Parish. Facinated by my stories about tracking cape buffalo, he, nevertheless, clearly could not imagine breaking his own behavior patterns to experience it.

I am not sure what would be worse than showing up at a traditional African camp with a list of demands with regard to how one expected to experience a safari - unless it would be to so padlock ones own life and behavioural pattern that one is unwilling to experience anything new at all.

Going to Africa for the first time is like kissing a girl for the first time. What will it be like? Will I like it? Wonder why the other guys like it so much?
After you've done it, Well..........
I wanna do that again and more.
Now I'm trying to get that girl I kissed a long time ago to go back with me!
Bfly

Have you ever looked at those countries that only have one major popular species to hunt (like a roe deer in england)and wondered "why do they do that for one little animal".....you will think that once you come home from Africa. The hunting experience is mind blowing and chasing whitetails or Caribou or Pronghorns is never quite the same afterwards.

I hope you're wrong....but I'm guessing you're gonna be right. I'm headed over in May for the first time myself.

Here are some of the things I cherish.