Last Lem - Just a couple of more things to add to your planning matrix......
1. Your OP asked about how far ahead to book. Outfitters will book as far out as you want. When you book, they are typically going to ask for a deposit to secure your dates. Typically too this will be 50% of the cost of the hunt. This means if you're doing a "package" hunt 50% of the basic package and if you're doing a straight daily rate with ala carte trophies/culls. then 50% of your total daily rate and maybe 50% of the trophy/cull fees you anticipate. Make SURE you have an "understanding" of the refund policy if something goes wrong and you can't make it as agreed to. Some will offer a full refund if you CNX, say a year out and then varying amounts refunded back the closer you get to your dates. Most will at least offer to allow you to reschedule you dates. Look they are business people. Your contracting for their "time" and your slotted dates may not be able to be resold/booked by someone else and they lose that "time" (money). Some will require you to pay a certain additional percentage of the package or daily fees within 30-60 days of your arrival. Unless you MUST be in a specific area with a specific PH/Outfitter and you MUST have specific dates. there is not too much reason to book more than a year out. The possible down side of booking over a year out is a LOT can happen between when you book and your hunt. Rona for example, other health/family issues on your side and the PH/Outfitter's side.
2. Along that line above - contracts. Look, the harsh reality is a contract is fine BUT, if something goes seriously wrong: a) how are you going to enforce a contract in a foreign country. b) are you going to be willing to spend $10k’s of dollars on a foreign attorney. c) Pay for airfare possibly multiple times. d) IF you win, how are you going to actually collect? Now, if you're booking a "full bag" 21-day big five hunt involving hundreds of thousands of dollars that might be different. The vast majority of African based outfitters/ph's are decent folks and and take pride in their reputations. Those that don't, tend not to stay in business vary long - especially with the web and ease of looking up people who've hunted with them before etc. In all the hunts I've taken and people I've taken, there has NEVER been a formal contract. Now, there is some written fundamental understandings provided. For example, take a look at the offers I have posted to Bots and Nam. Both have put their general terms up front and out front in public.
3. Best times to go?....anytime!!! Each part of the hunting season has good and better points. Some guys like to go as early as possible. They feel that is the best time to get the best trophies. To some degree that is true and more so if you’re hunting high fence put and take operations. They typically “restock” after the hunting season has ended and that gives the game some time to adjust to their new surroundings. First clients in, do have the best opportunity to have first shot at the best animals. This is not necessarily true if your hunting the HUGE (250k+) high fence properties or if you’re hunting low fence free range lands. The down side is you’re there right after the rainy season and the trees and thorn bushes are in full leaf and the grasses can be waist high or more. The thick cover can make spotting and getting clear shots more difficult. Mid season, the calving is about over and the rut is just beginning. Water sources in the upper elevations are mostly dried up and the game need to make daily trips to more permanent water sources. Day temps are the coolest of the season and nights can be pretty cool with frost in the mornings. The grasses have turned brown and spotting game is a bit easier. Later season, you’re getting later into the “rut” but, the African antelope species aren’t as tied to the rut as US whitetail deer. Later season, the grasses eaten down a bit and a lot of the tree leaves have fallen, spotting game and getting clearer shooting lanes is a bit easier but, that works both ways for the game too. High fence or low fence, the game have been pursued and shot at a bit. This later in the season might be a good time to try and find smaller family farm/ranch low fence type property/area, like my friend’s place in Namibia. Family, owned game farm, 50k acres, low fence with a couple of large high fence game farms in the area. Only books between 6-10 clients a year, so very low pressure on the game, and is a “closed camp”. I’ll cover this next.
4. Generally, there are two types of “camp” – open and closed. The larger operations generally run open camps. This means that during your stay, other clients are coming and going. These can be good or bad depending on the clients and you never know. Sometimes it can make for some great stories around the braai with sundowners and sometimes personalities can clash. Truth is, some clients are there to really hunt and sometimes clients want to spend the majority of their time piss drunk and lots of times the conversations just turn into dick measuring contests. A “closed camp” means the only people in camp are you or your party for the duration of your hunt. These are good for husband/wife, father/son, father/daughter or hunting buddies or at least like minded hunters. I’ve done an “open camp” once, and much prefer closed. This is part of why I put together the small group hunts, limit the number of hunters and this give us exclusive hunting use of the entire property. The other part is as I repeatedly say, is to help the first timers get their feet wet.
5. As other’s have said, book for as long as you can. The airfare and the travel drudgery is the same if you stay 3-days or 30-days. You MUST take some time and not rush/compress your time that you can’t “take it all in”. The reality is, the sleepless nights caused by the excitement/anticipation of finally going, first trip or thirtieth trip, will start at LEAST the week before you leave. Then there will be the couple of days of travel over, a 6-10 hour time zone change etc and for the first 2-4 days in camp, you’re pretty much running on adrenaline then the “wall” hits and it’s REALLY hard to get out of bed that morning – LOL. I honestly recommend to take at LEAST ten FULL hunting days. Some places count your arrival and departure days. With it taking 2-3 calendar days from your home to camp and then usually one, maybe two calendar days to get home you’ve covered 14-15 days total. Having those couple of extra actual “hunting days” will allow to not feel so “rushed” to take the first “trophy” you see. It can give you a little extra time to be a bit more selective. It will allow you to take in more of the sights, sounds and yes, smells of Africa. Maybe an easy afternoon taking a short side type to see a local “sights”, maybe some ancient petroglyphs, or historical battle fields or encampments. IF you take a non-hunting person, add a couple of days of sight-seeing and/or maybe book into a high end “spa” and some shopping in city you’re flying home from. If in Namibia, a couple of days over in Swakopund/Walvis Bay on the “Skeleton Coast or down to the Fish River Canyon, the second largest canyon on the plant. Even Windhoek, the capital city is good for about 3-days of shopping and sightseeing. Has a couple of really nice day spa’s for the wife/girlfriend and some high end designer stores and even a diamond center where you can buy Namibian mined diamonds, loose and mounted. In Botswana, you can go to Chobe National Park or up to Victoria Falls. Vic Falls is good for maybe 3-days. Some GREAT hotels, sunset booze cruise on the Zambezi river and you HAVE TO go to the Boma Restaurant for dinner!!! RSA is of course Kruger National Park and if you’re in KZN (Natal) there is the historic battlefield where the epic battle between the Brits and Shaka Zulu was fought and portrayed the early 60’s movie “Zulu” with Michael Caine.
6. Taxidermy – Lots of good arguments for having it done there or in the US. What you might save in the cost by having it done there is, or can be offset by the transportation/shipping cost getting the completed work home. Some claim the quality of the work is “better” in both places than the other. I will offer this…you REALLY need to think this thru well BEFORE the skinners put a knife in the hide. You need to think about where in your home you will put things. Do you want just European mounts, head mounts, shoulder mounts or full mounts, tanned flat skins for rugs, felt backing/no felt backing etc. Trophies and mounts are a highly personal thing and they not only honor the animal, but your personal achievement/life-long dream as well. They are yours to sit back and reflect in the happy memory of “the hunt”. Here is a hard truth…you will NEVER recover the cost of the trophy fee and taxidermy!! To prove this, just take a look on fleabay of what completed taxidermy mounts are being offer for sale. There is one US guy I am aware of who takes one tuskless elephant a year and has the hide panels tanned and shipped home. He then uses the elephant leather to make wallets and a few other things and legally sells them. He doesn’t really make a profit, it just helps offset the cost of his hunt. As mentioned, PH’s/Outfitters do tend to work with their certain preferred taxidermist. You can get the name and contact info of the taxidermist and request a price list for their work. You can also look up various in country taxidermists and ask them to send price lists too. You can also opt to just have your salted/dried hides, skulls and horns shipped back and have your taxidermy work done in the US.
Another reason you need to think this thru BEFORE the skinners get to work is how you want the taxidermy will depend on how they make the skinning cuts. For example, if you want a zebra flat skin/rug, they will make the main cut along the belly and the inside of the legs from the rectum all the way to the underside of the chin. If you want a shoulder mount, they will put a string around the belly and make a cut following the sting and then up the middle of the spin and middle of the mane to the back of the skull. This way when the hide is stretched and stitched over the taxidermy form the stitches will be hidden in the mane. Same goes for every other species as well. Once those initial cuts are made, it’s too late to change your mind.
As far as “fees” go, you can expect to pay for: a) dipping - this is mandatory regardless. This is to kill all pathogens before any of it leaves the country. b) packing – this is the cost of boxing or crating as required. Obviously, completed shoulder mounts require much more robust crating/packing then tanned rugs. One guy I’ve taken to Namibia several times decided he wanted a full shoulder mount giraffe. I said are you SURE you know what you’re getting into and he didn’t care. The taxidermy, crating and shipping were CRAZY as it was in a single piece. c) export documents/permits – these can vary in price depending on if you are just taking common CITES appendix III (common game) or appendix II (protected/threatened) game or even appendix I (endangered game). d) shipping – shipping is usually charged by the “cube” and not by weight. You’ll have a choice between air or surface transport. Air transport is obviously more expensive but quicker obviously. Surface is cheaper but can take a bit longer, not just because of the ship transit time, but some shippers consolidate multiple shipments and then put them all on the same container so it could take a bit to get enough to fill the container. e) on the US side, you’ll need to find an “importer” to handle your US importation permits and receive your shipment and have it inspected and cleared by US Customs and USF&W. f) Lastly, you’ll need a “freight forwarder, usually coordinated by the US importer, to ship your crates to your home.
I did this the first time we went. All I brought back were European mounted springbok, kudu, gemsbok and tanned flat skin rugs. I subsequently found out I could do a LOT of this myself. Since we only do European mounts and tanned skins/rungs. I’ve been doing my own US import permits directly with the USF&W on their website for free. I do have to pay a little for CITES II game. The taxidermist boxes our “stuff” up in double cardboard boxes and I bring them back as extra luggage on the flight home the following year. I clear them with US Customs at our initial port of entry in the US and a rep from USF&W meets us at the airport here in Tampa when we land. Only extra fee is for “overtime” if the agent has to meet us “after hours”. What I save on shipping alone covers at least one r/t airline ticket. Only restriction is the box has to meet the standard oversize and overweight luggage limits of the airline. We haven’t done any more taxidermy in a couple of years. Now, we’ve been taking a lot of high res photos and just doing a few nice matted/framed pictures. We’ve done some of the Fracture printed on glass things, which are very nice.
7. Booking agent vs Booking directly with the PH/Outfitter. Again, good arguments can be made both ways. Booking with a US based booking agent can, but not always, provide some level of “protection” from a fraudulent operator but NOTHING is guaranteed. The web is full of stories/experiences where things have gone south with booking agents. You can also find stories/experiences where things have gone south booking directly with the PH/Outfitter too. Only advantage booking with a US based agent is USUALLY, your deposit and MAYBE even your full hunting cost is held by them in the US in kind of an escrow situation. When you return and all went well, the funds are transferred to the overseas Ph/outfitter. I will say this, I did use a US based booking agent ONCE and he was an absolute idiot. Had only hunted as a client a couple of times and other than those couple of trips and NEVER traveled overseas. He had no idea about routes or airlines and only acted as a “pass thru” for rifle permits. He did “handle the money” and finally grudgingly gave me the PH’s contact info so I could talk/confirm everything directly with him.
To be honest, once you decide the primary species your interested in for your first or subsequent hunts, that will narrow down your country or even region within that country. Then you can use your “googlefoo” and start searching out PH’s/outfitters in that country or region. Most all will have websites and general info on where they are located and the areas they hunt, species available, size of property etc. Then come to various forums and ask if anyone has hunted with them. Chances are, if others have hunted with them and had good experiences, you could take some comfort in just booking directly with them after corresponding or even calling and talking to them to see if they fit what your expectations are.
Sorry to be carrying on so long. I know there are a LOT of guys in your shoes – they have the desire but don’t know where to begin. I’m just trying to provide a starting point. This is not gospel and things change, sometimes a lot. These are my opinions based on a LOT of international travel, a LOT of trips to Africa hunting both personally and with friends/clients and completion of the RSA/KZN PH school and passing the practical and written exams.
I will say this again – I am NOT a booking agent. I do this because I love Africa and I want others to experience it at least once in there lives - either with me and one of my groups or on their own. GO!! I do NOT get a commission for recommending the PH’s/outfitters I recommend. They are just solid, honest, family run operations.
