Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Africa Africa in the next 2 years, Wild places?

Hello gentlemen and ladies.

I am in the early stages of planning an Africa trip in 2020. I am willing to travel more less anywhere, the wilder the better in my opinion. I am wondering if a hunt exists in the true wilds any longer or am I going to be hunting a high fence farm lease? The areas I am experienced hunting is what is referred to as crown land- public land- and I would like to continue this in Africa if possible.
The reason I ask is that most of what I see seems to be high fence hunts and I am just not sure if this is the norm or just what is popular? No judgement on my part, I have done a fenced hunt before myself but for the time and money I would prefer wild if that's an achievable goal in Africa these days. What countries should I be looking into most, Namibia? SA?

If those experienced could chime in I would love to hear your opinions on the matter.

best,

Mike.

I've only hunted SA once. I did hunt what could be referred to as high-fence places, but they varied. At one place you always had a sense for the borders, which I did not prefer. The other place was very large, and while fenced, may as well have been a national forest in the US. If/when I go back, I will only hunt the larger areas. Just a personal preference. In the large area the animals were in no way restricted and the borders had no impact on the hunt. We could travel for hours and never see a border. Just inquire with PHs what the areas they hunt are like and choose what works best for you.

Plenty of "wild" places left in Zimbabwe, Zambia, Tanzania and Mozambique, not to mention CAR & Burkina Faso.

Did a high-fence plains game hunt in Namibia where game was on the ala-carte system value-wise with the PH having quite an accurate inventory of the different species (and thus their attributed $ value) via helo- game counts.

The area hunted was a ~100,000 acre “parcel” which is about 150 sq miles IIRC. Only encountered a fence once which was aesthetically a disappointment but otherwise, was as free-range hunting as it would be anywhere. I believe this would generally be the rule in Namibia rather than the exception.

Yep. Don't judge all of africa by South Africa.

But the wild areas are more expensive to hunt than the "domesticated" areas.

One of the unique draws of African hunting is the fact that you never know what will be around the next corner. Some areas in SA can feel a bit "controlled" but by and large the rest of Africa is as wild as it was 100 years ago. My advice would be to contact a hunting consultant at least for your first trip. They don't cost you anything and can tailor a hunt to your needs.

I did Zimbabwe last year and it was great. I will head to Burkina Faso next year and expect even more.

Tanzania and Mozambique

It was a toss up for me, Moz vs. BF. I chose the latter to get west, "reasonably". Moz will likely follow...

I would only go to a Wild area that has the Big 5 in it. There are a lot's of Wild places even in Zim. S.A. is mostly all High Fence. Namibia is mostly private land hunting but is mostly free range.

Mozambique was my choice. I wanted deepest darkest Africa. They have huge hunting blocks. Did not see a live Leopard but the outfitter I hunted with was 100 % on cats. Got a nice dagga Boy. the border of Tanzania and Moz. 14 days in the bush.

All of these are good options, the Caprivi strip in Namibia is another good option. Zimbabwe also offers Victoria Falls and a river trip safari on the Chobe River in nearby Botswana.

Having hunted a couple of huge fenced area, I can tell you that a buff or pissed off elephant can kill you in a fenced area as quickly as unfenced.

Enjoy your research!

The wilder the area, generally the more expensive to hunt, so bear that in mind. For a first trip you will probably be "blown away" by even a high-fenced game ranch in SA as long as it isn't too small because of the variety and numbers of game.