Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Opinions of stocked game farms

JJ,
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<br>Speaking of ranch hunting.......South Africa is loaded with it as far as I have heard. What are the possibilities of a hunter getting a canned hunt instead of a fair chase hunt? Are there game breeders in that country that sell to ranchers as is done here? Would they try to pass off a zebra/ donkey cross as some sort of rare natural wonder? A zebraloosa?
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<br>I know you put a lot of time in over there. How does a hunter from the states know what they are getting when they book a ranch hunt in SA?

ranch hunting in Zim and RSA is a little different situation. sometimes farmers combine their resourses, and these animals roam several adjoining ranches..
<br>I have seen an Eland jump an 8' fence, so you tell me how effective they are on a 50,000 Acre property??
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<br>and, those fences all had holes in them anyway.. so I do not know what they kept in or out.. if I could walk through them..

Very good question! Why travel all the way to Africa to hunt for game as difficult and as sporting as those on a NA game ranch!
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<br>There are plenty of Stocked game farms in Southern Africa. Whenever you see a hunt for more animals then days in the package that should alert you. When you see game on the trophy list that you know is not indiginous to the region that should also be a clue.
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<br>How do you determine this, or decide what's a real hunt or a put and take hunt? For starters I would hunt with an operation where you know somebody else has been there for a first hand reference. Second you really should allow at a minimum 1 day per animal and for some plains species 2 days or more. Buffalo, leopard, sable, elephant really nice kudu, etc etc. should be several days per animal to as much as a week or two for one animal. Those hunts you see where they guarantee you 7 Record book animals in 7 days for 3995.00 should be easy to see what they are doing! Especially when several of them are not even native to the 2000 acres your hunting on!
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<br>It's tough call for the first time hunter with no first hand references. This is one of the primary reasons I am working with the operation I now work for. I have in the past seen and worked for properties with stocked game. I did not care for it and grew out of that style of hunt. Now we hunt only native species born wild in natural habitat with the freedom to wander and roam far and wide across the South African Bush. Sable were once a wild species on our properties. They were poached and shot out of the area 50 years ago or longer. We have in the last few years decided to reintroduce them to the wild, same with Buffalo. About 5 years ago we bought Sable and 7 years ago Buffalo and introduced them back onto our property. They cannot be hunted now. Only the offspring of these adults, when they breed will be huntable. That means a second generation of 100% free roaming wild buffalo and sable will be huntable. When they are hunted we will only have limited hunts available. We are already taking bookings for the Buffalo for next year. We are considering 5 hunts right now and have 3 booked. That may be all we take we just have to see how the breeding goes. The same for white Rhino. We only hunt about 2-3 of them every ten years. So you see nothing is "stocked" or "put and take" we are hunting 100% wild game and in limited numbers.
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<br>I'm in business with another man in Zululand who has a huge property. he goes one further then my current property. No hunting within 500 yards of the vehicle. You can drive around but if you see game you mst take the vehicle 500 yards beyond and walk back to hunt. this is very strict. I hunted there with Pete Millan. Last year was Marks very first year in business. My wife, Pete, and I were staying in the beautiful remote tent camp he has. You could hear lions roar during the night and Hyena, jackal, and baboon's right around the camp. Certainly not a "stocked game farm!
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<br>On the other hand I have seen places which raise Gemsbok for sale to hunting ranches and that is no different then what is going on in the USA. I have worked for about 20 ranches in the last ten years. During that time I have crossed off a bunch I will never go back to and a few which are truely magnificent. The one I work for now is top of the heap. I could happily work here the rest of my life without looking at another property. However, I'm human and I always look when the possibility comes up! Pete Millan is working with me again this season as is another man named Piete who will be doing the Eco Tours. We have plenty of references and can certainly make the hunt as easy or as hard as the client wishs it to be!
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<br>This is a bit off track now but the point is Zambia, Namiba, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and others have fenced operations for game management and stocked hunting programs. Be careful and get references. The bottom line is if you shoot an Eland in Afrcia or texas it's still an eland. But where would you rather be when you pull the trigger?

This is not meant to degrade your post JJ as I'm becoming more interested in Africa all the time. However your last comment could be said of most imported animals. Quite frankly I'd rather shoot a blackbuck on a large ranch in Texas than hang out in India. I don't want to visit India, I'm not interested in the country, and it has pretty zero appeal to me. I'm sure I would find Texas and it's people more interesting to me personally than India or any middle eastern country for that matter. I've been to Asia and I'd rather hunt pheasants here in Montana thankyouverymuch.

Hey Big Sky was that goats name Nicholas? Sounds like the [email]same@!@#$##$$#[/email] I had to deal with
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<br>Mike

I'm glad it rained last night and the ground is too wet to do much so I can sort of keep up with this. Reading what JJ says Texas High fence and Africa high fence are more or less the same thing. Africa is on a whole lot bigger scale of course and there is way more variety but it is still a for profit business any way you slice it. Like Sky doesn't have a desire to go to India and I don't have a desire to go to Africa some don't have a desire to go much of any where but would sure like to have a set of let's say Kudu horns to hang on the wall. They don't want to buy them in a store though.
<br>Not a problem. There are places either here or there that will put you on one if you can pay the tab. To the high fence boys here or there game is a comodity and has a price. The finer quality or rarer the comodity, here or there the more costly.
<br>I only know about Texas high fence and there isn't any call for me to try and say I know about anywhere else. Down here pick a place that don't advertise no kill no pay deals. They will make sure you will kill it if you have to stomp it to death. Pick one that says they will put you in range of a shootable animal and that is all. You will enjoy the experience a lot more. Some of the places are so big (not comparing to Africa but to say Ohio) that the game in certain pastures is, within say 10k acres more or less, free ranging native. Some of the older, bigger ranches like YO or Schriner or Mountain Home have been stocked thirty years.
<br>If you know what you want and they know you know you can have a nice time on a big high fence place. If they know you don't know doodly and just want to kill something they will sell you a Spanish goat and swear it is a rare and elusive Texas Marco Polo sheep. The money is just as green to them either way.
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<br>Sky the only trouble I ever had with goats, Spanish and Angora variety, is that some times they seemed to just want to die for the fun of it.
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<br>I got to go burn down my neighbors house. Catch you all later.
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<br>BCR

BCR, you know the most exciting part of life is death...........it's why they save it til the end!
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<br>Maybe the goats have figured that out!

Hummmm........Sable huh? For some reason those critters appeal to me more then the other antelope / plains game I read about. I can't even remember the names of most of the others. I like the look of their horns as will as the fighting spirit they are said to possess. I heard they could do a good job of fighting off a lion if it is one on one.
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<br>Thanks for answering my question.
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<br>The farmers in SA are an endangered species with black rule a done deal. I saw on the T.V. Opera Winfree won't even go there to promote her new magazine. She doesn't think it is safe. And I always thought "appartide" was the most evil way of life on the planet. Will we ever see Hollywood, Academia, and the media admit they were wrong and SA black and white were better off with the old system?
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Boggy didn't know you fancied yourself an arsonist
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<br>Hope i don't ever make you mad he..he..
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<br>mike

mercedvh I think your confusing Zimbabwe with South Africa or visa versa. There is no black take over of farms in South Africa, that's Robert Mugabe's nightmare in Zimbabwe. South Africa is fine, and a wonderful safe country to hunt in.

I remember a such place where when a 'client' was coming in for a hunt they would send the chopper out and dart the desired species drop it in the pen at a specified place usually close to the track,The hunter would be driven up to"where they saw a big one last week" wind the window of the 4x4 down and nail the still groggy animal with some magnum... often they missed the first shot.I often wondered if these were some of the same guys who wrote those wonderful hunting stories in magazines.

Mike, I didn't think how that was going to sound when I left.
<br>I got a new neighbor, bought a place next to one of mine. Seems like a nice guy thankfully. He had an old tenant house on the place he didn't want. I am a volunteer fireman. We have some new guys who have never had on SCBA or been in a structure fire. I am getting too old to do that stuff anymore. The situation sort of came together.
<br>That's why I burnt out my neighbor last night.
<br>BCR

I figured it was something like that Boggy, but I couldn't resist heckling you a little!!
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<br>I have never had ANY desire to do the fireman thing...Thank God for those who do...
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<br>Mike

Skunk Skinner, I know a thing or two about darting game in Africa. Trust me the story you just related is not realistic. Darted game when poked with M99 will be unable to function in any way without the antidote and with the antidote it is fully functional in under 1 minute! Just not gonna hang out to get shot!

JJH,
<br>I heard that as many or more white farmers are killed in RSA every year, as ZIM?? T/F??
<br>That is just one reason that Mbeki is so interested in curbing the issue in ZIM, so it doesn't get any worse in RSA?
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<br>As for imported game, at what point does it become indiginous?? 2 Generations, 3 Generations.. There is a GREAT Video "Capstick Hunting the White Rhino", that talks about the very successful repopulation of the Rhino via such methods.. saved the species!!

Not true in South Africa. It may happen here and there just as any other simple crime would anyplace. It woule be big news there if it happend.
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<br>Mugabe told the White Zim farmers their property was not theirs anylonger and they should leave immediately back to the UK. He would not be responsible for their safety. The Zim military leaders were given the power to take over the farms with what ever force needed. It is a completely different situation when the Zim governement condons the practice, then the few random crimes in South Africa that have occured over the years.
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<br>I don't equate indidgenous to generations of of game. I equate it to Naturally occuring species in the natural habitat. Moving Bighorn sheep to Florida and having them breed for 50 years does not make them indidgenous. Replacing them from one mountain range where they once lived with captured sheep from another mountain range is repopulating them the habitat with indiginous game. Does this make sense? My powers of articulation have escaped me this morning?

So with your train of thought in your last paragraph I take it you aren't too keen on pheasants, chukars or hungarian partridge? How about german brown trout?

Big Sky, What I wrote had nothing to do with my feelings of fair chase or real hunting, only the definition of indidgenous. Clearly you bring up a great point about introduced game just as the beautful and free roaming Gemsbok in New Mexico, or even the Aoudad in New Mexico and Texas which run free. I only made this post to get the feelings of others to see how guys think about the hunting farms where game is released to be hunted.
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<br> Much of which is farm raised and then released. I think we have seen a large cross section of opinions. The most important of which, is that it's still money spent to support our hunting and gun owning brothers. Somebody posted it was better for them to do this style of hunt then to be members of PETA, good call in my opinion! kinda puts everything into perspective!
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<br>My friend in Texas who buys and sells game from any source he can find will laugh his butt off at the things people will hunt. He often buys stuff from a little mom and pop road side farm. Yet he defends their right to do it. I brought up the seemingly bizzare contridiction on his part to laugh at the guys doing it but to defend them as well!
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<br>I don't know how I feel about every aspect of this, probably why I posted in the first place. I think it's silly to shoot cross bred livestock with a fancy name and think it's a real hunting experience for a trophy animal you will not eat. However I don't see a problem shooting a wild hog which is on a huge property and has been stocked for hunting. I can't expalain why my brain thinks one is Ok and not the other? It's a strange paradox for sure. I grew up learning to hunt and shoot upland game none of which was indidgenous. I probably shot a 500 pheasants in my life many with an air rifle! So I think they are plenty wild and sporting. Indigenous certainly not. But I really never give much thought to fish and birds as I hunt big game only now.
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<br>I guess every person should feel they can fish, bird hunt, or big game hunt for what ever they like. If they feel good about it then what else really matters. If shooting a domestic crossbred sheep or goat with an exotic name trips your trigger then good for you. Some people like video games and others like to gamble. I don't do any of them but it's not wrong because others do, just different. We should be glad in America we still have these choices!
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<br>I will say this, if some guy tells me he shot a trophy Dall sheep and it was in Texas I will still laugh my A$$ off!
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JJ hope you didn't take that too personal. I'm about half bored today and decided to key in on your "indidgenous" comment. I figured I'd get a little rise out of you and I wasn't disappointed. Truth is we probably see eye to eye on most of this. I'm not crazy about whacking some inbred goat inside a 20 acre pen either. I don't know how many places there are like that as it holds zero interest for me. Most of the exotic ranches I've ever looked into are large. I think the smallest I ever inquired about was just over 300 acres. That was too small and I never gave the place a second thought. I do have some mixed feelings myself though that I can't explain. I would walk out and shoot a buffalo in a 10 acres pasture, gut it, and haul to the butcher without thinking about it. I'd have the skull cleaned and either the head mounted or the hide rugged. I would never consider it a hunt, but just my independant nature to want to do things myself rather than buy an already mounted head and meat from the butcher. Just the way I am. I want it strictly for the meat and a decoration. In my mind there is a vast difference between a decoration (western look kind of thing) and a trophy game animal on my wall. Then there's those darned blackbucks I want one so bad it's not funny. I think they are absolutely stunning, but in their case I'd rather it be more of a hunt on a large ranch. I just wouldn't feel right about shooting one in a small enclosed area. Almost seems like a double standard, but to me they are two totaly different things and since I have to live with myself, I'm okay with that.

Well this is not s/Africa and dont know what u used but no antidotes were used the drugs ive seen used will keep a animal in stooper for some time ,seems i hit a raw nerve.