safaris of yesterday? community tags!
I was sitting in camp listening to one of the ph's I was blessed to share camp with in africa. One night I asked him if he had hunted as a child and I was expecting to hear something along the lines of hunting being reserved for the rich foreign clients since he was from zimbabwe and zambia aka the rhodesia area. To my surprise he hunted quite heavily back in the day.
I was curious how hunting then compared to the us. I explained how we can buy one deer tag per year and if we are luck we might draw an elk or antelope tag. I explained how our hunting usually only came down to one hopeful big game animal per year. He quickly corrected me. He said they would go to zambia and buy community tags. You could purchase different options for you tag and they were all very affordable. The basic tag included unlimited baboons, impala, kudu, waterbuck, zebra etc. to hunt the royal game and buff you had to purchase something additional that was also cheap. He stated that however these tags weren't unlimited you could only shoot 5 buffalo, a couple sable, a couple of roan etc. In addition he said lion were considered vermon so you simply shot them for free whenever you wanted. I asked how the hanging tree would look. I explained how we used to hang all our deer in a tree till the hunt was over. He told me there was no such thing. They would take multiple skinners with them and they would simply pile the carcasses in one area and pay the skinners in meat. He explained how they shot on one safari more sable than he could remember and how he remembered seeing carcass's lying everywhere when they were done. He told me back in those days there was game everywhere and that africa of today is nothing compared to africa of yesterday.
I asked what happened to those tags and I think he said they still sell them today but rich foreigners buy them all up at auction and now the common citizen can no longer afford to hunt. What a shame that is and what a loss for the common hunter.
I was just wondering if anyone else on this site has stories and possibly photos to share of hunts from back then or more they can share on the community hunting that once took place as I am very fascinated in it. It seems to me like that would have been the ultimate hunting.
