Planning 1st Plains game hunt

My wife and I are planning our first hunt to Africa. It will probably be 2012 and will be with a rifle. The four main animals we are after are Kudu, Gemsbok, Zebra, and Impala.We were thinking 5-7 days hunting. We would like to hunt S. Africa or Namibia. The only animal she really wants to shoot is the Gemsbok. I would like any advice on the best area to go and outfitters to use. I have talked to a few outfitters already but am open to any ideas. Since I am new to planning for a hunt like this any advice on any part of the planning would be helpful and very much appreciated. Thank you and i look forward to hearing from you.

Brodie

You have lots of great options. I will send you a PM.

Welcome to the forum btpierce!

Sent you a pm.

Best Regards
Louis van Bergen

Hi Brodie,
The animals that you list are the exact same animals that I had on my list for my first African hunt. Unfortunatly, I didn't know about this site at the time that I booked. I say unfortunatly but my hunt really worked out well.
The wife of my outfitter is a tour guide and helped us set up all of our non-hunting activities. My wife also went touring with her on days that she didn't want to hunt.
We hunted in the Eastern Cape and I will connect you with my outfitter if you wish.
I hope that you have allowed some time for touring if you choose S. Africa. It is an incredible country.
Cheers, Mike

Welcome to AH forum.

PM send.

First off welcome to the Forum.
The number one thing is to do a lot of research. There are tons of resources on this site and on the web to sift through the dozens of possible locations and hundreds of outfitters.

Heres how i planned my first,
Buy a small notebook and outline in it what you are looking for in a safari. Then start breaking it down even further. Eventuly this will help you narrow down your location. Here are a few questions i would start with:
The animals i want to hunt
Does it matter if there indigenous to the area?
Does high fencing matter?
Size of property
Terrain: ex. eastern cape is very steep and mountainous or Namibia which is mostle arid with rolling hills.
How wild do you want the area to be? Most parts of RSA are as tame as the back 40 here at home.
Side trip ?

Thunderhead has provided you a great example of how to get your research started. I would check references and start having fun researching. I will be happy to answer any specific questions as will everyone here on the forum.

Dear Brodie

I have mailed you a private message.

Regards

Brodie

I am a PH in Namibia, let me know, should you still need some help?

Dear Brodie

I mailed you our information.

Kind Regards

Sylvia, I enjoyed looking at your website. Nice design and you certainly have a beautifull lodge.

Thank you Bushbuck! Let me know should you have any more questions.

Brodie Welcome to AH! You've come to the right place to do your research you'll find lots of help here. Be sure to take a good camera along as you will see a lot more then you plan to hunt and your friends won't believe what they missed by not going along. The animals that you have chose are quite common and should be easy to find as for the Kudu depending on where you go they are in the rut during the May/June time frame and it helps to find them when there chasing cows you may want to check this guy out http://www.africansafarisint.com/catalog/main.php contact steve if you see something you and your wife like he booked my first hunt to South Africa and the wife and I had a blast we're going back next year as well. Bob

Welcome Brodie! As already stated, do your research but enjoy it too. This is a great community here at AH, full of members who are happy to answer your questions.

Brodie,

Just make sure you bring over some more money on top of the budget you never know what you will bump into. Also will this be planned as the first of many trips to Africa or just a once off? Would you be interested in collecting trophies in the end? The reason I ask is where ever you end up with your hunt get a list of species from the outfitter of the indigenous species you will kick yourself if you went all the way to the kalahari for instance and skipped the kalahari springbuck while hunting that area and have to go back only for that one day.

Even though there are a magnitude of species to hunt in Southern Africa a lot of them have been introduced to areas. Hunting animals in their own environment is always a bonus and dont forget the small guys duikers, and steenbuck and some more they are always neat to hunt as well.