Grey Duiker (extatic young huntress)

What a great picture of a young huntress. I'm wrestling with what is the right age to take my kids to RSA for a first safari. Any thoughts on when is the right time from you experience? Would 8 be the youngest you'd suggest?

Hi Rookhawk, my experience is that every kid is different and it really depends on their development as a hunter. I run a hunting school for my local hunting club here in South Africa and we only take kids from 10 years and older to enroll in the program. That has been very successful and last year we took 28 kids springbok hunting and 18 of them hunted their first animal in their life, so in this case I would say that 10 years is probably old enough even if the kids grew up in a house where no hunting was done or in the absence of a dad or mom that hunts. But I have seen 18 year-olds who just cannot pull the trigger..... My kids grew up with an air rifle and a .22 and we frequently hunted doves, pigeons and ground squirrels (after spending a lot of time on paper targets, reactive targets, safety etc) and that is how I taught them about hunting and taking a life and what your responsibility as hunter is etc etc. It takes a while to get them over the "killing" spree though, and some hunters never get over it .... Anyway the way I look at it, every kid is different and you as dad will know when they are ready. My boys took their first blesbuck when they were 5 and 6 respectively ..... So 8 years is fine if they can handle a centre fire and are ready to pull the trigger, not afriad of the recoil and given that you have a lot of patience ..... Good luck it is fun ! I love to hunt with my kids !