Looking for outfitters with big hunting areas (>=50,000acres) in South Africa or Namibia

[Doug3006]

Save me a seat by the fire. I’ll bring the Bourbon!

 

[375Fox]

Seems the non-fenced options often were laced with villages and postoral cattlemen so the sound of jingling neck bells is a common sound as was bumping into them while out attempting to track wild game. The sight of snares seems to be a daily occurrence. Evidence of poachers is not uncommon beyond the snares.

I am not sure what Teddy Roosevelt experienced exists as a hunt today even if you had the USD $100,000s required to have a cast of 20 or more tending to you and your camp for several weeks.

I am 100% at ease with hunting where predators are mostly kept out by fencing, snares are unlikely to be encountered and game animals are mostly kept inside fencing away from domestic animals and active roadways.

Of course, my background may be unlike the typical person here. I have hunted pronghorn on an arid prairie by sitting on water and have hunted ducks on some of the only open water not frozen over that week in the midwest and have sat near a hickory nut tree to snipe red squirrels and hunted on snowy days for cottontails in recently idled cattle feedlots and roosted tom turkeys in the spring at sunset so am back there at first light. I have treed raccoons with dogs, chased cottontails with beagles and flushed quail and pheasants with dogs.

The prey animal was giving up a lot of its advantages by all of my tactics here in the States and the wild game inside fencing will be giving up a lot of its advantages. As will the use of a scoped rifle shooting sub-moa, the use of a range finder, using walkie-talkies or cell phones, etc.

I used to hunt with a recurve. I shifted to a compound bow. Used a rifle and shotgun. Muzzleloader. I find it amusing with ego battles arise over who is the true hunter and it seems the end discussion reaches one of two points. One is the hunter making his arrows from cedar as chips out an obsidian arrowhead to use with his homemade bow using gut string is the only true hunters. The other is if you are hunting in a legal manner then you are a true hunter.

A hunter can overlay their ethical guardrails with their legal approach to hunting though ethics are a personal thing and often the social norms around those ethics will vary based on your background and where you grew up and where you now live. I grew up legally using floating jugs with treble hooks to catch catfish. My current state deems that illegal. Was I ethical as a young guy using jugs? I would be committing an illegal act if I jugged tonight.

Go hunt. As often as you can. Use your obsidian arrowhead or custom made Rigby. I will have a cold drink around the fire with you. You may not want to have a drink with me and I am okay with that as you are a good person.

Have you hunted these areas in Africa? You get what you pay for. If you take a $8000 buffalo hunt in Zimbabwe with a mostly unknown PH in a mostly unknown area that’s exactly what I would expect. A quality buffalo hunt with reputable PH in good area will cost around $15,000. Villages and Cattle will have none or limited impact on your hunt in these areas. The true government safari areas in Zimbabwe, Zambia, Tanzania will have zero villages or cattle. Snares and poachers will not be a common sight. Seems most form these opinions after chasing the lowest cost hunt or reading about that hunt from others.

 

[375Fox]

50k acres is a bit of a ridiculous number to me as well (for South Africa at least). It makes people feel comfortable it’s self sustaining. I’d personally rather hunt 20k acres with a small outfitter who manages it well on conservative quotas and be the only hunter than hunt 50k acres where every outfitter in area brings their clients to or a hunt volume business is being run. Even if 50k acres the same questions about management still need to get asked if it high fence.