Welcome to AH, I hunted with Numzaan in 2024 on an auction hunt I purchased at our SCI chapter banquet in 2023. This was not my first hunt in Africa, I had hunted in RSA 4 times previously with three other outfits, so knew what I was gettin and had other good outfitters for comparison. I bought this auction donation for a very specific reason, it included he trophy fees for 2 “trophy” Nyala for two hunters over 5 days. I have a good friend who was wanting to go on a hunt with me specifically to get a nice Nyala since he admired mine that I got on my first RSA trip. He and I were already planning a plains game hunt in Botswana for 2024 so I thought this would be a good add on trip specifically to get him a Nyala and since no one was really bidding on the hunt I got it cheap for $800. I figured even if I didn’t decide to use the hunt it wasn’t much and was a donation to my SCI chapter.
My hunting buddy and I went to Botswana in May 2024 but he ended up deciding that he couldn’t stay long enough for the Numzaan hunt I bought because of his interest in a Nyala. One thing to note with Numzaan is you have to pay a $1000 deposit per hunter to book your dates, since I wanted to tie the Numzaan hunt onto the back end of our Botswana hunt we had already booked previously I went ahead and paid the deposit for both of us to secure the dates we needed. When my friend backed out I was already committed to the dates with my deposit, so I ended up inviting and taking along a younger coworker for his first hunt in Africa, he flew into RSA and met me after my Botswana hunt. The deposits you pay are then a credit you can use to apply to other trophy fees from your hunt. I knew Numzaan’s trophy fees were way higher than most when I bought the hunt, however I researched them and saw that their trophy fee for a Tsessebe (at least at that time) was in line with several other outfitters I had been looking at using to do a hunt for this antelope species. So I thought, OK I will still do the hunt with my coworker and hunt a Tsessebe along with my “free” Nyala and apply my $2000 deposit I had paid to that trophy fee and that would be all I would hunt. I told my coworker that the hunt cost with Numzaan was already paid by me and he had no cost other than his airfare over and any taxidermy costs if he wanted to mount his Nyala trophy, also any other animals he wanted to take were his cost. He was interested in hunting some other game so I suggested based upon Numzaan’s trophy fees and this being his first trip he look at taking an Impala and/or a Blesbok (which he ended up taking both).
We had 4 other hunters in camp with us for a couple of days who were there when we arrived. They had bought their auction donation hunt for 4 people which had a few different animals they split but they had added on numerous animals. When talking around the fire pit in the evenings that I had been in Botswana the week before and took a large kudu, a trophy blue wildebeest, warthog, steenbuck and a trophy eland for total trophy fees for all animals of $4,900 they about croaked. Numzaan was charging them trophy fees of almost that much for only a kudu.
Bottom line, on the positive side Numzaan’s camp accommodations were very nice, the food was great and plentiful and our PH for a 2x1 hunt was a good guy, knowledgeable and fun to be with. My coworker really enjoyed his hunt experience for the three animals he took and loved Africa. On the things to be aware of side, besides the very high trophy fees they charge, be aware of the following:
- they have numerous lodges and properties which they hunt, many they own, some they lease or have rights to hunt (and I’m guessing they pay a portion of the trophy fee they collect to the property owners in exchange for hunting there). These properties vary in size and as all properties are in Limpopo they will be high fenced. Be aware though that within these larger fenced properties that have smaller fenced sections that you will hunt within for some species. For instance in our circumstance (because our “package” had the trophy fees for two “trophy” Nyala included) they had a fenced area of about 600 acres which they would introduce Nyala into to be hunted. While it was a thickly wooded and brushy area it wasn’t a sporting hunt in my opinion, more like shooting fish in a barrel as we knew they had about 6-8 Nyala in there they wanted us to hunt/shoot. My coworker ended up taking his Nyala there on day 2, about a 25” Nyala. While a pretty bull it was not what I would classify as a trophy and all of the bulls we saw in there were about the same size. I told our PH that I wanted to look at some other Nyala and I wasn’t interested in these animals and would prefer to hunt a larger area. He didn’t seem to have a problem with this and got permission for us to hunt another persons farm that was much larger. This other property was off limits to us for kudu but we could hunt Nyala there which was fine as I had no interest in a kudu since I had gotten a 58”+ kudu the week before in Botswana. I had gotten a 30” Nyala in 2021 on my first hunt to Limpopo so I knew I wasn’t going to find anything that big at Numzaan but I wanted one with a specific horn shape different from my first one if possible. We ended up finding a nice 28” Nyala on this other property after driving around all morning and looking over several bulls and then doing a long stalk on the one I took so it felt more like a hunt.
The Tsessebe hunt was not much to get excited about as we found a group pretty quickly on another ranch that had a decent bull that I took after a very short stalk. My coworker had a good stalk on his impala and blesbok so he was happy.
They tried to encourage us to take more animals but didn’t really pressure us after we said we had all we wanted so we did a side trip with them to Pilanesburg Nat Park for a day rather than hunt more game. We tipped our PH well so he felt like he was rewarded for being with us.
Overall, since your package only has a $500 trophy fee credit per hunter and no trophy fees included (our 2 Nyala fees were worth over $6K that I got for $800), I would strongly consider just writing off the Numzaan hunt you bought as a donation to the organization banquet you attended, and then put together a package with one of the AH sponsors here for your hunt. Financially you will be much better off in the long run and probably have a better time overall as you won’t be worried about not being able to afford the animals you may want with Numzaan. Numzaan can be a good time if you know what to expect and ask for, but they are not a good dollar value compared to others who will give you as good or a better experience for much less cost.
Feel free to PM me to have a personal conversation as there is just too much to write into this post.
