Clean Miss
New member
I had planned on posting this upon my return to the states, but life doesn’t seem to slow down.
I’ve been to SA a few times in the past, but hadn’t found that spot that felt like home. Even with the great hunts I’d had, there were always a few hiccups that I felt were brushed off after I’d swiped my card.
I remember when my family first built our small, family run hunting outfit in South Dakota. My father, brother and myself built a steel building and attached it to my great grandparents farmhouse that we renovated into the bedrooms/bathrooms part of the lodge. I knew we could put hunters on good bucks and prayed every day that someone would take a chance on us. That’s exactly the feeling I got from Keagan Beukes too. He’d been a freelance PH for years working in Namibia, SA, and Argentina and was taking a swing at his dream of having his own company. My hunting buddy who was coming along and bringing his family also runs an outfit in Colorado and felt the same way about Keagan. Because of our experience as guides and outfitters in the US, I feel that we’re both fairly harsh critics of other outfits. Keagan blew us away with his expertise and attention to detail with every aspect of our hunt.
He had put together an impressive list of different properties across multiple provinces and was dead set on tailoring the hunt to our wants. I was most impressed with his transparency. He even sent me pictures of hunting registers (personal info redacted of course) because he didn’t want to use pictures from other outfits he had freelanced for. That’s the definition of honest.
His prices were set in a way that there were no surprises and we’d hunt the best bulls we could find without paying an up charge. I really appreciated knowing every charge upfront and when it was time to square up, our numbers matched to the dollar. There was never any pressure to hunt more animals and since I wanted to hunt on foot, that’s what we did.
Keagan’s fiancé, Charni, came along and filmed the entire hunt as well. What a pleasure it was to have her along. It not only felt like we were part of the family right away, but Charni is a walking encyclopedia of Africa. Biology, botany, history, folklore, she seemed to know everything. I had as much fun listening to her as I did hunting and trust me, my life is work and hunting. She made it a point to find me some proper biltong, she setup a spa day for my buddy’s wife and daughter on short notice, she jumped in and helped out the landowners and their staff, etc.
Now to the most impressive part. I had considered the animals from a previous hunt a lost cause. No reply from the taxidermist in some time and no help from the outfitter. That hunt was one of those too good to be true deals, so I chalked it up to a loss and considered myself lucky to have hunted the species that I did at the price that I got. Keagan would not accept that. He not only personally drove me 5 hours to my next hunt after spending 10 days guiding me, but after dropping me off he stayed in a hotel and left the next morning on another 6 hour drive to the taxidermist’s place from my previous hunt. He sent me pictures of every single animal to verify it was mine, stayed until all the paperwork was found and in order, loaded it all up and took it to my taxidermist of choice. He did all of this and wouldn’t take a dime from me (I had to hide it in his tip for him to get it). Oh, and he did the same thing for some others that were in my group on that previous hunt who he had never even met.
As far as the hunting went, it was all I could’ve asked for. I spend a lot of time practicing my judging on African animals and was beyond happy with everything I shot. Mature animals is always the goal but it’s sure nice when they’re real big trophies too. Shoutout to Grootvallei whose property we stayed at and hunted on in the Free State. Neel and Haneke have a beautiful place and Neel is doing some amazing things with his breeding and management.
If you’re looking to make a change or just want to try a new outfit, I’ll put my name on KB Safaris all day.
I’ve been to SA a few times in the past, but hadn’t found that spot that felt like home. Even with the great hunts I’d had, there were always a few hiccups that I felt were brushed off after I’d swiped my card.
I remember when my family first built our small, family run hunting outfit in South Dakota. My father, brother and myself built a steel building and attached it to my great grandparents farmhouse that we renovated into the bedrooms/bathrooms part of the lodge. I knew we could put hunters on good bucks and prayed every day that someone would take a chance on us. That’s exactly the feeling I got from Keagan Beukes too. He’d been a freelance PH for years working in Namibia, SA, and Argentina and was taking a swing at his dream of having his own company. My hunting buddy who was coming along and bringing his family also runs an outfit in Colorado and felt the same way about Keagan. Because of our experience as guides and outfitters in the US, I feel that we’re both fairly harsh critics of other outfits. Keagan blew us away with his expertise and attention to detail with every aspect of our hunt.
He had put together an impressive list of different properties across multiple provinces and was dead set on tailoring the hunt to our wants. I was most impressed with his transparency. He even sent me pictures of hunting registers (personal info redacted of course) because he didn’t want to use pictures from other outfits he had freelanced for. That’s the definition of honest.
His prices were set in a way that there were no surprises and we’d hunt the best bulls we could find without paying an up charge. I really appreciated knowing every charge upfront and when it was time to square up, our numbers matched to the dollar. There was never any pressure to hunt more animals and since I wanted to hunt on foot, that’s what we did.
Keagan’s fiancé, Charni, came along and filmed the entire hunt as well. What a pleasure it was to have her along. It not only felt like we were part of the family right away, but Charni is a walking encyclopedia of Africa. Biology, botany, history, folklore, she seemed to know everything. I had as much fun listening to her as I did hunting and trust me, my life is work and hunting. She made it a point to find me some proper biltong, she setup a spa day for my buddy’s wife and daughter on short notice, she jumped in and helped out the landowners and their staff, etc.
Now to the most impressive part. I had considered the animals from a previous hunt a lost cause. No reply from the taxidermist in some time and no help from the outfitter. That hunt was one of those too good to be true deals, so I chalked it up to a loss and considered myself lucky to have hunted the species that I did at the price that I got. Keagan would not accept that. He not only personally drove me 5 hours to my next hunt after spending 10 days guiding me, but after dropping me off he stayed in a hotel and left the next morning on another 6 hour drive to the taxidermist’s place from my previous hunt. He sent me pictures of every single animal to verify it was mine, stayed until all the paperwork was found and in order, loaded it all up and took it to my taxidermist of choice. He did all of this and wouldn’t take a dime from me (I had to hide it in his tip for him to get it). Oh, and he did the same thing for some others that were in my group on that previous hunt who he had never even met.
As far as the hunting went, it was all I could’ve asked for. I spend a lot of time practicing my judging on African animals and was beyond happy with everything I shot. Mature animals is always the goal but it’s sure nice when they’re real big trophies too. Shoutout to Grootvallei whose property we stayed at and hunted on in the Free State. Neel and Haneke have a beautiful place and Neel is doing some amazing things with his breeding and management.
If you’re looking to make a change or just want to try a new outfit, I’ll put my name on KB Safaris all day.
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rookie mistake on my part.
