Hi
@Ridge Runner
Thanks for your reply and having the cahones to come forward and share a trip report. As you know, everybody makes mistakes and to share your frustrations with “theirs” while admitting to ”yours” Is admirable.
What I’d take away from this is you need to drink more beer. A lot of this could have been avoided with a few beers. A beer with members of this forum could have helped you vet a PH and Operator. A beer with me could have helped you understand some of the things you wrote were 100% protocol or 100% within the realm of what must happen in Zim. It’s a strange foreign place for everyone and its one of the most difficult places in the world to describe to others. (Cuba being another place hard to define until you actually see it in person)
If you want to keep a tally on the things that were misunderstood, here’s a go at a response.
-Roughing it type camp versus roughing it type lodge camp. There are a handful of super-elite lodges in Zim that look like the average lodge in the RSA. Someone needed to explain that to you. Will it be spotlessly swept and the linens shimmering white? Yes. That’s in your PH and Operator’s control. Will the camp be shiny? No, not in Zim. If they paint the whole camp and get everything “just perfect” they will get that lodge seized. There is a politician behind every bush waiting to seize land, deny a lease renewal, and give it to their buddy. Keep in mind they do nothing with it, but they still do covet free shiny camps. If you were anticipating a “Fly Camp” those are very cool too. Those exist in Zim, particularly in the national park jurisdiction safari areas like Sapi, Tuli, Chewore, Nyakasanga, etc. Someone needed to pour you a beer and explain what you were going to be in for before you went. A fly camp costs a lot more and is even more rustic but the logistics of bringing in a fly camp and taking it down when you leave means a week+ of work on both ends of a hunt that must be priced in.
-While I’ve not been everywhere in Zim, I’ve been to a lot of provinces. (I think I’ve only missed the Eastern Highlands?) Tribal trinket shopping isn’t something I’ve seen. You have to be well off to possess trinkets and you have to have enough clients to justify setting up shop to sell trinkets. There was no plan for buying trinkets in the bush or the campfire villages. Closest I’ve seen is I stopped a guy on the dirt road and bartered for an axe once. There are bazaars in Vic Falls and there is a big tourist curio shop in Bulawayo that is somewhat legendary, and then there are Collettes and TCI taxidermy that sell samples, TAG safari shirts, and the Courtney Boot Factory. You weren’t near any of these things by a factor of 100s of kilometers. Again, a beer would have set expectations differently for you there.
-Hunting leopard we covered earlier. 0.00000000% Zero chance of killing a leopard on your hunt. The plot wasn’t there. Snapping a picture of a leopard? It sure could happen. My son saw one I believe and I saw one years ago during daylight strolling about. Fast enough for a camera shot? 1%-5%? Had you wanted to “dabble” in leopard you would have been paying another grand of $1500 just for baits. And trust me, from the scenarios you did not like on your trip, a leopard hunt would have made you totally miserable. A leopard hunt is the world’s biggest cluster-f. One minute you’re on the trail of that Eland you want and a radio crackle comes through that a leopard has fed (with the better trackers checking it out for you so you can hunt other stuff) and you drop everything to go check it out. The PH analyzes the video/photo and tells you its a cub, young male, or a female and you just blew the afternoon. Or he’s unsure and you better sit that whole night and next night to see if it comes back. Leopard hunting is worse than duck hunting, dozens of hours of catastrophe and utter boredom punctuated by a few seconds of pandemonium and exhilaration. Chasing leopards is a great way to blow the entire productivity of all other hunting efforts as you yo-yo back and forth trying to take a try at Mr. Spots.
-4-5 days to hunt a buffalo. Again, a beer would have helped. I know of no place in Zim where you can guarantee a buffalo in 4-5 days. Maybe in Save or some place like that, but it is hard hunting and they are elusive creatures. You can aspire to 4-5 days. A PH can tell you truthfully 80% of his clients get a buffalo in 5 days. But no guarantees. Had you got a buffalo, it could very well have been likely that you’d pickup and go after eland down the road 3 hours and pitch another camp. That’s pretty realistic if a PH is trying to get you the things on your list, but that should have been explained to you. Just an opinion here, but I find checklists in Zim to be heartbreaking things. The road to happiness in Zim is a good PH with lots of varied quota and a pocketful of cash. “Let’s hunt until I run out of time or money“ is the winnable game. That’s why I always tell people to book an elephant and a leopard hunt together, or a buffalo and a leopard, or multi-species plains game. So when you only get half your list you still got half a list! In your case you went for two animals and didn’t get those two animals. I did that once. I was as miserable as you can imagine as the hunting sucked and I was none too forgiving with the nonsense of the PH on that trip. I had too much idle time to notice every dumb thing he did because I wasn’t having fun or chasing game.
-You didn’t have enough time. Getting to Zim is so darned expensive and “being in Zim” is so darned cheap, I would have told you to stay 14 days in camp, 20 days away from home, unless it would cause you to lose your job or get divorced. The cost differential for another 6 days at camp is peanuts.
-trackers splitting off to check out hippos and crocs for you. 50/50 call. Not wrong. Not right. Totally situational. I wager they were trying to string together other hunting options and ideally make you happy with 4 animals instead of 2. It’s pretty common practice to try and make a happy customer. It backfired.
-competent trackers. 100% correct if they were not skilled. With 90% unemployment in Zim there are plenty of wonderful trackers out there. I’ve even seen PHs offer other PHs additional trackers so the guys can get ration, maybe make a tip, and help out another team. These PHs want guys to be able to work and the fact you weren’t afforded good trackers is unfortunate.
-Not following up a buffalo. 100% you are correct. Unacceptable. Could be very bad for everybody involved.
-Buffalo with two holes in its ear meaning it was a pen raised animal. In Zim? I think the odds have to be close to zero. I don’t believe it. In RSA? Sure. To have a tag in its ear it means it has to have been bred and managed. That costs tons of money that Zim doesn’t have and let me tell you for sure, transferring stock between concessions in Zim is nearly impossible. The bureaucracy involved in doing so is about the same as building a nuclear power plant in the USA. Buffalo have holes and torn bits all over their ears. I can’t believe this theory unless a Zim native tells me this is actually in the realm of possibility.
-Two days remaining to find a 12’ croc. At any beer summit the AH friends would have told you this is no plan. No plan. Finding a croc isn’t enough. The second they see you they scoot right in the water. You need to find 25 crocs 12’ long to make a stalk inside shooting range for a brain shot on a croc in this manner. Great way to mess around for 14 days. Alternatively, you can set up baits and build blinds to ambush a croc that has habituated to the bait. Setting the bait up and reviewing camera footage for multiple blind/baits is a many day effort. No plan.
For all these reasons, even if we take the issues above that were out of the realms of acceptable PH behavior if true, this still doesn’t add up. (Being diplomatic here, not trying to insult) You went on a hunt that I know from your requirements you were going to hate on the best of days with the best of outcomes. Your expectations of Zim are not correct. You would have been much happier in RSA. You needed a case of beer with experienced Zim hunters and a two hour consult with a top booking agent to get your requirements mapped out that didn’t happen. A darned shame, excluding the misfortune of your hunting debacle this just wasn’t the right venue and no one told you.