So I know prevailing wisdom is get your lion now.

I also know most recommend buffalo, or sometimes leopard as a first DG experience.

I get lions might get uplisted, but I just don't have the resources to do it right, in the wild at this time, so I am at the mercy of my government.

And I am not worried about buffalo hunting, or leopard hunting disappearing.

However, Elephant seems to be possibly moving in the wrong direction.

The apparent poaching in Tanzania, the closing of Botswana, the inability to import from Moz, Zambia, or a few others; This leaves only Zim, SA, and Namibia.

Some preliminary inquiries make Zim seem to be the more affordable choice.

What do some of the veterans think and advise a young hunter to consider? Should Elephant come before Buff or Leopard?

I know more options exist like tuskless, and not importing, but I guess if I am going to do it, I want to do it right, Bull, importable.

Would you have done it differently or the same order if you were starting DG hunting?

I don't recommend either of the cats for a first dangerous game hunting experience. Not that you aren't ready for them as I think anyone who's been hunting awhile can step right into a DG hunt without much trouble. But because the cat hunts can be very boring in terms of driving miles on end and hanging baits. Granted, there is a great game of chess being played, and I really enjoy it, but, adrenalin filled it isn't, right up to the point of the cat making his appearance.

As far as buff / elephant first, that's a hard one. I hear you on the elephant issues and yes, I do think ele bulls will be becoming very expensive soon. There is some validity in going for ele now if you plan on doing it.

IMO, ele bull is the most rewarding hunt available while buffalo is the most fun. The ele bull hunt can be very demanding physically, requiring miles and miles of tracking, only to turn down bull after bull before finding your trophy. Of course, the same can be said for buffalo, but it just seems that buffalo tracking isn't as extensive overall. Others may have a different opinion.

If money is likely to be a problem in the future, I'd probably go for the ele bull now and do buffalo at a later date. It's really up to you and your preference. I don't think you need to do a buffalo hunt to be ready for an ele hunt.

Elephant poaching is rampant . Poaching threatens the elephant not hunting. I am extremely concerned over the future of elephant hunting.

It is dangerous. Very dangerous. In Zim for example, it is entirely possible to get a PH license that excludes elephants . There is a reason for that.

Personally, I think one should get so e other DG experience before hunting jumbo. Others may differ.

I did buff followed by the rest. The one surprise for me is hanging baits for cats. I like that; the excitement of driving up, seeing if there was a hit, etc.

The WSJ had a story today about China cracking down on elephant smugglers; they are grinding up 6 tons of ivory. Picture had some nice looking ivory from what I could tell.

Everyone has to start somewhere when hunting dangerous game and the choice is going to be prescribed by availability of tags for CITES animals and budget. Then of course the animal you really want to hunt will determine your ultimate decision.

Full import / export elephant tags are going to be very hard to come by in future and extremely expensive as is the case in South Africa.

Start hunting the one you want most and can afford. The longer you wait the more expensive it will become.

I think elephant hunting is threatened, as it was in the 80's and early 90's. We got lucky, and the ivory trade ban seems to have worked in our favor. That was before China was part of the equation. If you think you want to hunt elephant, the future is unknowable, my advice would be to do it sooner rather than later.
Do not denigrate tuskless cow hunting. It is adrenalin charged, and cost effective. I started elephant hunting by sharing a multiple tuskless hunt with a friend in 2009. For far less than a trophy bull hunt, I got to shoot two cows, and participate in my friend's
hunt. Better to hunt three elephant than one to get some experience.
That being said, i am doing my second bull hunt this April. After doing it once, I was hooked!

Larryshores has a great take on the current situation. I have independently come to the same conclusion, i.e. that elephant hunting is close to becoming much more difficult due directly to the major increase in poaching. That poaching increase corresponds with the dramatic increase in chinese investment on the continent.

I am concerned enough that I have for the past three years taken an elephant on each of my annual safaris and will do again this year.

And yes, elephant hunting is dangerous. I personally consider it to be the most dangerous hunting one can do, much more so than the cats or buffalo, rhino, hippo or crocs, and I have taken them all.

Although elephant was my first DG species, (last century) it was due entirely to circumstances and not a long term plan. I would not recommend it as a first species of DG, unless one has accompanied others on elephant hunts and so knows firsthand what it is all about.

As someone who was relatively recently in your shoes, here is my take on it-

I started in 2007 which is a relatively recent entry into DG hunting around this site.

I initially went after buffalo (skipping the PG only starting step) and spent way too much cash and had way too much fun. My reasoning was that Buffalo was the most inexpensive of the dangerous game, and I figured if I only went once, I had at least gotten a DG hunt in. I ended up getting a chance at a Leopard as they had one left on unclaimed quota at the time, and while we had a chance I called off on the leopard to hunt some PG in a different area of Zim after a week (which was a scheduled move.)

I then decided I wanted to hunt Leopard. I scheduled a hunt for 2 years down the road but in the interim a chance for a cancellation lion hunt came up and with the uncertainty around Lion even then, I decided it was sooner rather than later. On that hunt, I loved the cat hunting. We got close to a number of lionesses, but never saw an adult male. This was before the big emphasis on mature males only, so in a way I was lucky that I did not end up taking a 3 year old just to have said I did it. I did shoot another two buffalo on this hunt.

The following year I went on the scheduled Leopard hunt. This ended up being somewhat problematic for a number of reasons and I did not see a male leopard on this hunt.

I then skipped a year and had some fortunate financial circumstances in my life. I then went to the Masailand on a 21 day hunt. While in the process of booking, I was told there was a chance (depending on how things went) that I could do Elephant, but this was really scheduled as a cat hunt. Unfortunately, the Elephant hunters before me were all successful, and there was no elephant on quota, but there was a guy hunting elephant who shared the camp with me. I got both cats, and saw a number of elephant while we were hunting, and at that point wanted one.

I then rescheduled for elephant in Tanzania and had a great hunt, but the elephant were shot out. We did not see a single legal elephant, let alone a big bull in an area that until 3-4 years ago had been known for shooting big elephant. The poaching was extreme. I did kill a crippled elephant cow for the game scouts on this hunt. While I can appreciate the guys that like to hunt cows, this experience really soured me on shooting female elephant.

Last year I went back to Zimbabwe for an elephant bull. This was what I had heard elephant hunting could be like- on bulls every day, and really the only issue was finding the right "big" one. I also added a few days to try for a TF only leopard as well, which we did not get.

The short of all this is that I followed a progression here; and while I have no regrets on the experiences in the order I did them, I did develop some opinions on the order of things.

First off, if money is not an object, I would do a 28 day full bag hunt in one of the better Masailand areas, and expect to do 2 of them before you get the big 4. The odds of finding a relatively rare trophy (cats, big elephant) is directly proportional to the number of days you spend in an area that they are found in.

If you are not sure what you like (as in no local dangerous game experience (in the US, grizzly/brown bear)) Then I would really recomend going after Buffalo in a wild area first.

If you know you want to shoot as many of the big 5 as you can, but don't know about how far your cash will stretch over your lifetime, then I would recommend starting off with an elephant bull in a good numbers area, which is not the same as a area that is best for big elephant. I think the Elephant will be the next area to have a substantial price hike, if you except the control type hunts (tuskless cow, ration hunts).

As much as I love hunting buffalo, I would then do the cat hunts. For Lion you will likely shoot a buffalo or three for baits, and buff/leopard is not a bad combination either. In essence, you are giving up looking purely for a big buff to getting the first mature bull down, but sad as it is to say, except for hardcore hunters, no one can tell my 45" buff from my 35" one that see my trophies. I would probably do the Lion first of the cats due to the issues with potential uplisting, but lion really is the one that will be a money issue if you are trying to do wild hunts only.

Obviously, rhino is the last of the lot, and I haven't decided myself if I want to spend the money on one. The PH's I have had and met so far have done a pretty good job of keeping me from that by putting other stuff in front of me (I can't decide if LDE, Bongo, or the Rhino is my next "dream" hunt...)

It is always fun to think about this- I had a smile on my face the whole time thinking about those hunts- thanks!

YEAH...I just had a GREAT SA outfitter turn down my booking in 14 because he doesn't know what the Indian Coal Mining on his concessions he has leased is going to do to the Ele hunting!! This WAS a little honey hole of 80,000 acres and 100 Ele a day and really great rates....nothing big, just great Ele hunting....so now on hold until he figures out what the commercial encroachment is going to do.

Now that is honorable, clearly, lots of Outfitters would book until he found out, good or bad....he is holding off regardless of my consideration that I didn't care about the outcome...let's try it....it was that good!!
NADA!!
I think that says clearly where things are going!

Cheers,

quote:

It is always fun to think about this- I had a smile on my face the whole time thinking about those hunts- thanks!

Agreed. Planning/thinking about the next hunts is at least half the fun.

Dollars in the long term are probably not a problem, but I don't want to miss it, and look back thinking I should have done it a few years before when it was half or 1/3 the price. I am worried about both the possible closure in say 5 to 8 years, or USFWS ruling by FIAT.

If lion stays open, I figure I can get a buff then, or it will come along the way rather than going just for it.

Masailand for cat hunting/buff is definitely the ultimate dream, but I won't sacrifice hunting now, saving for that hunt because I have been told by many hunters, they wished they had started earlier.

I was not meaning to degenerate ele cow hunting, but I feel like if I decide on elephant, I already know I want to try for a bull, at least at first.

I also do not try to overlook the dangerous side of ele hunting. I just know that it is an experience that I want to have, and if it is something that may disappear in my lifetime, I want to do it while it is still available. Maybe I am being too pessimistic, and the situation may improve. However, I would rather be proven wrong and do the hunt, then wait too long, miss it and have been right.

Thank you everyone for your opinions.

Ele hunting is definitely under threat. Poaching has increased remarkably in the last 3 odd years.

If you look at the Selous for example it has been so badly poached that you will be lucky to see a single legal bull on your hunt. Zim has a major issue also. I was keeping records from the Zambezi Valley and in 2 odd years I had proof from reliable PHs that hunted from Omay to Dande of over 300 eles poached. Unfortunate my computer crashed and I lost all the valuable info and I did not have the heart to start it again but many hundreds more have been poached.

2 years ago in the Dande we lost more then 40 eles poached ( those are the ones we found) It was then that we started DAPU and 6 ele poachers were shot and numerous were arrested. This saw a lull in elephant poaching in 2013 with us only losing 2 elephant. However there seems to be a new gang and this year we have lost 1 but have arrested 2 ele poachers so far.

In Mozambique next door to us the poisoning and poaching is massive. Our East area relies on Moz bulls coming in, and in the old days, we would need to catch them on their return to Moz. Now days we shoot alot of bulls that are now resident as I think they are staying in our area for the relative safety away from poachers. However every ele bull we have shot in the last 3 years (+- 45 bulls) have had at least 1 projectile stuck in them and the worst had 17 recovered.

Another worrying thing is that we age every bull shot and we have not shot a bull over 40 years old. This is a worrying trend and tells you that eventually every mature bull is getting shot before reaching old age. While this may sound like I am talking down our areas but what I am doing is just telling you the facts and its by knowing the facts that we can tackle the problem with solutions like DAPU. Our area is probably still the best ele area in the Valley so you can imagine what poaching issues the other areas have.

I mention the above just to point out that these issues have not gone unnoticed by the authorities as well as CITES etc. Unless we start taking positive steps to curb the poaching, Elephant hunting may come to an end before too long.

Once again I would like to thanks all of you that generously donated to DAPU as its projects like this that will hopefully mean that we will be able to continue to participate in the ultimate hunt- that been the trophy ele bull!

I agree there are serious issues with the elephant poaching all across Africa and closing hunting may be close. This said I think you would be better off starting with something like a buffalo hunt. One must understand that elephant hunting is very challenging ,both physically and mentally so you need to be very aware of this before you go. The more you understand and prepare for this the better your hunt will be. Also the fitter you are the more you will enjoy this hunt. Elephant is the ultimate hunt yet possibly not something you should do on your first hunt.

Either I was ahead or behind when I wrote this. Ahead in the sense that I was thinking about it before the Zim and Tanz news, or behind in the fact I could not get it done before that news broke.

Any changes to thoughts? Challenging hunt, but do it while it is still doable?

TGDjr,

I did a 14 day buffalo/PG hunt for my first safari and if you can afford it I see no reason to not start your African hunting this way and bypass the PG only as a start. Your first safari should be more fun than anything else and a buff/PG in the right area will be that. Elephant and the cats can be a load of work and can work on you mentally if things are not coming together. I don't recommend them as a first safari. Having said that if you really want to give the elephant a go book it. Just be prepared possibly for days of lots of walking with not much to show for it until it finally comes together. When it does though it is a monster rush like no other.

Mark

There are many hunters on this site with lots more elephant experience than I. Having taken nine I feel that it is the Holy Grail of African hunting. That being said without the ivory it has lost some of its luster. Just tracking bulls without thinking that one might be a 60 pounder won't be the same for me. I will still hunt them but can't see paying that trophy fee without bringing home the ivory. There is nothing wrong with a proper buffalo hunt for your first hunt.

How about a 10 day cape buffalo and plains game package.

or move up to a 14 day cape buffalo and Leopard hunt in Tanzania with plains game.

Or go the 21 day - Cape Buffalo - Lion - Leopard safari in Tanzania. Provide they have quota for all of them.

Or the 28 Day Safari and full package. Elephant will be difficult to come by.

Depending on your finances all these packages are great experiences.

Here is my suggestion.

From all the options available right now, for a best, affordable safari that has the possibility of elephants, you really have no choice but Zimbabwe.

Importing the ivory is another matter.

But, hunting wise, this is what I would do.

Forget about those who say you should avoid one animal or another on your first safari.

A safari is a safari, whether it is your first or 20th hunt.

Go on the biggest safari you can afford.

If finances are short of a full blown hunt, I would leave the cats out and go for elephants, including tusk less, and multiple buffalo.

Take a good camera with you, and have your hunt videoed.

You will have memories that will last you a life time.