I was interested in finding a hunting area that would have a chance at producing upper end southern greater kudu. I was curious what the best areas would be?

Try Limpopo Province of RSA or Namibia.

Write me for details.

Terry

Nother vote for the Limpopo Valley, northern RSA.

The best Kudu I have to offer today are near Kruger Nat.l. park and one can expect a 54 to 55 inch bull with some 56 to 58 if one hunts hard and we shoot an ocasional 60 incher...

Same in Kwa-Zulu/Natal, have some big Kudu there also...

In Zimbabwe, we have a concession near Chinhoyi and doma that was legend at one time for big Kudu and Sable. I have a film I took of over 100 Sable bulls in one bunch, mostly mature bulls too....55 inch and better Kudu were the rule rather than the exception..but it now appears that since the area went back to the locals, the population of kudu and Sable has all but disapeared to the bush meat market, so much the shame of a nation...

best I've seen came from the limpopo region, but be prepared to spend alot of time if you are interested only in the 60" category. For 54-56" which is nothing to sneeze at, also include the loveld in zim.

I had great success with John Sharp. He made me pass up MANY big kudus until he said "that's a good one." Put a 300gr Swift A Frame at 125 yards and the rest as they say is history . He was 58.5". The hunt before me took a 61" and I think Bob from GA took a 61 incher this past season. All from the Malangani Conservancy. Give him a shout at www.john-sharp-safaris.com. jorge

Goodness Jorge!!

John Sharp must be a popular guy. I keep getting bandwidth exceeded errors from his provider.

I recommend Roger Whittall Safaris www.rwsafaris.com

Here is my 60 incher from 2004:



But it was NOT the biggest kudu they took that year. It would have been no sweat to shoot half a dozen kudu that exceeded 55 inches on Roger's unit.

The best areas I know of for big Kudu is Tuli block Botswana where you could consider the high 50's as no more than average...

Our trophy fee (for kudu) there is US$1200.

And the Tuli Block is just the other side of the Limpopo River from the recommended Limpopo, RSA, so I'll sure buy that bit of advice.

Now I am miffed that I shot the first 52" Kudu that I spotted in the Tuli Block. First-timer's disese. He did have massively thick horns, and a 600 pound body though.

Location is one thing, but in RSA you are going to be hunting on a fenced game ranch. So, just because it is in the Limpopo Province of RSA doesn't guarantee a large kudu. It depends on the quality of the kudu that have been stocked on that particular ranch.

Regards,

Terry

The biggest Kudu I've ever seen was (last year) in one of the areas we use in Tuli Block Bots ......and I can honestly say that I don't think it was far off of 70 inches and certainly no less than 67 inches. I know that sounds hard to believe, but true nevertheless.

I agree with Terry: Just because it is in Limpopo does not mean there are good kudu on the ranch. Many of the Outfitters "stock" their concessions with auction-bought kudu, which are then hunted in a "put-and-take" manner. I do not take any clients to such "put-and-take" concessions.
The trick of getting a very good kudu lies in the hunting outfitter getting a concession that has had low or no hunting pressure for some time. In 2004 I obtained hunting rights on a very large area that has had no kudu hunted there for 15 years. Man that place was crawling with big 55" plus kudu! My Booking Agent and I saw 17 shootable bulls on one afternoons drive through the place. He insisted that we refer to that concession as "Kuduparadize".

This year I have an additional new concession - it was not hunted at all for 4 years, while an estate of the deceased owner was being wrapped up. Before the previous owner died he allowed only a few "biltong" hunters, who are not interested in big trophies, to hunt there. So with limited previous trophy hunting pressure, and 4 years absolutely no hunting, I have no doubt that it should have some very good kudu. I am leaving for my first scouting trip to the area Tuesday and already just know that I'm going to fall in love with the place. I look forward to guiding my clients there later this year.

In South Africa big kudu are a commodity. Concession owners know what the value of a really big kudu is. There are specialist game capture teams that will use a helicopter to dart such a big kudu, which is then measured and sold on a public game auction or directly to some "put-and-take" hunting outfitter. So the value is known. Some wise concession owners do not allow a hunter to shoot any kudu below, say, 55", but they then charge a price accordingly. They can charge these high prices, and get business because hunting outfitters who have clients that absolutely DEMAND to get a big kudu will be satisfied there. As a hunting outfitter I do not hesitate to take a client that is very finicky about getting a big kudu to such a concession, because I know that there are big kudu there! I pay the concession owner his high price, cut my profit, but I'm sure that I will send another satisfied client home! Ask any experienced hunting outfitter, it is better to make less profit and have a satisfied client, than to make more profit and a dissatisfied client!

Big kudu, or big trophies of any other species, is a mere commodity in South Africa, just like a used car is a commodity in the USA. When searching for a hunting opportunity for a big kudu here in South Africa, just like when shopping for a used car in the USA, you generally get what you pay for! Beware of the “to good to be true†low price guaranteed big kudu. Real bargains on big kudu are available, but they are few and far between.

In good hunting.

Andrew McLaren

Nope, not in the Limpopo valley, You are right about the Province.
Hunted Limpopo province for 30 years if you want to shoot big Kudu it’s in the mountains mate. There were the hunter is too lazy to walk. He can grow old up there without you even knowing about him.
I would like to differ from statement “the biltong (meat hunters)â€. I still have to meet a biltong hunter who would pass on a 58+ kudu.

quote:

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Originally posted by Huntertaxi:
Nope, not in the Limpopo valley, You are right about the Province.
Hunted Limpopo province for 30 years if you want to shoot big Kudu it’s in the mountains mate. There were the hunter is too lazy to walk. He can grow old up there without you even knowing about him.
I would like to differ from statement “the biltong (meat hunters)â€. I still have to meet a biltong hunter who would pass on a 58+ kudu.

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Noted: Nothing special about the Limpopo Valley or Tuli Block other than the well stocked put-and-take trophy Kudu on the ranches with cattle fence. Aye, go to the mountains of Limpopo Province, RSA and look for a big one there.

Are any Kudu truly fenced in?

My brush deflected shot left my kudu with right front leg dangling limply. We chased it with an excellent Afrikaans-only speaking white man nicknamed Kas ("Cheese") who tracked at a jog like a bushman for 5 hours.

Near the end of that chase, I saw the kudu jump over a six foot tall brush pile, and only on three legs. Several times in the chase, he hopped back and forth over cattle fence.

It would take an eight foot tall gamefence to slow down a kudu, would it not?

On the average, I suspect that if you're after a really big kudu bull that you'll do better in Zimbabwe that RSA, but like trophy elk and mule deer, big kudu are where you find them, and they can be found in some surprising places

Jorge's experience with John Sharp for kudu is no exaggeration. I took a 57" bull with John myself. But then I also took a 56" bull in Namibia the next season. Even so, I put my money on Zimbabwe..........

AD

Originally posted by Huntertaxi

quote:

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Nope, not in the Limpopo valley, You are right about the Province.
Hunted Limpopo province for 30 years if you want to shoot big Kudu it’s in the mountains mate. There were the hunter is too lazy to walk. He can grow old up there without you even knowing about him.
I would like to differ from statement “the biltong (meat hunters)â€. I still have to meet a biltong hunter who would pass on a 58+ kudu.

Tell it as it is!

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Your last sentence infers that the guy who posted about the "biltong" hunters (me) is not telling the truth, or at least not the whole truth.

A casual reader of your post may also be lead to believe that the same guy said that the Limpopo Valley is a good general area to get big kudu? Not so, I never said Limpopo "Valley". (Ann, Steve and RIP all basically said the Limpopo valley, either in Botswanas' Tuli Block or on the other side of the river in South Africa.)

I quite agree with you about the mountains, or any other place where the hunters are too lazy to walk to or cannot drive to by 4X4 vehicle, as good places for kudu that have grown old while eluding lazy hunters! An example of a place where lazy to walk hunters cannot drive to with their 4X4's is right along the Limpopo river in the very thick riverine bush, which is where Ann and others say the good kudu come from!

It may be quite true, and I accept that you have yet to see a meat hunter to pass up a 58+ kudu. I, however, have seen it! If a guy has to pay cash at the end of the hunt, and his total budget is just the R 1500 that he has in his back pocket, being what a kudu cow costs at that particular concession where he is hunting for meat, he simply HAS to pass an opportunity to get a 58+ kudu bull, which will set him back R 4500! I have seen it a few times! I personally had to pass up (for a combination of financial and other reasons) an estimated 64+ kudu. This was just at first real shooting light very early on New Years' day 1992. The kudu was standing quite unaware of me at 55 yards almost right on top of the mountain, just as you said is the place to go to. To heed your advice and "Tell it as it is!", although I had a rifle with me, I was not hunting kudu, but scouting my concession for the season ahead to see if I could with confidence offer a very special German client a big kudu in the coming hunting season. And, "No" to the next question. None of my clients hunted that monster; the concession was sold to a trigger-happy owner before the start of the season. He probably shot it for biltong! Incidentally, I now can, with permission of the third owner since 1992, offer bowhunting on the same area again. The genes of the old guy that I saw in 1992 are still around on that concession! I have confidence that some of my bow hunting clients are going to go home very happy this year .

To further "Tell it as it is!", on Tuesday I'm leaving to go to the Limpopo province on a first scouting trip of my latest kudu hunting paradise, the one mentioned in my previous post. I should be able to find out exactly what the previous owner charged for a kudu bull and cow respectively. I do believe that the example figures mentioned above, R 1500 for a cow and R 4500 for a bull, was typical of the costs to venison hunters in that area about 5 years ago. I further draw your attention the exact words about "....allowed only a few "biltong" hunters....." which certainly ties up with my later statement that "...with limited previous trophy hunting pressure, and 4 years absolutely no hunting...."

Huntertaxi, I'm afraid that your advice to "Tell it as it is." is IMHO a bit misdirected. I do believe that in the context that I've posted, namely in reply to a question about "Where do you get good kudu?", I've told it close enough to real life to be regarded as "Told as it is". I basically said that you get good kudu from areas where there has been for some reason or other, being it the laziness of hunters to climb up mountains, (and then have to carry the meat down!), or real carefull thophy hunting management or time lapsed with absolutely no hunting at all while a deceased estate is wound up, or whatever other reason, a long period of low trophy hunting pressure!

In good hunting.

Andrew McLaren.

I'm just back from Reno SCI where I booked a plains game trip in the Limpopo region right across the river from Tuli Park. The Kudu taken in the area in '04 were quite impressive. One of the outfits in the area actually uses a sliding scale for trophy fees on Kudu.

The fees were

$1450 under 53"
$1800 over 53" under 57"
$2200 over 57"

The outfit I booked with charges $1350 for Kudu regardless of size. And the kudu taken by them in '04 were certainly the equal of the sliding scale company.

Daily rates and facilities quality were approximatly the same as far as one can tell from Reno. The owners (husband and wife teams) of both outfits were in Reno and were both exceptional nice, and their facilities both showed beautifully. I would have been happy to hunt with either outfit. Both outfits had donated 7 day plains game hunts to SCI, and I picked up my hunt at the auction there on thursday. The second outfits hunt auctioned off on friday. After winning the auction, I went to my outfitter and extended the hunt for an extra 3 days and a kudu trophy fee. If the '05 season is as good as the '04 season was, I'm sure the wife and I will have some fun there.


By the way, take your heart pressure meds BEFORE you spend an afternoon at the SCI auction room. I thought the wife was gonna have a heart attack

Elmo

OK. I agree that Kudu’s does tend to be more populated in the Limpopo province and that you would most likely find more kudu’s in the valley because of the fact that 15-20 years ago there were more agricultural and cattle farms along the valley than what there were game farms then. That has changed since.
The draught in 80/83 did put a damper on the population and kudu’s were closed in some parts of the Northern Transvaal (Limpopo).

Put and take, I do not like that idea either. The concession must be a small if you want to practice such method of hunting.
We all know the nature of kudu’s. If the client book a 7 day safari and you show him no kudu or even spoor well …

If one look at the record book you will see that most of the records comes from one area 9 out of 10 times. And that’s my reason behind my comment.
Not to push some one off his throne.
And yes if you do not have the money to bag a kudu bull then you will not shoot one Period. But on the other hand if you have the big boss standing in front of you, I am sure that a couple of schemes will run through your mind.

Hunting trophies on a sliding scale, what’s next paying for missed shots?

1350 for a kudu or a sliding scale? That's ridiculous. My trophy fee in Zimbabwe was 750 bucks and now it's up to 850-regardless of size. jorge

quote:

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Originally posted by elmo:

The fees were

$1450 under 53"
$1800 over 53" under 57"
$2200 over 57"

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I think my trophy fee was $850.

Why would someone agree to hunt for those ridiculous fees?

I don't care for the sliding fee concept, either, but I'll bet that outfitter sells plenty of hunts, and it's a cunning marketing move. That fee scale creates mystique, and the implied-promise that those giant bulls are surely there to be had, if you're but willing to step up and pay the price especially since big kudu are in considerable demand, just like big elk.

I'd rather take my chances with a guy like John Sharp and pay one known fee for whatever kudu we decide to shoot..........

AD

Huntertaxi:
Just courious, where does the top ten Kudu in the record book come from?
Thanks.

quote:

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Originally posted by Verewaaier:
Your last sentence infers that the guy who posted about the "biltong" hunters (me) is not telling the truth, or at least not the whole truth.

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Andrew,

The phrase "Tell it as it is" is his signature. I am not sure it was directed at you personally.

Cheers,
Canuck

Eric-There is a property in Namibia that was featured in the last SCI mag. I beleive the article ie titled "Jamey's Eden"-or somthing really close to that. Atcheson's is booking it.I hunted there 2x, once in 2002 and again in 2003. It was at that time being handled by Allan Cilliers as an archery only venue.The owner is from RSA and , as I understand it, when "savage Sam" started making noise about non- res ownership, his son came up and is running the show. Allan now has the neighboring property. There are some big bulls there. I was lucky enough to take a 56 and a 58.5 with archery gear. On both trips we saw bulls over 60.You might want to give them a call and see what is the story now that they are into their 2nd or third rifle season.60,000 acres, if I remember right.

I don't know, but how is this one?

Canuck,

Thanks for pointing out that the words that I took as meant for me personally was actually part of Huntertaxi's signature, and a good signature too! His subsequent posts show that no malice was really intended when he initially did not agree, or fully understand, with what I said.

The "sliding scale trophy fee" is, like it or not, a reality. Really big trophy kudu are getting scarcer, or at least that's my and quite a few land-owners'perception, and the market forces of supply and demand dictates that any scarce commodity demands a higher price. The reality is that at quite a few concessions all hunting outfitters now have to pay for kudu on a sliding scale.That,as Allen noted, it has some marketing value to offer a sliding scale trophy fee is not doubted.

The one thing about big kudu (and many other hunted species) that really bothers me is the number of big or long horned, but obviously young and haviong almost no ivory tips animals that are shot and proudly displayed, even on this forum. These long and big horned animals are the prime breeders, and you want to get as much of those genes into the general population. Now they are hunted as "trophies", just because they have long horns. The breeding age kudus with small horns are left alone as "inferior" trophies, and they breed their genes into trhe population. I have said it before, and will say it again: For me personally a trophy is only worthy if it from a male that is well past breeding age. Size does matter, but it must also be old! My own kudu trophy was only 48" (measured on the old Roland Ward system), but he was ancient as judged by worn teeth, baldness and bluntly worn ivory tips. I have passed up a few chances to shoot much longer horned, but young breeding aged kudu.

In good hunting,

Andrew McLaren

quote:

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Originally posted by Verewaaier:

The "sliding scale trophy fee" is, like it or not, a reality.

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But not everywhere, fortunately. Some of the best locations for kudu still charge a reasonable flat trophy fee.

It seemed to me, as I compared outfitters at SCI that when you got to the bottom line all the hunts were pretty much in the same ballpark cost wise. The outfits with the low trophy fees had high daily rates vs. low daily rates and higher trophy fees. I only saw the "sliding scale" at one outfitter and it did seem a little strange. I'd hate to see Africa turn into a Rocky Mt Elk Hunt.

I would like to see the look on the PH's face after a long stalk when his client says," I really don't want to spend another $500. Can you find me one that's an inch smaller?"

Elmo

quote:

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I would like to see the look on the PH's face after a long stalk when his client says," I really don't want to spend another $500. Can you find me one that's an inch smaller?" Eeker

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Exactly

I've hunted the Limpopo Province extensively over several decades. sure, there are big Kudu there, but I've never seen as many or as BIG Kudu as I have in the Steelpoort valley / Burgersfort / Lydenburg district of Mpumalanga. I honestly believe that, if I were looking for a showstopping wallhanger, that is where I'd go looking for him. I'd find him in those mountains, too.

Andrew you have a very valid point in that the joy and satisfaction is the the whole experience of taking that graceful animal. When I took mine, I really didn't care how long his horns were. Matter of fact, John Sharp only measured it to satisfy his curiosity when the animal was at the skinning shed. I would have been just as happy with a smaller one. BUt the fact that John's clients take 57" plus with habitual regularity, leads me to believe that there are plenty of them out there. Icidentally, can one tell me what the actual length of the #1 kudu is? thanks, jorge

Jorge,

I'm talking off the top of my head here, but the #1 Kudu was actually a 'pick up', found near the Savé river in Mocambique. IIRC, it was 71 or 72", or thereabouts. This is Rowland Ward's #1, not SCI.

It was picked up by an italian hunter. I think it was the same man that often hunted with PH Fred Bartlett, author of "Shoot straight and stay alive".
L

As Madonna already declared some years ago "Italians do it better"

The crossbreed resulted between italy and southamerica do it much better

Maybe I'm wrong but I think his name was Caldesi or something similar.

L

Spot on Rikkie.
TJ that's were the big bucks are.
I will enclose a picture of such a kudu and the typical seroundings.

Ever notice that everyone that kills a big Kudu on any certain area automatically thinks thats the best Kudu hunting in Africa!

Kudu travel long distances and horns grow very slowly so a good wild Kudu is like gold, its where you find them..

I can get anyone a 60" plus if they want to hunt under a fence and pay the bucks, Africans raise big Kudu. Same with monster Sable or about anything else. Some of these fenced ranches are fairly large and some are small...some folks don't mind and others do but thats another subject thats been beat to death.

Lorenzo,
Carlo Caldesi has been the most famous big game Italian hunter in the last century. He is dead few years ago, he did not have a trophy room, but a trophy palace. He has been also a one of the important menmber of the SCI European chapter.

In this case the crossbreed generated a good synergy

Jorge is correct, I did take a 61" Kudu with John Sharp. I was very humbled to see the photo at his booth in Reno. We did pass up many fine Kudu during hunt, until John said this is the one to take. A very long stalk, one shot at 300 yards (Weatherby 300), took it down. John is the best.