I love reading posts by outfitters charging for guinea fowl. Really??

I've shot plenty of guinea fowl and never paid a dime. Well, I've lost a few bets to some PH's.

Personally, I think that's how the young PH's raise the money to afford their first big bore double.

I've seen that too. Last year in Namibia my PH didn't charge for any birds at all.

It seems strange to me to charge for them.

I have shot some with no fee. Maybe it is if its camp meat its gratis. It may also be if its a trophy (in other words if you bring it back) they charge you.

Some charge for black-backed jackal. Heck, one outfit charges $600 for a bbj, so nothing would surprise me.

If they can charge $600 for a jackal, I wouldn't be shocked if they charged $9 for each mosquito you swat....

Birds have always had a price.

But, despite shooting plenty of them, I was never charged for them.

I think it boils down to how you and the PH work together.

I have seen it being added to the bill with a client who was nickle and diming everything, and asking for a discount on everything he shot!

I paid for guinea fowl 40$ in Tanzania.

Never paid a trophy for any birds shot. They were always used for camp meat. Now, $600 for a bloody jackal? Somebody has been smoking something funny. They should be free unless you want to export them and then no more than 100. I have seen many of the operators jack up the prices on these kinds of animals even though they consider them vermin. The only reason is that a number of hunters are interested in having one fo their trophy room. They are a high profit item with little or no cost to the outfitter. At that price they had betterbe using the flexibility to cut the hunter some slack somewhere else but I doubt it. As far as the birds go, I dont feel a nominal fee of 3 to 6 each is out of line. Everything has some value just not the ridiculous stuff I have been seeing lately.

quote:

Originally posted by JBrown:
Some charge for black-backed jackal. Heck, one outfit charges $600 for a bbj, so nothing would surprise me.

If they can charge $600 for a jackal, I wouldn't be shocked if they charged $9 for each mosquito you swat....

its a joke what some people will charge, in my concessions Baboons are good sport - for free.

IMHO - the only time i might and i say might charge for a bird is if the client is going to export it? other than that they make for good table fair and good entertainment. on that point it could be interesting to prepare a bird for shipping - lol

Loved shooting a few Guinea fowls with the "Two pipe". Made great pie. YUM.

Yes Guinea fowl Pie is great and "almost" makes the $3000+ 20ga barrel add on to a double rifle bearable. Well almost..

Speaking of jackals, when I was doing research for my upcoming safari, one outfit would pay the hunter for each jackal shot. I can't remember how much, $20 or $50 range I believe!

Bill

When I see an outfitter wanting to charge $5 for a dove I start looking for another outfitter. Just the optics of nickle and diming.

Dean

Did not pay in Chirisa 2000, Omay 2003, Lemco 2005, but in Chirisa 2007 the game scout listed it on his sheet the number of birds taken. So there is a $10,000 elephant trophy fee with something like $20 of doves and fowl.

There was a blackboard at the skinning shed where available quota and animals taken was logged in and they actually put down the x number of doves and fowl taken against the concession's quota.

I think what you may find is that there is a good reason for charging for birds and varmints. With some folk if you tell them that something is free they just can't control their urge to take adavantage of that at every opportunity. So you find the hunter whacking every guinea that he sees or stopping the vehicle to shoot at every baboon or jackal that he sees when they should be chasing kudu or whatver. Also a guy with enough shells can put a hurting on the bird population on a small property. I was in RSA a few years ago and asked after a few days why we hadn't seen many francolin. I was told that a previous client had after taking his main animals in the first few days made all out war on the francolin killing nearly 200 birds over the course of the hunt.

I personally have never paid for a few birds or varmints taken here and there but I think a TF for them is a good idea to.

Mark

I have never paid a trophy fee for birds and have had several excellent shoots for sand grouse, dove, francolin and guinea in Namibia, Zimbabwe, Benin and the RSA!

I have, however, had to pay for a bird license in Zambia when I never had the opportunity to shoot...

Never paid for a bird in 4 trips to RSA. I have paid for a specific night hunt for Jackal when an expert predator hunter was called in, but that was a fee for the evening, not per jackal. We shot lots of jackal that evening - it was a blast. My favorite PH actually reduces the total bill for every jackal you shoot on his property. He figures that the jackal kill so many sheep and antelope on his ranches that he should share the benefit with his hunters.

quote:

Originally posted by MARK H. YOUNG:
I think what you may find is that there is a good reason for charging for birds and varmints. With some folk if you tell them that something is free they just can't control their urge to take adavantage of that at every opportunity. So you find the hunter whacking every guinea that he sees or stopping the vehicle to shoot at every baboon or jackal that he sees when they should be chasing kudu or whatver. Also a guy with enough shells can put a hurting on the bird population on a small property. I was in RSA a few years ago and asked after a few days why we hadn't seen many francolin. I was told that a previous client had after taking his main animals in the first few days made all out war on the francolin killing nearly 200 birds over the course of the hunt.

I personally have never paid for a few birds or varmints taken here and there but I think a TF for them is a good idea to.

Mark

i have to agree with Mark - if the client wants to shoot hundreds of birds then that is a different type of safari. but then again if a client is finished with his hunt and wants to do some wingshooting then by all means but to shoot out the local population is also not on - that where i would stop the truck.

point to consider and keep in mind is bird shooting seasons...

quote:

Originally posted by MARK H. YOUNG:
Also a guy with enough shells can put a hurting on the bird population on a small property. I was in RSA a few years ago and asked after a few days why we hadn't seen many francolin. I was told that a previous client had after taking his main animals in the first few days made all out war on the francolin killing nearly 200 birds over the course of the hunt.

Mark

Was there a TF on the francolin at that farm? My bet is there was and a greedy farmer got a pay day. Either that or the farmer has to grow a pair and remember conservation basics.

Dean

Since when was guinea fowl considered big game hunting?

If you take the time to sort some details out, you can freeze gamebirds and import them with you on your return flight. There are simple hoops to jump through but it sure beats the hell out of paying $75 to have them butchered and processed through dip/pack. What you'll have is 10% of what you paid for. Frozen birds are the only way to procure a quality mount. As for paying for game birds, I think Saeed hit the nail on the head; it's how you and your PH's personalities sort out. We pay for our shells and that's it. I've shot many upland birds and waterfowl.
LDK

ah - guinea snacks or bacon wrapped dove breasts with a sundowner best part of the day. i've never paid xtra for birds, in fact i usually take a pair of shotty gun barrels for the double just to do that. i've even brought back things like spur wing geese to mount with no charge. but like mark saw a guy shooting 200 a day - yea i can see a cost involved for him

We shot lots of birds, over several days. Nice break from the other hunting. On morning we shot several large plains game then headed in for lunch. The PH offered two free boxes of shells a piece if we just shot birds for the rest of the day. He said the skinners would be up after midnight as it was. We didn't feel slighted in the least and didn't pay out right for the birds we shot, only the shells we used.

Any PH who lets a client "shoot out" the population of any species is one to be avoided in the future!

It is a big difference if you hunt on private land or government land.

Private landowner can charge or not for birds baboons jackals etc

On government land there is a charge / trophy fee and an allocated quota.

No sane operator will bend the rules (Law) for a few $$ within reason he most properly pays the fees out of his own pocket!

Bottom-line it is not always greed.

Yes. I had no problem with that. It was stated up front. The ripoff occurred when Nympala Safaris in Zambia also was charged $650 per person for a "bird permit" that was non-existent.

Avoid Rasheed and Hartley C. at Nympala Safaris in Zambia.
Bad news the both of them.

I have shot a good number of birds on my trips but the only ones I paid a trophy fee on were the 4 vulturine guineafowl I had skinned and brought back from Tanzania for a friend who wanted some feathers for fly-tying. $20-$30 each, I believe.

Maki,

I guess you missed my meaning or I didn't explain it completely. There was no TF for the birds so the guy went nuts. My point was that with a TF this would less likely to happen.

Mark

I charge a daily fee, not per bird. I also specialise in birdshoots.....

What Freischutz said...

In Tz for eg, any Big game license includes a list of 5 birds of each of the following species: dove, guinea fowl, geese, francolin and ducks


Each of these comes with a Gov TF of between $15 and $30 per bird depending on specie.

Alternatively, one can purchase a Bird hunting permit" at a price of $200 per permit. This permit allows up to 4 shooters to share the license which allows a total quota of 50 birds per shooter per day but not more than 10 of any specie.

In addition, a daily bird hunting conservation fee of $150 per shooter per day.

That is why birdshoots are not popular in Tz

Sometimes, particularly on private land, the owner will list a trophy fee for things like guineas, jackals, and baboons. This is because some hunters, particularly some Europeans it seems, will gladly pay the relatively low daily rate then will shoot nothing but jackals and baboons if they are free, and just enjoy looking at the 800-Euro kudus. Our hosts listed a trophy fee for baboons and jackals, but charged us nothing (even encouraged us) to shoot all we wished for free since we were taking several head of "paying" game each day.

In other words, the listed trophy fee was just to discourage freeloaders who would otherwise shoot little or no game on which they were charged a trophy fee. Hard to believe there are hunters like that, but our hosts had apparently seen some of them.

Similarly, we weren't charged for alcoholic drinks even though there was a posted price since we were shooting plenty of game that generated the revenue they were looking for (and generated the enjoyment we were looking for). By the way, the trophy fees on this operation were very reasonable. The operators weren't gouging their guests, simply trying to keep their guests from taking up a lot of time without generating much revenue.

At my operation, if a client happens to find a Black back Jackal,Caracal or Baboon by chance , they are free of charge.
But, once time is put into hunting these varmints, where we have to make use of calling equipment and shooting rigs, spending a couple of hours out at night, we have no other choice but to charge a small fee.

Best Regards
Marius Goosen

Paid for a Caracal and for a Seval but that was what I was hunting
Never paid for Baboon tho killed several and importd one, never paid for a BBJ tho killed several and imported one, never paid for any bird tho I have a mounted Yellow Bill duck, Spur wing and Egyptian Goose and Spur fowl, but killed many many of all...next someone will wish to charge me for killing rock pigeons over thier sunflower fieldwhen I was just helping out

It is apparent that there are greedy pigs on both sides of the fence and I am not talking about the warthogs. To set such a ridiculous price has no defence. Neither does abusing ones host and taking advantage by shooting every bird in sight. I would hope that most of these are the exceptions. I would be embarassed to be in a camp where I saw either take place.

JMO but I feel that Mark and Saeed gave the best answers on the subject.

Get on a good footing with the PH your using and then realize that other people may not have your ideas or concepts of what is fair or reasonable concerning such things as "Free" critters on a hunt.