I can not speak for the whole of South Africa, but the western Limpopo has had some very good rains during the past few months. At my home "village" of Dwaalboom it has been raining almost every day, and a very good, if also very late in starting, rain season is experienced. The good rains have resulted in many guinea fowl and francolin chicks reaching the "fluttering" stage by now. A very good bird hunting season can be expected in most of the western Limpopo. Rock pigeons at sunflower fields will however be much later in the season than normal. Ask your hunting outfitter if you could bring along a shotgun for some real fun!

Kudu will be scarce and expensive as significant numbers of old trophy bulls have died as a direct result of the drought. The land owners who spent small fortunes artificially feeding their kudu to keep them alive will want to recover some of the feeding costs, and the prices are likely to be increased.

Nevertheless some excellent hunting of game in good fat condition await those lucky [or clever?] hunters booked for a plains game hunt in western Limpopo.

Enjoy the countdown of the number of days left to departure!

Verewaaier.

I heard from my PH in Ellisras that the warthogs took a pretty bad hit also as a result of the drought.

TJC,

Yes, I quite expect that the warthogs near Ellisras too a bad knock. In drought periods it is the old kudu bulls, i.e. the trophies, that die first. Then the old warthogs, again the trophies, are next most sensitive to drought. The area where I live, just a 100 miles south from Ellisras simply have almost no trophy warthog left this year. There are a few around, but big tuskers are not nearly as plenyiful as normal for this area. It will take a few seasons before you can expect reasonable numbers of trophy warthog in this area.

Thanks in part to the good rains, right now I often see family groups with four piglets, so the breeding is OK.

The land owners who started feeding artificial food early enough and in sufficient quantity and quality may have a few trophies left. Then some of the better managed game concessions had sufficient food to ensure the survival of some trophies without artificial feeding. These will be expensive, and rightly so, as the "owners" spent a lot of money to keep them alive and IMHO they are entitled to recover at least some of that! The price of any commodity, as the experts will tell you, will be determined by market forces of supply and demand! The suppliy largely dried up!

Hunters coming to western Limpopo on a booked a "package deal" in which warthog is included in the trophy list can almost certainly expect to have to be satisfied with a smaller specimen. The big old ones mostly, but not all, died in the drought. The younger males survived, and in a few years there will be trophies, well a lot of them at least.

Wingshooters can expect to have a wonderful season in South Africa in 2004. Enquiries for wingshooting/plains game safaris welcome.

Verewaaier.

Nice to here that it�s raining... What is the weather prognosis for the next week? I�ll be arriving in Pietersburg next Wednesday...