If anyone has done a hunt in the Luangwa Valley specifically in the north (Chifunda area) and has references either good or bad please can they let me know or point me to previous posts/website with info. I would like to do a Luangwa valley hunt in the future for Leopard/Buffalo/Bushbuck and want as much info as possible. Also does anyone know if Eland are available in the valley? There does not seem to be much info on the net with regards to Zambian outfitters,just a lot of agents who provide very few specifics with regards areas etc.

Thank you

I have not hunted Chifunda but hunted the northern Luangwa Valley in Chanjuzi last year for buffalo, hippo, croc and bushbuck. Lots of game! Leopard, buffalo, bushbuck... no problem!
I hunted with Johnny DuPlooy's outfit Muchinga Adventures as represented by Mark Young and Adam Clements of Safari Trackers. I've included a link to my report.
https://forums.accuratereloading.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/6321043/m/362104735

This is the map from when Zambia re-opened hunting and the concessions were reallocated, so it is a bit dated:

I also hunted with Muchinga in their Chanjuzi area. Leopard, buffalo and bushbuck should not be a problem. I had one opportunity at an eland, but blew it. Everyone was really excited that we even saw one in this area.

This is a great safari - wild country with roaring lions and marauding elephants. I booked through John Barth of Adventures Unlimited.

I have done a ton of reasearch on this entire area, as I am booking in 2009 in the Valley.

My biggest concern for the entire area, and also the concern for operators in the area, is that Muchinga's Chanjuzi area (22)has been recently split into 2 areas. Muchinga now has 9 lion on quota for just that area. They are booking 9 lion hunters. This is double what is was just a year or so ago.

In Comparision, Nyampala, (Formerly Leopard Ridge, who I have had contact directly with since their removal last week from Nyamapla) only had five on quota.

There is no way this area can substain one operator taking 9 lion from an area that formerly was 1 area with a quota of 4 or 5.

One operator that boders the same the Chanjuzi area has responded to this quota increase in the area and is concerned enough about this situation that they are dropping their quoata from the 5 that ZAWA provides to 2 to 3 just to compensate for what is happening in the region.
They still must pay for the 5 lion though.

This is all driven by ZAWA wanting to generate more revunues and will not change unless ALL indivual operator in this region get on the same page about management.

It is different thinking between conservation and short term profits.


I will be happy to give anyone any info and give you contact information of people on the ground in Zambia. I am not talking about just one persective but many different takes from many different people.

Mark Young, whom I like very much, books for Duplooy and is aware of this situation. Duplooy runs a very good operation and many of his lion hunts are successful. His reference are very good as you can see on the Hunting Report and even from guys here at AR who have hunted with them.

These concerns are about the future of lion hunting in a prime area such a the Valley.

Please do your own reaseach and come to your own conclusions. These are just what I have found.

Lightning, who is it you are referring to next to Chanjuzi? That sounds like sound management.

i hunted chifunda in 2000 with a real bum outfitter and the best PH i've ever had. lovely area along the river there are tons of hippo and crocs. leopards are throughout and are lion. its a huge area. we were there the 1st week in june and thats to early in my opinion. there's alot of buff in the area, but that early the brush was so high you couldn't see much of them, also there was still waterholes spread throughout and that kept game spread out. stewart had informed us that august is probably his best month. some of the plains game available are a bit unique, things like puku crookston wildebeast. also the are houses a huge collection of trophy sized tetse flies. north park is just across the river so game travels between areas frequently. I don't know who is in the area now, but going with john duploy you're not going to go wrong. in fact monday i'm on my way to go with him in tondwa for a sitatungua

You can't help but respect an operator who reduces his very expensive quota to offset bad management practices overall. Ouch.

quote:

Originally posted by SBT:
Lightning, who is it you are referring to next to Chanjuzi? That sounds like sound management.

Luawata, is area I am discussing, but I want to be clear that I am just not taking into consideration what one oufit says about another. I have spoken to most of the outfitters in the region. I have also spoken to indepedent source in Lusaka and also with people in Zimbabwe that are familar with the situation.

To make things worse, Nyampala finally has been vacated by Leopard Ridge and Rashid will probably end up with control is my guess. If that happens conservation of resources will go down even worse in this area.

ZAWA has to come up with a plan that works and monitor it. It will only happen if the outfitters in this region get on the same page.

quote:

Originally posted by Scott450:
If anyone has done a hunt in the Luangwa Valley specifically in the north (Chifunda area) and has references either good or bad please can they let me know or point me to previous posts/website with info. I would like to do a Luangwa valley hunt in the future for Leopard/Buffalo/Bushbuck and want as much info as possible. Also does anyone know if Eland are available in the valley? There does not seem to be much info on the net with regards to Zambian outfitters,just a lot of agents who provide very few specifics with regards areas etc.

Thank you

Scott,

In regards to the Leopard, any of the areas in the valley are crawling with Leopards. You cannot go wrong with a leopard, buff hunt in any of the areas more than likely.

Talk to Mark Young about Duplooy's area for this hunt. I think you would be very pleased.

I have heard of someone named something like "Athel" who has a concession in this area. Does anybody know who he is or the name of his company?

Scott,

Athoyl Frelinck (SP) is the person you are refering to. Athoyl is in a differnt position than most opertors as he basically is managing his area for a wealthy owner that wants to be able to hunt lion etc as he wishes. The point is that profit is not a driving force so reducing the quota is much easier for him.

Mark

I have no arguement with what Lightening says about Du Plooy. You do have to consider though that Chanjusi and the adjacent Nyaminga are each around 1500 sq. km. That is an area of about 10 miles by 95 miles roughly. Having hunted lion some myself I'd have no problem hunting lion in an area of that size. Also another thing to consider is that you may not be hunting resident lions but more likely hunting nomads coming from the park areas and Du Plooy's areas border 3 differnt parks.

Stats can show most anything but DuPlooys stats show a long record of success on cats regardless of area size or quota. If I booked another lion it would be with Du Plooy.

Mark

I just returned two weeks ago from Zambia. I was hunting the Mukungule concession . It borders the western side of the North Luangwa National Park. I booked this hunt through John Barth with Adventures Unlimited.

The best I can determine is that this concession is under the control Rashid and Yusuf Patel who operate under the names of Busanga Trails and Nyampals Safaris Limited.

In 9 days of hunting I managed to take a buffalo, waterbuck, warthog, and puku. I missed a reed buck and was not quite quick enough to get a shot off at a bushbuck. My
partner took a impala and puku. He wounded and lost a kudu, and missed a waterbuck. He nicked a buffalo. The PH and game scout both decieded it was not a fatal wound. Graciouslly they did not charge him for the buffalo and allowed him to keep hunting.

There were lion and leopard in the area, as well as eland, sable, roan, elephant, grysbok, red hartebeest, very few zebra and hippo.

We were in the area too early. We should have been arriving about a week after we left. Burning was going strong when we left.

My hunting buddy had Boetie Bothma aa his PH. Boetie is probably as good a PH as there is. While my PH was certainly a pleasant guy to be around, I would not hunt with him again.

Good luck and ask lots and lots of questions.

I will be posting a full hunting report in the future.

H Kittle

Like the map, this list of contacts from THR is also a bit dated and does not necessarily list the partners:

Zambia Contacts Area Allocations

Note the contact info for the Professional Hunters Association of Zambia and the Safari Hunters Outfitters Association of Zambia.

H Kittle - Looking fwd to your report.

Scott450, I have hunted with Athol Frylinck (Luawata) last year. The area is full of game and all your desired animals including Elands are present. We had many day time sighting of leopards, we went late season so it was usual to see 2 to 3 hundred buffalos every day. Hippo, Bushbuck and Pukku, we would often see them in the camp lawn! Nayampala is also as good, if not better than Luawata, for your choice of animals.

However, on our hunt Lion population was the disappointment, even with good management no sign of mature male lion, we did saw few young males and lots of lionesses though. The 21 days lion hunt before us was also unsuccessful without any sign of a trophy lion. In my opinion the problem is with quota for Lions and from the photos that I have seen of Lion taken in adjacent blocks to Luawata, they are also shooting young lions to fill their quotas. As discussed above in the thread, with so many lion tags available in hunting blocks like Chanjuzi and Nayampala the problem is bound to increase.

Thanks everyone for your info and input, it is much appreciatted and certainly is a huge help with researching an area. The news about the Lions in the valley is not good, lets hope they wake up before it is too late. i know of operators in the Kafue that have self imposed restrictions and it shows in the quality that they shoot. The botswana/TGT system is defintely the way to go if we want continued trophy quality.