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Just returned from Dallas today and I am starting to look at all the information I picked up. One thing I noticed is prices are going up. Of course with the falling dollar and the rising price of fuel that was expected but some prices seem out of line. One place states that there daily rate is $500 and a Kudu of 55" or greater is $4000 to $5000 and other trophies are priced about the same. This place is in South Africa. I am just starting to look at my material as I spent about 20 hours looking and talking. Also went to the AR dinner and the AR party. The AR party and after party was great. The AR dinner needs a cocktail hour before dinner. More later after I review the 12" inches of papers and disks I collected. | ||
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Me and the wife made it to the SCI show today for the first time. We had a blast. The wife bought a pillow made from a spring buck. It looks like the ass of a spring buck to me. I have been looking at an Africa hunt for a couple of years now. With what I saw at the show I might have to wait another year or two. I have been on the net and have looked at the stuff from the show and have noticed that few guides list a success rate. This bothers me some. If I shoot at a critter and miss that is my problem, but if I don't see the critter I paid for than that should be his problem. I have seen ads for bear hunts in the 20k range and they talk about a refund of 9k if you don't see one. Do you really pay that much for a failure? This is not a slam on the guides out there, but it gets me thinking about who I hire to guide my hunt. After looking at the history of posts on this forum I found way more successful hunts that busted ones. What do yall look for when picking an outfit you have never hunted with? “I am an American; free born and free bred, where I acknowledge no man as my superior, except for his own worth, or as my inferior, except for his own demerit.” Theodore Roosevelt (1858 – 1919) | |||
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The craziest thing I saw at the show was a guy who wanted $1700 for a night of frog gigging! I kid you not. He did say it was not uncommon to stick 50-100 frogs a night; that made it seem reasonable... ______________________________ "Truth is the daughter of time." Francis Bacon | |||
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well that did come with a free pair of frog boots. but 1700 for what is free within 20 feet of my house seems kinda high VERITAS ODIUM PARIT | |||
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WTF is frog gigging? | |||
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Here's the way I learned to do it: Start drinking beer with your redneck cousins around noon on a hot summer day. About 4:00 pm switch to drinking sour mash. Sometime about 9:00 pm someone is gonna say, "Cuz, we shud go stick us a tote sack full of frogs." Everyone will quickly agree that's a grand idea, so you throw a small flat bottom boat and a big cooler of beer and bourbon in the back of the pick up and haul ass down to the river bottom. About half way there, you stop and put the boat and as much beer as you can find back in the pick up and tie it down this time. When you get to the river, you and your two drunk cousins take turns falling in the water while trying to launch the boat. Once everyone gets in the boat, someone is going to remember that you forgot to bring the frog gigs and lights. Pull the boat up to shore, swat mosquitos and finish all the beer while arguing over who forgot the frog gigs. About the time the beer runs out, send the youngest cousin back to town to get the frog gigs and tell him he might as well pick up more beer and liquor as long as he's in town. Pass out for an hour until your cousin gets back with the gigs, lights and booze. Put the boat back in the water and make sure everyone gets good and wet again. Paddle along the shoreline, shining the spotlights on the shallow water looking for frogs. When you see one, pole the boat over close enough to spear the frog with a gig (think of a small pitchfork with a 6 foot handle). Repeat until the booze runs out or the sun comes up. Drive home drunk and sleep until about 2 in the afternoon. Next time you're in the States, I'll have my cousins Otis and Daryl show you exactly how it's done. ______________________________ "Truth is the daughter of time." Francis Bacon | |||
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My son, Gdog and I attended the AR dinner as well and had a great time. I wish we could have made the Sat affair which may have been more condusive to talking to more folks. As to African Hunting prices, particularly TZ. Prices are Wacko! The one estimate I received from One of the big three companies was at least 30% higher than last year. One of you Economists out there could help me understand the math. Perhaps, the outfitters are asking me to pay for the hit they took last year? Perhaps, the weakened $? I'm lucky to have fairly deep pockets but the increases seem excessive and Piss me off. "shoot quick but take your time" | |||
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Forrest, you have a way with words Sorry I didn't get to say good-bye at the show. jorge USN (ret) DRSS Verney-Carron 450NE Cogswell & Harrison 375 Fl NE Sabatti Big Five 375 FL Magnum NE DSC Life Member NRA Life Member | |||
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Tanzania Leopard, Buff 21 days high bid 70,000. I almost asked if the arm candy behing the counter was included... But I didn't. Talked with a booty load of operators, by far the best 2 where the 2 that invited us into their booths. Too much info to post but did run into Hogkiller and Retreever. Both outstanding guys with lots of info. Good to meet you guys. | |||
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Just curious guys....How does these prices compare to the show? 1.) PG day rate - 1x1 $350 2x1 $300 Kudu up to 52" $1650.00 above 52" $1950.00 Impala $250.00 2.) 10day buffalo hunt- $15k all incl. 10day Leopard hunt- $13k all incl. 3.) Lion hunt all incl. $15k (short notice) 4.) Elephant bull all incl. $35k 5.)Elephant cow all incl. $8k 6.) Sable all incl. $8k Hunts in Namibia, Zim and SA.... I posted something about big Kudu bulls becoming very expensive about 1 year ago on AR, and it is becoming true....Most hunting areas that can produce Kudu up and over 60" charge $2500+ from 2008 onwards..... If you fancy any of these hunts, contact a fellow AR member, enjoy yourself without breaking the bank, and post the pictures of the hunt on this forum when we are done.... Hope you all enjoyed the dinner, sounded like great fun....Our marketing is taking us to Scandinavia in February, but we will be in the States in 2009!!! Cheers Charl www.infinito-safaris.com Charl van Rooyen Owner Infinito Travel Group www.infinito-safaris.com charl@infinito-safaris.com Cell: +27 78 444 7661 Tel: +27 13 262 4077 Fax:+27 13 262 3845 Hereford Street 28A Groblersdal 0470 Limpopo R.S.A. "For the Infinite adventure" Plains Game Dangerous Game Bucket List Specialists Wing-Shooting In House Taxidermy Studio In House Dip and Pack Facility In House Shipping Service Non-Hunting Tours and Safaris Flight bookings "I promise every hunter visiting us our personal attention from the moment we meet you, until your trophies hang on your wall. Our all inclusive service chain means you work with one person (me) taking responsibility during the whole process. Affordable and reputable Hunting Safaris is our game! With a our all inclusive door to door service, who else do you want to have fun with?" South Africa Tanzania Uganda | |||
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ForrestB Thanks for the great description - but I have to ask why on earth, apart from the booze and laughs etc - does anyone want to spend their time doing it - and what on earth do you do with the frogs once you've gigged 'em? Oh yes, and are they PAC or trophy frogs? | |||
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So when and where is the official AR frog gig being held? Have gig, will travel. | |||
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ForrestB, Being 74years old and born and raised in Mississippi I beleiev you have it exactly right except the whiskey would PROBABLY be moonshine where I was from as Mississippi was a dry state. Shakari, You skin and fry and eat the legs. When i was young they even sold them in fine restuarants. They are actually quite good. You do have to keep them from jumping out of the skillet as they cook though. SCI Life Member NRA Patron Life Member DRSS | |||
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Dick Broussard, Glad you made it to the Dallas show, and I hope you had a great time. The reason outfitters don't list success rates for African hunts is primarily because they expect you to be fully successful. If you don't take a given species you're hunting, you don't pay for it unless you wound and lose it. Works out well that way. | |||
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Does anyone have a sense as to what the "appetite" was at the show for throwing down on a trip? Was the sticker shock too much? Forrest- You are kidding right??? Who would pay for a booth to market frog gigging!?! | |||
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PostDriver, You got that one just perfectly correct. Virtually every hunt offered in South Africa has a very high expectation of success. For most plains game the Hunting Outfitter will make sure that his clients go to places where success rate is high, or some will resort to put-'n-take methods to ensure success. Then there are those that allow clients to shoot inferior young trophies - but success is not always measured by the age or horn length of the trophy. Then of course there is the canned [mostly lion, but also other game] hunting...... In good hunting. Andrew McLaren | |||
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zimbabwe, they still do have them in fine restaurants and they are damn good eating, just some people are squemish about such things you know like gator, snake, leopard, snails etc all good eats. Had a great time in Dallas the dinner was good (despite the math error) and the Sat party was fantastic meeting with posters. Hell I even met some guys that I have disagreed with on here and you know they aren't so bad when you get to know them. | |||
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Concur on the great times at both the dinner and the Saturday night get-together. Hope others compensated ForrestB for the "extra" charge at Pappadeaux's Restaurant. By the Die Ou Jagter, you were a great dinner companion. Max .395 Family Member DRSS, po' boy member Political correctness is nothing but liberal enforced censorship | |||
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I enjoyed the show and the opportunity to meet some of the AR members. No finer group. I found my elephant and buffalo on the Caprivi strip for 34,000, which was a substantial savings over Botswana and Tanzania. You all are right the prices seem to be getting a little out of hand. I feel fortunate to be able to live my dream. The Caprivi elephants are the same you hunt in the Chobe in Botswana. They move back and forth between Namibia and Botswana and I am sure Zambia. They are working on Lechwe and Sitataunga for the license also and I hope in the area they become available. What more could a country boy ask for. | |||
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I think I ended up making a few dollars on that transaction. Thanks everyone. ______________________________ "Truth is the daughter of time." Francis Bacon | |||
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ForrestB, good for you but I am sure it wasn't too much. Good meeting you and look forward to more DSC get togeathers. | |||
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Shakari: Because they taste so fine! Zimbabwe: I'm suprised you don't tie their little ankles together to keep them from jumpin out. That's the way we do it. Dutch Just sittin' in the gutter gigin' rats. | |||
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I think I'll stick to buffalo steaks thanks! | |||
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ForestB. I didn't realize there was a money problem ar dinner. We we're among the first to leave. Send me a Pm and I'll cheerfully send a check. studdog "shoot quick but take your time" | |||
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studdog, there wasn't really a problem. We were charged a little more per person than we anticipated. I paid the difference then Retreever collected a few bucks to repay me. Honestly, I probably made $10 - $20 on the deal and I'll put that in the Searcy Scholarship Fund kitty. I wish my bird dog was as diligent as Retreever. ______________________________ "Truth is the daughter of time." Francis Bacon | |||
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Forrest, I'm sorry I missed you guys this year. At least your frog gigging description made up for some of the lost laughs. That was grand! "There are worse memorials to a life well-lived than a pair of elephant tusks." Robert Ruark | |||
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ForrestB, could you tell about catfish noodling? NRA Life Member, Band of Bubbas Charter Member, PGCA, DRSS. Shoot & hunt with vintage classics. | |||
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forrest im not sure but we might be related. VERITAS ODIUM PARIT | |||
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driftwood, who did you book your hunt in the Caprivi with? Karl Stumpfe Ndumo Hunting Safaris www.huntingsafaris.net karl@huntingsafaris.net P.O. Box 1667, Katima Mulilo, Namibia Cell: +264 81 1285 416 Fax: +264 61 254 328 Sat. phone: +88 163 166 9264 | |||
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PostDriver, thanks for the clarification. “I am an American; free born and free bred, where I acknowledge no man as my superior, except for his own worth, or as my inferior, except for his own demerit.” Theodore Roosevelt (1858 – 1919) | |||
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Frog gigging is all fun and games until you provoke a charge from a big bull frog. Not pretty.... SCI Life Member DSC Life Member | |||
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I guess it'd be bloody difficult to get your shot placement right on a charging frog....... Or to put it another way, if you were caught on the hop and got the shot wrong, you'd probably croak. As the US & UK are two nations divided by a common language, in English, English, croak translates to die...... | |||
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Steve The REAL fun on a gigging expedition starts when one of the intoxicated giggers slams the gig into what he thinks is a frog. Unfortunately, the high blood alcohol content tends to fog one's judgement, where the erstwhile "frog" turns out to be a water mocasssin, a nasty and venomous serpent which shares the frog's natural habitat. The natural response from the snake is to start rapidly coiling around that which attacked it. Given the generally slowed reaction times of the gigger, the giggee can cause a bit of alarm when its coils reach the handle of the gig before it is identified by the intrepid frog hunter as "foe" and not "friend". More than a gig or two now sits underwater for those fortunate enough to recognize the threat in time. And more than one cry for "abandon ship" has been issued when the weapon is dropped on the bottom of the boat, coiled snake and all. SCI Life Member DSC Life Member | |||
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Shakari! As you can see the sport (?) of frog gigging is a southern USA activity performed by the uneducated rabble that inhabit that part of our country. These are the same so called sportsmen that hunt poor starving deer that are forced due to hunger to come to their feeders where the unsuspecting ruminates are slaughtered by high powered rifles. Now in the more civilized northern portion of The USA bull frogs are harvested in a more sportsman like and gentlemanly manner. Here we fish for frogs since they are listed under the fishing regulations. One takes a number 8 or 9 fly rod equipped with floating fly line 6 foot tapered leader and a number 16 to 22 dry fly and we sneak up on the frogs at night and dangle the fly in front of the frog. If the frog is hungry and since they are not artificially feed they are usually hungry they gulp the fly and the frog is hooked. Of course we would never think of using a barbed hook. It is not sporting "Just not done, old boy." We can then practice catch and release which allows the frogs to grow to trophy size in several years. Occasionally the local F&G declares an over abundance of frogs and we can harvest a limited number for the table. But because we catch the frogs alive we can limit our harvest to males past breeding age. Since frogs eat large numbers of mosquitos, our quality management of frogs in once reason why we have no malaria in the north of the USA and it has only been found in the southern USA. By the way, when I was growing up in along the south shore of Lake Michigan almost all of the corner bars (pubs to you) offered a menu of sea food dinners on Friday evenings because of the large catholic populations around there (use to be no meat on Fridays for Catholics). You could order a shrimp, Lake Michigan perch or frog leg dinner in these bars. They came with a side of Cole slaw and french fries (chips to you). The frog legs were my favorite. It is white meat, very tender with a mild flavor and very moist. 465H&H | |||
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I simply don't know what to say....... I've been giggling (NOT gigging!) about this thread all evening! THANKS for the laughs guys! | |||
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We seldom get to choose But I've seen them go both ways And I would rather go out in a blaze of glory Than to slowly rot away! | |||
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Steve, There is a reason we call them "bull" frogs as we, of the Southern persuasion (Long Live Robert E. Lee!!!!) take great care in not gigging the "doe" frogs. Telling the difference between sexes is bit difficult late at night in a swamp with your best friend holding a 4 pronged trident, but we do our best. The "doe" frogs are usually noisy, small breasted, large legged and hop around a lot (reminds me of Hillary Clinton come to think of it). The "bull" frogs sit still, burp a lot, hop very little unless a "doe" frog hops by and is in heat. They tend to look bigger than they are due to huffing and puffing. Must be a "male" thing. I have eaten several, taste like chicken, however. So you have not missed much in the eating of them. The end result of a fun frog gigging expedition is usually a great number of mosquito bites and mud in our shoes, but it is great fun. | |||
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When my brothers and I were meer kids, about 50+ years ago, we would go frog hunting "up north", a Michigan term for anything north of the Saganaw line with our parents on our summer vacations. In Michigan you are either "up north", or "down below" depending on where you are at the moment north or south of this imaginary line. At any rate, you get yourself a cane pole, Dad bought them at the local gas station back then, the longer the better. Next have your Dad tie on some line about 6 to 10 feet long depending on the length of the cane pole. On that you get a hook and when no body is looking you cut off a small piece of red flannel, most likely from an old shirt, or better yet have Mom give you a piece of flannel. Place the flannel on the hook. Now this works no matter what time of the day it is. We never tried this at night because of the mosquitoes. Then stalk and spot the bull frog hiding near the lilly pads, you got to be quiet and not jumping around to do this, and twitch the flannel/hook in front of his nose up and down a little. He will flip out the tongue and snatch the hook and flannel right down. Then jig the pole, jerk it up a little, and you have a perfectly good, hopefully large frog on the line. This works better when the wind is not too bad. This becomes more dificult because the flannel seems to fly around a bit in the wind, making it more sporting like, no weight on the line. Then remove the frog from the hook, cut off the legs, put them into a fly fishing creel. Do this as many times as you wish and then have good old mom fry them up for supper with flower, salt, and pepper on them for the batter. Very good, yum yum. And, yes, when they are fresh they have more kick in them when they hit the hot frying pan, cool to watch. | |||
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I have done it a bunch in my younger years. You can easily tell the male from the female by their call. The female calls in a very distinctive "Wannna dik, wanna dik, wannna dik" note. The male on the other hand makes a very deep male response of , "Dik, Dik, Dik". We did use a sharp stick for the first few times. Then a true gig, but on later contemplation I decided that a 22 long rifle was the cartridge of choice. I will tell you that it will stop the charge of the most ferocious of the bull frogs in my neck of the woods. I think I will try to put some of them to bed this spring. The black bass out of florida have put a serious hurtin on the bull of frog population here. The description above does not include much of the drinkin involved. Otherwise it is accurate. Good huntinn. "D" Although cartridge selection is important there is nothing that will substitute for proper first shot placement. Good hunting, "D" | |||
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