Good morning,
I, again, am leaving for BF in 48 days. After many safaris I have the feeling of a new adventure! A group of 5 friends in search of 4 roan 4 buffalo and what we cross tracks while hunting. I have read and re read the hunting reports but any tips and advice is more than welcome!
Happy new year!

diego

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Harmattan is early and very bad this year. Worst we have seen it in Nigeria for years.

Drinks lots of water and try not to breeth to much of the sand in !

Otherwise have a great time and happy hunting !

Charlie

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Should I take a facemask and sky googles?

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Not practical but you are seeing some guys on the streets actually wearing OP masks when out and about. You know the type the Asians wear when they have colds.

Food for thought.

Should be less in month and half .....

Charlie

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quote:

Originally posted by Charlie64:
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Harmattan is early and very bad this year. Worst we have seen it in Nigeria for years.

Drinks lots of water and try not to breeth to much of the sand in !

Otherwise have a great time and happy hunting !

Charlie

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I admit I had no idea what you were talking about.

But now I do.




Harmattan

The Harmattan is a dry and dusty northeasterly trade wind which blows from the Sahara Desert over the West African subcontinent into the Gulf of Guinea between the end of November and the middle of March (winter). The name comes from or is related to Ga haramata. It is cold in most places, but can be hot in some places, according to the circumstances

The Harmattan blows during the dry season, which occurs during the lowest-sun months, when the subtropical ridge of high pressure stays over the central Sahara Desert and when the low-pressure Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) stays over the Gulf of Guinea. On its passage over the Sahara, it picks up fine dust and sand particles (between 0.5 and 10 microns).

Thanks again for the info. Keep it coming

Who will you be hunting with?

Felix Barrado and Yves Mougnard!

Insist on ice in camp.

quote:

Originally posted by fairgame:
Insist on ice in camp.

Needed for gin and tonic!

quote:

Originally posted by twoseventy:

quote:

Originally posted by fairgame:
Insist on ice in camp.

Needed for gin and tonic!

That's why hunting with Toufic Hanna is a good idea. He's got his own lime trees in camp. He also has lime porters.

Can't pass without the GT but I may prescind of the porters. Aids is a thing I can live without

quote:

Originally posted by dwarf416:
Can't pass without the GT but I may prescind of the porters. Aids is a thing I can live without

In Spain things might be different, but I can assure you that there is no link between limes and AIDS.

u are exactly right! Lol. Actually I comfirmed the availability of
Ice and ordered some limes for the GT. I have calculated the dose of GT to avoid malaria and it comes to 4000 thousand a day so I otdered a truck of limes. I'd ratheroverdose than regret

Take a couple of the fishing type face and beck gaiters. If you are on back if truck wear it to breath through to keep the dust out. A few guys with us got sick from that last year. The thin material really helps filter dust.

quote:

Originally posted by dwarf416:
Felix Barrado and Yves Mougnard!

They hunt kondio?

Well Burkina is pretty much like northern Cameroon where you have hunted I think. It is a bit dryer, in particular this year as the the rain season wasn't great.
I am in North Cameroon since beginning of the season and it is dryer then normal here. Very dusty too. Facemasks help a bit but not much. After all the dust is not dangerous. Have a cigar and a wishy after the day and you'll be fine ;-).

quote:

Originally posted by dwarf416:
u are exactly right! Lol. Actually I comfirmed the availability of
Ice and ordered some limes for the GT. I have calculated the dose of GT to avoid malaria and it comes to 4000 thousand a day so I otdered a truck of limes. I'd ratheroverdose than regret

It may be worse than you think. Some modern tonic waters have no quinine (which should be illegal) so it depends on the brand.

No quinine on tonic water! They should be put into a Zimbabwe jail. I must do an intensive study and make it public worlwide! Thanks for the headsup. That may be livesayving!

Like Tim and others have said, make sure and bring some sort of dust protection for your mouth, nose and eyes while riding in the back of the truck. I quit wearing mine after the first day and got a severe respiratory infection later in the week.

I hunt each year in Burkina Faso. I don't know what you are talking about , dust is present in all hunting areas of Africa , except may be the deep rain forest !

quote:

I hunt each year in Burkina Faso. I don't know what you are talking about , dust is present in all hunting areas of Africa , except may be the deep rain forest !

Let me enlighten you JR... Ive hunted all over the African Continent but never where, due to dust, visibility was less than 100 yards day in and day out and the sun was not visible at high noon. That was my Burkina experience.

quote:

Originally posted by bwanajay:

quote:

I hunt each year in Burkina Faso. I don't know what you are talking about , dust is present in all hunting areas of Africa , except may be the deep rain forest !

Let me enlighten you JR... Ive hunted all over the African Continent but never where, due to dust, visibility was less than 100 yards day in and day out and the sun was not visible at high noon. That was my Burkina experience.

Harmattan Winds

"Harmattan haze

In some countries in West Africa, the heavy amount of dust in the air can severely limit visibility and block the sun for several days, comparable to a heavy fog. This effect is known as the Harmattan haze. It costs airlines millions of dollars in cancelled and diverted flights each year. When the haze is weak, the skies are clear. The dry air can break the trunks of trees growing in the region."

. . . Jay I hear some folks spend lots of time in the chalets helping the locals with their French that might account for the lack of familiarity with the Harmattan winds.

quote:

Let me enlighten you JR... Ive hunted all over the African Continent but never where, due to dust, visibility was less than 100 yards day in and day out and the sun was not visible at high noon. That was my Burkina experience.

We are near the Sahel zone , but sandstorms are usually limited to the months november and december , sometimes beginning of january , rare during the hunting season.

quote:

Originally posted by grandveneur:

quote:

Let me enlighten you JR... Ive hunted all over the African Continent but never where, due to dust, visibility was less than 100 yards day in and day out and the sun was not visible at high noon. That was my Burkina experience.

We are near the Sahel zone , but sandstorms are usually limited to the months november and december , sometimes beginning of january , rare during the hunting season.

Not trying to be argumentative, but that is just not accurate:

"The Harmattan is a dry and dusty northeasterly trade wind which blows from the Sahara Desert over the West African subcontinent into the Gulf of Guinea between the end of November and the middle of March (winter)."

Jay was in Burkina in February. I was there in March. While the dust was not as bad in March, there were certainly days when there was a visible dust haze in the air. This was in the in the southeastern part of the country where a lot of the hunting takes place. I cannot imagine that the situation is materially different in the northeast part of the county . . . it is not that big a country.

I hunt each year in the southeastern part of Burkina Faso.

The dust is very unpleasant in Ouagadougou.

I have to agree with Mike and Jay. I wouldn't call it a sandstorm. It was dust suspended in the air, wind or no wind. I know it was due to the Harmattan, but it wasn't a sandstorm that blows in or out...When you can only see the sun rise one day, never see a sunset in Africa, etc., it is pretty serious, and inhaling as little of that dust as possible is a help.

I lived in Ouagadougou for 3 years. One year the Harmattan haze was so thick that stop lights were no longer green-yellow-red, but a sort of purple to brown. The chromatography got changed. When Forrest and I hunted there a couple of years ago all our guiding/tracking team wore either face-mask filters or Toureg style headgear, covering their faces and mouths during truck rides. And the temperatures during those early morning truck rides seem freezing, compared to cooking heat of midday. So, bring something warm to wear for the early mornings and also bring something to wrap around your face for dust.

We had a clutch go out on one vehicle and stopped in a village. I shot this straight into the sun, giving you an idea of how thick the dust is. You can see the dust mask hanging around the neck of the tracker on the left. Our guide, on the right, had lowered his face cover, but it's still around his neck.



If you are taking a wood stocked bolt action rifle, be sure to have the right size screw driver to tighten the stock to the rifle. It was so dry that the cross bolts on mine could be moved and I had to tighten up the stock to rifle fit after a few days. This is not good for accuracy.

You may have already looked at our hunting report.

http://forums.accuratereloadin...043/m/7341079481/p/1

Copied! Thanks for all the good info. Keep it coming!

Hell I have had the same experience with the Harmattan haze or winds in most of west Africa I have hunted. From Benin to Burkina to Cameroon, it has been present for all or a part of the hunt in those countries with the worst occurring in the Cameroon savannah in March and Burkina in February.

I agree even a buff or toureg won't keep all the dust from clogging you up but I would not hunt west Africa without one or the other....

Sounds like you have read the hunting reports on Burkina, if not, you should do so. Two recent reports are linked below. The most important thing to me is to just be prepared to be patient and understand that West Africa is not at all like Southern Africa. You have to be prepared to roll with the punches and put up with a different pace in Burkina.

Hunt Report 1

Hunt Report 2

Take a few bottle openers with you. Somehow they misplaced the one my crew had on the last day. Drinking beer from a bottle with the top sheared off is not recommended.

I thought it would be a nice little gift for your hunting crew especially if you could get some cool shaped souvenir type.

You could start off buying the guys a box of shotgun shells too.

Thanks to all! All good ideas! ( I learned long ago how to open a beer in any situation! A lighter a bullet another beer will play the trick

I just came from Burkina Faso.

The hunting areas of Ouamou and Singou are clean , a lot of buffalos but no Harmattan , for years as well according to the local people !

Thanks 4 the info!

Gentlemen:

I would be very careful about the dust. I came back from Zim last year and got sick. I was diagnosed with something called "reactive airway disease". They attributed this condition to the dust which was nothing compared to the dust in BF.

I was on antibiotics and steroids for months. I was wheezing incessantly. We had a hurricane headed our way and were under a curfew when it really got cranked up. Super high fever (104 +) , audible wheezing, coughing up blood. Gained over 20 pounds from the steroids.

Don't ignore the dust. I would not wish this on anyone .

Inhave bought those toureg things for mouth and nose and will take a few facemasks to. Never bad to prevent problems. After a few safaris in africa I am really looking forward to this one!

https://www.osha.gov/Publicati...masks-factsheet.html

Check this out. If you can find something like this locally (In Espana) you will have more success in preventing upper respiratory problems.

It should have filters on it. The kind Asians and Doctors where do minimal for dust.

I am a Safety and Occupational Health Specialist by trade, you make look weird but I recommend a better mask than just a piece of fabric.

http://www.coopersafety.com/pr...respirator-1123.aspx

It should have a ANSI (USA) or CE (Europe) rating on it, or it isn't any good.