Is anyone still hunting in Makuti? My favourite place in the world.

Mbalabala Safaris now has the concession. Going in Aug. 2018. I have been trying to research the area more. Can you tell me about it. Thank you.

Beware of sleeping sickness.

Does the prophylactic for malaria also work for sleeping sickness?

I do not know. I do know some people who almost died of sleeping sickness while on safari in Makuti.

quote:

Originally posted by postoak:
Does the prophylactic for malaria also work for sleeping sickness?

No

quote:

Originally posted by larryshores:
I do not know. I do know some people who almost died of sleeping sickness while on safari in Makuti.

Correct. I know some that say they will never go back to Makuti for that reason.

I recall hunting with Gary Hopkins after he got sleeping sicknes, can't remember if Makuti was the area he got it in.

quote:

Originally posted by McKay:

quote:

Originally posted by larryshores:
I do not know. I do know some people who almost died of sleeping sickness while on safari in Makuti.

Correct. I know some that say they will never go back to Makuti for that reason.

Yup. It is a shame as these same people say it is magnificent.

Rance Spurlock did die of Cerebral African Sleeping Sickness and I believe he was in Makuti.

Makuti is where tsetse control operations for the Lower Zambezi are based, and during the war the research section (for which I worked as a biologist) was pulled out of Rukomeche to there so there is an association with tsetse flies and trypanosomiasis, but there is no worse strain there than anywhere else. In fact, the tsetse species there, Glossina morsitans is thought to be responsible for less disease transmission to man than G pallidipes in the lowveld.

There is no effective prophylaxis at this time.

Treatment can also be hit and miss.
No real guaranteed cure, close follow up for 2 to 5 years-- (LP's (lumbar punctures) 1 to 2 times yearly.)

The only readily available US FDA approved drug is Pentamidine.

Eflornithine, Nifurtimox,Melarsoprol and Suramin
are limitedly available with CDC participation in therapy.

No thanks on the Tryps....

Here is the scoop on Makuti-CMS and Mbalabala have signed it. However this year we will operate out of one camp that Mbalabala will run.CMS will only do 2 hunts this year and Mbalabala will do the rest. Next year we will have separate camps and share the quota.

Makuti is an extremely beautiful and productive area. Yes sleeping sickness was a problem. However the Tsetse control department and Parks have had a MAJOR operation and if you travel around Makuti now you will literally see hundreds of traps and I feel it is no longer a serious threat.

Mmal- We operated Makuti for several years and is one of my favourite hunting areas. Once off the black top road it is as wild as any area in Zim. It has excellent buff sable and leopard.

I have also used the tsetse traps with various pyrethroids at Munyamadzi and it has been extremely effective. If you have enough traps you can reduce the tsetse population to almost nothing in a period of a year.

hi Buzz,
will you be using your old camp?

Hi Adam

The plan is this year the camp will be at Rifa spring and that will be the camp we will be in as of next year and Lindon and Tinie will be at our old camp. Alot changes in a year especially in Africa but thats the plan as we stand now!

Buzz, thank you for the update and the information. It is appreciated.

Some pictures from Makuti when I was there, ten long years ago:

http://www.pbase.com/chelm/zim

Great pictures. Thanks for sharing

Thanks Lane, for the information on Rance. He was a local gun shop owner in Henderson, here in the greater Las Vegas Valley. We were never informed of what he actually died from, but that now makes sense.

quote:

Originally posted by ledvm:
Rance Spurlock did die of Cerebral African Sleeping Sickness and I believe he was in Makuti.

Wow.. I remember when Rance passed away and had heard it was illness contracted while in Africa. Did not realize he had been in Makuti..

quote:

Originally posted by Use Enough Gun:
Thanks Lane, for the information on Rance. He was a local gun shop owner in Henderson, here in the greater Las Vegas Valley. We were never informed of what he actually died from, but that now makes sense.

I have 2 rifles in my gun safe that I bought from Rance. Used to go by and visit him when in Vegas on business.

I bought a 300 Win Mag from Vance when I lived in Vegas years ago.. Have hunted all over the world with that 700BDL..

We hunted Makuti a few years ago and the Tsetse flies were crazy, I got hammered.
There were a handful of traps near CMS old camp but that is all I saw in a week there. There was a thought that deaths in the area being blamed on malaria my have been the 'sickness'.
I hear there have been some good moves in eliminating the flies in recent times.
Wonderful place, very wild and will test your fitness.
Cheers
Stu

No it does not.

There is at this time no available prophylactic for the trypanosome. A lot of the malarial prophylactics available work by inhibiting DNA transcription, so I don't see why they don't work, but your doctor would have to explain that

quote:

Originally posted by postoak:
Does the prophylactic for malaria also work for sleeping sickness?

Has there anybody hunted Makuti recently for Buffalo and Sable ?

Beautiful hunting concession. I took a monster leopard there with CMS in 2011. Serious hills. I always thought parts of it reminded me of Hawaii but without the ocean.

My favourite place on earth.I hunted there in 2018.It was extremely dry when I was there.All the springs were dry and my PH told me he had never seen it that way.From what I was informed, parks and the army uses or used that area as a free meat market.The first time I hunted there in 2010 there was plenty of ele.I would see elephants every day on the hills and saw hundreds.That was not the case in 2018.There were almost no ele to be seen.It could be they moved closer to the Zambezi river for food and water.
The only negative thing about the area was that there is very little walking involved.There is lots and lots of driving-very hard on vehicles too.
One downer on my 2018 hunt was that I did not hunt the same size of an area I did in 2010.The same area is now divided up between two outfitters.
Makuti is a dagga boy area.There are lone bulls or small groups of bulls throughout.I would love to hunt another buff there in the future.
As for sable, there are sable there in the gota gota hills and REALLY good ones.Body and horns.I saw record sable on both my trips there.The last time there I saw a huge one which I declined to shoot because sable are too expensive for me.If I played the lotto and were to win the jackpot,I would go on a two month hunt in Makuti-with camp situated in secret valley.

quote:

Originally posted by shootaway:
My favourite place on earth.I hunted there in 2018.It was extremely dry when I was there.From what I was informed parks and the army uses or used that area as a free meat market.The first time I hunted there in 2010 there was plenty of ele.I would see elephants every day on the hills and saw hundreds.That was not the case in 2018.There were almost no ele to be seen.It could be they moved closer to the Zambezi river for food and water.
The only negative thing about the area was that there is very little walking involved.There is lots and lots of driving-very hard on vehicles too.
One downer on my 2018 hunt was that I did not hunt the same size of an area I did in 2010.The same area is now divided up between two outfitters.
Makuti is a dagga boy area.There are lone bulls or small groups of bulls throughout.I would love to hunt another buff there in the future.
As for sable, there are sable there in the gota gota hills and REALLY good ones.I saw record sable on both my trips there.The last time there I saw a huge one which I declined to shoot because sable are too expensive for me.If I played the lotto and were to win the jackpot,I would go on a two month hunt in Makuti-with camp situated in secret valley.

Thanks for the Infos.
Which time of the year in 2018 you where there and how bad was the Tsetse Situation.

Early Oct.
Little to no tse tse.

Hunted leopard, buff, sable and tuskless there for two weeks in July 2018. Beautiful place and rugged in many spots.

Plenty of buff, both dagga boys and a big herd or two. Didn't have a chance to focus hard on sable but saw some sign - maybe just bad luck. Closer to the dam is better if I remember correctly. There are big ones there.

Saw maybe half a dozen tsetse there the entire time and I didn't bother with the picaridin after the first couple of days.

Tinie and Lin rebuilt the camp recently. Wonder if they took any of my improvement suggestions.

I have a client in Makuti this year with Lin Stanton. I asked Lin about the Tetses and he said there are 1500 traps in Makuti and as Buzz says the flies are virtually eliminated.

Mark

My wife and me were in Makuti in the first half of October 2019 on ele and sable. As for sable: we only saw 2 groups (1 female with a calf together with 2 young bulls and 2 young bulls). It’s a good ar-ea for buffalo (>40 ‘’), we also saw tracks of (big) leopards and had a close encounter (19 m) with (till then) sleeping lions (a young male with 2 females). No problems with tsetse and mosquitos (Malerone !) The most tsetse-infested place was the former CMS-camp, which we left soon.
We booked the safari on ele and sable. Travel agent was RR Jagdreisen of Austria, whom I met in February 2019 at the hunting fair at Dortmund, operator was - as we learned later - HHK. As I was looking for a 50 pounder, the agent had recommended that Makuti area. As I knew from other in-formations, that I could expect there at least a 35 pounder, I hesitated to conclude the contract. Then one day in April RR phoned to tell me, that at that very moment a 70 pounder was standing just in front of the camp. (Only)With this information, I signed. To cut short: We saw about 400 eles (singles and in groups), but only two ele bulls up to a maximum of 35 pounds. In summary: the area is ok for hunting on tuskless or female ele, buffalo and leopard. (That means, I went home without a trophy)
Little note: I discussed the experience as described above with RR-Jagdreisen and HHK at the hunting exhibition in Dortmund on January 29, 2020. At least HHK mentioned a reasonable price for a 50 pounder in another area and at another time, but not saying, what the price concludes. So we all agreed, that it should be up to RR-Jagdreisen so specify. I’m still waiting for this specification.