Dear all,
does anyone have up to date information about these two safari areas?
How has hunting been there in 2010?
I'm mainly interested in bull ele and buff.
Thanks for your input!

I don't know if this counts as "up to date", but two friends of mine hunted Chirisa for ele and buff in 2009. They were both successful and loved the area. HHK - believe PH was called Gomez (sp?).

- mike

Lots of buff and ele there. I don't know how big of a bull of either you can expect. Phillip Smythe had some good deals going there - contact Aaron Neilsen...

In 2009 Charisa was heavily poached and overhunted.

I ran into much the same experience as above. 2009 as well. But i was only there a week and i could have just hit it wrong.

Silent T how big is the ivory of the eles show in the gallery and where were they hunted?

Mike

I hunted Charisa in 2004. It was a great concession. I haven't been back there since but PH's in the know have told me that the poachers have overrun the the place.

Ryan Cliffe hunts charara on a regular basis and has a high opinion of that area. You can contact him at ryancliffe@zoo.co.zw

Good luck!

Thanks guys!

Stephen:
Is Ryan Cliffe a PH? Working for which outfit?

quote:

In 2009 Charisa was heavily poached and overhunted.

My experience exactly!


.

I believe Charara is off limits to US hunters as the holder of the concession is the wife of a general in the Zim military.

I was in Chirisa twice in 2009 and again in 2010.

March 2009 - jesse was full of buffalo and elephant, PG was hard to sight in the thick summer bush. Client shot 3 elephant and missed a buffalo.

Sept 2009 - plenty of elephant, buffalo also but skittish, our party took 4 buff and one elephant. Sighted bushbuck, impala, waterbuck, kudu, baboons, and warthog daily basis. Eland scarce. Klipspringer seen once or twice. Saw lion tracks and sighted a pride of lion.

Sept 2010 - drier this year. Game concentrated along Sengwa river - again elephant all over the place, buffalo ditto, warthog, impala, bushbuck, waterbuck daily. If anything has overrun the place, it's baboons. Shot elephant, impala and warthog. Hunters (2) that left as we arrived hunted adjoining Sengwa Research. Their bag: 2 buffalo, 2 elephant, 4 baboons, 1 bushbuck, 1 grysbok, 2 impala, 1 warthog. They reported seeing large numbers of elephant and buffalo daily.

This area is comfortable to hunt, no tsetse and no mosquitos, humidity low due to higher elevations. Game counts are similar to my experience of Dande N. If there is one critique, it's the lack of heavy ivory. Some large single (broken) tusk bulls have reportedly been taken, but trophy bulls over 40lb are few and far between. Also, there don't appear to be any Sable in this area.

I am not sure what the frame of reference of the above posters is. You are not going to see game concentrations like you will on a game farm in RSA, or on a fenced conservancy like Lemco. However, that's true of pretty much every concession in Zim, all of which have suffered poaching of the common antelope species.

I hunt Chirisa and have been hunting there since 2007 - If i was asked to take someone into an area with good diversity of game, this would be it. Most areas boast EITHER good quantities of dangerous game OR plainsgame... Chirisa sports good quantities of both. As Russ stated, this is not a game farm, it is 350000 acres of unfenced wilderness which in my opinion still holds good quantities (and quality) of dangerous game and plainsgame. I would not hesitate to take anyone into Chirisa

ele12 - if you want a good elephant bull - end of season is the time in Chirisa. End Of October into November. Its hot but I saw some great Elephant there last year.

Phillip Smythe

Past history has shown that April is the time in Charisa for big bull elephants. In the past they took one or two 60 lb bulls there in April. They come out of the Chizarira NP and are usually found in the northern part of the area along the Chizarira border. Decent plains game and very good buffalo numbers. I think lion numbers are down and their quota reflects it. Very good leopard populations. I have hunted there four times since 2000. Tuskless are there but at a lower percentage than some other areas.

Poaching has been a big problem. Annully, they know of 15 to 18 elephant poached per year. In 2000 we encountered 3 packs of dog poachers in three weeks. We killed 27 dogs on that hunt.


465H&H

quote:

Originally posted by Phillip Smythe:
I hunt Chirisa and have been hunting there since 2007 - If i was asked to take someone into an area with good diversity of game, this would be it. Most areas boast EITHER good quantities of dangerous game OR plainsgame... Chirisa sports good quantities of both. As Russ stated, this is not a game farm, it is 350000 acres of unfenced wilderness which in my opinion still holds good quantities (and quality) of dangerous game and plainsgame. I would not hesitate to take anyone into Chirisa

ele12 - if you want a good elephant bull - end of season is the time in Chirisa. End Of October into November. Its hot but I saw some great Elephant there last year.

Phillip Smythe

Guys - JMO, but above is info directly from the PH who is hunting Chirisa now, and has since 2007. He might have more reliable info on Chirisa, than any of the rest of us.