For those of you in the know, if huning leopard, buffalo and elephant, would you prefer the Chewore South area or Chirisa for a June 2008 hunt.

Specifically, what area has best concentrations of game, better trophies and widest variety of plains game in addition to dangerous game?

I have not personaly hunted in chirisa but I have hunted in chewore. I can attest to an unbelievable amount of elephant and buffalo in the area when I was there. I also took a leopard there although the populations did not seem very dense. Quality of specimens was good.

I had a great hunt in Chewore South in 2001.

However, ownership of the concession has changed and I would suggest you investigate to see if any of the new owners are on the U.S. State Dept. blacklist, because if so then you could face criminal charges for doing business with them. (Just a friendly warning...)

When I left Zim in October it sounded like Andrew Dawson and that bunch had Chewore South. I don't know if all is settled there yet. I can tell you this that my client and a first timer took two 38" bull buff, 1 cow buff, 28" waterbuck, 36" eland and bushbuck in 7 days in Chewore South in Sept. He then moved to the Mokore's area on the Save and took 9 more animals. Personally I shot a leopard and 2 buff in Chewore South in '96. It is real Africa.

Mark

I have had great hunts there, but point out as others have that the concession has changed hands.

JPK

I'm the guy that Mark is talking about. I would agree that Chewore is a great area for Buffalo and we ran into lots of them while I was there. I shot a 38" herd Buffalo, and then while trying for Leopard shot a cow for bait purposes. Later on, I was told they had some quota left at the time, because of a cancellation, so I took a second Dagga Boy there. The guy before me had shot a 42" Sable there as well. We saw elephant on a nearly daily basis, although they were not necessarily trophy sized.

I would not hesitate to recommend hunting there if the outfit is a good one, as it is a bit away from good sources of supply.

Of course, as a first-timer I have no idea how good Chirisa is...

cb

Was told by a Valley PH yesterday that Chifuti will most likely get CS.
Chirisa is less rugged and wild compared with Chewore.
I think you would likely find a bigger tusker in Chirisa.
But they are both great safari areas.
ozhunter

The biggest ele in Zim are usually found in the SE up against the Gona Re Zhou reserve area on the border with Moz. A big one was killed near Hwange this season as well..common thread, these big ele come out of the National Parks.

I believe the best buffalo area is Dande N. Notably better than Chewore N and somewhat better than Chewore S. There are also plenty of Ele and some pretty good Kudu in Dande N...and the prospects for Lion are getting better there too. Sable few and far between down in the Zambezi Valley..you are better off in the highlands, eg Doma.

Leopard like ridges, rocks, and caves. I am not sure Chewore S is the best area for leopard. Matobos area is good leopard country.

Many hunters who want to do serious PG hunting do so in one of the conservancies, ie Save or Lemco/Bubiana, after their DG hunts in the Zambezi Valley are done. The density and variety of PG in the safari areas/concessions isn't that great. Some of the remaining private areas are good too but most have been mismanaged at best.

Frankly, if you want to get into DG and serious PG hunting, Moz is worth looking at. There's some excellent PG, esp Sable, Nyala, Red Duiker and Bushbuck hunting in Moz. Buffalo very good, Leopard and Lion around but hard to hunt. Unfortunately, US hunters can't bring ele trophies out of Moz but that may change.

I hunted 2 weeks in Chewore South in June this year for leopard, buff, and plains game. Killed nice 7ft leopard, buff, kudu,impala, bushbuck, hyena, baboon. Was suppose to hunt dangerous game in Chewore and then move down to the Save to hunt plains game but, was enjoying Chewore so much, decided to stay there for entire safari.

I spent 6 months in Chewore South back in 2005 filming hunts for Roger Whittall. I filmed many dangerous game hunts there including 1 Big Four hunt. There are a good number of Elephant. Roger Whittall Safaris took a 60lb Ele in Chewore South this season along with some great Buffalo trophies and Leopard.

I know Chewore South quite well and i would recommend the area to anyone. Its a special place to hunt in.

I do not know the new owners so i would check them out. As far as the hunting goes it gets top marks from me.

Mike
Mike Taylor Sporting Agent

Better go to Chewore

quote:

Originally posted by spanishhunter:
Better go to Chewore

Spanish hunter - how was your hunt in Charisa?

Hello Ahmed.
Nice to talk to you again.
I came back one week ago, I have always been told not to say anything if is not something nice to say, that´s why I didn´t write any report over it.
I always try to conduct myself in an optimistic way and always try to be kind with other people, but the experience was not good at all.
From the beginning while all my luggage was lost and not recovered till my coming back flight, to the end with some serious tipping problems I should have never had.
PH Steve did all he could for the hunt but there were no mature lions at all in the area, only 2 lioness and two 3yo males (one was shot when I was there also hunting lion)
This year Chirisa did not fulfilled the cats quota (only 1 over 10 leopards and 1 over 3 lions) there is only 2 more hunters coming after me so I don´t expect the quota to be fulfilled anyway.
I don´t know what is happening, but I guess poaching has a lot to do with it, too much wire in the area.
People there trying to help was the strong point. From Mr Hingeston to the camp people, everybody gave me support and all the available help they could.
I was expecting a bit more from the hunting area, at least to have the chance to have just one mature lion on the bait, or to see it while tracking or wodering around. Maybe I was expecting too much.

Best regards.

Spanish Hunter – Very sorry to hear about your hunt. We all know that success on a mature six year old lion on a hunt is only about 50% at the very best but I was not expecting that you will encounter so few lions during your hunt. However, it is important for a forum like this to have negative reports as well and even though I am a big HHK fan, I request you to please post a full hunt report.

By the way you did very well by not shooting that 3 year old male

I understood that this was a done deal back in Sept. Chifuti has it, after some suspect/fake bidders backed out of the deal.

There's no problem with Chifuti and crew, they run an excellent operation and I think in reality they are going to end up leasing back one or two of the camps to Duckworth or Whittal anyway...otherwise they have to step up to selling nearly 200 buffalo hunts between Dande N. Chewore N. and Chewore S. next season and they can't do that. They may lose Dande N in 2009 so they are hedging their bets by tying up Chewore S. for 10 years. If they keep Dande N. they will have a huge block of the Valley and they will effectively control the prices.

Chewore South is beautiful, big, and wild.Lots of quality game. You won't be disappointed!