A thread was started about Congo Brazzaville and one of the members, Caracal, asked me to post a bit more information, so as background here you go....I have hunted Congo Brazzaville number of years. The first adventure was in 1997 and while we were in the bush a civil war broke out. The area we hunted out of is called Impfondo, which is basically a village in the middle of 100's of square miles of inundated forest. It is serviced by a small civil airport and the river Ubangi. Since all airline insurance companies shut down during civil wars I was stuck there with my missionary friends with no way to get out. River traffic was being hit by mortar, so it all stopped. They told me I would have to wait for the end of the unrest, but after two weeks and no way to get word out to my family I decided to try to go overland. I hired a guide who said he thought he knew a way and off we went. First we went to Epena by truck, but there the road ends and we got a motorized canoe from the Catholic church to take us as far as it could go. From that point on I had to improvise, so we hired paddlers to take us in shallow dugout canoes as far as they could. We had to sleep on the buttresses of trees, as the ground was all wet. We finally made it to dry ground and hacked our way across to some new logging roads. There we pitched camp until a truck came by a day later. He took me to the main logging camp, which was on the far side of the inundated forest. From there I was able to hitchhike across to Cameroun, where I was born, and on to Douala where I managed to buy another ticket home. All in all it was about 1000 miles of pretty much unexplored jungle. I was able to make some very good connections that then set up further trips of exploration which I did for 4 more years. Civil unrest in CAR then pushed a lot of refugees and associated scum with them (more police etc.) and I had to stop going.
Congo is a VERY difficult country to hunt, but it can be done perfectly legally and is not on and off like some countries. The main issue is you cannot bring in a rifle, as far as I know, and the transport is fraught with challenges. Canoes end up being the main way to get around as fuel is all barged up to the north of Congo; only to be unavailable many times of the year. It is true jungle hunting and bongo and elephant are protected, so you are limited to the other forest animals, but the yellowback is allowed while it is not in Cameroun. We have been successful on yellowback an forest buffalo on most trips. Conservation groups are very strong in Congo and make life miserable, while the police are corrupt and vicious.
Camshaft.

Cam, if you find a 5 five resort in the jungle for me I'm ready to go...ehheheh

This from a man who brings his own wine, cheese and virgin olive oil to Cameroun!! I think you can see by the post I am not looking to "sell" any hunts in Congo. I was just trying to fill in a bit of a blank in the puzzle of West Africa where it is still legal to hunt.
It is the most amazing hunting I have ever done, but also the hardest.

he he he. I know but maybe one day you will help me to go to Congo.

Thank you cam. Sounds very adventurous. 1000 miles of pretty much unexplored jungle sounds like a hell of an adventure.

I am looking foward to see how it is to hunt in cameroun. Don't worry I won't bring cheese and wine

Do your friends still hunt in the congo?

How long did it take you to make the 1,000 mile journey ??? Thanks, Webster.

I still have connections in Congo but have not hunted there for a number of years. I will probably go back some day.
As mentioned before it is a matter of keeping contact with people who have licensed guns in the country that you can borrow. I tried to import with permits form the Congolese embasy in Washington to no avail.
The trip of 1000 miles really did not take all that long once I got moving. The main reason was that the Congo is landlocked and so all the timber has to be exported through Cameroun. This means they have good logging roads, once you can reach them. River travel is remarkably swift, so it really just left a couple days of true "hack your way through the forest". All the Congolese in the bush are extremely friendly and helped out as they could as long as they could double your agreed upon wages at the end of the trip. If not they simply helped themselves to your baggage!!
My driver was a typical mercenary type individual. We basically drove straight through except to refule and the prayers which he only did three times a day, not the required five. He ate the kola nuts constantly and we stopped every major village where he would trundle off to see one of his "wives". He claimed this kept him strong and it was my first real look at how AIDS could infect a whole continent in just a very short while. He had five women in the space of 24 hours at the major crossroads with Congo, Cameroun, Gabon, Central African Republic as well as Equatorial Guinea...think about it. The women all surely had men from all the rest of those countries as well. Even if all anyone of them had was a cold it could have spread to thousands of square miles of Africa in a matter of days!! Pretty scary and amazing AIDS has not been worse than it has been.
Congo is not for the faint of heart, but while walking through the jungle we had numerous gorilla and chimpanzee sightings and ran into fresh bongo tracks as well. I was not hunting at that time but returned the next year to do so.
camshaft