Has anyone hunted this area near Arusha or has any info on the quality of hunt in this area? I am looking at booking a buffalo and plains game hunt there.

Henry,

Never hunted there myself. Craig Boddington did with Russ Broom's dad (Geoff?). Famous area. Do not know how it is holding up these days, but Boddington took a monster buff there and wrote about it in several of his books. Maybe Bwanamich could comment?

Go this link African Indaba and download January-February (Vol. 4-1) then read Item 2. Hunting in Tanzania by Peter Flack.

I believe the primary lease holder of Mto Wa Mbu is Intercon. Based on my experience with an Intercon block in the Selous, I would not recommend them.

Who is your outfitter?

Regards,

Terry

The outfitter is Hunters and Guides Africa with John Oosthuizen as the PH. I don't believe they hunt the area on a regular basis. They tend to freelance in several different areas. Terry, thank you for the article that is very good info to know.

As Terry said, the primary block holder is Intercon. Jaco is a good PH and will do his best to see you succeed.

Having said that, the primary buffalo area for Mto Wa Mbu is the Losimangore Mtn range and that part of the concession is managed by Rainer Josch who has an agreement with Intercon and his own camp, staff and equipment. Rainer is a stand up guy and he knows that mountain very well. He has close to 100% success on buff hunts up there. It is tough hunting involving a lot of walking up and down steep slopes. the only other place one can find buff in Mto wa Mbu is on the Rift Valley excarpment. there are no roads there so it is entirely walking along the steep slopes. Your chances at buff on the Rift are much lower than on the mtn. you have to be very fit for this hunt and trophy quality is average - but a buff is a buff irrespective of the inches on his horn and hunting them on the mountain is a great challenge!

You will be successful on plains game as there are enough around.

Terry,

you know what I don't like about that article is that Flack books a hunt to do an article on hunting in tanzania but chooses the cheapest outfitters with little or no reputation whatsoever and then expects to have silver service!!! From someone like him I would expect more.....he painted the whole industry with the same brush

Bwanamich,
Thank you for your insight. Your view of the area is the way it was presented to me by my PH.

Who is Intercon, do they have several other concessions? Also what is Jaco's last name?

I have been up on Mt. Meru in the park, is the Losimangore Mtn range similar?

I had a friend who briefly stayed up on Mt Gali and was very impressed with the buffalo hunting prospects. Would the hunting and buffalo be similar between Gali and the Losimangore range?

Bwanamich,

Flack did acknowledge that there were some operators in Tanzania who had a long-term conservation approach.

Having said that, however, there are a number of major, long-standing, safari outfitters in Tanzania and here I think of the likes of Messrs. Pasinisi, Hurt and Samaras, as well as companies like Tanzanian Game Trackers and that owned by Mr. Tudor Jones who have introduced voluntary, self imposed quotas and trophy limits, for example, instructing their professional hunters, under threat of dismissal, not to shoot any lion under the age of six years old. Their clients have also accepted a levy on their trophy fees which has helped fund both anti-poaching and local social upliftment programs in the hunting concessions concerned. But these are people and companies with a long term commitment to hunting, conservation and community involvement in Tanzania.

But it is interesting, given his money and experience, that he chose to use a South African PH for his hunting in Tanzania.

Regards,

Terry

quote:

Originally posted by Henry29:
Bwanamich,
Thank you for your insight. Your view of the area is the way it was presented to me by my PH.

Who is Intercon, do they have several other concessions? Also what is Jaco's last name?

I have been up on Mt. Meru in the park, is the Losimangore Mtn range similar?

I had a friend who briefly stayed up on Mt Gali and was very impressed with the buffalo hunting prospects. Would the hunting and buffalo be similar between Gali and the Losimangore range?

Henry,
I ment "John" not "Jaco" sorry.

Interconn is a local company owned by the Naivasha family. They have other ocncessions in Tanzania notably 2 Selous blocks MK1 and Gonabis O.A.. They used ot have another 2 which have since been converted to Photographic and these were KY1 and Z1. You can read a little about their operations in the latter 2 blocks in the document recently posted by Forrest B (And Terry before him)about hunting the Selous.

Intercon have been mainly sub-leasing their blocks to various 3rd parties, some of which did not care too much about the long term effects of their hunting methods

Losimangore is not as big or high as Mt. Meru and about the size of Mt. Gelai you mention. Losimangore is slightly less dense than Mt. Meru and there are no roads once you get to the upper parts of the range. I understand from Rainer that he has stable populations of buffalo and he takes an average of 8-12 a year.