15+ years ago at SCI I was offered a trophy elk hunt in Colorado. The ranch was 10 1/2 acres!
Cal

quote:

Originally posted by cal pappas:
15+ years ago at SCI I was offered a trophy elk hunt in Colorado. The ranch was 10 1/2 acres!
Cal

Did you get him?

I was dealing with the same client weeks before chris with a possible hunt with paw print. He is looking for a put take hunt and just has more money then brains.
He does not want to listen but wants to believe his friends and what they tell him. We looked at it as our good luck when he moved on from talking with us about a hunt.

quote:

Originally posted by cal pappas:
15+ years ago at SCI I was offered a trophy elk hunt in Colorado. The ranch was 10 1/2 acres!
Cal

I have seen high fence whitetail hunts in Pennsylvania on 3 "heavily wooded" acres!

quote:

Originally posted by Opus1:


And yes, there are still trophy to order operations going on. While they are the exception to the rule, they do in fact exist.

Opus, no doubt they do exist - not only in RSA but in many other places too.

But importantly; these are indeed exceptions to the rule as you yourself have now stated...

Yet, this was not how I (and possibly others) perceived you to come across in the several posts regarding RSA hunting you made prior to me starting this thread. In fact; you never used the words: "exception to the rule"... Until now... Any uninformed person could have easily interpreted your statements as being the norm as opposed to the exception...

With respect; it might well be that blanket statements such as yours are the source of apprehension and misconceptions amongst hunters considering an African hunt...

I just wanted to set the record straight as regards "put and take hunting" not being the norm in RSA but rather the exception... And I thank you for your help in me bringing my point across.

I also want to reiterate that the purpose of my initial post was not to try and convince hunters to consider RSA for their African hunts - nor to compare our hunting with that in other countries. Africa is a big place and there is space for all kinds of hunters looking for all kinds of hunts here.

Chris, once again, you and possibly others are taking my post completely out of context as it was relating to pet lion shooting. Not sure how many more times I can say that, but I am a patient man and willing to continue for everyone's edification. Certainly don't want anyone to get the wrong idea about the merits of farm hunting.

A little change of subject matter to get away from the arguing going on here.

Chris, or anyone else that knows please post your thoughts to my questions.

I'm in Colorado, have hunted deer, elk and antelope over 35 years. I'd guess half the state is open to the public in various forms. BLM, school board lands, forest service etc.

Nearly all the rest and even in some of those areas are fenced. Nearly all are 3-6 barb wire around 4' high, seldom 5'. Mostly in the plains areas the bottom wires are raised up to allow antelope and small calves to go under. Most everything else jumps them same as brush, rocks, ditches or downed tree's. Quite often livestock does the same.

Isn't that the way animals are regardless of where they happen to live? The only HIGH fence's I've seen were either around ranch yards, or stack yards to keep animals out, or the one commercial elk ??"ranch" west of here at Penrose. These usually have a 12' fence, elk can jump them if they desire to get on the other side. Though very likely they may tear the fence down, or at least break off the top wire regardless of how high or low it is. A rancher friend told me and I agree that elk may not know where their feet are. He used cable for the top wires and ended that problem.

Just because a ranch has lots of fences doesn't mean wild animals are penned in. Much of that is misconceptions.

Side note on this Penrose elk operation. CODOW decided they likely were contributing to the CWD problem, told the guy they were closing him down, killing all his animals and here's what they were allowed to pay. AND did it! I've never seen any, but, uncle and others have said they'd seen elk where they never had been before. Just a few miles down the same canyons so very likely they'd gotten out of this Penrose elk farm. Some of this was first hand, others repeated unk # of times.

The size of these game ranches to me means little due to seeing these things all my life.

In the case of RSA, are these put and take places stocked with transplanted wild animals from elsewhere, or farm raised and planted? That makes a big difference. Only time I'm willing to kill tame animals is to butcher, injured or turned too aggressive to have around any longer. I "hunted" a put n take hog place in Fla in '11. These were wild hogs trapped and hauled to his 4 acres in the natural woods. I sure didn't feel they were half tame at all and was satisfied with the results. The other guy shot a piggy for meat, I wanted a head and meat, the first one wasn't as big as I wanted so we went out again the next morning and sat until one I was happy with came along. I'd much rather take a good long walk thru the woods hunting though and was just about to do so when this last one came thru.

Thank you all,
George

Chris,

Very wise move losing this potential client IMHO. My business is different than yours, but we are both in a "service" industry. I'm a lawyer.

Often a potential client has unreasonable, unrealistic or simply misguided expectations. Sometimes, their attitude can be adjusted, but when it can't, you are far better off to decline the business. If you don't, neither you, nor the client, will be happy.

This is the circle of hunting , where is the begining and where is the end.

Hunting is a defined by fair chase - but what is fair chase ?.

Who should determine what is fair chase and or what is ethical / moral ?

Can we rely on our own industry to police itself ?

Because of the above , hunting in Africa is in a deep pickle and getting worse as the uninformed set about bringing in new waves of limiting legaslation.

African Outfitters and PH's need to stand united and bring about the changes needed to bring us back to our roots of hunting.

quote:

Originally posted by georgeld:

Chris, or anyone else that knows please post your thoughts to my questions.


In the case of RSA, are these put and take places stocked with transplanted wild animals from elsewhere, or farm raised and planted? That makes a big difference. Only time I'm willing to kill tame animals is to butcher, injured or turned too aggressive to have around any longer. I "hunted" a put n take hog place in Fla in '11. These were wild hogs trapped and hauled to his 4 acres in the natural woods. I sure didn't feel they were half tame at all and was satisfied with the results. The other guy shot a piggy for meat, I wanted a head and meat, the first one wasn't as big as I wanted so we went out again the next morning and sat until one I was happy with came along. I'd much rather take a good long walk thru the woods hunting though and was just about to do so when this last one came thru.

Thank you all,
George

George,

I cannot comment on "put-and-take ranches" as I've never visited one so my reply is based purely on the areas that I (and most other RSA Outfitters I know of) hunt...

None of the properties I hunt contain farm-raised animals.

quote:

Originally posted by Safaris Botswana Bound:
This is the circle of hunting , where is the begining and where is the end.

Hunting is a defined by fair chase - but what is fair chase ?.

Who should determine what is fair chase and or what is ethical / moral ?

Can we rely on our own industry to police itself ?

Because of the above , hunting in Africa is in a deep pickle and getting worse as the uninformed set about bringing in new waves of limiting legaslation.

African Outfitters and PH's need to stand united and bring about the changes needed to bring us back to our roots of hunting.

Does that mean cutting down all the high fences?

That gets my vote.

Good post Chris. And yes, you saved yourself misery by letting this guy go. I have done the same, MANY times in my career and never looked back. I spared Chifuti one such guy a couple of years ago, only to have him book with another Zim outfit. I heard through the grapevine who it was and asked him at DSC how the hunt went? He laughingly cursed me for inflicting this guy on his outfit. We had a hell of a laugh, but I saw that train smash a-comin from a mile away. You handled it well sir!

quote:

Originally posted by Opus1:

Does that mean cutting down all the high fences?

That gets my vote.

With all respect... you either have no idea what you are talking about or you're taking the piss.

Please enlighten us.