Apparently, Cliff Walker and Bruce Watson have started their own company, Walker & Watson.

Has anyone used them?

quote:

Originally posted by Pig Farmer:
Apparently, Cliff Walker and Bruce Watson have started their own company, Walker & Watson.

Has anyone used them?

Who are they and what do the sell?

This 2 Guys normaly are the Top Pros for Swanepol&Scandrol in Tanzania and Zim.

Seloushunter

Pig Farmer

Interesting. Any idea what country.

Brett

I'm very interested in this. If someone can confirm and provide an email contact I would appreciate it. Spent 21 days with Cliff Walker in the Selous back in 2001. Great hunter and a good guy. He and a client got hit badly 2-3 years ago.

EDIT: Looks like they have half of the Riffa Safari Area in north Zim and are being booked under Swanapoel & Scandrol. Can't find anything more at this time and cannot locate the Riffa area on the map.

AfricanHunter:

As mboga biga bwana indicated, they are both PHs that operate out of Zimbabwe.

The Swanepoel & Scandrol website may offer the explanation:

"Our professional hunters Cliff Walker and Bruce Watson have obtained the rights to 50% of the quota for the RIFA Safari area. RIFA is found in the North of Zimbabwe in the Zambezi valley. The Area is a 400 sq km Safari Area where there are no people living within its boarders except the camp staff. This gives the wildlife the freedom to move in and out with no restrictions. The area has fantastic population of dangerous game including Elephant, Buffalo, Lion and Leopard and the mighty Zambezi River that never dries running through the concession gives the plainsgame plenty of water through out the year. With plenty of crocodile and Hippo there are also opportunities for these trophies to be hunted. After hunting clients may choose to wind down the safari with a fishing rod in hand trying to land the fantastic fighting tiger fish or just cruising down the Zambezi river watching the game come down to drink."

LionHunter:

I just met Cliff and Bruce in Paso Robles on Saturday. I don't have an e-mail contact for Cliff. I know they are going on to SCI this week.

Pig Farmer-

Thanks. Are they on their own as a separate company? I had to cancel Reno due to back problem. I consider Cliff Walker to be one of the best PHs in Africa and would hunt with him anytime anywhere. He is a native Zimbabwean and son of PH Butch Walker.

Anyone familiar with the Riffa area?

My father-in law and I hunted with Cliff in the Selous, Nov-2001, 10-day buffalo hunt for four total buffalo. He was an excellent PH, very hard worker, and quite a bit of fun to be around.

His current contact info is:

Walker & Watson African Safaris
Tel/Fax: +263-9-241206
Mobile: +263-11-215240
Sat Phone: +88 216 433 30606
Email: swanscanzim@aol.com

Just received a phone call from Cliff Walker. He's in Palo Alto tonight to meet with a potential client, then on to Reno for SCI. Walker & Watson is an independent company but they do take clients for S&S. They had a very good season, taking two good Lion. One of this years Lion is already sold. They will have 6-8 Bull Ele and an additional 6 tuskless (bull or cow) available.

There is no website up yet, but hopefully within the next 1-2 months. Their Zim printer failed to deliver their brochures. I will have photos and more info within the month.

Cliff has asked me to book for Walker & Watson and I will share info as it becomes available.

Rifa is south of Nyakasanga. Its northern border is the main road east-west through Zim to Zambia (which is the southern border of Nyakasanga). As I understand things, Rifa includes some of the bases of the hills of the escarpment and all of the floor along the length of the concession from the base of the escarpment to the Zambezi River. Some parts of Makuti border Rifa.

The maps I looked at showed many pans, but not in the league with Mana Pools or Nyakasanga. Rifa is not a large concession so perhaps the pan number per acre is similar but there just aren't so many. Some large jess blocks similar to Nyakasanga too. Except the Zambezi, (big exception!) no permanent water in the sense of year round rivers or pans, but I'm sure there are springs in the hills, either on Rifa's ground or Makuti's.

While Nyakasanga's season is limited to May 1st through September 1 (?) or 15 (?), Rifa's is open when the concession owner thinks it ought to be open, which would be great for eles, before and after Nyakasange, I would think.

Rifa is where the Zim practical proficiency took place for a number of years.

Circa May, 2008, while I was hunting in Nyakasanga, I had heard that control of Rifa was open to question and the matter was in the court system. Perhaps things have been settled.

JPK

Thanks John. I had a bad cell connection with Cliff but understood him to say it runs from the eastern face of the Kariba dam to Chirundu and is triangle in shape and that's all I got on the location. Sounds like your description is a good one.

I'll get everything ironed out within the next month, hopefully.

I need to remember that Folks in Zim tilt their maps. While I refer to The Chirundu road as the Northern border, the would call it the eastern border; While I would call the escarpment the Eastern border they would call it the Southern border; likewist the Zambezi River, they think its the Northern border but it is actually the Western border.

And yes, it is more or less triangular in shape, with the longer narrower point the Sothern/Western point toward the dam, and the base the Eastern/Northern border along the Chirundu road. Great place to dangerous game hunt I understand.

One or two fishing camps on the Zambezi, which is a negative, imo, because of the traffic.

JPK

quote:

Circa May, 2008, while I was hunting in Nyakasanga, I had heard that control of Rifa was open to question and the matter was in the court system. Perhaps things have been settled.

When I was in Zim in 2007 I heard Rifa had been announced as up for auction. Sounds like there may have been some dispute about the results.

I spent a good part of one day at the Rifa Education Camp, which is adjacent to Rifa Safari Area. It is pleasant there on the banks of the Zambezi.

quote:

I need to remember that Folks in Zim tilt their maps.

According to the UN map of Zimbabwe I found on the net a while back, the Harare-Chirundu road runs north west and the river runs at various time north west and due north (Kariba to Chirundu) there.

Not a bad map although it does not have the safari areas.

Charles,

As I'm sure you know, the Zim's refer to the escarpment as the Southern border of the Zambezi Valley and the Zambezi River as the Northern, it seems regardless of which way the river runs. Here, in the Rifa area, for the common Zim usage to be correct, the Rifa area couldn't be a triangle in general shape, since the escarpment and the river would have to run more or less parrallel, they don't and Rifa is more or less triangular!

The auction went through is my understanding, but one of two supposed partners bailed on his portion of the bid after the other paid in full. Hence the litigation, or so I was told.

JPK

quote:

Originally posted by JPK:
Charles,

As I'm sure you know, the Zim's refer to the escarpment as the Southern border of the Zambezi Valley and the Zambezi River as the Northern, it seems regardless of which way the river runs. Here, in the Rifa area, for the common Zim usage to be correct, the Rifa area couldn't be a triangle in general shape, since the escarpment and the river would have to run more or less parrallel, they don't and Rifa is more or less triangular!

The auction went through is my understanding, but one of two supposed partners bailed on his portion of the bid after the other paid in full. Hence the litigation, or so I was told.

JPK

Sorry if it looked like I was questioning you, just looking at the map to remember the lay of the land. I saw someone refer to the area (actually another part of the Escarpment near there)as south of Harare, and since then have been puzzling over it.

Who was the prior concession holder? I think they had Rifa for a while and had done a lot with it, or my memory could be at fault.

No just laughing at how often the river isn't the Northern Boundary. A look at Terry Carr's maps (link here: http://forums.accuratereloadin...22101325/m/931109381 ) shows the river flowing more or less north from Kariba Dam to Chirundu. The Harungwe (sp?) Safari Area shown on most maps is composed of several different of today's areas, including Nyakasanga and Rifa. This confuses many.

JPK

Must be my eyes but I could use a bigger version of Terry's map.

This is the link to the U.N. .PDF map I mentioned. As I said it does not have the hunting areas identified, but is detailed anough that you can zoom in a bit on the roads, etc.

Charles,

Your map is great. Zoom to 200% and take a look at the river's course from Kariba Dam to Chirundu, the river runs generally north, with just a bit of east in it. Compare the 29* longitude line. Makuti Safari Area includes the area to the west of Makuti and the the Makuti-Kariba Road to the crest of the Escarpment and a little more for a good ways down toward Kariba. South of Makuti is Chirara I think. West of both is Rifa, on the valley floor and including the foothills.

Nyakasanga is north of the Chirundu Road and includes the road running north east from that road and west of Makuti. That road is the security road which runs along the valley floor through Nyakasanga, Mano Pools, Sapi and Chewore into another concession the name of which escapes me. Nyakasange includes the foothills to the east of the security road (except for a photo safari area about adjacent to the secirity road) and Makuti and Nyakasanga border each other for maybe 15 miles before Mana Pools, which runs from the river up to beyond the top of the escapment, I believe.

JPK

Thank you sir.