I wanted to repeat my post from another forum here:

We had a good hunt, taking 7 animals in each country. TZ was exceptional. We hunted in MK1 and the Gonabisi. The conditions of the country and game were very good. I particularly enjoyed working with the PH, Ian Cundill Dodds of Hunters Africa and his Maasai trackers. We had a 16 day license but only 8 days to hunt and simply ran out of time on many species. In TZ, a very fine waterbuck, a blue wildebeest, warthog, a pair of Zebra, and a pair of fine impala. The buffalo proved elusive. Although we got very close, no shot.

It was an excellent camp on the banks of a croc filled river. I did not realize it was croc filled until we baited it. The staff were quite entertaining, although they did not realize it. The food was good and the beer (at camp) was cold. It warmed up during the day in the Land Rover.

In RSA, the Northern Province, my son took eland, kudu, and red heartebeest, I took a springbok, blesbok, gemsbok, and a beautiful black wildebeest. Although this hunt was more like a shoot than a hunt, only one was at 200 yds and the rest were at 225 to 250; the gemsbok at 300 yds. BTW on the eland, the 150 grain .270 Barnes X took him in the stomach as he quartered away at about 225 yds, tore up his lungs and was recovered under the skin of the neck on the far side.

Comparing the two hunts, in the future, I will probably opt to hunt in areas with ranging populations of game with no fences, if it is available. But I would not trade this hunt with my son.

We were in TZ in mid to late August and then went back into the Northern Province for the remainder of the hunt. I highly recommend Hunters Africa and Ian Cundill Dodds. He is a work of art.

Keith

Keith,

I think I have spoken to Ian before, if not mistaken he lives outside of houston texas part of the time now, originaly from Zim, married a girl from Houston if I'm correct. If its the same guy. Very nice guy, fun to talk to.

Same guy. I recommend him highly. He speaks 7 languages and is the best at organizing a camp of different tribesmen.

Keith I hunted MK1 end of last month in the same area. Did you go through the train station village and about a hour and a half from the landing strip?

I can assure you those buff were spooky with us as well.

James F. Nixon III

KWTX,
The wildebeest you took was of the Nyasaland variety found in the selous ecosystem. It is distinguishable by the white bridle across its face! Very pretty animals and great fun to hunt!

Gonabisi is not inside the Selous Game Reserve per say. It is what we term a "buffer zone" or Open Area. Both resident and tourist hunting is allowed. Unlike inside the selous G.R. people are allowed to live on these lands and every village get's an annual quota of game they are allowed to shoot for consumption or sell to resident hunters. This quota is often in addition to the quota allocated to tourist hunting outfitters using the same area. Often the "combined" quota is unsustainable in these areas but unlikely in Gonabisi. As far as "buffer zones" around the Selous are concerned, that is one of the best in terms of game quantity.

Happy hunting!

JTG,

if the sour face is for what I think it's for, good on you for showing some class.

Leighton

The blue wildebeest are indeed beautiful and quite hardy. We saw herds of up to ~600. As I'm sure you know they tend to run with the zebra, or perhaps its the other way around. Or perhaps when spooked, they all join up for protection. I don't know. A large herd can certaintly stir up some dust and cover some country!



Re the Gonabisi concession, I understood the problems associated with buffer areas before we went in. And I cannot blame the tribesmen, I'm sure the meat was consumed. I was just stating my reaction. We ended up hunting the Gonabisi because game was more abundant than in that portion of MK1 we were able to scout and hunt.



We did enjoy traveling through the villages to get to another camp and that was an enlightening and educational experience. Its is amazing how these people survive. For example, we saw a small cotton crop which was planted by hand, harvested by hand and the fellow was hauling in his harvest in a very large sack on a bicycle. It was to go to a village to be shipped by bus to Dar.



Next time I'll probably go further in, but certaintly enjoyed this trip and would recommend the Gonabisi as a prime hunting area.