My wife, Holly and I had a great 13 day hunt last month with Buks and Elna Botha of Bateleur Safaris.

The Botha's Tachiro Lodge is on 500 acres about 45 minutes outside of Potgeitersrus in the Northern Province, now called the Limpopo Province. Hunters are housed in comfortable private cabins scattered around the property in secluded areas of the bushveld.

They have Blesbok, Blue Wildebeest, Impala, Warthog, Bushbuck, Bushpigs, Steenbok, Duiker, Kudu and Zebra roaming around behind a game fence on their property. These animals are primarily for game viewing purposes and we did not shoot anything around his lodge.

Buks has access to many large properties in the surrounding areas. During our 13 days with him, I believe we hunted on 10 different properties. Some properties were fenced, and on some properties, the nearest game fence was many miles away. All our hunts were "fair chase." We saw lots of game and took some very nice trophies.

Buks was very patient and helpful with Holly who had just started hunting. Her first animal was a black bear in Canada just several weeks before leaving for Africa. While hunting with Buks she shot a beautiful 54" Kudu, two nice boar warthogs (one for a warthog ivory necklace, the other for a skull mount), a 28" Blue Wildebeest and a nice 10 4/8" Springbok ram.

I shot a magnificent 32" Waterbuck, a 13 3/4" Tssessebe, a 4 4/8" Steenbok, a 4 2/8" Klipspringer, a great 7 7/8" Mountain Reedbuck, a nice Bushpig sow and a very unique 24" Impala ram with flaring tips.

Buks and his assistant, Julian, proved to be good hunters in the field and good companions around the fire. Buks is a good judge of trophy quality and never pressured us to shoot. He would evaluate the animal, give us his opinion, and let us decide whether or not to shoot. For example, on a beautiful property about 2 hours north of Potgeitersrus, we saw several nice Waterbuck bulls in the 28" - 30" range that I really wanted to shoot. But Buks would look them over and say "I think we can find a bigger one," so I held my fire. Sure enough, late in the afternoon we found a 32" bull, and Buks said "I think he's the one." Believe me, I didn't have to think twice about shooting him!

Breakfast foods were provided daily in the kitchen of our cabin. Brunch was usually served on the porch of the lodge. Dinner was served "al fresco" on the patio outdoors near the firepit.

Elna is a fine chef and we enjoyed everything she and her staff prepared. At our request, Elna served primarily game, and it was all wonderful.

We had a great time with Buks and Elna and would recommend them without reservation.

For more details on Bateleur Safaris visit their website at www.bateleur-safaris.com

[ 07-29-2002, 02:46: Message edited by: Mark in SC ]