1. 1 x PH x 2 CLIENTS – 7 days – 5 trophy fee’s for:
1 x Gemsbok (Oryx), 1x Impala or Blesbuck, 1 x Warthog, 1 x Steenbuck, 1 x Blue Wildebeest.

Price: US 4500.00

2. 1 x PH x 1 CLIENT – 7 Days (5 Days hunt, 2 Days sight seeing) – 3 trophy fee’s for:
1 x Blesbuck, 1 x Impala, 1 x Warthog.

Price: US 2150.00

3. 1 x PH x 1 CLIENT – 9 Days (7 Days hunt, 2 Days sight seeing) – 5 trophy fee’s for:
1 x Kudu, 1 x Blue Wildebeest, 1 x Impala, 1 x Blesbuck, 1 x Warthog

Price: US 3750.00

4. 1 x PH x 1 CLIENT – 11 Days (9 Days hunt, 2 Days sight seeing) – 7 trophy fee’s for:
1 x Kudu, 1 x Gemsbuck (Oryx), 1 x Impala, 1 x Warthog, 1 x Blue Wildebeest, 1 x Blesbuck, 1 x Steenbuck

Price: US 5870.00

5. 1 x PH x 4 Family CLIENTS – 7 Days (5 Days hunt, 2 Day sight seeing) – 8 trophy fee’s for:
1 x Kudu, 2 x Impala, 2 x Blesbuck, 2 x Warthog, 1 x Blue Wildebeest

Family Safari Price: US 7950.00 (4 people – 8 Trophies)

Included:
It is possible to add extra animals to any hunt. All you pay is the trophy fee. Hunts include pickup and return to local airport, ground transportation, lodging, meals / drinks, laundry, skinning / salting of trophies, services of tracker, skinner and Professional Hunter.

Not included:
Airfare, dip / pack, shipment of trophies, taxidermy, gratuity, items of a personal nature.

For more Bow / Rifle hunting packages see: http:www.bushwacksafaris.co.za

I have to say that these are some really FANTASTIC hunting packages! Best prices I've seen for a long time!

Maybe the economy is having a definite role in this after all....Hmmm

Good on you for offering these!

What area would the hunting be in and what would be the local airport?

David M

The hunting safaris will be mainly in the North West Province (90 miles / 140 km) and Limpopo Province (200 miles / 320 km) from Johannesburg International (OR Thambo International) airport. Base camp will be in the North West Province of South Africa.

Has anyone here hunted with this outfit? Love to get some feedback.

Why is the 5 day trip with with 3 animals more expensive ($4500) than an 11 day trip with 7 snimals ($3750)? Something does not compute.

quote:

Originally posted by Kamo Gari:
Why is the 5 day trip with with 3 animals more expensive ($4500) than an 11 day trip with 7 snimals ($3750)? Something does not compute.

2 hunters vs. 1 hunter

Got it. Thanks.

Please see package again?

4. 1 x PH x 1 CLIENT – 11 Days (9 Days hunt, 2 Days sight seeing) – 7 trophy fee’s for:
1 x Kudu, 1 x Gemsbuck (Oryx), 1 x Impala, 1 x Warthog, 1 x Blue Wildebeest, 1 x Blesbuck, 1 x Steenbuck

Price: US 5870.00

Your family package says 1PH for 4 Clients.

Legally in South Africa we are only allowed to hunt 1PH with 2 clients at the most? Just clarify that for the guys and gals here.

Good prices though and welcome to the forum!

Correct Charl,

It is illegal to hunt with more than x 2 clients at a time. This package is for a family consisting of x 4 members in a family. Mom, Dad, Son and daughter...but only x 2 hunting in the party.

Welcome to the AR Forum Bushwack.

The discussion about 4 Clients X 1 PH brings up an interesting pooint: What constitutes a 'hunt', in legal terms? I have specifically asked for clarity on this question from the Free State authorities: Their reply in my own words, and referring to the example of Bushwack's offer, was: 4 Family members, even if they are all hunters, being hosted by a single PH in camp is OK. Being in camp around a fire or eating/sleeping is not regarded as part of a 'hunt'. Away from camp and in the field with rifles or other hunting tools present there had better be no more than two hunters with a single PH, as that will be regarded as 'hunting'. Certainly Bushwack can make such an offer in the Free State, and to the best of my understanding also in other provinces(?).

Has anyone cleared the official view on this point in other provinces?

In good hunting.

Andrew McLaren

Bushwack,

How large an area where the hunting takes place? Is this one of them "farm" hunts where you walk across a pasture to shoot a small herd of animals or would this be closer to a free range hunt?

I hunted plains game on the DeBeers Estate a few years ago and it probably has me spoiled....it was quite a large place.

Woody

Woodrow S,

Depending what animal the hunter needs to hunt. Farms in the Bushveld (Limpopo, Nortwest, KZN) area will be in the region of 800ha (±2000 acres) to 12000ha (±30 000 acres).

Open, Karoo, Kalahari or Semi-Desert (Freestate and Northen Cape) regions starts at 2500ha (±6000 acres) up to 12000ha (±30 000 acres).

In South Africa we don't have free roaming game, but do still get free roaming animals and hunts in the Northwest and Limpopo areas, but the hunt concist mainly in "trust areas" (Local Chief or Prince and Nature Conservation must be notify when a hunt occur). The animals that are mostly hunted in the "trust areas" or "free range" areas are Kudu, Impala, Steenbuck, Rietbuck, Duiker, Brown Hyena, Leopard, Lynx - Caracal, Hippo and Croc.

quote:

Originally posted by Bushwack:
Woodrow S,

................
In South Africa we don't have free roaming game, .............................................

Bushwack,

I’m not picking a fight or argument at all. I just want to make a point about the correctness of the above quoted statement about "free roaming game".

Let me start by attempting to define what is NOT free ranging! Any wild animal that is somehow confined to a given [smallish] area is by fences of such quality that it cannot readily escape from the area is considered to be NOT free ranging. If you are happy with that attempt of defining what is NOT free ranging; then you should be happy with the next definition too: If the fencing around any given area is of such poor quality, height or state of maintenance that animals that are within that area at any given time can very easily escape from the area, the animals contained can not be, despite being temporarily behind a fence, regarded as “NOT free ranging”.

Now let us attempt to describe what can be regarded as true free ranging animals: Where animals are in an area in which they can move at will wherever they want to in such a manner that they live free lives, just as they would before the invention of any fences, such animals can be regarded as free ranging. Note that there is no mention of any specific size of this ‘area’; which could be quite different for two different species of animal. A field mouse will probably never move more than 100 yards or so from where it was born in all it’s life. A large animal, like an elephant, require a very much larger area to be regarded as free ranging in that area.

Now, all the 9 provinces in South Africa have an ordinance that declares wild animals like guinea fowl as "game". Everyone knows that a guinea fowl is NOT confined by any fence - it merely crawls under the lowest wire strand or flies over the top strand! It is, by Nature Conservation definition or classification a game animal AND it is not confined by fences at all: So the guinea fowl must be regarded as "free ranging game"! OK? I'm sure you and everyone else will agree with this argument.

Exactly the same applies to all wild ducks, spurwing and Egyptian geese, francolin and partridges and many other flying bird species; they are all GAME and are all FREE RANGING! So we do indeed have a number of free ranging game animals in South Africa!

Now let us just take the same argument a bit further and ask the question: Which other "game" animals are not confined by fences at all? One can argue about the status of baboons, vervet monkeys, all mongooses, most small cats and a multitude of similar smaller animals that can simply climb over or walk through any but the very fine wire mesh fences as to be classified as "game". Fact is no normal fence stops them from going exactly where they wish to go and, if you do not want to call them "game" they deserve at least the classification as "free ranging wild animals"! OK?

Now go one step further: Here in the western Free State where I live we have numerous springbuck that are generally called "trekbokke" . This Afrikaans term can be loosely translated as "migrating buck". Fact is that for many generations these, otherwise normal, springbuck have passed on the "trick" to crawl through almost any fence form one generation to the next. The long and short of this means that these "trekbokke" springbuck can go exactly where they please. If they encounter 'almost' any fence in the way they want to go, they simply crawl underneath or through it. End result: they go exactly where they want to go. Now springbuck is certainly regarded as "game", and they go and range freely exactly where they want to go: Thus by definition they are "free ranging game".

Note that above I have used the term; " …..’almost’ any fence…. ": Naturally the truly well maintained and erected game proof fences will stop even such "trekbokke" from crawling through. Here in my area there are indeed a few smallish game proof fenced areas from which such "trekbokke" cannot escape; By the same token they also cannot get into these areas. So very strictly speaking the cannot go quite where they please: The good quality game farm fences prevent them from getting into these smaller fenced areas. But in every 10 million acres where they can go where they please, there may be only a few thousand acres into which they cannot get! So, as far as I'm concerned the springbuck on the remaining 9 995 000 acres can go anywhere that they please. They can live full natural lives, just like springbuck in the area lived before the invention of fences, with one small adaptation: They have learned to crawl through fences. I therefore maintain that Andrew McLaren Safaris offers "free ranging" springbuck hunts here from my home base.

Besides these springbuck that are called "trekbokke" the steenbuck in our [and everywhere really] area is even less affected by normal cattle fencing. I have personally observed on many occasions how a steenbuck will run through a cattle fence at almost full speed. They to, except for the very minor % of very well fenced game farms, go exactly where they want to go and I certainly regard them as "free ranging" game.

The blesbuck is a difficult one to classify with the springbuck and steenbuck. I have witnessed on a few occasions how blesbuck simply "walk through" normal cattle fences. So these also go where they please and can be called "free ranging game". Truth is however that blesbuck are also very territorial herd animals. If there is a resident blesbuck herd that lives in a certain "cattle fenced" camp [or paddock], they will tend to stay there, by their own choice. That is their home range, and provided there is enough food and water and they are not disturbed too muck by humans and cattle, they will stay in that area indefinitely. Not because the fence around the area keeps them there, but because they like it there and stay their by choice. Being very tied to a given territory the bulk of such a blesbuck herd will stay in that one camp. Even though it is only fenced by "normal cattle fences". However, if the herd population composition is not carefully managed the excess young rams will be "kicked out" by the older dominant rams. To avoid injury from the dominant herd rams hese younger rams then simply crawl under, jump over or walk/crawl through the surrounding cattle fence to go elsewhere. They go away from the dominating herd rams as they please.

If a hunter harvests the dominant herd ram as a trophy, and in a week or so the young rams are back with the herd attempting to get themselves established as the dominant herd ram. So, even though the bulk of the herd seems to be contained by the normal cattle fences, they actually stay there by choice as a result of their territoriality. The younger rams also go where they please. I do believe that in a severe drought and food shortage situation if the same herd of blesbuck smell rain on a close by property, where grass will soon sprout, they will simply abandon their ‘home paddock’ and go to where there is food. So, in a broad sense blesbuck in my area is also regarded as "free ranging game".

To just complete the argument: All kudu and eland on farms that are not fenced by very high and well erected and maintained fences, are also regarded as "free ranging game": They simply jump over normal cattle fences and go where they please. But naturally there are other species of animal that is quite effectively kept form moving where they please by a continuum of ever increasing quality of fencing. There is admittedly much ‘grey areas’ in deciding which animals in which areas can be regarded as free ranging!

Other than this 'correction', you are quite correct: In many areas like for example the Thabazimbi district, where there are literally scores of adjacent game fenced farms, there is no " free ranging game", other than game birds, baboons and a few very special creatures like warthog. There are very large unfenced former "trust" areas where "all" game can be regarded as essentially "free ranging".

Best of luck with your marketing of these hunts which are really offered at very competitive prices.

In good hunting.

Andrew McLaren

Will not argue with that...

Taking bookings for 2010 season now...