by One of the projects I set for myself when I attended the Dallas Safari Club Convention was to seek tips and advice for those hunting Africa for the first time. I spoke to professional hunters (PHs) and other experts for their advice. My question to them was what would be the one tip that you would give a person planning to hunt Africa for the first time.
Here is what I got in no particular order.
Dylan Love – Huntershill Safaris, South Africa, and the PH Journal Podcast. (He has a must listen to podcast)
- Do your research on potential outfitters and especially check out their social media. It will be the most up to date.
- Let the outfitters handle the finer details.
Craig Boddington – author, hunter, and TV show host.
- Listen to your PH!
Rob Lurie – Zimbabwe Professional Hunters and Game Association. They have the toughest standards for licensing in Africa.
- Do your homework!
- Ponder all you options.
- Ask for recent references.
Japsie Blaauw – Dzombo Hunting Safaris, Namibia and Botswana.
- Practice shooting off of sticks.
Marius Goesen – KMG Safaris, South Africa
- Trust your PH
- Don’t overpack. You won’t need more than 3 sets of clothes as you have daily laundry.
Philip Weyer- Henderson – Muller Hunting and Safaris, South Africa
- Take good, broken-in boots
Russ Field – Russ Field Safaris, South Africa
- Go for at least 10 days
- Pack light
- Use the camp rental guns. Your own guns will just be a hassle.
Alex Oelofse – Jan Oelofse Hunting Safaris, Namibia
- Plan a few extra days to see wildlife like elephants and lions if not on the hunting property
- Ask the outfitter whether you will be hunting all on one block of property or will you travel to another block. If another block, ask how far.
- Be wary of outfitters and PHs “overselling” size of the animals.
I think these are all good tips. I probably would have gotten more tips from more outfitters if I always remembered to ask when I visiting a booth. My bad.
Good, common sense answers. Most popular rifle/caliber is 375 H&H.
My families first Safari was last March . We did S Africa. Did a 10 day contract. We signed up for 2×1 service, 5 animals each. It was 6 Days in the Free State and 1 travel day to Limpopo for Kudu, Nyala, Bushbuck.
All the tips listed are Right on and we did our due Diligence to succeed!
We followed all our instructions as best we could. Following what the Company and the PH wanted worked perfectly. Right off the bat a hang up! Delta Airlines canceled our flight between Atlanta and Jburg! We lost one hunt day right there. The next thing we hunted a South Africa National Hunting Reserve and it had lots of game. We added four animals to my list and three to sons list, good move cause the next two days we got 3 animals per day, Good hunting next three days. Then long trip to Limpopo but overnight in Pretoria, then next day to Limpopo. That was much different hunting turned out had to hunt privat land last day to fill out. But we gotid done. No problems with our PH nor Tracker or Skinners. All accomidations were first rate as were meals. Hunts were all spot and stalk. One animal, Zebra, took three tries and several miles of walking to get the one we wanted, BIggest point for us, trust your PH, do as he says! Thier job get us on the animal our job kill it! it works! We are going back in 2023!