This topic is mostly for bowhunters but it applies equally to our rifle toting brethren.
I don't mean this as a slam or negative towards our NA game in any way. However, after you have had the opportunity to see multiple animals in multiple shooting opportunities in a day in Africa, it makes sitting in a treestand or ground blind for a whole archery season for maybe a couple good opportunities at a mature animal seem lackluster.
Don't get me wrong, for this year I still have a great western Kansas Mule Deer bowhunt (assuming I get drawn, fingers crossed) and a south Texas hog and exotic hunt. That's a lot of hunting to look forward to this year. But when compared to the pure numbers of animals experienced in one week of a safari...it really spoils you.
Does anyone else feel this way? Am i starting to get jaded by Africa and her powers?
I will always hunt in North America and for sure on my family farm here in Missouri, but for the pure numbers and opportunity Africa is hard to beat.
Anyone else feel this way?
My husband describes it this way. It is like hunting in a zoo.
Our hunting trip in SA made me a better hunter here in the US. My shots are pretty much heart shots now. My animals go down within visual distance, without binoculars.
We got back from SA and I killed an elk with a 46# bow, pass thru, and I was cleaning him up at 25 yds away within 7 minutes.
We also really learned how to track. Our tracker gave us great tips and we were able to track deer across pastures here at home.
One tip about SA. We hunted at Limcroma and everything was great.
We went back 2 years later with another outfitter that did bowhunting. Their idea of stalking a zebra was to drive the truck thru the field and take a 60 yd shot from a bouncing, moving vehicle. My PH wanted me to take a frontal unethical bow shot on a Nyala. After complaining that I did not have a good shot, I finally took it. We had to track it with dogs and put it down with a rifle. We only had wild game a couple of times on a 14 day hunt, even though we were shooting many animals. Lunches were white bread with butter and a piece of lunchmeat with sugar wafers, which I can't stand to eat any more. Hot showers seemed to be out of the question every place we stayed. The owner was extremely nice, but our cook and PH were bottom line.
We had our trophy mounted in SA again and wonder if we will ever see them. It has been 29 months since the trip and they tell us that they are ready but are waiting for documentation. good luck, I think we are out our taxidermy and shipping fees. Everything that we have seen about this outfitter is awesome. Everyone highly recommended this outfitter. We are baffled at how bad our trip was.
Needless to say, we will be going back again next year with Limcroma again, where we know they will make sure things are done right.
BE Careful who you book with.