You can go on a CBL lion hunt with an honest outfit that knows what they are selling and ate straight up about it.
You can go on a similar hunt but with someone who's lost track of the truth and claims it's something different than it is.
Then you can reply to a thread such as this.... Naw there are no real wild lion hunts in RSA.... Get a message from an outfitter telling you, very politely, how you are mistaken and he happens to have a real wild lion hunt available at a price comparable to a CBL (at the time, before the ban). Check him out and he has a great reputation. Meet in person and write a check for a deposit. The story is that he has this fenced area bordering an area that is open to Kruger. Also used for photo Safaris. There are two male lions that somehow got in there! They are active and hunting.... However the outfitter is hanging bait for them in a pan with water so he has trail cam pics!!!
Get there and first night in camp you hear lions roaring.... very near.
Excitement builds!
Head out and find lion tracks that first morning!
Pull up the water hole and the two lions run off across the road. They are right there in the bushes watching as we disembark. Could have shot one right then and there! But let's wait, get them on bait and see what we have. We hang bait and as we drive off, the lions trot right back for their lunch. But one is very young. The other limping and in very tough shape. Appears to have a broken leg. This won't do, can't shoot one of these and post pics. So I replied that was fine, I booked an extra week beyond this hunt and will just go do a CBL lion.... What I didn't realize at the time was that there was no way an outfitter with his hooks into you is ever going to let you slip away and spend money elsewhere that he sees as his!
So a plan is made. He has a friend who often has these damned wild lions coming in through his fence to dine on his plains game. We can get a permit to hunt there! So we bait and call and one morning soon after, as I'm wanting to get going as we are about to be burning daylight.... we can't leave camp yet because of some bullshit reason. Then a phone call and we must leave right now and damned near can feel the pistons coming through the hood of the Cruiser it is wound up so tight speeding to the hpoes a lion is on bait!
We get there and the PH does everything the opposite of what a PH would do on a wild dangerous game hunt. Of course I didn't recognize this due to my lack of experience.... But he goes way overboard trying to make me nervous and overly excited.
Strangely there is a new guy present and he's carrying a rifle... he's with the land owners son (the lion hair fence guy) and they are on a property road pointing about 300 yards towards where a bait was hung by some pretty thick wire. There is a lion! A male with an ok mane. O ask who is this other guy? PH is hurrying along to get the sticks set up and brushes it off. Nobody, just a friend of the owners.
Can you shoot from here! Seriously, when I asked the wisdom of baiting there you had this elaborate plan of how we can stalk around behind and get close? Well, come on we'll just walk right at him down this road.... so we do, the lion could care less. Look he pulled the bait down! Shoot him quickly! We are closer so the sticks go up and I shoot it through the chest as it is perfectly broadside. It spins and I shoot again iand it drops stone dead.
We approach cautiously. Admiring the lion and i notice there are zero ticks. Everything else we shot was covered in ticks. He had walked in some mud but nothing caked in his fur, beautifully clean animal. He does have a scare on his face which many members on here claim to prove it's a wild lion. Things just don't feel right. I inspect the bait and the wire was cut, not broken. I'm a livestock farmer and have been all my life, I know these things.
The son and stranger come over to congratulate me and I'm suspicious so I shake the guys hand and say thanks for delivering him, he nods an acknowledgement and says he made a long drive all night! At which the PH gets between us and the son gets the guy out of there.
As we are leaving I notice the bakkie with an enclosed trailer and inquire. I flat out ask if they brought that lion in early that morning or last night... No no no.
I inquire with the outfitter to which I get denials.
I cannot prove anything beyond doubt. As I write this, I don't know for sure? But I do know if I had done a CBL hunt that I'd know what I had. And I know I have doubts, regret, and an unwanted amount of scheptism.
And I know what I have from the Tanzania hunt! A true old warrior lion who lived his life wild free in some of the real remaining wilderness. His demeanor was that of a king of his domain. I'll choose to experience more of that
www.africahunting.com
