It's awesome some African's are employed with peanut wages, all the neck meat they can eat, and a couple pairs of coveralls a year. Really helps out.
It's awesome to have your clothes washed and pressed everyday, being waited on hand and foot, knowing how great a life you're providing for the staff that does all the work on your trophy hunt.
Is what it is, but not my style. The work is 50% of the hunt for me and I don't want others doing it for me. In particular for slave wages.
I like to sleep at night.
I appreciate everything you do for Wyoming wildlife. Sometimes I agree with your opinions and sometimes I don’t. But on this topic, you are outside of your wheelhouse. One really cannot comprehend what a hunt is like over there until they actually do it.
Saying “hunting in Africa” is like to saying “hunting in North America”. painting with a very broad brush. Africa is a huge continent, with a lot of countries, and a very vast range of hunts and experiences.
Comparing a south African hunt to Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, or Botswana is day and night different. About the only comparison is their on the same continent.
I did my first African hunt in a very remote camp in Mozambique last October. 12 hours by truck from the nearest city. Solar power in camp and extremely remote. It was probably the best Hunt I’ve ever been on. If I could hunt Africa every year I would give up hunting in North America. It’s just that much better over there.
I took a Cape Buffalo, a crocodile, and a few impala. I turned down opportunities on a few other animals as well. I did not go over there for a “trophy hunt“. I went for the experience, because I’ve always wanted to hunt Cape Buffalo, in a truly wild part of Africa.
I didn’t go specifically to help the locals, the wildlife, or anything like that. I went because I wanted to experience a classic tracking Buffalo Hunt in wild Africa. The benefit of meat and money to the locals, funding anti-poaching, and supporting wildlife conservation We’re great additional drivers to the trip. But not my sole focus. And that’s never been my sole focus even on Hunts in North America. I hunt because I enjoy the experience. I give away about 95% of all the game I kill every year. I enjoy hunting, harvesting, and butchering. I just don’t enjoy cooking. So I give it away to friends and family who do enjoy cooking wild game. No different when I’m in Africa and the locals eat the meat instead of me.
I am speaking specifically to the Hunt I did in a very remote camp. But until you see how the local villagers live you just can’t quite comprehend. The hunting concession helps employ them, builds infrastructure like the local school and dig Wells for the villages. The meat gets distributed to the villages and it’s one of the only sources of protein they have. It was very gratifying to kill my Buffalo on day 9 of a 10 day hunt after tracking buffalo 97 miles in extreme heat. Then seeing all the meat be cut and dried to help support the staff and their families through the off-season. My Hunt was the final one of the season.
I had such a great time and built great relationships with my PH, trackers, and game scout that I knew I needed to hunt with them again. I keep in touch with my pH regularly. I am booked with the outfitter for another Buffalo Hunt with the same crew October 2025.
I very much appreciated the friendships I made with my team on the hunt and I tipped them very well. Most clients do. They’re making more money working for the hunting camp than they would doing anything else. And just like guides in North America they seemed to love what they do. They’re very good at their job and they get paid well to do it.
I will be going on a tuskless cow elephant hunt in Zimbabwe this September. It is a hunt I’ve always wanted to do. It is a non-exportable Hunt and I’ll be taking absolutely nothing home. I am just doing it for the experience. And honestly, I don’t care if I get an elephant or not. Spending 10 days tracking herds of elephants, stalking in under 25 yards in thick bush and viewing each animal in the group looking for a tuskless cow (without a dependent calf), backing out and doing it all over again is really why I’ll be there. Pulling the trigger is just a very small part of the hunt for me. With this Hunt I’ll be supporting locals financially, the game department, anti-poaching units, and if I harvest supplying a lot of meat to locals as well. Additionally, the tuskless gene is present in about 3% of the elephant population. So by targeting tuskless cows, that helps keep the gene in check in the wild population. There are 2 tuskless cow tags on quota for the concession I will be hunting, which is 1,000,000 acres.
I could have booked a bull hunt instead. But I chose a tuskless cow because of the differences in the hunt. Hunting tuskless tends to be more high adrenaline in tighter quarters with larger groups of elephants. Cows are far more aggressive and more prone to charge. It can be more dangerous and overall more exciting, IMO. I could care less about the ivory or bringing a trophy home.
So my point is not all elephant hunting is about a trophy. For a lot of us its about the experience of the hunt. Not unlike hunting in NA.
Chase
Is the criteria for a "trophy" hunt solely not personally eating the meat?
