My zimbabwe safari

I have had several PM's asking me who I hunted with and as of now I have had no desire to talk about my hunt with anyone. Lets just say I've been extremely worked up. I hunted with huntessentials & fishfantastic. They keep taking mcmillan river adventures with shaun michaels hunting and ray bunny and jim burnsworth. I figured with guys from tv going i couldn't go wrong right? wrong! did you guys know that shaun michales shot his croc with his bow out of a damn pen? yep thats right a 70 yd by 70 yard heavy guage sheep wire pen cemented about 3 feet into the ground. How do I know? Because I fell for the same thing. We were told the so called small high fence area was open in the reeds in the back and thats how the croc got in. Terra shot him through the fence. Upon further investigation I discovered the entire pen in tact and that I was lied to. In addition I paid my emailed contract in full before I left. I paid $54,000 for 2 leopards, a croc, a buffalo, and 23 nights of accomodations. I know the daily rate is usually included in the price of 2 14 day leopard hunt packages but I wasn't arguing at the time. well when I discovered the buffalo were in a 3000 acre high fence area I decided not to shoot one and to allow my wife to trade it for a sable. Well she got her sable and we ended up shooting 3 zebra, 2 impala, a bushbuck, and 3 kudu in addition to what we originally paid for. Well I was expecting about a $8,000 additional bill for the extra animals. What I got was an extra bill for $30,000! We had excesive fuel use charges, administrative fees, bait fees etc... I was told each leopard will have baits included. We shot a total of 11 baits. 3 of those were trophy zebra I was willing to pay for. In addition we sat in camp 5 days total for lack of legal hunting permits and 3 separate days because we ran out of fuel. I paid for the leopard permits out of pocket and started handing my ph's money for fuel just so we could hunt so to charge me $1,000 for excessive fuel was a joke. In addition all ph's were told we would only be hunting leopards 5 days as we were using dogs and we would be out. Well it turned out that we were there 19 days. They thought I should pay extra because they hadn't planned on 2 cats taking that long. we didn't know every cat we chased would cover 20 miles and then hide in caves. Lets just say I told them to eat all my trophies and never contact me again.

Now about the hunt. I can honestly say the houndsman they hooked me up with was the only good thing about that safari. He's going on his own next year and I will be staying with him. He was the only knowledgable person in the cat hunt. He treed cat after cat while chasing the big toms we were after. on July 4th we cornered my cat in a cave and as you can see from the pics I posted earlier in another thread and the youtube video that he was a very big cat. Had a 16" skull and weighed 160 lbs. On july 19th my wife shot her cat a mere 7ft in front of me out of mid air in the process of jumping on me. I can't say enough about peters expertise in the cat area and his ability to find monster cats. He has me a giant tom located for next year and he has already signed and sent over a contract stating that for $14,000 he will provide me with everything needed to kill a cat with a minimum of a 15" skull. He states all older toms will have at least this and that we wont shoot small cats. He also state that no other charges will be added after the hunt for anything that hasn't been shot or wounded that wasn't agreed to previously. Anyways please steer clear of huntessentials as they are a total bunch of crooks. At this point I don't know if I will ever see my trophies and right now its the least of my concerns. I did tell peter I would love to hunt with him and that I'm not sending any money until I know if i can swing another hunt next year. at this point Im seriously thinking about sticking to the us as I have some great outfitters over here I have used extensively over the last couple of years and I have never once got screwed. If you guys can't find the pics or the vidoe let me know and I will post them here.

There are idiots everywhere. I truly hope you get your trophies back. $30k extra?? What a joke.

You deserve some good experiences. I hope your elk hunts go a lot better!

30k. Sounds like an elephant trophy fee for an Impala. Ugh. So sorry to hear. Kanana will get you back in the mood.

Would love to see the video and pics of this hunt. I could not pull them up on the other website.

I love Africa to much to quit. You do too this is just a really really bad deal.

Stinky, this needs to be posted over on AR. If you aren't comfortable posting it, I'd appreciate permission to post it for you. Of course, they want the outfitters name included.

Looks like they have you on their website. I'd tell them to take it down!

Sorry to hear about your bad experience. There are terrible operators both in Africa and the US. Fortunatley, the great majority are quality outfits who provide exceptional service.

When you get hooked up with the wrong team, you really get your eyes opened quickly. It certainly makes the other quality outfits shine by way of comparison. I feel your pain as I had one bad expereince myself. Its little consolation now, but you just have to do more research.

I steer away from the outfits who sponsor TV celebrities and get awards from SCI. The SCI PH of the year is almost a kiss of death for true ethical hunters. (There are notable exceptions, and Matubula is one great outfit.) TV shows require quick success on tight schedules, and low budget shows often cut corners. Again, there are notable exceptions, but I start with a jaundiced view of these operators and then hope to be proved wrong. Many people get sucked in by the outfits hosting celebrities, but if they were doing a good job they would be well booked and wouldn't have to give away hunts to get somebody with a name to come there. I know I am rambling, but I do feel your pain and only encourage everyone when booking a hunt, in the US or in Africa, to check references carefully.

Bill

Wow stinky !! What a horrible trip. We all put alot of trust into the African outfits and hope we never experience these kinds of problems. Thanks for posting the story and listing names. Info like this may help the next guy avoid the same treatment.

Good luck on your Az Elk hunt and feel free to contact me if you need any help.

Sadly even references don't do the job sometimes. Got swindled on a NM elk hunt years ago. Found out all the references were family and friends and hunting on private property while all the paying customers were on public land hundreds of miles away.

I would post on AR as well. Those guys love to get the ball rolling on things like this.

Tony
Sorry you got taken. Wish you would have asked me about Doddieburn prior to you finding out the hard way. That place is a joke, was stolen from the rightful owners & is a crook's den now. Not to mention it is damn near poached out by the "locals".

Want a good Zimbo experience, go to the Bubye, go to the Chewore, go to the Omay, go to Makuti, go to Matetsi 1..

I'm trying to stay optimistic about Zimbabwe, but it's harder each day. One of it's jewels is being raped as I type this (Save). I think Zimbabwe is going to be in it's dying throes in the next few years, if not sooner.
I pray that's not the case, but it certainly is shaping up.
Some of my best time on this earth were spent in that beautiful country. One of my closest friends lives there. He's already looking into his immigration process into Australia. He sees what's coming to his family's land.
It's akin to paying your captors to shoot you last. You know its coming, just not when.
Those "indigenous" pricks will pay the piper eventually. They'll rape that place of it's last tree, drop of water,right down to it's last blade of grass.

I'm giving Tanzania a go next year. Pity that the idiots there have priced themselves out of the game for the most part... this trip will be a one time deal for me..

After that, maybe Namibia a time or 2 in the next few yrs to take my kiddos hunting and I'm probably cashing out of the African game. This coming from someone who lived there.. I love it but won't watch it disintegrate.




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DRSS

Scotty, unfortunately you are right about so much of what is wrong with Zimbabwe. My good Zimbabwean (Rhodesian) friends moved to Texas about five years ago, and now they are more or less retired, only doing a few safaris a year, mostly in Tanzania where he helps his son, who has a concession in the Selous.

I am so sorry for the horrible treatment you received. I do thank you for pointing out the mistakes you made. Hopefully the lesson will stick on those up and coming Safari enthusiasts.

I would agree that following the selection of a safari operator based on those 4 TV hunters created a big risk of this happening. I have seen some of their shows and because I think they are Putzs I would never follow them. But the lesson should be, "just because some TV hunter you like, hunts with ACME Safari Co., does not mean you should consider hunting with them". Really, the deals and scamming that goes on with a lot but not all of these TV hunts, should make all of us very concerned if we want to hunt with the same outfitter. I mean we need to be extra careful and really double check our research before going with a TV advertiser.

Now I will add one lesson I learned the hard way: I did my research and had a great hunt with an Alaskan outfitter. So far so good. I then went with them based on this experience to a different area in Alaska. Guess what? Crap, they were totally out of their depth due to distance equipment etc. had I started fresh on my research, I bet I would have saved myself a ruined hunt.

We all learn best when it really hurts.

I forgot. Please file a report with The Hunting Report. At least you will help prevent this from happening to others.

Again I am sorry for your experience.

If Boddington recommends an operator I probably would go with that. If the guys above recommend a hunt, not so much. In fact even if the TV personality is giving you their best honest advice, the outfitter or PH is probably giving them the best "show" they can possibly give. You probably won't get the same. I believe that's as true here in North America as anywhere.