South Africa Fact or Fiction

[Betterluckythangood]

I just returned from a trip to SA last week and thought I would share some observations. It was a great trip and a great learning experience all the way around. I am not going to get into the particulars of my hunt at this time but probably will in a few days or a week or two. We hunted seven days in the Limpopo province bordering the Botswana border and two and a half days in the Free State. I am no expert, so feel free to correct me or clarify or expand on what I might say.

Exchange rate: 18 or 19 Rand = one dollar
Johannesburg to Atlanta = 8,433 miles, about 17 hours.
Drinking water = good. I personally drank a fair amount of tap water from one ranch in Limpopo and one in the Free State and have had no issues.
Cape buffalo hide is NOT one inch thick. I personally watched one being skinned for a shoulder mount and it was 5/8 or maybe 7/8. At least around the mid section of the Buffalo.

Some of the common antelope are Huge!!!

Kudu = the size of an average bull elk
Oryx = the size of an average bull elk
Roan = the size of an average bull elk
Cape Eland = bigger than any bull elk and probably any Shiras moose.
Even the warthogs were much bigger than I had expected. Probably 150 lbs or more if it was a big male.

Just my impressions, I didn’t have a dead average bull elk sitting there to compare them to but I have walked up on five dead six points.

North of Pretoria we started seeing the high fence properties. It appeared to me to be hundreds of miles of high fence properties on both sides of the road.

Rutting impala make a low, deep grunting noise that you would never think would come out of an animal that size.

All high fence properties are a canned hunt or turkey shoot. ABSOLUTELY FALSE!!!

Once a property owner puts up a fence or buys a property, the game within is HIs or Hers property and they can basically manage it how they want.
They can buy or sell game as they choose and make it as easy or difficult as they choose to an extent. This is where they have the freedom not available here in the states. They can have self sustaining herds or put out game just prior to the hunters arrival.

For them it is a business and they are in it to make money. Mine and yours expectations could be completely different than someone from another country.

These are just a few observations I thought I would throw out for someone to consider if it was on their radar.

Good hunting

 

[2lumpy]

I just returned from a trip to SA last week and thought I would share some observations. It was a great trip and a great learning experience all the way around. I am not going to get into the particulars of my hunt at this time but probably will in a few days or a week or two. We hunted seven days in the Limpopo province bordering the Botswana border and two and a half days in the Free State. I am no expert, so feel free to correct me or clarify or expand on what I might say.

Exchange rate: 18 or 19 Rand = one dollar
Johannesburg to Atlanta = 8,433 miles, about 17 hours.
Drinking water = good. I personally drank a fair amount of tap water from one ranch in Limpopo and one in the Free State and have had no issues.
Cape buffalo hide is NOT one inch thick. I personally watched one being skinned for a shoulder mount and it was 5/8 or maybe 7/8. At least around the mid section of the Buffalo.

Some of the common antelope are Huge!!!

Kudu = the size of an average bull elk
Oryx = the size of an average bull elk
Roan = the size of an average bull elk
Cape Eland = bigger than any bull elk and probably any Shiras moose.
Even the warthogs were much bigger than I had expected. Probably 150 lbs or more if it was a big male.

Just my impressions, I didn’t have a dead average bull elk sitting there to compare them to but I have walked up on five dead six points.

North of Pretoria we started seeing the high fence properties. It appeared to me to be hundreds of miles of high fence properties on both sides of the road.

Rutting impala make a low, deep grunting noise that you would never think would come out of an animal that size.

All high fence properties are a canned hunt or turkey shoot. ABSOLUTELY FALSE!!!

Once a property owner puts up a fence or buys a property, the game within is HIs or Hers property and they can basically manage it how they want.
They can buy or sell game as they choose and make it as easy or difficult as they choose to an extent. This is where they have the freedom not available here in the states. They can have self sustaining herds or put out game just prior to the hunters arrival.

For them it is a business and they are in it to make money. Mine and yours expectations could be completely different than someone from another country.

These are just a few observations I thought I would throw out for someone to consider if it was on their radar.

Good hunting

Very very limited experience but with what little I’ve had I would agree with pretty much all your comments.

One thing I did see, more than I expected, was the amount of game that cross under the fences. It’s not a “free for all” but there has a fair amount where we hunted. I’m guessing they keep the fences tighter for sable and eland etc, and the perimeter fence, where as it is a money business for the property owner.

 

[Betterluckythangood]

Very very limited experience but with what little I’ve had I would agree with pretty much all your comments.

One thing I did see, more than I expected, was the amount of game that cross under the fences. It’s not a “free for all” but there has a fair amount where we hunted. I’m guessing they keep the fences tighter for sable and eland etc, and the perimeter fence, where as it is a money business for the property owner.

One day we walked the fence for a half mile or so and there was a dig under every 100 yards or so where a warthog or duiker or Steinbeck or any smaller type animal could have crossed. Where the ground was higher on one side of the fence I believe a kudu or eland could have jumped it but in general I believe most all the bigger game don’t escape except for the rare exception

 

[billc]

Hunting SA is what you make of it. Most high fence try and have breeding herds on there place but since fenced they do need to add new blood or there stuff will just become in breed genes and go down hill in quality. By body weight elk is bigger then alot of there animals other then eland and very equal to kudu..

The amount of game that can get over or under high fence is more then most guys think. The water and food feed is part of keeping animals in the fenced area.

What makes some feel Sa is easy or all put and take is just all the kinds of animals plus the amount of animals on a place.

I like namibia a little better then SA more low fence area to hunt but there is plenty of high fence there to. They have laws that certain animals must be fenced.

 

[CHWino_1]

I hunted SA in May of '21 pretty much after Covid. It was high fence. The perimeter fence is 47 MILES in length! They had done aerial counts of the buffalo herd and estimated they had about 120. In 5 days of hunting I don't think we saw a total of 15 buffalo. Very much a real hunt.

 

[Betterluckythangood]

A couple more observations:

I saw bat eared foxes (very cool) and brown hyena tracks which looked to be the size of a German shepherd or Labrador to my eye. I imagine they travel freely between properties.
Also between the the Free state and Johannesburg BIG agriculture areas. I thought I had seen big farms traveling I15 north thru Idaho but to me those farms looked 10x bigger.

 

[billc]

A couple more observations:

I saw bat eared foxes (very cool) and brown hyena tracks which looked to be the size of a German shepherd or Labrador to my eye. I imagine they travel freely between properties.
Also between the the Free state and Johannesburg BIG agriculture areas. I thought I had seen big farms traveling I15 north thru Idaho but to me those farms looked 10x bigger.

There is not many place any hyena is wanted. They eat alot of game and all the predators move with easy under or over the fence.

I got look 2 years ago and had a leopard come to water in namibia was amazing to see one like that.

There is huge farms and the free state has some of the biggest in Sa. Some of the orange farms are massive in the east cape to