NitroX,

Camps are typically grass hunts rather than safari tents and are not en-suite..... they tend instead to have an ablution block in the middle of the camp...... and until a year or two ago it wasn't unusual not to have a door on your hut. This obviously made it very easy for a Lion etc to wander in and say hi!......although doors are now becoming more popular.

I'm not really sure of the concession size, but our Tanzanian concessions are each around 2250 square kilometres, so I would guesstimate the Mozambican area to be less than half that.... The concessions in the valley tend to be long and thin rather than square (ish) for the obvious reason. As I said previously, things are not so organised as other African countries and it occasionally happens that the same area gets leased to two different companies by accident and you only realise this when two hunting trucks bump into each other and say what the hell are you doing on my hunting area?

We usually charter in, but it is possible to drive in via the Zambezi escarpment, but it it a very long haul over dreadful roads and if you have the windows open the tsetse flies have a ball!..... Of the two options I'd recommend the charter every time.

NONE: Trophy quality of Buff is certainly no better than anywhere else and nowadays (despite the BS you often read on websites etc) any Buff over 40 inches anywhere in Africa is unusual..... Boddington also confirms this in his book "The Safari Experience" Of course when compared to TZ etc there are FAR fewer head of them.... You'll see more in a day in the Selous than in a week in Mozambique. There are some really good Elephant in Mozambique, but not many. Most Elephants that are shot there probably average around 30-40 Lbs a side. So don't think that the 100 pounder that was shot last year is an an average.

Politically, it's now pretty safe, especially in the rural areas where if you asked the locals how they vote they would probably ask what's a vote, do I eat it, drink it, or sleep with it?...... poverty is still a big problem in these remote areas & it's one of the few places in Africa left where you can still sometimes see the locals wearing animal skins to cover themselves.......They actually live in the Valley which of course means that they have to subsistance poach to live. Selous for example doesn't allow human habitation in their boundaries, which is why the game populations are so much better than in Mozambique.

Security: Is not a problem. The locals are very poor, but theft and robbery is unusual. The landmine situation is confused, but due to the floods of a few years ago most got swept down to the delta or probably beyond and in the time I've been hunting there, (since the late 90s) I've only heard of one guy stepping on one.

As I said Mozambique is a good option if money is tight and you don't mind working hard for your trophies, but if you can afford the extra money then Tanzania or Botswana is a miles better option and of the two if you just want a Buff and plains game hunt I'd personally opt for the Selous Reserve Tanzania every time. The only species that has a lowish success rate in TZ is Elephant, but only because they have such strict rules governing tusk size.

The biggest Buff trophies I've seen anywhere are in Masailand Tanzania and even in the areas I use in the Selous I've seen the odd one up to 46 or 47..... sadly the client was a little too slow to get a shot at the biggest one, but that's the way it goes

We don't publish our Mozambican prices on our website as we limit the site to out 3 most popular countries, but if anyone is interested in more detail than I've given here please feel free to send me an e-mail. Prices and descriptions etc for RSA, Tanzania and Botswana can be found on the site......and I still have a few vacancies for 2004.