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The reason I suggest the Selous is that it has HUGE Buffalo populations. The season starts on July 1st and ends officially on Dec 31st......however the rains really stop the hunting around the 1st week of December.

In July you can expect to be hunting into Buff herds of 80-100 head. After that the herds begin to grow and by September you can often see herds of 500 head and occasional herds of 1000+ By November the herds begin to break up again. Last year in our Selous concession the longest we took to take 2 good Buff in the low season was about 4 or 5 days and the fastest we took 2 good Buff in the peak season was one and a half days......but we then took two in an hour. Selous is also good for Leopard and big bodied Lion, but the Lion here have pretty lousy manes.
Incidentally, Selous is the ONLY place I've ever personally seen a black Leopard.

Masailand is very rain dependant and has far fewer Buffalo, but the Buff that are there tend to be quite a lot bigger. If a client wants to be fairly sure of taking 2 good Buff in Masailand I always suggest he book a 10 day hunt.....we don't usually offer a 2x1 hunt here as it might end in the clients not having time to shoot 4 Buff in the time allowed.

No matter where you hunt in Tanzania you are ONLY ever allowed to take the animals specified on the relevant licence.....hence you cannot take a hyena on a 7 day licence ANYWHERE in Tanzania. The only species that this ruledoes not apply is the L. Hartebeest. In the areas they do not occur, you are allowed to take the local equivalent. IE Topi in Burigi and Coke's Hartebeest in Masailand.....lists of what species occur on each licence and their trophy fees can be found on my website. Also don't forget that some species don't occur in all areas. For example Grant's & Tommy gazelles are on the 7 day licence, but don't occur in the Selous. (or Burigi)

The best time of year for a Buff hunt in the Selous is obviously at the peak of the season when it's the most expensive

....... but even in the low season, you'll get 2 Buff if you want them.....you just might work a little harder for them and you might also have to hunt some areas that have been freshly burnt......but the Buff are still there and we have 100% success rate all through the year.... in fact the only species we don't have 100% success rate in Tanzania is Elephant, where we failed to get one on the last hunt of the year. We only had 5 day's to find a shootable one and despite looking at over 100 bulls we couldn't find one that met the minimum size & weight restrictions...... actually we saw 2 that did in that time, but one had a broken tusk and the other buggered off before we had time to set up the shot.

If you hunt Masailand then the best time to hunt is either in July at the end of the short rains (May-June ish) or at the end of the season as the long rains are coming in. I would only really suggest the Masailand areas to clients who only want a really big buffalo and/or the northern species.

Frankly, if a client is tight on money, then the best deals are a 2x1 hunt in the Selous in July or November. If money is not too tight then the best time is mid to late September and October.

Again full details are to be found on my website.

The best areas for the various hunts are as follows:

Selous- Buff & plains game

Masailand- Big Buff (if you're willing to take a bit of a gamble) and cats.

Burigi- Sitatunga

hope that helps

--------------------
Steve "Shakari" Robinson
Kuduland Safaris (Africa) Ltd
info@kuduland.com
www.kuduland.com

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