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All hunters are not as ethical as they sometimes pretend to be. I agree that there are unfair hunting methods that are used by some outfitters, but why, to stay in bussiness they must keep on producing clients with their needs or they loose bussiness. Aren't the clients to blame as well for their greed and treatening the outfitter\ph with a bad hunting report. It is a catch 22 situation. The truth of the matter is that it happens everywhere, not only in RSA, sometimes it is just covered up very cleverly.

I am very outspoken about unfair hunting practises, what do I do when a client tells me he want to sit at a waterhole to shoot his trophies or shoot them from the bakkie? Do I let him do it or say no that is not how you do it. If the client tells a long story afterwards on how he took his animals must I spill the beans? On who's concious is it how that person took his animals, mine or his?

There are much more to this than what is seen, there are 2 sides to this story.

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Very true. One large forum is absolutely full of it. One year they have a thread condemning "back of the bakkie safaris" ie shooting all the "trophies" from the back of landcruisers. Then the next year all the same clowns are admitting they do it all the time, probably most or all of their 'trophies' were shot from the back of landcruisers. No hunting at all. Bet their online stories are full of long stalks, daring hunting, probably even mixing it up in the middle of prides of lions ... Give it another year or two and they will be all "non-bakkie" hunters again.



Myself, I tell it as it is. I have shot an impala and a warthog and a ? from a bakkie. The warthog I did not want to but the PH was yelling and insisting so I did. The impala was running away and I just felt like doing it so did. No big deal. I also once shot another impala over a waterhole. We had resorted to the waterhole as the game on this high fenced property at the end of the season was so skittish and over hunted that they ran at the slightest thing. Hunting free range in Zimbabwe was much easier than this so called "canned" (some would label it so, even though it was say 4000 acres plus or minus) high fenced hunting area. A zebra I once shot on a property where they were being fed out of the back of bakkies. I did not know this until after the mornings hunt, neither did the PH. I wondered why the game did not run away like other areas. We stopped hunting there after that. An American hunter raved the previous night about the wonderful hunting he had had. How he managed to shoot game animal after game animal. No wonder as he was shooting semi-tame animals. A real hunter would have worked it out however ...

On the other hand some game took many many combined kms of hunting, a wildbeest, probably over 30 kms, a zebra, maybe 5 or 7, an eland maybe 5 kms. Maybe much easier.

What I think?

If you hunt or shoot, admit how you do it. If you have to lie, that you shot that grand kudu from a landcruiser, shot an eland over a feed trough, shot a tahr or chamois from a helicopter, then admit it. Pose with the chopper or car in the background, or the bags of stock feed around the eland. Be proud of how you did it! If you are not, tell lying stories, then don't argue about it being ethical, because you have already admitted it is shameful to tell the story.

The trouble is often one does not know what the practices are. Are the amimals on the property all purchased at auction at the beginning of the season? Personally I find this completely unacceptable and a form of canned hunting. Are the animals extensively fed at feeding stations, or bakkies? Again a form of canned hunting. The property may also be overstocked so needs supplementary feeding. Results in semi-tame animals. The usual issues of too small high fenced properties. Intensive breeding of animals. PHs wanting to shoot from bakkies, over waterholes, over feeding stations. Btw never seen a feeding trough yet on a safari thank goodness! etc etc

Sorry Jaco, but these things are FAR more common in South Africa than elsewhere in Africa. There are far more PHs, more outfitters, more game ranches than elsewhere, so the competition is also stronger and the need to supply the unscrupulous client. I know there are good guys and crooked guys though. The challenge is always to pick the right one for the clients own desires.

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John aka NitroX

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Govt get out of our lives NOW!
"I love the smell of cordite in the morning."
"A Sharp spear needs no polish"

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