Tbitty
AH fanatic
I would like to share my experiences from my first Safari this past August. It was a tremendous adventure, a whole lot of fun, and it gave me the bug I've heard so many warn about; I have to go back! To make it a little more manageable of a read, I'll break this into sections. This post will cover the lead up to the hunt. Then I'll do a "post per day" of the time spent there.
Here we go...
A couple years ago, my brother calls me and says I need to start saving my $ and get ready for an African Safari hunt. He was the high bidder at an NRA banquet live auction, winning a trip for 4, hunting 2x1, for 5 days/6 nights with Numzaan Safaris. We had 3 years to use the hunt, and decided to do it year 2 (allowing us time to save, prepare, and a fallback year just in case something happened). We were able to get our Step Dad to join us as the 3rd. Surprisingly, amongst our friends and family, we could not find a 4th hunter to commit, so it was just the 3 of us. Numzaan said it would be no problem, we could go 2x1 and 1x1 if we couldn't find a 4th. We proceeded to make our wish list, then many revisions to the wish list, and otherwise make plans and preparations.
For those of you who have never been, or others who want to hear how we did it, here's a little more look at our preparations. I don't recall exactly how we came to the decision, but we determined August 2019 was the time for us to go. Based on availability, we chose to arrive on the 4th and leave on the 10th. After back and forth consideration, we elected to rent rifles rather than bring our own. It was less cost than the permits, saved us the hassle of paperwork, and we didnt have to worry about damage/loss in transit. We asked many questions of the outfitters, and they were always timely and courteous in their responses.
As we all hail from different locations, we decided to all meet a day early in New York, and take a direct flight from there to Johannesburg. *Side note- Do yourselves a favor, and pay extra for upgraded seats; we got exit row and the legroom plus ability to stand up and stretch was worth every penny.
One of the last decisions to make was what to do with the trophies. I'm sure there are plenty of threads about this very topic already, and can be a separate conversation. A good friend of mine, also from DFW, recommended a local taxidermist. He's been happy with their work, and they also act as the "customs broker" which saved me a step, or personal trip out for pickup. Plus, they either do the pickup at no charge, if they are doing the taxidermy work, or for a small fee if the others wanted to ship their trophies to a different (local to them) taxidermist. We chose to let them do the receiving and mounting for all 3 of us. -- we actually just received word that our trophies are done at the Dip and Pack place, and ready to ship from SA. So we should have them in the US soon!
At this point, we'd made all the decisions we could, paid our deposits, booked the flights, and were ready to roll!!
... Stay tuned for the departure from US, and arrival day in South Africa. Feel free to ask questions about anything started above...
Here we go...
A couple years ago, my brother calls me and says I need to start saving my $ and get ready for an African Safari hunt. He was the high bidder at an NRA banquet live auction, winning a trip for 4, hunting 2x1, for 5 days/6 nights with Numzaan Safaris. We had 3 years to use the hunt, and decided to do it year 2 (allowing us time to save, prepare, and a fallback year just in case something happened). We were able to get our Step Dad to join us as the 3rd. Surprisingly, amongst our friends and family, we could not find a 4th hunter to commit, so it was just the 3 of us. Numzaan said it would be no problem, we could go 2x1 and 1x1 if we couldn't find a 4th. We proceeded to make our wish list, then many revisions to the wish list, and otherwise make plans and preparations.
For those of you who have never been, or others who want to hear how we did it, here's a little more look at our preparations. I don't recall exactly how we came to the decision, but we determined August 2019 was the time for us to go. Based on availability, we chose to arrive on the 4th and leave on the 10th. After back and forth consideration, we elected to rent rifles rather than bring our own. It was less cost than the permits, saved us the hassle of paperwork, and we didnt have to worry about damage/loss in transit. We asked many questions of the outfitters, and they were always timely and courteous in their responses.
As we all hail from different locations, we decided to all meet a day early in New York, and take a direct flight from there to Johannesburg. *Side note- Do yourselves a favor, and pay extra for upgraded seats; we got exit row and the legroom plus ability to stand up and stretch was worth every penny.
One of the last decisions to make was what to do with the trophies. I'm sure there are plenty of threads about this very topic already, and can be a separate conversation. A good friend of mine, also from DFW, recommended a local taxidermist. He's been happy with their work, and they also act as the "customs broker" which saved me a step, or personal trip out for pickup. Plus, they either do the pickup at no charge, if they are doing the taxidermy work, or for a small fee if the others wanted to ship their trophies to a different (local to them) taxidermist. We chose to let them do the receiving and mounting for all 3 of us. -- we actually just received word that our trophies are done at the Dip and Pack place, and ready to ship from SA. So we should have them in the US soon!
At this point, we'd made all the decisions we could, paid our deposits, booked the flights, and were ready to roll!!
... Stay tuned for the departure from US, and arrival day in South Africa. Feel free to ask questions about anything started above...
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