gillettehunter
AH ambassador
I have tried to start this 4-5 times. Tried on the plane ride back and lost over an hour of typing.... Anyway.....
Lets start at the beginning. I usually manage to hunt Africa every 2 yrs or so. I'm just a working stiff. Family, mortgage and kids and bills. Like many of you. As I got more established in my business I started to hunt Africa. I always look for a deal. A good hunting company, but that special sale price is helpful.
Kids are out of the house. Mortgage is paid off and this past Jan 1 I finished a GOB sale on my jewelry store and sold the building to my middle son to start his own jewelry store. I then retired. With the GOB I sold a number of my gemstones that I cut. Thats my hobby to help pay for recreation. I buy rough gemstones. Cut them and then sell them, hopefully for a profit. Between the gemstones sold and a good year end bonus and selling a couple of rifles I had my biggest amount of disposable income ever for a hunt.
I have been wanting to hunt Uganda and thought with CoVid perhaps there would be a deal to be had. I sent 6 or 7 e-mail inquiries about Uganda early in Jan. Only 3 replies and all of those were negative. So I figured I'd wait and see. I considered going to Spain for a Ibex slam. I looked at a Bongo/Sitatunga combo hunt. Between here and the other network a deal often shows up so I waited. In Feb I saw a hunt report on the other network on Tanzania and him hunting there in Jan. He mentioned a special deal. So I DM'd the OP and got the contact info and initiated a conversation on WhatsApp.
The company is Kilombero North safaris. The special was for their Lake Natron and Ngaserai concessions. The gist was that you got a 21 day license, but only hunted 10 days for a discounted rate. You were only able to hunt 1 of the key species without a license upgrade, but great pricing for the 1 . The key species are Lesser Kudu, Gerenuk, Fringe-earred Oryx and Striped Hyena. The other bonus/discount is that there is no charter flight involved. Yahoo. That can save $2-5K. It also includes the dip and pack. Thats another $500-1000 or more saved.
I passed the hunt info on to @LivingTheDream AKA Mike that I hunted Zambia with in 2019. We had good chemistry in camp and really enjoy each others company despite my being his fathers age. He took a good look at it and commented that it was $5-6K less than anything similar that he had seen.
Next step was to check out KNS and the PH's that we had names for. I had Quintin Whitehead and Zidane Janbeck. There was suprisingly little in the way of hunt reports with a google search. Less info than what we liked. The OP from the Jan hunt report that I read was very complimentary as I chatted with him. Between that and our other research we reached the comfort level necessary to book the hunt.
Quintin commented that May/June was his favorite time in Masailand with the green and the newborn baby animals. Due to our other life commitments we choose to go the last 10 days of June. We sent deposits and started looking at flights to go over. I convinced my wife to go. She is what I call a semi-pro photographer. She has nice equipment and loves to photograph the cats. In fact she was in Kruger/RSA for almost 3 weeks in April. She decide to take 5 of the hunting days to go the Ngorongoro crater and the Serengeti. Then rejoin us at Ngaserai. That works!
I also considered a jump over to RSA either before or after Tanzania. Just didn't seem to work. They wanted $1000-1200 more and close to 20 travel hours to get there so I reluctantly decided to forego RSA this time around. I started working with one of the travel agencies for hunters. Rates seemed a little high so I started looking. Along the way a ad for cheap african airfare through ASAP tickets popped up. I wound up booking through them as the timing worked for us using United and Ethiopean air. That decision caused me more grief than necessary......
After booking I'd get a notice of a change in schedule from the airlines about weekly. About 3 weeks prior to leaving I received a notice that our tickets had been purchased. What ? I'd paid for them weeks earlier??? Still not sure about that. As we got ready to go I didn't open a schedule change notice until I'd had it for 3 days. It told me to call their schedules change team. So I call and for some reason I had flight segment cancelled. Arusha to Addis. What the heck is going on? I left without being 100% sure that issue was resolved. In fact I wasn't 100% sure I would be able to get on the return flight when I showed up to the airport returning home. Not the best feeling. I probably wouldn't use ASAP tickets again after the experience I had with them.
For this trip I took my custom 7mm SAUM. It's topped with a March 2.5X25 scope. My handloads have a 180 grain Berger bullet running just over 2900 fps. Some on here don't care for Berger bullets. I understand the trepidation. I'm running them at a modest speed and using heavy for caliber bullets and have made sure that the bullet tips are open. If I do my part these bullets are deadly. Last trip I killed 3 eland with them. The animals on my list for this trip are much smaller and these bullets are a great choice.
I fully prepped 100 pieces of brass and then sorted them down to 65 pieces. I used 15 or so for my final sight in and took 50 with me which I knew was far more than what I needed. When properly reloaded my rifle is capable of 1/3 moa accuracy.
My newest piece of kit was a shooting tripod with a ball head. I had a bracket installed on the rifle so it would attach very solidly to the tripod. It allows great accuracy. With practice it sets up reasonably fast. The problem was I got it set up less than 2 weeks prior to departure and didn't have the practice time in. From a sitting position the stability is exceptional. More stable than shooting sticks when standing too.
2 days before we left Mike and I received a WhatsApp message from Zidane asking if either of us had any interest in a leopard. Thats the last animal for Mike's big 5 so YES. The deal was that the Masai were complaining about losing animals to a leopard. They would have more info when we arrived.
Maryann and I took our CoVid tests at our local hospital. Usually 6-8 hrs to get test results. We did that on Thur late aftn. Had results by 10 pm that night on-line. The problem was no name on the receipt and no date..... Thats not going to work. So at 7AM we headed to the hospital. Got printed results from them them with dates and names and headed to Denver. The airport is close to a 6 hour drive. I can fly out of Gillette, but for international flights they seem to want $700-1000 more than if we fly out of Denver. So Denver it is...
Check in was OK. The person handling us asked me to put my ammo in with my rifle. I explained that TSA was OK with that, but United was not. He checked and found out I was right. He had problems getting tickets on Ethiopen for us. Took close to 2 hours by the time TSA was done with us. My flight was Denver to Dulles to Addis to Arusha. Had a 11 1/2 hr layover at Dulles. Mike lives near enough to come get us and get a few hours sleep at his place. Flight was delayed significantly. Didn't get to Dulles till after 1AM..... Sorry Mike. We appreciated his getting us anyway.
Checking in at Dulles was time consuming too. We got there 3 hrs ahead and the line was slow. One person had like 17 boxes that were around 30X30 inches....Watched a couple of people turned away for no CoVid test. One had a test from April and thought that would suffice...... This was June 19. While Mike was checking in I informed his agent that I had a firearm transferring from United. That initiated the necessity of filling out of Ethiopean paperwork for a firearm. I had those printed out and that speeded things up some. Was glad to get on the flight.
As expected we were met at the gate at Addis by an agent to go down to baggage to check the serial numbers on the firearms. We had q 3 hr layover and it all went smoothly. Food on the flights was OK. About what you expect. Better than some I've had but not what you'd want to order off a menu.
Arrival in Arusha was a goat rope. They had decided that to enter the country you had to take a CoVid test. You first had to do a download on your phone and then tested. The testing line was a mess. I was told 2 times to stand in the wrong line. When I'm tired after that much travel its hard to keep my mouth shut. Good thing my wife was there to sort things out. $25 cash US for the test. I feel like its really just a scam.... Then the rifle/ammo check. They charge you for each round of ammo that you bring in. I had some shotgun shells as well as the rifle shells. They actually got the count right. Finally out of there and getting in a truck
Both Zidane and Quintin were there to pick us up. We headed out for the Lake Natron concession. We traveled perhaps 3 1/2 hrs to get there and arrived at 9 pm. Saw elephants along the road as well as Zebra and giraffe. Interestingly there is no lake in sight. Not sure if the concession even touches the lake or not. Never got close to Lake Natron. This lodge sits on a saddle on the shoulder of a ridge. Bed was wonderful that night.
The view in the am was great. A nice breeze felt good. We were advised to bring a jacket. Good advice. With the wind things got cold at times. The lodge was pleasant and inviting. Food was very good. More in a bit. I'll post some pics from my cell phone
Lets start at the beginning. I usually manage to hunt Africa every 2 yrs or so. I'm just a working stiff. Family, mortgage and kids and bills. Like many of you. As I got more established in my business I started to hunt Africa. I always look for a deal. A good hunting company, but that special sale price is helpful.
Kids are out of the house. Mortgage is paid off and this past Jan 1 I finished a GOB sale on my jewelry store and sold the building to my middle son to start his own jewelry store. I then retired. With the GOB I sold a number of my gemstones that I cut. Thats my hobby to help pay for recreation. I buy rough gemstones. Cut them and then sell them, hopefully for a profit. Between the gemstones sold and a good year end bonus and selling a couple of rifles I had my biggest amount of disposable income ever for a hunt.
I have been wanting to hunt Uganda and thought with CoVid perhaps there would be a deal to be had. I sent 6 or 7 e-mail inquiries about Uganda early in Jan. Only 3 replies and all of those were negative. So I figured I'd wait and see. I considered going to Spain for a Ibex slam. I looked at a Bongo/Sitatunga combo hunt. Between here and the other network a deal often shows up so I waited. In Feb I saw a hunt report on the other network on Tanzania and him hunting there in Jan. He mentioned a special deal. So I DM'd the OP and got the contact info and initiated a conversation on WhatsApp.
The company is Kilombero North safaris. The special was for their Lake Natron and Ngaserai concessions. The gist was that you got a 21 day license, but only hunted 10 days for a discounted rate. You were only able to hunt 1 of the key species without a license upgrade, but great pricing for the 1 . The key species are Lesser Kudu, Gerenuk, Fringe-earred Oryx and Striped Hyena. The other bonus/discount is that there is no charter flight involved. Yahoo. That can save $2-5K. It also includes the dip and pack. Thats another $500-1000 or more saved.
I passed the hunt info on to @LivingTheDream AKA Mike that I hunted Zambia with in 2019. We had good chemistry in camp and really enjoy each others company despite my being his fathers age. He took a good look at it and commented that it was $5-6K less than anything similar that he had seen.
Next step was to check out KNS and the PH's that we had names for. I had Quintin Whitehead and Zidane Janbeck. There was suprisingly little in the way of hunt reports with a google search. Less info than what we liked. The OP from the Jan hunt report that I read was very complimentary as I chatted with him. Between that and our other research we reached the comfort level necessary to book the hunt.
Quintin commented that May/June was his favorite time in Masailand with the green and the newborn baby animals. Due to our other life commitments we choose to go the last 10 days of June. We sent deposits and started looking at flights to go over. I convinced my wife to go. She is what I call a semi-pro photographer. She has nice equipment and loves to photograph the cats. In fact she was in Kruger/RSA for almost 3 weeks in April. She decide to take 5 of the hunting days to go the Ngorongoro crater and the Serengeti. Then rejoin us at Ngaserai. That works!
I also considered a jump over to RSA either before or after Tanzania. Just didn't seem to work. They wanted $1000-1200 more and close to 20 travel hours to get there so I reluctantly decided to forego RSA this time around. I started working with one of the travel agencies for hunters. Rates seemed a little high so I started looking. Along the way a ad for cheap african airfare through ASAP tickets popped up. I wound up booking through them as the timing worked for us using United and Ethiopean air. That decision caused me more grief than necessary......
After booking I'd get a notice of a change in schedule from the airlines about weekly. About 3 weeks prior to leaving I received a notice that our tickets had been purchased. What ? I'd paid for them weeks earlier??? Still not sure about that. As we got ready to go I didn't open a schedule change notice until I'd had it for 3 days. It told me to call their schedules change team. So I call and for some reason I had flight segment cancelled. Arusha to Addis. What the heck is going on? I left without being 100% sure that issue was resolved. In fact I wasn't 100% sure I would be able to get on the return flight when I showed up to the airport returning home. Not the best feeling. I probably wouldn't use ASAP tickets again after the experience I had with them.
For this trip I took my custom 7mm SAUM. It's topped with a March 2.5X25 scope. My handloads have a 180 grain Berger bullet running just over 2900 fps. Some on here don't care for Berger bullets. I understand the trepidation. I'm running them at a modest speed and using heavy for caliber bullets and have made sure that the bullet tips are open. If I do my part these bullets are deadly. Last trip I killed 3 eland with them. The animals on my list for this trip are much smaller and these bullets are a great choice.
I fully prepped 100 pieces of brass and then sorted them down to 65 pieces. I used 15 or so for my final sight in and took 50 with me which I knew was far more than what I needed. When properly reloaded my rifle is capable of 1/3 moa accuracy.
My newest piece of kit was a shooting tripod with a ball head. I had a bracket installed on the rifle so it would attach very solidly to the tripod. It allows great accuracy. With practice it sets up reasonably fast. The problem was I got it set up less than 2 weeks prior to departure and didn't have the practice time in. From a sitting position the stability is exceptional. More stable than shooting sticks when standing too.
2 days before we left Mike and I received a WhatsApp message from Zidane asking if either of us had any interest in a leopard. Thats the last animal for Mike's big 5 so YES. The deal was that the Masai were complaining about losing animals to a leopard. They would have more info when we arrived.
Maryann and I took our CoVid tests at our local hospital. Usually 6-8 hrs to get test results. We did that on Thur late aftn. Had results by 10 pm that night on-line. The problem was no name on the receipt and no date..... Thats not going to work. So at 7AM we headed to the hospital. Got printed results from them them with dates and names and headed to Denver. The airport is close to a 6 hour drive. I can fly out of Gillette, but for international flights they seem to want $700-1000 more than if we fly out of Denver. So Denver it is...
Check in was OK. The person handling us asked me to put my ammo in with my rifle. I explained that TSA was OK with that, but United was not. He checked and found out I was right. He had problems getting tickets on Ethiopen for us. Took close to 2 hours by the time TSA was done with us. My flight was Denver to Dulles to Addis to Arusha. Had a 11 1/2 hr layover at Dulles. Mike lives near enough to come get us and get a few hours sleep at his place. Flight was delayed significantly. Didn't get to Dulles till after 1AM..... Sorry Mike. We appreciated his getting us anyway.
Checking in at Dulles was time consuming too. We got there 3 hrs ahead and the line was slow. One person had like 17 boxes that were around 30X30 inches....Watched a couple of people turned away for no CoVid test. One had a test from April and thought that would suffice...... This was June 19. While Mike was checking in I informed his agent that I had a firearm transferring from United. That initiated the necessity of filling out of Ethiopean paperwork for a firearm. I had those printed out and that speeded things up some. Was glad to get on the flight.
As expected we were met at the gate at Addis by an agent to go down to baggage to check the serial numbers on the firearms. We had q 3 hr layover and it all went smoothly. Food on the flights was OK. About what you expect. Better than some I've had but not what you'd want to order off a menu.
Arrival in Arusha was a goat rope. They had decided that to enter the country you had to take a CoVid test. You first had to do a download on your phone and then tested. The testing line was a mess. I was told 2 times to stand in the wrong line. When I'm tired after that much travel its hard to keep my mouth shut. Good thing my wife was there to sort things out. $25 cash US for the test. I feel like its really just a scam.... Then the rifle/ammo check. They charge you for each round of ammo that you bring in. I had some shotgun shells as well as the rifle shells. They actually got the count right. Finally out of there and getting in a truck
Both Zidane and Quintin were there to pick us up. We headed out for the Lake Natron concession. We traveled perhaps 3 1/2 hrs to get there and arrived at 9 pm. Saw elephants along the road as well as Zebra and giraffe. Interestingly there is no lake in sight. Not sure if the concession even touches the lake or not. Never got close to Lake Natron. This lodge sits on a saddle on the shoulder of a ridge. Bed was wonderful that night.
The view in the am was great. A nice breeze felt good. We were advised to bring a jacket. Good advice. With the wind things got cold at times. The lodge was pleasant and inviting. Food was very good. More in a bit. I'll post some pics from my cell phone
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