Riksa
AH veteran
I have learnt a lot reading this forum and altough I am not always showing my respect to the reports and info here I feel that it is my obligation to return the favor and write my own report when I get the chance to go to Africa. And yes, if you go once, you will go again . For me this was my third trip with the 2 previous ones in Namibia.
Hunt was booked with Mbalabala Safaris (Lindon Stanton) and my PH would be Pierre Hundermark. Area is Chewore South in Zimbabwe. Main species to be hunted were Leopard and Buffalo.
Days prior to hunt
I booked the hunt through a special in Africahunting.com. I was not in the market for a hunt in 2017, but just exploring opportunities for 2018. But then I found an offer I could not ignore. Mbalabala Safaris had a nice offer for a Buffalo and I asked what other species could be combined with the hunt. When Leopard was available in Zimbabwe for an unusual rate together with the Buffalo I simply could not say no. And that’s how my trip started.
I did less than my usual background checks as the hunt was only 2 months from finding the offer. I contacted a reference, checked web for stories about Mbalabala Safaris and checked other offers from Zimbabwe for 2017 and this one really stood out. So I booked the hunt. Hunt was agreed to take place from Friday 20th of October until Thursday 2nd of November. 14 days in total + arrival and departure days. I felt that was a good amount of days to maximize my chances on both Leopard and Buffalo. Additionally I was mainly interested in Hyena, Bushbuck and Kudu. Plan was to take my own rifle (.338 WinMag) for Leopard hunting and use camp gun for Buffalo. Hunt was to take place in Chewore South, an area of 1 Million Acres of wilderness: Chewore borders Mana Pools national park and has no fences whatsoever. That was one of the key things for me when booking the hunt. I wanted to hunt in wild, original Africa. And I wanted to hunt hard.
I found good deal (only 1500€/1700USD) on flying with Ethiopian Airlines so I booked their flights from Helsinki to Harare and back in business class. I also found the info posted by other members about the weird gun checking process in Addis Abebe. That info was very helpful as it really made a difference in being able to catch all the flights. My lesson learnt in this case was that I should always take several extra copies of my gun permit, passport and other relevant papers with me. But like someone wrote earlier, just pull out new papers when asked and be kind. At some point one of the papers is enough and everything is fine. To me the trick seemed to be a document with my signature and the serial number of the gun (prefilled gun import permit for Zim). Then everything was fine.
In Zimbabwe the immigration and customs processes were very fast and simple. My only moment of concern was that my bag (with ammunition) arrived with everyone else’s luggage, but the gun case not. I started to get worried, but then noticed a buy standing beside the carousel with my gun case. So all the luggage arrived and I was out of the airport with no further issues. The PH Pierre Hundermark met me at the exit and the trip to Chewore was long but uneventful.
Chewore has a few different available camps, but we were to stay in Chenje camp. It is a tent camp, but very nice overall. Hot water was warmed with fire, good toilet and shower, open bar with cold drinks and internet (working sometimes, sometimes not). Electricity was produced with generator and power was available when needed. The company operating Chewore camps will change after this year, so please don’t take these as a guarantee that everything will work in the future. But this time, I was happy with all the things and especially food and the company of staff and fellow hunters in the camp.
Hunt was booked with Mbalabala Safaris (Lindon Stanton) and my PH would be Pierre Hundermark. Area is Chewore South in Zimbabwe. Main species to be hunted were Leopard and Buffalo.
Days prior to hunt
I booked the hunt through a special in Africahunting.com. I was not in the market for a hunt in 2017, but just exploring opportunities for 2018. But then I found an offer I could not ignore. Mbalabala Safaris had a nice offer for a Buffalo and I asked what other species could be combined with the hunt. When Leopard was available in Zimbabwe for an unusual rate together with the Buffalo I simply could not say no. And that’s how my trip started.
I did less than my usual background checks as the hunt was only 2 months from finding the offer. I contacted a reference, checked web for stories about Mbalabala Safaris and checked other offers from Zimbabwe for 2017 and this one really stood out. So I booked the hunt. Hunt was agreed to take place from Friday 20th of October until Thursday 2nd of November. 14 days in total + arrival and departure days. I felt that was a good amount of days to maximize my chances on both Leopard and Buffalo. Additionally I was mainly interested in Hyena, Bushbuck and Kudu. Plan was to take my own rifle (.338 WinMag) for Leopard hunting and use camp gun for Buffalo. Hunt was to take place in Chewore South, an area of 1 Million Acres of wilderness: Chewore borders Mana Pools national park and has no fences whatsoever. That was one of the key things for me when booking the hunt. I wanted to hunt in wild, original Africa. And I wanted to hunt hard.
I found good deal (only 1500€/1700USD) on flying with Ethiopian Airlines so I booked their flights from Helsinki to Harare and back in business class. I also found the info posted by other members about the weird gun checking process in Addis Abebe. That info was very helpful as it really made a difference in being able to catch all the flights. My lesson learnt in this case was that I should always take several extra copies of my gun permit, passport and other relevant papers with me. But like someone wrote earlier, just pull out new papers when asked and be kind. At some point one of the papers is enough and everything is fine. To me the trick seemed to be a document with my signature and the serial number of the gun (prefilled gun import permit for Zim). Then everything was fine.
In Zimbabwe the immigration and customs processes were very fast and simple. My only moment of concern was that my bag (with ammunition) arrived with everyone else’s luggage, but the gun case not. I started to get worried, but then noticed a buy standing beside the carousel with my gun case. So all the luggage arrived and I was out of the airport with no further issues. The PH Pierre Hundermark met me at the exit and the trip to Chewore was long but uneventful.
Chewore has a few different available camps, but we were to stay in Chenje camp. It is a tent camp, but very nice overall. Hot water was warmed with fire, good toilet and shower, open bar with cold drinks and internet (working sometimes, sometimes not). Electricity was produced with generator and power was available when needed. The company operating Chewore camps will change after this year, so please don’t take these as a guarantee that everything will work in the future. But this time, I was happy with all the things and especially food and the company of staff and fellow hunters in the camp.