Ebay African Safari
by Jack Downing

One night while surfing the net and looking at the ebay auctions, I punched in “African Hunt” and out popped an auction for the trophy fees on a kudu. I bid a dollar and lo and behold “I won”! Nic Roets, long time PH in South Africa, had recently sold his ranch there and moved his family to New Zealand. He was looking for new ways to market his hunts and after emailing him, checking references and talking with him by phone, I booked a hunt for July. I had been a hunting outfitter in a previous working life and liked the responses Nic was giving to my questions. He had grown up in the Limpopo area and knew about most if not all the hunting ranches in that part of the country.

Nics method was to operate as a freelance PH and take the hunter’s wish list and set up a hunt at various ranches. He would hunt only where the best heads of a particular species could be found. If the client is on a budget, he can also set up the hunt where the best value for the money can be found and still get good quality game. I liked this approach rather than booking with a particular ranch and then being locked in to having to stay there and take only what game that ranch had to offer.

I hunted only four days of the second week of the hunt and was able to take warthog, kudu, gemsbuck and impala with my Gonic magnum muzzleloader. Shots were between 23 and 120 yards which were perfect for my hunting techniques.

The rest of my time was spent with Nic and his friends on a four-wheeler safari travelling through the whole of South Africa and the small country of Lesotho. It was an adventure experiencing vistas on tracks and behind mountains that the normal traveller never sees. high in the mountains of Lesotho we shared a beer at “The highest pub in Africa” and talked hunting. My time there was more than just a hunt to kill animals, it was a geography, sociology, cultural and anthropology course while meeting new friends. I plan to return in July with my muzzleloader and my son for another great experience and will target the spiral horns, and possibly a buffalo.