Off-Topic: Safari/Hunting in Africa

[Sorter]

I'm starting to plan a trip to go on safari in the next few years. Any recommendations, experiences, suggestions from this group of people would be highly regarded.

I'd really love to get some solids pics and possibly hunt a leopard(if under the 14k each price range I've regularly seen)

[Buzz_TinBalls]

Take your picture with some cute rhinos.

[Chief_For_Life58]

"When hunting goes wrong"...best youtube videos ever

[ThaVirus]

Originally Posted by Iowanian

I assume by gay you mean....awesome, happy fun.

lol.. Nope.

Partially for reasons like this:

Originally Posted by Chief_For_Life58

hunting a leopard is pussy shit. its like hunting a giant house cat. u track it down with dogs and run it up a tree and then shoot it or u bait it and shoot it at night time while its eating some meat hung from a tree.

[LiveSteam]

My back yard safari


[IMG]squaw creek 082.jpg (88.4 KB)[/IMG]














In the middle of Omaha no less

[ThaVirus]

Also, I should clarify: hunting for sport with a gun is gay. Head out to the savannah in a loin cloth and a spear or knife that you fashioned yourself and kill something; then you'll be pretty damned awesome.

[Chief_For_Life58]

Originally Posted by LiveSteam

My back yard safari


[IMG]squaw creek 082.jpg (88.4 KB)[/IMG]












In the middle of Omaha no less

that is one nice back yard safari haul u got there. How u gonna cook em up? fry? stew? Personal squirrel favorite, pressure cooker. the meat falls off the bone.

[LiveSteam]

Originally Posted by Chief_For_Life58

that is one nice back yard safari haul u got there. How u gonna cook em up? fry? stew? Personal squirrel favorite, pressure cooker. the meat falls off the bone.

I shoot the squirrels with a 22 cal pellet rifle & that old Red tail hawk comes in just before dark & eats them.
The green head & his female companion just showed up one day,& she decided to build her nest & lay her eggs in the lilypad. I think the raccoon"s harassed her at night. After a couple weeks she abandoned the eggs & nest. I was very disappointed. all the kids in the hood were excited about baby ducks coming.
Watching those two ducks circle the block then lock up their wings & come burning in. In between the houses was quite amazing. Their was no room for error,& a couple times I thought she was going to hit the shed,but she put the brakes on,did an about face & went straight to the nest.

[Sorter]

Originally Posted by ThaVirus

Also, I should clarify: hunting for sport with a gun is gay. Head out to the savannah in a loin cloth and a spear or knife that you fashioned yourself and kill something; then you'll be pretty damned awesome.

OK, first off: a Sorter, hunting in the savannah without a gun. Sorters don't like not being able to defend themselves from ****ing cats with large claws with no firearm. If you placed a firearm in a Sorter's hands or some sort of cat-killing weapon, that makes sense. But you find yourself in Africa, 100 degree heat, I'm assuming in South Africa, coming up against a full grown 210 pound leopard with his 20 or 30 sneaky leopard friends, you lose that battle, you lose that battle 9 times out of 10. And guess what, now I've wandered into the school of leopards and they now have a taste of Sorter. They've talked to themselves. They've communicated and said 'You know what, Sorter tastes good, let's go get some more Sorter'. They've developed a system to establish a beach-head and aggressively hunt Sorter and his family back in the states and they will corner my pride, my children, my offspring.

[SNR]

Be sure to check out the hippo poop helicopters.

[LiveSteam]

Originally Posted by Sorter

OK, first off: a Sorter, hunting in the savannah without a gun. Sorters don't like not being able to defend themselves from ****ing cats with large claws with no firearm. If you placed a firearm in a Sorter's hands or some sort of cat-killing weapon, that makes sense. But you find yourself in Africa, 100 degree heat, I'm assuming in South Africa, coming up against a full grown 210 pound leopard with his 20 or 30 sneaky leopard friends, you lose that battle, you lose that battle 9 times out of 10. And guess what, now I've wandered into the school of leopards and they now have a taste of Sorter. They've talked to themselves. They've communicated and said 'You know what, Sorter tastes good, let's go get some more Sorter'. They've developed a system to establish a beach-head and aggressively hunt Sorter and his family back in the states and they will corner my pride, my children, my offspring.

Their is a great story about the African Cross Continental railroad & man eating lions that would drag members of the track gang out of their tents at night & devour them just yards away from camp.


Lt. Col. John Patterson beside one of the man-eating lions he shot in 1898. Photo courtesy The Field Museum
http://suite101.com/article/the-tsav...n-1898-a395422

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by Bwana

My brother just got back from a picture taking safari from over there and seemed to enjoy it. I think Rainman has been there as well.

I went to a private lodge in Zululand called Zulu Nyala: http://www.zulunyalaheritagesafarilodge.com/. It was a great place to take photos and see animals, but you're not shooting anything there.

I didn't quite understand the model, but I think the market is something like this. You have the big national parks and you can go there. You also have smaller private lodges, where they may own 500 acres and buy or breed animals that have smaller ranges. The animals run wild, so other than an occasional fence you don't really see any difference. And then some animals with big ranges will hop the fences and wander throughout all of the places.

The place I was at had basically every animal on it other than the big cats. The lions never came onto the private lodge, but leopards would come in and out. Monkeys and birds paid no attention to fences, and occasionally wildebeest or zebras or things would jump fences and wander around. I don't think they worried about the more common animals, but if a rhino got through a fence they'd go fetch it somehow.

I think these places are near the bigger national parks as part of making a big rangeland, so we took an excursion to a national park to look for lions one day.

If you're wanting to hunt a leopard, I'd think that you're either going to spend a long, long time waiting for one, or you're going to do the sleazy thing of shooting one in a cage. They're not easy to find, and I don't know if you'd be looking on the private lodges where they're moving from place to place, or the national parks. It doesn't seem like a good use of time and resources when it'd be more entertaining to spend time observing animals. But then again, I'm not a hunter type.

I should note that South Africa did not feel like a third world country at all. It felt more like wandering around in Europe somewhere.

I went to Madagascar while I was in the neighborhood. Most commonly, people would combine a safari with a trip to Victoria Falls or a trip to Cape Town, but I thought Madagascar was quite interesting. I'd love to go back to both countries and explore more.

[Sorter]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

I went to a private lodge in Zululand called Zulu Nyala: http://www.zulunyalaheritagesafarilodge.com/. It was a great place to take photos and see animals, but you're not shooting anything there.

I didn't quite understand the model, but I think the market is something like this. You have the big national parks and you can go there. You also have smaller private lodges, where they may own 500 acres and buy or breed animals that have smaller ranges. The animals run wild, so other than an occasional fence you don't really see any difference. And then some animals with big ranges will hop the fences and wander throughout all of the places.

The place I was at had basically every animal on it other than the big cats. The lions never came onto the private lodge, but leopards would come in and out. Monkeys and birds paid no attention to fences, and occasionally wildebeest or zebras or things would jump fences and wander around. I don't think they worried about the more common animals, but if a rhino got through a fence they'd go fetch it somehow.

I think these places are near the bigger national parks as part of making a big rangeland, so we took an excursion to a national park to look for lions one day.

If you're wanting to hunt a leopard, I'd think that you're either going to spend a long, long time waiting for one, or you're going to do the sleazy thing of shooting one in a cage. They're not easy to find, and I don't know if you'd be looking on the private lodges where they're moving from place to place, or the national parks. It doesn't seem like a good use of time and resources when it'd be more entertaining to spend time observing animals. But then again, I'm not a hunter type.

This is what I'm realistically thinking. I'd be more than thrilled to go and just take pictures. The leopard thing is more fantasy than anything.

[DonTellMeShowMe]

Man is natures most dangerous game. Don't forget it

[crispystl420]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

I went to a private lodge in Zululand called Zulu Nyala: http://www.zulunyalaheritagesafarilodge.com/. It was a great place to take photos and see animals, but you're not shooting anything there.

I didn't quite understand the model, but I think the market is something like this. You have the big national parks and you can go there. You also have smaller private lodges, where they may own 500 acres and buy or breed animals that have smaller ranges. The animals run wild, so other than an occasional fence you don't really see any difference. And then some animals with big ranges will hop the fences and wander throughout all of the places.

The place I was at had basically every animal on it other than the big cats. The lions never came onto the private lodge, but leopards would come in and out. Monkeys and birds paid no attention to fences, and occasionally wildebeest or zebras or things would jump fences and wander around. I don't think they worried about the more common animals, but if a rhino got through a fence they'd go fetch it somehow.

I think these places are near the bigger national parks as part of making a big rangeland, so we took an excursion to a national park to look for lions one day.

If you're wanting to hunt a leopard, I'd think that you're either going to spend a long, long time waiting for one, or you're going to do the sleazy thing of shooting one in a cage. They're not easy to find, and I don't know if you'd be looking on the private lodges where they're moving from place to place, or the national parks. It doesn't seem like a good use of time and resources when it'd be more entertaining to spend time observing animals. But then again, I'm not a hunter type.

I should note that South Africa did not feel like a third world country at all. It felt more like wandering around in Europe somewhere.

I went to Madagascar while I was in the neighborhood. Most commonly, people would combine a safari with a trip to Victoria Falls or a trip to Cape Town, but I thought Madagascar was quite interesting. I'd love to go back to both countries and explore more.

That's ****ing beautiful. Not what I picture when I think of Africa.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by Sorter

This is what I'm realistically thinking. I'd be more than thrilled to go and just take pictures. The leopard thing is more fantasy than anything.

The weird thing was that we never saw lions, which was quite disappointing. We had one day in a national park and our guide, who was good and legit based on several previous days, knew where they tended to hang out. But everywhere we went, there were no lions. We'll have to go back some day to find them. My advice, though, is that if you stay at a private lodge, go on a lion excursion early in the trip so you can try again if you can't find them.

However, we did see a mondo large leopard, and apparently that's more rare since they're solitary and tend to hang out in less visible places. According to our guide, it's not common to see them, much less a big one.