Optimizing safari quality through hunting excellence and ecologically sensitive approach!
ADVANCED HUNTING PROGRAM
&
PROFESSIONAL HUNTING QUALIFICATION
Over years we have received requests and recommendations from our hunting clients to condense our hunting expertise into a training program. We are therefore offering a very comprehensive ADVANCED HUNTING PROGRAM to you. Read below for more information.
Recently we have also received requests from overseas hunters and observers to combine our ADVANCED HUNTING PROGRAM with a PROFESSIONAL HUNTING QUALIFICATION.
We are taking hands with a registered Professional Hunting School in South Africa, which will do the necessary assessments and training required to qualify you as a professional hunter in South Africa.
- Luis Diez del Corral, Madrid, SPAIN -
"... to show it in such a fantastic way, you have offered us Africa. It was my eight safari in Africa, but I have learned more in ten days than in two hunting months. It was more than a safari ... you are up there with the best professional hunters in Africa, the Robin Hurts' and them..."
- Count Eugenio Maurizio Villafranca – Torino, ITALY -
“ … an excellent big game hunting teacher”
- Dr. Paolo la Pietra – Milano, ITALY -
If you would start a PH School in Tanzania on hunting leopard and other members of the Big 5, you will do very well”
- Dr. Dick Dryer, African Sporting Gazette -
“… extraordinary pleasure to experience that wonderful leopard hunt through your expert eyes"
PROGRAM INFORMATION - PHASE 1
Duration of Training – 14 days, 15 nights
Dates Available
15-29 June 2024
5-19 July 2024
6-20 August 2024
Cost (per student) – USD 3500 - (50% deposit and balance 30 days prior to arrival)
Includes
Animals per person – Normally learner PHs shoot at targets, and skin a sheep head for the practical exams. We offer you the opportunity to hunt 2 animals. The first animal you hunt during the training, and you practice to cape it, and the 2nd animal (we recommend the impala), you hunt and skin during your practical exam:
1 Impala
1 Warthog
Accommodation, 3 meals/day, training programs and lecture material, examination costs, transport inside South Africa.
Registration as PH after successful completion of the PH exam.
Excludes
Rifle and Ammunition. For the shooting test you must bring a 270, 308, 30-06 or bigger, plus 60 bullets.
ADDITIONAL ANIMALS
We have a limited number of Gemsbuck (6), Blue Wildebeest (8), Red Hartebeest (4), Waterbuck (4) and Zebra (3) on quota available at a special discounted price, that could be added to the trophy list.
If you are interested - we recommend you prebook it by 50% of the trophy fee.
(Gemsbuck – USD 700, Blue Wildebeest – USD 600, Red Hartebeest – USD 650, Waterbuck – USD 950, Zebra – USD 750)
This additional quota must be shared between the 3 programs, therefor we allow 8 animals per program to give every group access to this discounted offer.
To get yourself onto one of the 3 programs, don't lose the opportunity - make Contact
PROGRAM INFORMATION - PHASE 2
Duration of Training – 12 days, 13 nights
Dates Available
13-25 October 2024
3-15 November 2024
Cost (per student) – USD 4550 - (50% deposit and balance 30 days prior to arrival)
Includes
Accommodation in Camp Selous, 3 meals/day, training programs and lecture material, examination costs, transport inside Zimbabwe.
Excludes
Rifle and Ammunition. Possible to hire rifle for the days of actual hunting. Calibers to choose from .375 H&H, 9,3 x 64, 458 WM, 416 Remmington, 416 Rigby - Cost of hire per day USD 35 and cost of ammunition USD 15 per bullet.
ANIMALS
One Animal to choose from / per person - to be booked by 50% deposit:
1 Buffalo Bull (USD3500)/ 1 Non-Trophy Elephant (USD 4000)
Additional Animals - to hunt (depending on quota) - Spotted Hyena (USD 550)
To get yourself onto one of the 2 programs, don't lose the opportunity - make Contact
PROFESSIONAL HUNTING TRAINING
Most of the subjects that are offered during the Professional Hunting School training, we do in much more depth and on a higher level during the Advanced Training Program.
We are taking hands with the principal of a South African PH School, who will also train and assess you, in order to qualify you as a SA Professional Hunter. We also help to register you after successful completeion completion of the PH Qualification.
The only subjects we are not offering as part of the Advanced Training Program, which are offered by the Professional Hunting School, are (although we do assist):
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Professional Hunting
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Bird Hunting
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Bow Hunting
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Roland Ward and SCI Minimums and Maximums
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Trophy Measurement – Roland Ward and SCI
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Hunting Ordinances and Law – you choose your Province/s of choice
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Trophy Preparation and Skinning
Please note that we supply you with a substantial amount of learning material that you can study in advance prior to your arrival in South Africa. The total program is a huge volume of information, and we highly recommend you study in depth, the information we send you in advance. We are doing a lot of practical work, and you need to have a sound knowledge base of the learning material we will send you, on arrival.
The full complement of subjects that are offered in the Professional Hunting Training include (ordered in terms of how you can prepare and who can train):
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Trophy Judgement (Advanced Hunting Program & PH School Principal)
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Professional hunting in SA, as well as Marketing and Administration (PH School Principal)
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Bird Hunting (study prior & PH School Principal)
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Bow Hunting (study prior & PH School Principal)
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Roland Ward and SCI Minimums and Maximums (study prior & PH School Principal)
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Trophy Measurement – Roland Ward and SCI (PH School Principal)
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Provincial Hunting Law (Ordinances) - you decide which province (Study Prior & PH School Principal)
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Trophy Preparation & Skinning (Study Prior & PH School Principal)
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First Aid (Advanced Hunting Program & qualify)
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Hunting Techniques (Advanced Hunting Program & PH School Principal assess)
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Rifles and Ammunition (Advanced Hunting Program & PH School Principal assess))
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Tree and Bird Identification (Advanced Hunting Program & PH School Principal assess)
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Practical Shooting (Advanced Hunting Program & PH School Principal assess)
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Animal Data (Study Prior & Advanced Hunting Program & PH School Principal assess)
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Bullet placement (Advanced Hunting Program & PH School Principal assess)
ADVANCED HUNTING PROGRAM PHASE 1
We combine Phase 1 of Advanced Hunting Program with the South African Professional Hunting Qualification. We do this combined training program in South Africa. Phase 2 will follow later in Zimbabwe and can be combined with hunting.
1. Collector Hunts & Trophy Quality
Identify areas in South Africa for the best locations to hunt the full spectrum of huntable species. We are focusing on the areas where the species were found endemically. Presently in South Africa, animals are introduced into areas which is completely diverse from its original habitat where they are found endemically.
Certain areas have developed the reputation for being the best Warthog and Impala areas in terms of quantity and trophy size, also Nyala, Kudu, and other species. You will learn more about this. We do not offer animals outside their natural habitat, as we are then hunting animals that are under stress due to incorrect habitat.
2. Habitat Analysis
Learn to analyze and assess a hunting area, and then where to look for the species of animals in the right locations in the habitat.
3. Trophy Judgement
You will learn to judge the trophy size with a wide variety of horns sets of antelopes found in South Africa, with which we will train you how to identify different species, but also to assess horn size.
You will also learn to judge trophy size on elephant, crocodile, warthog, and others.
Judging trophy size accurately can be very difficult, therefor we teach you a variety of methods to help you judge trophy size of Southern African species more accurately.
4. Hunting Techniques
We start off by doing all the different, generic hunting techniques.
Then we focus on a variety of more specialized hunting techniques that we have learned over a lifetime of hunting, some of it learnt from overseas clients, other PHs, old East African PHs who mentored us in the mid-1980’s, others learnt from poachers.
In Phase 1 we are focusing on the hunting techniques used for:
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Larger Carnivores
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Medium and Small Carnivores
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“The Little 10” – Klipspringer, Duikers (Red, Bush, Blue), Steenbuck, Grysbuck (Cape, Sharpes), Livingstone Suni, Oribi, Damara Dik-dik.
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The other 20 Antelope species
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Warthog & Bushpig
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Giraffe, Zebra and others
In Phase 1 we look in the hunting of dangerous game and the Big 5, on an introductory level. During Phase 2 in Zimbabwe, we focus exclusively and in much more depth on the hunting of the following animals:
Elephant, Buffalo, Lion, Leopard, Hippo, Croc, Rhino and Spotted Hyena
5. Intelligent Hunting
Ethical hunting is the most important wildlife management tool, but true ethical hunting needs to function from a more scientific knowledge base, and from there base your whole hunting approach on what you have learnt about the social behavior and population dynamics of the species you plan to hunt.
By employing the skills, you will learn in intelligent hunting, you will support natural selection in your hunting approach.
6. Bullet Placement
Learn how to use your vertical crosshair more effectively on heart-lung shots. On braining an elephant, we teach you the horizontal crosshairs. There are a few exceptions, but bullet placement is very simple.
We also teach you follow-up shots on wounded animals, and anchor shots on elephant.
7. Track Charts, Track Sticks, Track Studies, Cyber-Tracker
Track Charts
We found with our students, they learn the tracks faster, when they also make drawings, at the same time we are drawing on a white board. During the drawing, we explain all the subtle variations between likewise tracks of certain animals.
Be assured, in a single morning, you learn to distinguish between 70 different mammals.
Track Sticks
Prior to high tech, the technique of cutting track sticks work very well to identify between specific individuals of the same species.
Cyber-Tracker
A fantastic application on your smart phone that you can use to identify specific animals, as well as the pin-location, date and time where seen. In this way, in a relatively short time, you will have a very good database of all individual animals in your area.
8. Tracking
WILDLIFE TRACKING USING SYSTEMATIC TRACKING
Characteristics of a good tracker
Principles of tracking
Reading different animal signs
Interpreting signs
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Blood trailing
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Ground signs
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Aerial signs
High Speed Tracking & Channeling
Tracking gardens
Tracking exercises
Tracking with your nose
Tracking with your ears – sound rhythms
Tracking by touch
Identification of animal scat / dung
Ageing sign - scat
Ageing & Interpreting Track Sign
Identifying & Interpreting gait patterns
SPECIALIZED TRACKING
We just touch on this briefly, as Specialized Tracking is part of a follow-up training program in Phase 2 in Zimbabwe.
Intuitive / Speculative Tracking
Man Tracking & Back-Tracking
Interpreting tracks using the power of Pressure Releases
9. Sensitize Your Senses
As civilized Western Society, we have to a large extent lost our ability to use our senses. Through a series of exercises, all your senses will be started up again.
Vision – your peripheral vision is largely underdeveloped. Peripheral vision is used to pick up movement and observe over a wider angle of view. It also improves your night vision ability. Your detailed or focused vision, in order to observe better at close quarters, and also at different depths of field. You will also learn how to better observe wildlife in their natural surroundings.
Hearing – listen to the inner symphony within a source of sound, for instance the morning bird chorus - listen to the variety of sounds, then through selective hearing, select the calls of a specific bird closest to you - listen to its symphonic quality in as much detail as possible detail – gradually select birds further off. Learn how to amplify and accurately locate sounds, also to determine the distance of sound. Learn to interpret sounds, and to identify the sounds of a great variety of animals of Africa.
Smell – the most neglected skill of modern survival. Kick-start your olfactory function with a variety of exciting exercises.
Touch – when you are deprived of using your vision when we blindfold you, you are forced to employ your sense of touch (and in the same way, your other senses). Offering you a variety of objects with different textures, you need to describe in as much detail as possible. The sense of touch is very important when moving about at night.
Blindfolding
By blindfold you, we force you to use and develop your other senses to compensate for your lack of vision. Blindfolding also improves your balance that helps you to stalk better.
10. Bush Awareness, Bushcraft & Survival
Bush Awareness
Graduate through the 4 mental stages of awareness, to attain neutrality and a higher bush awareness within African Nature – learn techniques how to graduate through the different stages, thereby tuning yourself in psychologically on Nature’s frequency.
Bushcraft & Survival
We have two top Recce’s (our special forces) on the program to help with Bushcraft & Surivival. They are also PHs on our team in South Africa and Zimbabwe.
The human body
Types of survival
General principles of survival
Water
How to find water
Different sources of water
Food
Plants
Animals – Trapping
Medicinal Plants
Navigation
Daytime
Nighttime
11. Stalking Skills & Moving Around
Movement in bush
How to move around in the presence of dangerous animals to minimize risk.
How to walk around at night in the African bush
Reflection is a crucial give-away to animals. Sometimes you must turn almost upwind as the animals strongly pick up the refection of your group hunting directly into the sun.
Ways to walk more quietly. Learning from the way the true bush people of the world walk, who with no/little exposure to civilization and being dependent of hunting for protein in their diet, walk by foot placement and striding out versus civilized man. Interesting new perspectives!
Stalking
We focus on 2 unique stalking styles:
a. Kalahari Bushman-style
b. American Indian-style
Learn to read the body language of animals, in order to allow you to stalk to almost within touching distance, and what to do to achieve the ultimate – stalking right through a herd of antelopes.
12. Guiding in the Presence of Dangerous Animals (VPDA)
In South Africa in the qualification “View Potentially Dangerous Animals During Guiding”, the following 9 animals are classified as dangerous animals – Elephant, Black Rhino, White Rhino, Buffalo, Leopard, Lion, Hippo, Crocodile, and Spotted Hyena”.
We assessed and did gap training on all 120 trails guides in the Kruger National Park, as well as many nature/field guides of the private game lodges of South Africa. At the same time, we assessed and did gap training on these guides for the qualification called Advanced Weapons Handling. Both these qualifications are essential when guiding tourists in areas where these animals occur.
For some reason, it is not essential for PH’s to have VPDA, and the shooting exam for PH’s is assessed on a lower level of competency. In Zimbabwe the level of shooting proficiency required to act as PH on dangerous game is higher. We are mentoring learner PHs of Zimbabwe in preparing them for their equivalent of Advanced Weapons Handling.
It is crucial to understand the aggressive behavior as well as their body language during such behavior, of each of these 9 species.
Based on the interaction, you should be able to go into an interaction with these species, to allow you the opportunity to extract you and your guest/s out of the dangerous situation. In some instances, your will experience mock charges, in other instances you will experience serious, life-threatening charges.
Learn to distinguish between the two charges, and how to react accordingly.
13. Advanced Shooting Technique
Advanced Weapons Handling - our main focus is to train you to be effective in Instinctive Shooting, which is crucial when you hunt dangerous game - also called Karamojo-Style Shooting or Snap-Shooting.
When confronted by a charging elephant, buffalo, lion, leopard, hippo, pig, etc. at close range, you don’t have time to aim over the sights of your rifle, but to shoot where you look, cowboy style. We train you to instinctively shoot accurately at animals closing in on you (with heads bobbing up and down) at 15 m/s or more. Very often you have less than a second from the time you realize you have a charge, until the animal will hit you or your hunting client. In Africa you often face a full-blown charge from an animal which is not wounded, but could have festering wounds from a lion attack, or snares.
Our also focus is also to train you to shoot:
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Shoot accurately off-hand up to distances up to 100-150m.
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We teach you to strengthen your shooting muscles.
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To hold your rifle more stable off-hand for a minute or 2, without shaking. You might be waiting for a wounded animal that might cross over at any given moment through a small corridor / passage in the bush.
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Shooting at wounded animals. As a PH you are often required to shoot at running targets that are disappearing into thickets just before you reach the point-of-lead.
Professional hunter shooting ethics. When should you as a PH really shoot at a client’s animal?
14. Hunting Rifles, Ballistics & Gunsmithing
In Phase 1 we look at the different rifle calibers suited to hunting in 3 categories - dangerous game, large game, and small animals. In ballistics we look more specifically at terminal ballistics.
During Phase 2, we go into much more depth in terms of ballistics, rifles calibers and bullet selection.
Especially when hunting dangerous game, the motto of Pondoro John Taylor holds water – “Use Enough Gun!”
15. Signs of the African Bush
In hunting and to experience what the natural environment might be offering you from the past number of days, it is important to interpret signs as accurately as possible all that Nature’s Newspaper has written for you.
Once you become more proficient in your ability to observe and identify the finer nuances of a great variety of signs, you will be able to make better informed decisions when tracking animals, and on the hunt in general. It is also important to be able to distinguish which signs along the way are directly relevant to the animal you are tracking, and what is not relevant at all in that moment.
It is however important to register and remember for future reference, for example you might find a territorial marking tree of leopard while tracking a herd of buffalo. In future you will always visit the territorial tree to look for fresh activity, especially when leopard hunting is part of your hunting offers.
You will be sensitized to employ all your senses to “observe” nature’s signs, as it could be physical signs, smells, sounds and you might be required to use touch as well.
We introduce you to a wide variety of animal and nature signs.
16. Sounds of the African Bush.
Southern Africa, with its very diverse flora, provides a habitat for a very wide variety of mammals, birds, insects, amphibia and reptiles. Each of these animals attribute their variety of sounds into the vast African Symphony Orchestra.
If you are not able to identify the sounds of certain important species of animals, you will never be able to hear their sound as part of the greater African Symphonic Orchestra. Then, like a good conductor, through selective hearing, you will eventually be able to hear faint rasping cough of a distant leopard, whilst a chorus of frogs and bush crickets continue with their chorus. Or a tree at being pushed over a few hundred meters away, in the hours of night with the sounds of insects and frogs at the river close-by, indicating elephants have moved into your area.
Sitting in the dark at a vantage point in the Southern African savannah, just listening to the night sounds and the alarm calls of the different antelopes and primates, you can easily form an idea of predator movement during the night. By judging distance and direction, the next day you can move around and confirm by spotting tracks of the different predators that moved around the previous night.
17. Our African Heritage
Each continent has its own challenges in preserving its wildlife heritage. Africa, even more so than the other continents.
For most of the indigenous people of Africa, wildlife is a menace, as it is decimating their crops and killing their livestock. Their livestock is their wealth, and they will protect it with any means to their disposal. Poaching could be rife, and it takes out of the box thinking to change the mindset of these people towards conservation.
It is crucial that hunting must be done on an ethical basis, based on wildlife management principles.
Come learn more on what we are doing to preserve our African Heritage.
18. Know African Nature
Although we are looking at nature in all its facets, certain subjects on nature that is directly relevant to hunting success:
Weather:
It is important to know about the character of air movement in your area in order to plan where you hunt and your direction of hunt, and how to compensate for changes of air movement.
Cold fronts – the African animals being respiratory animals, are more adapted to heat than to cold. When a cold front moves in, their behavior changes and they hide from the cold. Some animals, like leopard completely “disappear” into their dens in extreme cold. Animals like warthog, bushpig, hippo and crocodile change their behavior during cold fronts. Learn how to change your hunting approach.
Small scale air movements
Air pressure gradients affect direction of air movement. At some stage within the first few hours of hunting in the morning, the wind direction often changes as much as 180 degrees.
Catabatic and Anabatic winds – especially important when you hunt from blinds at night. Normally in winter nights the direction of air movement turns around 180 degrees at between 20h00 and 21h00. Where do you position your blind? Certain animals feed at different times, also within the same species, like leopard females, come in on bait from sunset up to 21h00, whilst males tend to come after 21h00. Leopards are also more active hunting during new
moon, and when not successful, will come in after the moon is down.
Macro scale air movements
Inland Kalahari High Pressure and Föhn winds
Astronomy
All clients want to see the Southern Cross. As a basic minimum, you will learn how to identify Scorpius, Orion, Canis Major, Canis Minor, Taurus. Afterwards you will be able to know the main stars in these constellations, as well as the mythology around these constellations.
But, we are really passionate about the Southern Skies, and for those interested, we will spend many hours at night to explore the night skies with our star scope, and teach you a lot more than the 6 constellations.
Moon phases have a big effect on animal behavior, especially when there is hunting pressure in your hunting area. During full moon animals often tend to feed and drink during night hours and rest up (and hide during cold fronts) during the day. How do you address this, when you have clients and you are under pressure to offer a successful hunt, and you don’t see animal activity.
Geology
The mother rock and geology of an area determines the types of trees and grasses. Another determining factor on the vegetation is the climate.
Learn about catenas, and with your newly acquired knowledge, you will have a better idea where to find the more important feeding trees and shrubs of different antelopes.
When you now take an aerial photograph, you will be able to determine where to look for your target species.
Botany
We help you to identify the main or important trees of the area you are going to be assessed in for your professional hunter exam. You will also learn which species of antelopes browse on the different trees.
We focus mainly on the main feeding trees and shrubs of the Bushveld Savannah.
Birds
Identify only the main bird species of the area on sight and sound. We have a total species diversity of more than 900 bird species in South Africa.
Ecology
For the ethical hunter, it is crucial to have a thorough knowledge of the ecology and ecological principles of the area you are hunting.
Mammals
It is crucial that you know as much about the animals that you are going to hunt. During the course of the program, each person is going to research a number of the general huntable species of Southern Africa. All the research information will be shared between all persons doing the program.
Animal Social & Breeding Behavior
We select the main hunting species, and in this pool of mammals, you will be given a number a mammal to research with regards to the social and mating behavior. You do a presentation of the mammals you researched to your fellow pupils, and at the end of the program, you will share all the researched mammals’ information.
Feeding Behavior
To optimize hunting success, it is important to know as much about the preferred diet of the animal species you want to hunt and which plants they feed on at different times of the year. We supply you with list of diets of different flagship species, based on laboratory
analyses of stomach samples.
Bear in mind, the predators feeding on their preferred prey species, also know where to find their prey. That is if you are interested in hunting the predators of specific prey species as well.
19. First Aid
As a Professional Hunter, you need to have a First Aid Certificate on level 2. You therefore need to be able to do CPR and handle basic emergencies.
PHASE 1
Phase 1 is offered in South Africa on a Big 5 reserve, in combination with the South African Professional Hunters Qualification.
A strong foundation is laid in hunting skills for all plains game, when you plan to bring hunters over on safaris to Southern Africa. We touch briefly on dangerous game.
Included for each student is 2 medium-sized animals, and for those interested to shoot bigger animals, 8 animals are allocated to each group (25 animals to be shared between 3 groups).
During Phase 1, we prepare you for the more advanced Phase 2 program.
PHASE 2
Phase 2 is offered in Zimbabwe, at Camp Selous.
This is in depth training in the hunting of elephant, buffalo, lion, leopard, hippo, crocodile and spotted hyena.
We build on the strong hunting skills foundation laid in Phase 1, and take you to a much more advanced level of hunting expertise.
During Phase 2, you will have the choice of either a buffalo (USD3500) or non-trophy elephant (USD4000) at a special offer price.
Cutting Leopard Track Sticks
Non Trophy Elephant
Fair Chase Plains Game Hunt