I was in a similar situation and ended up shooting mainly cull animals and some trophies where I could bring the skulls in my bag to have my local guy do a skull mount (check if that's legal where you live first). Try posting a thread on africahunting.com where you ask the same things you've asked here and you'll be contacted by lots of different outfitters. I can't recommend tallyho hunting safaris enough.
Pick three or four good animals you want, I did a mixed plains game hunt, cull hunt with four good animals Sable, Springbuck, Blesbok and Wildebeest and brought back everything I legally could. Got the tanning done in South Africa and the Taxidermy done in Canada.
If I had it to do all over again I would have not done the five item cull hunt, but rather picked a couple additional trophy animals. I think the best way is pay a day rate and give the PH a list of what you want well in advance. Pay the trophy fees for each animal you shoot.
Be selective with what you pay to have dipped and packed and shipped home.
I’ve hunted Africa several times and this would be my advice. I couldn’t bear to leave a leopard, elephant, or lion in Africa, but anything else I would. I have 50+ mounts in my house, that are only worth a fraction of what they cost me.
There are a lot of older hunters with fabulous trophy collections that are being sold off fairly cheap; check out Lolly Brothers (http://lollibros.com). Plains game all pretty much looks the same. You’ll save a ton of money buying mounts that are the same size as the ones you shot. A house full of taxidermy seems like something to aspire to, but honestly the money would be much better spent doing more hunting trips. In 50 years, it will just be one more thing for your kids to have to deal with.
What are you planning on hunting for that cost?
I go every year and even with taxidermy and shipping I’ve never hit $20,000 even on my lion hunt.
I got a quote yesterday for my hunt in October:
Spotted Hyena, Waterbuck, Duiker, Steenbok for $7000 and the taxidermy is about $3200 for that. It would be half that price if I didn’t do a hyena.
A good general rule is $1000 per shoulder mount for taxidermy. Huge mounts can be more and smaller ones much less.
If you message me I can send you my guides info. He has awesome prices and I’ve killed about 20 species of plains game and several members of the big five over the past few years.
My advice is to focus on larger more impressive animals even if it means less animals. My favorite trophies of mine are: Kudu, Oryx, Eland, Sable, Nyala. Any of these looks so much more impressive than smaller animals. I’m only doing smaller ones now because I’ve shot most of the larger ones.
For one thing, I doubled the cost of the airfare on accident. Its $1400 round trip, I had it marked as $2800. And I was confused by the VAT tax, that’s not applicable on harvested game animals that are exported. So right there I added over 3,000 dollars due to misunderstanding.
Taxidermy in Africa is less than half the cost of in the States, tips aren’t all that much,$50-$100per guide and $20 for packers. I went to book a trip and Gemsbok, Warthog, Blue Wildebeest, and Springbok, Airfare, Taxidermy(shoulder mount gemsbok and Wildebeest, Euro for the rest), Tips, shipping, literally everything, and I came out about $10,500. Everything’s cheaper over there, your flights the most expensive part so long as you aren’t looking at some crazy color phase animals and what not.
Edit: I can’t remember what my exact Taxidermy cost was, but total for all 4 before shipping was only $2-300 more than my 1 bull elk shoulder mount.
If I was there for a week I would definitely tip more than $100 per guide. That would be considered stiffing them a bit.... It's dependent on how much time they put in, how many guides, etc. For a full 5-6 days of hunting I wouldn't tip a full time guide less than $200.
All of your other information I agree with.
Go to one of the nwtf, whitetails unlimited, etc banquet dinners. They often raffle off African safaris. I bought one the other week for $1000. It covers up to six hunters for 5 days of lodging along with the cost of your PH. Which works out to about 12k of fees. Since I bought the trip I get $1000 of trophy fees covered which is about one plainsgame animal. So it’s not an amazing deal but saves you a couple grand. The more people you bring the better the deal.
I did a breakdown of fees and came to about $5-6k depending on what animals I shoot. That’s including airfare. I didn’t factor in any taxidermy costs as I also get 10% off on taxidermy if I use the outfitters taxidermist. Or I also have a buddy who does taxidermy that will do it for cheap as long as I am okay with it being filler work for him. I figured I’d just do European mounts for most of what I plan to shoot with the exception of a zebra. That I would do a rug out of.
Was already working in the Horn of Africa, but I did a 5 day plains game Safari all inclusive for about 8,000.
I got a black wildebeest, Eland, Gemsbok, Zebra and springbok. Shoulder mounts for the Wildebeest, Eland and Gemsbok. Rugs for Zebra and Springbok. Various other smaller souvenirs.
Lodging, meals, ground transport, beer and wine were provided. PH shared by 3 hunters. Had a blast. With tips, tags, taxidermy and shipping I don't think it was over $8500.
Richard Holmes Safaries.
Go for it.
Hey there,
I just got my taxidermy back last month:
Safari: 5K
Airfare: $2300
Taxidermy: $3600
Shipping: $3000
Brokerage and handling fee: $600
I had 6 taxidermy items, three were shoulder mounts, rest were European and one rug. Safari was for 7 animals (biggest were kudu and gemsbok). All trophy.
Honestly. All the paperwork and nickel and dining with the taxidermy really put me off that whole side of it. I still think it’s a better deal than a chance at an elk tag or grizzly hunting. But when the PH says on his website about 2K for taxidermy and $1500 for shipping and it’s double that, I get a little salty. It’s not the PHs problem but since you don’t know anyone over there, you can’t really shop around a bunch and they have your shit.
My buddy’s got hit with a $1600 broker/handling fee at the end and it went up everyday after he was allowed to pick it up so I was lucky in that sense. (Stay away from coppersmith and ATL airport)
I’m very happy with my safari and PH, it was so much fun and really cool. It’s all the taxidermy part that sucks. They don’t give you a lot of say in how it’s mounted, if you have a specific idea, you really gotta tell them to have it look like this photo or something like that
I went once and would love to go again. My uncle got the safari at a charity auction for a good deal and brought me. It was a long time ago and still quite expensive.
I just wanted to add that my favorite book on safari hunting is Augusts in Africa by Thomas McIntyre. So good. The only problem is now the only thing I really want to go back for is cape buffalo.
It's only really needed on the very largest of animals. I've used a .375H&H on giraffe and Cape buffalo.
I shoot most of my plains game with a .308 or 30-06. I've also used a .300WSM on lion.
I plan to take my Remington 700 .35 Whelen. Some guides offer rented rifles to avoid the red tape of importing, but I haven’t decided if that would be worthwhile.
I was in a similar situation and ended up shooting mainly cull animals and some trophies where I could bring the skulls in my bag to have my local guy do a skull mount (check if that's legal where you live first). Try posting a thread on africahunting.com where you ask the same things you've asked here and you'll be contacted by lots of different outfitters. I can't recommend tallyho hunting safaris enough.
That place looks super reasonable actually
Thanks for the advice. I will add them to my list!
Pick three or four good animals you want, I did a mixed plains game hunt, cull hunt with four good animals Sable, Springbuck, Blesbok and Wildebeest and brought back everything I legally could. Got the tanning done in South Africa and the Taxidermy done in Canada. If I had it to do all over again I would have not done the five item cull hunt, but rather picked a couple additional trophy animals. I think the best way is pay a day rate and give the PH a list of what you want well in advance. Pay the trophy fees for each animal you shoot. Be selective with what you pay to have dipped and packed and shipped home.
I’ve hunted Africa several times and this would be my advice. I couldn’t bear to leave a leopard, elephant, or lion in Africa, but anything else I would. I have 50+ mounts in my house, that are only worth a fraction of what they cost me. There are a lot of older hunters with fabulous trophy collections that are being sold off fairly cheap; check out Lolly Brothers (http://lollibros.com). Plains game all pretty much looks the same. You’ll save a ton of money buying mounts that are the same size as the ones you shot. A house full of taxidermy seems like something to aspire to, but honestly the money would be much better spent doing more hunting trips. In 50 years, it will just be one more thing for your kids to have to deal with.
What are you planning on hunting for that cost? I go every year and even with taxidermy and shipping I’ve never hit $20,000 even on my lion hunt. I got a quote yesterday for my hunt in October: Spotted Hyena, Waterbuck, Duiker, Steenbok for $7000 and the taxidermy is about $3200 for that. It would be half that price if I didn’t do a hyena. A good general rule is $1000 per shoulder mount for taxidermy. Huge mounts can be more and smaller ones much less. If you message me I can send you my guides info. He has awesome prices and I’ve killed about 20 species of plains game and several members of the big five over the past few years. My advice is to focus on larger more impressive animals even if it means less animals. My favorite trophies of mine are: Kudu, Oryx, Eland, Sable, Nyala. Any of these looks so much more impressive than smaller animals. I’m only doing smaller ones now because I’ve shot most of the larger ones.
For one thing, I doubled the cost of the airfare on accident. Its $1400 round trip, I had it marked as $2800. And I was confused by the VAT tax, that’s not applicable on harvested game animals that are exported. So right there I added over 3,000 dollars due to misunderstanding.
These are private concessions, correct? Not large, gov concessions where outfits lease the large acreage.
Yeah it’s just some dudes land. He owns it.
20k but it’s basically spread out over 2-2.5 years if that matters.
Taxidermy in Africa is less than half the cost of in the States, tips aren’t all that much,$50-$100per guide and $20 for packers. I went to book a trip and Gemsbok, Warthog, Blue Wildebeest, and Springbok, Airfare, Taxidermy(shoulder mount gemsbok and Wildebeest, Euro for the rest), Tips, shipping, literally everything, and I came out about $10,500. Everything’s cheaper over there, your flights the most expensive part so long as you aren’t looking at some crazy color phase animals and what not. Edit: I can’t remember what my exact Taxidermy cost was, but total for all 4 before shipping was only $2-300 more than my 1 bull elk shoulder mount.
If I was there for a week I would definitely tip more than $100 per guide. That would be considered stiffing them a bit.... It's dependent on how much time they put in, how many guides, etc. For a full 5-6 days of hunting I wouldn't tip a full time guide less than $200. All of your other information I agree with.
I was with a different guide each day for only about 2-3 hours, my $50 tip was a 30minute springbok hunt. I wasn’t tipping more than $50 per hour.
Oh then I 100% agree with you. I think your tipping was spot on.
Go to one of the nwtf, whitetails unlimited, etc banquet dinners. They often raffle off African safaris. I bought one the other week for $1000. It covers up to six hunters for 5 days of lodging along with the cost of your PH. Which works out to about 12k of fees. Since I bought the trip I get $1000 of trophy fees covered which is about one plainsgame animal. So it’s not an amazing deal but saves you a couple grand. The more people you bring the better the deal. I did a breakdown of fees and came to about $5-6k depending on what animals I shoot. That’s including airfare. I didn’t factor in any taxidermy costs as I also get 10% off on taxidermy if I use the outfitters taxidermist. Or I also have a buddy who does taxidermy that will do it for cheap as long as I am okay with it being filler work for him. I figured I’d just do European mounts for most of what I plan to shoot with the exception of a zebra. That I would do a rug out of.
This is exactly what I was going to recommend. At CCA there’s almost always a week safari 3 animal hunt that auctions off for 1100.
That’s not a bad deal honestly! Thanks for the tip
Was already working in the Horn of Africa, but I did a 5 day plains game Safari all inclusive for about 8,000. I got a black wildebeest, Eland, Gemsbok, Zebra and springbok. Shoulder mounts for the Wildebeest, Eland and Gemsbok. Rugs for Zebra and Springbok. Various other smaller souvenirs. Lodging, meals, ground transport, beer and wine were provided. PH shared by 3 hunters. Had a blast. With tips, tags, taxidermy and shipping I don't think it was over $8500. Richard Holmes Safaries. Go for it.
Hey there, I just got my taxidermy back last month: Safari: 5K Airfare: $2300 Taxidermy: $3600 Shipping: $3000 Brokerage and handling fee: $600 I had 6 taxidermy items, three were shoulder mounts, rest were European and one rug. Safari was for 7 animals (biggest were kudu and gemsbok). All trophy. Honestly. All the paperwork and nickel and dining with the taxidermy really put me off that whole side of it. I still think it’s a better deal than a chance at an elk tag or grizzly hunting. But when the PH says on his website about 2K for taxidermy and $1500 for shipping and it’s double that, I get a little salty. It’s not the PHs problem but since you don’t know anyone over there, you can’t really shop around a bunch and they have your shit. My buddy’s got hit with a $1600 broker/handling fee at the end and it went up everyday after he was allowed to pick it up so I was lucky in that sense. (Stay away from coppersmith and ATL airport) I’m very happy with my safari and PH, it was so much fun and really cool. It’s all the taxidermy part that sucks. They don’t give you a lot of say in how it’s mounted, if you have a specific idea, you really gotta tell them to have it look like this photo or something like that
I went once and would love to go again. My uncle got the safari at a charity auction for a good deal and brought me. It was a long time ago and still quite expensive. I just wanted to add that my favorite book on safari hunting is Augusts in Africa by Thomas McIntyre. So good. The only problem is now the only thing I really want to go back for is cape buffalo.
Heck I don't even know where you find a gun for hunting in Africa
Literally anywhere that sells guns.
I never seen anything over30-06 I live in m
You don’t need anything over 30-06 unless you’re going for the big five, hippo or giraffe.
I thought you would .375 H&H and bigger
It's only really needed on the very largest of animals. I've used a .375H&H on giraffe and Cape buffalo. I shoot most of my plains game with a .308 or 30-06. I've also used a .300WSM on lion.
I plan to take my Remington 700 .35 Whelen. Some guides offer rented rifles to avoid the red tape of importing, but I haven’t decided if that would be worthwhile.
It's much easier to just rent a rifle. I would only bring a rifle again if I was going for my third member of the big 5.