Good watch, and beautiful place - but I personally wouldn’t pay a dime to walk around staring at the back of a PH’s shirt, only to have a set of sticks popped up in front of me and told to ‘shoot’. Then celebrating after the PH downs the beast you shot in the mouth, and will cost $20,000.
I think in general, if I had to do something with a guide, I’d take up a different hobby.
Would live to visit the place one day, but only to see the wildlife
Very much depends on the guide. In most of Africa, and many other parts of the world foreign hunters have to be accompanied by a licensed hunter. It’s different if you are a local. There are two fundamental reasons
1) The PHs, or their company deals with all the government licensing etc. The licenses, whether its an operators license, lease on a hunting area or licence for individual animals all generates revenue that goes back to local communities, regional and central government. Mostly licences are issued for specific animals or classes of animal, and on most safari hunts there is game scout (the one in uniform with Ak47, FN or G3) whose primary job is to ensure that only licensed animals are shot.
The PHs job is to manage all of the above
2) For African government authorities its really not a good idea from an international tourism perspective if you send too many visitors home in a wooden box with lots of bits missing. Lots of bits missing. The African bush takes quite a bit of learning. The african bush has insatiable appetite for protein and mankind is a very very good source, especially soft skinned from Northern climes. And the bush is very easy to get lost in. A PH will know the ground very well and will employ locals who will know the land and wildlife even better. African trackers have an inbuilt ability to read the bush and the animals around.
Primary job for a PH or guide is to keep the tourist hunters safe, and more to the point keeping the wildlife safe. There is a amount reasonable paperwork for a squashed client, but having to shoot an animal not on licence to protect it stamping on a client is a lot more paperwork usually resulting in loss of license.
And then key role of the PH is tidying up the mess after a client has opened the innings. No different really to when that doddery old fool misses or wounds a Roebuck at 20 yards and you have to shoot it again.
Except you are not dealing with 30kg small deer, but a tonne of grumpiness thats used to fighting other bulls and lions.
3) the PH supplies the pure logistics of actually into and out of the bush. In my younger days I spent quite a bit of time in the are opposite Dande on the North bank of the Zambezi. It was a two drive in low box in a landrover to get down there. Abd thats two hard bush driving on tracks that are pretty much game trails. Once you have hacked out an airstrip you can fly clients in, but all the other supplies are coming in on the back of a 4x4 truck.
And that’s expensive - that new Hilux pickup as seen in this video is $100,000 in Zimbabwe. Plus a bit more by the time its equipped bars, winches etc. Tyres get wrecked - Acacia thorns are like sharpened nails. In my landrover I carried two spare wheels and several inner tubes, plus repair kits. In one trip we ran out of these and ended up packing tyres with grass to get out of the valley. Modern tires are better, but tires need constant changing. Even fuel. - typically two or three litres have to be used to get a litre of fuel down to the camp.
Sadly nowadays there are very few parts of Africa where as a foreigner you can just go into the bush. Bits of Namibia and Botswana still allow wild camping. Namibia caters for the self drive safari, but doesn’t have the same dangerous game as the likes of Zambia, Zim and Tanzania. South Africa is all managed as either private land or government game reserve.
I also think that many PHs will respond to somebody who actually is hunter and plays an active part in the hunting.
