So Saturday evening my daughter and I attended the 2015 KBA banquet. They had several hunts to auction and I was AMAZED at how cheaply many of these hunts sold. I'm talkin 7 day double animal Africa hunts with loding < $500 with three years to redeem. CO elk hunts in the same price range..... Even the bows went rather cheap, yet the smaller stuff like 3D targets were going for 2-3x's their value lol When I told my wife that night her reply was "Why the hell didnt you buy a hunt?" Uh huh!?!?!? Son of a ..... You know if I'd have walked into the door and said, "Hey babe we are going to Africa" she'd have blown a gasket lol Or maybe not ???
The Africa Hunts are sold cheap, but it may exclude certain costs, like PH, food, drinks etc. It certainly excludes the $1600 per person flight, transfers and cost of licenses for export and Taxidermy. Plus they know that you're not going to be there for 7 nights and hunt ONLY 2 Animals! For bow, you could comfortably get 3-5 animals in 7 days depending on terrain, weather, but once you're there you know this is once in a lifetime, your wallet opens up and that's when your wife brings out the rolling pin! haha
I won an auction awhile back for bear hunt. It was sealed type auction where you write the bid in and they open them all and it goes to the highest bidder. I figured hunt was about 1800 at the time so I bid 50% thinking no way i would be in the ballpark, I got a phone call and sure enough I won it. the guy told me that highest bid they received since they been doing that as a fund raiser. Turns out I couldn't fit in into my schedule at the time, I was having some landscaping done at my house at the time,and I was talking to the contractor who hunts also..I mentioned that I had hunt and I couldn't go....he offered to trade the cost of as partial payment for the landscape job. So I made out on deal as he credited me the full amount.
Some were more inclusive than others and ofcourse the travel is extra and you would most certainly be shooting more then 2 animals if you made the trip, but IMO you are still saving some money.
Sweet deal... most of these hunts you had 3 years to cash in on..... really regretting not bidding on the CO elk hunt at least
Honestly, I probably could have extended this out too. When I called the outfitter to make sure it ok to swap the hunt the guy was real gentleman and agreeable. I killed several bears already at the time and the prospect of doubling my money on the deal was very movataving....and the landscape bill wasn't anything to sneeze at.
On another note I spend a considerable amount year on Tag raffles....they almost always offer better odds then you can draw for. Think Sheep!!!!
