Help..NO Longbow in RSA?

[Ontario Longbow]

Congratulation Ron ,, The Longbow community is very proud of you, way to stick to your "guns".

[Cinghiale]

Hi Nyron,
two friends of mine hunted this June in SA with Compound because with their longbows did not  allowed.

Armando

[8th Dwarf]

Hogwash!!!!

you can hunt with longbow and recurve and anyone who says otherwise is GROSSLY misinformed!

Too Short

[justin snyder]

You can use a longbow, and from the looks of those pics I would have to say you can be pretty succesfull at it, good job on all fronts Nyron. Justin

[Artemis]

when in Africa.. expect the rules to change with each sneeze.  I was recently at the border of Kenya/Tanzania where we went through on a  bus.  The visa fee was 50 dollars.  But this one young lad (travelling the world for the last 6 months( hand only Kenyan Shillings...) so his fee was the equivelent of 75 dollars.  When he told the visa guy this.... the guy just shrugged his shoulders.  Thats Africa for ya.. the rules go with the weather and moods!!

[Johan van Niekerk]

Hi Guys,

Just to provide some clarity on this topic, since it seems most of you still don't have the real picture here. I live in South Africa and hunt using both longbow and compound. I'm also a member of the ECGMA (an accredited hunting organization).

We went through a bad patch here when the latest hunting legislation came out. This legislation made bowhunting (of ANY sort) illegal in South Africa. Many PH's, game farm owners, magazines, etc got their panties into a HUGE knot over this. However, this is not nearly as bad as it sounds because bowhunting has ALWAYS been illegal in South Africa. The little bit that everone forgets is the clause in the hunting laws that says something more or less along the lines of "...unless permitted by the relevant provincial laws".

At National level bowhunting of any sort IS illegal here. However all 9 the provinces have local laws allowing bowhunting. As far as I know NONE of the provinces outlaws longbows or even provides specific guidelines as to minimum poundages that is allowable (except for the thick skinned animals like buffalo, rhino, elephant). MANY landowners are not that keen on bowhunting OR have their own rules as to minimum poundage, type of bow, whatever. There has been a lot of bad publicity for bowhunting over the last few months in South Africa. Most of this was caused by a lack of knowledge or by idiots taking shots they shouldn't have. So you MIGHT run into more landowners or hunting outfitters who will give you crap over bowhunting. Should you ever run into a situation like this again, my advice would be to contact CHASA (CONFEDERATION OF HUNTERS ASSOCIATIONS OF SOUTH AFRICA,  http://www.chasa.co.za/).  If they can't answer your question no one will be able to.

Hope this helps  

Johan

[S Meyer]

Very good advice.

If I can only remember where I've heard this name before. Ek kan net nie onthou nie. Iewers in die Magnum?

Stefan

[BTH]

I think a statement that Johan made is spot on... "by idiots taking shots they shouldn't have". I'm sure there is some pressure to shoot since for many this is a once in a lifetime trip.  

I just heard from my PH that there are two landholders the PH leases from that will not allow stickbow shooters anymore because of too many wounded, and unrecovered, animals.

[Johan van Niekerk]

Oops, Correction to my own post.
I looked through the current CHASA bowhunting proficiency material last night and found that some provinces DO have minimum requirements for hunting certain animals. The current ones leave details such as draw weight, type of bow, etc up to the hunter and simply state the minimum kinetic energy in feet-pounds that should be used. As far as I could see its only Natal and the old Freestate that has these requirements.
(nee, het nog nooit in die magnum geskryf nie, jy sal dalk binnekort so paar fotos van my bokke in Africa's bowhunter sien  

[S Meyer]

One problem that I have heard other hunters complain about is that these requirments were set with modern compound bows in mind. To meet some of these requirments with a traditional bow would mean having a 90# draw weight. Dont know the details, this is a official rumour as far as I know.  (Ek kan daardie een nie meer kry nie. SA Jagter raak ook skaars. Ek kyk seker net op die verkeerde plekke.)

[NYRON]

I did a lot of research on this when I was negotiating with my outfitter. During that time I discovered the website below which categorizes game species by size and gives recommended arrow weights and kinetic energy minimums for each category. The minimums didn't seem that out of line to me and are easily acheived with traditional bows of moderate weight shooting heavy arrows.

The longbow I took to Africa (56 # @ 27") shoots a 577 grain arrow at 172 fps, wich is roughly 40 ft/lbs of kinetic energy, making it satisfactory for most everything up to Kudu-sized game.

With this set up and Wensel Woodsman heads I had no problems with penetration on Gemsbok or Kudu.

 http://residents.bowhunting.net/africa/default.htm

Ron