The short version: May to August is the safe answer almost everywhere, and if you only read one line of this, book those months.
The longer version is more useful, because the three countries we hunt do not run on the same calendar, and one of them has a season so narrow that it dictates the whole trip.
Why the dry season
Southern Africa has a wet summer and a dry winter, and the hunting season follows the dry. Everything that makes hunting possible gets better as the country dries out:
The grass goes down. In the wet months the grass is over your head in a great deal of country. By mid-winter it has been grazed, burnt or simply died back, and you can see.
The leaves drop. Thornveld and mopane thin out dramatically. The same patch of bush you could see twenty metres into in February opens up to a hundred.
Animals concentrate on water. Seasonal pans dry up and game is pushed onto permanent water, which makes it findable rather than scattered across the whole property.
Tracking gets easier. Damp sand in the riverbeds holds a clean track. Trackers cut roads and riverbeds at first light and read what crossed overnight.
The insects and the mud go away. Fewer mosquitoes, lower malaria risk, and roads that stay passable.
The trade-off is temperature. Winter mornings in the Limpopo bushveld get close to freezing in an open vehicle before sunrise, and people consistently underpack for it. Bring the fleece.
South Africa: March to October
The longest and most forgiving season of the three, and the reason we recommend South Africa for a first safari.
March and April. The tail of the wet season. Still green, grass still long in places, and warmer. Fewer hunters about. Good if you want to combine the hunt with Cape Town, which is at its best from November to April and is wet and windy by June.
May to August. The core. Cold mornings, mild afternoons, excellent visibility, minimal insects. If you have a free choice, take June or July.
September and October. Hot and dry, and getting hotter. Water concentration is at its most extreme, which can make for very good hunting over waterholes, but midday becomes unpleasant. The bush is at its most open.
Our ground is roughly twenty thousand acres of Limpopo bushveld with no internal fences, so animals range across the whole of it in any month. See hunting in South Africa.
Zimbabwe: March to July for elephant
Narrower, and driven by elephant rather than by comfort.
Elephant move enormous distances following water and browse, and the tracking conditions in the sand rivers of the valley are what make a hunt work. The season runs March to July. Later in that window the country is drier, the bulls are more predictable on water, and the jesse has thinned.
Lion and leopard are hunted on the same ground, and here the constraint is not the weather but the permit. Quota comes back allocated to a particular block, we apply in advance, and the dates follow the permit rather than your preference. Raise a cat at the enquiry stage, not later.
Hippo and crocodile are hunted further north, closer to Lake Kariba.
Zimbabwe hunts run seven to fourteen days, and elephant genuinely needs the long end of that. See hunting in Zimbabwe.
Mozambique: June to November
The Zambezi Delta floods every year and drains slowly, and nothing can be hunted until the ground is walkable. Once the water has dropped the season opens and runs through to November.
Within it there are two quite different hunts. Early, from June, the plain is wetter underfoot and the floodplain grass still stands well above head height — harder walking and very close work. Later, as the grass is burnt and grazed down, lanes open and you can see further.
Both are good. They are not the same hunt, so say which you would rather have when you enquire.
Buffalo hunts run seven to ten days, the concession is a quarter of a million acres with no fence on any of it, and camp is reached by light aircraft from Beira. See hunting in Mozambique.
Putting a trip together
If you want one country and maximum flexibility: South Africa, May to August.
If you want elephant: Zimbabwe, and let the elephant season set your dates — March to July, leaning late.
If you want Delta buffalo: June to November, with the earlier months the harder, closer version and the later ones the more open one.
If you want to combine two: the South African season overlaps both of the others, which is why our two-country safaris work. Limpopo plains game plus Zimbabwe elephant sits comfortably in June or July. Limpopo plus Delta buffalo works anywhere from June to October, since both seasons are open.
If a non-hunting partner is coming: September and October put you closest to Cape Town’s good weather, and the Kruger and Panorama Route extensions are pleasant year round. See excursions.
The months to avoid, and why
December to February across all three. Wet, hot, grass over your head, roads cut up, mosquitoes at their worst, and in Mozambique the Delta is under water.
Any month chosen because it was cheap. The seasons are what they are for reasons of visibility and access, and a bargain in the wrong month is a short supply of animals you can actually see.
One honest caveat
Seasons shift. A late rain pushes the Delta window back; a dry year opens the bush early. We watch it from the ground and will tell you if your dates look wrong for what you have asked for, rather than take the booking and hope.
Tell us what you want to hunt and when you can travel, and we will tell you plainly whether those two things fit together.
