You have heard it a hundred times: Joe saves up for years for his dream hunt and books years in advance.

He checks out the outfitters’ web site which shows a gallery of successful hunts and lists only the good comments from previous clients.

He pays the required deposit to RipYou Safaris and looks forward to the adventure of a lifetime.

You can see it coming.

As soon as he steps onto the plane, it starts. He does not get the right seat and the service is crappy. After many uncomfortable hours, he arrives at the airport and his PH is not there to pick him up. Undaunted, the intrepid hunter presses on. The service he paid for in advance to get his guns through customs is incompetent. His rifles are released after a few hours.

He calls the guest house for a ride. They arrive to pick him up after 2 hours’ wait. Also, the guest house looked much better on the internet. In reality, the rooms are small and grubby and are next to a noisy railway.

The next day, confident that his client will endure what it takes to make sure he does not lose his deposit, the PHs arrives 3 hours late.

"Africa!", he smiles jovially and stuffs Joe into the back seat of a battered Isuzu pickup with 2 other hunters. After 8 cramped, sweaty hours’ drive, they arrive at the PHs home which doubles as a hunting lodge.

Jannie the PH tries to make up for the bad dinner with lots of booze and far-fetched hunting stories.

Joe is not impressed.

Joe finds out he will be sharing a room with Mike, an overweight accountant from Atlanta. He finds out later that night that Mike has a serious snoring problem. He gets very little sleep.

The next day, the PH tries to convince his clients to hunt on his overexploited farm. They drive around but the few animals are very skittish from being overhunted and panic at the sound of the pickup approaching. The PH encourages Joe to shoot a scrawny impala from the truck to make a couple of easy dollars.

And so on: very little game on the concessions, poor service, trophies lost or exchanged by the taxidermist, expensive shipping, promises not kept.

Joe’s experience is not the norm, but every African hunter has had some good and some bad experiences. Our poor service is legendary.

If only Joe had known about hunters who travelled with Sardine Airways, hunted with RipYou Safaris before or used ChanceIt taxidermists, he may have been able to avoid getting ripped off.

All this is bad for the professional hunters who are passionate about their profession. They often have to carry the can for other outfitters.

We believe the hunting industry is under enough pressure without being sabotaged from the inside.

And this is where the new Hunter Personal Experience Directory comes in.

We want to help hunters like Joe to get the truth about African outfitters, services and products – the truth told by hunters like you who have the necessary ground zero experience.

We are creating a tool to put information into your hands.

This is how will work:

• HunterPX will list all the outfitters, services and products we can find in Africa.

• You rate your experience with your outfitter, a specific product you used or a service provided to you.

• Your views and ratings are read by the hunting world and used by other hunters to make informed hunting choices, ensuring a successful hunt and save money in the process.

It is time for the truth to come out.