Oct 20, 2017 | Hunting Stories, News
One of the first questions you hear, when you announce that you’re going to Africa, is a tremulous, “But aren’t you afraid of snakes?”
Answer: “Yep. Terrified! What of it?”
If I let my life-long dislike of reptiles deter me, I would not hunt in south Texas, I’d avoid Alabama, and Australia would be out of the question. For that matter, I wouldn’t live in Missouri, where we have copperheads, water moccasins, and the occasional rattler.
Every so often, I sit back and count on my fingers the number of times, during 14 or 15 trips to Africa, totalling more than three years of my life, that I have even seen a snake. I have yet to run out of fingers. Snakes there certainly are, but they just haven’t bothered me.
Now, stories about snakes? You done come to the right place, pal. Where do you want me to start? Oh, wait: First, a word of advice. If you are a herpetophobe, fearing snakes to an irrational degree, the first question you should ask a prospective professional hunter is how he feels about them. If his face lights up and he assures you that he loves snakes and plays with them every chance he gets, thank him politely, back away, and sign on with someone else. Trust me on that one. I speak from experience.
People who actually like snakes can’t fathom people who don’t, just as cat lovers can’t relate to the benighted few who find cats repellent. Fortunately, there aren’t that many snake lovers; unfortunately, most of them seem to be PHs.
One time in Botswana I was waist-deep in a hippo pool, which was home to (by actual count) 14 hippos and one large crocodile. We were hunting ducks and geese, and my guide would fire a shot over the reeds, and birds would flush. One duck came zipping by and I dropped it into the water a few yards behind me. When I went to retrieve it, I found a large python curled around it, contemplating duck recipes. With whoops of joy, my PH handed me his gun, grabbed the python by the tail, and hauled it ashore, yelling at me all the while to be sure to get the duck.
The python turned out to be a young one — only 12 feet long, but he looked bigger to me — and we “played” with it on the bank for an hour, then allowed it to slither back into the water, shaking its serpentine head in disbelief and making reptilian mutterings. I knew how it felt. We kept the duck, which I thought was a trifle unfair.
Another time, I was staying with a friend on the edge of the Okavango. He had a permanent tent camp, and I had a mattress on the floor of the cook tent. Cook tents generally contain mice, and mice attract snakes. The night we arrived, around dusk, Clint pulled into his usual parking spot. I opened the door and jumped out, looking down as I did at a cobra, right under my feet. You can, I found, change trajectory in mid-air, and my feet missed the cobra by at least a yard.
“Oh,” Clint said, “I forgot to tell you. I killed that snake this morning. Found it behind the cook tent. Sorry.”
It was dead, but still. I can’t say I slept all that well the first couple of nights, but then I settled in and all was fine. The memory receded.
My particular horror is the Mozambique spitting cobra, which rears up and lets fly a stream of venom, aimed at your eyes, and is reputed to be accurate from several yards out. Blindness does not appeal to me. A friend who has a game ranch outside Bulawayo had her buildings constructed around an inner courtyard, one of which contained the shower and another a privy. As is normal in Africa (don’t ask me why) the privy was at the far end of a narrow room, with a tiny window in the wall above. She went out in the dead of night to do what people do in the dead of night. The generator was not running, but there was a full moon, so she didn’t bother with a flashlight.
As she settled in, she felt a stream of cool liquid hit her thigh. A spitting cobra was in there with her, probably right beside her in the darkness. The room was illuminated only by thin moonlight through the high window. What did she do?
“I closed my eyes and waited,” she said. “Then I made a dash for the door. Don’t let anyone tell you you can’t run with your pants around your ankles.” The cobra also made its escape. The privy now has its very own flashlight, hanging outside the door.
Cobras are one thing. Mambas are another. Mambas make cobras seem almost friendly. Stuart Cloete, the great South African writer, wrote a blood-chilling novel called Mamba, which is about a love triangle, with the snake playing the same role it’s enjoyed since Genesis. Ever since reading that, 40 or 50 years ago, the mamba has haunted my dreams.
At the risk of overstating, they are reputed to be able to outrun a horse (if snakes can be said to run), outclimb a monkey, be extraordinarily deadly, and have the personality of a wolverine. There are black mambas and green mambas. The black is the more common, (and more aggressive) and is actually a dark brownish-grey.
The editor of one of the Big Three went to Botswana back in the early ‘90s. He was sleeping in his tent one night when something woke him up. He heard scurrying. A mouse. It scurried here. It scurried there. Eventually, he dropped back to sleep. In the morning, they went out hunting, and returned to camp for lunch. He walked into his tent and out through the back to the adjoining privy, which had the toilet on one side and the shower on the other. He glanced into the shower and there, halfway in through the drain hole, was the front half of a black mamba. At the sight of him, it reared up, but was unable to perform with mamba-like dexterity until it had pulled itself in through the drain, which was a tight fit. By the time it cleared the drain, our fearless editor was out through the front and calling for help.
The PH returned with some trackers and a shotgun, found the tent empty, and proceeded to beat the brush behind it. The mamba made tracks (so to speak) and got its head blown off.
Piecing it together, they concluded that the scurrying noises the editor heard the night before was a mouse, seeking to escape, while the mamba stalked it under the bed and over the wardrobe. This realization was too much. The editor was packed and heading for the airport before dark, and has never returned.
Another mamba story: I was in Tanzania on the edge of the Rift Valley, driving along a track past a Masai camp. We saw a mamba cross the track and go into a grain-storage hut through a crack in the wall. We stopped and advised the residents. Soon, a bunch of budding Masai morani, complete with spears and robes, had gathered around and were debating who was going to go in after it. Our trackers, both Masai themselves (and who insist on spelling it with one ‘a’) looked disgusted with the whole thing, and finally one climbed down, pulled aside the door frame, and went in. There was loud clattering as he beat his walking stick against the grain baskets. The mamba came out the way he went in, scattering the teenagers, while our other tracker nailed it. There then began the debate about who had panicked and run first, while we drove away.
Just so there is no mistake, yours truly would not have entered that hut for a 50-inch buffalo.
By scientific analysis, per gram of venom, the boomslang is (or was) reputed to be the deadliest snake in Africa, although I believe now some obscure adder from West Africa is considered deadlier. The boomslang (it means “tree snake” in Afrikaans) is a medium-sized green fellow with a shy and retiring nature. Not aggressive like the mamba (I guess you don’t need to be when you’re that well-armed), he is made less deadly by the fact that his fangs are in the back of his mouth, and it’s tough for him to get a good grip and inject much venom.
One time, staying on a farm outside Arusha, my PH was called to deal with “A snake! A snake!” in one of the store rooms. Having no idea what it might be, we grabbed a club and bucket and went to investigate. It turned out to be a baby boomslang, no more than eight or nine inches long, vivid green against the shavings on the floor. My PH was no snake lover, but he believed that all creatures have their place. We herded the little guy into the bucket, then released him in some brush on the edge of the farm.
I have other snake tales — cobras, mambas, puff adders — but we’ll save them for another time. Funny thing, though: Thinking about all this has made me realize that, much as I dislike snakes, Africa would not be the same without them. If only to terrorize the folks at home.
Sep 4, 2017 | News
During August 2016, we hosted a party from Scandinavian outdoor clothing brand, Härkila that was in the production phase of a new line called PH.
We did photo shots in various locations for their 2017 catalogue, but ended up at Limpopo Province, where I’ve hunted the river for the past 36 years with Scandinavian clients, and must have bagged a couple of hundred bushbucks in total. My long-time friend Jens Kjaer Knudsen, who is an official Härkila brand ambassador who travels the entire globe promoting the company, went with me on a stalk along the river, together with a photographer and his assistant.
Not the best start for a bushbuck hunt to trail along with this type of entourage, but after scaring off several rams, I saw the back part of a bushbuck sticking out behind a large tree, with the head and neck covered by the tree trunk. After positioning Jens on the shooting stick, I moved slightly forward and also saw a real good right horn sticking out, and I decided to let Jens take him, hoping that the left horn would be of the same size.
It turned out to be a good decision. My best friend just bagged the largest bushbuck in my entire career! Jens so deserved this trophy – as President of the Nordic Safari Club he did much to promote ethical hunting, and pioneered the removal of all South African lions from their record books, ensuring that only trophies taken on fair chase were listed.
Last month Jens and I also took two free-range hog deer at Gippland Lakes in Southern Australia, but that’s another story altogether. I am nearing the completion of collecting most deer species of the world – booked next year with three clients – for Siberian roebuck!
Rodney Kretzschmar of Trans African Taxidermists mounted Jens’s bushbuck and, along with all trophies from the 2016 season, was delivered before 01/09/2016. The trophies were handed out in Copenhagen to our clients on 14/11/2017 – ready to hang on their walls. That’s the type of service I’ve been spoiled with for the past 36 hunting seasons, and it remains an important part of our marketing.
In my book – the hunt only ends when the trophy is hanging on the client’s wall!
Kind regards,
JENSEN SAFARIS,
Sep 2, 2017 | News
Bushbuck Hunt, Luangwa, Zambia.
PH Journal:
I was camped with two friends on the bank of the Luangwa River, Zambia. One day, one of my friends returned very excited after seeing a “monster bushbuck”. He would not tell me where it was, as he wanted to try for him first. He kept trying for about a week, but each time he returned empty-handed, till I finally managed to get him to tell me whereabouts this “monster” lived!
Armed with my trusty .458 Lott and a reasonable idea of where to search, I set off. The spot that was described was not easy to find, as many trees and anthills looked the same – and no bushbuck.
Then suddenly I heard the very loud bark of one. Found him!
The next morning I returned and just stood quietly and listened. There were a lot of monkeys on the ground eating some sort of pod, so I Imagined that the bushbuck would be searching for the same food source. I had to be very careful – if I alerted the monkeys the game would be over. After 30 minutes stealthy steps to go maybe 15 yards, I could just discern the bushbuck’s horns behind an anthill. What I saw made me start to shake!
The ram was feeding from right to left but disappeared as I saw him. I had an idea where he was, but would have to move about another 10 yards undetected, and also try get my nerves under control. I shuffled the 10 yards to my left but could not see anything. I knew that he was somewhere, and I just stood frozen, staring into every shadow.
Suddenly his outline was silhouetted in the gloom. Totally unaware of me, he was feeding on some pods. My trembling was still not under control, but I raised my open-sighted .458 Lott and tried to steady the bead without using a rest. It was only about 40 yards, but the barrel was weaving all over the place.
Finally, when the bead passed his shoulder I pulled the trigger, and the bullet found a spot high on the shoulder, and downed him in his tracks. It is hard for me to try and describe the feeling that overcame me. I knelt next to him and just admired his beauty for many minutes. Tears were very near, and I was grateful to be alone in silence. But it was not long before a few of the camp workers arrived as they had heard the shot. We carried the ram on our shoulders back to camp and, strangely, no one said a word.
And every time I look at this picture, now faded by time, I relive the moment as though it were yesterday.
Aug 31, 2017 | Jerry Bullock, Jerry Bullock, News
By Jerry Bullock
I recognized the face on the book jacket across three aisles in the Book Department of a JC Penney Department Store. Department stores actually had departments in 1966, including books and phonograph records. This was long before any Barnes and Noble or Borders. I knew that slouchy, broad-brimmed hat, that cigarette at a jaunty angle of the right hand, that black moustache, that wise-guy, sideways glancing grin, and wrinkled safari jacket. Robert Ruark. I hurried over as if to visit an old friend sighted in a crowd.
Thirteen years earlier, at the age of ten, I had discovered Ruark’s column, The Old Man and the Boy in Field and Stream magazine. Every month I leafed hurriedly, excitedly, until I found a similar photo below the column title, The Old Man and the Boy. There was where my debt began to accrue.
Ruark was writing of his young boyhood back in the late 1920s, spent with his grandfather and two backwoods friends, hunting in his North Carolina home country for quail with English pointers, as well as hunting squirrels, rabbits and a few deer. He told of fishing for big freshwater bass and the saltwater surf fish. It was a biography of my own young life being lived in a similar day-to-day rhythm. He had only his grandfather. I had my grandfather plus my dad, uncles, and their friends to mentor me. With them attending, they took me hunting raccoons at night with hounds, pheasants with setters, squirrels and rabbits with beagles, and a few deer hunts. My grandfather taught me how to trap muskrats. My best friend and I spent all but two months of the year trapping, fishing, or hunting. We lived, in part, more in the nineteenth century than the twentieth.
I knew that what I had with these men and these creatures was something special, wonderful, and unique. None of the kids or families outside my circle seemed to know or have interest in these activities that were so important to us. Robert Ruark thought these pursuits were important. He told that little ten-year-old it was important, every month in his column. He told me how important the lessons were he had learned from his mentors and, by implication, that I was going to hear and learn from mine. He reminded me I just had to keep my ears open, pay attention. And learn. He crystallized what thoughts I had about how valuable these experiences would be for me one day. I somehow knew they would be a dependable anchor in any future rough seas.
Ruark’s words allowed me to understand, to put form and character to the young life I was living. So, rather than having to wait for the wisdom of age and experience to allow me to look back and see these wonders and their values, I could live them as a young boy while knowing them as an adult through his words, making them all the more rich, valuable, and indelible. Because of Ruark, that little ten-year-old was always listening and taking note with ears far beyond his years.
I was keeping a diary of it all by the time I was eleven years old. Seemed that those memories and that record would be valuable one day, so I tried to capture some of it. To an outsider, it might have appeared strange that a little boy living such an apparently hillbilly life would form such thoughts at such an early age. Ruark whispered that I should do and be these things. Easy for urban fools to look down on us and make judgements. One misjudged my family and their circle of friends at one’s own peril.
I’d be remiss if I did not mention I had other authors. Faulkner, Hemingway, Trueblood, O’Connor, Leopold, and more. Outdoor writing was wonderful, far more literary, in that time. But Ruark was the one that resonated the most for me. Today we have Weiland and few others.
Life for me was not what an outsider might have judged it to be by looking at that old, somewhat run-down house, with hounds tied to boxes, and tractors and trucks strewn about. We did not have extra money above what was needed for food – just enough clothes, and fuel to keep warm. We were never hungry, cold, or without the basics. Just nothing fancy or extra. But we had enough earned from our own kid-jobs for shells for the shotgun, fishing lures for bass, lines and tippet for the fly rod, food for the hounds, books to read, and later, gas for a car, presents for girls. As the song goes, “Some girls don’t like boys like me. But some girls do.” Never sought or wasted time with the girls that “don’t.” Only sought the ones that “do.”
I guess we were poor for sure, but it didn’t seem so, until the yuppie precursor hordes invaded our valley and told us so. But peer pressure could not really penetrate our souls, our world. And with Ruark cheering us on, who needed that urban mess. Ruark placed an author’s note in the front of The Old Man and The Boy stating, “Anyone who reads this book is bound to realize that I had a fine time as a kid.” Same for me, Mr. Ruark. A real fine time. I have you and so many others to thank for that.
But those few early yuppie precursors swelled to thousands sweeping away our beautiful creatures and landscapes. Their rabbit-warren housing and the endless shopping malls bulldozed away all that was important to us. In fifteen years, only a single surviving field-corner oak or a remnant patch of woods remained. Ruark and his grandfather told me to leave, and I did, to Idaho, where I reside today. I have watched some of Idaho swept away, too, but not the extensive, total oblivion that destroyed my old home fields and woods.
As the 50s rolled on, Ruark’s later columns carried some wonderful stories of African safaris that enthralled me. Here was the summit of all hunting, and I wanted some of it. I knew from my low, economic perch, this was impossible, but I dreamed. At ten or twelve years, kids can’t grasp what might happen financially in the future, only what is, and what was not going to get me a plane ticket let alone an African safari.
The end of the 50s brought changes to the column. I had become distracted by girls and part-time jobs and cars. I hunted and fished as much as ever, but the column’s new content held less allure, and Robert Ruark and I parted ways. Drifted apart. The column ended in 1962. I wasn’t aware of the full magnitude of the loss at the time. That would come later.
Then, in that JC Penney’s Department Store came the renewal. The book’s title was, Use Enough Gun about African hunting. I quickly leafed through and found the black and white photos. A photo of Ruark with a big waterbuck. I was struck by the animal’s rugged handsomeness. That animal and the kudu would become my most coveted African animals. How was I to know I would later – 46 years later – hold my own similar waterbuck taken in the same manner as Robert Ruark’s. The stalk, the shot range and placement, the animal’s reaction were a copy of Ruark’s waterbuck story as he relates it in Use Enough Gun. In JC Penney’s that day, I would have never dreamt it possible.
It was so wonderful to have found Mr. Ruark again. I devoured Use Enough Gun. Read it three, maybe five times over the next six months. In the ensuing years, I discovered The Old Man and the Boy had been anthologized. That Horn of the Hunter had been written. I acquired them and read them. But I had not inquired after the man. Where was he? What was he doing? He should have been alive, in his fifties by then. I was too taken up with career, a wife, a young life. Too busy to check into the wellbeing of my old friend. He was dead as a matter of fact.
Ruark’s excesses and his choice of a stressful life, foreign to his true self, ate him up and killed him at the age of 49 years plus 6 months. He had re-discovered himself in Africa, but it was too late to mount a recovery, a redirection. He died just a year before my discovery of Use Enough Gun. I did not revere him as a role model. I am not supporting his behaviors. I am revering his written words. Maybe some of the nasty critics could have done more of that. Just critiquing his words and not his behavior. I believe his words in The Old Man and the Boy show us his true soul. Nothing to criticize there.
I read Something of Value and Uruhu, Ruark’s two best sellers about Africa. I acquired Someone of Value and A View From a Tall Hill, two biographies that fleshed out the Ruark story more completely for me.
It was the 1990s. Ruark could have been in his eighties but, of course, he was gone. I had finally, fully comprehended the debt I owed him for his words that helped clarify and guide me in so many of my important decisions in my life. I regretted not being able, through face-to-face words or a letter, to thank him while he was alive.
I was attending a conference on carbohydrate chemistry in Chicago sponsored by the Whistler Institute of Purdue University, the premier center of carbohydrate study in the world. Dr. Roy Whistler was its founder and namesake for this conference. I happened to sit with Dr. Whistler at lunch one day. Toward the end of the lunch I heard Dr. Whistler mention he had spent time in Africa in the early 50s, researching potential native carbohydrate-providing plant sources. I asked him if he had hunted.
“Oh yes,” he said, “As much as I could.” Dr. Whistler was animated and enthused that someone at this gathering shared his interest. He told me he had all of these hunting trophies in his home, but almost no one who visits knows what they are, what they are for, or what they mean to him. He supposed he would have to get rid of them all, maybe to a museum. Sounds familiar. The same will likely happen to my own, and sooner than I know. I asked if he might have met Robert Ruark in his travels.
“Yes,” Dr. Whistler said, “At a bar in Nairobi.” He described Robert Ruark as an engaging guy and that they had a great conversation. I told Dr. Whistler that Robert Ruark was an important figure in my life, but I had never had the opportunity to meet him. I asked if I might have the pleasure of shaking the hand of a man who had shaken the hand of Robert Ruark. Dr. Whistler smiled and extended his hand, indicating he understood. And that is as close as I would ever come to Robert Ruark.
Just last year I was in an antique store and spotted a mid-fifties Field and Stream. Just like that ten-year-old kid, I hurried through the pages until I spotted that photo and the column title. I swear I was just as excited as when I was 10 years old receiving the magazine in the mail. I bought that copy so I can leaf through any time I want to feel that 10-year-old’s surge of excitement and happiness again.
Terry Weiland, author of Ruark’s biography, A View From a Tall Hill and similarly enthralled with Ruark, wrote a column in the January 2016 edition of Safari Times. A resurgence of my sense of neglectful guilt overwhelmed me as I read it.
You see, December 29, 2015 was Robert Ruark’s 100th birthday anniversary. Weiland knew this. He saw to it to know it. I did not, but should have. Weiland owes an unpayable debt. He stated that in his column. But Weiland wrote an extensive biography and his birthday column that will reach thousands with the Ruark story and the love we feel for this man and what he did for us. What have I done?
Weiland once stayed in a cabin attached to a Nairobi hotel, a cabin where Ruark stayed on many nights before and after safaris. Weiland reports he visited with the ghosts of Ruark in that room and drank a few of Ruark’s favorite drinks in toasts to Ruark. The cabins are torn down now, replaced with soulless structures housing know-nothing shutterbug tourists, and so-called conservationists belonging to proud worldwide conservation organizations complicit with the corrupt officials who hold hands with the urban conservationists in their conferences by day, and run the poaching rings by night.
Ruark died when he was 49 years old. How much more could he have written if only he had lived. But he came along at just the right time for me and, I suspect, tens of thousands of others like me in that twenty-year window of susceptibility in young lives. If you shared any similar memories in your youth, you need to reconnect with Ruark.
If you have never heard of the man or read his words, connect with him now. You will not be sorry. Of my vintage, or any vintage, I urge you, if you love hunting and love wildlife. If you had beloved family or friends who mentored you. If a dog or a bird or deer holds a place in your soul, seek and buy The Old Man and the Boy. I urge you to buy Use Enough Gun and/or Horn of the Hunter if you have any interest in hunting, any hunting, especially if you are interested in Africa. Safari Press and Amazon sells them all. Maybe that will assuage my guilt regarding what I owe the man.
To Robert Ruark: The hunting industry owes you. The wildlife that benefits from the hunters you encouraged and helped create, owe you. The world is richer that you lived, and for what you wrote. I just wish I had taken care of your memory a bit better. Rest in peace old friend. This simple country boy owes you a debt that can never be repaid.
Bio:
Jerry has been an have been active in conservation organizations for nearly 50 years, is a life member of SCI, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, the Boone and Crockett Club, and member of Pheasants Forever, Dallas Safari Club, and Trout Unlimited. He has a column in rotating local newspapers on conservation and the role of hunting and fishing in sustainable wildlife use and conservation.
Box:
I grew up just 20 miles west of Philadelphia. But it was real country then. Game abounded in hardwood ridges and farm fields. Fish were in all the clean streams and small lakes. All destroyed now. I hunted, fished, and trapped from the age of eight. Grew up with dogs and men who loved the pursuit, the adventure. I moved to Idaho at 35 years of age.
I’m a fly tier and fly fisherman. I reload for my ammunition and some of my friends Have hunted the US, Canada, and Africa, and still do the best I can each year on deer and elk. Lost my old bird dog, so don’t chase the ducks and pheasants so much anymore.
Still dreaming of a buffalo or two somewhere in Africa. Have been looking at Zimbabwe with the most interest, or maybe Zambia. Don’t need a record book bull, just an old gnarly, worn and busted old boy with a big boss. An old boy on his last legs with no friends or women folk. Too old to breed or fight. Just lion bait if they dare. Hell, sounds like me! Sad, this age thing.
But better than death!
Aug 29, 2017 | News
Southern Rhodesia: The 1940s
By Paul McCay
“You are never less alone than when you are alone in the bush.”
My life as a keen hunter began at the age of about six, where I grew up as the fifth child of six children on a large cattle ranch of 30,000 acres in Southern Rhodesia (Now Zimbabwe). My father was the second son of an 1891 pioneer to the country, and was manager of the ranch. He also owned his own ranch of a further 24,000 acres some fifty miles away.
We all had daily tasks to do, and my main one was to check that the gun safe and the contents were kept clean, and the weapons oiled. My first gun was a .177 Diana air gun, which I still keep for sentimental reasons. This I used to great effect in keeping the various birds away from my mother’s fruit and vegetable garden. From my many relatives I would hear stories of their hunting days and the famous British gun makers like Holland & Holland, Purdey, Westley Richards, and the American makers of Winchester, Colt and many others.
As soon as I was allowed, I began to seek further pastures and wandered off into the bush in search of other birds to hunt. I was allowed 10 pellets a day and was under very strict instruction not to kill anything I was not prepared to eat. I always carried a box of matches and a pocket knife, the latter to clean and prepare the birds for cooking over an open fire. On occasions I was followed by a child of an African worker in his hope of sharing the kill, and I always insisted he stayed well back and out of the way. However, we did get to share a lot, and learned so much from each other.
As I grew older my father said I could use his Winchester, pre 64 model 70 in .22 Hornet for shooting small game. To be allowed the use of this was also under very strict guidelines. I would be given three rounds and told that one was to kill a buck, and the second in case a shot resulted in a wounded animal. The third was to ensure I had protection on the way home. I was also told that I had to have a helper. His name was Sehla, and we were to share many years of hunting together, and from him I learnt a great deal of tracking ability and the need to conserve one’s body stability. The main issue here was not to drink any liquid when you’re hot, but to sit quietly until fully cooled down before taking a drink. This allowed me to stay out all day if necessary, and we would eat a bird killed with his throwing sticks. He taught me how to use them and I became quite adept at the odd francolin, quail or dove. Occasionally I took a wild hare.
The other criterion was that I was only allowed to shoot small buck as I would have to carry home whatever I shot. At eight years of age I shot my first buck, a small steenbok ram, and even though Sehla was with me, I carried this home myself as my father had given him strict instructions not to assist with this task. At the age of nine I shot my first impala ram, and between Sehla and me, we carried this home.
My father then told me that I would henceforth be responsible to do the hunting for the family as well as for our African labour. When game was not found I had to round up some of our cattle and select an ageing cow and despatch that. The worst part of my responsibilities became the final hunt for one of our faithful dogs when it became unable to do much more than barely walk. These distasteful duties taught me that it was necessary to kill only in order to eat. They did not change my desire to be out in nature and to walk for hours on end, but rather to enjoy the hunt, and to become a hunter, more than a just shottist.
Once, at around ten years of age I was out looking for game to shoot for the family, and had been walking for the better part of the day, not being able to find anything. Then I saw the tracks of what I thought was a large impala and followed very slowly. After some time I came upon a herd of kudu. Fortunately I had been given a 7×57 rifle, so I took a large bull. How to carry this back and to tell my father that I had shot one was not a task I was looking forward to, as he had not given me permission to shoot one. Fortunately he was very thankful as the workers also needed meat, and pleased that the kill was clean and the bullet allowance was not misused. After this I was allowed to borrow a vehicle for the recovery of bigger game.
My parents would have to take periodic trips to town for supplies, and we children had to go along when we were not at boarding school. I hated these trips as it would mean not being out walking in the bush, and on one occasion when I was about ten, I begged them to allow me to stay at the ranch. Much pleading bore fruit, but only on condition that one brother also wanted to stay, which was agreed to. Once they were out of sight, I said to my brother that we should try out my father’s Joseph Manton .577 hammer double rifle, but he was not at all keen on the idea.
I managed to persuade him as long as he got to do the driving of the Land Rover, which we also took without permission. We drove out to the bush and found a suitable tree for the target and loaded both barrels. I asked my brother if he wanted to shoot, and he said I should try first, so I cocked both barrels and lifted the rifle to shoot. It was so heavy that I had to lean over backwards a little in order to get it at the right height, and pulled the trigger. The blast also made my finger pull the other trigger, and I landed up flat on my back from the hefty kick.
“Wow! That was fun!” I said, and offered him the rifle to have a go, but he refused. And that’s how my love of big guns was forever burnt into my soul, despite the bruised shoulder. I never told my father about the incident, and was distraught when he later sold the rifle to an Australian collector.
A big problem we had on the ranch was the attention of wild pigs to our crops, and they needed to be hunted and destroyed. Finding them was not easy, as they would go great distances away from their nocturnal ravaging of the crops. But I became quite good at finding them with the help of some dogs and other young children of our workers. We would find the sounder, and upon flushing them I might be lucky enough to shoot one, and once managed two, but that did not reduce their numbers sufficiently.
On one occasion a young African was charged by one and he killed it with a blow to the head with nothing more than a knobkerrie. This got me thinking, and so I had a large knobkerrie made for me. We would then go out, and when finding a sounder, the bulk of the helpers and the dogs would go upwind and approach the pigs.
They would always turn towards me and a helper, and upon seeing us, would inevitably charge. The trick was to sidestep at the last moment and bring the kerrie down on the pig’s snout just below the eyes. This would drive a bone into the brain and kill it instantly. Such adrenalin-filled moments! We managed to build a quite a tally, but the carcasses would be secretly taken away by the staff as my mother would have had a nervous breakdown had she known. Apart from hunting buffalo, I have never experienced excitement like this, but would not attempt to do this now with my reflexes having slowed down.
I continued to do the majority of the hunting for the family, and found that it was far better to hunt during the hottest part of any day as I realised that the game also liked to rest up at this time and could be stalked to within much closer shooting range and thus ensure a clean kill. However, game was harder to find like that, as it was not moving around. I could only find it by spotting spoor and following the tracks.
The ranch that my father managed was owned by my mother’s brothers, and they had a passion for shotgun shooting. One uncle was involved in politics, and would invite various dignitaries, including the governors of the country at the time, and other important people. My father was tasked with preparing an annual shoot for guinea fowl and francolin which were in great numbers due to the crops we grew. We children joined with the African labour and became beaters to drive the birds towards the waiting guests, and had the task of collecting the bag of birds shot and searching for any wounded birds.
On one occasion my uncle’s Purdey shotgun barrel burst due to using the wrong cartridges, and the barrel peeled back as if it had been a sardine can rolled back, trapping one of his fingers. Fortunately, one of the guests was a Dr Standish White, who patched him up after the twisted part of the barrel had been cut off his finger with a hacksaw. Purdey made a new set of barrels for him afterwards.
One day while I walking in the bush, I killed a francolin with my throwing stick and decided to risk taking it home to ask my mother to cook it for me. Shortly prior to this, my eldest brother had been taking us home for a weekend when he overtook a military Land Rover that had not heard his continuous hooting and had reported him to the Police for dangerous driving.
The Police had been sent to take reports on the incident, and a constable had been sent to find me to get my statement of the event. I thought he had seen me with the francolin and was there to arrest me, so I made a long detour around and sneaked into the house through the back door and decided to hide my bird, which I did, behind a lounge cushion. When the Police had gone, I was so relieved that I was not in trouble that I forgot about my prize.
Some days later a bad smell was permeating throughout the house, and my mother sent everyone to find the source. One of the servants had the name of Mbanqwa which interpreted meant “Lizard”, and we were all looking for what we thought would be a dead lizard as these were often found having died in the house. I waited until no one was with me and removed the dead and rotting bird together with the attending maggots. Everyone said that Mbanqwa was the cause of the smell. My mother never did get the joke and I never got to eat my bird!
The Wanderer
Paul McCay
Paul was born in Bulawayo in 1943 and started hunting at the early age of six, and shot his first buck at the age of eight. He has a passion for the wild places and walking in the bush and has hunted in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), Zambia, Namibia and South Africa, having hunted all the Big Five and numerous plains-game species.
Aug 22, 2017 | News, WingShooting
The Wildlife Game – 29 May 2017
Dr John Ledger
South African big game hunter Theunis Botha, died after being crushed by an elephant cow that had been shot on a game reserve in Zimbabwe in May 2017. He was leading a hunt with clients when the group accidentally walked into the middle of a breeding herd of elephants at the Good Luck Farm near Hwange National Park. Three of the elephant cows charged the hunters. Mr Botha fired a shot from his rifle but he was caught by surprise by a fourth cow that stormed them from the side, the news site Netwerk24 reported. One of the hunters shot the elephant after she lifted Botha with her trunk. The elephant then collapsed on top of Mr Botha, killing him in the process.
Condolences from family, friends and clients poured in for the man who was a husband, father and professional hunter. But in the other universe of the First World mainstream and social media, countless animal-rights and anti-hunting sentiments were expressed that actually celebrated his death. The story went viral around the world in an Internet frenzy that has become a phenomenon of our modern times. The other recent incident of even greater reach involved the case of Cecil the Lion, another example from Zimbabwe where local people benefit from trophy hunting and are perplexed by the peculiar emotional responses from so many people who do not actually live with elephants and lions.
In trying to understand this phenomenon, I came across the notion of the so-called ‘opportunity availability cascade’ which seems to explain what happens with many controversial issues that people feel strongly about. The article I have paraphrased here was originally about climate change, which has strongly contested views from both alarmists and sceptics, but applies equally to the issue of hunting, which also has strong protagonists and opponents.
The notion of ‘opportunity entrepreneurs’ is well known in the NGO community. Organisations like Greenpeace, WWF, Born Free and others have built lucrative businesses by grasping the opportunity to raise money from concerned citizens who have bought into a particular belief system. WWF, once essentially concerned about whales, Pandas, baby seals and elephants, saw great opportunity in climate alarmism, in which it is now a big player with a big budget, sitting at the same tables as the folks from the United Nations.
An availability cascade is a self-reinforcing process of collective belief formation by which an expressed perception triggers a chain reaction that gives the perception of increasing plausibility through its rising availability in public discourse. (Kuran & Sunstein, 1998).
An interesting aspect of the whole ‘animal rights movement’ is the way that the (non-sceptical, first world) public consciousness has been captured by two very simple, easy-to-understand and certain ‘facts’, that
- Animals are sentient beings and have rights – to life, security and absence of cruelty.
- Hunters infringe on animals rights and inflict cruelty and death upon their quarry.
In tweets/soundbites/social media, we often see things like ‘Hunters are cruel, callous murderers; hunters are cowards who only confront dangerous animals when they have superior weapons; hunters are driving certain species to extinction’.
To question these ‘facts’ is to be ‘pro-hunting’ and ‘anti-animal rights’, and despite both these ‘facts’ being debatable, these two beliefs (because that is all they are) seem to have become ‘memes’ (beliefs that spread by ‘cultural acquisition’, from peers or the media). When questioned, members of the general public who claim to hold these beliefs may say they do so because ‘my Facebook friends say they are true’, or ‘newspapers say they are true’, or ‘politicians say they are true’, or ‘Africa Geographic says they are true’. In other words, it is ‘received opinion’.
In this case they have not arrived at these beliefs through their own reasoning or even been argued into them by the reasoning of others; instead they ‘just know’ they must be true because ‘everyone else’ ‘just knows’ they must be true. After all, it is what all sympathetic, responsible, humane and reasonable people believe. Isn’t it? Only the stupid, irresponsible, irrational and unreasonable hunters and wildlife managers question it.
This process has been characterised by psychologists as an ‘availability cascade’, a self-reinforcing cycle that explains the development of a collective belief (or meme) in animal rights. The idea that a great many complex factors affecting wild animals, such as human population increases, pressure on wildlands, conflict with livestock farmers, shrinking habitats, and poaching for meat, that actually have unrelated and multifaceted causes, can be explained by one, simple, easily understood cause (hunting), gains rapid currency in the popular discourse by its very simplicity and by its apparent insightfulness. Its rising popularity triggers a chain reaction within the social network: individuals adopt the new insight that we are experiencing the abuse of animal rights because other people within their social network have adopted it, and on face value it sounds plausible.
The reason for this increased use and popularity of the ‘wicked hunter’ idea involves both the availability of this idea in the media, and the need of individuals to conform to it, regardless of whether they fully believe it.
Their need for social acceptance and political correctness, coupled with the apparent sophistication of the new insight, overwhelm their critical thinking. Imitation and conformity, rather than critical analysis and independent thinking, are at the heart of a meme. The public concern then puts pressure on political policymakers to make policies to address the public concern. The public then see confirmation that their concern over hunting must be valid – after all, the politicians are enacting policies to address it. It is a self-reinforcing loop of irrationality based on a very poor understanding of what wildlife management science actually says.
The availability cascade around the ‘wicked hunter’ idea has been so extreme that despite the fact that common sense alone should tell us that the idea may be wrong, it nevertheless is regarded as a fact by many. It is much easier to ‘just believe’ in the wicked hunter meme, when independent critical analysis of the subject requires a great deal of time and effort to understand the science and arguments for sustainable utilisation of wildlife.
Ending this availability cascade would require the politicians and journalists and public of Europe and North America (and small but vocal groups in South Africa and Australia) to understand that their beliefs are rather more based on emotion than science and reason, and to take the time and trouble to actually critically investigate and understand the science of wildlife management. It would require them to lay aside their simple certainties for complex uncertainties. Given that this is highly unlikely, it seems that when a global anti-hunting availability cascade is dong the rounds, the best advice is to ignore it – as the vast majority of African and Asians would do anyway.
Acknowledgement: this essay draws extensively on the post by Iain Aitken below
Aitken, Iain (2017). Guest essay on https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/05/22/climate-alarmism-the-mother-of-all-availability-cascades/
Kuran, Timur and Sunstein, Cass R., Availability Cascades and Risk Regulation. Stanford Law Review, Vol. 51, No. 4, 1999; U of Chicago, Public Law Working Paper No. 181; U of Chicago Law & Economics, Olin Working Paper No. 384. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=138144
Dr John Ledger is an independent consultant and writer on energy and environmental issues, based in Johannesburg, South Africa.
John.Ledger@wol.co.za
