The Wanderings Of A Lone Hunter

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.

Economy Class Syndrome: The Silent Killer among Traveling Hunters

Aug 16, 2017 | News

By Dave Svinarich

“Dave you need to get to an emergency room, I think you may have a DVT.” “No way,” I said, “I’m 40 years old and in excellent health, it’s just a sprain!” I thought that was the end of the conversation until he called my wife later that night and impressed upon her the importance of getting me to a hospital. That worked!

We were coming to the end of a very successful plains-game hunt in Namibia and the last full day of the safari found us looking for a Burchell’s zebra. Although this plains zebra is more at home in the savanna grasslands and open woodlands, we had spent most of the afternoon pursuing a small herd in the steep foothills of the Auas Mountains, which surround Windhoek, the capital city of Namibia.

The herd was definitely aware of us, because we would no sooner crest one hill, when the herd would slip over the next hill. Finally, with evening beginning to set in, we carefully crawled to the crest of yet another hill and spied the herd milling around across a small valley on the opposite hillside. I nestled the .375 H&H over my day pack and took careful aim at a mature stallion that was standing off to the side of his small herd of mares. He took the shot hard and tumbled 30 or 40 feet down the hill, finally coming to rest in a small depression on the steep hillside. We had spent the better part of a day climbing in the foothills after those zebra, and I was footsore and exhausted by the time we finally loaded the stallion onto the bed of our Toyota truck.

The next morning, we were up early to catch a flight from Windhoek to Johannesburg, South Africa and then onto Atlanta, Georgia. The 8,400 mile flight to Atlanta was nearly 17 hours long and I spent much of that time trying to rest in my cramped economy class seat.

Two days after my return home, I noticed some pain in my right calf and quickly dismissed it as some pulled muscles which likely occurred as a result of chasing those zebras up and down the steep hills. By the third day, my lower leg and foot had begun to swell but I was sure that the swelling was just due to soft tissue damage. One of my best hunting buddies, who happens to be a physician, was eager to hear all about the hunting trip and it was only as an afterthought that I mentioned my leg to him. At that moment, the conversation turned serious.

“Dave you need to get to an emergency room, I think you may have a DVT.” “No way,” I said, “I’m 40 years old and in excellent health, it’s just a sprain!” I thought that was the end of the conversation until he called my wife later that night and impressed upon her the importance of getting me to a hospital. That worked!

In the emergency room, I was immediately put into a wheelchair and instructed not to get up or move around. A Doppler ultrasound quickly confirmed the presence of a blood clot in my right leg and I spent the next couple of days in the hospital on anticoagulation therapy, and then the next six months as an outpatient on various anticoagulants. I was lucky. A DVT or deep venous thrombosis, is a serious medical condition, and a pulmonary embolism or PE, which can result from having a DVT, can be fatal.

What are DVTs and PEs?

A DVT is a blood clot which typically forms within a vein running deep inside a leg or arm. It occurs most frequently in the lower legs and often results in an increasingly painful, swollen calf that is warm to the touch. However, DVTs can also occur elsewhere in the body, and there may be no symptoms whatsoever. Also, symptoms may not occur for several days after travel. A pulmonary embolism or PE, occurs when a portion of the blood clot breaks off and travels to the lungs where it blocks blood flow leading to lung damage or even death.

Nearly 500,000 Americans will get a deep venous thrombosis (DVT) this year and up to 100,000 will die from a resulting pulmonary embolism (PE). To put this into perspective, that is equal to the number of deaths caused by prostate, breast and colon cancer combined. One-third of those survivors will be left with long-term health problems. For some people, a DVT or PE may be a singular event. However, having even one DVT or PE means you are at an increased risk, and about one-third of these people will have another occurrence within 10 years. Men are also three times more likely than women to have a recurrence.

How do travel-associated DVTs and PEs occur?

Sitting immobile in cramped positions for long periods of time is the most significant determinant in the development of travel associated DVTs and PEs. Because this is a common occurrence on long flights, the condition has been popularly called the Economy Class Syndrome. Lack of muscular activity, particularly in the legs, allows blood to pool in the lower extremities and promotes the formation of blood clots. For otherwise healthy individuals, the risk of developing a travel-related blood clot is relatively low. Your level of risk depends both on the duration of travel and if you have any additional risk factors. These risk factors include such things as age (risk increases after age 40), obesity, smoking, recent surgery or trauma, use of estrogen containing contraceptives, hormone replacement therapy, active cancer or recent cancer treatment, limited mobility (e.g. leg cast), varicose veins, any clotting disorders, previous history of a DVT or PE or history of a DVT or PE in a close family member. Many people who develop travel-associated blood clots will have one or more of these risk factors. If you have any of these risk factors, speak with your doctor well in advance of your next trip to see about any special precautions or medication you should take.

Despite the common term, Economy Class Syndrome, DVTs or PEs are not specific to airplane passengers or riding in economy seating. In fact, they can occur following any prolonged period of inactivity. That being said, there is recent evidence suggesting that reduced oxygen levels and reduced air pressure found on commercial flights may also contribute to the formation of blood clots.

Prevention of DVTs and PEs

The single most important step you can take to prevent the occurrence of a travel associated DVT or PE is to keep moving. Get up and walk around at least once every hour and perform in-seat exercises such as ankle circles, foot pumps, leg raises, shoulder rolls and thigh stretches, every 30 minutes or so. Many airlines also provide helpful advice in their in-flight magazines on exercises that you can do while seated during a long flight. Try to get more comfortable seating (bulkhead, aisle, emergency exit seating, business class, first class or extra leg room seating), and leave ample room for your feet underneath the seat ahead of you. In addition, be sure to drink plenty of water, limit alcohol consumption, wear comfortable shoes and avoid tight-fitting clothing.

Conclusions

When it comes to reducing your risk of travel-associated DVTs and PEs, prevention is definitely the best medicine. Move around often, stay well hydrated and, if you have known risk factors, talk to your physician about additional measures you can take. Knowing the symptoms of a DVT or PE and seeking prompt medical attention can also reduce the likelihood of long-term complications, or possibly save your life.

BOX

Reduce Your Risk of Developing a DVT or PE

• Wear comfortable shoes and loose-fitting clothes
• Wear proper fitting compression or flight socks
• Do anti-DVT exercises every half hour
• Walk around at least once every hour
• Stay well hydrated
• Avoid drinking alcohol or taking sleeping pills
• Keep the space under the seat in front of you empty so you can exercise your feet and ankles
• Try to get seating which will be less cramped (bulkhead, aisle, emergency exit seating, business, first class or extra leg room seating)
• Be careful about leg rests that compress calf or behind the knee
• If you have any risk factors for deep-vein blood clots, such as a previous DVT, consult your doctor for additional recommendations

Warning Signs of a DVT

• Swelling/pitting edema in the affected limb
• Gradual onset of pain, tenderness or muscle cramping which gets worse with time
• Increased warmth in the affected limb
• Dilated superficial veins
• Skin discoloration (Redness or Bluish discoloration)

Warning Signs of a Pulmonary Embolism

• Sudden or unexplained shortness of breath
• Coughing up blood
• Sharp chest pain, particularly when taking a deep breath
• Rapid pulse
• Heart palpitations
• Fainting, dizziness or collapse
• Sweating
• Anxiety
• Rapid breathing

Please note that the information contained within this article is not intended to take the place of qualified medical advice or treatment. Both DVT’s and PE’s are serious and potentially life-threatening medical conditions. You are urged to take appropriate precautions and immediately seek qualified medical attention in the event that you suspect you have a DVT or PE.

Wildcats In Africa

Aug 14, 2017 | News

It has long been an article of faith that one is ill-advised to take a rifle to Africa chambered for a wildcat cartridge. Two reasons are usually listed. The first — a legal one of no little import — is that some African customs officials insist that the headstamp on your ammunition match the caliber designation on your rifle. Explaining what a wildcat cartridge is to someone with only a vague familiarity with anything other than an AK-47 is hopeless.

The second is that if your rifle arrives safely but your ammunition does not, then you are stuck — unable to buy replacements and forced to hunt with a borrowed crock of a rifle.

I first read those bits of advice 35 or 40 years ago, and throughout that time they have remained valid, even while traveling with firearms has become ever more complex, the vagaries of African customs officers more bizarre, and the range of available cartridges, both wildcat and factory, has expanded beyond all imagination.

For those mercifully unfamiliar with them, a wildcat is a custom cartridge that is not and never has been in commercial production. The owner of a wildcat concocts his own ammunition, often through an arduous series of steps. Why would anyone go to this trouble? The usual goal of a wildcat is to make a more powerful cartridge, or a more accurate one. Sometimes, though, it’s just a matter of ego. Hector Horatius Poodlepfeffer wants to kill a kudu with his very own “.319 Poodlepfeffer Mega Magnum” and get his picture in the SCI chapter newsletter confirming it.

In the latter case, no one can offer any advice — he won’t take it — and in the two former cases, in my experience, greater accuracy and/or power is usually a figment of the designer’s imagination.

But back to the legal hurdles. In the last dozen years, the line between factory and wildcat has blurred considerably, even while the number of wildcats has grown beyond belief. If the category was crowded in 1980, and more so in 2000, it is now like a field of weeds stretching to the horizon. At a guess, I would say that 99.9998 per cent of wildcats have no legitimate reason for existing. However, just as wildcats have proliferated, so have small companies making brass which are willing to produce just about anything in small (but expensive lots) complete with the Poodlepfeffer name in the headstamp.

Provided the same thing is stamped on your rifle, this solves the problem of the caliber designation. There still remains, however, the question of lost ammunition and available substitutes.

There are situations where you can get around this. One is with the .458 Winchester, .458 Lott, and a few earlier wildcats like the .450 Ackley. The Lott is now a factory cartridge, as was the Ackley, briefly, when A-Square existed, and you can still buy properly headstamped brass for it from Quality Cartridge. What’s more, you can use .458 Lott ammunition in a .450 Ackley, since the case fits the chamber and both cartridges headspace on the belt. As well, you can use .458 Winchester ammunition, which is one of the most widely available cartridges in the world, in either the Lott or Ackley, for the same reason.

Offhand, I don’t know of any other combination where this situation exists, but since the two .458s are the most widely used dangerous-game cartridges, it’s worth noting. In the event you may someday depend on doing this, however, it’s wise to test the prospective substitute ahead of time, so you’ll know how it performs before having to figure it out in the African bush.

Except for the Ackley, the only obscure cartridge I’ve ever used in Africa was a Schultz & Larsen rifle in 7×61 S&H. The ammunition arrived OK, and there were no problems, except the rifle read “7×61 S&H” while the newer Norma brass read “7×61 Super.” No one paid it much attention, but it’s not something I would like to count on.

Whenever I consider taking a wildcat to Africa (and such impulses are mercifully brief) I remind myself of the time in South Africa when I had to borrow a rifle to hunt eland. My young Afrikaner guide called his mother, who drove to meet us at a crossroads with the family arsenal in the trunk of the car. I took the best of a bad lot — an ancient, barely sporterized military 7×57, with iron sights and a sling woven from binder twine — and off we went. The ammunition was an assortment of brands and bullet weights, ranging in age, I guessed, from 10 to maybe a hundred years old. Some of it was corroded.

By some miracle I got an eland on the edge of the Drakensberg, but the experience has stuck with me and colored my decisions ever since. The thought of hunting with a borrowed rifle makes me break into a cold sweat. There’s a lot to be said for the .375 H&H and the .30-06.

The Wonderful Metrics

Aug 11, 2017 | News

Johan van Wyk

I held the crosshairs steady, high on her shoulder, and squeezed the trigger as gently as I could.

We have the calamity of World War II to thank for the near-demise and belated resuscitation (in a few instances) of many of the wonderful European metric cartridges. In this instance, a few cartridges that teetered on the brink of obsolescence for many years immediately springs to mind: just take the 9,3×62, for instance.
Prior to World War II, Berlin gunsmith Otto Bock’s creation was the clear frontrunner for the title of African all-round cartridge, yet by the late 1970s ammunition was expensive and hard to find. Thankfully, this situation has been reversed, and today the 9,3 is again enjoying a well-deserved spurt of popularity. Similarly, the 8x60S. If life was fair, the .30-06 would have been an also-ran in competition with the punchy Mauser-designed medium, yet today it is on the verge of being confined to the doldrums of the cartridge world.

My own flirtation with the mediums began many years ago when, as a school kid, I did a fair amount of hunting with a very nice little 7×57. That little rifle did its duty on my behalf on numerous species, including wildebeest, in the thick bush of what was then South Africa’s northern Transvaal, and later – before things went haywire in that country – Zimbabwe’s lowveld, where it accounted for kudu and impala. Thinking back on it now, a 175-grain bullet travelling at a relatively pedestrian 2 400 fps is certainly no ballistic thundercracker, but everything I shot with that combination died in its tracks. I didn’t recover a single bullet, either. I often wonder why I no longer own a 7×57, but consistently fail to arrive at a sensible conclusion.

I am an ardent reader of the late Jack O’Connor’s writings. Professor O’Connor was a big fan of the .270 Winchester, and although the .270 is a fine cartridge with a proven track record, I cannot help think that Jack would have been impressed with the 7×64 Brenneke as well, had he used it in anger. I owned a nice custom rifle chambered for Wilhelm Brenneke’s hot-rod cartridge for some years, and after a few hunts became convinced that I had laid my hands not merely on a hunting rifle, but the proverbial death ray.

The Brenneke printed 160-grain Swift A-frame bullets in tiny clusters, and it was deadly not only on smaller antelope such as impala and springbok, but on some of the big fellows such as kudu, gemsbok and red hartebeest as well. One shot at a gemsbok on a bitterly cold Karoo morning particularly stands out in my mind. We had to find a lone gemsbok cow that had evaded all efforts at capture and had taken up residence in a cattle paddock. We found her early one morning, but the closest she would let us get to her was still well in excess of 300 metres. Eventually, at a distance of 322 metres (much further than I would normally shoot at game, just for the record) I held the crosshairs steady, high on her shoulder, and squeezed the trigger as gently as I could. The sound of the bullet striking home reached our ears a second or so later, just in time to see the gemsbok collapse into the wintry yellow grass.

Today the 7×64 is rightly very popular in Europe, but everywhere else it has a modest (though very loyal) following. Even its American cousin, the .280 Remington, has failed to set the cartridge world alight, which again goes to show that things don’t always work out as they should.

My current metric flirtation is with the 6,5×55 Swedish Mauser. The Swede is one of the very first cartridges meant for use with smokeless propellant, and was designed way back in the early 1890s for use by the Norwegian and Swedish armed forces. Over the years the Scandinavians discovered just how good a cartridge the 6,5×55 really was, and it became one of the most celebrated long-range target shooting rounds of all time in that part of the world. In addition to target shooting, the 6,5 Swede was also introduced to the hunting fields, and it is still being used with great success on animals as big as Scandinavian moose.

My own and the 6,5×55’s paths crossed by default when I was offered a near-new Tikka T3 rifle chambered for the 6,5×55 at a price that no sane person would pass up. I mounted a well-used but thoroughly reliable Swarovski scope on the rifle, and set about concocting a few reloading recipes. Well, suffice to say that the Swede not only smashed my most optimistic expectations in the accuracy department, but smashed them completely to bits. It prints tiny little groups exactly where I want them, has almost negligible recoil, and has proved to be deadly on impala, springbok, blesbok and black wildebeest. I stick to 140-grain bullets, as the rifle seems to prefer that weight above all others. We understand each other, the Swede and I.

I suppose I can go on to wax lyrical about many other metric cartridges as well. Take the dragon-slaying 8x68S, for instance. It is very popular in Namibia where its flat-shooting and hard-hitting characteristics are rightly appreciated. Or the 9,3×64 Brenneke, which in a perfect world would have rivalled the great .375 H&H Magnum in popularity. Its following is relatively small but quite vociferous. In the double rifle world, the long-necked 9,3x74R (ballistically equal to the 9,3×62 Mauser) is holding its own, and is even chambered by the British from time to time. Proof positive that you cannot keep a good cartridge down.

If you are on the lookout for something different for your next rifle, or perhaps even just something with a bit of history behind it, I have a good bit of advice for you: go metric!

The author with the gemsbuck cow mentioned in the article. His custom-made 7×64 Brenneke reached out across a windswept Karoo plain and killed the animal quickly and cleanly with a single bullet to the heart.

Some of the author’s favourite metric cartridges include (L to R) the 6,5×55 Swedish Mauser, 7×57 Mauser, 7×64 Brenneke, 8x57JS Mauser, 8x68S, 9,3×62 Mauser and 9,3×64 Brenneke.