Issue October – December 2014 ezine

I was raised in the Rudy Lubin School of Hunting. His name can be replaced with a dozen others, from Danny McCallum and Robin Hurt to Nassos Roussos and Kai-Uwe Denker. But not all “old timers” belong to that school, because even decades ago when I accompanied one of Rudy’s clients to Botswana’s Kalahari to write the story of his safari, our feet never touched the ground for one hot, sandy step, and follow-up on a wounded grey duiker lasted only 20 minutes before the PH decided the animal was sufficiently untouched to not follow up, and turned the vehicle toward camp.

I’m not saying that real hunting can’t be had on Southern Africa’s 40,000-hectare fenced properties, especially when several join together and take down the game fences between them to create viable conservancies with freely moving animals. You can genuinely slog after your Hartmann’s mountain zebra in Namibia. On the other hand, you can “Diesel safari” around long enough to place your crosshairs on a worthy trophy gemsbok, out of several choice herds.