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A great read of past big game hunters
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A great read of past big game hunters



Arjun Reddy
Hunters Networks LLC
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Posts: 2532 | Location: New York, USA | Registered: 13 March 2005Reply With Quote
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Neat read, Arjun. Thank you for sharing.
 
Posts: 1417 | Location: Shelton, CT | Registered: 22 February 2010Reply With Quote
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Interesting, thanks for sharing that link.

I do find it curious to see Peter Capstick listed and Harry Shelby (among many other greats) not listed. I’ve talked with a handful of Botswana PH’s who regarded Capstick as much less of a PH than his reputation, while holding Selby as among the best ever. They thought Capstick was a great writer, but an average (at best) hunter.
 
Posts: 3833 | Location: California | Registered: 01 January 2009Reply With Quote
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Pretty neat sketches of some great hunters. Good to see a pic of Pete Pearson.
 
Posts: 7771 | Registered: 31 January 2005Reply With Quote
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Excellent, thanks for posting
 
Posts: 2638 | Location: Utah | Registered: 23 February 2011Reply With Quote
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Many of those names are in the "African collection" from Briar patch press from the 80's that I won at a sheep auction. 26 books I believe really nice. Looks to be a lifetime of reading by the size of the books and small print...


White Mountains Arizona
 
Posts: 2840 | Registered: 31 December 2005Reply With Quote
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Thanks for posting Arjun!
 
Posts: 1782 | Location: Sinton, Texas | Registered: 08 November 2006Reply With Quote
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Thank you.
 
Posts: 10608 | Location: Somewhere above Tennessee and below Kentucky  | Registered: 31 July 2016Reply With Quote
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Thanks for these interesting and well-written short biographies.


Mike

Wilderness is my cathedral, and hunting is my prayer.
 
Posts: 13329 | Location: New England | Registered: 06 June 2003Reply With Quote
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Thanks, Arjun.

Good read. The one that always cracks me up is Samaki Salmon. Samaki is "fish" in Swahili. Neat nickname.
 
Posts: 9951 | Location: Houston, Texas | Registered: 26 December 2005Reply With Quote
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I never got to like Bunny.

He seemed a bit odd.


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Posts: 66762 | Location: Dubai, UAE | Registered: 08 January 1998Reply With Quote
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Great read on a lot of hunters from all over the world.

Greatly appreciated!
 
Posts: 2581 | Location: Colorado | Registered: 26 May 2010Reply With Quote
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Saeed, I hunted buffalo with Bunny Allen on Mt Kenya in 1975. My hunt was booked with his son David but David seemed more interested in photo safaris and left most of the hunting to Peter De Mello and occasionally to his semi-retired father, Bunny. Bunny certainly knew how to tell a story and he was pretty colourful but I never found him odd. I think his claims to being a gypsy were certainly a bit exaggerated. He spoke and behaved like an upper middle class gentleman of his era but that could have been a result of the circles he moved in.
At the time I was a farm worker and I saved for a year then sold my car to finance my hunt in Kenya. I still try and hunt in Africa every year although this year's trip to Uganda has been put off until next August. It's not the same though, mainly because in 1975 I was very young and hard but now I am neither!
 
Posts: 284 | Location: New Zealand  | Registered: 24 March 2018Reply With Quote
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How was your safari in general? Not many people left from that era!

quote:
Originally posted by the Pom:
Saeed, I hunted buffalo with Bunny Allen on Mt Kenya in 1975. My hunt was booked with his son David but David seemed more interested in photo safaris and left most of the hunting to Peter De Mello and occasionally to his semi-retired father, Bunny. Bunny certainly knew how to tell a story and he was pretty colourful but I never found him odd. I think his claims to being a gypsy were certainly a bit exaggerated. He spoke and behaved like an upper middle class gentleman of his era but that could have been a result of the circles he moved in.
At the time I was a farm worker and I saved for a year then sold my car to finance my hunt in Kenya. I still try and hunt in Africa every year although this year's trip to Uganda has been put off until next August. It's not the same though, mainly because in 1975 I was very young and hard but now I am neither!
 
Posts: 2532 | Location: New York, USA | Registered: 13 March 2005Reply With Quote
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quote:
Originally posted by the Pom:
Saeed, I hunted buffalo with Bunny Allen on Mt Kenya in 1975. My hunt was booked with his son David but David seemed more interested in photo safaris and left most of the hunting to Peter De Mello and occasionally to his semi-retired father, Bunny. Bunny certainly knew how to tell a story and he was pretty colourful but I never found him odd. I think his claims to being a gypsy were certainly a bit exaggerated. He spoke and behaved like an upper middle class gentleman of his era but that could have been a result of the circles he moved in.
At the time I was a farm worker and I saved for a year then sold my car to finance my hunt in Kenya. I still try and hunt in Africa every year although this year's trip to Uganda has been put off until next August. It's not the same though, mainly because in 1975 I was very young and hard but now I am neither!


Fantastic! If you happen to have any pictures scanned from that trip you’d like to share I’d be happy to host them. I’m a sucker for any Kenya hunting. Great story!
 
Posts: 7771 | Registered: 31 January 2005Reply With Quote
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quote:
Originally posted by the Pom:
Saeed, I hunted buffalo with Bunny Allen on Mt Kenya in 1975. My hunt was booked with his son David but David seemed more interested in photo safaris and left most of the hunting to Peter De Mello and occasionally to his semi-retired father, Bunny. Bunny certainly knew how to tell a story and he was pretty colourful but I never found him odd. I think his claims to being a gypsy were certainly a bit exaggerated. He spoke and behaved like an upper middle class gentleman of his era but that could have been a result of the circles he moved in.
At the time I was a farm worker and I saved for a year then sold my car to finance my hunt in Kenya. I still try and hunt in Africa every year although this year's trip to Uganda has been put off until next August. It's not the same though, mainly because in 1975 I was very young and hard but now I am neither!


I’d love to hear a hunt report!
 
Posts: 2638 | Location: Utah | Registered: 23 February 2011Reply With Quote
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Bunny bragged way too much about his conquests, for my tastes, at least.

Maybe he made them, maybe he didn't.

But the ladies could have been spared, IMHO.


Mike

Wilderness is my cathedral, and hunting is my prayer.
 
Posts: 13329 | Location: New England | Registered: 06 June 2003Reply With Quote
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Sorry I can't post any pictures of my hunt in Kenya. The only ones I have left are on slides (remember them?) in my New Zealand home and at present we are in our UK place. We came over here despite the covid for the birth of my first grandson and now we are stuck here. (They named the baby "Hunter" so either he will be taking pigs with a dogs and a knife when he is 8 years old or he will be a militant vegan!)
I was 24 and working as a relief milker in 1974 when I saw and advert in the "Shooting Times" for a hunt in Kenya with Allen Safaris. Milking cows when farmers were sick or on holiday was well-paid and with free board and lodge and working 12 hours a day, 7 days a week it was easy to save money. I asked a wealthy friend from college called Richard to come too. He had introduced me to deer stalking on his father's estate in Scotland but he didn't want to hunt, just take photos. Two other guys had booked as well. Jon was 29 and owned a gun shop bought with profits from the Biafran war when he tendered for thousands of ex-army .303s and then sold them for ten times as much to the Biafran rebels. Not that those rifles did them any good! The other fellow owned a fish and chip shop and he had only used a shotgun before.
I took a shotgun for bird shooting but the only rifle I had was an open sighted .303 so I left that at home. Jon took .270 and we asked David Allen to provide rifles.
We flew out to Nairobi together and stayed at the New Stanley hotel. My friend Richard's father knew the Block family who owned the hotel so we were well looked after. We were taken for a game drive around the Nairobi national park which was a useful introduction to the wildlife. The wildlife at the new Stanley was startling too, for a country boy. The ladies were, without exception, very beautiful and at that time see-through blouses and no bra was the fashion. I was 24 with testosterone coming out of every orifice and I had arrived in heaven!
Richard stayed with the Block family for a few days after David Allen collected the rest of us
and took us to the East African Professional Hunters club and then out to the airport. David owned a Cessna 172 and he flew us to his home near Naro Moru where he buzzed the Impala off the strip before landing. We saw Black Rhinos during the flight and there was game everywhere on the farmland. David and his wife, Petal, lived in a beautiful Kenyan settler's home which had been the base for the film "Born Free" and we each had one of the cottages built for the film stars.
We were introduced to Peter De Mello, a very competant PH of Goan descent who took me out for my first hunt in Africa.
(To be continued!)
 
Posts: 284 | Location: New Zealand  | Registered: 24 March 2018Reply With Quote
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Mr. Pom,

please do continue!

Mark


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Posts: 12842 | Location: LAS VEGAS, NV USA | Registered: 04 August 2002Reply With Quote
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quote:
We flew out to Nairobi together and stayed at the New Stanley hotel. My friend Richard's father knew the Block family who owned the hotel so we were well looked after.


The "Thorn Tree" and "Long Bar" were at the time, iconic meeting places at the New Stanley.
I haven't been back to Nairobi in decades and wonder if the attraction of these historical venues have retained their appeal.

In my late teens enjoyed trout fishing in the Naro Moru river, camping in the dense mountain forest; it was pretty wild back then.
 
Posts: 1869 | Registered: 06 September 2008Reply With Quote
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quote:
Originally posted by the Pom:
Sorry I can't post any pictures of my hunt in Kenya. The only ones I have left are on slides (remember them?) in my New Zealand home and at present we are in our UK place. We came over here despite the covid for the birth of my first grandson and now we are stuck here. (They named the baby "Hunter" so either he will be taking pigs with a dogs and a knife when he is 8 years old or he will be a militant vegan!)
I was 24 and working as a relief milker in 1974 when I saw and advert in the "Shooting Times" for a hunt in Kenya with Allen Safaris. Milking cows when farmers were sick or on holiday was well-paid and with free board and lodge and working 12 hours a day, 7 days a week it was easy to save money. I asked a wealthy friend from college called Richard to come too. He had introduced me to deer stalking on his father's estate in Scotland but he didn't want to hunt, just take photos. Two other guys had booked as well. Jon was 29 and owned a gun shop bought with profits from the Biafran war when he tendered for thousands of ex-army .303s and then sold them for ten times as much to the Biafran rebels. Not that those rifles did them any good! The other fellow owned a fish and chip shop and he had only used a shotgun before.
I took a shotgun for bird shooting but the only rifle I had was an open sighted .303 so I left that at home. Jon took .270 and we asked David Allen to provide rifles.
We flew out to Nairobi together and stayed at the New Stanley hotel. My friend Richard's father knew the Block family who owned the hotel so we were well looked after. We were taken for a game drive around the Nairobi national park which was a useful introduction to the wildlife. The wildlife at the new Stanley was startling too, for a country boy. The ladies were, without exception, very beautiful and at that time see-through blouses and no bra was the fashion. I was 24 with testosterone coming out of every orifice and I had arrived in heaven!
Richard stayed with the Block family for a few days after David Allen collected the rest of us
and took us to the East African Professional Hunters club and then out to the airport. David owned a Cessna 172 and he flew us to his home near Naro Moru where he buzzed the Impala off the strip before landing. We saw Black Rhinos during the flight and there was game everywhere on the farmland. David and his wife, Petal, lived in a beautiful Kenyan settler's home which had been the base for the film "Born Free" and we each had one of the cottages built for the film stars.
We were introduced to Peter De Mello, a very competant PH of Goan descent who took me out for my first hunt in Africa.
(To be continued!)



Awesome stuff. The Blocks (both Jack and his father Abraham) were pretty much the hotel kings in Kenya. Jack took over admin of Ker and Downey safaris, and put an office in on of the buildings he owned. He also owned the Mount Kenya Safari Club, well, before it was renamed that.

Look forward to more... ;-)
 
Posts: 7771 | Registered: 31 January 2005Reply With Quote
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I have written up the rest of this report and posted it under "Reports". After 45 years my memory is fallible and the exact sequences of events from day to day may have become muddled. I also can't remember the names of all the people so my apologies to anyone reading this who was present at the time!
 
Posts: 284 | Location: New Zealand  | Registered: 24 March 2018Reply With Quote
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