I know exactly when it was for me: In the Seventh Grade we read a short story about a "white hunter" who was treed by a big dagga boy buffalo when his gun bearer bolted, dropping the rifle in the process.

The buffalo refused to leave even after several hours under the treed hunter. He finally decided he was going to have to handle the situation with his side-arm, only to discover that it had fallen out when he scrambled up the tree. He then spent several hours trying to recover the pistol by fashioning a hook out of a pen knife and using some string he had in his pocket to fish for it. He finally succeeded in raising the pistol and began firing at the buff, who showed no sign of being hurt by the anemic bullets. After 50 rounds, it started to falter and laid down. He let it stiffen a while, before jumping down and recovering his big gun where the bearer had dropped it, and shooting the buffalo as it was struggling to it's feet. (I have never been able to find this story again anywhere. I'd love to, as it had a profound effect on my hunting life)

Until this time, I thought Alaska was the ultimate dream destination for an adventure-struck southern boy. But this story made me realize that if there were animals in Africa that wanted to kill me just for the joy of the killing, then this was the place, and animal, for me.

It remained a dream for 45 years, until I finally made it to Zimbabwe and stared down the barrel at the black demon that so haunted my boyhood dreams. I was not in the least disappointed with the experience!

Elgin Gates wrote that story. He used a Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum and what passed for the day as "armor piercing" bullets against the buff, as I recall.

I don't remember where I read it, although it may help you find it knowing that Gates was the author.

I have wanted to hunt in Africa since my early teens, when I was first exposed to the hunting and exploring literature.

My only regret is that it took me as long as it did before I finally made the trip.

When PHC stories were published in one of the magazines my dad took (NRA's American Hunter?) in probably late 60's. As mrlexma said, my regret is waiting 30+years to finally go. Now I budget for it

Growing up in my little town in North Louisiana, there was an older man by the name of Clyde B. Kitchens who went to African as well as Alaska in the 50's. His trophies had been on display at the local library before I was born. I was always fascinated with them every time I visited the library. He was something of a character and his yard was filled with figures, animals and other things he made out of sheet metal. He also had had a very nice set of tusks in his front yard on display until sometime in the 70's when he died. What is left of his trophies are now in the local museum. I heard his family kept the ivory.

It was that damm alcholic Ruark and his line about a buff and me owing him money -when I read Horn of the Hunter( My one good book when I get oldtimers.) PS Hemingway and his fixation on Kudu didn't help either.

As a youngster, after reading Jim Corbett's books!

I know, Corbett means India, but I all of a sudden was equally attracted to both India and Africa...

Watching DakTari and Mutual of Omaha's Wild Adventure on our 12" family B&W TV in the early '70s

I checked a Ruark book out of the library in fifth grade. It's always been interesting to me since then.

Kyler

GAHunter,
You don't happen to remember who wrote that book? I'm sure that it was called Safari! or On Safari! I read it when I was 8 years old, more or less when I found it in the school library. Up until that time I believed that African hunting was a thing of the distant past. Once the fire was kindled, my life has been a journey toward Africa. It took over three decades to gain the financial resources to make Africa an affordable reality, but I'm there now. It would be nice to be able to point to that book, take it down and be able to say "It all started right here" That book had a major role in shaping my life!

Mike Kanak

Probably in 9th grade when I was first introduced to the library. 'I Married Adventure' was a book I read and reread and the pictures were great. From that time forward I wanted to hunt Africa and attended gunsmith school fully expecting to build rifles I would use in Africa hunting big bame. It was only a couple of years after this I bought my first double rifle, a Cogswell & Harrison 450/400. However it was over 50 years later that I made my first of 8 safaris to Zimbabwe and fullfilled that ambition. As fate would have it I did not carry one of my own rifles on that trip, I carried a Brno ZKK 602 in 375 that had belonged to Jon Speed when he was a game warden and a Pachmyer prepared Mannlicher Schoenaur in 270 Win.

Guess I´ll have to blame Tarzan first, Hemingway second and Boha as the third reason for my interest.

I started dreaming about it after reading The Green Hills...never thought anything would come of it though, I mean only rich people go on safari.

This fall I´ll join the legendary (notorious)ranks of people that have seen a need to write about their experiences -the book will be published in Swedish but the title is "Tales from the Tropic of Capricorn".

Anyone know of a good publisher in the US?

At birth.

It's too long a story to write, but it starts about 60 years ago and happened 35 years ago.

However, in short blame Jack O'connor, Roy Weatherby, John Buhmiller, Herb Klien, Elmer Keith, Don DeHart, Elgin Gates. Frank Hibben and Walter Knopp of Knopp Taxidermy that made it happen.

In the 1950's, I was a youngster growing up in Livingston, Montana. It is a beautiful place to live, just north of Yellowstone National Park, with the Absaroka mountain range framing the southern view from our home. My brother and I fished the Yellowstone River, and wandered the foothills to the Rockies, in a Huck Finn kind of life. We routinely saw pronghorn antelope, mule deer, bear, and many smaller animals. We didn't know how fortunate we might have been considered from the perspective of those who lived in the flat lands. To us it was nothing unusual and with things so familiar, it was home.
We had a physician in town who had been to Africa, and collected a basement full of trophies. One day he opened his home to my classroom for a field trip. I was probably in third grade when he put us before a window to strange people and strange lands, full of exotic animals. I was enthralled and so began my dream. A dream to one day visit and hunt in Africa.
Over the years I read all the classic safari literature. Hemingway, Selous, Ruark, White, Roosevelt and many others. I also haunted Lentfer Brothers Taxidermy shop, a small store-front edifice in Livingston. Considering the small size of our town the shop must have had a worldwide reputation for it was always full of animals from all the hunting fields. The very smell of the place, pungent with the chemical magic of leather being tanned, pleasant and exotic like a fine tobacco. Still, Africa was a dream and dreams are not real, and from then to now, well into my adult life, I never really expected it make such a trip. And I didn't let myself think too seriously about it either, for it was an impossibility and there was just no point in dwelling on it......
Gary

It was probably in Jr high or early in high school.

I read Death in the Long Grass. That was the spark that ignited my already primed hunting tinder. Then in the same month I found John Burgers book "Horned Death". It put me over the edge.

It wasn't two months later that I found myself working at Bob Wards Sporting House in Santa Fe, NM(yes that was the real name.. )selling guns. Bob was a serious hunter and had been to africa many times.

His store was lined with all sorts of heads and pictures of every kind of beast from elephants to dikers. He also had a Rohdesian girlfriend and several off season Rohdesian PHs that would come into the store from time to time to swap yarns.

I've never gotten it out of my system. And the more hunting I do the more I want to do. It is a great addiction, I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Chalk up another one entranced by Johnny Weismuller and the Tarzan movies. Saturday afternoons in the fifties were all about Tarzan. I even would have my double-barreled popgun!

tarzan movies, then 10th birthday party saw the movie Hatari! Also the tv show American Sportsman with curt gowdy, grits gresham et al. Africa was so far away, so exciting, so special, and guess what, it was that and more!

mrlexma,

Are you sure we are talking about the same story? The only reason I ask is because I was able to find (through an internet search) a statement by a friend of Mr. Gates that he (Mr. Gates) had once killed a cape buffalo with his pistol after being treed, WITH A SINGLE SHOT TO THE HEAD! I clearly remember that in the story I read, it took dozens of shots to put the buffalo down. Even then he had to retrieve his rifle to finish it off.

I loved watching Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom as a kid.
I got seriously interested when i started pricing Cariboo hunts in the NWT and discovered I could shoot 7 animals all exotic to me for the same fee as a couple of Cariboo.

Watching the tv shows Wild Kingdom and Wild Wild World of animals and seeing pictures of African animals in taxidermy supply catalogs.

quote:

Originally posted by GAHUNTER:
Are you sure we are talking about the same story? The only reason I ask is because I was able to find (through an internet search) a statement by a friend of Mr. Gates that he (Mr. Gates) had once killed a cape buffalo with his pistol after being treed, WITH A SINGLE SHOT TO THE HEAD! I clearly remember that in the story I read, it took dozens of shots to put the buffalo down. Even then he had to retrieve his rifle to finish it off.

IIRC, Gates needed more than one shot in that case he wrote up.

But I read that story a loooonnnngggg time ago and could be wrong. In any case, I'm not aware of any other story involving a treed hunter reduced to pistol popping a buff, although I will readily admit that my memory is not the test of whether it happened.

Let us know if you find the story you're looking for.

For me it was presurre from school. All the other boys 12-13 years have shot warthog and impalas and some even kudus. And of course to be part of the gang I had to make a plan to go and shoot soemthing as well.

The plan took a bit longer than expected but when I was 14 I finally managed to bag two warties with one shot thats another story. After that the hunting bugged bit very hard and coming from a non hunting family they didn't always understand.

Whan my best froend moved to Liberia in 1980 ( I was 7) africa has been in my mind evey day since. _Baxter

Hello fellows. I'm new here, but had to get in on this one. It all started for me about 25 years ago. I live in a small town in NE Alabama where everybody knows everybody, especially back in the 70's and early 80's. There were a couple of men my dad's age and older that had been to Africa on safari. But I think the thing that really set me off was a gun-shop owner in another small town nearby. That was the first time I got to hold a 458. Ever since then I've wanted a big bore. That dream will start to come true within the next couple of months with the purchase of a RSM in 375 H&H, soon to be followed by a 416 Rigby and a 458 Lott. I've finally reached a point in my life where I can afford to have these things and where I can see the African light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. My plan for now is to book for May or June of 2009. I plan to get my feet wet with South African plains game on this first trip. I'm not foolish enough to think that I'm ready to go after Buff, Lion, etc... having never even laid eyes on one. I will, however, make another trip for buff in the not-so-distant future. And hopefully many more safaris will follow.

David

Watching "Cowboy in Africa" starring Chuck Conners on Saturday nights.

So it wasn't always realistic (an African rodeo featuring bull riders on cape buffalo) but it got the juices flowing for an 8 year old kid.

Still haven't made it there yet though.

I had an old Fred Bear book as a kid and remember reading his stories and looking at pictures of the elephant he shot with his Kodiak Recurve.

I think the seed was always there but it never really got germinated until I moved to Alaska. I had some great hunting adventures there but I also was making enough money to think beyond North Amewrica. I was always an avid reader of O'Connor, Aagard and others so I had a plan dreamed up to hunt buffalo etc. already and the move to Alaska gave me the means to do it. About 15 years ago I started the booking process for the one time 14 day buffalo and plains game hunt. SURE! Now the hunting itself is not enough I have to be involved in it everyday.

Mark

I don't know when the notion struck me. I do know in 2003 when I was seriously injured and almost died, it became much more than a "maybe one day" obsession.

In 2006 I actually went.

It was my 8th birthday, I got a plastic model kit for a MS rifle and a copy of the Man Eaters of Tsavo. It was my first model and the first book I ever read. I have to thank an older cousin and an alcoholic great uncle. I also have to thank my uncle for teaching me to swear, drink and chew tobacco. He died before he could introduce me to loose women. Sometimes there just isn't enough time.
Bfly

I can't remember as a kid when I first wanted to hunt in Africa, the desire goes that far back. But I do know that I first started thinking about it seriously about ten years ago. An older colleague had come back from his second trip to South Africa and we started talking about it. I shouldn't speak ill of the dead (he passed away a few years ago just before leaving for his first buffalo hunt) but he's the b------ that convinced me that hunting in Africa was within my means. I went to South Africa a few years later and have since spent inordinate amounts of my consciousness-- and the family's financial resources-- on African hunting. It probably would have been cheaper to start using crack!

I'd always been interested in hunting. At about 5th grade we had to pick a foreign country to do reports on, and I picked Botswana because of hunting. About the same time I looked in a Weatherby catalog and saw some of the "hero shots" of greater and lesser kudu. Started me thinking I'd love to have one of those on my walls.

Fast-forward 25 yrs or so. I was playing around on the Cabela's website and pricing waterfowl hunts in Canada. I then started looking at elk hunts, and then, just for kicks started pricing African hunts. Compared prices for elk vs 4-10 plains game animals; thought dome more about timing (summer is my slow time of business) and off to Namibia in 05.

Buster Crabbe & Johnny Weismuller's Tarzan, at first. Then I saw Hatari while I was reading Maneaters of Tsavo. I was hooked well down in the gullet.

When I was about 8 years old I went by the friend of my parents, Dr Charlie Holman, who had recently gotten back all of his mounts from a 1964 Tanzanian safari. He had a lion, elephant, and all the typical plains game from East Africa. He told me about his hunt that he had taken with his son, who was between high school and college at the time they went.
As the years went by, Dr Holman and I hunted and fished together often, as we still do to this day, even as he nears 90 years old. He would tell his stories of Africa, but I later began to sense something even more important about the hunt than the great animals they had taken--and that was the time he enjoyed with his son. I soon knew that if I ever had a son, I wanted to do the same thing.
My son will be 21 next month, but in 2005 I took him on the safari of which I dreamed even before he was even born. While on that hunt with him in Tanzania, I called Dr Holman on my satellite phone and thanked him for inspiring us to be in such a special place.

When I was trying to figure out how to afford a guided elk hunt with my sons. I looked at the cost, then a friend suggested I consider South Africa. I looked at the cost. We went and had the great time of our lives. The second trip to Zim confirmed the first.

I am now hooked on Africa -
Good food, great people, great animals, warm place to sleep, I do not do the laundry or the cooking. Forget Canada or the US.

Amen, dogcat, amen.

When did I first become interested in hunting Africa?
Shortly after I killed my first rouge sparrow in the back yard with my BB gun.
My father had a foot stool made from an elephant's foot. I would climb up on it and listen to he and his older brother recant their most recent trips there.

Watching all the Tarzan movies and reading Jack O'Connor got me thinking about Africa but after growing up, i lost that facination of hunting there. Ever since I joined this website and a few others I have once again become intrigued with hunting Africa. Someday I will have enough money saved to take that first trip and look forward to experiencing what most of you already have...

When I was 5 and I saw the Snows of Kilimanjaro". I also started having fantasies of being fought over by Ava Gardner and Susan Hayward...still do...

Several things happened about the same time and I don't remember which one happened first. My dad bought me a dart gun with a steel "Jungle Hunter" target. The target had elephants, lions etc., and came with a nifty plastic pith helmet.
One of my dad's friends had been on several safaris and as a first grader I remember venturing into his trophy room with my dad. I especially liked the zebra rug and the sable mount.
Probably the most important influence was my grandfather who hunted in India during his time in the army there. When I visited them he would keep me up at night with stories of tigers and elephants.

My father framed houses for a homebuilder who hunted all over the world. The first time I was in his home I was speechless for some time. He had a trophy room that was just about as big as our house at the time, with 25' ceilings and a huge, Austin stone fireplace at the end of the room that went all the way to the ceiling. On each side of it were two huge kudu bulls. The moment I set eyes on them I knew I had to hunt them some day. That was 30 years ago, I was ten at the time. I've since been on 9 safaris, though mainly as a cameraman. Thanks to some inspiration from Mr. Bigby, I'm doing something for a living that I only dreamed of when I was a kid.