It’s not much of a secret that I love to hunt dangerous game. Come to my house or office and it’s pretty obvious. I’m probably not married because the mother of my children didn’t understand the encompassing desire I have. My bankers know damn well that I’m financially challenged as a result.

With my stomach full of turkey, pecan pie, turnips and sweet potatoes, it being Thanksgiving evening, while sitting before the t.v. watching some tripe, I began to wonder for the thousandth time what the heck makes having a bear puff up his hackles at me, or a buffalo stare cold black pupils through my soul is so much a need in my life.

I unsuccessfully hoped that firing up my laptop and letting the muses roam would help me to understand why I spend so much of my life putting (or figuring how to put) my ass on the line with a gun or bow in my quivering hands. It didn’t work. Alas!

Anti-hunters would probably claim that somewhere I was shorted a gene that should have civilized me.... that I’m a failure of Darwinian progress and am still a barbarian with a blood lust unbridled by a recognition that animals have rights, nuclear families and they should have equal opportunity (or some such vomit).

Some hunters, perhaps with their heads screwed on more tightly than mine, would wonder what the heck was worth the cost of a new F-250 diesel every year when you can foul your britches for free in your own back yard, instead of paying for it in Alaska or Africa. And the chance of being made Jello or lion poop is much less by the back porch than in the shadows of the tall grass.

Not an hour of my conscious life do I go without thinking of a (self-consecrated) "grand" adventure in my life, nor does a night’s sleep not have a dream of some (self-designated) kick-ass thing I’ve done. Some of those dreams (be they of the day or night variety) don’t have to do with hunting DG, but not many. A few may “remember†a solo sail down the East Coast in bad weather or a flight in a Luscombe from Georgia to Bristol Bay with no avionics... but most all have to do with being in smelling range of an animal that had big-assed claws or teeth or tusks or horns (or a combination thereof).

I’m sure that Rosie O’Donnell would say that I need to verify that I have a penis, albeit, very small. Others may say that I don’t get enough satisfaction out of my chosen career. Maybe they are both right.

All I know is that I am compelled to go where there are elephants, lions or bears or whatever that bite or stomp or crush.... or some sundry stuff they do that'll scare the hell out of me... and I need to hunt them in a relatively traditional way, using a rifle or bow that would have been familiar to my forebears.

I think that it’s because somewhere fused to my brain, deeply, perhaps in the medulla oblongata (doesn't alcohol effect that last)... or in my gonads, or in a popped cranial synapse connection burned-out after a double single malt scotch, but somewhere, there’s a physical set of molecules that absolutely makes DG hunting my addiction. I can’t resist the desire anymore than I can not breathe. What’s a hoot is that AR feeds the addiction.... kind of like a reverse AA???

So, you fellow dangerous game addicts, let me hear from you. Why the hell do you/we do it? Maybe I can save some money and not see a therapy quack and become an Animal Rights guy.... or better yet, be able to explain to my girls why I can’t afford a fancy wedding for them.

Why do I love hunting DG is a plain and simple to me...From when I was a little boy, I read the exploits of Annabel, O'Connor, Jobson, Keith,Siemel, Corbett, & Hunter and in my young adult years Capstick...
I always wanted to hunt and take it to the dangerous level of DG...Walk up to a bull ele keeping wind right and closing in tight and making the shot...M'bogo aka nyati, the cape buffalo tracking, closing in, and not making a mistake of a bad shot up close...Smelling the animals and seeing them at point blank range...
Once it is in your blood, you will understand...

Pleasant holiday,
Mike

Well said Judge G. As another fellow dangerous game hunter, and one who has devoted and surrendered himself to such a habitual and obsessive passion, I feel that it has now become a compulsive physiological and psychological need that must be satisfied at least yearly. That is the magic of the African mistress.

It's a rush. Plain and simple.

From one barbarian to another... very well articulated Ernest! I think for some of us, there is still a primordial urge that pushes us to explore new country, discover different cultures and hunt animals that make our pulse race and adrenaline surge! Call it a missing gene if you want, but I think we are actually more evolved than the "civilized set" because of it. Throw Rosie O'Donnell out in the bush for a week and see how she holds up. It wouldn't be pretty! Come to think of it she never was....

Very good post, Ernest and I think most of us here share your passion. I think the picture on your avatar might be a window into that part of your soul that makes you "tick" the way you, and indeed most of us here do. I still have a wife that understands--up to a point-- but she does recognize hunting DG is a passion, just like flying is I think for you & me.

Many of my friends live in much nicer houses, have that F-250 diesel you speak of, but they will never know what hunting africa and dangerous game is, sort of like those night traps we have under our belts. Wouldn't trade it for all the F-250s in the world. Would you? I don't think so. jorge

I can't put it into words...I am just compelled to it. I NEED it. Thats all.

When I get philisophical on the subject I usually flip open "A Hunter's Heart" (David Petersen, Editor), "Elkheart" (David Petersen, Author) or "Bloodties" (Ted Kerosote, Author)...they put nice words to what I feel.

Cheers,
Canuck

Judge G,

Seems like the holiday season makes all of us a little more introspective and reflective, not just on what we are thankful for but where we have been and where we are going.

Not sure that I can help you with the answer to your question. What I can say is that when I reflect on what I have been able to do over the last ten years, I have created a lifetime of memories and have seized life, not just watch it pass by. Perhaps it is seeing the smile of a person that you have only known for a week and who does not even speak your language but with whom you have connected on some subliminal level. Or spending an evening under a star filled sky beside a campfire with a dear friend and sharing a cold Kili. Or seeing the sun come up over a mountain when the sky bursts with color. All I know is that do it once and it can become all consuming -- an addiction far more powerful than any drug.

With regard to dangerous game, perhaps it is trying to match wits with an animal in a situation where you might not be the top of the food chain. The unknown intrigue of what lies over the next hill or across the ravine. Today we have so much control over our lives, we have answering machines to catch our calls, DVRs to capture our TV programs, GPS units to tell us where to turn to get to the grocery store . . . for some us we simply need the unpredictable, the controllable. We need to test our wits, to explore, to experience . . . to live.

I suspect that this latent desire lives in many men. Some, and I count myself among them, have just been fortunate enough to be able to channel that desire into hunting -- but not just any hunting, hunting animals that can hunt back. For others it is sixth gear on a fine sports car, for others it is behind the controls of an airplane or diving on some exotic reef. It is simply the desire to explore, to experience and to live, channeled by different people in very different ways.

Earlier today I was reflecting on how I would look back on my life if I suddenly found myself incapacitated or facing the last of my days. My answer was that I would say, I have led a great life, have experienced things that only a handful of folks can say that they have done and did not simply dream, but turned those dreams into reality.

There is a great scene in Lonesome Dove, when Gus and Pea Eye ride up on a herd of buffalo. Gus says, "Let's chase 'em". Pea Eye asks, "To shoot one for our supper?" Gus says, "No, I mean to chase them just for the sport." Pea Eye asks again, "To run them off?" Gus says, "No, you don't get the point Pea, I mean chase 'em because before long there won't be any buffalo left to chase." To me, that about sums up my view of why some folks just can't pass life by sitting in a rocking chair. To others if it doesn't fit into some logical and explainable mold, they want no part of it.

Geez, we both must have had too much to eat or drink today. Better break out the Tums.

Mike

I honestly do not know the answer to your question. Why does Tiger Woods still play golf? Why does Bobby Knight coach basketball? Why does Bill Gates still go to work?

I think it is because of who they are. The Apostle Paul basically said - "Woe is me if I do not preach the gospel!"

I am not associating hunting with religion, but I think that hunting brings out something in the very core of who you are. I used to hunt because of the "quest" for the horns. I am really not interested in that any longer. I prefer to go with my family and I enjoy the shared experience with them. I like to shoot, I like to hunt, I like to test myself. I don't like using a bow or a camera, I like using a rifle. Why? I don't know, it is just not me to shoot things with a pointed stick. Why? I don't know.

I know that you are an elephant hunter. For me, I can't drop the hammer on one. I just can't. I like plains game and am learning to love buffalo. I will try cats, but am not sure about them. I don't respect cats. As a matter of fact, I kind of despise them. Not sure why I want to hunt them - but am going to someday. On buff, I like the challenge and the danger.

Do I want to climb Everest or Kilamonjaro? No, not at all. No desire to do it. Do I want to sheep hunt again? No, no desire, too much hassle with horses and I think sheep live in a place that is darn tough and I don't feel like I need to take one. Not sure why, but I feel that way. I guess I have decided that they are tougher than I am.

Deer or elk - maybe. I have taken a bunch of them and I do not like the fencing and breeding and the taking the wildness out of them by us humans. They should be free to go whereever and we should not hunt them over bait or in an enclosure. It cheapens the hunt and our very soul.

I like hunting antelope - not sure why, but they are a challenge for me on foot and I like to pursue them.

Anyway, not sure of the answer to your question, but it lies within your soul somewhere....

JudgeG

After reading your thesis I am convinced that you may have (spiritual powers) after toooooo much Single Malt, and that you were actually in consultation with PH Capstick as you and the late Peter are on the same wavelength

Enjoy the Turkey, that poor damn bird certainly did not get a presidentail pardon from GWB (-:

Cheers, Peter

Judge,

I suspect the "why?" is really pretty simple ... because it makes one feel very, very alive. As someone once said, the hours of boredom are punctuated by moments of sheer panic. Maybe not panic but they are very intense, with immediate and simple goals, and are in very, very sharp focus. The situations demand and get our complete and undivided attention. The memories are crisp, sharp, and vivid.

They touch something most fundamental in us.

I have yet to hunt the first head of dangerous game. However, I have been reading and dreaming about it since I was a young child. I just turned 35 one week ago today and finally I am in a position to turn some of my dreams into reality.

Questions like the ones you pose are interesting but I would not spend much time thinking about them unless you enjoy that type of exercise. And if that is the case, more power to you.

The best thing a person can do in this life is to be who he is. You know, to thine own self be true. Of course, that does not mean that we have a license to put off until tomorrow what should be done today.....

I agree with the poster above who stated that the holidays have the effect of making us introspective. The one thing about life that I find alarming (rather, one of the things) is that time is starting to blur for me. I have relatives over at my house, the same relatives that were here last year. It does not seem like yesterday but last Thanksgiving could have been only 3 months ago. That scares me a little bit because my life is passing me by and I am powerless to slow it down.

Just a minute ago I picked up 'Safari Rifles' by Craig Boddington. My girlfriend of the time gave that book to me for Christmas '92. It's hard to believe that 14 years have flown by. Oh well, I guess the moral of the story is to live your life the way you want to live it; without going off the deep end and alienating every thing or every one that you cherish in the process. Find a balance that is right for you and continue onward and upward.

Landrum

"The only reason Saeed loves to hunt buffalo is because they are so big and very hard to miss!"

So said our resident genius!

Judge.....I've found, through my long association with fighter pilots, that they shouldn't try to over-think issues like why they do things and should just be happy knowing they can and want to do what most men won't or can't.

Just grab hold of the stick and remember you lose lift at 90 degrees.

Because the best things in Life aren't things.........

Judge, a very good,post.
My coments on:

Genes
Maybe all of us inherited the hunting genes from our ancestors, at least we got something that is millions of years old

New F-250's
They maybe nice, but after a month you are used to it and it feels like the old one.

Small penis
Lady to man: Now who do you think you are going to satisfy with that smal little thing.
Man: Myself

Fancy weddings
Why bother, they will most probably forgot it after a year.

Money
Spend as much as possible, you cannot take it with you when you pass on.

Hunting
Now you are talking. Every experience is different. I still can't sleep the last couple of days before we go on a hunt,

If you want to gather richness, build up on all those memories in the bush to feed your soul, when you are to old to do it, while you are sitting on your porch sipping your favourite Scotch.

Ernest, enjoy it while you can, for all of us there will come a day when we cannot do it anymore. The worst thing in life that can happen to oneself is when you say, I should have done this or that, why didnt I do it when I could.

“Most of us are savages at heart. Deep down in the smug contentment of that hollow thing we call civilisation there smoulder the fires of our Berserker ancestry" - Owen Letcher â€The Bonds of Africa†1913

Why? – Why not? – Hum – Honestly - I don’t know - when I will know, I will stop…

“Once, they say, in the olden days a venturesome man set forth,
Threaded a path by devious ways, westward and south and north,
Dallied with Death at every breath while many a moon went by
Till he found the brake by the Silent Lake where the Elephants come to die.â€

(excerpt from “The Place Where the Elephants Dieâ€)

I also wonder if someone can hunt in Africa, and I mean really hunt on foot in a wild area, and remain indifferent after the experience. If indifference is the norm than we are all suffering from some psychological disorder, we have an obsession. If, on the other hand, we have discovered that one human activity which exhilarates the human soul like no other, than we are the luckiest human beings alive.

Because it is what we all are.

Hunters.

We are only 100 or so generations from killing or being killed. Genetically speaking, not enough time to cleanse our sense of survival from us. The body remembers what the mind forgets.

Why do we hunt Dangerous Game?

Because we can!

My standard reply to the general "Why do you hunt?" question is;

"I don't know. But I also don't know why the shape of a womans back side can make me apoplectic. It's just the way it is"

DG, although I've only done a bit, is just more of the same. Kinda like floating white water. It tends to instill moments of intense focus and long periods of deep retrospection on those moments.

-Steve

Judge,

I drive a 1981 Chevrolet Custom Deluxe Pickup. I try and hunt in Africa almost every year. My "friends" ask me why. I dont really give them an answer. These "friends" are members on deer leases that cost thousands of dollars a year. They might go once or twice a year. They are people who only want the trappings of a life style. Its just for show and social standing. There is a fellow here who goes to Africa ever so often and stays in camp the whole time and reads. He gets the PH to go out and shoot his "trophies" so he will look good back home to his friends.

Unlike these guys I think about it daily, all day everyday. I have been doing this since my first trip over in 1988. There is nothing like it. It is all encompassing and totally fullfilling. I guess it is like some of the tag lines I read here, at the bottom of some folks post, one is "Once you have been among them...", and one is " There are only two types of people, those who have been to Africa and those that are planning a trip to Africa".

We are simply people who have expanded our view of the world. We seem to be practicle people, for the most part, who understand that there is more to life than F-250's and high dollar weddings. Don't take me wrong, taking care of my family and responsibilities is top priority. It's just that there is more to life than the daily grind of being a working stiff who is going to die the month after they retire from their job.

JudgeG ----- Funny you should ask the very question that was asked me just yesterday by my two non hunting son-in-laws. We were all at my house and of course all who visit there are subjected to the Moose, Bear rug, a dozen Elk racks and one shoulder mount, five Deer mounts, European mounts on Cape Buffalo, Kongoni, Impala, as well as Zebra, Kongoni, Caribou, and Elk hides. Occasionally the subject of hunting comes up from someone who cannot understand the killing of Bambi, much less the hunting down of the pretty and defenseless Zebra. The question this time was which game animal was the most challanging and satisfactory in my hunting past. The answer was very easy, first was my very first Whitetail Deer, a Doe with a 30-30 and open sights which was a real challange at the time to my budget. Second was the Brown Bear near Cold Bay Alaska, third the Cape Buffalo from the Selous. WOW was the response from them, how could a Doe possibly compete with the dangerous game. My answer was, you just had to be there in my shoes at the time. I will admit that since then Dangerous Game has captivated my soul, much the same as yours, and the persuit of it will rule the rest of my hunting career. Six grandsons and a grandaughter hopefully will have a heads up on the hunting of all game. One thing is for sure, they each will have a well set up rifle to pursue whatever game they may desire, or not, their call. Good shooting.

Why?

For probably the same reason some people like riding roller coasters, drinking excessively, going to scary movies, mountian climbing, riding motorcycles, riding horses at jumps, having an illicit affair, skiing, jumping out of perfectly good airplanes, doing cocaine......

Folks,

You people have put a lot of thought into this question and obviously several of you have pondered this for considerable time. I find agreement in all that has been posted but for me DG hunting and hunting in general is just part of me and always has been. As I've gotten older it has become even more important to me and the twists and turns of life have let me make my life about hunting and for that I'm grateful. If some one asks why I hunt I guess my answer would have to be that my life would not be my life without hunting.

Mark

Because:

1. To be one with nature you must participate in it. This is not possible as merely an observer.

2. In order for a renewable resource to be viable it must be renewed.

3. Do you know where that chicken or fish sandwich came from?

4. You don't understand how little you really know about the world until you've been somewhere else in it.

Judge G,
Interesting post. The WHY may be just the simple fact that we are hunters and have the hunter gatherer gene. Just enjoy the fact that you can and do and will for many years to come. I hope to fulfill my dreams of hunting Africa some day.

judge g...

after reading yer post (congrats on being so honest) i think you like something that is "real" where you stand in the middle and make something happen. it seems you like the weight of the responsibility and consequence of the moment. you feel most alive at that moment and you would not trade it for anything (and you havent) i have used about 7 of my 9 lives and would not trade those moments and experiences for anything as i guess you wouldnt as well. as einstein put it so well "the tragedy of man is what dies inside of him while he still lives" dreams matter. living them is a statement to yourself that you matter. you dream of hunting d.g.. we are supposed to "avoid all extremes" so if you hunt a few times a year, you feel more complete and whole and i dont think that is an "extreme"...just a priority. the wife needed to count the cost of your hunting needs, she gave her answer but sadly too late. i say share your love of hunting to as many youths as possible to pass it on and multiply the joy you feel as well.

I dont know why, its instinctive for me like eating, sex, or breathing.

I remember going to the San Fransico Boat Show when I was 5 years old they had a gun display there-in S.F. no less, imagine that now days. Anyways they had a gun there I cant remember a thing about the gun but the pictures all around it were of Big game, My Uncle and Mom told me it was an elephant gun, I just stared at it with this burning feeling inside-i cant fully describe. The only thing I knew was that I had to go elephant hunting no matter what.

It took me years to make it happen but I did. I even took my mom elephany hunting and shot a tuskless cow, she had a good time watching the guys take it apart.

14 elephants later I still have the same burning desire to go elephant hunting, its my favorite thing to do, period. I am working on my skills each hunt and in another hunt or 2 I'm going to be the guy in front and not the trigger man following the PH, then I'LL be a true elephant hunter and not just a client who shoots elephants, it takes along time to read them and be safe. Its something I HAVE to learn, until I do I wont be satified.

But why? I dont know its just in me.

Because I can. After two major surgeries in the last three years (one in late September), at 58 years old it gives me something to use as a goal to keep myself going.

I've wanted to hunt dangerous game since I was a small child. I've had a fascination with double rifles, Mausers, any caliber that started with .375 or up and Africa since before I was in high school.

I did not play football in high school because I didn't want to miss out on hunting season. Even though when I graduated I was 6'4" 228LBS and faster than almost any kid in school in a 40 or a 100 yard dash.

My fondest memories as a child were cruising the pinnon forests of Northern NM where I grew up with a pellet gun in hand hunting "dangerous game". Birds were plains game, cotton tails were buffalo, and jack rabbits were elephants.

After college I had a direct commission offer into the Coast Guard as an aviator. I skipped it because they wouldn't guarantee me a Kodiak posting, instead I took the $5,000 I'd managed to save up flying Grand Canyon air tours while a student and took a dilapidated 1958 C-180 and flew to Alaska where I remained flying and hunting for nearly 5 years. If I wasn't flying over wild country trying to figure out a good spot to drop off some wayward sportsman or a load of diapers and coke to a village I was hoofing it myself with a rifle in hand. I am still haunted by that magical and ruthless land and the majestic critters that live there. It is impossible to forget the absolute sterile silence of a winters night far out on the Arctic sea ice. Or the spine tingling awareness when pushing thick alders on steaming hot bear sign down on the Penn.

On 9-11-01 I watched personal friends of mine die in fiery, metal twisted, crashes. They were just doing their jobs the same job for the same company I work for.

That is kind of like getting your head held down in the toilet bowl of mortality and being given a nice long reality swirly.

The very next year I was in Tanzania on a double buffalo hunt. I've been back 5 times since then and have collected buff, elephant and a very nice smattering of plains game. There isn't an instant that I am not thinking about my next adventure.

I am totally afflicted. I can very clearly recall cradling my first double rifle in my arms nearly choking back a tear like a proud poppa holding his first newborn. I achieved that rifle by working for it with my own two hands. That is a special feeling.

As I sit here writing this I am picturing in my mind as clear as if it were happening that old dagga in the Zambezi breaking cover, ducking his head and setting his horns for the kill at same moment my second barrel fired breaking his neck. I can see the African sunset hear the night jarh, the hyena, a lion chuffing as the African night comes to life.

The only thing that upsets me in all the turmoil I've been through as an airline pilot in the last 5 years. 65% pay cut ,loss of retirement, loss of pension, company stock striped away and made worthless, management abuses, loss of seniority, being set back to new hire co-pilot schedules, Islamic assholes targeting making me into a target based solely on my profession, abuses by airport security, a crippling spinal injury and consequent botched surgery, a company that tried to deny me sick pay and benefits for 5 months during it all.

The only part about any of that upsets me is that I haven't been able to hunt DG in the last 2 years.

Some may call it fanatical. I think not. It is a healthy connection with the most basic and wild instincts of man kind. I feel sorry for any man who doesn't have these most basic instincts. For they have ceased to be true human beings. They are nothing more than modern incarnations of man, lost in materialism and the twisted morals of a media dictated, pop culture.

Well Juddge you've hit a deep and primal nerve. All of my life the thing that I have enjoyed the most, is grabbing a rifle and a pack and going over the hill to see what adventure I could find. I'm 59 and I still watch Johnny Weismiller and Tarzan. I have read the old classics by Hunter and Taylor and........ I am blessed to live in Montana where a grizz around camp at night heightens your senses. It ain't the same as runnin possum in Texas when I was a kid. You up the anty with a critter than can fight back and kill you. Think about this, if elk had rifles we'd all be dead, not to mention bear or lion. To match wits and instincts on their turf and win, is as they say, a rush. Bear and mountain lion (called in not using dogs) are my only DG in Montana, but I WILL NEVER FORGET they first night I lay in my tent in the Okavango delta and listened to the lions roar around my camp ALL NIGHT. Those who have been there, know what I mean. I have danced around Africa and lived there once a long time ago. The danger is always there. Dying, killing and even murder are part of the African legascy. Afrca and all the name implies becomes part of each of us who go there, never to be quite the same person again. Mark knows that SnowyMtn Hunter and I leave for Tanzania in less than 36 hours. On the menu? Cape buffalo of course!!! Plains game will be a great deal of fun to be certain. The whole experience is to be sipped and swished like a good merlot. I hope I can hear the lions roar one more time in my life. I am blessed to be able to do this. Some fine men who live shallow desperate urbanit lives will never realize the heart of the hunter that is buried deep within each of us.
Now, how's that for philosophy?
I'm gonna finish packing now.

Do it without the "hired gun" ie Professional Hunter protecting your arse.

Perhaps it will get truly dangerous for once.

NitroX:

If you are refering to me, I'm pretty sure that "dangerous" is a situation that I fully understand.... or maybe I don't. I forgot that I had a "professional hired-gun" wingman covering my six when we went hunting over near your part of the world.

Eat a Mk-82 for me.

"slick" or with "snake eye" fins? jorge

Judge G, what a GREAT post.

I can't ever remember not being a hunter. I remember having to read the Laura Ingalls-Wilder books. The whole Little House on the Prairie series in third grade. The ONLY chapter I remember is where the Dad kills a buck during the full moon in an apple orchard by climbing up in the tree.

I have read extensively trying to understand the why, but have come to the conclusion, because that's who and what we are. Plain and simple.

The personal motivations and influences are varied, but we are all hunters.

Some people it's different goals that motivate them. But to me it's the hunt.

quote:

Originally posted by NitroX:
Do it without the "hired gun" ie Professional Hunter protecting your arse.

Perhaps it will get truly dangerous for once.

thats exactly what i want to do, then i'll be a true elephant hunter, not the triggerman. hell anyone can do that with a bit of practice at the range.

Judge,

We humans are predators; have been and always will be. Some of us, the Rosie O'Donnell's of the world, denign the true nature of our species and eat plants and store bought meats and look down on hunters as crazy or lacking in some way or another.

But we humans are predators. And when we hunt and make a kill, we get in touch with our true ancestry and become part of a tradition dating back to when the man first picked up his primitive tools and put meat on the table. Granted our tools for hunting have improved dramatically since ancient times, but hunting is part of what we do and who we are.

So when someone asks you why you hunt, ask them why they don't. Because afterall, you're just doing what comes natural.

That's why.

I'm glad you asked that question.

I came to firearms late and hunting even later. Although I had hunted, I had not killed any appreciable amount of game until I hunted Africa. Since hunting there the first time in 1996, it has become a passion that many, including my wife, do not understand. There was a post on this board recently about memorable quotes about Africa. The following was posted by Huttey (its Hemmingway):

". . . I loved the country so that I was happy as you are after you have been with a woman that you really love, when, empty, you feel it welling up again and there it is and you can never have it all and yet there is, now, you can have, and you want more and more, to have, and be, and live in, to possess now again for always, for that long, sudden-ended always; making time stand still, sometimes so very still afterwards you wait to hear it move, and it is slowly starting. But you are not alone, because if you ever have really loved her happy and un-tragic, she loves you always, no matter whom she loves nor where she goes she loves you more. So if you have loved some woman and some country you are very fortunate and, if you die afterwards it makes no difference."

I was never a great fan of Hemmingway, but he summed up Africa and its experience in that paragraph. Africa is real; its close to the bone; it is survival and surviving. We hunt because we are predators, and we hunt dangerous game because they are the most challenging. We enjoy the chase and all that leads up to it. It is what we do. Some paint, some write, some build, some entertain, and some hunt. And some of them hunt dangerous game. Hunting 'dogs is a test of one's marksmanship. Hunting white tails is a test of one's stealthiness. But hunting buffalo or lion or elephant is a test of your intellect, your conditioning, your shooting as well as your mettle. Can you, will you, put your body on the ground and search out these prey on their turf? Can you organize, plan, and execute the hunt from a half-formed idea through to a stalk halfway around the world in Lokisale or the Caprivi Strip? Can you put steel on the target when the time comes?

I read somewhere that the English hunted as a means of honing their martial skills between campaigns. I can understand this approach. It requires significant planning to execute a successful hunt. I have reported some successes here, but have only alluded to the hours spent refining loads, practicing my shooting, selecting gear, and physical conditioning. Judge, as you recently found out, you can't do it the way you'd like with a few extra pounds. Keeping in "fighting" trim and ready to go on a hunt keeps me engaged, young, and stokes the fire in my belly. Victory is a mind set. Can't never could. When the time comes, can you quickly, surely, and accurately kill something that is capable of killing you if you are not successful? This is the question that haunts us and which we keep answering. Kudude