quote:

Originally posted by lavaca:
I've heard a lot of great "Russian client" stories, but the best one I ever heard came in installments. It happened in a camp and with a PH where I was hunting. Not mentioning any names here to protect the guilty.

I was hunting with the PH that experienced the first half of this story on the banks of a river that divided two concessions. The concession across the river was operated by a different outfitter.

My PH had a Russian client in my camp, who apparently actually left camp and hunted, but nevertheless brought a shapely young "interpreter" who was bored while he was away. So, she sunbathed at least topless next to the river during the day and walked around camp pretty much naked all day long. Needless to say, the guys weren't getting anything done while the PH was in the field, as in nothing.

So he came up with a rather brilliant solution.

First, he told the young lady that in camp, she had to be fully clothed. However, if she wanted to sunbathe and take her clothes off, there were some flat rocks on the river bank a couple of miles downriver that would be perfect, and, he assigned his oldest tracker to take care of her, giving him a rifle in furtherance of that task. So she started getting naked and sunbathing on the rocks a few miles downriver. Life in camp went back to normal; things started getting done; problem solved.

Years later, I heard the rest of the story from the PH on the other side of the river. It seems that the rocks my PH recommended for her nude sunbathing were almost directly across the river from the other camp. The PH on the other side of the river started noticing that things weren't quite right. Things weren't getting done while they were away hunting. He questioned his staff and got nothing. No explanation.

One day, they were in the vicinity and decided to stop by camp for lunch. They found camp totally deserted. Starting to get concerned, they began checking around the tents for staff and to see if they had been raided or robbed.

Sure enough, it appeared they had been robbed. But the strangest thing, was that the only thing that had been stolen were rifle scopes, binoculars, or any kind of optics. Nothing else. After further exploration, they found the entire staff on the river bank with whatever optics they could beg, borrow or steal, watching the Russian "interpreter" sunbathe on the rocks across the river. Apparently, this had been going on for several days.

That story came full circle over a period of years, but is hilarious.