I was on another site and happened to see a thread titled "Willie Englebrecht" and it took me back to my first Safari in the Okavango delta in 1998. Willie was a long time PH in Botswana and to say he was a character is quite an understatement. I was hunting out of splash camp with Mark Kyriacou's outfit, Glenn Munger was my PH, and Willie was hunting out of tsum tsum. One day we were near tsum tsum and stopped for lunch with him and his clients. When I told him that on day one I had simultaneously shot my first big game animal and first african trophy, a cape buffalo, Willie said "Why that's like going to a whorehouse for the first time and getting the madam".
Willie was fighting cancer at the time, as was my brother, who knew Willie. When David flew in to join me later that week Willie made a point of meeting the bush plane. One of my treasured memories is the two of them standing on the landing strip urging each other to keep fighting the good fight.
Sadly they both lost the fight.
Another story as related to me: Willie had to take a test to renew his PH license. The examiner asked him what the first thing was that he would do if a buffalo attacked his client. "Go to the truck and get my axe" Willie replied. When asked "Why?" Willie said "So that I can cut down the tree". When the confused examiner said "What tree?". Willie said" The F***ing tree that my F***ing tracker has climbed up so that I can get my F***ing rifle and shoot the F***ing buffalo".
I wish that I would have had the chance to spend more time with Willie.

sounds like he lived a life that should have been written down to pass on to the rest of us.

We are diminished...

Rich

"Why that's like going to a whorehouse for the first time and getting the madam".

"Go to the truck and get my axe"........"So that I can cut down the tree"........"The F***ing tree that my F***ing tracker has climbed up so that I can get my F***ing rifle and shoot the F***ing buffalo".

You've got to love colorful characters like that. You know them when you meet them.......and you never forget them.

Brett