Renowned Professional Hunter Anthony Dyer wrote this account of his life in Kenya where he was born in 1926 up to the end of his hunting career in 1961. It contains his personal observations of hunting the Big 5 at a time when the safari life was in its prime.

Publisher Harald Wolf left a few of these books with me from the SCI show. They are out of a limited edition of 1,000 and are signed by Harald. I only have 10 or 12 left. They are $120 delivered and packaged by UPS. If ordered now you should be able to get them before Christmas.


Orders from website only by credit card.

Anthony Dyer - The Big 5

Here is an excerpt with his observations.

Cheers,

Alan



There is so much about elephant behavior that puzzles man. One cannot be with these great animals without developing an increasing suspicion that the elephant is not just an animal, not just an ordinary beast of the field. One can describe what one can see, hear, smell or feel; one can argue about what one believes. But how can I draw the reader into the feeling of awe, sympathy, and love that I have for elephant that even I cannot explain? Let me just try to describe what I have seen, state the facts as they are generally accepted, and record all sides of the story as well as I can.

It is necessary that the reader should know that I write from the viewpoint of a hunter. I started hunting these magnificent animals in 1948 and I have been continuously involved with elephants ever since. My home is in the middle of a great ranching area in northern Kenya. We have a growing elephant population that currently numbers over three thousand which ranges over an area of about ten thousand square kilometers.

Although I retired from professional hunting in 1961, I still am called on to help eliminate problem or rogue animals. Wherever possible I use these occasions to try to teach the next generations the lessons that I learnt ― often the hard way ― when I was a full time hunter. This is now a fine opportunity to pass these personal opinions on to others. This is most important because the opportunities to obtain such experience are largely gone. There remain only a few countries in Africa where elephant can now be legally hunted.

Let us put aside all preconceived ideas on the best killing shots for these huge animals. It has often been said - and with good justification ― that the great success that Karamoja Bell had using small caliber rifles for brain shots ― has been the gory death of many who tried to do the same! As a novice it is difficult to effectively shoot a big, old bull elephant in the brain. I have only once shot like this and I took the precaution of having a fellow hunter to help out if necessary. As it turned out my little 7x57 solid bullet found the brain with a side shot and all was well. I never allowed my clients to try the brain shot. The head of a trophy size bull elephant is about a meter wide and the brain is hidden in the center of that bony mass. A shot from the side is significantly easier than a shot from the front. The elephant can raise his head upwards from the shoulder by as much as a meter and he can also tilt it upwards by as much as thirty degrees! It does not require much imagination to realize the fact that the aiming points on the front of the face will vary upwards or downwards by as much as half a meter. To choose that right point requires a rare combination of experience and courage ― for an elephant facing you at close range is formidable ― and if he is coming towards you at forty kilometers an hour there is not time to care-fully assess the situation. It must be the perfect snap shot or you are dead.

Do not be discouraged. Three out of the four elephants I have used to school novices in my heart shot methods died within sixty meters of where they were first hit. The fourth was lost until the following day and that was because the first shot was misplaced and a second shot was not possible. It is necessary to tell you this in order to emphasize the fact that even the heart shot is not certain IF YOU MISS THE HEART.

Under ideal conditions it is best to stalk up to between fifty and twenty five meters of your quarry. Your approach must be completely silent and the wind must be in your favor. You must also be as well concealed as possible, for an elephant's eyesight is about as good as your own. You must also be the minimum number of people ― two or three at the most. Never underrate all the senses of the elephant. Nor should you underrate his intelligence. Elephant that know they face the challenge of hunting behave completely differently to those that feel they are in a safe area. Our recent radio telemetry of elephant has demonstrated that they will hurry through danger areas at nighttime and then relax when they arrive in safe areas. In my old trophy hunting days many of the best bulls did not dare even go to water-holes in the desert. They would subsist for weeks on end from the liquids they obtained from crushing the wild sanseveria plants.

Now you are as close as you dare get and if possible you should get even closer. This is not only a matter of egotism ― it is a matter of effectiveness. Bullets from big game rifles have relatively slow muzzle velocities and the closer you can get to your elephant the harder you are going to hit him. Also you are going to be more accurate arid have a better chance for follow up shots. There is another factor of great importance, too. Your memories of close up stalks will be sources of pride and satisfaction for the rest of your lives. A clean close up shot is a sportsman's shot. A long range shot from a place of safety is an assassin's shot.

The judging of the weight of a tusk is no easy matter. When you first see a twenty kilo slender tusk you will think it is a monster. Think again and do not get too excited for the first appearances are most deceptive, particularly if viewed from behind, and at long range. You can only assess the weight of a tusk from within a maximum distance of a hundred meters. There are several factors to be taken into consideration and the one that is most apt to be ignored is the factor of the size of the elephant's body. One fine day long ago I was admiring our great Kenya elephant Ahamed. With me was a highly experienced judge of ivory arid we were speculating on the weight of those magnificent tusks. He said they were not less than 77 kilos (170 pounds) each side. I said that I would be surprised if they reached 68 kilos (150 pounds). Not long after that Ahamed peacefully died and I was proved correct to within 1% This, of course, was largely a matter of luck; but my assessment was based on the fact that Ahamed was not a very large elephant. Had he been a large bodied elephant with tusks in the same pro-portion they would have weighed 85 kilos (187 pounds) each side.

The other factors to be taken into consideration are thickness and shape. Some tusks taper off towards the point ― others taper much less and come to a blunt point ― those are the ones to get excited about. Hunters use the size of the nerve inside the base of the tusk as an excuse for misjudging weight. I think that this excuse is not well justified.

The best and only way to seriously assess the weights of tusks is to be able to view them well from about fifty meters from the side. Even then be prepared to be disappointed because long practice is the only way to even partial accuracy of judgment. I must confess that I am an enthusiast, an addict. The sight of big tusks is like a drug to me. I will always remember one vivid dream I had in which I was the happy spectator to a great cavalcade of large tusked bull elephants.

On one hunt long ago in the swamps where the Tana River flows into the Indian Ocean I sent my men off to wade to an island of doum palms. It took them most of a long day to get there and back and one of them nearly drowned in the process. Those highly experienced Liangulu hunters came back to me with an exciting story. When they got to the island there were nineteen large bull elephant having a party on the fermenting doum palm nuts. They were running around and trumpeting. Over to one side were three more giant bulls with massive tusks.
There was no way I could get my clients to this hunter's heaven before dark. It was the last day of the safari! Of such events are dreams made.

Whereas I have always longed to possess a pair of really large tusks I have never wanted to actually kill such an animal myself. I came to this conclusion forty years ago and it is somehow based on my great respect and affection for these great animals. I think one is justified in having such a view when one has seen what I have seen and heard what I have heard.

Let me tell you of one memorable hunt which for me sums up elephant hunting………

Anthony Dyer - The Big 5

Some of you may be interested in knowing that Bob Kuhn, who illustrated Dyer's book, died in Tucson in October. There was little publicity about his death, which is a shame because he was one of the top five or six wildlife artists of all time.

Bill Quimby

I read about Bob's passing with great sorrow. I grew up with his magazine illustrations and was fortunate enough to be able to buy one of his smaller pieces at the COIN convention in San Antonio in the early '70's.

quote:

I never allowed my clients to try the brain shot. The head of a trophy size bull elephant is about a meter wide and the brain is hidden in the center of that bony mass. A shot from the side is significantly easier than a shot from the front. The elephant can raise his head upwards from the shoulder by as much as a meter and he can also tilt it upwards by as much as thirty degrees! It does not require much imagination to realize the fact that the aiming points on the front of the face will vary upwards or downwards by as much as half a meter

Note where I shot my cow (look at the trunk) to brain it...



I am betting this is quite an interesting book.

I enjoyed this book. And Kuhn's illustrations are among the best I have seen.

The above-quoted excerpt notwithstanding, The Big Five is not so much a hunting book as it is the work of a perceptive field naturalist.

Dyer mostly describes the habits, behavior and habitat of these animals, and the hunting of them only incidentally.

This is not a criticism, since Dyer clearly does know the Big Five very well, and his observations are quite interesting.

BTT

That was a good shot Ann

Dave

This is a very good book to read. Just like practically all the ones written by the old PHs.

What I find interesting in almost all of them, someone would write something which I am almost certain he did not put into practice in the field - just like that quote Ann had above.