Peter Capstick may have "lit the fire," as Dave says, under a new generation of hunters, but that fire already was burning under several previous generations (including mine), thanks to a whole lot of other people.

In my view, Capstick (as much as I admire his writing) merely joins Ruark, Hemingway, Martin and Osa Johnson, Wally Tabor, J.A. Hunter, F.C. Selous, W.D.M. Bell, Theodore Roosevelt and a dozen other notable "fire starters," not to mention all those films of the 1950s to 1970s, such as "Hatarti" and "Snows of Kilimanjaro." Many more fires are being lit now by my friend Craig Boddington and others though their articles, books and videos.

However, I submit that it was C.J. McElroy and his Safari magazine and SCI conventions who showed America's hunters that hunting in Africa was not just for the very rich and who led the way in making international hunting what it is today.

SCI's conventions created the marketplace that brought "ordinary" hunters face-to-face with African outfitters early on; Safari magazine's articles and advertising kept those fires lit; and, yes, Mac's controversial record book, Inner Circles and Awards programs gave hunters reasons to keep returning to Africa and traveling all over the world.

Mac was as controversial as some of the programs he launched, but he deserves his due.

Bill Quimby

Bill has a great point. Maybe "re-lit" the fire of another generation was the term I should have used.

I still think the fact that Capstick was published by a major New York press like St. MArtins speaks volumes about his popularity and impact on the sporting world. As far as I know he was (and probably will be) the last to be so...

Hey guys, read it if you wish. Dismiss it if you wish. It's entertainment and fodder for your dreams of Africa. I don't think it was ever intended as a definitive guide and final word on Africa and African hunting. Make your own judgements and enjoy it for what it is. Or not.

I just finished Jim Corbett's "Man eaters of Kumaon".I really enjoyed the book.I think I enjoyed it as much as Death in the long grass.He shows us a bit of what that part of India is like-really wonderfull,at the same time how familiar he is with his surroundings-fauna and flora and how he uses this knowledge to hunt the maneaters.Full of class!!

Why is this dead horse being beat again? How about we do a poll and everyone in favor of Capstick being deleted from the history of hunters wanting to go to Africa voting that way, and those folks that feel that Capstick was the one that "Lit The Fire In Them" to make a safari voting for him.

Then, depending how the votes come out, we either agree that Capstick was a total fraud and deserves no place in the history of Americans making safaris to Africa because of his writings, or we shut the hell up!

There are probably many individuals that made the decision to go on safari, because of Capstick's writings, that never read any of Taylor's or Ruarks or any other African writers works.

Why do so many folks seem to be so hot on discrediting anything Capstick did?

Is it because of personal interactions with Capstick or that some folks just don't want to concede to the fact that Capstick, in many ways appealed to the masses?

I wouldn't cry-out that any of the authors mentioned above with the exception of maybe Ruark could be hailed as "fire starters".

I once give "Death in the Long Grass" to a friend, after reading it, he told me he could indeed see "how those surly must have been exiting times". I explained, those times, less the typical embellishments of a book — was now! It didn't completely change his reluctant attitude toward hunting Africa, but he was totally eager in reading more about it and was resisting my aim considerably less than before.

The next book I give him was "A Hunter's Wanderings in Africa" after returning it unfinished, to say the least, it did not have the same affect. I was as surprised by his opinion as he was my audacity to presume he would ever be interested in a book that allowed the killing of baby elephants, (his words) wounding animals and leaving them for dead, killing for only a morsel of fat and the eating of kids. I was more than a little taken back (read floored) by his last remark, and after some confusion, I enlightened him that the kid they ate in the story, was that of a goat and not of human flesh, and yes it was hilarious, excepting he was serious.

The authors above are great when Africa has it's hold on you, but they do not fire-up people like PHC does. Craig Boddington, IMO is the best Africa writer alive, and in a battle for respect between the two, the Col. wins hands down, still, his writing will not stir the natural instinctive state of mood that PHC will.

For those convinced SCI in anyway has had the same impact as PHC on "ordinary" hunters, are out of touch with ordinary hunters. I'm not an SCI basher and I don't intend to become one but the organization targets upper middle class an above, far from ordinary people. Perhaps in a bygone era before my time (I doubt it) but certainly not today.

RayRay:

Surely you don't believe that no one was inspired to hunt in Africa before Peter Capstick came along.

My own fires were lit by seeing the films by Martin and Osa Johnson, Ivan Tors and Wally Tabor, and the later ones starring John Wayne and Stewart Granger when I was a boy in Yuma, Arizona in the 1940s and 1950s.

Those films eventually led me to the books by Hemingway, Ruark, Hunter, Selous, Roosevelt, Bell and others. Magazine articles by Jack O'Connor and Elmer Keither only served to increase my desire to hunt on that continent.

I'd been to Africa twice before I read anything by Capstick.

Although you are unwilling to admit it, the African hunting industry would not be what it is today if SCI's founder had not created the venue that continues to lure hundreds of African outfitters to the USA year after year to display and sell their wares.

Bill Quimby

I think the difference is that Capstick inspired the generation that came along After, those of us born in the 40's and early 50's.

I stated elsewhere that my decision to go to Newfoundland in 1996 was inspired by a video I saw of Lee Wulff hunting moose and fishing for Atlantic Salmon up there back in the early 60's.

I have talked to folks in the 45 and under crowd that thier whole desire to go to Africa was because of Capstick's writings.

The only thing I found wrong with Jim Corbett is that at the end of his hunting days he thought more for photographing tigers than hunting them.He mentions the cost difference betweeen hunting and photographing with one being more than the other and I guess he meant hunting tigers being greater.He then goes on to say that a photo of a tiger can be enjoyed my many where a trophy,only by the hunter.I felt like he was jelous of others who could afford to hunt tiger.

quote:

The only thing I found wrong with Jim Corbett is that at the end of his hunting days he thought more for photographing tigers than hunting them.

I think that is a fairly common sentiment among guys who have hunted a long time. Things change, even for hunters, and I dont think it is that appropriate to consider something 'wrong' with a decision a guy makes such as this. I know many more people who, when older, enjoyed showing people how to hunt/fish than hunting and fishing themselves.

What I find wrong is when people benefit from certain condition and then wish for that condition to no longer exist.It's like being at the gas station on the day of a price hike at the pumps,filling up and tipping off the owner or station manager that the price at the neighbouring stations started going up.

quote:

Originally posted by Crazyhorseconsulting:
I think the difference is that Capstick inspired the generation that came along After, those of us born in the 40's and early 50's. I stated elsewhere that my decision to go to Newfoundland in 1996 was inspired by a video I saw of Lee Wulff hunting moose and fishing for Atlantic Salmon up there back in the early 60's. I have talked to folks in the 45 and under crowd that thier whole desire to go to Africa was because of Capstick's writings.

That's one half of the point I was trying to make: Capstick was neither the first nor the last to inspire hunters to hunt in Africa.

Bill Quimby

Corbett was probably the best writer of the lot and John Taylor was good too, but with an unusual style.

I got interested in Africa back around 1960 reading Martin and Olsa Johnson's adventures in Kenya.

When I first read Capstick, he seemed very short on experience compared to them, and far from a great writer.

Boy, for a guy who, according to so many, was full of it, his name sure comes up an awful lot. Must have done something right...

I got the bug from a grandmother who gave me an old leather-bound copy of TR's African Game Trails when I was about 8. She just wanted to keep me from underfoot, I'm convinced.

Later, I read and acquired everything Capstick wrote and a bit of a more extensive library as well. I'm convinced that Capstick can spin a yarn. That's a writer's job.

I've hunted in one camp where the PH was absolutely apoplectic that Capsick was a complete fraud. I refused to engage. While he clearly had some real experience, Capstick's yarns always seemed to be intended as a bit of fiction. I don't see the harm in that, any more than Ruark's tales.

I never met Peter, although my wife did when she had him sign my copy of "Death in the Long Grass" during one of his visits to Houston. She found him quite affable, although a bit unusal with his monacal and all that. I think it was part of the persona.

I enjoyed his books, but think we owe him a greater debt by making the old books by Stigand, Foran, Von Blixen, etc. more readily available.