TANZ-PH I seriously doubt you have read even one of PHC's books, yet you seem to be an authority on his every move!I think BaxterB's suggestion that you read a little then comment, is a good idea!

+1

Landrum

quote:

Originally posted by 500grains:


Did he die? I hope not.

Tony Sanchez Arino is guiding for Tanganyka Wildlife Safaris (Pasanisi). To be more accurate, as a VIP, he is guiding his own clients on the TWS areas (Selous and Masailand).

My comments about John Taylor:
One tends to categorize people in stereotypes: homo, bi, hetero-sexual. In fact there is another category, ASEXUAL. People who don’t care about sex and who have no particular sexual desire and living without sex intercourses. This tendency is more remarked nowadays especially among the youngsters. Why not according the benefit of doubt to JT.

About PHC shooting an ele at 100+ yards, it’s the case on his video, Capstick on elephant. On this vid PHC is seen struggling to shoot an elephant and endly letting fly at an unwise distance.

quote:

About PHC shooting an ele at 100+ yards, it’s the case on his video, Capstick on elephant. On this vid PHC is seen struggling to shoot an elephant and endly letting fly at an unwise distance.

If you are talking about when he is with Volker Grellmann, the first shot is at 60 and the second at 100. The first shot was heart/lung so one would expect a longer second shot would they not?

quote:

Originally posted by jbderunz:
About PHC shooting an ele at 100+ yards, it’s the case on his video, Capstick on elephant. On this vid PHC is seen struggling to shoot an elephant and endly letting fly at an unwise distance.

Here again is a misconseption fostered by the long, or short lens offering a sceen that is not exactly what it seems to be! PHC's ele in that film was not shot at 100 yds, as the film seems to show! The very last shot was at 90 yds! How do I know that? Well I know that because Volker Grellmann the PH who guided that hunt told me,personally that the camara man failed to extend the lens,makeing all the shots look much farther than they actually were. That mistake makeing the first shot look very long, but was actually only about 55 yds,because of a fallen tree in the way, that was the shortest distance he had a clear shot, with the second shot at maybe 60 yds,both of the first two shoots hitting the heart, and the last two being about 75 and 90 yds, both hitting the chest cavity, for the going away shots.

My friends, these ACTUAL distances are not unusual in open country like Namibia, and those ACTUAL distances were comfirmed to me, by the PH himself,while expressing his displeasure with the camera man, screwing up the film, causeing the shots to look too long. The shots on PHC's ele in that film were no longer that the first shot on the ele taken by the california hunter on that same film, and the rest of PHC's shots were closer than the downrange shots by the Cali hunter's! Why isn't his shooting being frowned on here? The reason why is, he is not Peter Hathaway Capstick, no other reason! However there is no justification for ire shown for either hunter, it just seems the thing to do here!

Another thing that the films seems to catch Peter in an exageration is on one of his films he states he had taken over 800 elephants! Of course, on the face of it, that is a stretch, BUT, I happen to have the audio of that statement un-cut. The part that didn't make it into the film is "I have taken over 800 elephants" >>CUT<<, but the audio goes on to finish that statement, with >> UNCUT<< "I say I've taken over 800 elephants, what I mean is, I have been in on the TAKEING of 800 elephant, but most of them were not mine, but belonged to clients, or to the government from cropping!" The last half of that total statement ended up on the cutting floor.

At the time of my interview with Volker,at the DSC show some yrs ago, he also made an unsolicited comment about Peter's extensive knowledge of elephant body language, and anatomy,and his willingness to walk for miles in the 114 deg heat, with absolutely no complaint, a fact that suprized Volker, because of the talk he'd heard before hunting with Peter. Talk kind of like much of the rhetoric posted here!

The above post is just another example of TALK without knowing the facts, the exact thing most want to accuse PHC of doing! You know, the pot calling the kettle black, so to speak!

.................................BYE I'm out fo here!

Thanks Mac for these data.

Honestly when viewing the vid, the departing bull looks very far.

The one thing that has to be admitted by all sides is that PHC would not be a controversial figure as a PH had he not achieved fame as an author.

The reason I tend to see so much of what is written about him as just so much petty jealousy is that other hunters, professional or otherwise, criticize him on the basis that he was not as experienced a PH as he made himself out to be. Rather than being able to criticize him on the basis on which he achieved fame; as an author.

Which leads me to a couple of conclusions, in no particular order.

The first of which is that it appears to me that PHC went through an evolution as an author that they have not been able to notice. At first, he was just interested in selling good reads to a select audience; hunters and shooters. Which he makes apparent in one of his earlier books in which he refuses to discuss the intrigues revolving around Selous, but mentions biographies that do discuss them for those interested. He on the other hand, states he is only interested in the man for literary purposes as a hunter.

Which is fine; Selous is just one hunter out of several discussed in the book. The chapter on Selous isn't meant to be a biography.

It appears that a short while later PHC decided he did want to be taken seriously as a biographer outside of the niche market that only wants to read the good hunting stories, and in order to do that the author has to write about the unpleasant side that everyone has. Some more than others, maybe, but it exists nonetheless. I doubt than anyone who wasn't a hunter would be interested in writing about Taylor in the first place. But if you are going to aspire to be a serious author and you are writing a biography, then you have to take on the unpleasant side as best you can no matter how much admiration you have for your subject.

Which is why I find Tony Sanchez-Arino's comments so off base and unfair. Arino said that discussing the man's alleged homosexuality was an odd way of expressing admiration. No matter how much the Great White Hunter feels his fellows deserve the Great White Wash, the fact remains that any biography intended to be taken seriously by the general reading public, as opposed to a select market only interested in hero worship, deals with the negatives as well as the positives.

PHC had quit hunting professionally and had turned entirely to writing something like 20 years earlier before he wrote "A Man Called Lion." It should be sort of apparent to anyone that PHC had long since quit trying to do things so he would be taken seriously as a PH and had started trying to do things so he would be taken seriously as a writer. Because at that point, that's what he was.

If you don't want to read "A Man Called Lion" because of what you heard about the book, then don't read it. He didn't write about the unpleasant controversies surrounding Taylor because he was trying to sell YOU a book. If he wanted to sell you a book, he would have stuck to his formula that put money in his pocket from his earlier books and simply avoided the subject. But you can not criticize him, as an author, for moving past his tried-and-true formula in favor of doing what any serious biographer would be obligated to do.

The second conclusion I draw from the fact that hunters would rather discuss PHC's alleged inadequacies as a professional hunter rather than his qualifications as an author is that they believe PHC's fame is undeserved. This is not conjecture on my part. Again, Tony Sanchez-Arino criticizes the author's body of work entirely on that basis.

Also again, this is off base and unfair.

PHC became famous because he was a better writer than they are, not because he was a better hunter. I think PHC would be the first to admit that there were certainly PH's around who had more experience, more brushes with danger, shot better, etc.

What they didn't bother to do was spend a decade writing for magazines during the parts of the year when they weren't hunting and then later author a dozen books.

I suppose the one advantage to not publishing anything is that, since you're not selling any stories, you can't be accused of stealing any.

Which seems to be PHC's major crime. He published stories. On the basis of his taking the initiative to do that, he achieved a certain level of fame others did not. Which, I suppose, might really piss off some guy who believes he has the greatest hunting stories the world has never heard of.

But if you don't like the fact that PHC's fewer and less dramatic stories got wider circulation than your own, the solution is to write your own damn book. Not to start some sort of general and nonspecific rumors that the famous author was a fraud just because you feel the need to poison the well.

True PHC blew his own horn to a degree. He wrote books and magazine articles, some portion of which discussed himself. So what? John Taylor could be accused of the same thing as he wrote books that also discussed his own exploits. So could Tony Sanchez-Arino, if he authored anything that discusses himself.

If you discuss yourself in a published work in a generally positive way, then you are blowing your own horn. I mean, nobody else is doing it, are they?

The thing all these jealous PH's get wrong is that PHC's books came after he had quit hunting professionally. So he couldn't profit from his books as a PH, could he? PHC could be accused of self-promotion if he had some sort of business interest he was writing about to promote. But he didn't.

They and others need to recognize the fact that PHC's entertaining books put money in their pockets. Because if the "sensationalist, rank amateur" sparked anybody's interest in hunting Africa, they would have had to hire someone other than PHC to go hunting with, wouldn't they?

PHC quit hunting professionally in 1975. Every single one of his books came later. I think it is beyond dispute those books promoted African hunting to a wider audience than his earlier articles for Guns & Ammo or American Hunter. To the degree these books were a positive advertisement for African hunting, others benefited from the business he generated. He couldn't, as he was no longer directly involved in the business.

To the degree he promoted African hunting, it was the business interests of OTHERS who benefited.

I'm sure there are several well-known PH's who could sell a few books to people who like to hunt. What PHC could do that they couldn't was sell lots of books to people who just like to read. I guess it really chaps the ass of more than a few PH's to know deep down inside that they wouldn't be as widely known as they are if it weren't for the "sensationalist" author who could write better than they want to admit. Apparently, he could also hunt better than they want to admit.

I think if I run into Sanchez-Arino in Reno or Dallas, I'll say something like, "Tony Sanchez-Arino! I read about you in one of Capstick's books! Glad to meet you!" I'll see how that goes over.

I believe that PHC is disliked by some "hunters" for his exagerating, chest thumping and possibly bragging ways because they do not like those exact characteristics in themselves.

Of course that would not be anyone here on AR.

First off I am a big fan of PHC, Taylor, and Tony Sanchez. Having read books written by all three I must say that I enjoyed all of them. For the record Tony Sanchez did write a book about himself called "Last of the Few." It's a excellent book that speaks a great deal about dangerous game hunting and fireamrs. Tony also speaks of his frindship with John Taylor in depth and on more than one occasion in the book. This is also not the first time he has taken a crack at an unamed auther who one could only assume was PHC. I think Tony's criticizem of PHC is that he sensationalized accounts with dangerous game; he is also far from the only auther to criticize PHC on that point. Comments like these really did not make me enjoy reading or think any less of PHC, just like the comments on Taylor. Tony Sanchez considered Taylor a good friend and I would think he took offense to the subject matter of his sexuality being printed in a book. Tony's experince in Africa as a hunter and PH is extensive, with evidence in Craig Boddington's book "Where Lions Roar" he comments "Tony Sanchez Arino the greatest living Elephant Hunter" and then continues as he uses one of Tony's comments on hunting elephant. Like I said I enjoy reading all three men's work and condiser them all to be great hunters as well as writers. I just hate to see somebody like Tony Sanchez Arino run down so hard, the man is considered a living legend.

Well put by the Asian Squid and Mac Daddy. PHC did alot that bolstered African hunting. In a similar vein, no one since has done as much except Mark Sullivan, like it or not, like him or not.

If I recall correctly PHC was employed as a Professional by Ker, Downy and Selby, an outfit not known for sending clients out with idiots or cowards.

Beats my credentials all to hell.

quote:

Originally posted by Jefffive:
If I recall correctly PHC was employed as a Professional by Ker, Downy and Selby, an outfit not known for sending clients out with idiots or cowards.

Beats my credentials all to hell.

I don't think they employed him as a PH though.

Perhaps one of the posters here who knows Selby can find out?

Personally, I doubt Peter was ever near anything like 800 Dead Elephants. I know his cropping days were not particularly productive.

quote:

Originally posted by Jefffive:
If I recall correctly PHC was employed as a Professional by Ker, Downy and Selby, an outfit not known for sending clients out with idiots or cowards.

Beats my credentials all to hell.

I believe he worked for Safari South, but my memory get fuzzier every year! Damn it's hell to get old, and have an office with so much crap you can't find anything.

quote:

Originally posted by Gator1:

quote:

Originally posted by Jefffive:
If I recall correctly PHC was employed as a Professional by Ker, Downy and Selby, an outfit not known for sending clients out with idiots or cowards.

Beats my credentials all to hell.

I don't think they employed him as a PH though.

Perhaps one of the posters here who knows Selby can find out?

Personally, I doubt Peter was ever near anything like 800 Dead Elephants. I know his cropping days were not particularly productive.

I'm almost positive he at least claims they did, which would be a transparent thing to lie about. Seems like he describes an elephant hunt in Botswana in Last Horizons under their employ.

Just great. A bunch of computer moffies, calling an iconic elephant hunter a fag.
Ironic don't you think.

Take a lesson from the man, take some words of wisdom to heart. But dont try to take a dead mans dignity from him, as you only shame yourself by doing so.

quote:

Originally posted by Vlam:
Just great. A bunch of computer moffies, calling an iconic elephant hunter a fag.
Ironic don't you think.

Take a lesson from the man, take some words of wisdom to heart. But dont try to take a dead mans dignity from him, as you only shame yourself by doing so.

I might be missing the point here but whose dignity has been taken away?

quote:

Originally posted by darkside:
I wonder how 404 feels about all this?

Dammit! Somehow, my computer monitor is covered in coffee...

When this subject previously has come up, I was told by a relative of an Australian guy (not Dawkins btw) whom when younger hunted with Taylor and Taylor repeatedly "hit" on him during the hunting. Heresay but that's what was said.

So feel welcome to share a bunk room.

***

As for Capstick, he says he hunted over 800 elephant and was probably the guy with the most elephant's to his credit alive (at the time).

Even without the benefit of modern internet forums claims of tallies of hunted beasts, a BS factor of 160x (ie five elephants).

quote:

As for Capstick, he says he hunted over 800 elephant and was probably the guy with the most elephant's to his credit alive (at the time).

I seem to remember the same quote about his total being equal to, or greater than, any living hunter. It seems that PHC should have realized that Ron Thomson and his fellow Zim croppers would have, "shot, or been in on the shooting of" far, far more than his claimed total of 800.

The irony of this thread is the fact that PHC, JPT, and TSA all seem to have vastly inflated their elephant totals.

Jason

Since Taylor never stated a total. How could he inflate it?

465H&H

quote:

Originally posted by NitroX:


As for Capstick, he says he hunted over 800 elephant and was probably the guy with the most elephant's to his credit alive (at the time).

Even without the benefit of modern internet forums claims of tallies of hunted beasts, a BS factor of 160x (ie five elephants).

Bob Langeveld, the fellow who first worked with Peter when he went to Zambia, had over 3000 Eles in Kenya, Uganda, Zambia, Moz. and South Africa. Capstick was fully aware of that as they remained friends until Peter died.

I find it hard to believe the He would claim he had killed more Elephants than anyone alive. Sounds like some idiot copy editor.

quote:

Originally posted by 465H&H:
Since Taylor never stated a total. How could he inflate it?

465H&H

He did make an educated guess in one of his books and I shall try to research that. The rough total was in the vicinity of 1400. He knew how many he had shot on licence and I remember him writing that for every legal ele he had shot there were 3 or 4 illegal ones or something similar, thus making the total in the 1400 area.