Gene Hill died several years ago and I have been reading his essays. Here is one that has made me think. I appreciate your thoughts as well.

The Waterbuck

By Gene Hill

Standing in the high grass and covered by the shadows of an acacia, the smoke-gray hide of the waterbuck was barely visible through the 4X scope. I would track the cross-hairs down and back from his horns and time and again not be able to be sure of where I had to shoot. I felt, rather than saw, which he also stood with his body curved like a C, but I couldn’t tell exactly which way – toward me or not.

When I finally did shoot it was more from desperation than surety, and the animal paused for a second and then ran away into heavier cover before I could work the bolt to shoot again.

The guide asked me where I thought I’d hit him and I said I really wasn’t sure I’d hit him at all: but one of the trackers, to my dismay, said he’d heard the bullet strike. When we reached the shadowed spot where the buck had stood we found two or three small spits of blood, then nothing more except trodden grass where he’d knifed his way into heavier cover.

As we quartered the area back and forth trying to find his trail again I kept trying to remember what I had seen through the scope, and the more I thought about it the more convinced I was that my shot was uncallable; that it was hurried, careless and inexcusable. And, with a small sense of relief, I also felt that it had probably been ineffectual. I was sure that I had held too high because of the heavy grass and the darkness of the bush- which tends to make distances seem more than they really are. I started to say that I was sure I had held too high and merely creased the neck, when we found another very small, but very real, drop of blood on a stalk of grass.

Following the tracker was slow and painstaking. Every bush, every stone- every conceivable search for sign had to be made before another step could be taken. And just as we were about to agree that the trail had disappeared- another drop of blood would lead us on. Watching the tracker only served to increase my sense of futility, and my only real contribution now was to keep my rifle ready and watch as far ahead as I could on the rare chance that the buck would suddenly jump up ahead of me.

And then, with no more warning than an instant of a cooling breeze, we wee in a torrential rain. A ten-minute downpour that left the African clay puddle and shine – and trackless.

On the long, wet walk back to the hunting care the guide and I barely exchanged a word. He was, I assumed, rightly upset with me for missing an animal that we’d been looking for for days. He didn’t know that I’d had such difficulty seeing the buck through the scope- nor did he know that now I was thoroughly convinced that I shouldn’t have shot at all, that I knew too well that I should have waited until conditions changed.

At the car, I unloaded my rifle and cased it for the ride back to camp. My hunter began to chat about what we would do tomorrow, and it seemed as if the incident of the afternoon was passed over to be forgotten as one of those things that happen on a hunt; he had found the animal… and I had rather botched it. And that, as far as he was concerned, was the end of it. But it wasn’t the end of it for me. Because while we had been making the stalk and later while we were working the sparse blood trail something in my subconscious had been working, and now, after time to dwell on it, I had finally and honestly realized what had happened. And why.

The waterbuck is not a very rare or very difficult animal to find in East Africa, but for one reason or another we hadn’t been able to find a decent heard for several days even in country where waterbuck are frequently in good number. In fact, I’d more or less given up my hopes of finding one. So when we spotted the big, gray male I shot at, it had come as rather a surprise to all of us and I had the odd feeling that this was an animal I somehow didn’t deserve and it became, however subconsciously, an animal I really was not prepared to take. Remembering how long I fussed over the shot, I was now sure that it was partly the difficulty that gave me time to make half a wish that the smoky shape would take that one or two more steps behind the trees and fade unseen into the bush. My reasons for feeling this way are, to say the least, complicated and personal. But I deeply believe that the same emotions have been shared by all of us. Sometimes we heed them. Sometimes not.

Isn’t there a time or two you can remember when somehow an animal you’ve hunted has done something to make you let him vanish in the woods? Isn’t there a bass in a certain spot that somehow you always manage to approach a bit badly? Isn’t there a bird or covey that somehow always manages to catch you with your gun on safe- even when you know it’s there?

I think we all know times that for almost certain we gave the hunt to the quarry.

We are all aware that there are certain animals and birds and fish that under certain circumstances or in certain places we just refuse to kill. We have somehow given this game, at this place, at this time, a different identity; it has, for whatever reason, come to mean more to us than just another head of game.

We even do the same thing, more or less, among ourselves in competition. Haven’t you seen a good shot lose a match to a man not his equal? Don’t you know people who just don’t want the title “champion”? Or who couldn’t live with the idea of being “best”?

What would our lives be like if we never missed a shot? I think most of us need a day, or a trip or a season- or even a lifetime- to be a little short in its successes. I think most of us feel a touch of needed humanity about ourselves in our imperfections- and find great comfort in the time when we are much less than perfect or much less than good enough.

Gene Hill is one of the great writers of all time. The writing world has certainly changed since he was in his heyday - as John Wooters remarked to me, today it is all about promotion (I am paraphrasing, but you get the point).

If you like Gene Hill, you should read some of Gordon McQuarrie's stuff. He was another great writer but a lot less well known.

quote:

Originally posted by dogcat:
And then, with no more warning than an instant of a cooling breeze, we wee in a torrential rain. A ten-minute downpour that left the African clay puddle and shine – and trackless.

I already know what would go through my mind and it starts with an "F"...

Gene wrote that piece from an introspective. He put himself on trial in front of his peers, opened his mind and heart to folks and didn't BS about it - "I took a bad shot and it was a shot I KNEW I shouldn't have taken...but I did anyway".

People today are so concerned with saving face or making excuses that they forget the one consistent in all hunting: someone pulls the trigger.

I like this guys insight and I think I'll try to find more of his stuff to read.

Everybody wants to be an expert on whatever scale of hunting... Range finders for hunting deer out of a blind... Deer bait to kill a whitetail and so on... Whatever happened to plain old hunting and stalking... You need a quad to carry you into the whitetail woods...

Mike

I have missed shots on game several times in Africa, and each time there was that element of indecision on my part which no doubt contributed to the end result. When I want that particular animal and know I'm not going to miss, I don't. I think Mr. Hill is talking about something many of us have experienced.

AZ Writer,

Mac is one of my very favorite writers, of any sort. I have made special trips to the Brule River just to find-- and fish-- spots he describes in some of his trout fishing stories.
I highly recommend him to anyone.

I too, think that Gene Hill was one of the great outdoor writers of all time. I have recently been reading his book "Sunlight And Shadows" and find every vignette or short story to be soul searching in some way. I used to relish reading his monthly gun dog column in one of the national outdoor magazines. He had a way with words that few have.

I have never let the animal that I had come to hunt, and that I had a good opportunity to shoot, just walk away.

I'm not talking about small or immature animals, of course, but big, mature specimens of exactly the animal that I was there to hunt.

When I have missed or wounded an animal, it has never been for lack of will, it has been for lack of skill - or judgment - on my part. I don't have to miss intentionally to fulfill some inner or subconscious need for imperfection. I miss unintentionally often enough (and make enough other stupid mistakes) to know damned well that I'm not even very good, much less perfect!

Also, not to knock Gene Hill in particular - because I generally like Hill's writing, and would rate some of it as truly excellent - but I have never understood this kind of self-psychoanalysis.

I guess I'm just not that complicated, or maybe just not introspective enough to have these kind of odd (to me) thoughts.

Now, I am sure that I have not hunted as much, or as wide a variety of game animals, as Gene Hill hunted during his life, and I will concede that maybe that has something to do with his perspective and my inability to relate to it.

quote:

Originally posted by mrlexma:
I have never let the animal that I had come to hunt... just walk away.

I have never understood this kind of self-psychoanalysis.

...maybe just not introspective enough to have these kind of odd (to me) thoughts.
.

No offense mrlexma but I have, I do and I guess I am. In the past week I finished a rifle I've been working on for some time. I wanted badly to shoot a deer with it and rushed out the afternoon I'd finished it (after sighting in) to do just that. I imagined the photo I'd soon take of that sleek little 7x57 carbine posed with the yet unseen game.
When the opertunity came at last light, I missed. I couldn't believe I had missed but an hour searching by lantern light for any sign of a hit failed to turn anything up. I returned the next morning and spent another hour and a half searching first the field where the deer had stood then the woods where it had ran. Nothing.
Three days later I was back in the same spot with my old and trusted 7X64, a rifle I know I can count on. Another opertuntiy came much earlier than the last and as I steadied the crosshairs, flicked off the safety catch and took that breath we've all taken many times... it ocured to me that I didn't need the meat, the "trophy" was nothing special and I knew the deer was mine for the taking - if I so chose. I put the safety back on and watched as the animal fed past me, oblivious to my presence.

I'm a hunter. I kill animals, but I didn't HAVE to kill this one to prove anything either to myself or anyone else. I claim no superiority for not pulling the trigger. Whether I did or didn't isn't the point. I'm not sure I can adequately describe what the point was but I'm sure there are others who will understand completely.

RE: Gene Hill

Every fall I go up to Tenessee and hunt at a little quail plantaion that was a favorite haunt of Mr. Hill's. Several of his original hunting buddies are still alive and shooting in their 80s. Gene made quite a mark on these men and it is a favorite thing of mine to listen to them recount the stories of their hunts all over the world -these guys were the pioneers of so many of our now common destinations around the globe. To listen to the circumstances they went through in opening up some of these places is really good medicine (the Maker's Mark just adds to the experience!) Mr. Hill has left an indullable mark on sportsmen worldwide and is deserving of "Icon" status among us.

Good to bring this to our attention and thanks for reading,

JW out

Jeff:

I love the genre of the personal essay. Hill's piece stands among some of the best I have read. I as I read this piece I fee that he is being as honest as a person can. This stands in stark contrast to guys like Hemingway whose ego kept them from really laying it all out without any dressing.

quote:

When I have missed or wounded an animal, it has never been for lack of will, it has been for lack of skill - or judgment - on my part. I don't have to miss intentionally to fulfill some inner or subconscious need for imperfection. I miss unintentionally often enough (and make enough other stupid mistakes) to know damned well that I'm not even very good, much less perfect!

I would agree with this, and I would venture that many of us won't really understand what Hill was feeling because we are just not that good.

Jason

quote:

I'm a hunter. I kill animals, but I didn't HAVE to kill this one to prove anything either to myself or anyone else. I claim no superiority for not pulling the trigger.

oupa, nice post!
Peter.

Whether a hunter, a writer, or an artist, the object of our quest, our story, or our painting is very often a metaphor for some current aspect of our lives. I believe Mr. Hill, and others like him, wrote of life, not merely of hunting. And splendly so.

Splendly (sic). Rather, "Splendidly." Sorry.

Gene Hill is one of my favorites and the several, well-thumbed volumes of his essays on my bookshelf will attest to the fact. I have not previously read the posted essay but I must admit that I am in mrlexma's camp on this one -- Mr. Hill is reading (or in this case writing), a bit more into this than the situation warrants.

After each shot I have missed, and there have been more than a few, I have, for the most part, been able to put my finger on the cause of my failure. A couple of times I have been able to pawn the blame off on a scope, a gun or a limb but in the vast bulk of the incidents, the culprit has been me. I have either hurried the shot or gotten too excited and squeezed (or yanked) the trigger when I shouldn't have. With all due respect to Mr. Hill, I don't believe that I subconciously let these animals get away. I just screwed up. When I quit getting excited (and therefore occasionaly screwing up), I will concentrate solely on my golf game.

Thanks to dogcat for posting the essay. Mr. Hill was a wonderful writer and the description of his thoughts while tracking a poorly shot animal rings very true. I am just not sentimental enough to think that I miss subconsciously.