Re: Elephant Brain Shot Question

10 November 2004, 09:32

500grains

Quote:

If the PH has to shoot, the client/hunter hasn't done his job. I found myself in that situation once, and never again.

Yeah, but I am not perfect so I better plan for the worst.

10 November 2004, 16:57

Michael Robinson

Quote:

So, from a PH's perspective, after a few incidents like this, how is he to know that the next guy coming along has done his homework and is capable of making a killing shot??? He's not.

Excellent anecdotes and ample evidence of why being a PH is not what it's necessarily cracked up to be.

Taking on a client without first meeting and getting to know him and forming an opinion of what he can and can't do is a total crap shoot. A PH does all but the most important piece of the work, and too often has to clean up the consequences of poor preparation or outright incompetence.

To be an effective and long-lived dangerous game hunting PH, one must be a nearly foolproof judge of people on very short notice, or one must be very nearly trigger happy, I would think. And all too often an after-the-fact diplomat and psychologist, too.

No client hunter should make any PH go through that. As Will has said, in his inimitable fashion, money is no substitute for competence. Which is why I enjoy these posts and the replies they inspire. I had never before heard of it, but I am going straight to the Safari Press website to buy Thomson's Mahohboh right now.

10 November 2004, 19:04

Bwanamich

Will,
What would be the farthest distance YOU would consider shooting an elephant in the brain?

I don't know if you are a PH or not but again, in your opinion, what is the maximum distance you would allow a 1st timer to shoot for the brain?

Am I understanding you right when I say that you don't like the heart/lung shot for elephants? And does that mean that you would rather pass up on an elephant unless you can get a shot at the brain?

10 November 2004, 00:07

Will

There are A LOT of reasons, including the examples from "Adam's 20 page hunt report." When the client fails to drop the bull, the PH and everybody in the whole neighborhood starts blazing away at "your" elephant.

The Capstick elephant hunting video shows a good example of this. The elephant that guy from California shot must have had 50 holes in it.

Whose elephant is it anyway?