What are the funniest or most remember able quotes your PH has told you in past hunts?

" An empty gun is just a stick" - Glen Munger Botswana 1998

"When following a wounded Lion I send in the tracker first as their are plenty more trackers around. I next send in the client as their are plenty more clients around. Last I go but their are no more of me around."

Granville Potgieter
Zambia 1981

"Run!!"

"Any of you that get too drunk out there have to walk back"
(from a guy that drank like a fish)

"Time to make a plan!"

During our first trip to Africa,our P.H. picked us up at the Bulawayo airport and we began our long drive to the hunting concession. After hours of looking out the window without seeing any animals, I asked him where all the animals were? His response was "What do you think,you,re on the f%#*ing Serengeti? He did come up with some other classics,like "Cane for the pain" and "spook and deisel".Referring to Cane liquor mixed with coca-cola.

He referred to shooting animals with a large caliber rifle as "hitting them with a big stick".When a shot was missed his saying was "I am going to beat you like a red headed stepchild".

Kathi

kathi@wldtravel.com

Kathi,
I can imagine your great relief, upon meeting your second PH.

On my first safari in Zimbabwe, we had been driving an hour or so towards our camp which was about 5 hours away. I was looking out the window, almost amazed that I was finally in Africa. All of a sudden, there was a very loud bang, followed by mass confusion. The hood latch on the Cruiser had broken and the hood hit the windshield while we were doing about 65 m.p.h. I looked over at my young 22 year old P.H. and he had his head out the window trying to get the truck to the side of the road. When we finially stopped he looked at me and said just three words "Welcome To Africa". On the same trip, I asked his older brother who was also a P.H., what they did when they caught a poacher. He just smiled and said "If you walk by an ant hill that stinks like bloody hell, don't look inside".

BOWHUNR

When tracking a wounded buffalo, my PH told me not to get so close to the trackers, as "we use them as bait".

"You shot the dink"

Zambia, Bangweulu swamp 1998

I was a CA resident and hooked up with a couple of WY locals at the Sweetwater Station near Jeffery City. When I shot my first goat, one of the guys took his hankerchief and began to wipe the bucks lips as he said "we better get the milk off his lips before the game warden gets here!"

"When there's lead in the air, there's hope."

While looking at a PAC bull elephant at about 75 yards one dark night in a mealie field. PH: "Do you see him?" Me: "Yeah, he's just to the right of that tree." PH: "There is no tree."

This is reversing the roles--most memorial quote from a hunter/client. After an arduous stalk to a promatory as close as we could get to a huge billy goat nearly 400 yds away, this young, eager guide asked in his most serious tone " what are your chances of hitting em?" Old Louie "Crosseye" Cross replied, "somewhere between slim and nothing". I laughed so hard that he couldn't shoot until I stopped and could watch the shot. After shooting and missing he said," told ya".

An obvious error in judgement by a young guide, but thought you would enjoy the story.
Jim

"This is when you want a 458!" George Parkin.

He said this as we followed up a lion I had wounded.

Jason

After missing my first several attempts on a Steinbok (I won't bore anybody with any details here), there was a heated discussion in Afrikaans, between the young landowner and my PH. After the landowner left somewhat huffily, I asked my PH what that was all about. His quote, best I can remember, went something like this.
I had to assure the landowner that you were a good shot before he would let you hunt on this property. You've let me down.
He told me, "I thought you said this guy could shoot. All he's done so far is shoot holes in the sky."
Not one of my better days.

Another one too good not to tell.
I was hunting with a buddy of mine on his first trip. He and the PH were stalking Eland when the PH nudged my buddy and said, "Look, a duiker." My buddy instantly bolted and hid behind the nearest bush before asking, "Tiger, Where?"

Thabazimbi 1994

I swear I or my PH xxxxx will never sleep with a clients wife or daughter while the client is in the field!

Standing atop a large treed "ant hill" after a rather great stalk; in my face, eyes glaring, nostrils flaring, red faced and all 5'6" and 160 lbs soaking wet of PH saying, "What do you mean you don't see the kudu!"



You had to be there but the thought did cross my mind as to what the trophy fee was for a PH.



From my position there was a tree(s) between me and the animal but it was in plain sight of the PH. Just after the above "moment" the animal took two steps and came into my view and died.

we were lookin for kudu in late afternoon. none seen but we saw a herd of zebra up on a mountain. we stalked to about 260 yds and he set up the shooting sticks, they were all mixed up and i was on the sticks for 15 minutes until they cleared with daylight fading. he told me which one to shoot and to shoot it where the stripes come together on the shoulder. then followed up with " please dont wound it, there is nothing that runs further and faster, it will be a long day for us tomorow finding it and it would probably be ruined from the heat, now shoot when your ready!" i shot and the animal dropped in about 10 ft. we checked the bullet placement, he claimed "you missed". i said what? he follwed up with "you are easily 2 stripes off!!!!!!!"

David W,

Any chance your PH was George Hallamore?

After missing three animals in two days, my PH was stunned when I shot at and hit a running impala ram at 200 + yards, freehand, with my .378. He said "you hit it!?." And I could not tell if that was a question or a declaration! He told me to shoot at that animals and I did. He just did not think I would hit it.

Soon after "We'll make a plan just now", he said "I'll pick you up just before dark...".

There was no moon that night.

I ask my PH if the trackers could find their way back to the bakkie in the dark. He said " Sure, no worries." About 10 hours later after stumbling around lost in the dark with 3 stoned black locals carrying buffalo skin and skull I finally met up with him again. He also coined the phases " It is amazing what you can live through" and "Africa ain't for sissies."



One of my friends, John Harris, from South Africa I have done a bit of hunting with once said "Africa doesn't play favorites" after I was the victim of a minor tragedy during a hunt.



Perry

Greg,

Not George. But your question reminds me of a great quote of George's for which he is still getting grief from other PH's.

While checking leopard baits one afternoon, we bumped into George and his clients, one of whom was after lion. George and his crew were huffing and puffing and struggling to position half a buffalo in a tree while the three young and able bodied clients sat on the high seat watching. After getting the bait hung, George stalked over to our vehicle, obviously in a bleak mood. After the usual brief pleasantries, we asked him how things were going. He looked at us increduously and after a brief outburst asked, "Where do these guys think they are, on fucking holiday?" After we howled with laughter, we reminded George that actually the clients were on holiday. He wasn't amused.

"One of my gunbearers is serving 5 years in a Botswana prison for having 5 unlicensed rounds of ammunition and you have 50?"John Northcote after I informed him that the Botswana customs agent who had just searched our luggage had missed finding a MTM box containing 50 rounds of 375 ammo.

Bravo five one

We had a lot of fun last year but two situations still crack me up:

1) For the first time in my life I took a shot with my .375 from a sitting position...and cut open half of my forehead! Blood gushed between my fingers (broke a small artery) and I screamed with pain and when I had calmed down my PH said quietly: "I thought your brain was coming out"

2) After the intermezzo we had to resite the gun and this normally very macho man looks at me quietly and says: "I can do it for you if your afraid"

I did it myself.

3) The best compliment I�ve ever received on my shooting: "You�re a pretty good shot"

This coming from a guy who can shoot better than anyone I�ve met is a GREAT compliment!

"That Rhino was bloody close!"

Eugene Visague, 2001

My Ph was going out to set in a leopard blind with a new client. Knowing only a very small leopard had feed on the bait. I asked him if he thought a big leopard might come to the bait.

His reply was.

If it's got spots it's dead!

PH's response to my question about how likely it was that we might see any poisonous snakes, as we were walking through high grass on my first African hunt, "Jim, why do you think we let the trackers go first?".

On the first day of this same hunt after checking the sighting on my 270 and 375 we were headed back to camp. The PH asked if I would shoot a kudu for camp meat (obviously to see if I could hit the broad side of a barn from the inside). A little later we came across a female kudu in thick brush at about 60 yards. I had the 375 at the time, and since we could not see the body he asked if I thought I could hit her in the head. I answered by pulling the trigger, and we had instant camp meat. He turned and said "Jim, leave the 270 in camp in the future", and so we did .

Jim

I was hunting sable and plainsgame as was my hunting partner but in addition he was also after a leopard. It was early in the season and the leopards would just not pattern. Even though I wasn't after leopard I was shooting as many animals for bait as my hunting partner.



My partner's PH had bragged early in the hunt that his clients had only ever once shot a female leopard and that when he specifically told the client not to shoot.



Sitting around the table on the last day for a late lunch prior to their leaving for the blind I asked what was going to happen if only a female came to the blind that evening. The PH replied, "then momma is going to grow a set of balls".

I've not hunted with this ph (nor ever will) but a good one nonetheless. Not!

" Rather than deciding the fate of a wounded Cape buffalo by simply blasting him into oblivion on the follow-up, I would confront the grand warrior with my double rifle, and beckon him to choose his own destiny."

Guess who?

Can't afford him

Bwanamich, 50 points for diplomacy!!



Rick.

If we have to Run, remember you don't have to the fastest just don't be the slowest.

A few years ago I was with a young nephew of mine deer hunting.
As we were heading into the woods I removed a small .25 auto from my pocket, checked the safety and put it back.
My nephew thought the diminutive size of the gun was funny and asked "What is that for??"

"In case we run into an angry bear", I replied.

Obviously in disbelief he stated, "That thing won't stop a bear"

"No, but it will slow you down enough for me to out run you."

I hunted with Gunther Heimstadt in Outjo Namibia. One day we were discussing snake bite and he said "If you should ever get bitten by a Mamba, the first thing you do is find a tree with shade and crawl under it"

I said, "oh, will that help?"

He replied, "No. It's just that no man should die in the sun!"

After hiking for 4 hours through marshy territory and back into a canyon, my guide looked at me and asked "If we see a trophy moose back here, are you going to shoot it?

It was kind of hard to be civil while explaining that I was not just sightseeing.

Steve