I have made some great shots on safari and also some very bad ones. The compliments are nice but one always wonders if they are genuine. These guys are all excellent shots and see it all from great to terrible. The compliments go with the territory when dealing with a client. How many of them are going to say "You Suck"? Not good for repeat business. So sometimes they are more free with the accolades than is actually called for. Still it is always nice to hear. I dont know about anyone else but I am a much harder critic of my performance than anyone else would ever be. So no matter what is said I am always going over the shot in my head and questioning what I did or didnt do right. It is all a learning experience good or bad.

I had the opportunity to return the favor with Mike Kibble who has just been here in Australia for 3 weeks.

I took him shooting at a mate's place at Coonabarabran, which is a 6 hour drive from Sydney........he cleaned up a "few" 'roos and well over 25 foxes, but on the last morning we spotted some feral goats on the opposite ridge.......437 yards away, according to my Geovid. Kibble immediately chambered a round and lent against a tree.........to the complete and utter amazement of the property owner.............but Kibble had my 22-06 shooting 80gr Nosler CC's at 3700fps, topped with a S&B Long Range 4-16X50......he missed the first goat high, but hit the next 5 on the trot after that...........

MY comment was, "apart from that piss poor first shot that rifle puts them down, eh"? He grinned and said, "was that that was payback for my kudu comment huh?"

I have heard the same - I was told of a Frenchman who almost shot his wife and the PH by randomly shooting into high grass/bush where the PH and wife were.

Then there was the Spaniard who fired 7 shots, from inside his chalet, out an open sliding glass door, at an oryx drinking from a decorative pond about 40 yards away - and MISSING all 7 shots - he would have tried more but the staff by this time came running up trying to find out why some idiot was blasting away inside the ranch compound.

NOTE - I realize that saying that "most" or "all" hunters from a certain country are bad shots or crazy or unsafe is opening a big can of worms, and I am not saying that - I'm just repeating what I heard, and I'm sure we have many fine hunters here on this site from all over the world, and I'm sure there are just as many bad ones from every country.

My PH knew it was my first hunt ever, but I think he meant it when on my Kudu he said "Puhfect shot!" (love that Afrikaan accent) - I even have it on video!

quote:

Originally posted by mrlexma:
I always loved the famous PH line after a horrendous miss or wounding shot (is it from Hemingway?) that, to paraphrase, goes something like this - "Must be the light. You know it's different in Africa."

My sense from having interrogated (note that no enhanced methods were used) a fair number of PHs is that, as a rule, they often cite Americans and Germans as the best shots.

Frenchmen and Russians have just as often been cited as the worst.

I admit my sample is small, so I would be interested to hear what others think or have heard.

And the two South American hunters who liked to shoot everything together.

They fired 27 rounds into a buffalo, using 458 Winchester mag!

I was rolling on the floor with tears running down my ceeks as the PH who was with them told us the story.

I shot an impala once, and he dropped in his tracks.

My ph said :what happened?"

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:
And the two South American hunters who liked to shoot everything together.

They fired 27 rounds into a buffalo, using 458 Winchester mag!

I was rolling on the floor with tears running down my ceeks as the PH who was with them told us the story.

I shot an impala once, and he dropped in his tracks.

My ph said :what happened?"

Holy Mother of . . . . are you serious, Saeed? THAT is just . . . wow!