As a kid, I always wondered why the safari hunters in the Tarzan films couldn't just be nice and honest. I remember thinking it would be cool to hunt Africa, but never really thought it would be possible. A high school friend's dad and brothers went to Kenya in the late 60's. Their house had trophies scattered throughout it. A pair of tusks here, an elephant footstool there, etc etc. Amazing house. My interest was rekindled at a sportsman show in Denver in the early 90's when I spoke with an outfitter there. Fast forward to 1996 and The Ghost and The Darkness hit theaters. A few years later, I got the book, The Man-eaters of the Tsavo and the fire was lit. Horn of the Hunter cemented it for me. It took a few years to get the cash, the right window of time, and for my son to get old enough to accompany me. Went to Botswana this past spring. Best money I ever spent on travel or hunting.

What about you?

A great friend of mine, Harry Whitehead of Gunners Taxidermy of Lexington, KY invited me to go to Africa on a plains game hunt in RSA after we had hunted in Colorado. I went! And have had 2 more safaris since. One with him in which I took a nice cape buffalo then later for other critters. There will be hopefully more trips ahead. Some good reading helps a lot too as Duckear referenced. As well as Saeeds videos!! My last safari was with Tino Erasmus of Trophy Game Safaris 3 years ago and am now just booked with him again for June.

Two of my Dad's friends hunted alot in Africa in the 60's 70's 80's. Hearing their stories always fuled my fire. I have been now 3 times and I will go back. I just turned 37 so I hope I have alot of trips in me. One of my dads very good friends made is first trip in 66, he took 4 of the big 5 in one trip..he got skunked on the leopard..but what awesome memories. Well, come to think of it setting in his trophy room at the age of 10 did it for me!

Ed

505ED...you were raised right!

I remember as a child (yeah, tv HAD been invented then) watching Arthur Godfrey telling on his show about his recent safari to Africa. I was entranced. After that, I read all I could about Africa and safaris. Schools then had the outdoor magazines in the rack so I got to read the few safari stories they published.
Fast forward (where did I read that?) to the late 1970s and a friend who loaned me the first Capstick book. I was hooked.

I started to travel hunting about 15 years ago, first for whItetail and elk. Was in BC hunting moose, goat, caribou and touched a set of sheep horns. The disease jUmped on me and i was feverish with all things mountain hunting. I was reading everything i could on sheep hunting. I added boddington's " where the lions roar" to one of my safari press orders. It flung. Craving on me, so i thought let me go once to get this out of my system. Now i am feverish about two types of hunting!

From Jr. HiSchool when I read a book by Osa Martin Johnson I dreamed in the back of my mind of going to Africa. I was always interested in guns and this latent ambition was furtehr enhanced by articles in Outdoor Life by my, more or less idol, Jack o'Conner and further articles in True magazine by Lucien Carey I proceeded to Gunsmith school at TSJC. Never worked as a gunsmith but built many rifles to take to Africa over the ensuing years. Making a living and raising a family occupied most of my time and effort but always lurking in the innner recesses was this desire to 'go to Africa'. Always in the gun rack was at least one African big Bore rifle. My children grew up married and left home and my wife and I began to become a little more financially secure. Then my wife died of breast cancer and I was to put it lightly devasted. WE were looking forward to retiresment and had made some plans but I had no ME alone plans. A good friend and gunsmith & gunshop owner madew the comment one day that he was going to bite the bullet and go on safari. I got back to work (this was over a lunch break) and the more I thought of it the more I said why not. One of my late wifes bosses was from Rhodesia (he was an olympic class swimmer from So. Africa in boarding school) and he reccommended I go to Zimbabwe as the hunting was superb. He also said I should start to make provisions to set aside some money because I would be infected by this disease that could only be relieved by an annual trip. About this time i recieved a belated insuarance settlement for some life insuarance I didn't even know my wife had thru her employement. This removed all impediments and I immediately booked a hunt and actually went a week before my friend. This trip culminated in a total of 8 safaris and taking all the plains game Zimbabwe offers plus a couple of Leopards and three Elephant and making some lifelong friends in Zimbabwe. Would still be going if it were not for ill health that makes walking a chore and reduced finances that seem to be taking a beating as the years go by.So you can say while it was a lifetime ambition it more or less happened by accident.

oops

Read Capstick as a kid and watched Wild Kingdom on TV. Never thought I would actually go but my wife surprised me with a safari for my 50th birthday. I think I'll keep her.

Wow; I guess you'd have to go back about 50 years to get to the bottom of my obsession. As long as I can remember, I have been fascinated with animals, tracking, and hunting. I was born down South but moved to the Northeast with the family when young and kinda settled into life up there, but it was always a little odd 'cause I preferred the outdoors to sports or hanging with kids in the neighborhood. No one could catch snakes or frogs like me, and I have a lot of "Mom" stories to prove it. That far back, they still showed the old clips of Howard Hill in the movie theaters too. Instinctive shooting of rats in the city dump with a bow was a real challenge, but filled the imagination with mystical creatures.

Our semi-annual vacations were back to the family farm and rural life in Georgia tho, so I had plenty of time to spend in the fields. Somewhere around the age of eight, I was old enough to pack iron. Started off with a Red Ryder BB gun and big dreams. My Dad was a quail hunter only, so I got strict instructions about ethics, acceptable game, and safe gun handling plus tagged along on the bird and rabbit hunts. No English sparrow was safe on the property tho, as long as I was around. With a sister and 4 girl cousins, I just got weird looks and they left me to my own desires.

At about the 1960-61 time period, I learned that there was a sporting section to the library and that sealed it. Discovering that there were others like me was a revelation. Jim Corbett was my hero; the Man-Eaters of Kumaon and Leopard of Rudraprayag kept me up for hours under the sheets with a flashlight! I can still feel the tremors they would entice.

Living in lower New York State outside the city, the opportunities for big game hunting were rare but they were there if you looked hard enough. I became a professional hunter at the age of fourteen; I cut grass for two years to buy a scoped 5MM Sheridan pellet rifle and found that neighbors loved their tulips more than animals! They would actually pay me a couple dollars each to shoot muskrats as they came out of the creeks into the backyards to devour the gardens. Then I could skin them out, and sell the pelts too. Score! Couple years later in Hunter Safety I learned that was strictly against the rules, and have done my best to live clean for the rest of my years.

The following years leading to adulthood involved the military and moving around a lot, but always included Hemingway and Ruark and some of the original magazine authors. Long patrols on a submarine would result in many dog-earred pages for sure. The wives of the married guys considered me a menace to their financial security, as I was always dragging their husbands off on a chase of some sort, when we returned to port.

Ended up in Idaho and settled down with a wonderful woman who decided it was easier to humor me than go thru a divorce, so we raised the kids eating deer/elk/antelope. When my daughter was about 5, she asked why the meat at dinner tasted funny one night. I had to tell her it was "beef". Still turns up her nose at sirloin over fresh deer backstraps.

Made it thru all the family raising and many jobs and before you knew it, we actually started to show positive balances in the accounts and everyone was gone from home. My Dad made me promise to never put off something I really wanted to do, and then he passed on one year, leaving a big hole in my heart. I moped around for a year or two, and then met a wonderful new friend who had actually worked in Africa as a PH, much like Capstick and he often regaled me with new stories of the Dark Continent. Seeing his trophy room for the first time sealed my fate!

Made my first trip to Reno SCI in 2003 and met some wonderful people from both the States and afar, and found out just how much I wanted to do a trip. It was exciting, met my expectations and dreams, and was affordable. The sight of a kudu walking in will almost stop your heart, it is so breathtaking. It does take some serious savings, I drive an old car to work and a 4WD truck around town and for hunting, but it came true. I accomplished my once in a lifetime trip.

Now that we have been 4 times in the last eight years, and will be looking for another destination in Reno this year, I need to find something to trade off to the wife. The kids have become seasoned Africa hunters, and even manage to make a living with a video company they founded. As for the wife- she must still love me, or is just used to me by now and can only shake her head !!!!!

Gents:
When my mom was a girl (born 1927) she was an artist with both paints and pencils. She loved to paint and draw animals. Her source of African animals were the old editions of African hunting books, such as Hunter and many others. When I was growing up I read them with a developing interest. Then it was Capstick in the '80s, and Mark Sullivan's videos in the '90s. Also in the late '80s my interest in Winchesters began to fall away and double rifles replaced them. I took the first of 13 trips to Africa in 1994. Both Africa and double rifles really can get a grip on a fella and not let go! My last hunt there was in 2008 and I have not returned as I was soured a bit over some practices I saw and heard of. However, time heals and I'm planning two hunts now and a third to Australia. With a double, of course. And, I still have mom's Africa books.
Cheers, all, for a good new year. See you in Dallas at the African Hunter magazine booth.
Cal

When I was about 8 years old my father and I were watching a TV show...I think it was "American Sportsman"...and the episode dealt with a Cape Buffalo hunt. I remember at the end of the 30-minute show turning to my dad and saying that I wanted to do that some day. He laughed and said something noncommittal. I had already accompanied him on a few local hunts, and grew up hunting and shooting. My father never hunted outside of the province, and his yearly moose hunt "up north" was the extent of his big game hunting. Over the years as we hunted together, he must have heard me state at least a thousand times that I was eventually going to Africa. I don't think that he even considered it a possibility until I was in my third decade.

I was an avid reader and devoured Capstick, Ruark, Hemingway and all the other essentials. I read every hunting and gun magazine I could get my hands on, and spent all my free time shooting. When I was in my early 20's my father presented me with a lovely Sako .375H&H...Wow! I didn't realize that he had been listening. This was from a guy who owned one Cooey .22, one Ithaca 12-gauge pumpgun and one .303 Lee-Enfield...and couldn't imagine any use for any more guns, or so he said. I used that gun for most of my hunting for many years...deer, black bear, moose, and many coyotes and groundhogs.

I didn't actually go to Africa until I was almost 52, and my father had passed away several years earlier. He took his last deer and his first and only turkey with me just over a year before he passed, and told me then that he hoped I would go before it was too late...he was having great difficulty walking by then (he was 84) and was beginning to realize and acknowledge that having some fun and enjoying life was not a sin. I know he was watching as I walked up and laid my hands on my first African game...a gemsbok...and I am sure he shed a tear or two with me when I took my buffalo. Hopefully I will get back another time or two and give him a show.

Every year Wally Taber came to my town and put on a show.
This fired up My reading and then Cancer.
My Oncolgist told me about His many hunts and why I should go now.
Best money I ever spent and looking forward to my next hunt.

Definately reading the likes of O'Connor and John Kingsley-Heath in the Outdoor Life Magazines in the 70's when I was growing up. The single best hunt I read about was actually Fred Bear's archery hunt with Wally Johnson in Mozambique also featured in Outdoor Life. "A Lion that Mauled Me" by JKH a close second.

Another, not so well known book is Bob Swinehart's "Sagitarus" where he recounts his bow hunting safaris in Angola and Mozambique.

The fire was later fueled of course by Capstick's Death in the Long Grass.

I was fortuante to have been captivated by it all at such a young age.

Went on my 1st safari when I was 27.

I am now 51, 4 safaris, headed to Moz in 14'.

quote:

Originally posted by Safari2:
Definately reading the likes of O'Connor and John Kingsley-Heath in the Outdoor Life Magazines in the 70's when I was growing up. The single best hunt I read about was actually Fred Bear's archery hunt with Wally Johnson in Mozambique also featured in Outdoor Life. "A Lion that Mauled Me" by JKH a close second.

Another, not so well known book is Bob Swinehart's "Sagitarus" where he recounts his bow hunting safaris in Angola and Mozambique.

The fire was later fueled of course by Capstick's Death in the Long Grass.

I was fortuante to have been captivated by it all at such a young age.

Went on my 1st safari when I was 27.

I am now 51, 4 safaris, headed to Moz in 14'.

Must have been in a hurry..how could I have left out the "American Sportsman".

My grandmother gave me a subscription to Outdoor Life about 1963, when I was 10. Grew up reading O'Connor. Joined the Outdoor Life Book Club and along came "Use Enough Gun" by Robert Rouark. End of story.

When I was in grade school, we had a library in our school of donated books. Someone had donated all the old African classics and I read every word. Since I am now 70, that was a long time ago. No hunters in my family but those books lit the fire. I next became a fan of Jack O'Connor and read everything he wrote. A subscription to Outdoor Life was a Christmas wish every year. I sent Jack several letters and he responded to every one. I made nine trips to Africa as a result and wish I had started sooner!

My interest began in the mid to late 1970s, when as a teenager, I bought a first edition of WDM Bell's 'Wanderings of an Elephant Hunter' and read the entire book in just a few days. Back then, I was most interested in sheep hunting, and had already started collecting books. The Bell book ignited a greater curiosity about Africa, and it was only a matter of time until I went on safari.

My father was a duck hunter, and about the only big game he'd ever hunted was mule deer, pronghorns and a few elk hunts. He had no interest in Alaskan hunting and even less interest in Africa. He and my mom sent me on my first big hunt, a 17 day backpack sheep hunt in Alaska, as a high school graduation present (that's what happens when your dad tells you he'll send you on any hunt you want to do as long as you acheive a certain grade point average). Over the next four years, I did a couple more hunts in Alaska, taking another dall ram, a grizzly and moose. BUT, there was still that itch about hunting in Africa...

I had gotten to know Alaskan outfitter Lynn Castle through a couple of my hunts, and he had a fantastic trophy room in his lodge, so the natural thing to do was ask his advice about whom to do a first African hunt with. Lynn gave me two names; Peter Johnstone of Zimbabwe, and Hugo Seia of South West Africa (Namibia). I wrote to both of them and eventually got back some information. I was trying to decide which one to book a hunt with when something happened out of nowhere that set my first hunt in motion.

I got a call from the President of our local Sacramento Safari Club, and he told me that the Matetsi District of Zimbabwe was offering a 21 day full bag safari to someone who would purchase a computer system that they wanted. Back then, computers were still somewhat big, limited and slow compared to today's standards, and expensive as heck compared to now. They did not want to donate the hunt to SCI as they feared it would sell cheap and they would not get the equipment they needed for game management. So, they had a specification of what they wanted and in turn they were offering a hunt in the Deka Safari Area, which was to be provided by Peter Johnstone of Rosslyn Safaris, to whoever would purchase the equipment they needed. Deka had barely been hunted over the preceeding 12 years as it had been held as some sort of special reserve by the Rhodesian government and the game department hadn't done anything about changing that since Zimbabwe had gained independence. We had a deal! I bought the computer system, and started making my plans. I found out that I was going to be guided by some chap named Roy Vincent, which was a mild disappointment at the time since I wanted to hunt with Peter himself. Peter assured me that Roy was a fanstastic PH and that I'd have more fun with him. Peter was right. Roy and his wife, Rene, were fantastic hosts, and my fiance and I especially enjoyed having their two small children, Alan (who was about 8 or 10 back then) and Diana, in camp with us.

The safari took place in May of 1983, and I had only made one strategic mistake. I extended the hunt from 21 to 24 days to give myself a bit better chance of taking the animals on the list (I was given licenses for 2 buffalo bulls, 1 elephant bull, 1 leopard, kudu, sable, waterbuck, bushbuck, klipspringer, duiker, grysbok, zebra, impala, warthog, and bait impala and warthogs). My mistake was not extending to 28 days as the Matetsi biologist,Vernon Booth, offered to throw in a lion if I did the full 28 days. The first day, we were slowly cruising around the southern boundary of Deka, just getting to know each other and giving me a chance to see some animals before we really began to hunt, when we came around a corner in the two-track road and a magnificent lions stood up only 25 or so yards from the truck. Roy swerved to put my side nearest the lion so that I could get a good picture out of the window. Imagine his surprise when I jumped out of the truck to get an even closer picture! He was yelling at me to get back in the truck while jumping out with his 460 weatherby to cover me. The lion simply walked off into the bush. I got a good lecture about doing stupid stuff like walking unarmed near a lion, and then we continued. Talk about an exciting first day!

By the time my safari had ended, I had taken every animal on license except the bushbuck. All 4 of the dangerous game animals were splendid trophies, as were most of the other animals. I'd undergone a life changing experience and even though it was my first safari, it was definitely the hunt of a lifetime.

Oh yeah, back then that hunt cost me $27,000 including all trophy fees! That is what the computer system they wanted cost. If I only had another opportunity like that again...

I've been on 3 subsequent safaris since that first time. We've all grown older; Roy and Rene are semi-retired and now live in Texas when they aren't helping Alan with his concession in the Selous, Diana lives in the Los Angeles area and is a U.S. citizen; my kids are grown and I'm on my own, and....

The fire to hunt in Africa again burns brighter than ever.

When I was growing the Claiborne Parish library had mounts of a man name Clyde Kitchens. I was fascinated from an early age. He had been to Africa, Alaska and all over the U.S. on big game hunts. He even had his elephant tusks displayed in his FRONT yard up until the 70's! Now some of his trophies are displayed in the local museum along with a video that was made from his old 8mm.

http://www.claiborneone.org/ford/exhibits1.html (Scroll down to trophy room)

quote:

Originally posted by Bill/Oregon:
My grandmother gave me a subscription to Outdoor Life about 1963, when I was 10. Grew up reading O'Connor. Joined the Outdoor Life Book Club and along came "Use Enough Gun" by Robert Rouark. End of story.

Nah! Actually the beginning of a story that only ends, when you end, and then maybe not, if you have left family stricken with the same ailments.

A toy rifle, called the Magumba, or somthing like that. It fired plastic bullets that loaded into a cartrige with a spring. I dreamed of elephants and buffalo. Got the elephant, need to get the buff.

For me it was always about the money. I don't think I ever could see myself in a dream about hunting Africa until the funds were there. I'd always gone hunting but just local deer and ducks mostly until I moved to Alaska. The first 5 years I was there and out in the "bush" I was in Nirvana anyway so I didn't have a huge interest in anything else. Around '88 I did my first ever guided hunt for Sitka deer on Kodiak Island. The guide was an accomplished mountain hunter with a world wide trophy collection as well as having the "Big 4" under his belt. I think if there was an actual inspiration it was this guy.

After that Kodiak hunt I began to focus on Africa and learn what I could as well as look at the finances necessary. I sprung my idea for a 10 day buffalo/PG hunt on Sadie my long time companion and her first response was "10 days is not long enough if we are going all the way to Africa" (I am so f!@#ing lucky) We booked 14 days that time and the rest is history. I'm now looking for safari number 17 for my 65th birthday. I hope I run out of gas before my money is all gone because I can't imagine the end of Sadie and I hatching a plan for the next safari and the next.............

For me, it started when I was about 5 years old.Probably due to watching something in a movie or on TV but it was always there anyway. When I was five I have memories of playing that I was hunting elephant with my toy rifle and my moms clothes pins in my belt as cartridges.Whenever I saw or heard anything about Africa, its animals or culture I was all ears. As I aged I became a hunter and always dreamed about hunting in Africa, particularly dangerous game but mostly realized that it was out of my budget.
After my family financial obligations were met and I had more income I retired but still thought that it was both unrealistic and probably too costly. I was mostly uninformed. One day I was at a gun show and there was a table with double rifles and other better quality large bore rifles on it. I asked about some of them and started talking to a guy that was selling them. He showed me the rifles and asked if I had ever hunted Africa. That man name was Tom Ondrus. I told Tom that I probably could not afford it and he showed me some advertisement from the Safari Club newsletter for a South African plainsgame hunt. We talked a long time & he showed me photos of his hunts and said he would help me realize my dream by signing me up for membership where I could get info on hunts etc. and he gave me the Cabelas gift card he was sent for signing me up. Total cost for that first year SCI membership : $5.00. Tom gave me a copy of the adverized hunt before I left and within a few weeks I booked the hunt after checking it out with refrences. I got a lot of other info from this forum as well.
End result : In eight years I have been on four safaris and have my fifth booked. I have taken my elephant as well as a great cape buffalo. My den is filled with all kinds of trophies and memories of great hunts, great adventures and great people that I have met along the way. I have a DR and have ordered another and now that lifelong dream has been realized. There is not one day that I do not think about my hunts or plans for another hunt. I have helped others get started with Africa too and that is a reward to me as well. I hope that the others I have helped enjoyed it as well as I did. Its in my blood now and anyone who has been there knows what that is.

BLANK,
Great reply...where did you live in New York??

Son was in 5th grade had to do some kind of book report, so we went to the library, while waiting on him I perused the library card catalog and saw a book named "Hunter" I read parts of it while waiting on him, ending up letting him check out his book and mine! It was the first book that JA Hunter had published, that love affair started in 1987..

African animal toys and books as a child. Seeing taxidemy mounts as a child, seeing slides from my grandparents 1972 photo safari to Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. Reading books and magazines, especially Akeley, James L. Clark, Robert Rockwell, Klinburgers, Jonas Bros, J.A. Hunter, Hemingway, Ruark, Roosevelt, Capstick etc..

Nothing sealed the deal like the first trip to Africa. It was all over then...

I am just a bigger kid now, still playing with African animals, only now they are real.

LT: White Plains and Westchester County. There was a couple mile stretch of creek bottom near the house separating sub-divisions that was heaven to a growing boy.

Hard to believe you could ride around then as a teenager with a rifle or fishing rod on your bike, and nobody freaked out about it!

Thanks for the memory jog - it has probably been 20 years since I gave it aa second thought. Just looked it up on Google Earth, and the forested strip is still there, as is the city dump that we considered our private playground. Made me smile.

Blank,

It's a small world...I live in Yonkers.

If you shot muskrats with a rifle there today you would have the police there in seconds and be on the front page of the newspaper the next day!

You could still bowhunt deer on private property in a few areas but that's about it.

Well I grew up hunting, and had an ex-girlfriend who's dad had been to Africa multiple times. I never really thought it would be possibility.

Fast forward to my taxidermist saying, "you know jerad for a little bit more money, you can come with me to Africa!" Which led to changing my mind about hunting in the USA...and now with over 9 months of safari 4 yrs later. He is the reason I'm poor and are addicted like a street junkie! However, 2 leopards, 1 buff, 2 rhinos (darted), and 40+ plains game species I'm well on my way to a museum!

Now, my buddy Wade Derby, AR member, is stoking the coals about ASIA, and I've got my first trip planned to mongolia in 14'. SO it's basically all the people I thought were my friends!!!! LOL

quote:

Originally posted by Oryxhunter1983:
...the reason I'm poor and are addicted like a street junkie! SO it's basically all the people I thought were my friends!!!! LOL

Those bastidges!

I got invited to a local SCI chapter's annual auction and it was a three Margarita decision.

When I was young I saw an article in Gun Digest or Shooters Bible. It was about a DR in .775 Express or something like that. In 2010 I picked up a Baikal SxS 30.06 that reignited the spark.

What started my lust for Africa was the same thing that started my love for NE double rifles, a man named Mr. Kelley, in of all places the geographic center of Texas! This was before most of the writers on Africa gained their fame, and when P. H. Capstick was one year old, and Robert Ruark was only 26 yrs old.

Back in 1941 or 42 when I was six or seven years old my grand father took me to the little railroad town of Santa Anna, Texas, where he traded, from his ranch in the top end of the Texas hill country in the South East corner of Coleman County. In that little town there was a hardware store owned by Mr. Kelly. In that store which had a mezzanine like cat-walk up high where animal mounts were placed all the way around the store, and among them were old guns, and Indian artifacts.

These mounts were mostly African and I was full of questions about what the animals were and where they were taken. Mr. Kelly was happy to answer all my childish questions, and every time my grand father took me in that store he had trouble getting me to leave.

I think Mr. Kelly enjoyed answering my questions because he had hunted Africa back in the roaring 1920s and was the only man who had even been to Africa from our area, much less hunted the great beasts of that wonder land. He had only one son, about 20 yrs old who was gay, and who cared nothing about his fathers hunting or the large guns he owned. Mr. Kelly recognized the hunter and shooter, buried deep in my soul, and at my young age I appreciated the thought of hunting Africa but never dreamed I would be able to do so someday.

I was hooked on Africa, but one day when I went in the store Mr. Kelly called me back to the back counter and placed an oak & leather luggage case on the counter and opened it! WOW, it held a beautiful H&H double rifle with all the little do-dads that go with such treasures. Mr. Kelly took the rifle out of the case and put it together and handed it to me, cautioned me not to drop it because it was damn heavy for a 65 pound seven year old. Damn that rifle was heavy! Then he handed me one of the big cartridges for that rifle as he took the rifle back. Man! That cartridge looked like a artillery shell. I dug in my bib cover-all pocket and pulled out one of my .22 lr shells and compared it to the, if I remember right, 500-465NE round Mr. Kelly had handed to me and then looked back at that beautiful double rifle, and I was hooked on both Africa and double rifles! After that day, every jack rabbit I shot was a cape buffalo, and my uncle’s 410 double barreled shotgun was that H&H double rifle in my hands. Dreams of a young kid!

From that day in Mr. Kelly’s store I dreamed of hunting Africa with a double rifle. I must say that, my finding that actually doing a safari in Africa would be possible for a poor ranch kid from Texas was when I first encountered SCI back in the early 1960s. If the written word did it, it was the magazines from SCI all had stories with good pictures of African animals taken in places like Kenya, (now closed) and Tanganyika (now Tanzania) but in those days one saw few double rifles in those magazines and I had already bought my first double rifle in 1958, and had found the reason so few where being used was that ammo was a scarce commodity. It was 1982 before I got to Africa, and I’m still hooked but at my age now but 70 years later I’m back where I started at age seven doing nothing but reading and dreaming about Africa again! Full circle so to speak!

....................................................................

Mac, what a great story!

COOL stuff Mac...Thanks for sharing!

Lots of COOL stories/romantic love affairs with Africa!

For me, it was simple quite frankly. The Lion captured my attention as a little kid, thought it was the coolest animal I had ever seen. Then came Sullivan's - "Black Death" video, when I was 18 yrs old! Plus his later releases too!

Then I just had to go.

Loved to hunt. Did a few in the US and found shooting deer over feeders boring and found elk hunting expensive for all the effort.

Went to RSA and found I could hunt like a madman, eat great, enjoy great PH's, take my sons and wife, and still afford it compared to sheep hunting or putting up with crappy food and rain in Alaska.

I am hooked.

Mac,

My story is similar to yours. I grew up in a very small town in East Texas with a town square. The grade school, 1-4 was about a block off the square. My mother worked as a free lance book keeper for several businesses located on the square. School would let out at 3:00pm each day and I would walk to whatever store she happened to be working in that day and did my best to stay out of the way and entertain myself until 5:00pm when we would ride home together. Times were different then and we thought nothing of a 6 year old leaving school to walk into town unaccompanied.

One of the businesses she worked for was a mens clothing store owned by a Mr. Jones. He had hunted North America extensively and his trophy room was his store. He had an upper walk way encircling the showroom where all the mounts were located. I would spend hours up there studying the animals. Mr. Jones was not an overly friendly fellow however and never had time to speak with a young fart like me. However, he suggested one day that I should walk over to the local Ford dealership and check out Mr. Parker's showroom as that was his trophy room and he had been to Kenya twice!

I remember he had a great lion mounted life sized on the main counter and a couple of Cape buffalo bulls on the wall. Mr. Parker was a good friend of my father and he took the time to call me into his office on numerous occasions to tell me stories of his adventures. His big gun was a 375H&H and I remember thinking that must have been a cannon. I was between the ages of 6 to 9 at the time. Mr. Parker was always very nice to me and I don't know how many hours I spent in that showroom. No one ever ran me off. Now days, I'm friends with his son who has also made a few trips to Zim.

Without a doubt there was also an element of Tarzan movies early on that sparked an interest in Africa.

I've talked about hunting Africa all my life. Long before I had the money to do so. But I always knew I'd get around to it one day. In fact, I purchased my first big bore rifle while a Sophomore in college; a push feed M-70 458 Win Mag. Never could get that thing to feed correctly but it was my constant reminder that I would make it over there one day.

I finally got serious about putting the money together in 06. It hooked me so bad that I lost interest in other pursuits except guns. To a large extent, I lost interest in hunting areas other than Africa. Sold my two Harleys and other toys and there isn't an hour of any day that goes by without thinking about Africa. I've made 8 trips since that first one in 06 with 2 more booked. The addiction just keeps getting worse. My wife says that Africa is my expensive mistress, and the only one she will tolerate! A good woman she is!!

Hunting ducks with my father lit the fire, Watching Osa Martin Johnson on TV during the 50's face an elephant charge, then reading Jack O'Conner in high school sealed the deal. Bought my first M70 first year in college. Took years to get a double.

Believe it or not...Mark Sullivan videos. I know, I know they are controversial but one thing will always be there in his stuff, the excitement of Africa and the hunt!