Big Game Hunters, Show Your Stuff

He was rummaging around last night not 50 yds from me @ 8:30 pm (an hour & a half after shooting light), and then again this morning @ 05:30 am (still in the dark). Smart MF'r, I'd have shot him if I could have seen him.

killing been stingy. probly got 30 hrs in the blinds, they there, but hiding out during legal hours.

got this one this morning, it was in a group of 3

Here is a buck I took quite a few years ago. A girl that lives upstate from me does the mounts as a hobby. She charged me 280 bucks and she did a beautiful job.

I have a tree in my back yard that bucks rub their antlers on every year. In the first pic you can see the new rub and the battle scars from last year. Not a ton of damage but I’m sure he will work the tree again. When the tree was smaller I had to straighten it because a buck was pushing it over. I planted the tree many years ago and I’m not mad at the buck, it kind of excites me to it.

"As I had so often experienced in years past, mine was a solo camp, in the High Lonesome, 11 miles from cell phone service and three times that from the nearest semblance of civilization."

BarnBuster said:

"But if your first shot fails to drop him, as mine just had, then some damnable internal lever knocks the keg over and gives the buff ability to absorb ordnance like the range berm at the Aberdeen Proving Ground...The numerous, solid hits from major caliber African rifles have had the impact of tsetse bites. And it comes. As it does, you have fired the last round in the magazine of the .458. So you now have a charging, wounded, Cape buff at close range with an empty rifle in hand."

The First Time it Comes for You - Sporting Classics Daily

Oh, man, it was big. Actually, he was big, a mature, bull Cape buffalo. If you knocked off the tickbirds and caught him as he stepped out of the shower, he was a light heavyweight of 1,800 pounds. That number hadn’t really meant anything to me until I’d beheld him over a rifle. Once you…

sportingclassicsdaily.com

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Great read BB, thanks!
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GreatwhiteNorth said:

Great read BB, thanks! +

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Peter Hathaway Capstick wrote some great African safari articles and books that you can probably find at the library.
Also available fairly inexpensive at used book sellers.

a quote about one of his books...
"For sheer excitement and terror, 'Death in the Long Grass' has few equals."

an interesting forum here...

and a massive compilation of books re: Africa and Professional Hunters, old and new.

Took an old buck on Saturday morning.

raratt said:

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A bit high - a smidge
A bit back - nah, just right

I didn’t know this thread was here….what a great surprise. Now I can address my 2 favorite hobbies at the same place. Anyway, I live and farm (mj only and the occasional food plot) in Va but hunt all over, when the budget will allow it. I bought a rockin farm in S Iowa and got a taste of how the other half lives.
As time went on, I could only draw a tag every 3yrs, even though I owned the land. So I was buying Governors tags for the years I didn’t draw.
When that got too expensive, I sold to a buddy.
Now I hunt it every third year and it’s a freak show. It makes hunting back home in Va seem like a different activity altogether.
The pic is my personal best……taken w/ a bow on Oct 28…….the year was 2011 or 2012, I forget. Big 5.5 yr old, grossed 181” w/ 28” and 29” beams.

Bullmark said:

View attachment 5355762I didn’t know this thread was here….what a great surprise. Now I can address my 2 favorite hobbies at the same place. Anyway, I live and farm (mj only and the occasional food plot) in Va but hunt all over, when the budget will allow it. I bought a rockin farm in S Iowa and got a taste of how the other half lives.
As time went on, I could only draw a tag every 3yrs, even though I owned the land. So I was buying Governors tags for the years I didn’t draw.
When that got too expensive, I sold to a buddy.
Now I hunt it every third year and it’s a freak show. It makes hunting back home in Va seem like a different activity altogether.
The pic is my personal best……taken w/ a bow on Oct 28…….the year was 2011 or 2012, I forget. Big 5.5 yr old, grossed 181” w/ 28” and 29” beams.

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Beautiful buck for sure!
You didn't really need to mention the bow part, the target in the background and the wound in the fore says everything.
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"As the ground between them quickly disappeared, Capt. Slatter moved to TR’s side and fired at the fast-approaching monster. His bullet entered the bull’s neck, but it failed to stop the onrushing beast. Intent on reaching the men, the rhino continued its charge until finally its head dropped and he plowed into the earth, its momentum bringing it to within several feet of the men."