The “gray ghost” is widespread in Africa, but some regions are better than others.

With attractive gray hide, bright white vertical body stripes, and those magnificent spiraling horns, the greater kudu is among Africa’s most striking antelopes, and perhaps the most eagerly sought. Everybody who goes on safari wants a greater kudu!

First, you must seek them where they live. After the bushbuck, the greater kudu is the most widespread of the spiral-horned antelopes. Except for an isolated pocket where CAR, Chad, and Sudan meet, the greater kudu is primarily an animal of East and Southern Africa. It is found from Eritrea and Ethiopia down through Kenya, Tanzania, and Mozambique; then on west through Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Namibia, and down through much of South Africa. Even in parts of this region where the kudu is not native, it has been widely introduced.

There are many choices for a kudu safari. However, kudu densities vary widely. Although they need water, they do fine in arid country but, as browsers, they are primarily creatures of thornbush and woodland. They love hilly country, are rarely found in open grasslands, and never in swamps.

The several races of greater kudu are visually identical, but there are size differences. Rowland Ward recognizes four regional groupings: Western, Abyssinian, East African, and Southern greater kudu. SCI echoes these, but adds Eastern Cape greater kudu because the kudus of South Africa’s Eastern Cape region are shorter in horn, and this population is geographically isolated.

The Western greater kudu, also isolated, is the smallest. I hunted this kudu in southeastern Chad. I saw my bull silhouetted on a skyline and he looked like a giant. When I walked up to him, I wondered where the rest of the animal had gone! He was a third smaller than all other kudus.

The Southern greater kudu grows the largest horns. RW’s Top 10 Southern greater kudus are alllarger than the current world record for any other greater kudu! Most African hunters desire a kudu and, of course, everybody wants a big kudu. If you peruse RW’s listings, you will instantly note that seven of the Top 10 southern greater kudus were taken in South Africa. More on this in a moment.

Kudu populations have changed, and African hunting has changed. In his landmark work Big Game Shooting in Africa (1932), Major H.C. Maydon wrote that Eritrea was “the best kudu grounds” in Africa. Maydon took an awesome 55-incher in 1927. Obviously, he found kudus plentiful then, but no longer. Greater kudus are on license in Ethiopia, but populations are scattered and thin on the ground. Today, an Abyssinian greater kudu is harder to come by than a mountain nyala.

When we read older accounts, we get the idea that kudu hunting is difficult and chancy, the kudu often described as the “gray ghost.” On his 1933 safari in Tanganyika (now Tanzania), Ernest Hemingway struggled for a greater kudu, and finally prevailed. Twenty years later, also in Tanganyika, Robert Ruark struggled harder, and never got his kudu. Most safaris before 1970 took place in East Africa. Both Kenya and Tanzania produced some fine heads, but the greater kudu was never a common antelope in either country.

In 1988, hunting with Michel Mantheakis in Tanzania’s Masailand, I shot a beautiful 52-inch kudu; the way the trackers carried on, you’d have thought it was a hundred-pound tusker! Twenty years later, also with Mantheakis on Tanzania’s southern border, we saw lots of greater kudus, and I took one of my best. There are kudu hotspots in East Africa. However, the primary reason the old accounts make kudu hunting seem so difficult is that they were hunting them in the wrong parts of Africa.

The Southern greater kudu is far the most numerous and, in much of Southern Africa it is the most common large antelope. It’s still the gray ghost, never easy to hunt, but your chances are better if you hunt where there are lots of them!

So, let’s take a little tour around Southern Africa. The current world record, an astonishing bull, 73 inches around the curl, was picked up in Mozambique by Dr. Carlo Caldesi. Must be a great place for kudu, right? Yes…but not everywhere. Most of my Mozambique hunting has been near the mouth of the Zambezi. Kudus are on license, but the area is too wet; I’ve never seen a kudu there. Farther inland, on the Kruger boundary, around Gorongosa National Park, up the Zambezi, and north around the Nyasa Reserve, kudus are fairly plentiful and quality is good. A kudu is a normal part of a safari bag for hunters willing to put in the time.

Pretty much the same applies to Zambia, although I’ve never taken a kudu there. My sense is that kudus, though widespread in Zambia, are rarely plentiful, but quality is good. In 1996 in the Kafue, campmate Gary Williams took a monster 58-incher, one of the biggest kudu bulls I’ve ever seen on the ground. In July 2021, in Luangwa North, son-in-law Brad Jannenga got a nice bull without extreme effort. We saw quite a few kudus, including a bigger bull that gave us the slip. Although I’ve done six safaris in Zambia, I’ve never invested time in hunting kudu because, like most people who hunt that country, other game was a higher priority. Make kudu a priority, put in the time, and Zambia should produce.

Botswana is a sleeper destination for kudu, with ideal habitat except in the depths of the Kalahari. In the 1980s, when elephant hunting was closed, Botswana competed with Zimbabwe in the “buffalo-and-plains game” market. A nice kudu was routinely part of the bag.

In the Okavango in 1985, PH Ronnie MacFarlane announced one morning: “We’re going to go to a river I know of and get your kudu.” We arrived at midday and the area was teeming with kudus. I think I saw fifty bulls!

Today, with hunting in Botswana reopened, overpopulated elephants are the biggest draw, but don’t overlook the excellent plains game hunting, especially on some of the huge private ranches. 

Zimbabwe is a small country, but awesome for kudu. I shot my first kudu there in 1979, in the southeastern Lowveld with Barrie Duckworth. Zimbabwe also showed me the biggest kudu I have ever seen. Brittany and I were hunting buffalo with Andrew Dawson along the Chewore River in the Zambezi Valley. This monster was casually browsing along the far bank. He was over the magical 60-inch mark, just a question of by how much. But neither of us had a kudu on our licenses!

The Zambezi Valley produces big kudu bulls, but that’s not where I would look because all antelopes are fairly thin on the ground. Instead, I’d consider the Matetsi blocks, or the big conservancies in the south, where densities are higher. Mugabe’s land grab ruined a lot of carefully nurtured habitat, but much remains, and a good kudu is probably Zimbabwe’s top specialty.

In Namibia, the Southern greater kudu is the most widespread large antelope. Most of Namibia is arid, but densities are probably highest in central Namibia and the north, which is better-watered and with the dense thornbush that kudus love. With limited dangerous game, Namibia is primarily a plains game destination, with a good kudu routinely a part of the bag.

Unfortunately, Namibia has been periodically hit by a disease that especially impacts kudu and eland. Often called “rabies,” scientifically it may not be, but kudu populations in some areas have been seriously reduced. The kudu is one of the slowest-maturing antelopes, requiring twelve years for maximum horn growth. Recovery takes time and, in some areas, numbers and selection are not what they might have been a few years back.

As with any pandemic, some areas have been hit harder than others. Namibia has plenty of kudus, and good bulls. On a ten-day plains game safari, I still expect hunters to take a good kudu, but in some areas they might have to hunt harder.

Let’s return to South Africa, which dominates RW’s Top 10…and accounts for a shocking thirty-one of the Top 50 RW Southern greater kudus. This suggests South Africa must be the best place, especially if you’re looking for an exceptional bull. Maybe. South Africa has the genetics. And the country has not had the same problems as its neighbors: no disease like Namibia; no long civil war like Mozambique; no land grab like Zimbabwe.

There is a fly in the ointment, caused by the great game-ranching industry that, in my lifetime, took South Africa’s wildlife from rags to riches, and made the country Africa’s top safari destination. Prices for big kudu bulls have skyrocketed, not only among hunters, but for breeding stock. When discovered, big kudu bulls are often captured and taken to auction. This happens mostly in the north, where the biggest kudus live, and where game ranching is most intensive. This does not apply to all areas and operators, but it’s widespread enough to be a concern.

Northern South Africa remains excellent for big kudu bulls—at higher prices—but don’t overlook the Eastern Cape. You are unlikely to get a 54-inch kudu there—these kudus are smaller—but kudu densities are high, and trophy fees are lower. If I wanted a good chance at a nice kudu bull, I’d think about Eastern Cape. Now, if I wanted a really big kudu bull, then I’d do serious research, and I’d plan on hunting hard.

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Go ahead, buy that new rifle–it’s for the good of wildlife conservation.

Photo above courtesy of Blue Heron Productions

Did you buy a new rifle last year? Or a few boxes of ammo, when you were lucky enough to find some? A hunting license? Or maybe a Disney princess fishing rod for your daughter? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then you also did some other very worthy things, whether you realized it or not: You helped fund a wildlife conservation project in your state. You contributed to a biological study on deer or bears. You helped spiff up a public shooting range. And you kicked in some money for better access to a trout stream.

Last year, 2021, was a record-breaking year for wildlife funding. An astounding $1.5 billion was generated for the benefit of state wildlife and fisheries agencies through the Federal Wildlife and Sporting Fishing Restoration Program, shattering the previous record of $808 million set in 2015. Hunters and shooters generated $1.1 billion of that through their purchases, while anglers and boaters accounted for some $400 million.

I think most non-hunters (and a lot of hunters, too) just kind of assume that we’ve always had deer and elk, and open land to hike and hunt, and pretty lakes with fish in them. Nope. None of that happened by accident. The wildlife, habitat, and outdoor access we all enjoy today took a lot of effort, and it cost a lot of money–and most of that money was generated by hunters, shooters, and anglers, through their purchases of equipment and licenses.

In 1937, the Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act (better known as the Pittman-Robertson, or P-R Act, after its sponsors, Senator Key Pittman of Nevada and Rep. Absalom Robertson of Virginia), levied an 11 percent excise tax on the sale of rifles, shotguns, and ammunition, and ensured that all of the proceeds, every year, would be distributed to the state wildlife agencies.

The state agencies are the official entities that ensure the stability and growth of wildlife populations, habitat, and access to outdoor recreation. The money collected is doled out according to a formula that takes into account the size of each state and how many hunting licenses it sells. State agencies apply for the money, and they are required to match the funds to the tune of 25 percent or more with money drawn from their license sales.

Wildlife and fisheries in this country were, by all accounts, in a sorry state in the 1930s. But the funds from the new legislation began to quickly pay dividends in the form of habitat improvement and game restoration in every state.

The success of P-R soon led to it being expanded to include handguns and archery equipment. And it 1950, a similar bill was passed to benefit fisheries: the Dingell-Johnson Federal Aid in Sport Fish Restoration Act, which created a similar excise tax on fishing tackle, boat equipment, and boat fuel. (That’s where the Disney fishing rod comes in.)

And it’s worth noting that when this all started, sportsmen themselves were the ones who lobbied for this legislation. Yes, we volunteered to tax ourselves for the benefit of wildlife! A lot of hikers and birdwatchers like to think hunters don’t do anything for wild animals except kill them, but have they come forward with a similar proposal to tax optics, backpacks, or hiking boots and donate the money to fund wildlife habitat? Nope. Not yet.

Since the inception of the program, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has distributed more than $25.5 billion in Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Program funds for state conservation and recreation projects. State wildlife agencies have matched these funds with approximately $8.5 billion, mostly from hunting and fishing license revenues. The fish and wildlife agencies have performed miracles with this money–miracles that we can see today in the form of plentiful deer, elk, and antelope, and open spaces to hunt them on. Pittman-Robertson is generally considered to be one of the most effective pieces of legislation ever passed for the benefit of wildlife.

So, if you need an excuse to buy another rifle this year, you’ve got one: You’re helping fund conservation. And with the many new hunters and shooters joining our ranks, 2022 just might be another record-breaking year.

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Leica’s latest bino is compact and packed with features.

The first thing you notice about Leica’s Geovid Pro 32 binocular is its size and weight. Or rather, the lack thereof. Most high-end rangefinding binoculars are somewhat large and heavy—understandably so because they are packed with all kinds of technology. The Geovid Pro 32 has the tech, but not the bulk. Weighing less than 2 pounds and only 6 inches long by 5 inches wide, it’s significantly smaller and lighter than any other rangefinding bino I’ve tried—and that’s a huge advantage for anyone schlepping a rifle and gear through the backcountry. Yet, it’s packed with high-tech features, including ballistics software and an onboard weather station, as well as an excellent rangefinder. 

This binocular looks a little different than most because Leica is using a new prism design called Perger-Porro prism that incorporates the best features of both roof prism and Porro-prism styles. The design allows for excellent light transmission in a more compact unit. It comes in both 10×32 and 8×32 models, and the slightly curved shape makes it super comfortable for extended periods of glassing.

The built-in rangefinder is fast and sure. While I didn’t test it all the way out to its advertised 2,500-yard limit, it easily and quickly gave me yardage info for everything I ranged at normal hunting distances. It also works great at very close ranges, so would be a great choice for bowhunting as well as rifle hunting in the wide-open terrain.

To get the full use out of these optics, you’ll need to add a couple of apps to your phone. Once you have the Leica Ballistics App downloaded, you’re all set to use the Applied Ballistics Ultralight software that is built into the binocular. You’ll need to input your rifle profile into the app, including muzzle velocity and zero range, and choose your bullet data from the Applied Ballistics library in the app. The app is user-friendly, so all this is easier than it sounds. 

Once you have all this in your app, just sync the bino with your phone via Bluetooth and the Geovid Pro 32 will store the information. Then, when you range a target, the bino will display the range, equivalent horizontal distance if your target is at an angle, and your elevation and windage corrections. (Once it’s synced, it works even if you don’t have cell service.) The bino even has its own weather sensors that measure temperature, air pressure, and humidity, and incorporates all this into its calculations. 

The ballistics software works for targets out to 875 yards. Hopefully that’s more than enough for any hunting application. If you’re a long-range target shooter, you can download upgraded software that will allow you to use the ballistic features out to longer ranges.

Another neat perk of the Geovid Pro 32 is a GPS tracking feature called Leica Pro Track. For this, I put the BaseMap app on my phone (the company says you can also use Google Maps or sync it with a Garmin device). Range a point in the distance, then drop a pin on the point you ranged, for example a deer stand, your vehicle, or the last known position of a big buck. Then you can use the dropped pin to help you navigate to that point. 

And don’t let all this technology distract you from simply using the Geovid Pro 32 as a binocular. It’s an excellent one, as you would expect from Leica. With a wide field of view, 32mm objectives, and HD lenses, it delivers high light transmission and image quality for spotting game even after twilight settles over your hunting area.

With all this capability, you might figure you’d have to carry these binos in a sealed and padded box. Not so. The Geovid Pro 32 is rugged. It is waterproof to 15 feet, so you don’t have to worry about it fogging up when the rain starts. It’s also got a 100-g impact rating, so it can survive the hard knocks of the toughest backcountry hunts.

I’ll be the first to admit I’m no tech wizard, but I do know a great binocular when I have it in hand. The Leica Geovid Pro 32 is one great hunting optic. Whether you take advantage of all of its features or just a few of them, it’s an excellent choice for any hunting adventure. Learn more at leicacamerausa.com.

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Learn to process, preserve, and turn your wild game into gourmet meals.

The sun was just peeking over the West Texas horizon when I settled my cross hairs carefully just behind the shoulder of the mature whitetail doe and gently pressed the trigger. She ran just forty yards, and I found her piled up at the base of a live oak. I smiled as I laid my hand on her still-warm flank, thinking about what was to come. 

On this day, the successful conclusion of my morning hunt did not mean a return to camp for a leisurely cup of coffee or a nap. I had completed the first step in the age-old process of turning a live game animal into edible meat, and I was about to work my way through every part of the procedure that would convert this doe into steaks, chops, and sausage–and eventually into gourmet meals, all under the expert tutelage of a professional chef. 

Sure, I had done this before—cutting up and preparing wild game has always been a cherished part of the hunt for me—but never under the guidance of someone who really knew what they were doing. I was eager to take my rather clumsy, self-taught butchering and game-cooking skills to the next level, and this From Field to Table event run by Outdoor Solutions at the T Diamond Ranch in Texas was the perfect place to do it.

The expert in charge of turning our group into competent wild game preparers was Albert Wutsch, a lifelong hunter, professional chef, and culinary instructor. Chef Al, as he likes to be called, served as chairman of the culinary department at Indiana University of Pennsylvania until retiring in 2015. He now lives in Montana, as befits someone who especially loves to hunt and eat elk, and he combines his hunting and cooking passions by running From Field to Table events. 

Anyone who values game meat is ultra-serious about proper field care, and Chef Al is no exception. “The object is to get the hide off and the body temperature down as fast as possible,” he said. I field-dressed my deer and hung it in the posh, and cool, butcher shop/classroom facility at the ranch headquarters. Once everyone in the class had at least one animal down, we skinned and quartered them as Chef Al walked us through the process and circulated among us with helpful suggestions.

“You don’t want to cut your animal up within the first 24 hours because you need to let the muscles relax,” he explained. “If you have the proper conditions for aging, which are temperatures between 34 and 45 degrees, go ahead and let it age for 5 to 7 days. But if you don’t have those conditions, don’t worry about aging. Just break it down and get the meat on ice or in the fridge to get it cooled down.”

The four-day course didn’t allow time to age our meat, so the next day we moved our deer quarters to large stainless-steel tables, where we followed along as Chef Al demonstrated how to bone them out and separate them into the various cuts, along with trimming and removing the excess fat and silver skin. He noted that all animals from elk to antelope break down in exactly the same way, so the process for my deer was the same as for the wild pig I shot the following day. 

“As a chef, I’m already thinking of what I’m going to do with this carcass before I even go into the field,” Chef Al said. He showed us how to identify the various cuts of meat on each quarter, emphasizing the importance of knowing which ones were tender and which were tough. “The tender cuts always get dry cooking methods, and are always served rare, which means an internal temperature of 140 degrees. If you overcook tender cuts, they get chewy and tough. The tough cuts, on the other hand, should be cooked with slow, low cooking methods with moisture, for long periods of time, which breaks them down and makes them tender.”

With each quarter neatly boned out and separated into pieces, I carefully placed them into bags for vacuum sealing, marking each with a felt-tip marker: Top round (tender). Bottom round (tender). Eye of round (less tender). Shank (tough). Trimmings were placed in a separate bag for grinding or making stew meat. Each of us laid our sealed and labeled packages on the shelves of the shop’s freezer, reserving some of the meat for making sausage and the various courses that would later go into our wild-game dinner.

We enjoyed several morning and evening hunts on the ranch during the first three days of the course, which allowed us to shoot one deer and up to two pigs. I was content to shoot just one of each, which gave me plenty of meat to take home. We also spent some time at the range, where instructors helped students with shooting fundamentals and learning good field positions. The fourth and final day was spent entirely in the butcher shop and the kitchen, where we learned techniques for making sausage, brining and smoking meat, and making jerky. The day—and the event—culminated with our group preparing and serving a four-course gourmet wild game meal made with the deer and pigs we had hunted and processed. 

As an experienced hunter, I was distinctly in the minority of our group. Of the ten attendees who had traveled to Texas from New York and California and various points in between, seven were first-time hunters.

“The fact that these events have attracted so many new hunters comes as a surprise to me,” said Greg Ray, owner of Outdoor Solutions, the company behind From Field to Table. Outdoor Solutions began in 2003 as an outfitting and hunt-booking business. In 2012, after realizing that many hunters booking his Western hunts had never shot at an animal beyond 100 yards, Ray began running long-range shooting schools in different locations around the country, and the schools became a tremendous success. The From Field to Table events are the latest addition to the Outdoor Solutions educational offerings, started in 2019.

“Actually, I added the field-to-table classes to our lineup because I personally wanted to learn more about this aspect of hunting,” Ray explained. “I’ve been hunting all my life, but like many of us, I used to just drop off my animals at a commercial processor. Not only does that get expensive, but I gradually realized that I was missing an important part of the whole equation, the butchering and processing of the meat I had acquired. But I didn’t really know how to do it. I thought classes like these would appeal to other experienced hunters like myself who wanted to add to their skills.”

They did, but something else happened along the way: novice and first-time hunters began attending the From Field to Table classes in droves. In 2021, more than 50 percent of the students who attended the course were brand-new hunters, and interest continues to climb. Ray has fifteen classes running in 2022 in nine different locations throughout the country, and all but one were already sold out at press time.

“People who don’t fit the traditional hunting demographic are coming to these events,” Ray said. “And they turn into avid, dedicated hunters.”

One of the students in my class, Nick, was a perfect example. A self-described “left-leaning New Yorker who never hunted in my life,” Nick was invited to the event by his father-in-law, who is an avid hunter. Nick said he was very nervous about coming. “This is all totally out of my comfort zone,” he admitted. “I’ve never even been to Texas! But I do eat meat, and when my father-in-law invited me, I thought, I should do this. I should learn these skills and take personal responsibility for the meat I eat.” 

I spoke to Nick on the last evening, and he said he could still hardly believe he had shot, skinned, and butchered both a deer and a pig that weekend, in addition to preparing one of the game dinner courses and learning how to make jerky and sausage. “I just had four of the best days I have ever had,” he said. “It was such a rewarding experience.”

In the kitchen on the last afternoon of the event, I was the one who felt like a complete novice. Faced not with preparing my usual venison stew or a simple pan-fried elk steak, I was instead staring down a complicated-looking recipe for venison char siu topped with wild boar won-tons served with hot Chinese mustard and Ponzu sauce. In other parts of the kitchen, my fellow students were working on an appetizer of corned boar and breakfast sausage topped by a poached egg, and others were preparing the main course, venison saltimbocca with mushroom marsala sauce. Chef Al moved from group to group, explaining various cooking techniques.

“We’ve got way too much oil in this pan!” he barked as he began a stir-frying demonstration. His tone softened a bit as he explained. “We don’t need much because it’s a nonstick pan. We want that flame up full blast, and we’ll start out with a little bit of meat in the pan. We’ll do this in a couple batches.” He expertly picked up the pan and flipped the strips of meat around. “We want it browned; we want carmelization. We’ll use some sauce here to coat that meat. Now we’re going to throw in some red peppers and snow peas.”

There was nothing to do but dive into my own cooking assignment and make the most of this one-of-a-kind learning experience. As I lifted a batch of steaming wild boar won-tons out of the deep fryer and placed them in a warming tray in preparation for serving, I started seeing the incredible possibilities, far beyond simple steaks and stews, represented by all the wild meat I was fortunate to have back home in my freezer. 

“Center of the plate!” said Chef Al as he showed us how to properly present the first course. “This is what we want it to look like.” He sprinkled a serving of meat with just the right amount of cut chives and expertly placed baguette crisps standing up on three sides. “This is how you place the garnish. We want to showcase different colors, textures, flavors, and shapes. Draw a curved line with the sauce, like this. Leave plenty of space around the food. All right. Go for it!” 

Thinking of my usual slap-some-food-on-a-plate-and-dig-in method, I could not help but grin as I attempted to get my baguette crisps to stand up straight. We hunters often forget that wild game is, and should be, considered a gourmet delicacy, and that the animals we hunt deserve the highest level of treatment and respect during every single step from the time we press the trigger to the time we present them on our plates. Once you attend a From Field to Table event, you’ll never forget that—and you’ll be well on your way to having the skills to do it, no matter your current level of hunting, meat processing, or cooking experience.

The best part of the event, of course, was eating the meal we had all worked so hard on. Sitting around the big dining table in the ranch lodge, we toasted each other on our newfound skills and enjoyed each course as it was prepared and plated. The experience had brought home to all of us the true essence and original intent of hunting—the procurement of meat, and the self-reliant joy of providing for ourselves and our families. And if I do say so myself, those won-tons were delicious.

To learn more about Outdoor Solutions From Field to Table events, go to fromfieldtotable.com. This website also has plenty of helpful information for game cooks, from processing videos to meat ID, cooking methods, and recipes.

GEAR:

On a From Field to Table event, you can use the supplied rifles or bring your own. I used the rig that Outdoor Solutions provided: a Benelli Lupo bolt-action rifle in 6.5 Creedmoor with suppressor, loaded with 140-grain Federal Fusion bonded softpoints and topped with a Zeiss Conquest scope. This proved to be an exceptionally accurate setup, and shooting the 6.5 Creedmoor with the suppressor was like plinking with a .22. Although we practiced reaching out to longer ranges and dialing the scope turrets on the range, most shots in the field were within 150 yards.

In the ranch butcher shop, we used grinders, dehydrators, meat mixers, sausage stuffers, and chamber vacuum sealers provided by MEAT! Your Maker, a direct-to-consumer company that boasts an entire line of meat-processing gear. I was so impressed with this equipment that as soon as I got home, I ordered a six-tray dehydrator and a meat slicer for my home butchering setup. You can see their entire line at meatyourmaker.com.

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The Magnifico Set of Five combines technology and tradition.

Most very high-end, stunningly engraved shotguns have one thing in common: They’re doubles. When Benelli set out recently to create a set of shotguns that would be sold to benefit conservation, they hit upon a new idea: simultaneously showcasing the very highest-end Italian artistry and craftsmanship with the top-shelf technology of their inertia-driven semiauto shotguns. The result was the Magnifico Set of Five—five semiautomatic shotguns, two in 12-gauge, two in 20-gauge, and one in 28-gauge—that exhibit both twenty-first century technology and the Old World artistic prowess of Italy’s leading firearms designers and engravers.

This set, which will be sold with $200,000 of the proceeds donated to benefit Safari Club International’s wildlife conservation and humanitarian service efforts, is based on Benelli’s premium semiauto shotgun platform. Stockwork was done by the Piotti brothers, a premier custom house overseen by master gun craftsmen in the northern Italy province of Brescia. The brothers selected the finest walnut billets, hand-fashioning the raw wood and seamlessly integrating the metalwork. Hand-rubbed oil finish and buffalo-horn buttplates give these shotguns an even more luxurious look.

The engraving was done under the direction of Giovanni Steduto and Valerio Peli, master engravers from Creative Art Laboratorio Incisioni. Steduto and Peli hand-engraved each of the Set of Five receivers with inspirational scrollwork and modern interpretations of classical hunting scenes inspired by aristocratic hunting traditions.

The 12-gauge, 20-gauge, and 28-gauge models each have unique engravings, with scenes aligned with each individual gun’s theme. Scenes of waterfowl in wetland settings grace the 12-gauge shotguns, with different portrayals on both sides of the receivers. The 20-gauge models celebrate the upland hunt with bird dogs and flushing pheasants. The 28-gauge etchings of pointers and quail exemplify the pastoral tradition. Framing the hunting scenes are delicate oak leaf and acorn motifs. The presentation is further accentuated with embossed rose gold on the acorns and sky elements. 

Naturally, the set comes in a handcrafted leather case. Oscar Maschera designed the case in a style reminiscent of the triptych form of Renaissance art. The trifold case is constructed of a wooden frame wrapped in premium vegetable-tanned full-grain leather with expert hand-stitching and hardware composed of brass and brass-plated steel. The entire Set of Five fits securely in the case with gauge-specific care sets containing a polished, chrome-plated steel oil bottle, snap cap, and barrel cleaning kit. Integrated into the case lid is an engraving of Lady with an Ermine by Leonardo da Vinci—the personification of Renaissance expression. To join Italian artistry across the centuries, the unpublished novella Among Forests and Fields by Umberto Piersanti, 2005 Nobel Prize for Literature nominee, is included in a hand-stitched leather-bound cover.

While these certainly aren’t shotguns that most of us will be taking out to our duck blinds any time soon, the Magnifico Set of Five is a stunning, one-of-a-kind combination of modern technology and classical art.

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Where and how to find “the most ruggedly handsome animal in Africa.”

Photo above: A good view of the weird white rump ring found on all common waterbucks. This is lacking in the defassa waterbucks, replaced by a white rump patch.

“Waterbuck are awful to eat,” quoth Robert Ruark in Horn of the Hunter, a book so good that, seventy years later, we take its observations at face value. On this one (very unusually), Ruark got it wrong. Waterbuck aren’t as tender or tasty as eland (what is?), but the meat is fine. The shaggy coat is unpleasantly oily, supposedly a natural insect repellent, which makes sense in their swampy habitat. The fix is simple: When butchering waterbuck, just take care to keep the outer skin and hair away from the meat (no different than we do with pronghorn, because of the concentrated sage). Do that, and waterbuck is perfectly fine table fare!

Ruark also described the waterbuck as “the most ruggedly handsome animal in Africa.” This one (as usual) was spot-on. With carriage “like a Scottish stag,” the waterbuck is a large, imposing antelope, a big bull weighing up to five hundred pounds, with big shoulders, straight backline, and flat belly. Unless otherwise occupied, he tends to keep his head erect, impressive horns pointed skyward.

Waterbuck horns are simple: They rise from thick bases to sharp points, heavily ringed, sometimes narrow but often very wide, typically curving back, and then forward. This makes them exceptionally difficult to judge because so much length is hidden in the curve. Front-on, any mature waterbuck is impressive; it’s essential to get a good side view, because it’s the curve that takes a waterbuck from good to great.

I’ve shot several good bulls, but only a couple that made it into greatness. With all waterbuck, the magic number is 30. But, with some races and in many areas, 30-inch bulls almost don’t exist. They do get even bigger! I get a huge kick out of studying the Rowland Ward listings, our best historical record, still listing animals taken by Frederick Selous in the nineteenth century. The largest known waterbuck is an amazing common waterbuck, taken by Eugene Pearton near Alldays, South Africa, just five years ago, in 2017, with longest horn 39 3/8 inches.

For those of us who love this stuff, it beats by an eighth of an inch the longstanding record taken in 1950 by the great African hunter, American Russ Aitken (39 2/8 on the longest horn), in South Africa. Across the races, no known waterbuck has reached 40 inches and few have come close. However, the Rowland Ward record Uganda defassa waterbuck ties Aitken at 38 2/8, and the No. 3 common waterbuck, taken in 1966 in Botswana (an arid country where waterbucks aren’t usually plentiful), reached 38 inches.

I have never seen such a waterbuck. And, with waterbuck being so difficult to judge, unless you have it on the ground and thus can use a tape, how can you know? In 2016, on the way out of the Mozambique swamps after a buffalo hunt, we spotted a giant waterbuck, certainly mid-thirties, as big as I’ve ever seen. I didn’t have a light rifle with me, just a big double. Wide-open floodplain, no cover. We tried, but we didn’t have a chance. I would have liked to put a tape on that one!

All waterbucks are the same species, Kobus ellipsiprymnos, with just two subspecies: common waterbuck with the weird white circle on the rump; and defassa, with a white rump patch. Both have varying amounts of white on throat, nose, and around the eyes. Horns are much the same, but body color varies, ranging from dark to rufous to nearly gray. The common or ringed waterbuck is one of the more widespread African antelopes, ranging from South Africa and Namibia all the way to northern Kenya. The defassa waterbuck occurs to the north and west of the common; it was long considered a separate species, but so much natural hybridization is known that modern taxonomists generally lump them as just one. In fact, there is a narrow but definable hybrid belt between the two. It starts north of where Caprivi meets Zimbabwe, then northeast and along the Malawi/Zambia border; then on north through Tanzania to northern Kenya; and on beyond up through Sudan and into western Ethiopia.

We hunters being the splitters we are, it’s surprising we’ve maintained just one common waterbuck, but the splitters prevailed with the defassa waterbucks, dividing them into regional groupings, though not with total agreement. If one were compelled to hunt them all, you could put good specimens of all six (common plus five defassa) side-by-side on a wall and I doubt anyone could correctly ID them!

From south to north, the defassa waterbucks are: Angolan, primarily in Angola but possibly extreme southwest Zambia; Rhodesian or Crawshay waterbuck, primarily in western Zambia; East African, in western Tanzania north to Ethiopia. The Uganda defassa waterbuck is identified as confined to Uganda, while the sing-sing waterbuck ranges to the west, below the Sahara and above the great forest, all the way to the Atlantic.

While general appearance and habitat vary little, horn size does. Rowland Ward’s records and minimums (based on length of longest horns) are interesting:

Subspecies                               Record Horn    Minimum

Common                                               39                     28

Angolan defassa                                   36                     24

Rhodesian (Crawshay) defassa           31                     25

East African defassa                            35                    27

Uganda defassa                                    39                    28

sing sing                                               36                     27

With Angola closed to hunting for forty-some years, Angolan defassa is the waterbuck we know least about, with little current data, while Crawshay waterbuck is clearly the smallest. With waterbuck on license, we’re always looking for a giant that just might hit the magical 30 inches, but, obviously, any waterbuck in the upper twenties is a very good bull (any time, any place). In Zambia’s Kafue in 1995, I saw a giant Crawshay waterbuck, another I would have liked to have put a tape on. If not 30, close. But as usual, I was on a budget. I rationalized that all waterbucks look alike. I finally shot a Crawshay waterbuck in northwest Zambia in 2010, a decent bull, but nothing like the one I passed fifteen years earlier, a bad decision. On the spot, and within reason, extra license fees are more economical than returning and trying again!

As the name implies, waterbucks are most usually found close to water, on floodplains along the edges of swamps, and in thicker riverine cover but, that said, they’re quite adaptable. An East African defassa waterbuck was one of my first African animals, taken far up on the slopes of Mount Kenya. I’ve seen the biggest numbers in floodplain habitat, but I’ve also encountered them in dry thornbush, far from obvious water.

The Uganda defassa waterbuck is legendary for its exceptional horns, longest of the defassa group. It was (and is) traditionally recognized by Rowland Ward, but not yet by SCI. This actually makes sense, because Uganda was closed from the mid-1970s for thirty-five years, during the genesis of SCI’s record-keeping system. They are again huntable, but numbers aren’t high, with little recent data. I’ve seen some big ones in and around the Murchison Falls National Park. This area is just up from the Nile, so it’s obvious waterbuck habitat. However, I’ve also seen some in acacia forest in Uganda’s northeast corner, Karamoja, arid country that seems unlikely for waterbuck! The Uganda defassa was on license all three times I hunted Uganda (2011, 2017, and 2021), cost reasonable. I’ve seen some OK bulls, but never one that beckoned, “now, that’s a Uganda waterbuck!”

Waterbuck hunting varies mostly by habitat. It seems to me they are sort of “medium” in wariness, not as crafty as the spiral horns, nor as trusting as the damaliscs. In thicker cover, I’ve seen bulls evaporate when we thought we had them dead to rights, but I’ve also seen amazing disappearing acts in wide-open country!

Because they are often seen in numbers on treeless floodplains, shooting distances can be longer than with many African animals. This is risky for two reasons: First, although you don’t hear this much, my experience is the waterbuck is among the tougher antelopes. Poorly hit, they are likely to cover much country and, if they get into wet ground (often nearby), recovery can be difficult.

Second, they are difficult to judge! To get those last couple inches of horn, you need careful views from multiple angles. Preferably as close as possible, best if there are other bulls for comparison. But you may not get a close look, and you’re unlikely to get more than one. So, if you want a waterbuck, you look as well and as hard as you can. Make your decision based on the best impression possible, but don’t dither. As with most animals, “ground shrinkage” is more common than “ground expansion.” With waterbuck, you’ll never be exactly certain until you apply the tape.

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At seventy, should you look back upon your “lasts?” or plan your “nexts?”

Photo above: Every hunt that leaves you with a multifaceted memory is a successful one. And there inevitably comes a time when there will be more memories than hunts. (c)Trail’s End Media

With apologies to William Shakespeare and his “seven ages of man,” I have my own list.

Mine starts with nineteen, when we arguably become men—women, of course, become women far sooner—nineteen is the ideal age for, according to the late poet-novelist-hunter Jim Harrison, a poet or a warrior. Twenty-one is, well, twenty-one. Twenty-seven lives under the shadow of all those who died at that age, an uncanny percentage of rock ’n’ rollers: Hendrix, Joplin, Morrison, Cobain, Winehouse. Thirty-three carries its own scriptural omen. That takes us to forty, the old age of youth or the youth of old age. Fifty is simply more of the same, except the mountains are, in general, growing steeper.

Sixty-five is a watershed, the twenty-one of senescence, when you believe you may have gotten away with something. Then, only a few years after, many of us realize we have escaped not a thing.

King James’s translators of the Testaments told us that the days of the years of our lives are threescore and ten. And by the time you read this, if I am still here—there being no guarantees for the span of a lifetime for any of us—that’s where you’ll find me, smack-dab up to my ears in seventy.  In the abstract, with a gaggle of active, vital, and oh-so-witty nonagenarians and more than a few centenarians paraded before us—to cast shame on the rest of us for not living up to an ideal?—seventy is no longer considered so old, or a sell-by date. But it is.

“Look at me,” the old man—apparently not yet seventy—said to Robert Ruark’s boy in The Old Man and the Boy. “Here you see a monument to use. I’m too old to fall in love, but I ain’t old enough to die.”

It shows maturity to recognize that being seventy is to be aged. What is not maturity, though, is throwing in the towel.

Last fall, out of concern about the introduction of the Omicron variant of COVID into the U.S., the Biden Administration banned travel from eight southern African nations, five of them—South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, and Mozambique—holding the bulk of African hunting.  U.S. citizens could still travel there, and were technically not prohibited from returning home. But travel to and from the U. S. and southern Africa was made more restricted and onerous. A friend of mine, in his seventies, emailed me that he was all set to attend a hunting convention and book his last safari. Now—what a mess!

What struck me was not so much the situation’s being a mess, but that he had settled on going on his “last safari.” Last. If it is the last cigarette or the last sequel to Fast & Furious, last is a fine word. But last joined to safari or hunt does not in any way spark joy, unless, of course, you’re a vegan or animal-rights zealot.

Last hunts happen for reasons other than personal ones, of course. At seventy, I can remember the last tiger hunts in India, and wanting to go on one badly. At the time of the hunting ban in 1972, the tiger population on the subcontinent was eighteen hundred. After more than thirty years without licensed hunting, there were about a quarter fewer of the big cats. A ban on jaguar hunting followed—as explained in a 2015 Forbes article, bringing jaguar trophies into the U.S. is banned because “the population compared to lions is next to nothing.” As a matter of fact, according to one 2018 scientific paper, the jaguar population across its range is estimated at 173,000.

Safari hunting was closed in Kenya in 1977. Big-game populations then fell there by two-thirds, and the move was apparently judged by the government to be such a rousingly successful conservation strategy that the ban has been extended to bird shooting, too.

Californians voted out licensed cougar hunting in 1990. It is against the law now to bring back to that state even a mountain lion taken legally in another. The wildlife authorities in California today approve more than two hundred depredation permits a year for the taking of cougars that are preying on livestock—far more than the number of hunting licenses that would have been issued. And in China, which once had an exceptional variety of big game, hunting by foreigners has been closed for almost twenty years, and extinction threatens much of that country’s big game due to there being no legal hunters in the field to create an incentive for conserving them. Lifespans are not the only things not guaranteed. Hunting countries can vanish, as well.

In some ways, those lasts—which are out of our individual control and could conceivably be reversed—are easier to take than the kind of lasts that were meant by my friend and his final safari. At seventy, I see my own lasts.

I am not yet ready to give up the hope of going back to Africa, or to stop pursuing deer, pronghorn, or elk. I could hunt another black bear, but I have taken enough. Another grizzly or brown bear hunt is probably no longer in my future, although polar bear, even if I cannot return with the hide, still has—for an agglomerate of personal reasons—a shaving of hope. I know I will never again climb a sheep mountain, or run with hounds giving chase through the woods. I might hunt from an elevated box blind or hochsitz, but I may never again use a climbing stand.

I grow old; I grow old. But it’s not about wearing the bottoms of my trousers rolled, but of learning to strike a balance, to know my limitations. Not every type of hunting was always open to me; it’s just that now there are fewer.  I simply have to pick and choose more judiciously these days. And I can live with that.

I can because I began building memories early, by taking chances. Nobody hunts in Kenya any more, but I risked more money than I should have and hunted there, meeting black rhino in the wild because I went there when I did. The same with China. Just four years ago, I saw the way Burkina Faso could be and is no longer.

I slept out in the Idaho snow with the riding-mules’ hobbles clanging in the dark. In Canada, I watched the biggest whitetail I ever saw slowly cross an old logging road only yards from me and was so excited that I forgot to let off the safety as it dissolved into the forest. Glassing for mule deer on a peak at the edge of Yellowstone, I saw a grizzly sow and her half-grown cub, some distance away, but close enough to alter the entire character of the landscape. In the Northwest Territories, I watched another grizzly, a golden one, its fur so deep it moved in pleats, out on a tundra flat, uprooting a willow bush, probably to get at a single vole. Flying over Alaska in a Super Cub, I looked down to see a caribou cow standing still, belly-deep in a pond, a pack of gray wolves bedded patiently in a circle surrounding the water. 

I saw a herd of javelina moving though the cactus across a canyon in Arizona, and when it proved hopeless to get the friend I was hunting with onto the animals—“Where?” “Right there!”—I went ahead and killed a boar with my .220 Swift. I wounded a blue wildebeest in the Waterbergs and trailed it over hot miles of ground with a dog named Jock. We finally jumped it, and Jock was on it in a blur, clamping onto its muzzle. I had to wait to take the killing shot until the bull shook the little dog off into the air. In the sunset among tall trees in the Central African Republic, I sat on a termite hill, drained, looking at the marvelous carcass of a giant eland on the ground as the tracker danced and chanted, and lions began to roar.

I have these memories not only because I was able to put myself in the times and places to find them, but because I made them–the way you frame and side a house. I carpentered them in my mind, and they last, another important meaning of the word. Many hunters seem to remember the taking of the animal, but not much else: not the light, the weather, the travel, the sounds and the voices, how it was to sleep and to awaken in a wild place, the food, the people, the friends. It is as if those hunters read the final page of a mystery and all they know about the book is who done it. 

Every hunt that leaves you with a multifaceted memory is a successful one. And there inevitably comes a time when there will be more memories than hunts. I can’t tell you that you have to make any certain number of memories, because as philosopher Ortega y Gasset said, “I am I and my circumstances,” and not everyone’s circumstances are the same. And quality is very much more important than sheer quantity. I am saying, though, that while you should not be reckless, you should not be afraid to take a chance on having a “bad” hunt, at least once in a while. What’s the option—just because you think it wouldn’t turn out perfectly, not to have gone hunting at all? To have nothing to remember when memories, one day, could be all that you have left?

The other consideration is not to wait too long. The late hunting broker, Jack Atcheson, Sr., had as the slogan for his company: “Go hunting now while you are physically able,” which as slogans go is a pretty sound one. But there is also a case to be made for going when you are mentally capable.

There is a dichotomy to hunting and growing old. Geezers tend to become more hesitant about any number of things, and hunting can be one of them. The converse, though, is that the old have less to lose. Many things are paid for, children have been raised, spouses have gotten the better part of you–or they are happy to see you go, the Japanese having a saying that a good husband is healthy and far away. Even if logic tells us that we have experienced lasts, we don’t have to declare them absolutely so, ahead of time.

At seventy, I am going to do my utmost to think of nexts, to come by new memories, not merely to recycle the old. Is that being realistic? You tell me.

The rest of the Bible verse reads that if by reason of strength we can reach fourscore years, yet most of them are labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.

Not to cast doubt upon the Bible, but perhaps that is not the way it has to be, that the next ten years are to be gained solely through labor and sorrow. The only way to find that out is to live those years to the best of one’s ability. And when we do at last fly away, we will have at least carried on as long as we could, as well as we could, spreading our wings.    

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Is there such a thing?

Photo above: Packing out a Siberian ibex in Mongolia’s Altai Mountains. The Altai can be rugged, but the Mongolians are great horsemen, with horses commonly used for hunting both ibex and argali.

Procrastination is part of human nature. Many of us want to travel to various places and savor various experiences, but it’s easy to put it off. Wait until the last child is out of school, wait until retirement. It seems to me the pandemic gave us a small dose of reality, a better sense of just how uncertain “certain” things can be. My old friend and mentor Jack Atcheson Sr.’s consistent marketing slogan was: “Hunt now, while you are able.”

Always good advice, but it seems to me the Dread Virus forced a lot of us to take a new look at our “bucket lists,” and maybe move forward some of the hunts we’ve been putting off. Hey, there’s a lot of great hunting that’s perfectly practical for folks my age, and a whole lot older, and in worse health or condition. Mountain hunting, however, is something else. I have noticed that the mountains have gotten steeper. I’m happy I did a lot of that in my forties and fifties. I hate to admit it, but there are some past mountain hunts that I shouldn’t (perhaps couldn’t) repeat. Fortunately for me, I don’t need to. There are still some mountains I’d like to climb, but I climbed my share.

This past convention season, I talked to a lot of folks considering, if not a first, then a first “out of country” mountain hunt. We all know how crazy prices have gotten for most sheep hunting, but the under-appreciated goat family remains a solid bargain! The experience is much the same. In fact, in many areas, various sheep and goats share the same mountains, and are hunted from the same camps with the same mountain guides. Wild goats aren’t usually as tasty and tender as wild sheep, but the magnificence of a long-horned ibex really does compare well with any sheep, often at a fraction the cost.

But most people’s primary concerns weren’t usually about cost. Most questions were along the lines of: “Do you think I could handle that hunt?”

Obviously, I can’t answer that question. Getting up the mountain is mostly mental. Far more important than age or condition is the will. I can’t evaluate that in a casual encounter, and I know nothing about “underlying conditions” that, by a certain age, most of us have. However, most mountain animals are similar in habit and habitat, but their mountains are not created equal! Some mountain ranges are high, rocky, and steep; other ranges are lower, and some are gentler.

Mountain hunters would like us to believe that every hunt for a sheep or a goat is a death-defying cliffhanger. This is simply not true. It is true that goats tend to live in steeper, nastier country. The axiom goes: “Goat country starts where sheep country stops.” However, this is relative; difficulty depends on the elevation and steepness, and also on access. Some mountain hunts are just plain tough. I think of the tur hunts as being among the toughest, simply because the Caucasus range is unusually abrupt and steep. The hunt in Nepal, for blue sheep and Himalayan tahr (one sheep, one goat) is among the toughest, occurring unusually high elevation, and you must walk uphill for days to get into game country. Nepal is a postgraduate mountain hunt!

It is also not true that goat hunts are “always cheaper” than sheep hunts. With few permits, hunts for markhors are among the costliest in the world. From my perspective, I think the two ibexes in Pakistan (Sindh and Himalayan) are expensive, and costs to hunt Bezoar goats (Persian ibex) in Turkey have gone up significantly. Especially now, with Switzerland closed to foreign hunters, the Alpine ibex is frightfully expensive. But there are still a lot of awesome goats at reasonable prices. Rocky Mountain goats die of old age in Stone sheep country, where hunts are a fraction the cost. In Mongolia, Gobi and Altai (Siberian) ibex share their range with argalis, hunted from the same camps, with the same guides, same experience, at a tiny fraction the cost. Likewise, mid-Asian ibex in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, where ibex occupy a larger range than the argalis.

Then there are the Spanish ibexes. At the start of my career, Spain’s ibex herds were at a low ebb, permits almost unattainable. Since then, ibex populations have exploded all over Spain. Today there are about as many permits as can be sold, keeping costs competitive and reasonable. The little chamois offers a wonderful hunt all over Europe. Costs vary with area and subspecies but, with wide availability, chamois are available and affordable.

So, there are lots of opportunities to hunt various goats without breaking the bank, but few (if any) inexpensive opportunities to hunt sheep. But what about difficulty? “Can I handle this hunt?” Is there an “easy ibex?” Probably not, but actual difficulty depends largely on the mountains themselves, and how you get into them!

Hunting the mid-Asian ibex can be difficult, because their mountains tend to be tall and steep. Some outfitters use horses, but at least in my experience, road access is limited. In Pakistan, the Himalayan ibex is hunted in the north, amid some of the world’s tallest peaks. Tough hunt! On the other hand, the Sindh ibex is hunted in the southwest, in arid Baluchistan, in rocky but low ridges. There, neither the ibex nor the urial sheep offer especially tough hunts.

Hunting Gobi or Altai ibex in Mongolia is usually not especially tough. Gobi live on low hills and ridges above broad valleys, with much glassing done from 4WD vehicles. Neither the Gobi ibex nor the Gobi argali offer especially difficult hunts. The Altai range is higher, with much less access, but the Mongols are great horse people. Horses are commonly used for both ibex and argali, saving a lot of footwork…unless you’re allergic to horses. If you are, mountain hunting may not be for you!

Hunting Bezoar goat in Turkey varies tremendously. Some of the mountains in Turkey, like the Taurus range, are high and steep. However, Turkey’s ibex have also flourished and are widespread today, so difficulty varies. In Turkey, I’ve glassed a lot of ibex from roads and, along the Mediterranean coast, ibex can be glassed from boats (not unlike a lot of Rocky Mountain goat hunting in southeast Alaska). Either way, spotted from a vehicle or boat, it can be a tough uphill pull to get to the ibex, but that depends on your luck. 

The Alps can be steep, but European mountains are crisscrossed by hiking trails. Hunting Alpine ibex is generally not high on the difficulty scale; it’s more a matter of cost, because so few permits are available. 

Spain probably offers the consistently easiest ibex hunting I have ever done. Part of this is because there are a lot of ibexes today! Part of it, too, is that Spain is a modern European country with an extensive road network. In Spain (and also in Turkey), we’ve driven to the top and hunted down. Failing roads, there are plenty of good trails.

We crazy mountain hunters have long insisted there are four different ibexes in Spain. Great marketing, but size and horn configuration do vary. Habitat and hunting techniques also vary! In Gredos, we took horses partway in, then walked uphill, encountering plenty of ibex. The Beceite ibex is different, hunted in forested hills, low elevation but a lot of trees in the way. Much glassing is done from roads and, even on foot, the country is not difficult, neither high nor especially rugged. The great Spanish hunter Ricardo Medem was with me when I took my first Beceite ibex…shortly after his heart transplant. He did just fine!

Spain’s Southeast ibex occupies the high, rugged Sierra Nevada range. This hunt can be tough, but doesn’t have to be. My Southeastern ibex was taken low, by waiting for a group to come down to feed; Donna’s was taken just up from the Mediterranean, not a difficult hunt. For me, the smallest Spanish ibex, the Ronda, was the most difficult, partly because it is also the most limited in range with the smallest population. That one we did some serious climbing for! But nothing like the climbing I’ve done in the big mountains in Central Asia. With limited exposure, I can’t say the Ronda ibex is consistently the most difficult—but few hunters will start their mountain hunting adventures with this, the smallest ibex.

Whether there’s such a thing as an “easy ibex” depends largely on your luck. But, for most hunters in at least average condition—or with extra determination—the answer to “Can I do this hunt?” is generally yes . . . for some wild goats, in well-chosen places.

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In search of tundra grizzlies on Alaska’s North Slope.

It was just after two o’clock in the morning, but in the high latitudes of the Arctic, darkness had not fully fallen. Sitting on a knoll a hundred feet above a nameless river that rushed through the gray, treeless tundra, I scanned the empty landscape while raindrops filled the eyepiece of my spotting scope. 

“What do you think?” I asked my nineteen-year-old guide, Geordy Pine. Though young, Geordy has spent much of his life in remote corners of the Alaskan bush and his depth of knowledge of Arctic game exceeds that of hunters twice his age. I waited for a response while he sighed and looked up from his own spotter. 

“It’s getting dark, and this rain and fog isn’t helping.”

“Should we get the others or leave them?” The plan had been to watch for game around the clock since we’d been delayed for a day and a half in Fairbanks and lost that hunting time, but the weather conditions were making glassing futile.

The whole hunting party was wet and tired. We’d let the others sleep and check the weather again at four o’clock. If the rain had stopped and the fog lifted, we would resume glassing for bears. If not, we’d wait until later in the day.

Into the Arctic

The spike camp from which we were glassing that foggy night was in one of the most remote regions of North America. We were on Alaska’s North Slope, north of the Brooks Range and 160 miles upriver from the nearest airstrip. The region is comprised of short-grass tundra that stretches from the town of Point Hope on the Chukchi Sea three hundred miles to Prudhoe Bay and beyond, a huge tract of land with few human inhabitants. Much of the landscape is dominated by hills covered by cottongrass tussocks and braided rivers, and in eons past the whole region was covered by a shallow sea. Because of this, the ground of the North Slope is rich in oil and natural gas deposits—50 billion barrels worth of which had been extracted by 2005—and the steep, rocky cliffs that border the rivers still hold fossils of prehistoric beasts. 

Great beasts still roam this remote, roadless wilderness. Herds of shaggy brown muskox thrive here, and each fall the Western Arctic caribou herd migrates across to the Brooks Range in the south. Wolves are more common and more frequently seen on this wide-open tundra than in forested habitats farther south, and the tracks of Arctic grizzlies are commonly seen on the sandbars along the river channels.

Grizzlies were what brought us to the area, but getting so deep in the Arctic is no easy chore.  After our delay in Fairbanks, four of us—Tom Beckstrand, Shawn Skipper, Neal Emery, and I—flew north to an airstrip and loaded our gear into two rubber rafts with jet motors for the ten-hour ride upriver to base camp. The base camp was set on a large gravel island in the river and consisted of three sleeping tents and one dining tent, and from that isolated location we could fan out even deeper into the wilderness. Rafts were the primary form of transportation, but much of the hunting required hiking to the peaks of the low hills and glassing the tundra for hours. 

Arctic grizzlies are smaller than their coastal cousins, with big boars weighing between 600 and 800 pounds. And while the bears are relatively abundant in this remote corner of the Arctic, finding them on the open tundra is challenging. Dense shrubs grow along the rivers, and sometimes these shrub thickets stretch for miles. Bears use this cover for concealment, and finding them requires lots of glassing and substantial luck. 

The morning after Geordy and I had glassed the ridge, the rain stopped and the veil of fog lifted from the river valley. By 9 a.m. I returned to my post on the hill to glass for game, keeping watch over the open tundra to the southwest of the camp. The night before we had seen a couple of caribou far across the tussocks near the base of another hill, but there was nothing moving that morning. 

Shawn Skipper climbed up the hill to relive me and he told me that we were packing up our spike camp to move deeper into the Arctic in search of bears. He also gave me breakfast, which consisted of a Clif bar (I’d missed the morning meal of oatmeal). Following Shawn were Tom Beckstrand, Geordy, and a second guide, Randy.

Tom said he’d already packed my things and broken down my tent, which was a relief. This far from any assistance, we had to work as a team. The unpredictable weather, unrelenting mosquitoes, unreliable animal movements, and a near-total lack of luxuries could easily have resulted in a lot of grumbling, but our group, including our guides, worked hard without complaint. The bears were here—we simply had to find them. 

I headed down the hill and found that, as promised, my gear was packed. The tents were folded and had been carried to the rafts, and the last of the gear was being hustled down to the gravel bar. Because of frequent changes in the weather, it was crucial to keep rain gear handy (rain fell in cascading plumes across the tundra every day, sometimes missing us, sometimes settling in directly above us). I was sorting through my pack to find my raincoat when I saw Tom running down the slope.

“Bear, bear, bear!” 

I dropped my raincoat and ducked behind a screen of chest-high willows on the riverbank. Tom watched the opposite bank while he chambered a round in his.338 Winchester Magnum, and I remained hidden behind the willows with my binocular and scanned the opposite bank. By then, Geordy, Shawn, and Randy had also made it to the shore beside us and all of us were looking in the same direction. 

“There it is,” Randy said as Tom set up on his shooting sticks. Neal also said he saw the bear. I peeked higher over the branches of the willows, but could see nothing. 

Finally, I saw the bear on the edge of the willows across the water. The grizzly emerged from the willows on the opposite bank, its heavy shoulders rolling under its massive hump of muscle. Silver tips on the bear’s chocolate fur highlighted every powerful movement. Its broad head swung a little side-to-side as the grizzly worked its way toward us across the river, closing the distance. 

The bear finally stopped and lifted its head, staring in our direction. Tom was solid on the sticks, and when the rifle cracked and the bullet struck, the grizzly dropped immediately. 

We climbed into the boat and motored across the rushing water to a spit of sand upriver from the bear. There had been no sign of movement since the shot, but with grizzly it’s far better to make a careful approach and ensure that the bear has expired. But Tom’s shot had been well placed, and he had his grizzly.

Close Range

My chance for a bear came through sheer luck, and it taught me several valuable lessons regarding personal safety in the land of grizzlies. Namely, when you’re in bear country you must prepared for an encounter at any moment. Bears can appear suddenly and without warning, and they can be quite close. Such was the case with my hunt. 

We’d seen a grizzly earlier that day while glassing a different section of river thirty miles from where Tom’s bear was killed. That bear was two miles or more away, appearing for a few seconds on the edge of a patch of shrub willows that probably covered thirty acres. Digging the bear out of that would be difficult, and odds were that we couldn’t approach without spooking that grizzly. 

We decided to move, and chose a low hill close to the river as a vantage point. That hill was separated from the water by about a hundred yards of dense willows. When we landed the boat, Geordy stepped out to find that the water was eight feet deep beside the bank. He had to pull himself back in the raft and reposition, and after our landing, Geordy, Neal, Shawn, and I had to fight our way through the shrubs to the base of the hill. It wasn’t a stealthy approach, to say the least. 

The knob wasn’t very high, rising perhaps sixty feet above the surrounding tundra. Geordy was the first one to reach the crest, and he immediately turned and grabbed my jacket. 

“There’s a bear right on the other side of this hill!”

I had my riflescope on low power, and that turned out to be a wise decision, for when I asked Geordy how far away the bear was he said, “thirty yards!” in a harsh whisper. 

There’s a rush of adrenaline that accompanies any encounter with dangerous game at close range, and as I peeked over the crest of the hill, I knew things would happen very quickly. In the willows below I saw only the bear’s blond shoulder hump parting the shrubs like the fin of a shark splitting still water. The bear was moving to my left, and there was just a moment to shoot. I raised the rifle, pushed the safety forward, and when the great bear cleared the willows and paused in an opening forty yards below me, I fired. 

The 225-grain bullet struck hard, dropping the big bear at once. It regained its feet and turned, and I fired again, striking the front shoulder with the second shot. The first shot had done the job, and the second had been insurance, but when Geordy had an issue with his backup rifle and the bear moved again, I fired a third shot. With just thirty yards between the grizzly and us, I decided discretion was the better part of valor. 

The bear was an old boar with scars, a heavy, broad body, and a coat of blond hair that darkened to nearly black on the muzzle and legs. It was a classic Arctic grizzly hunted in the classic method, on foot in the open tundra. 

When the bear was skinned, butchered, and back at base camp, we took some time to fish in the rushing waters of the river that wrapped around the island. Some believe that bear meat is unpleasant and even unpalatable, but those who know how to correctly care for and prepare bears—even Arctic grizzlies—can testify to the fact that the rich, flavorful meat is delicious when cooked properly. With bear meat chilling in the shade and the hide being prepped for the fly-out, we relaxed by casting into the shallows and bouncing spinners over the rocks. 

It was hard to believe that it was nearly midnight because we could still see a long way into the distant hills. I’d never been so far away from civilization, and it was refreshing—especially as the rest of the world was suffering with the coronavirus pandemic and escalating political tensions. Perhaps that’s why hunters seek out places like the North Slope. Life is short, and there are many wonderful places to see. And in some of the most magnificent places, it’s still possible to find true solitude. 

Optics for Alaska

Hunting in the treeless expanses of the Alaskan Arctic require excellent optics. For this hunt, I used Leupold’s SX-4 Pro Guide HD 15-45x65mm angled spotting scope ($1,039) on a Leupold Carbon Fiber Tripod Kit ($599.99). The setup was light enough to carry up steep hillsides on glassing missions and the Twilight Max HD light management system allows hunters to clearly see objects even in low light conditions. Binoculars are important too since you won’t always have enough time to set up a spotting scope, and the BX-5 HD 10×42 Santiam binocular  ($1,299.99) I used was versatile, rugged, and just-right-sized. 

On my rifle I mounted a VX-6 HD 2-12×42 Leupold ($2,079.99), a scope which has quickly become one of my favorite hunting optics because of its superb light management system, clarity, and versatile magnification range. Lastly, a good rangefinder is a must-have item, and I carried Leupold’s RX-2800 TBR/W which has ½ yard accuracy to a range of 2,800 yards. Being able to range items that far away is a bonus because it tells you just how far you’ll have to hike over tussocks to reach an animal on a distant ridge. 

Leupold’s American-made optics aren’t the cheapest on the market, but they’re clear in low light and extremely rugged, standing up to the abuse of daily carry up and down mountains and frequent drenching rain. Having good optics are critical when hunting the Arctic, and second-rate glass simply won’t cut it under these conditions.

Loaded for Bear

Arctic grizzlies aren’t enormous by bear standards, with big, old boars weighing between 600 and 800 pounds. However, they’re muscular, powerful, and potentially dangerous. For that reason, I used a Savage 110 Bear Hunter chambered in the powerful .338 Winchester Magnum. The rifle is equipped with a fluted barrel and selective muzzle brake that can be turned on and off as needed, and the polymer stock and stainless-steel metalwork is designed to stand up to the harsh elements of northern Alaska, which it did. 

Ammo selection is also critical when hunting grizzlies, and I elected to use Hornady’s Outfitter load with 225-grain GMX bullets. This ammo features sealed, nickel-plated cases that are able to withstand moisture and the monolithic GMX bullet performs reliably even when shooting large game with heavy muscle and bone. With a muzzle velocity of 2,800 feet per second, the Outfitter GMX bullet generates over 3,900 foot-pounds of energy at the muzzle. At 400 yards the bullet is still traveling over 2,000 feet per second and generates over a ton of energy at that distance. 

Topped with a Leupold VX-6HD 2-12×42 scope, this versatile rifle setup is ideal for heavy or dangerous North American game to a quarter-mile or more, making it the ideal setup for hunting Arctic grizzlies. 

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In pursuit of the challenging chukar partridge on a cast-and-blast river trip. 

The call echoed across the dry, rocky slope high above camp right after sunup. Chuk-chuk-chuk-chuk. Chuk-chuk-chuk-chuka-chuka.

Daren Cole, one of my hunting partners, heard it too. “It sounds like the chukar are laughing at us,” he said.

I was pretty sure he was right as I shrugged into my orange vest, located my shotgun, and studied the steep mountainside looming behind my tent. The vocal gamebirds had been testing our legs, lungs, and willpower for three days, and it looked like they had another graduate-level exam ready for us this morning.

Four of us headed up the mountain, following Ceder, the German wirehaired pointer, who bounded up the grassy slope and began casting back and forth between the rock outcrops and clumps of brush above us. We could still hear chukar calling from the ridgetop. Ceder worked his way higher and higher, and we followed, clambering over red boulders and ducking around thickets of brush. The dog disappeared over the top, and I increased my pace to double time. Hustling over the crest of the ridge, I spotted Ceder. His head was buried in a patch of brush on the edge of the precipice, his motionless rear end and straight tail clearly indicating he was on point.

As my hunting partner Nate Ratchford jumped up on a boulder to the dog’s right, I ran to cover the left. Two chukar flushed to the right with a heart-stopping rush, with just time for Nate to get off one quick shot before both birds put on their afterburners and screamed out of sight beneath a rock ledge. Ceder trotted after them, but by his unconcerned manner, I knew Nate had not connected. We were both panting from the hard sprint over the ridge and grinning from ear to ear.

We were still recovering from the effects of the exertion and the adrenaline rush when Daren and another member of our hunting party, Ashley Thess, caught up with us. We tried to continue our way across the mountain slope into the wind, following Ceder, but the sheer face became steeper and steeper and we soon found ourselves cliffed out. Turning back, we returned to the ridgetop, where we stopped to admire the view of our riverside camp, a collection of white tents and bright blue rafts so far below us they looked like miniatures. I could just see the ant-like figures of our river guides as they worked to strike the tents and pack up the rafts in preparation for the day’s float. 

It was the last morning of a four-day cast-and-blast float trip through the magnificent Hells Canyon. Cutting a jagged slice along the border of Oregon and Idaho, Hells Canyon is the deepest river gorge in North America—even deeper than the far more famous Grand Canyon. Far below where we stood with our shotguns, and well over a mile below the very top of the canyon rim, wound the mighty Snake River, our highway through chukar country. The canyon itself, part of the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest, contains some 214,000 acres of wilderness, almost all of it inaccessible by road. 

The difficulty in access, combined with excellent habitat, makes Hells Canyon a top destination for hunting the challenging and elusive chukar partridge. The Snake River is also a world-class fishery. Smallmouth bass and rainbow trout can be caught all year, with hundred-fish days a distinct possibility, and the river also hosts runs of steelhead and chinook salmon in the spring and fall. 

All of this makes it a perfect destination for a cast-and-blast river trip. Our float, outfitted by America’s Rafting Company based in Cambridge, Idaho, took us about thirty-four miles from the launch point just below Hells Canyon Dam to our take-out point at Pittsburg Landing, Idaho. Along the way, we ran some Class IV rapids, camped along the river every night, and fished for the river’s many species–all the while being treated to magnificent scenery and sightings of black bears, bighorn sheep, and bald eagles. Best of all, though, the guides would periodically beach the rafts at likely-looking spots, setting us free to hike up the steep walls of the canyon, shotguns in hand and dogs casting eagerly ahead, in search of chukar. 

Chukar partridge were introduced to the American West from their native range in southern and central Asia, and the high desert slopes of Idaho, Nevada, and eastern Oregon suit these birds to a T. The chukar is an attractive bird, with dark stripes on its side and a banded head and neck with a red bill, but its most striking feature is its ability to run, covering incredibly steep terrain with agility, staying ahead of even the most athletic pointing dogs and earning it the nickname “devil bird” from the often-frustrated hunters who try to chase it.

Because chukar live in such parched terrain, water is key to hunting them. Although it had been an inordinately dry summer in most of the West, we had been unlucky enough to start our float just after a significant rainfall had drenched the Hells Canyon region. The coveys, which would normally be concentrated along the river’s edge this time of year, had no need to fly down to the water, since the numerous rocks and ridgelines high up on the canyon walls still held pools of moisture. And since the birds weren’t coming down . . . well, that meant the hunters would have to go up.

Nate, Daren, Ashley, and I were all first-time chukar hunters, but we had a secret weapon along: chukar-hunting guru Matt Hardinge, who joined us on the trip with his two talented and tireless German wirehaired pointers, Ceder and Summit. On one of our first hunts with Matt, we watched in awe as he and the dogs effortlessly scaled an almost-vertical, brush-choked slope and topped the ridge in minutes. Stumbling and panting in his wake, I was nowhere near close enough when a covey of chukar flushed, seeming to fly in all directions. After a missed shot, Matt and the dogs pursued a couple of the singles, but the birds had quickly learned their lesson and stuck to running, outdistancing even their ultra-athletic pursuers. I was not surprised to learn later that Matt’s other hobbies include rock climbing and mountaineering, which would seem to mesh perfectly with chukar hunting.

Despite the overcast, chilly October weather, every day of our float trip was a magnificent blend of relaxation and adventure. Each morning started with a hot, hearty breakfast, followed by some hunting time while the guides broke down camp. Then we’d drift downriver for a couple of hours, our guides expertly steering the rafts through long, slow pools and occasional splashy rapids that bounced the rafts, elicited lots of shouts and laughter, and soaked any parts of our anatomy not covered in rain gear. All the while we were casting spinners for rainbow trout and tube jigs for feisty and abundant smallmouth bass; one memorable morning I landed ten big rainbows. 

After a shore lunch we’d usually try again for chukar, scrambling up the canyon walls on either the Idaho or Oregon side. Once we stopped to marvel at pictographs painted on the rocks—artwork estimated to be 2,000 years old—and several times we passed the remnants of frontier homesteads, the fruit trees they had planted the only thing remaining of their long-ago dreams. 

Afternoons would bring more floating and more fishing, with a well-appointed shoreside camp and a hearty dinner awaiting us at dusk. Once we trolled crankbaits through an eddy to entice steelhead and salmon, and long after dark one evening, we all piled on the rafts and aimed our headlamps into the water as a prehistoric-looking six-foot-long sturgeon was caught and gently released into the dark depths of the Snake.

On the third afternoon, high above the river with shotguns in hand, Nate, Daren, Ashley and I were keeping pace with Matt, Ceder, and Summit across a rocky sidehill, which meant the slope must have been less steep or else we were all finally finding our chukar legs. It was ideal habitat for the birds, and as we passed towering red rock outcroppings, Matt pointed out their ice-cream-cone shaped droppings and a couple of abandoned nests. 

After some time watching the pointers work the slope ahead, Matt made the call to turn around. As we headed back through a jumble of boulders, Nate, who was slightly ahead, spotted a chukar that leaped to the top of a rock ahead of him. As it flushed, another bird erupted from somewhere and flew over our heads. All the shots at both birds were misses, and although we worked back and forth through the area with the dogs for another twenty minutes, we could not put the birds up again.

“Surprising to find only a couple of birds together,” Matt remarked, speculating that another group of hunters might have worked the slope the day before and scattered the covey. 

Fortunately for our palates, he had dropped three chukar the day before, and we enjoyed “chukar bites” that evening: delicious nuggets of chukar meat lightly breaded and fried. They were served alongside a filet of fresh-caught Chinook salmon: a true Hells Canyon surf-and-turf.

Before we shoved off on the last day, our guides rowed us across the river from Oregon to Idaho to give the elusive birds one last try. Ashley and I worked across the slope parallel to the river, flushing a covey of chukar far out ahead of us, where they landed and, naturally, ran uphill. Matt and Nate pursued them to the top of the ridgeline. When a group of birds flushed, Matt got a shot and dropped one, Ceder finding it easily in the rocks and returning it to him with aplomb. That made a total of four birds in the bag over our four-day hunt—all of them Matt’s, and deservedly so. 

As we made the final float down to our take-out point, the canyon widened, opening up new, magnificent vistas around every sweeping bend of the river. I had traded my shotgun for a spinning rod, but between casts I studied the mountainsides, reflecting on my newfound respect for the fascinating “devil bird,” and especially for the mountain-savvy hunters and dogs who pursue them. It was a rare privilege to experience a true fair-chase hunt for wild chukar in one of the most spectacular river gorges in the world.

Benelli 828U

All five of us on my Hells Canyon adventure were carrying 12-gauge Benelli 828U shotguns. Of course, I spent a lot more time hiking with my shotgun than I did actually firing it, an experience that, I’m told, is not unusual in chukar hunting. But I like the 828U so much I previously bought one in 20-gauge and have used it extensively over the past year for shooting clays as well as hunting doves and pheasants. It’s soft-shooting, fits me well, and carries and points like a dream.

A lightweight, well-balanced, and ultra-reliable shotgun is an absolute must when you’re hunting mountain birds in a wilderness setting, and the 828U fulfills those requirements to perfection. It features a patented steel locking system, which eliminates wear and tear on the receiver and hinge that can cause traditional over/unders to fail. By incorporating this system into an aluminum receiver, Benelli’s engineers created a shotgun that is stronger and safer, while still balancing beautifully and weighing just 6.5 pounds.

Fit is crucial in any shotgun, and the 828U includes shims so you can adjust stock drop and cast to your specifications. This shotgun also features Benelli’s Progressive Comfort System inside its walnut stock. The flexible and lightweight polymer buffers compress to absorb recoil energy, making this over/under comfortable to shoot repeatedly, whether you’re gunning for a limit of birds or practicing with a round of sporting clays.

For more information on Hells Canyon float trips and cast-and-blast trips, click here.

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