What to eat and drink on a wilderness hunt.

“I got a fish!” I glanced up from my cooking fire in time to see my eight-year-old son running toward me, a willow fishing pole in one hand and a small high-elevation trout flapping in the other. “Can we cook it in bacon?” he asked.

“You bet! Go clean it and we’ll throw it in the pan with the rest.” He did so, and a few minutes later we hunkered hungrily over the fire, salivating and watching our breakfast sizzle in the pan.

Eating well in the backcountry can pose a real challenge, especially if you are living off what you can carry in your backpack. Weight is the biggest issue, closely followed by bulk; it’s hard to carry enough sustenance for five to ten days in the wilderness. You must plan and pack strategically when heading for backcountry territory where a quick run to the supermarket is completely out of the question.

Breakfast in the backcountry isn’t the time or place for a leisurely meal – it should be simple and fast. A couple packages of instant oatmeal eaten right from their envelopes with a bit of water (hot or cold) poured in, a granola or breakfast bar, and a handful of trail mix or dried fruit will go down fast and offer an early morning boost of energy to get you going. A cup of instant coffee or hot chocolate is quick and easy to make, and will warm you nicely when temps are cold.

When you’re hunting and climbing hard– especially with a heavy pack on your back–you need to consume a lot of calories and protein. To that end, carry nutritious foods like jerky, dried fruit, chocolate, trail mix, and salted nuts for your lunch. If you can accommodate the weight, a pack of tuna wrapped in a tortilla makes an awesome lunch, especially if you get the ranch-flavored tuna. If you love peanut butter, you can use that inside the tortilla instead of tuna. A couple of Clif or ProBar energy bars will round out your lunchtime repertoire. I like to graze on these foods all day long while I hunt, hike, and glass.

Freeze-dried dinners have changed the way we dine in the outback. They’re lightweight and compact and easy to prepare. Best yet, they’re nutritious. Carry one freeze-dried meal to eat each evening. You’ll go to bed with a belly full of warm food, which will set you up with energy and stamina for the following day.

All that said, some of my favorite backcountry food is stuff I forage while there. I carry a small roll of fishing line, a couple hooks and a lure or two, and catch fish from small streams. They are delicious cooked over an open fire, especially if you have a bit of bacon to fry them in. If you don’t have a frying pan you can cook them on their backs in some coals. Any kind of meat you harvest while hunting will taste wonderful when skewered on a green stick and roasted over a smoky fire. Carry a tiny container of salt in your pack to add flavor. And keep your eyes out for edible greens, mushrooms, raspberries, blueberries, and such. Just be sure you can identify whatever berries or mushrooms you eat so you don’t consume anything toxic.

Cooking in the backcountry can be really fun. Problem is, while you’re hunting you must be fast and efficient. To that end I always carry a Pocket Rocket stove, a superb lightweight unit that can heat two cups of water to boiling in about 90 seconds. With one you can heat water for Mountain House dinners, morning oatmeal, and perhaps a hot beverage. If you get chilled during a daytime hunt you can stop for a few minutes and quickly brew up some tea or hot chocolate to drink. These superlight stoves run on compact Isobutane canisters. I find that one 8-ounce canister will usually last me three days. Depending on how long you plan to stay in the backcountry, you may need several. A lightweight titanium or stainless steel pot and a “spork” will round out your cook set.

Another way I commonly cook when in remote territory is over a small campfire. With a small pot, I can easily boil water for my food and beverages, roast skewered meat, or fry fish in the coals. If I expect fish to be a significant part of my diet I’ll bring a lightweight frying pan; it’s worth carrying the extra weight in trade for the extra protein I can gather right from a local stream. And a campfire can really help to warm you and dry clothing if weather conditions are bad. Check the regulations for the area you are hunting to be sure open fires are permitted.

Pure Water

Years ago, while scouting a high desert mesa for mule deer, I got thirsty. So thirsty I couldn’t even spit. My canteens were all empty, my mouth felt like it was full of cotton, and I craved water with intensity that I never imagined possible. Fortunately, I was able to find water and purify it, thereby surviving to write this article. Don’t ever let yourself get to that point. Always know where your next water is coming from, and always have a method of purifying that water.

When you’re scouting unfamiliar territory like I was, it can sometimes be hard to know where you will find water. If that’s the case, follow this rule: Always reserve enough water to get you back to your last known water source. If you use up all your water (except for this reserve) and haven’t located another source, it’s time to turn back and re-supply your canteens. If you don’t, you could end up dead. That sounds dramatic, but it’s a real thing. If you get badly dehydrated you can plummet rapidly into a deadly tailspin. First, you’ll feel thirsty. Then you’ll begin to get disoriented and irrationally thirsty. This is a dangerous stage, because clear thinking and solid decisions are critical to your survival. If you don’t get water you will start hallucinating, and if the weather’s hot you’ll suffer heat stroke. Eventually you will die. The happy ending to this dismal diatribe is that if you simply carry enough water and remain cognizant of your next resupply source, you are in no danger.

Fortunately, throughout much of the backcountry regions we hunt, water is readily available. You can fill your canteen at your convenience from any number of sources. Where water becomes critical is when hunting dry, arid areas like America’s desert southwest. In these regions it is imperative that you carry sufficient water to keep yourself hydrated for either the duration of your hunt, or until you can resupply at a local water source. When backpacking this can require careful planning because water is heavy, rendering it impossible to carry more than two or three day’s worth of water.

I have two favorite water carrying devices. The first is a one-liter stainless steel canteen by Klean Kanteen. With it I can carry water, but I can also boil water to purify it, or for a hot meal or beverage. (Just remember to remove the plastic lid before placing your canteen in the coals.) The second is a Platypus water bag. I like these because they are quiet (no sloshing), they fold into nothing when empty, and they are very tough. I carry several.

There are three primary methods for purifying water. The most popular and versatile is a quality lightweight filter pump. These filter out all the water-born nasties, including heavy metal contaminants. The downside to a pump is that it’s heavy, and can be aggravatingly slow to use.

The next method employs a purifying agent such as iodine or chlorine to purify your water. These tablets or drops are very compact and weigh almost nothing, which is a real advantage. The downside? It takes 20 to 30 minutes for the agent to purify your water, (time can pass excruciatingly slowly if you are very thirsty) and they do not remove anything from the water, such as metal or chemical contaminants. If you are collecting water from an old mine shaft, this is probably not the best method.

Lastly, you can boil water to purify it. A few seconds at a good rolling boil will kill all the nasty stuff in the water. Again, however, this method won’t remove metals and chemicals. If I have a campfire I often will use this method of purifying my water, simply because it’s convenient to fill a pot and set it on the coals and forget about it till it boils. Then remove it from the fire, and once it cools pour it into your canteen.

Some of the most satisfying drinks I have ever had came directly from springs, the water flowing crystal clear and icy cold. These are perfectly safe water sources, and there’s no need to purify water gathered from such a source. Just fill your canteen and drink up.

However, if the water ebbs from underground along an intermittent waterway, purify it. Probably it has gathered some unsavory passengers along its in-and-out downstream travel. Likewise, water from lakes, ponds, and streams should always be purified.

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On a muskox hunt, you have many options for timing. Keep the weather, and the daylight, in mind.

At the hunting conventions, it’s part of my job to talk to a lot of hunters. At the conventions just past, both DSC and SCI, I was struck by the number of people who came by the booth asking about muskoxen, some with an expedition booked, others considering a hunt. Makes sense; the Arctic communities have been locked up tighter than most places through the pandemic, but they are ready to get back to business . . . and life.

Me, I think the muskox is just plain cool, a totally unique animal unlike anything else in the world. However and whenever, the muskox hunt is not exceptionally difficult, generally successful, relatively short, and a great opportunity to see their amazing Arctic habitat without, for example, the pain (and cost) of a polar bear hunt.

Things have changed. When I was young, a muskox was an almost impossible prize. Canada’s muskoxen were at a low ebb and had been protected for decades. The only opportunity was to draw a permit in Alaska, but it wasn’t an easy draw and, like all drawing hunts, difficult to plan. Canada offered her first modern permits for nonresident sport hunters forty years ago. I jumped at the chance, hunting on Victoria Island out of Holman Island in November.

I don’t say I wouldn’t do that again, but winter comes early up there! It was my first Arctic hunt; the cold was shocking, but I was dressed for it and had no problems. The challenge that late in the year is the short daylight. Most of our travel was in darkness; we had possibly four hours of effective hunting light, not much time to find and take a good bull. In that short window of daylight, I took a wonderful, heavy-bossed bull. The challenge: twenty hours of darkness in a tent on the ice! Again, it wasn’t the cold; my Inuit guides put caribou skins down on the ice, pegged the tent well, and if too much chill crept in, a Coleman stove, lantern, or just candles, quickly chased it away. But, for a guy like me with borderline ADD, the “nights” were awfully long.

In the 1980s and 1990s, muskox numbers blossomed all across the North, and are still increasing. Today there are lots of choices, and long seasons. Nunavut offers Greenland muskoxen on islands, and barren ground muskoxen on the mainland. The latter gets bigger in the body with possibly larger horns (if you’re lucky), but the two races are visually indistinguishable. Alaska has more permits in more areas (still by drawing) for her introduced muskoxen. Greenland is open, with a large, lightly hunted population and some big bulls. Heck, there’s even been some muskox hunting in Russia. 

I’d be the first to say that few of us really need more than one muskox. But, although usually short, it’s an interesting hunt for a fascinating animal. So, being a glutton for punishment, I’ve hunted muskox three times in Canada’s Arctic, and once in Greenland. All at different times! This is not vast experience, but probably more than most who don’t live up there. 

The Arctic is cold! Fortunately, we have much better cold-weather gear today, just pay attention to your outfitter’s recommendations. The two primary restrictions for Arctic hunting are daylight and trafficability. December through February are too dark; May through September you have all the daylight you want (with extra to spare). Travel is a larger issue. Today, most Arctic hunting is done after freeze-up, October through April, with the hunter in a sled (komatik) behind a snow machine. (For polar bear, this is allowed for travel from the Arctic communities, but the actual hunt must be done on foot or by dogsled.) The ride is drafty and bumpy. There will be many hours of that drafty, bumpy ride, but imagine the stamina of your Inuit guide, hunched into the wind. Actually, that’s one of the charms of a late fall/early spring muskox hunt, just observing how wonderfully the Inuit deal with their environment.

In summer, after ice breakup, most Arctic hunting must be done from boats, whether along lakeshores (as for much caribou hunting), or ocean waters among islands and shorelines. It’s not my job to determine which is best. All times and areas are good, but there are differences.

My second muskox hunt was in April, with the late Fred Webb. It was still plenty cold, but that’s normal, and you dress for it. Daylight was the big difference–seventeen hours of it! Lots of bumping and freezing in the komatik, but time to travel and look for muskox. For hunting partners, I had Colonels Charles Askins and Art Alphin, both characters and gone now, and Fred Webb himself was a one-man entertainment center. We got cold, but early spring is a marvelous time to see the Arctic. When I did my one and only polar bear hunt, I chose late April, and it was again a magical time, bitter cold but not brutal, and on a rare calm and sunny day, glorious.

 My third Canadian muskox hunt was in October, out of Cambridge Bay with Shane Black’s Canada North, today by far the largest Arctic outfitter. Ideally, that’s a bit late, bitter cold with daylight shrinking fast. Here’s the deal: Major John Plaster was hunting muskox. I was not; I wanted an Arctic Islands caribou. Because of caribou movement on Victoria Island, this caribou hunt is best done after freeze-up, and even this window is short because these northernmost caribou drop their antlers early. So, we went in October. John got a fine muskox, and I got a good caribou. It was very cold and days were short, but it was much more pleasant than November, with short days but adequate daylight to hunt and be successful, and almost certainly the best opportunity for a caribou/muskox combination.

And then there’s summer hunting. Because of boggy tundra, summer muskoxen are hunted mostly by glassing from boats, then stalking ashore. This hunting is done in Canada and, in the right places, can be combined with caribou. I haven’t done that hunt in Canada, and probably won’t; I don’t think I can find an excuse to hunt another muskox. Donna and I did a summer muskox hunt in Greenland with Bjorn Birgisson’s Icelandic Hunting Club, at the end of July, and we remember it as one of our most enjoyable North American hunts.

The muskox, Ovibos moschatus (“musky sheep-ox”) is an amazing animal, perfectly adapted to its harsh environment, with unusual horns, long hair, and a thick layer of underwood (qiviut) that allows it to survive Arctic winters, and was traditionally gathered and knitted by native peoples. Whether your choice is rug, shoulder, or life-size mount, with a muskox the incredible coat is almost as important as the horns. The muskox looks huge, but most of its profile is hair; the animal underneath the fur isn’t as big as you think! On a summer hunt, I was worried about the quality of the skin. Not a problem! Some of the underwool was molted and shaggy but, for taxidermy purposes, summer coats proved just fine.

Year-round, you need luck with the weather, but along the southwestern coast of Greenland, we caught perfect summer weather. The fjords were full of floating ice chunks in fantastic shapes (iceberg “calves”). We glassed many herds of muskox and could be picky, a difficult luxury when it’s well below zero and a storm is coming fast.

Now, the Arctic is the Arctic, and weather is a factor. On that April hunt with Alphin and Askins, we got caught in a storm along the Queen Maude Gulf. Our Inuit guide had a cousin; we broke into his fishing cabin, and waited out the blow for two days while Askins entertained us with stories of the old Border Patrol. In Greenland, we had glorious weather for three days, then moved along the southern coast to hunt reindeer. Weather caught us there, and although successful, we had rain, wind, and fog the rest of the hunt.

On any Arctic hunt, you’re banking on good weather. Today, numbers are such that success is routine, but it’s common to lose hunting days to weather. After that storm broke with Alphin and Askins we had just a couple days to take three muskoxen. We got it done, all nice bulls, but when you must wait out weather—or know there’s a storm coming—you can’t always be as picky as you’d like. That was the beauty of our Greenland hunt: Mildest time of year, blessed with good weather. We cruised the fjords, glassed herds up on green slopes, with our guides insisting on minimum thirteen-year-old bulls. That’s a rare luxury with muskox hunting in any month of the year.

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Warthogs are common throughout most of Africa, but big ones are never easy to find.

Photo above: This is a young boar, probably about four years old. Warthogs mature slowly; big trophy-class boars are eleven, even twelve years old.

Disney made him famous as “Pumba” in The Lion King. In his landmark work, Great Game Animals of the World (MacMillan 1969) veteran African hunter Russ Aitken described him as “the nightmare that walks like a pig.” The warthog is neither a genial clown, nor ugly, but he is an essential part of Africa. What would a waterhole be if there weren’t warthogs slipping in? What would the African bush be like without a warthog ushering her brood away, tails straight up like antennae?

The warthog is one of Africa’s most widespread animals, found from the Horn of Africa to the Cape, and from Kenya to Senegal. Most warthogs are the common and widespread Phaocochoerus africanus. Only recently, hunters began to separate the desert warthog, P. aethiopicus. This pig is smaller-bodied, with facial differences, found from northern Kenya up through Somalia, Djibouti, Eritrea, and in neighboring Ethiopia. I’ve never shot one, but I had a desert warthog in my sights in 1993, in the Danakil Depression near Djibouti. Didn’t shoot; the desert warthog wouldn’t be recognized by hunters for a quarter-century. Ethiopia produces some spectacular warthogs. The pig I was looking at had good tusks, but short of spectacular. I passed. You don’t know what you don’t know.

Today, I suppose I can live without the desert variety, but I dearly admire big warthogs, scarce and hard to come by! Warthogs are common, and in good areas you see plenty, but big ones are another story.

In Maun, Botswana, Debbie Peake has long done the recording of trophies for the game department. She reckons an exceptional warthog is eleven or twelve years old, much the same as a kudu or buffalo. Slow growth puts big animals in short supply. This is worse with warthogs. They use their tusks to dig, so breakage is common, especially in stony areas. Also, warthogs must have water. Catch a dry year and the warthogs suffer more than many species, and older boars seem to go first.

So, you can’t stockpile big boars. But warthogs are surprisingly habitual. If you see a good one, make a mental note of time and place. In the Luangwa Valley this past July, with son-in-law Brad, we saw a monstrous warthog. The stalk almost worked, maybe a half-second for a shot, then gone. That pig was huge. Over the next three weeks we saw him twice more, but no shots were fired. With his general location known, that pig’s luck can’t last forever; I assume somebody will get him!

Not every hunter is like me, always excited by a big boar! Exceptional warthogs aren’t easy to find, but not everyone wants one. Through the course of the long African hunting season, most PHs will know where good boars have been seen, thus where to start when a client wants one. Years ago, David Porter and I were hunting in Mozambique’s Coutada 14 with PH Debbie Visser, who knew about a huge warthog living along a boundary road. The first time we saw him he gave us the slip, but we kept our eyes open and David eventually got him.

Warthogs are usually on license and trophy fees are generally low. Big tuskers are cool, and their meat is good. So, my mantra has long been: “Nobody has enough big warthogs.” I’ll never forget one time I failed to recite it: Selous Reserve, 1988. Paddy Curtis and I came around a little bend, and the most amazing warthog I’ve ever seen stood looking at us. Parentheses of thick ivory almost met far above his muzzle. At the time the trophy fee was a couple hundred bucks! Sure, I was counting pennies, but that moment defines “penny-wise and pound-foolish.” We drove on and kept looking for buffalo tracks.

I still think that was the best warthog I’ve ever seen, but who knows? They’re tough to judge, in part because body size varies. In northern Cameroon in 2008, Guav Johnson and I saw some warthogs moving and caught a flash of big ivory. You don’t go to Cameroon to hunt warthogs, but we’d had a lucky hunt and had taken everything we wanted. I’m a sucker for big warthogs!

Guav directed a quick stalk and we got ahead of the pigs and took another look. The boar looked awesome, so I shot him. It was a nice pig, but not as good as we’d thought: The body was tiny, old, and wasted away. Funny, the sows he was with must also have been small!

Ethiopia is known for big warthogs, but on my two safaris there, I saw nice boars, but no giants. Even in the best places, monster pigs are rare! I looked in the current Rowland Ward Record Book (Thirtieth Edition, 2020) and was shocked: Ten of the Top 20 warthogs are from South Africa. Two are from Zimbabwe, and there is one each from Ethiopia, Kenya, Namibia, Senegal, Uganda, and Zaire. (And two “unknown.”) To some extent, provided good habitat and groceries, the big boys are probably where the larger numbers are.

I’m pretty sure the biggest boars are more likely to be found where year-round water is available; where soil is soft; and where harvest and poaching are controlled. I’ll never forget that monstrous pig I saw in the Selous, but there’s only one warthog from Tanzania (No. 30) on the first page of Rowland Ward, seventy-five entries. Go figure: Big warthogs are where you find them!

I was lucky to get a warthog at all on my first safari, on the Tsavo plains in 1977. It had been dry, and numbers were down; I shot the only good boar we saw. I’ve seen the same in the Zambezi Valley: Lots of pigs one year, then poor rains and fewer pigs the next.

If you asked my advice regarding a really big warthog, I’d go with the numbers: Twenty-six of the top fifty warthogs have come from South Africa, mostly along the Kruger Park corridor. Namibia also has lots of warthogs (and a safari industry second only to South Africa). Any area with big numbers will produce some big ones and Namibia does—but just one in the Top 20, no other Namibian entries on the first page. She is an arid country, with stony ground, but I’ve seen a lot of good warthogs there! Such a disparity in entries between Namibia and South Africa goes against everything I thought I knew, so I kept digging.

I am convinced that, right now, coastal Mozambique is one of the best places to look for a really big warthog. Conditions are ideal: Plenty of water and year-round forage; soft soil; good management for the past thirty years. I’ve seen great warthogs come into camp every time I’ve hunted there, and I’ve shot a couple of them. But you get three-quarters down the second page of the Rowland Ward listings before you come to the first Mozambique entry for warthog, a monster with 16 1/8-inch tusk, No. 130 in Rowland Ward, taken by my old friend Ted Razook in 1963.

This is perplexing! The Rowland Ward minimum is 13 inches on the longest tusk,  but I’ve seen some that size in the skinning shed. Of course, many hunters don’t get their animals measured (I’m one of the worst!). However, when looking for big animals of any species, my advice always includes checking the record books. When you do this, you must conclude that Mozambique isn’t the best place for big pigs–but I know it’s excellent!

There was no sport hunting, so no entries, during Mozambique’s long civil war, from 1975 to 1992. Little wildlife remained after hostilities, and the restart of hunting was slow.  If it takes a decade for a warthog to mature, then few mature warthogs existed until as late as 2012. I was hunting there then. There were shootable warthogs, but they weren’t common. Today the warthog population has noticeably exploded, and bigger pigs are being taken every year. In a week or so in the Marromeu complex, I expect a chance at a big boar.

Obviously, there’s a time lag. After a twenty-year gap—while South Africa and Namibia’s game flourished—Mozambique had some catching up to do! The record books may someday reflect Mozambique’s recovery, but it’s gonna take years. Meantime, I’m convinced the Marromeu area is a great place to look for a big warthog. And, trust me, when I’m there, I’m always looking.

In September I was hunting with Rye Pletts, a great young PH. He knew where some big pigs had been seen, so we looked, looked some more, and kept looking. Mind you, it wasn’t a single-minded quest for a warthog; we were messing with nyala, hunting bushbuck, looking for buffalo. But, every day, at the right times of day, we’d hit a couple of spots, either glassing or walking in.  We caught a couple of glimpses of big ivory, but old boars are wary, and the days slipped by.

We were near the end when we walked into a pan in late afternoon. Several pigs were feeding near some islands of cover. One boar looked good. The stalk was perfect, the wind strong and steady. When we got there the boar was gone, and then he strolled out of a tiny patch of cover and resumed feeding. I was shooting an old double in .303 British, with pop-up tang receiver sight, so needed to get close. We got the shot at about fifty yards, perfect. He wasn’t a Rowland Ward warthog, just a really good boar. But I know there are bigger tuskers around, whether the record books reflect it or not!

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Tony Archer was one of East Africa’s leading professional hunters during the “golden age” of safari hunting.

Photo above: Tony Archer, left, with his tracker Abakuna.

The 1950s, ‘60s, and ‘70s are considered by many to be the “golden age” of safari hunting in East Africa. Very few of the legendary professional hunters of that era are still with us, and this already short list has suffered a significant loss with the passing of Antony “Tony” Archer shortly after his 87^th birthday in February 2020.

Tony’s life story easily justifies a book or two, but always averse to any form of self-promotion, Tony regrettably never penned a book about his own life.  Here are a few of the highlights. 

Tony was born in the Kenya Colony of the British Empire in 1933. While still a schoolboy, Tony could already track, stalk, and shoot. He was shooting antelope for the pot at age 8, shot his first buffalo and elephant at age 16, and had taken all of the Big Five other than leopard while still in his teens.

Upon completion of secondary school (high school), Tony entered military service in the Kenya Regiment and underwent training in Southern Rhodesia.  After completing his national service, he joined the Colonial Police Force and served with distinction during the Mau Mau Uprising of the early 1950s. Though he seemed well suited for it, he chose not to make police work a career, and returned to the full-time pursuit of his passion.  

Fluent in several native languages, a keen student of native bushcraft and hunting practices, and curious about all things wild, Tony became a recognized expert on wildlife and wild country. His knowledge was not limited to only the game animals typically sought by hunters but encompassed all aspects of the bush:  the vegetation, mammals, reptiles, and in particular the bird life of Africa.

Joining the prestigious firm of Ker and Downey Safaris, he became a fully licensed professional hunter in 1957. Soon he was one of the firm’s directors as well as an influential member of the East African Professional Hunters’ Association. 

During his 20-plus years with Ker & Downey Safaris, Tony guided many well-known hunters; among them the screen star William Holden, actor Robert Stack, U.S. Senator Lloyd Bentsen, Jack Heinz (the “Ketchup Heinz”), and Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands. Tony was also one of the two white hunters that guided Jay Mellon (of African Hunter fame) during his four months on safari in East Africa.  

No place was too far or too difficult. Tony hunted, or guided expeditions in Angola, Botswana, the Comoros, the Congo, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Nepal, Rhodesia, Rwanda, South Africa, Sudan, Tanganyika/Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zanzibar. The breadth of his field experience was exceeded only by fellow professional hunter Tony Sanchez-Arino.

Tony conducted or was a key member of numerous expeditions: the British Museum’s expedition to Angola in 1957, the two Machris-Knudsen Expeditions to the forests of western Uganda for the Los Angeles County Museum, the expedition for the Carnegie Museum to southwest Uganda, and the Winnifred Carter Expedition in Botswana for the Royal Ontario Museum of Canada, among others.

By the mid-1960s, elephants and hippos had so overpopulated Uganda’s Murchison Falls National Park that the associated destruction of habitat would soon result in near total loss of their populations in addition to much of the other wildlife dependent on the habitat. Tony was a partner in the wildlife management and consulting firm Wildlife Services Ltd, and the company was contracted by the government of Uganda to reduce the elephant herd by some 2,000 animals, and the hippo population by approximately 4,000 animals. Ensuring that all the meat was utilized, Tony and a small team of fellow professional hunters conducted a very disciplined and methodical operation averaging eight of these massive animals per day over a two-year period, with none of the team members sustaining injury, and importantly conserving the park and its wildlife.  It was quite likely the most successful operation of its magnitude in African history. 

Tony was Vice-Chairman of the East African Professional Hunter’s Association during the tumultuous period in 1977 when Kenya banned hunting and he led the effort (unsuccessful) to have the ill-advised ban overturned. 

While on safari with Bob Kleburg and his daughter Helen in Botswana, Tony guided Helen to a monster lion. Significant effort was expended to bring a scale to camp, and the beast was cut up into manageable pieces over a waterproof ground sheet.  Including 64 pounds of meat in its stomach, the lion weighed an astounding 598 pounds!  It was quite likely the heaviest wild lion ever hunted.

Despite a lifetime of guiding clients to innumerable big-game trophies, and performing animal control work, it is testament to his knowledge of animal behavior, skill as a hunter, and professional discipline that neither Tony nor any of his clients were ever mauled, gored, or injured by their quarry. This is a record that few other hunters can claim.

In the book Inside Safari Hunting, Eric Rundgren, a legendary game control officer, and professional hunter of broad experience, wrote, “Tony possesses a greater natural gift for hunting than any man I know.”

I have tried to limit this discussion to events of interest to the hunting fraternity, but those who knew him well knew Tony also as an honorable, modest, and generous man. He was held in the highest esteem by peers, clients, and friends the world over.

Tony is survived by his wife Betty, son Nigel, and daughter Alexandra, all residing in Kenya.

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Everyone can join the Wild Sheep Foundation’s Convention and Expo in 2022.

The Wild Sheep Foundation (WSF) kicks off Sheep Week with its total immersion virtual platform going live on Monday, January 10.

Within Sheep Week, the Sheep Show Convention and Expo will begin in Reno, NV, with the Wednesday night Grand Opening Banquet at the Peppermill, January 12, and run through Saturday’s Grand Finale Banquet, the 15th. The Expo will be open at the Reno-Sparks Convention Center that Thursday, Friday and, Saturday the 13th through the 15th. The week-long event will include both the in-person and virtual exhibition halls, raffles, auctions, banquets, youth events, seminars, a sporting clays shoot, and much more.

“Sheep Week is the largest celebration of all things mountain game hunting and conservation in the U.S., said WSF President & CEO Gray N. Thornton. “Our focus is bringing the wild sheep family together, having fun, and raising money for wild sheep.”

The online and nightly banquet auctions will offer nearly $6 million in hunts, trips, art, jewelry, firearms, and equipment, as well as coveted special conservation permits. The virtual expo allows mountain hunters and conservationists from around the world to experience all the excitement and community from the comfort of home or camp, even if they cannot travel to Reno.”

WSF responded to the pandemic travel and large gathering restrictions by hosting a total immersion virtual convention in January 2021. Through the success of this convention and member donations, WSF raised and directed over $6.2 million this year to wild sheep conservation and other mission programs. For 2022, this virtual option will still be available for those who cannot make the trip to Reno. For only $50, virtual attendees will be able to experience all the excitement of the in-person event along with accessing prize giveaways, streaming content, games, and sweepstakes opportunities, along with being entered to win a Desert Bighorn Sheep hunt in Mexico or an extreme spotting scope package from Swarovski.

“Hunting and conservation expos have been a valued part of our hunting culture for decades,” Thornton explained. “In our case, it’s how we raise critical conservation funding for wild sheep, but it’s more than that. Sportsmen and women are a special breed within our modern society. They are keeping alive an outdoor lifestyle and a commitment to wild places and wild things that should be celebrated. Our virtual expo is just one more example of hunters and conservationists finding a way to continue that legacy.”

 Money raised is directed to programs to enhance wild sheep populations across North American and internationally through population enhancements, disease research, herd monitoring, habitat improvements, and other initiatives.

For a complete schedule of events, virtual registration, and other details, visit sheepweek.org. 

The Wild Sheep Foundation (WSF), based in Bozeman, Mont., was founded in 1977 by wild sheep conservationists and enthusiasts. With a membership of more than 10,000 worldwide, WSF is the premier advocate for wild sheep and other mountain wildlife and their habitats. WSF has raised and expended more than $135 million on wild sheep habitat and population enhancements, education, and conservation advocacy programs in North America, Europe, and Asia to “Put and Keep Wild Sheep on the Mountain^®.” These and other efforts have increased bighorn sheep populations in North America from historic lows in the 1950-60s of 25,000 to more than 85,000 today. www.wildsheepfoundation.org.

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How to make sure your leopard is “dead under the tree.” 

Photo above courtesy of Dirk de Bod

Authorities with greater experience have judged the leopard Africa’s most dangerous animal. I do not agree. With modern medicine, a human is likely to survive a leopard mauling. However, the leopard is the most likely of Africa’s dangerous game to hurt you. Usually, this happens because the first shot is not perfectly placed. If it isn’t, things get scary!

I estimate around a thousand leopards are taken annually by safari hunters, and many more by farmers protecting their livestock. In some areas, leopards are still taken with dogs. A chance encounter is uncommon today because most licenses specify “males only.” This means a leopard must be accurately judged before that critical first shot is fired.

Although unpopular today, I support hound hunting because it is the most selective technique. There are at least two opportunities to properly judge the leopard: When the spoor is found, and when the leopard is bayed or treed. Doesn’t much matter what I think; hound hunting remains legal in few areas. Continent-wide, most leopards are taken over bait.

Over bait, the light may be terrible, but the shot will be close, and usually from a good rest. It should be easy, but until you’ve been there it’s hard to imagine the adrenaline rush when a leopard materializes on your bait. Actual misses are rare, but an inordinate number of leopards are wounded, and that’s when trouble starts. I’ve done it. Not good!

When the PH gives the “go-ahead,” your job is to kill the leopard. Unlike many situations with dangerous game, there is almost never a chance for a second shot. You will be jarred by the crash and recoil, perhaps blinded by the flash. On leopard, the shooter rarely knows exactly what happened next.

Heartbeats after the shot, you want to hear a sodden thump, like a bag of wet cement dropped from a building. That usually means the leopard is dead under the tree, the most desirable outcome. Or so I’m told, because I’ve never heard that sound. I’ve taken a half-dozen and witnessed many others. One of mine was poorly hit and recovered in a charge. I don’t want to do that again!

Most of my leopards were well-hit and recovered after brief follow-ups. Except for the fear, this is common with most game animals taken. Absent brain or spine shots, it’s unusual for any game animal to drop in its tracks and stay down. Leopards are no different. Except, with a leopard, you want the cat to be dead under the tree. The follow-up is much different from tracking a whitetail.

A leopard is almost always keyed up, on full alert. The fact that most baits are hung in trees is also a factor. Up in a bait tree, it will usually depart with a mighty leap, if it can. It’s never a good sign if the leopard exits the tree under its own power. This is not definitive; just not what you hope for. In 2007 I shot a leopard in Namibia’s Bushmanland with Jamy Traut. Shooting a Kimber .375, I was confident of the shot on the center of the shoulder. However, the last thing I saw was the cat exiting the scope’s field of view, left and high. We found him dead forty yards into the long grass.

This past July, son-in-law Brad Jannenga shot a nice leopard in Zambia, also with a .375. I was in the blind with a video camera. It was almost déjà vu; the cat exited high and left. Brad was sure of the shot. PH Davon Goldstone and I weren’t because the presentation was odd, the bottom of the chest almost facing us as he crouched over the bait.

Video cameras are useful with leopards; a quick playback can show shot placement. This time, with deep shadow, even with the camera we weren’t certain, but it was clear the cat had launched into tall grass. So, with light fading, we organized and went into that nasty stuff. The cat, hit perfectly and very dead, was nearly invisible until we almost stepped on him.

In a perfect world, you want a nice, broadside presentation. Shot placement on a leopard is no different from anything else: about one-third up from the brisket/belly line on the center of the shoulder. Or, alternatively, just behind the shoulder, following the rear line of the foreleg, no more than halfway up. The latter is a fatal lung shot, but unlikely to drop your big tom “under the tree.” Like most lung-shot animals, a leopard will run a short distance, but no animal can survive a double-lung shot.

I believe the shoulder shot is the most likely to fold a leopard on the spot. Such a shot will surely break the near shoulder and, if the leopard is truly broadside, will penetrate through the chest cavity and break the  far shoulder.

When setting a bait, effort is made to orchestrate that broadside shot. Despite good intentions, this doesn’t always work! In poor light, slight angles are hard to see, and leopards get into weird positions when feeding. Brad’s Zambian leopard was a good example. Essential is to be able to visualize exactly where the chest cavity lies.

With cats, the heart is slightly farther forward in the chest cavity than with ungulates. A bullet through the center of the shoulder, one-third up, will catch the top of the heart. However, when feeding on a hanging bait, a leopard will often use out-stretched paws. This changes the game, and the center of the shoulder may be too far forward. If in doubt, the behind-the-shoulder lung shot is safe, and offers the largest target. Just expect a short period (several eternities) of tense tracking.

What you hit the leopard with matters. In some countries, the dangerous game minimum, .375 or 9.3mm, applies. Game laws must be obeyed, but I am convinced the .375, or any other cartridge suitable for thick-skinned dangerous game, is a poor choice. Cats are tenacious, but the biggest leopard is smaller than a mule deer buck. You don’t need cartridges (or bullets) designed for animals ten times bigger. Nor do you need the low magnification, straight objective scopes that are great for hunting Cape buffalo.

For the quickest results on leopards, I’m convinced you’re better served with cartridges and bullets intended for optimum performance on deer-sized animals. My central-shoulder shot placement on that Namibian leopard, taken with a .375, was perfect. He didn’t go far, but we had bad moments in long grass, light going fast. There’s no way to know, but I will always believe that was my chance to have a leopard “dead under the tree,” and I think it would have happened if I’d made the same shot with a deer cartridge with a lighter, faster, quicker-expanding bullet.

That same season, hunting with Dirk de Bod, Donna took a leopard with a Ruger .30-06, 180-grain Hornady Interlock. Hers was dead under the tree. Maybe she just shot it better, but I believe her .30-06 was a better choice. I also used a .30-06 on a Zambezi Valley leopard. But, with light going fast, I went for the lung shot, larger target, thus safer. The follow-up was done in full darkness, terrifying, but the leopard was dead within seconds of exiting the tree.

I love the .30-06, but I won’t pick favorites. Suitable choices run to many dozens! In some countries, 6.5mm is the legal minimum. A Creedmoor or 6.5×55 is plenty of gun, and a .270 Winchester is awesome. Harry Selby once wrote me: “Of the 103 leopards taken by my clients in East Africa, the majority were shot with my .243.” I’m not recommending a 6mm for leopard, but Selby’s rifle was well-scoped, and its accuracy and light recoil improved shot placement.

The great advantage of lighter, faster cartridges: Bullets designed to expand in deer-sized game. If local rules require a .375, consider a light bullet that can be pushed faster: The old 235-grain Speer, Hornady’s 250-grain, Nosler’s 260-grain. And, by all means, put a real scope on the rifle. You don’t need much magnification, but the brightness of a larger objective can be critical, and a lighted reticle speeds aim.

Unabashedly, I am a “big bore” guy, and leopards are dangerous. There are compromises. My first leopard, taken in 1985, is the only leopard I’ve effectively “dropped in its tracks.” The leopard was standing on the ground, and I shot it with a .338 Winchester Magnum with a fast 210-grain Nosler Partition. Quartering to, the bullet entered the on-shoulder and exited the off-hip. The leopard was down so fast I had no idea what happened. This past year, buddy John Stucker, hunting with Dirk de Bod, dropped his leopard under the tree, a feat I have not accomplished. He was shooting Dirk’s .338, loaded with the same fast, light-for-caliber 210-grain Partition. Perhaps just coincidental that both cats dropped to the shot, but the .338 does combine significant velocity with overwhelming power for leopard-sized game.  

My most recent leopard hunts have been unsuccessful (part of the deal). I’d still like to take just one more. I don’t want to use the .243, love the .30-06 (also the .338), but I’d like to take my last leopard with a 7×57. If it was enough gun for Jim Corbett, it’s enough for me–and for any leopard that walks.

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From patched round balls to today’s high-tech monolithics, bullets have evolved to be faster, stronger, and more efficient.

Rifled barrels first appeared in what is now Germany about five centuries ago. At first the grooves were straight, evidently designed as somewhere for blackpowder fouling to go when pushing bullets into the barrels of fired muzzleloaders, making it possible to load and fire more bullets between cleanings. However, the grooves actually made thorough cleaning more difficult, one reason some hunters and many armies stayed with smoothbores into the early nineteenth century. 

Soon, however, it was discovered that spiral rifling resulted in finer accuracy. This occurs due to the gyroscopic stability imparted by rifling, which spins even a round ball on an axis parallel to the bore. A smoothbore barrel also tends to impart some spin, but usually sideways, resulting in a flight resembling a major league curveball. (If by some fluke a round ball doesn’t spin, it flies erratically like a knuckleball.)

For several centuries, bullets for shoulder-fired muskets and rifles were almost all made of lead, for several reasons. Lead’s relatively heavy weight helps even ballistically inefficient round balls retain velocity and penetrate pretty well. Its abundance, softness, and low melting temperature also historically made lead affordable, since it could be mined and shaped far more easily than other metals. 

In fact, lead was among the most important metals utilized in the development of what humans term civilization, since it not only could be easily formed into bullets but also a wide variety of complex shapes, including containers and pipes for various kinds of liquids, and eventually even type for printing type. (The first two amendments to the U.S. Constitution, freedom of speech and the press, and the right to bear arms, both involved the practical use of lead.)

Toward the middle of the nineteenth century, a succession of French inventors began making improvements to muzzleloading rifles and projectiles. A new rifle developed in 1826 by Henri-Gustave Delvigne, a French soldier/inventor, incorporated a smaller-diameter “powder chamber” in the rear of the rifled barrel, with the front of the chamber rounded to match the contour of a lead ball just slightly smaller than the bore. When ramrodded against this radius, the ball expanded to fit the rifling. 

Eventually Delvigne and others improved upon this, designing elongated bullets that retained more velocity during flight due to their improved sectional density—more weight behind the frontal surface of the bullet. This eventually resulted in the famous Minié ball, developed in 1846 by Claude-Étienne Minié, another French officer. The conical bullet featured lubrication grooves and a cavity in the rear that expanded upon firing. 

During this same period, advances were also made in breech-loading rifles with self-contained, metallic cartridges. The first, a tiny rimfire round powered only by the priming compound, was patented in 1845 by another Frenchman, Louis-Nicolas Flobert. (Though named the 6mm Flobert, this was only an approximation of the bullet’s actual .222-inch diameter. It’s still produced today, and in America it is called the .22 BB Cap.) In 1857 Smith & Wesson introduced an elongated version, known today as the .22 Short, which included a pinch of black powder, and evolved into 1888’s .22 Long Rifle.

The first metallic cartridge rifles suitable for big game were chambered for larger rimfire rounds, but the thin rim couldn’t handle much pressure. The solution was centerfire cases, with a small primer surrounded by a much thicker case-head. By the 1860s the centerfire system resulted in far more effective big-game cartridges. Bullets didn’t need to be loaded from the muzzle, so they could be the same diameter as the rifling—and much longer and heavier, increasing both range and penetration.

Many of the world’s armies didn’t take full advantage of this, due to a historical fear of soldiers “wasting” too much ammunition, so they used single-shot rather than repeating rifles. Hunters, however, really liked being able to shoot more than once without reloading, and by the 1870s, larger, more powerful cartridges firing heavier bullets started appearing in repeaters and double-barreled rifles.

Some, of course, were military rounds such as the .45-70 Springfield, or improvements on the same basic case, whether necked down to around .40 caliber, improving sectional density, or simply elongated to provide more velocity to the same bullets. The .45-90 Winchester Center Fire, for example, is essentially a longer version of the .45-70.  British cartridges included traditional heavy-bullet rounds, but some featured lighter bullets that approached 2,000 fps in muzzle velocity, flattening initial trajectory.

At that point, hunting bullet performance started to resemble that of modern bullets used today. Velocities and penetration increased, and terminal performance could be manipulated by changes in bullet shape, or alloying lead with other metals to harden it, increasing penetration on larger game.

Hunters discovered that a hard-lead, flat-tipped bullet tended to kill quicker than a round-nose bullet. This is partly due to a phenomenon called cavitation, which forms a temporary “vapor pocket” in front of the bullet in liquids—including the liquids in the vital organs of big game. This vapor pocket results in more damage to surrounding tissue, and while all bullets result in some cavitation, flat-nose bullets create more.

Softer lead bullets often expanded when they hit game. This reduced penetration, but increased both the bullet’s diameter and cavitation, resulting in the development of hollow-point bullets for hunting both small and medium-sized game.  

In historical terms this era didn’t last long, due to the appearance of practical smokeless rifle powders in the 1880s. Smokeless powders suitable for handgun and shotgun ammunition had been developed by the 1850s, but they burned too fast for rifle use. Eventually chemists developed various methods to slow the burn rate, allowing smokeless cartridges to push bullets to muzzle velocities over 2,000 fps. 

This was too fast for even the hardest lead alloys, resulting in heavy lead fouling in the bore, which was far more difficult to remove than black powder fouling. The solution was jacketed bullets, with a lead core inserted into a relatively thin cup of harder metal, sometimes steel but more often a variety of copper alloy. The jacket and core were then swaged together into the bullet’s final shape, holding the lead core in place—at least until the fired bullet hit something. 

Two basic variations of jacketed bullets soon appeared, one with the core inserted in the rear of the bullet, the jacket forming a “solid” nose for deeper penetration. The other version inserted the core into the front of the cup, and left the tip open, however slightly, so the bullet expanded when it hit game. One type of expanding bullet had a lead core that didn’t quite fill the tip, resulting in a “hollow” point. The other type used enough lead to create a “soft nose” in front of the jacket. Both forms remain with us today. 

An early front-runner for jacket material was cupronickel, a combination of copper and nickel. This proved to be hard enough to penetrate well, whether in solid- or open-tip form, but also resulted in heavy bore fouling, even more difficult to remove than lead fouling. Eventually most jackets were made entirely of copper or gilding metal, a copper alloy containing 5 to 10 percent zinc, which didn’t foul bores as much as cupronickel or pure copper. 

During the same era, muzzle velocities kept rising, both due to rapid improvements in smokeless powder, and lighter, faster, pointed bullets, which retained more velocity downrange compared to the heavy, blunt bullets used in early smokeless cartridges. The heavy bullets limited muzzle velocities to around no more than about 2,500 fps, and even many twenty-first-century hunters know such modest speeds tend to result in more consistent expansion with cup-and-core bullets. But as muzzle velocities increased, cup-and-cores often came apart on impact, especially when hitting bone at closer ranges. 

The four basic variables in expansion of cup-and-core bullets are jacket thickness and hardness, core hardness, and the size of the hollow-point or softnose. A thicker jacket and harder core tend to hold up better at higher impact velocities, but there also has to be a sufficiently wide hollow-point or softnose to initiate expansion. One reason the original Remington Core-Lokt acquired an excellent reputation for reliable expansion and penetration before the present “magnum era” (which became widespread after World War II) was a jacket with heavy sidewalls along the shank, and a substantial cannelure to help keep the core in place. Grancel Fitz, the first hunter to take all varieties of North American big game, used .30-06 factory Core-Lokt ammo featuring various bullet weights.

Eventually the tips of some soft-nosed spitzers were capped with harder metal, primarily to prevent flattening the lead during recoil, due to impacting the front of a box magazine. While this prevented tip deformation, it could also enhance expansion a little too much, partly because the tips had to be enlarged to attach the cap. John Taylor often mentioned his dislike of “copper-capped” bullets in his books on African rifles, due to their erratic expansion, and the Winchester Silvertip, with the tips capped in tin, also acquired a reputation for erratic expansion. This could also happen with bullets featuring a separate, harder tip inserted into the nose, including the old Remington Bronze Point, and early versions of today’s wide variety of plastic-tipped spitzers. 

Eventually a number of designers came up with an essentially 2two-part bullet, with a softer front end that expanded easily, and a tougher rear end that held together. The German company RWS started producing its H-Mantle bullet in 1934, which has a softer lead-alloy “nose” core and harder-alloy rear core, with a fold in the jacket at the front end of the rear core. The front end expanded easily, tending to kill smaller game quickly, while the flat-fronted rear end continued to penetrate on larger game. (Today RWS also offers a capped-tip version named the Rapid-X-Tip, which expands more violently and tends to kill smaller game quicker—important in much European hunting, to prevent animals from running onto the next estate before falling, thus becoming the property of the other landowner.)  

Shortly after World War II an American named John Nosler developed a somewhat similar bullet; he was inspired to do so after a Remington Core-Lokt from his .300 H&H Magnum came apart on a bull moose’s shoulder.  He developed a two-core bullet, using a jacket with a solid wall of gilding metal between the front and rear cores. Like H-Mantles, the softer front core tended to disintegrate, while the rear of the bullet continued to penetrate. His first, basically handmade, bullets weren’t very accurate, but they only had to shoot “minute of moose,” and penetrated very well on his next bull. He started selling Nosler Partition bullets to handloaders in 1947, but they didn’t appear in factory ammunition until the early 1960s, when Weatherby started loading them.  

The next big step occurred in the 1970s, when an Idaho elk hunter named Bill Steigers developed a method of soldering lead cores inside heavy copper jackets. His Bitterroot Bonded Cores retained more weight than H-Mantles and Partitions, but didn’t typically penetrate any deeper, due to opening into a wide “mushroom.” This wide front, however, created a wider wound channel. 

Because of limited production, BBC bullets were mostly sold locally, but they led to other bonded bullets, including the partition-jacketed Swift A-Frame, which has a bonded front core. Another early bonded bullet was Jack Carter’s Trophy Bonded Bear Claw, with a rear shank made of solid copper and a relatively small bonded front core. Both also mushroomed widely, a tendency of most bonded bullets.

In the 1980s, a Utah hunter named Randy Brooks took the solid-shank concept a step farther, developing an all-copper hollow-point he named the X-Bullet, which penetrated very deeply, due to the front end opening like a flower into four “petals.” This resulted in less frontal area than bonded bullets, with the rotating petals creating a narrower but still very effective wound channel. Barnes’ bullet went through several changes over the years, to reduce copper-fouling in bores, increase accuracy and to ensure expansion. The last occurred in 2007, with the addition of a plastic tip, which definitely aided expansion in smaller calibers. 

Today many bullet companies make monolithic hunting bullets. This isn’t only because of their deep penetration, but because some jurisdictions—ranging from public hunting areas to entire countries—have banned lead in bullets, due its potential toxicity. 

The latest trend in expanding bullets is, of course, higher ballistic coefficients, which result in more retained energy and less wind-drift at longer ranges—one area where lead-core bullets have an advantage over monolithics, due to being shorter in the same weight and diameter, and thus more easily stabilized in more-or-less standard rifling twists. Of course, rifling twists continue to tighten as more hunters start using high-BC bullets.

Some of the same construction advances eventually appeared in so-called solid, non-expanding bullets used on the largest big game, especially elephants.  Some became actual solids, made entirely of brass, with wide, flat noses which tend to do more soft-tissue damage than the round noses of many older lead-core “solids,” and also penetrate straighter. Some of these solids even have slightly cupped noses, which increase tissue damage. Both North Fork Technology’s Cup-Point and Australian bullet maker Woodleigh’s Hydrostatically Stabilised Cup-Point have a slightly smaller-than-bullet-diameter cupped nose to allow them to feed from typical bolt-action magazines. Swift’s Break-Away Solid is a lead-core with a round polymer tip, which feeds very smoothly and breaks away upon impact, leaving a cup-tip.

What’s in store for future hunting bullets? The specifics are hard to predict, but the overall trends since the first spiral rifling appeared have been toward smaller calibers, lighter weight, higher velocity, increasingly controlled expansion, and less use of lead.

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New Nimrod Education Center highlights the crucial link between hunting, fishing, and conservation.

Photo above: Al Stewart, longtime Upland Bird Specialist for Michigan DNR, is the director of the new Nimrod Education Center at Hillsdale College.

The important work of helping non-hunters understand the importance of sportsmen-funded wildlife management just got a big boost. A groundbreaking new center dedicated to educating the public on the values of recreational hunting and fishing has been established through an endowment from Alan N. Taylor, founder and president of the Nimrod Society, to Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan. 

The Nimrod Society is an organization dedicated to informing the non-hunting and non-fishing public about the economic, social, and wildlife management benefits of hunting and fishing. Taylor’s perpetual endowment creates the Nimrod Center for Education in the Areas of Consumptive Sport and Recreational Hunting and Fishing, known simply as the Nimrod Education Center. Combined with the resources of the highly respected Hillsdale College, the center provides a dynamic new venue to promote the benefits of hunting and fishing.

The Nimrod Education Center is led by Nimrod Education Center Director Al Stewart. Stewart recently retired from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR) after fifty years with the agency. At the DNR, he served as Upland Game Bird Specialist and Program Leader, responsible for statewide management programs for ruffed grouse, woodcock, sharp-tailed grouse, quail, pheasants, and wild turkeys.

Additional wildlife and fisheries faculty educators and staff who are avid hunters and anglers will be employed by the Center. Educational outreach activities will include courses in wildlife and fisheries management that emphasize the sportsman’s role, continuing education programs, seminars, and conferences. Scholarships will be available to students who demonstrate an interest in the subject matter.

As part of its mission, the Nimrod Education Center will help to develop and implement mass-media communication programs to inform the public about the benefits of hunting and fishing. Developing partnerships to establish Wildlife Councils in all states is an important goal of the Center. Students, faculty, and staff will work to spearhead public education programs and foster communication among sportsmen, conservation groups, and wildlife agencies.

The center is authorized to provide grants to other educational institutions and to sportsmen-focused conservation organizations to develop curricula and programs that support its goals. 

“Many people are misled about the vital role that hunters and anglers play in wildlife conservation and management,” said Taylor. “Hunting and fishing license fees, along with federal excise taxes on sporting equipment, make up the principal funding for all wildlife management and protection. The mission of the Nimrod Education Center is to show the true relationship between sportsmen and conservation.”

The center will operate from Hillsdale College’s main campus and satellite campuses, and will use the College’s existing facilities to conduct its activities, including the G.H. Gordon Biological Station and the John Anthony Halter Shooting Sports Education Center. To learn more, visit Hillsdale.edu/educational-outreach/nimrod-education-center.

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What’s best for buffalo hunting: open sights, red dots, or scopes?

Photo above: Though not wide, John Stucker’s 2021 Mozambique bull carried exceptional bosses. Doubles are rarely scoped, but many, especially new doubles, can be. Boddington considered Stucker’s Sabatti .450/.400 3″ with 1-4X scope such an ideal setup that he borrowed it for his buffalo a couple days later.

The buffalo bull was feeding greedily along a little watercourse. We were on a cutbank above him, looking down, not thirty yards. Perfect. Except: He was in eight-foot grass.

Earlier that day, Teresa and Woody Wilhite, hunting with Poen van Zyl, had seen an old buffalo bull at a waterhole. They already had their buffalo, so they told us about him at lunch. He was long gone by the time we got there, but tracks led toward a big patch of tall grass.

September ’21 in Mozambique; hunting with PH Rye Pletts. While we were figuring out the tracks, young tracker Brinko did a very intelligent thing. Unbidden, he climbed a big tree, and immediately signaled he could see the bull.

The buffalo had moved a hundred yards to a small stream cutting through the grass. The strong wind was favorable; we were on top of him in minutes. He was ancient, ribs and hip bones showing; we had the shot, but we couldn’t see the horns. Eventually he raised his head, nice old bull, but before I could get the shot off, he took two steps forward into much longer grass.

Now all I could see were black patches between waving green stripes. More or less broadside, but the head was down and hidden. The backline is where the black patches stop, but where is the shoulder?

It was tough enough through the 4X scope; I’m not I could have visualized it with iron sights. When I felt sure enough, I held down into the grass and fired the right barrel. The bull dropped to the shot and all I could see were four feet up in the air! We rushed down and gave him a finisher, and that was the end of my shortest-ever buffalo hunt.  

We have this romantic notion that it’s somehow “better” to take the big stuff with iron sights at close range. More traditional, yes. More satisfying, sure…if you pull it off! I remember a fellow in camp pontificating that “the only ‘proper’ way to take dangerous game is with iron sights within thirty yards.” Definitely true with elephant, because thirty yards is a long shot. Absent impaired vision, a magnifying scope is not needed. In fact, it may be counterproductive because of tunnel vision effect, and visualizing an aiming point on a big, gray wall.

I have only taken one rhino and am unlikely to take another. In that limited experience, it took days to locate the correct animal. When we did, we had little trouble closing to twenty yards, and the express sights on a .470 were just fine.

With buffalo, it’s awesome when you can get close and take your bull with a big, iron-sighted rifle. Reality is that you can’t always get close. There is another reality: Only a small percentage of my buffaloes have been solitary. Many were in herds, others in bachelor groups. Here’s the point: In a group, the hard part is often to pick out the one you want. It can be difficult to keep track of that bull as they shift. This can be nearly impossible over iron sights, especially as you approach their effective limit. (Depending on the person and the light, I figure this to be no more than one hundred yards.)

Oh, let me finish the story about our pontificator. After a week of tough hunting, he took an errant shot with his iron sights at the limit. Predictable result: Wounded buffalo. It happens, I’ve done it. The most common outcome is not a charge; more often, a poorly hit buffalo is never seen again. This time, there was a serious charge, stopped by the PH. 

Iron sights have been in use for centuries and they work. Most dangerous game PHs carry iron-sighted rifles, for simplicity and ruggedness, for less weight and less brush-snagging protrusion…and because they’re used to them. Also, their purpose is different. They’re not likely to shoot a buffalo at a hundred yards, although most probably could. On most safaris, the PH never shoots, but his rifle is there and ready.

For many of us, a long-dreamed of safari is a reward for a life milestone: Kids out of school, retirement from a first career, finally able to afford it. Most of us have some gray hair before we tackle our first buffalo. Let’s face it: Most of us hunt with scopes. We don’t suddenly awake in our middle years with proficiency with iron sights! Although I was young when I first went to Africa, I was no different! I’d done a lot of shooting with open-sighted .22s and used aperture sights in the Marines, but the first big game animal I hunted with iron sights was a Cape buffalo with a big double! I was surprised at how small that buffalo looked over express sights!

Iron sights work. The more you practice with them and use them, the better they work, and the more confident you become. It takes a lot of shooting and, even under the best of circumstances, effective range is limited. Using iron sights for buffalo, understand you’re giving up a lot of shots!

Long shots are out of the question, but because the buffalo is a herd animal (lots of eyes), and because they’re grazers, they can be caught in open ground with no cover. It’s ridiculous to assume that you can consistently get within fifty yards. Sometimes, but not always. The average shot on buffalo is maybe eighty yards. With practice (and younger or better eyes than mine) this is possible with iron sights. However, if that’s an average, it means that some shots will farther.

These days I’m having increasing trouble resolving iron sights. I accept that my effective range with open sights is shorter than it once was. I do better with apertures, but still not what I once could do. That doesn’t mean I’ve abandoned iron sights, just that I’m careful where I use them, and I accept the limitation. Early in ’21 I took two buffalo bulls in Uganda, using an old .470 double with typical express sights. One was about forty yards, the other half that. I knew the area, and knew it was probable I could get close enough with that rifle and its sights.

The last fifteen years I’ve done a lot of my buffalo hunting in coastal Mozambique, where we go into big herds, sometimes on open floodplains and short-grass savannas. There, I’ve taken buffalo beyond a hundred and fifty yards. With a scoped rifle, such shooting is practical. With iron sights, risky. That area is not iron sight country!

The red-dot or reflex sight is a wonderful alternative to iron sights…especially for guys like me, who are having difficulty resolving the front bead. Several times I’ve put an AimPoint sight on a .375 for buffalo hunting, and I have one on a Sabatti double .450-3 ¼”. I’ve used the AimPoint enough that I’m confident well beyond a hundred yards. At one point I considered it the best option for buffalo, a great compromise between iron sights and a magnifying scope.

Red-dot sights are very good…but not perfect. In Mozambique a couple years ago, I had an AimPoint on my .450 double. Mark Haldane and I got into a big herd about a hundred yards away across a short-grass savanna. I was on sticks, and there was a crackerjack bull in the press. The herd was nervous, constantly shifting. As he jockeyed back and forth, in order to stay focused on that bull, I had to take the rifle off the sticks so I could raise my binocular.

With a magnifying scope, even just 4X, it would have been simple! Eventually the bull stood clear and we got him. I don’t know why I have to keep re-learning old lessons! In the right area I’ll still use iron sights, and for sure I’ll still use the AimPoint. However, if it’s a situation where it’s important to take a buffalo, there’s simply no substitute for a clear, bright magnifying scope.

You don’t need much magnification. Right now, I have a Leupold 2-7x33mm on my .375, not specifically for buffalo, but because the versatile .375 benefits from more magnification. For buffalo, the typical 1-4X, 1.75-5X, or 1-6X straight-objective “dangerous game” scope is perfectly adequate. On the buffalo I started this article with, I used buddy John Stucker’s Sabatti .450/.400-3” double with Leupold VXR 1-4X scope. Why his rifle? I had a Blaser .375 with 2-7X in camp, suitable. Stucker had already taken his buffalo, a great bull. I like doubles, and love the .450/.400. When he offered me his rifle with scope, I accepted, figuring I’d be carrying the most perfect buffalo gun imaginable!

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Hunting axis deer in the Hawaiian Islands.

I sat in the shade of an old, gnarled tree. The tree was called a kiawe, though the thorns that adorned it and that poked painfully into my derriere made it seem little different than the flat-topped acacias of East Africa. The morning heat was already causing mirage, and the red dust was blowing across the sun-baked flat. If the call of a red-eyed dove or the bark of a bushbuck had graced my ears, I’d have bet money that I was on safari in one of those huge dangerous game blocks that I love so much. But the view on the horizon–a placid patch of turquoise water and an island rising upward from it–belied that. The water was the Pacific Ocean, the island was the Hawaiian Island of Lanai, and the thorns in my butt were bred on Molokai. 

We had made the long trek from upstate New York to Honolulu on the island of Oahu, and caught the afternoon flight on Mokulele Airlines to Molokai. The late-afternoon trade winds, gusting over 25 mph, made for a bumpy landing, and I knew we’d have to zero our rifles in these conditions as well.

Until I was invited to Hawaii to test some new gear, I had never given a thought to hunting the fiftieth state. As I did some research, I became intrigued with the deer situation on Molokai: estimates indicate that the island is home to over 70,000 axis deer, the spotted deer indigenous to India, which are also known as chital deer. Considering that the population of Molokai is just over 7,300 people, there is all sorts of habitat for the prolific breeding of these cervids. We’d be spending the next five days in pursuit of these beautiful deer with Go Hawaii Outfitters, a family business that guides hunters from around the world.

Just how the axis deer got to Hawaii is an interesting story; they aren’t native, but just as in Texas and Argentina, they certainly have made themselves at home in their island paradise. The British colony of Hong Kong gifted the axis deer to Hawaii’s King Kamehameha V in the 1860s and they were initially placed on the island of Molokai. Today, there are healthy, huntable populations of axis deer on Molokai, Lanai, and Maui, and all three islands have outfitters that offer hunts to the travelling hunter. 

Molokai’s geography is stunning. There are beautiful beaches, tall peaks, impossibly deep valleys and canyons, large volcanic rock formations, and a diverse selection of flora. The western side of the island is drier than the eastern end. In fact, 2020 saw a terrible drought which resulted in the death of a good number of animals, and the effects of that drought are still evident. It was commonplace to see the bleached bones of animals that had succumbed to the drought, bones of both cattle and deer. My initial mental comparison to the African veld was largely because of that arid terrain, as the smell of the dried grass and the constant layer of fine, red dust which coated skin, clothes, optics, and rifles brought back memories of safaris past in Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Tanzania. As you head east, however, things change completely. Temperatures cool, precipitation increases, and vegetation thickens. Here there are open meadows reminiscent of Scotland or Ireland, and the ocean breezes bring thick fog banks that roll in quickly; a bright, sunny afternoon can turn into a cool pea-souper in a matter of minutes. We were fortunate to hunt in both environments and get the full Molokai experience. 

Our guides were all native to Molokai, and we rotated guides each day so everyone in our party had a chance to hunt with all the guides. They were more than friendly, giving that feel of ohana (family) to the point that within a couple days their children were calling me “uncle.” Chase, Koa, Ku (assisted by his nephew Sy), DonDon, and Koa’s dad, Desmond, who made a special appearance here and there, took good care of us for the week. We stayed at a condo not too far from the hunting block, and established a routine: up at 3:00 a.m. for a light breakfast, meet the guides at 4:00 to be on watch by 4:45. The morning hunt would wrap up by 9:00, when we’d go back for a hearty brunch and a nap, only to be back up at 3:00 in the afternoon for the evening hunt. There was no lack of deer activity. On the west end of the island, where water was at a premium, the deer would make the morning migration from their feeding area to water and cover, and the reverse in the evening. 

There were seven hunters, each allotted one buck and three does. The biggest bucks–easily identified by their deep voices–stayed in the thick gullies and canyons until last light, giving little opportunity for a shot. I spent the morning holding out for a good buck, but as last light of the evening hunt approached, Koa and I agreed that a mature doe was fair game if the shot presented itself. With just minutes of light left on the first day, a doe stopped at just over 200 yards to look back over her shoulder. Shooting from a set of tripod shooting sticks, I adjusted the elevation turret of the scope for that distance and broke the trigger of the 27 Nosler. The bullet took her on the rear edge of the shoulder, putting her down instantaneously. I was excited to have the delicious venison, as axis deer rank at the top of my list of the best-tasting game meat in North America.

The next morning was one of those magical mornings where things just line up. I was hunting again with Koa and fellow writer Natalie Krebs when a huge herd came in rapidly, from our right, within 100 yards. A mature buck, fully developed but with rather narrow antlers, presented a clean shot, and I took it. It fell as if pole-axed, and it wasn’t yet 6:00. Shots rang in the distance from different directions, giving us a good indication that it was an equally productive morning for the other hunters. Then a second herd appeared on the same path. Glassing the parade, Koa and I hastily agreed on the same impressive buck, and Natalie took her first axis deer: a 32-inch beauty. You couldn’t have chiseled the smile off her face. 

The next morning was spent with eyelids closed, as the combination of early mornings and a wicked case of jet lag had taken its toll on the lot of us. A beach cookout for lunch, where we were introduced to Hawaiian Winners–the local hot dogs–was a great time, and for the evening hunt we were taken to Meyers Lake, toward the eastern side of the island. This area was emerald green, with open meadows; I took another axis doe within minutes of entering the block. The herd had stopped at just over 150 yards, and the Nosler did its one-shot trick again. For the remainder of the evening, Koa, my wife Suzie, and I sat contentedly at the top of the highest open meadow, looking down through a gorge to the peninsula where Kaluapapa was situated, listening to the echoes of two boar hogs fighting it out. The beautiful sunset was, time and again, interrupted by thick clouds rolling in from the ocean, limiting visibility to mere yards, then rolling out just as fast as they’d come in. 

We had the wonderful opportunity to spend the following morning fishing for bonefish; our guide, Joe, took us in his 12-foot skiff off the southern coast, with a panoramic view of Lanai, Kaho’olawe, and Maui. Bonefish fight like crazy, and we had a great time bringing these fish to the boat, watching the sea turtles floating by, and enjoying the idyllic setting. To see Molokai from the ocean was reminiscent of Jurassic Park, what with those deep, green valleys and pronounced ridges of the volcanic islands. 

I tagged out on the evening of the last day, hunting with DonDon, who was quite a character. In spite of the trade winds, which changed directions every five minutes, getting more severe toward dark, DonDon picked a stand on a hump of rocks, pointed toward a steep side hill 250 yards away, and assured me that “they’ll come out feeding across that hill.” I should’ve known better than to second-guess the guide, as the deer came out as if scripted. “Two-fifty,” DonDon said curtly, pointing with his bristled chin. “Shoot her.” I did, ending my hunt on an island paradise and creating fantastic memories with new friends.

I said earlier that I’d never given a thought to hunting on the Hawaiian Islands; now I won’t be able to see them without thinking about my time spent chasing deer on Molokai. Suzie and I spent an additional three days on Oahu celebrating our tenth wedding anniversary, but I admit I spent much of my time as a tourist there staring into the hills of the Makaha Valley, looking for axis deer. 

For information on this hunt, go to www.huntingoutfittershawaii.com

Gearing Up for an Island Hunt

The Nosler Model 21 is a wonderfully designed rifle. A synthetic stock with a gentle, sweeping pistol grip reminiscent of classic stock designs cradles a push-feed action with a neat, fluted bolt, two-position safety, and a crisp trigger. Feeding and extraction were no issue at all, and the gun printed sub-MOA groups, even in the terrible afternoon winds. It was light enough to carry up and down the steep side slopes of those innumerable gullies and canyons, yet balanced enough to settle down for the longer shots. My gun was chambered in the speedy .27 Nosler, which sends a 150-grain AccuBond Long Range bullet faster than even the .270 WSM. It was more than enough for even the largest axis deer.

The rifle was topped with the new Leupold VX-3HD 4.5-14x40mm Side Focus CDS-ZL WindPlex, a good value for any hunter. With a 30mm main tube, it is wonderfully bright even at dawn and dusk, yet can be mounted low to the bore, while offering enough elevation adjustment for hunting at longer ranges. With a zero-lock elevation turret and a reticle which allows for quick and accurate wind deflection adjustments, it is a fast system which any hunter will appreciate. 

For glassing, the Leupold BX-4 ProGuide HD 10×42 binocular were light to carry, but offered enough magnification to pick out a good buck at distances best measured in portions of a mile, without any eye strain. The Hawaiian sun is unforgiving, but the Leupold Payload glasses not only protected from the tropical sun, but were amazing on the water; the polarized lenses cut glare and allowed me to see fish, turtles, and more both on Molokai and while enjoying the famous North Shore of Oahu. 

While cooking wild game in camp, I made a new friend in the Camp Chef cast iron pans. I’m no cook, but my wife knows her way around a cast iron pan and fresh venison tenderloin. Based on what she and Brooks Hansen whipped up in camp, their line of products deserves an audition.–P.P.M.

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