The latest edition of Rowland Ward’s record book features several new world records, detailed maps, and fascinating photos of long-lost trophies.

Photo above: The Peter Rous kudu, one of the “long lost” trophies featured in the new record book.

The 30th edition of the Rowland Ward Records of Big Game (Africa) is in full production and will be available this fall. The Rowland Ward staff in Huntington Beach, California, spent two and a half years converting the database software to a new system and entering additional data from old scanned and paper archives. Additionally, the editors gained access to two significant old archives, one in the U.S. and the other in the United Kingdom, which yielded a great deal of the old Rowland Ward Ltd. paperwork from when the company was based in the heart of London, at 166 Piccadilly, prior to the 1970s.

The newly discovered archives included old albums, measurements, articles, photos, notes, and more. Some of this was collected by James Rowland Ward, the company founder. Many interesting photos and a great deal of data were unearthed, all of which will be featured in the new edition. In total, the Africa volume of Rowland Ward’s Records of Big Game now lists in excess of 40,000 records dating back to 1840.

Besides this work, the editors have received more than half a dozen new world records since the last edition (2014), including Damara dik-dik, common nyala, waterbuck, island sitatunga, mountain nyala, and southern impala, as well as the new No. 3 Nile buffalo. This is in addition to dozens of new top-10 records. Several new elephants were entered with tusks in excess of 130 pounds per side; while these were not shot in recent times, they had never before been recorded. Also newly recorded is a lesser kudu of more than 33 inches shot in Tanzania.

This photo of a Southern greater kudu taken by Peter Rous was long thought to be lost.

Of great interest is the recovery of several long-lost photos of very large heads from the past: four elephants over 150 pounds per side; a mountain nyala with 44-plus inch horns; and the much-debated James C. Rous kudu, which was shot in 1916 but amazingly photographed, with the hunter and the mounted head, after World War II.

The new edition will feature a new ranking method for the three larger buffalo varieties in Africa (Cape, Nile, and Central African) by adding together the sum of the two bosses and the spread. As before, the two smaller varieties of buffalo, dwarf forest and Western, will be ranked on horn length and boss measurements.
The editors take particular pride in the new maps featured in this edition. A total of about 100 were created; they feature current game distributions on the continent of Africa in great detail and full color.

The new edition will be issued in a limited edition of 150 leather-bound copies that are signed and numbered by the editors, as well as a linen-wax-impregnated cloth-bound edition. The leather edition will sell for $375 but can be preordered before August 1 for $350. The cloth-bound edition is $125 but can be preordered for $100 before August 1. Order yours from the Safari Press web site, safaripress.com.

New world-record island sitatunga.

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A long-lost sheep head may be the real world record.

In 2018, a new world-record bighorn sheep was announced. The large head was found in the fall of 2016 on Wild Horse Island, in Flathead Lake, Montana.  Apparently it died of natural causes at approximately nine years old, which is not really old as far as bighorns go.  The massive head got a lot of attention on the internet and at hunting shows this past winter, and reportedly weighed 50 pounds with a clean and dried complete upper skull.  Few Asian argali sheep have horns that weigh more than this, albeit some Altai argali will surpass this mark.  The Flathead ram is a remarkable testament to North America’s excellent game management.

The head scored a total of 217 2/8 gross B&C points (before deductions) and it beats by 7 6/8 inches a 14-year-old Alberta ram scoring 209 4/8, which was killed by a car.  Typically world records of sheep and goats only surpass the last record by an inch or two, so an increase of 7-plus inches seems almost incredible. But as we shall see, this is not necessarily an isolated incident.

The Wild Horse Island ram net-scored 216 3/8 after deductions.

Is the Flathead ram really the biggest bighorn ever recorded?  Possibly not.  In the late1890s, a fur dealer form Tacoma, Washington, by the name of William F. Sheard publicized a ram that likely would surpass the Flathead ram by a significant amount.  Sheard was a collector of trophies and he bought the head from a Canadian.  Sheard said the head had been examined by a representative of Rowland Ward Ltd., and in 1899 the head was duly recorded in the third edition of Rowland Ward’s Records of Big Game. Sheard thought the head was killed in the Selkirks of British Columbia in 1885, but because he did not communicate with the man who shot the sheep, the location and date were likely not correct. At the time he offered the then-phenomenal amount of $500 to anybody who could present him with a head bigger than the Tacoma ram.

By 1900, several articles had been published in the sporting press with clear photos of the head, and it caused a sensation.  Well-known British hunter William Baillie-Grohman devoted a significant section of his book Fifteen Years Sport and Life(London, 1900) to this sheep.  Grohman spent years traveling the Canadian and American West in search of adventure and big game.  He was very familiar with the habits, distribution and many of the top trophies of early American game animals and wrote a 403-page book about it, replete with maps and pictures.  Grohman knew the actual hunter of the sheep, a man by the name of Scotty MacDougal. The ram was shot near Fort Steele in the Rockies, not in the Selkirks, in the winter of 1892-1893.  Grohman learned this from MacDougal whom he had employed in years past.  Apparently MacDougal was killed in an avalanche a few years after killing the ram and the ownership of the trophy passed to MacDougal’s partner, who sold it to Sheard.  The head even took on its own name, as all great trophies seem to do: the Tacoma Head.

As often happens with any large trophy, claims and counter-claims were made about the Tacoma head by naysayers.  In 1913 Sheard had a fire at his premises and it was thought the head was burned.  But it turned out the head had previously been sold to a wealthy East Coast family, where it stayed until the 1950s when it disappeared in an estate sale when the heirs sold and moved.  The head has not been seen since, but noted sheep biologist Dr. Raoul Valdez believes it to be authentic from studying the old photos, of which there were quite a few.

So how big is the Tacoma bighorn?  Before World War II, sheep were not measured on a total score but were ranked on their longest horn while the bases were measured as supplemental data, so unfortunately there is no way to make an exact comparison with today’s scores. Only one side of the Tacoma head was recorded, but in the photos the horns appear very symmetrical, so let us assume that both horns were identical. Taking the original measurements listed in Rowland Ward, we know the head had a longest horn of 52½ inches with 18½ bases. Studying other giant bighorn sheep measurements, it might be reasonable to assume the quarter measurements would have been 16 ½, 15, and 11 inches for the first, second, and third quarters.

The Tacoma head is the only sheep in North America ever measured with a horn length of 50-plus inches, other than the Chadwick Stone sheep ram which was shot in 1936 in on the Muskwa River in British Columbia.

Questions have been raised about the Tacoma head’s bases recorded at 18.5 inches. In the old days, these were probably measured along the contours of the edge of the horns rather than in an even circle as is now the case.  If so, this would knock the head from 18.5-inch bases to somewhere around 16 or 17 inches, which is more likely as no bighorn measured after World War II has been recorded with bases over 17.5 inches.

Until the Tacoma head resurfaces, it will be impossible to know what its exact score is.  It is a great tragedy  it has been lost in the mists of time, but we can rejoice in the fact that modern populations of bighorn sheep produce ever bigger heads, and someday a new record bighorn may approach the measurements of this legendary ram.

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A recent visit to Coutada 10 provided an up-close look at one safari company’s efforts to deter poachers.

Above: The anti-poaching teams at Mozambique’s Marromeu Safaris gather for a group photo after the Rowland Ward-sponsored snare-finding contest.

Recently a member of the Rowland Ward staff was on a hunt in Mozambique, with two other hunters, looking for buffalo along the south side of the Zambezi River with Marromeu Safaris (Coutada 10).  While in camp, they noticed the anti-poaching efforts headed by Willem Scheepers of South Africa, who commands a crew of 28 employees to combat wildlife thieves.  Their efforts are intense and consist of three teams that patrol various sections of the concession, which is over half a million acres in size.  A huge swath of land that abuts the Indian Ocean and the Marromeu Reserve, this concession is so large that patrols looking for poachers need to stay out for days at a time, sleeping in the bush.

The area is divided into zones to systematically co-ordinate anti-poaching activities and keep the poachers guessing where the patrols will be next.  While the romantic view of anti-poaching may be an image of tough hombres shooting it out with greedy ivory killers, the reality is more like police work in a big city; loads of planning, paperwork, coordinating with wildlife officials, and plenty of time spent with “feet on the ground,” searching for signs of criminal activity; physical confrontations are rather scarce.  When poachers do get caught, they are handed over to the wildlife authorities.

Much of the anti-poaching efforts concentrate on removal of snares and traps, checking for illegal burning, and, most important, creating a constant presence of humans to discourage wildlife criminals in the area.  Despite the fact that we as hunters care very much about the large mammals in a given area, anti-poaching is often concentrated on illegal fishing (it leads to other wildlife violations), and stopping habitat destruction in the form of timber poaching and food plot clearing via illegal burning.  All of these seriously impact wildlife, and need to be checked whenever possible.

After spending a few hours with the anti-poaching team, Rowland Ward decided to spontaneously sponsor a snare removal contest.  Scheepers would let each of the three teams pick a zone of their choosing to police for three days to recover snares; the team with the most snares found would get a cash prize.

The hunters came back to the anti-poaching compound three days later to be surprised by the large amount of snares that had been removed.  The winning team had 53 snares while the runner up had 38 and the third team 27. In addition, several gin traps (similar to the Conibear) had been unearthed.  Because no point system had been assigned to the snares verses the metal gin traps, the exact “value” of the recovered devices was somewhat murky, so it was decided that all teams would get cash prizes with the team with the most snares getting a bonus.  Rowland Ward was the sponsor of this contest and the photos show the teams holding Rowland Ward brochures and stickers in appreciation of their rewards.

The highlight of the afternoon was yet to come when Sheepers and the captains of the three patrols gave the hunters a demonstration of how the traps worked, from large snares big enough to catch a zebra or hartebeest, to medium snares to catch warthog-size animals, to tiny snares to catch birds such as guinea fowl.  It was educational to see how a primitive trap made out of nothing but a nylon string and a bent sapling can be so effective; in this case, the Hollywood version of a snare hidden on the ground that catapults an innocent victim up in the air comes pretty close to the truth.

A member of the anti-poaching team demonstrates the use of a simple snare of the type used by poachers. This one is large enough to catch a big-game animal.

A couple of snares and gin traps were set off by poking a stick in them to show the results.  To set a gin trap, a 10-foot pole of 8 inches in diameter is needed to leverage the jaws open by two or three adults, and once the trap is set it is carried into the field and carefully buried.  Made from the leaf springs of trucks, they have so much tension that their impact can break the leg of a large mammal when triggered.

Marromeu is actively working with the local communities as a well-managed safari area must in modern Africa; all meat not consumed in the hunting camp is distributed among the local population to discourage poaching.  A water well, clinic, and a small school with supplies have been built on the edge of the concession to encourage local indigenous people to stay in one area and not roam throughout the concession.  Community outreach works with village elders to get the message across that hunters mean meat, money, and employment, and hunters only show up if there are animals in the area.  The conservation efforts by this safari company have been great ones, and the results show; the concession is teeming with game. The hunters saw hundreds of warthog, sable, waterbuck, reedbuck, buffalo, and hartebeest as well as healthy numbers of three different duikers, nyala,  eland, zebra, and a great many game birds.

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Proof that giants still walk among us.

Photo above: Crossing the Tana River in Kenya with big ivory in the 1960s, a scene that will never be seen again. (Photo by John Dugmore)

On May 8, 2019, my old friend Michel Mantheakis from Tanzania and Namibian PH Koos Pienaar, hunting in Namibia’s eastern Caprivi, guided their client to an amazing elephant with the major tusk weighing 100 pounds. To me this is big news, and it is not sad news. This was not a known, named, or iconic park elephant; it was an exceptionally large elephant bull taken during a legal season in a hunting area that has a known overpopulation of elephants. Its harvest provides proof that giants still walk among us.

Tanzanian PH Michel Mantheakis with an exceptional tusker taken together with PH Koos Pienaar in Caprivi, May 2019. The major tusk is right at 100 pounds, a big elephant anywhere and a most unusual elephant in the southwest corner of Africa.

For more than a century, the Holy Grail of elephant hunting has been to find an elephant with one or both tusks exceeding the 100-pound mark. With older elephants, one tusk is often worn shorter or broken, suggesting the elephant was left- or right-tusked. The Rowland Ward records always recorded the weight of both tusks, but ranked their tables on the heaviest tusk. In more recent times they have changed this to ranking on the combined weight of both tusks. SCI listings also take the combined weight of both tusks. Either way, an elephant carrying 100 pounds of ivory on either side is an amazing creature. I have never seen such an elephant, and I probably never will, since I consider my elephant hunting in the past.

I have also never taken, and probably have never seen, a Boone and Crockett whitetail buck, but I know such exceptional animals exist. B&C’s position is that their records of North American big game exist not for glorifying the hunter, but because the presence of exceptionally large animals is an indicator of a herd’s overall health.

This bull is showing a lot of tusk length and he immediately catches your eye…but he’s a young bull and the tusks are very thin. Despite the length, there’s no weight here, less than 30 pounds in the visible tusk.

With elephants this is tricky, because, sadly, elephants have been greatly reduced in many areas once known to produce heavy ivory. While a “hundred-pounder” is the magical mark, historically they do get bigger. The heaviest tusks known were taken on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro in 1886, 226 and 214 pounds, the only tusks known to exceed 200 pounds. Rowland Ward lists two dozen elephants with one tusk exceeding 150 pounds; and 132 elephants with one tusk exceeding 120 pounds. Forty-six of these super-elephants came from Kenya, nineteen from Tanzania, eleven from C.A.R., and ten from Sudan. To some extent this reflects popularity of hunting areas, but of these four countries, only Tanzania still has a significant elephant population, and only Tanzania remains open to elephant hunting.

Next in line, with nine 120-pounders, is South Africa. The Kruger Park ecosystem is known to produce extra-large ivory (sometimes!), seemingly a mysterious and unknown combination of genetics, food, and minerals. When exceptional elephants are identified in Kruger, extreme measures are taken to protect them as national treasures, which I find appropriate. Also, in the areas around Kruger where elephants are hunted there is generally an upper limit on legal tusk size, to conserve the rare giants and their genes, which I also find appropriate.

As for the rest of the continent, there is no pattern of extra-large tuskers. Uganda is sixth with six 120-pounders, then D.R.C. (Zaire) with three, and then it’s ones and twos: Cameroon, Ethiopia, Ivory Coast, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Togo, Zimbabwe . . . and more than a dozen 120-pounders with origin unknown. Of these last countries mentioned, more than half have few elephants remaining.

Very significant to today’s elephant hunting: No elephants with a 120-pound tusk are known to have been taken in Angola, Botswana, Namibia, or Zambia. Botswana suspended safari hunting on government land five years ago, with the announcement just made that it will reopen to hunting. Botswana holds by far the continent’s largest elephant population, perhaps 250,000. They are overpopulated, with crop and habitat damage escalating rapidly. Under such conditions, elephant hunting is an almost essential management tool, and certainly this is great news. The elephant hunting will be spectacular, but we mustn’t think hundred-pounders will lurk behind every baobab tree. The track record just isn’t there.

Namibia’s Caprivi is a narrow strip of land with Botswana to the south, Angola to the northwest, and Zambia to the north. An elephant can walk across it overnight, and they do. The hundred-pounder just taken is not the only one from Namibia, but it’s the first I’ve heard of in a while. In 2010 PH Willy MacDonald guided a client to a 104×99 pounder in Botswana. This stands as the largest tusker since Botswana reopened elephant hunting in 1996. Botswana has an annual CITES quota of three hundred bulls, so this is one hundred-pounder in about five thousand bulls taken.

MacDonald was honest about the encounter. His client wanted to know how big it was; Willy told him he had no idea because he’d never seen such an elephant! It’s hard to judge any animal exponentially beyond your experience. I’m pretty good at whitetails from the 140s to 160s, but I doubt I could judge a 180-inch whitetail because I’ve never seen one, and probably never will. I know Koos Pienaar by reputation, and I’ve hunted elephants with Michel Mantheakis. He’s a careful and diligent hunter, and exceptionally good at judging quality. But, when they confronted this elephant, I don’t know if they recognized they were looking at the Holy Grail, or if they just knew, despite one broken tusk, it was too big to pass.

 A mature elephant in the 40-pound class.

The formula is simple: First, you estimate the length of ivory showing beyond the lip. Mantheakis is especially good at this because tusk length is one of Tanzania’s legal minimum standards (either length or weight). Then you estimate circumference at the lip. Angola/Caprivi/Botswana elephants are much bigger than Tanzanian elephants, typically with thicker ivory. Pienaar was on his home turf and would have known. The major tusk had 53 inches of ivory beyond the lip, with a circumference of 21.5 inches. Take exposed length in feet (53 divided by 12 equals 4.4 feet) times circumference in inches: 4.4 x 21.5 = 95 pounds. This odd math is usually very close; the unknown variable is the size of the nerve within the tusk. This bull had a small enough nerve to yield a bonus; it can just as easily go the other way. When Michel sent me a photo, I underestimated the circumference. My guess was way off, but I’m not Michel Mantheakis or Koos Pienaar, and I’ve never seen such an elephant.

Truth is, no modern hunters have experience judging this kind of elephant; they are just too uncommon. Historically, few ever did! But in the days when a really big tusker was a possible prize, there were professional hunters who specialized in seeking, finding, and hunting exceptional elephants.  Bror Blixen and Denys Finch-Hatton are said to be among them. For sure Eric Rundgren, who apprenticed under Blixen, was one of the best. I don’t think Harry Selby would have put himself in that company as a big elephant specialist, but perhaps he belongs. Selby guided Robert Ruark to an astonishing three hundred-pounders, and took quite a few with other clients. Selby’s next-door-neighbor in Maun, John Dugmore, apprenticed under Eric Rundgren, so there’s probably a pattern here. In Kenya’s latter days, Dugmore did a lot of horse-and-camel safaris in Kenya’s Northern Frontier District and guided clients to an exceptional number of big East African tuskers.

A big Kenya tusker with long East African ivory, right at 100 pounds. The cool thing about this photo is the rifle, an early Winchester Model 70 African in .458, so this photo is from about 1960, a time when big tuskers could be effectively sought…in the right places at the right time. (Photo by John Dugmore)

Unfortunately, the hunters who saw big tuskers in numbers are almost gone, and so are the big elephants they pursued. In the old days they theorized that an elephant bull grew a pound of ivory per year, so a hundred-pounder should be a century old. This is not true. It is true that elephants grow both body mass and ivory throughout their lives, although growth slows with age. Longevity is determined primarily by tooth wear. The elephant has six sets of molars that grow progressively into place. When the final set wears out, the animal will starve, usually in its sixties. In soft, loamy soil like the slopes of Kilimanjaro that produced the world record, tooth wear is retarded, and an elephant can theoretically live longer, but an elephant living a hundred years is somewhat less likely than you or I achieving that mark.

Elephants put on a lot of ivory in their middle years, easily two or three pounds per year. No elephants have been taken in Botswana for five full seasons, and it’s been ten years since I hunted there. This should mean a perfect young 40-pounder I passed ten years ago might carry 60- or 70-pound tusks today.

I hope so! I have no desire to hunt elephants again, but I want elephants to be properly managed. In the overpopulated southern Africa herds, carefully regulated hunting is an almost essential part of that management. After her five-year suspension, Botswana has come to that conclusion, in my view a wise decision for her people and her wildlife. Botswana not only has Africa’s largest elephant population, she also hosts Africa’s largest-bodied elephants, 7-ton giants standing 12 feet and more at the shoulder. They grow tusks that are typically short and thick, but only rarely attain extreme weight. But there are hundred-pounders out there, and when Botswana reopens, a few of them will be seen.

Emotions aside, where most elephant hunting is conducted today the elephants are overpopulated and must be managed, and recovery of all meat, which goes to local villages, is an important byproduct of the hunt.

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A new world-record tiny antelope and an unusual hyena were recently accepted into the Rowland Ward record book.

Interesting record book entries come in large, small, and unusual packages. In August 2018, Rowland Ward received a Top 10 entry for a large brown hyena submitted by Neville Boardman Jr., who shot the animal near Cumberland, South Africa, this past year.

The skull of the hyena measured 17 14/16 inches.

Years ago, hyenas were thought of as vermin and often shot on sight because they were considered cattle killers and hard on game in general.  Attitudes have changed, and now they are carefully managed in all countries with hunting programs and are on license almost everywhere. The most common variety is the spotted hyena, which makes hideous laughlike noises that remind some of a person gone insane.  They are the hyenas most often seen in African nature movies as they are active animals and not particularly shy. Unless hunted hard, they can often be seen during the day.

Two other varieties of hyenas are found in Africa: the brown and the striped. Both are much more reclusive, and permits for these varieties are not often available.  While the brown hyena is shy and not often seen, it can be a real nuisance around safari camps, coming in at night, breaking open supplies, and causing mayhem. It is thought that the jaws of a hyena are capable of exerting greater pressure per square inch than those of any other predator on Earth. Mr. Boardman’s brown hyena was an impressive specimen: The skull of this animal measures 17 14/16 inches and is potentially the new No. 2 record book entry.

Neville Boardman Jr. with his potential No. 2 brown hyena.

Recently Rowland Ward also received an entry for a new potential No. 1 dik-dik from Namibia.  Dik-diks are among the smallest of African horned game and belong to a class called the dwarf antelopes, which includes grysboks, klipspringers, oribis, royal antelope, and sunis, among others.  A general rule in Africa is: “The smaller it is, the quicker it runs and the more it hides,” and dik-diks are no exception.

Only one variety of dik-dik occupies the west side of Africa, the Damara dik-dik of Angola and Namibia.  The rest of the clan is found in East Africa, with a lot of them in the Horn of Africa. There are four species and some twenty subspecies, and nobody has ever shot them all, which tells you they don’t just stand around.  The name dik-dik is thought to have come from the sound they make (zhik-zhik)as they flee from predators.

The horn measurements of Potts’s dik-dik shattered the old world record by 1/8 inch.

A whopper of a male of any of the varieties of dik-dik might boast 3 inches of horn.  In fact, of all dik-diks ever recorded, only a handful are close to 4 inches. This potential new world record sports horns measuring 4 4/16 and 4 3/16 inches respectively, clearing the previous world record by 1/8 of an inch!  The hunter was Mr. Chrys Potts, and he was guided by Hugo Kotze from Namibia. The main target of the hunt was actually a leopard, but as the hunters were checking baits each day they saw numerous dik-diks about.  As so often happens in hunting, one day they chanced upon this outsize monster and shot it with a .22 Long Rifle.

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Influential Texas big-game hunter dies at 93.

Dr. Robert Speegle, better known to most as “Doc,” died on June 12, 2019. He was ninety-three. His legacy to the hunting world will probably never be fully measured, but his mark on his fellow hunters and all who knew him is indelible.

Bob Speegle was born in Hamlin, Texas, on December 2, 1925, and attended high school in Denison, Texas, where he became an Eagle Scout. In 1944, Bob served as a battlefield medic in Europe in World War II. He was a member of the 42nd Infantry Division, the presidentially cited Rainbow Division in France. While serving in Europe, he learned to speak Spanish and German. When he returned home, Bob went to the University of Texas at Austin on the GI Bill, and then studied medicine at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. He built the first hospital in Garland and practiced medicine until he was eighty-six years old.

Bob Speegle especially enjoyed the pursuit of mountain game.

Bob was a distinguished member of several medical professional organizations and an avid hunter, especially for mountain game, and was a DSC Life Member. Bob won many prestigious hunting and conservation awards including the Weatherby Award, the Conklin Award, and the Ovis Awards. He collected thirty-one huntable North American game animals with a rifle by age sixty-five, and then took up bow hunting and spent seventeen years accumulating twenty-nine huntable North American game animals with a bow. He is the only person to date to have accomplished this feat. Bob was also a member of Shikar Safari Club International and served as its president in 1983-84. From 1984 to 2017, he was chairman of the selection committee for the Weatherby Award. He has chaired DSC’s Outstanding Hunter Achievement Award from its inception until 2017. Bob had a great love for his family, for medicine, and for hunting. He is survived by his wife of sixty years, Linda Randolph Speegle, a daughter, grandchildren, and many others who will miss him. Bob leaves behind a host of friends and admirers, many of whom may never achieve his hunting record but will keep on trying to catch up.

Right: Bob Speegle with a black bear taken in 2018.

In tribute to Dr. Bob, Craig Boddington writes:

“In 1979, I attended my first Weatherby award banquet, then Roy Weatherby’s private party, held at the famous Beverly Hills Hotel. The winner that year was a young, energetic physician from Texas, Dr. Robert E. “Bob” Speegle.

“As an avid reader of the old Weatherby Guide, I knew who Dr. Speegle was, and that he’d been a nominee for Weatherby’s prestigious award for a full decade. Over time that became one of his favorite stories, told without much sympathy to succeeding generations of Weatherby hopefuls.

“In 1979, it could not be predicted that Speegle, respectfully known as “Doc,” would remain a pillar in our hunting community for another forty years. He was capable, determined, and tough. As longtime head of the Weatherby Selection Committee, Doc Speegle did much to establish ethical standards for international big game hunting. He was a leader, a hero, a true icon, and above all, a passionate hunter. We shall not see his like again.”

Dr. Speegle authored A Hunting Life and Two Exploratory Hunts in Asia, which is available from Safari Press, www.safaripress.com.

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As long as you can keep your shots inside a paper plate, you’ll likely hit the vital zone.

With big-game animals it is always essential to hit a vital zone. Misses don’t count and near-misses are far worse than clean misses. For most of us the “vital zone” means center-chest, the heart and/or lung area. We can debate which is better, but a projectile through the heart or great vessels on top of the heart—or perforation of both lungs—is a hit that will very quickly be fatal. On larger, tougher animals one lung may not be enough, but, considering quadruped anatomy, a shot that catches just one lung wasn’t taken at a very good angle, and perhaps shouldn’t have been fired.

Paper plates are excellent for practicing shooting standing unsupported…something we should all do regularly. This is a Mossberg M64 .30-30 with factory iron sights.

Over the years I’ve talked to and gotten mail from a few hunters who maintain they “only” take brain/neck/spine shots. Such genuine specialists probably exist, but to my thinking a steady diet of head and neck shots would be practical and sustainable only under fairly controlled conditions that kept ranges fairly short. Or maybe these folks just shoot a lot better than I do! Seriously, stand hunters who do most of their hunting from the same stands season after season (especially over feeders or bait piles) have fairly controlled conditions. I’ve heard the same from hunters who hunt hogs with hounds. When a hog is at bay they’re able to get in very close. Some use handguns and a few, where legal, use knives and spears.

I hunt my Kansas whitetails from a daily choice of a couple dozen stands. None require long shots, but quite a few are in thick woods. I wouldn’t want to be held to the precise head or neck shot there, nor, honestly, anyplace else. My North American experience is mostly as a Western hunter, spot-and-stalk hunting that might yield almost any imaginable shot. Mountain hunting is the same the world over, and although long shots are unusual in Africa, you really don’t know what kind of a shot you might get. There are times and places where brain shots and neck shots are appropriate but for most situations I want the largest target possible—and that’s usually what I aim at.

The chest area of even smallish deer and pronghorns is actually a fairly large target. Worldwide there are a number of smaller “big-game” animals: Africa’s pygmy antelopes, the gazelles, European roebuck, muntjac, even our brocket deer and peccaries. However, across the board, the chest area offers the largest target, and as animals increase in size the target area just gets bigger.

An old adage is that “pie plate accuracy” is good enough. I wrote this not too long ago and a particularly precise reader took me to task, asking the exact size of the pie plate I’m talking about. I guess that’s actually a pretty good question because I don’t have a clue! I skipped home economics class and I’ve never baked a pie. I’ve also never shot at a pie plate and I don’t think Donna would be pleased if I did.

So, instead, and much less destructive, let’s talk about “paper plate accuracy” instead.  Turns out that’s not terribly precise, either. I got a tape measure and discovered that, right there in the kitchen cabinet, we have three different sizes of “big” paper plates: Nine, ten, and ten-and-a-half inches in diameter. So, when I say “paper plate accuracy” which size am I talking about?

It doesn’t matter! A nine-inch circle is plenty big enough, and another inch or so doesn’t matter. If you can keep your shots on the plate you should be able to keep them on your animal. You can, of course, draw a circle in the middle for a more precise aiming point. However, game animals don’t have bullseyes painted on their hides, so there’s training value in just shooting at the plate and trying to center it. Another old adage to “aim small, miss small” applies perfectly. All hits count, but central hits build confidence. At any distance your hits start wander off the plate, well, that distance should be your limit for shooting at game.

So, do my paper plates take the place of printed targets with precise aiming points? Heavens no! Paper plates are ridiculously cheap and printed targets are expensive—but I keep both on the range. I generally use the plates for short-range platforms: Iron sights, red dots, big bores that are unlikely to be used past a hundred yards. For precise zeroing and shooting the best groups possible there’s no substitute for real targets. Being lazy, I like the multi-color “splatter” targets that easily show bullet holes, and I also like a printed grid so that I can look through the spotting scope and count the inches I need to move the strike.

Hornady’s Birchwood targets are a favorite for zeroing and shooting tight groups, especially with high-magnification scopes. Squares and diamonds offer very precise aiming points, and the half-inch grid makes adjustments easy. This a Ruger No. One in .204 Ruger.

Exactly what kind of aiming point works best depends somewhat on reticle and magnification. For fine cross hairs, I prefer squares or diamonds. If you’re having trouble centering the square you can align your crosshairs on one of the corners.For coarser or illuminated reticles and red dots round aiming points are better for my eyes. I keep a stack of Birchwood Casey’s Dirty Bird splattering targets with a one-inch grid and five bullseyes (center and four quadrants), ideal for scoped rifles with modest magnification. For the most precise work I like Hornady’s Birchwood targets with small center diamond, four squares, and a half-inch grid.

Then there are paper plates. We also have plain old bull’s-eye targets in the range locker. However, during the last couple of years my near vision has slipped, causing increasing difficulty resolving iron sights. I have a hard time picking out a front sight against a black bull’s-eye—even when it’s a bold white or gold bead. For me, plain old white paper plates are easier and more visible for a consistent sight picture. The plates are round, as are most front sights. It is thus sort of an optical thing, at least two superimposed circles—and three with the open circle of an aperture sight. So, I’m doing most of my practice with open sights and apertures on paper plates—and I use them with red dots as well, from big-bore lever actions to double rifles.

I have to accept that my effective range with iron sights is greatly reduced from what it once was but, combining paper plates with a new eyeglass prescription, I’m seeing improvement I wasn’t sure I’d see again. And the rules for “paper plate accuracy” haven’t changed: Whether for sighting equipment, visual acuity, unsteadiness, or the inaccuracy of the firearm, at whatever distance shots start to wander off the plate, I’m done.

Paper plate groups with this Savage 99 in .300 Savage weren’t impressive but, honestly, that’s about as well as I could see the sights. I was able to keep shots reasonably in the center of the plate…and that’s plenty good enough for close-range hunting.

Last year I came into a vintage Savage 99 in .300 Savage with aperture sights. 1920 forerunner to the .308, the .300 Savage is definitely a 200-yard cartridge, but with aperture sights I no longer have 200-yard vision. Working out on paper plates, at 50 yards I could keep my shots well-centered. Mind you, with aperture sights I can no longer determine how accurate a rifle is or isn’t—but I had pig hunting in mind, so I was thinking “minute of plate” equaled “minute of pig.” My hundred-yard plates weren’t impressive—but I was still minute of pig, and I figured that would work fine.

In the field it’s just like combat: The best plans go awry when the first shot is fired. I missed an easy shot at 60 yards, dark animal in dark shadow, probably shot over. So much for all my paper plate drills, not impressive. Figured it was just me, and I figured right. Just at sunset I rolled a hog, quartering away at 125 yards. Another evening I shot another pig at about 100 yards. Still minute of pig.

Back when I could reallysee iron sights the Winchester Model 71 in .348 was a favorite. I haven’t had one for a while, but I just picked up a 1937 M71 with factory aperture on the bolt. With Hornady’s new LeveRevolution .348 load it passed the paper plate drill just fine. I think I’ll take it black bear hunting in a couple of weeks.

Animal silhouette targets are excellent, especially for inexperienced hunters because animals don’t have aiming points. This is a 100-yard group with my .30-30 Trapper with aperture sights…shot when I could see iron sights much better. A group like this is no longer possible with irons!

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Despite all the emphasis on new cartridges, this old standby is still an all-round champ.

The cartridge wars continue! The 6.5mm Creedmoor remains a hot seller. Many of us want more, so we turn to faster cartridges. We used to call them “magnums” and most of them wore belts. The belt never meant much, but I guess we over-used the word “magnum.” Now we call our fast cartridges all sorts of things: Compact, Precision, Short, Ultra, more. They’re all good. Thanks to the proliferation of chronographs, today’s data, published factory ballistics and handloading data, is very accurate. Today’s cartridges do pretty much what they’re supposed to do.

This “raghorn” Montana bull was taken with a tough downhill shot at 350 yards. The rifle is a Savage 116 in .30-06, always a great choice for elk.

More important is to not get too caught up in hype and decide what level of performance you need, and how much recoil you’re comfortable withstanding. Performance isn’t free! The 6.5mm Creedmoor is an awesome long-range target cartridge. It is nota long-range hunting cartridge, moderate in both bullet weight and energy. It’s a fine cartridge for deer-size game, and it’s adequate for elk, but only to very medium range. The many faster cartridges project more energy farther downrange, but always at a price in increased recoil (and often action length and gun weight).

Without question long-range shooting is “in,” but not everybody wants to shoot at extreme range, and many who wish to have no business trying! Despite all the current malarkey, there is a tried-and-true veteran cartridge that performs extremely well on fairly large game as far out as most of us really shoot, and has done so for more than a century. Many of you have one, but if you don’t, I’ll bet your dad or granddad did. It is the .30-06 Springfield, properly the “Ball Cartridge, caliber .30, model of 1906.” It served us well through two World Wars and Korea, countless smaller actions, and although technically replaced by the 7.62x51mm NATO (.308 Winchester) in 1957, the .30-06 continued in various roles throughout the Vietnam conflict. Over time it became America’s most popular sporting cartridge and remains among our perennial best-sellers. Despite the dozens and dozens of newer cartridges, many of which are faster and some more efficient, the .30-06 remains one of our very best all-around choices. Jack O’Connor, champion of the .270, was also a lifelong .30-06 fan, and conceded privately that the .30-06 was “more versatile” than his beloved .270.

The .30-06 is no pipsqueak. Bullets and velocities changed over its 50-year service life, but the .30-06 was the most powerful cartridge ever adopted by a major military. Generations of recruits whined about its brutal recoil! It is an awesome deer cartridge. However, .30-06 power is not really needed for any North American deer hunting. Eleanor O’Connor, herself an especially accomplished hunter, was a 7×57 fan. She considered the .30-06 a cannon, but that’s what she chose for hunting tigers and, with a 220-grain solid, she took her elephant with a .30-06. My old friend George Parker, contemporary of O’Connor, put more Coues whitetails in Boone and Crockett than anyone else, eightbetween 1926 and 1969. A distinguished competitive shooter as well as a hunter, George told me that he wasn’t crazy about recoil. For his deer hunting he came to prefer a .25-06. For bigger game he preferred a .30-06, which he used on several African safaris and a long sojourn in Southeast Asia with his lifelong buddy Colonel Charles Askins

George Parker’s “pet” was a .30-06 Improved, body taper removed for increased powder capacity. Velocity increase with an improved chamber depends a lot on the rifle and who is doing the loading; sometimes there’s a substantial gain and sometimes not. Either way, in the rarified world of magnum cartridges the .30-06 is not a speed demon—but it is not “slow.” And its trajectory is flatter than you might think. For many years standard .30-06 loads with 180-grain bullets have yielded 2,700 fps. Guess what? That’s exactly the same velocity as the vaunted 6.5mm Creedmoor with a 140-grain bullet. Use an aerodynamic 180-grain .30-caliber bullet with a Ballistic Coefficient up into the .500 range and your trajectory will be almost the same as the Creedmoor with a 140-grain bullet. However, I can assure you the 180-grain .30-caliber bullet will hit a whole lot harder! It will also kick more, which is why I suggest that it’s not essential for deer, and why I prefer 6.5mms, .270s, and 7mms for my deer hunting.

An advantage to cartridges with long-term popularity is availability: Everyone loads .30-06 and there are hundredsof factory loads. Another advantage is continued development, both in factory ammo and handload recipes. If the .30-06 sounds too slow to you it can be juiced up a bit. In preparation for my first African safari I handloaded 180-grain Nosler Partitions to 2,800 fps. Although I used that load for years with no pressure signs, it’s no longer on today’s charts. However, depending on which manual, there are still published loads that break 2,800 fps with a 180-grain bullet. There are also extra-fast” factory loads. In their Superformance line Hornady’s 180-grain SST load is rated at 2,820 fps; their 165-grain SST is rated at 2,960 fps, edging into .300 short magnum territory.

This sable antelope was taken in Mozambique with a Ruger M77 .30-06 firing 180-grain Interlock bullets. An advantage to the .30-06 is that all .30-caliber hunting bullets are intended for .30-06 velocities, so excellent bullet performance is routine.

I’ll be honest, I rarely choose the .30-06 for mountain game. However, you certainly can. O’Connor took several of his early sheep with a .30-06, as did my uncle, Art Popham—and their (and my) mutual friend John Batten. Back in the 1950s Grancel Fitz was the first person known to take all North American species. He used a Griffin & Howe Springfield .30-06, including for all four sheep. Much more recently, J.Y. Jones (One Man, One Rifle, One Land) used a battered Remington .30-06 to take all North American species, also including all four sheep. Personally, I consider mountain hunting a specialized pursuit and I think there are better tools. So, I usually use faster cartridges. Magnum .30-calibers are frequent choices, but sheep and goats don’t really require .30-caliber power, so I have also chosen faster 6.5mm, .270, and 7mm cartridges.

Obviously, the .30-06 could be used, but I think it’s better suited to somewhat larger game or situations where its versatility really shines. The .30-06 is a fantastic elk cartridge. I’ve hunted elk with a lot of cartridges from .270 upwards, but I’ve taken more bulls with the .30-06 than anything else. It hits hard, and has all the range I really need. One subzero day in northern Colorado I crawled in to about 125 yards and shot a medium-sized 6×6 on the shoulder with a 180-grain Barnes X. The bull dropped so hard it bounced and never moved. Another time, in Montana, I had a tough downhill shot at about 350 yards which, despite all the stuff, is not a close shot. The .30-06 came through just fine!

I’ve used the .30-06 on all the continents, but where it really shines is in Africa because: 1) You never know what you might run into. The .30-06 handles all the non-dangerous species just fine, from very small all the way up! The exception is eland, but a .30-06 with a good bullet will handle an eland. 2) Long-range shooting as we think of it is very rare in Africa; the .30-06 shoots plenty flat enough for any African hunt or area I’ve experienced. 3) On the typical plains game safari you may shoot every day, and sometimes a few times a day. Recoil can be cumulative! A hard-kicking .300 may be fine on a one-animal hunt, but unless you’re really comfortable with it, daily shooting can be a different deal. 4) In my opinion the .30-06 is perfect for leopard, and in my experience more effective than larger cartridges like the .375s, which are better-suited for much larger game.

Donna Boddington and PH Dirk de Bod with a fine leopard, dropped “dead under the tree” with a 180-grain Interlock from a Ruger .30-06. Boddington believes the .30-06 is perfect for leopard, and more effective than larger cartridges.

Now, to be absolutely fair and impartial, everything said about the .30-06 can be equally applied to the .308 Winchester. Because of greater case capacity, the .30-06 runs at least 100 to 150 fps faster than the .308 with all bullet weights, the gap widening with heavier bullets. So, the .30-06 shoots flatter and delivers more energy. Most game animals won’t notice the difference. The .30-06 also kicks more, requires a longer action, and on average isn’t quite as accurate. I prefer the .30-06, but if you prefer the .308 you won’t get any argument out of me.

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The hunting world has lost a pioneer.

Thomas Mattanovich, “dean” of professional hunters in Ethiopia, passed after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease on 17 February. He was 82.

Thomas immigrated to Ethiopia with his parents and elder brother in 1950 at age 13 from what was then Yugoslavia.They settled in Wondo Genet, southern Ethiopia, then a very remote and wild place. Thomas adapted quickly, and while still a boy, he learned the first of three Ethiopian languages he would become fluent in.

As a teenager, after training and employing a team of local Anuak tribesmen to be boatmen and skinners, Thomas hunted crocodiles on the Baro River. The salted and dried skins were then exported to Italy via Ethiopian Airlines.

Receiving his Professional Hunter’s license in 1959, Thomas pioneered hunting in the Gambella region, which is home to the great migration of white-eared kob and Nile lechwe, the second largest migration of wildlife on the continent. He trained and employed a number of local people, and as they and their families settled around his original safari camp, it gradually grew to become a small village.  Government maps of the Haile Selassie era identify the location officially as “Tom’s Camp,” perhaps the only place on the entire map of Ethiopia having a non-native name.

Thomas went on to hunt throughout the country, and was among the first to conduct safaris for the rare desert species of the Danakil and Ogaden regions of eastern Ethiopia, as well as the endemic species like mountain nyala and Menelik bushbuck in the Arussi and Chercher Mountains.

Thomas guided everyone from European royalty to a logger from Washington state, and many returned to Ethiopia to hunt with him multiple times. He guided 19 hunters that went on to win the Weatherby Award. His clients have put over 100 trophies in Rowland Ward’s Records of Big Game,and though he ceased active guiding in 2003, a dozen-plus of those entries still rank in the current Top Ten.
Thomas was a life member of the International Professional Hunter’s Association, and an active member of Game Conservation International, a precursor to today’s hunting and conservation organizations. He participated in and contributed his invaluable knowledge and experience with the diverse wildlife, habitat, and people of Ethiopia to the numerous conservation projects conducted during his life.

Thomas is buried in the Petros we Paulos Cemetery, in Gulele, Addis Ababa. He is survived by his wife, Samrawit, three children, and two grandchildren.

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The classic way to shoot a Cape buffalo is up close with a double rifle, but that’s not always possible.

As the herd moved closer, our little tree seemed to offer less cover. At thirty yards the group split; we had buffalo passing to the right at twenty yards, and another bunch coming straight toward us on the left. The breeze was strong on my face, quartering slightly from right to left. The buffalo to the right were good, and for the moment we were OK on the left, but as they strung past they would eventually catch our wind. We needed to make a decision before that happened.

I was hunting in Namibia’s Caprivi Strip (now officially known as the Zambezi Region) with Dawid Muller. In arid Namibia, buffalo habitat is limited to the well-watered Caprivi and a few other spots in the north. This means buffalo permits are limited, but with little hunting and good genetics, horn quality is very good. Muller’s Daggaboy Safaris, with his concession sandwiched between two parks, has one of the larger quotas. Because of small supply (and plenty of demand), Namibian buffalo are a bit pricier than some other areas.

On the other hand, Namibia has an unusual system. The northern areas are conservancies, pooled tribal and private lands. In addition to trophy permits for both buffalo and elephant, there is an “own use” quota. This is not the same as “non-trophy” permits or “PAC” (Problem Animal Control), both of which have been experimented with (and sometimes abused) in other countries. “Own use” means the meat must be recovered and distributed, and nothing is exportable. The intent, however, is to take animals with worn or broken horns (or tusks), or animals unlikely to grow them.

So, in 2018, I had an “own use” buffalo permit. And I knew that, hunting in Dawid’s area with his team, we’d get close to buffalo. Right now we seemed to be plenty close, but soon the leaders on the left were sure to get our scent. Several young bulls with good horns had passed. The hope was some older bulls might be trailing the herd, but we were running out of time. Then, with buffalo on both sides almost close enough to touch, we saw him coming. He wasn’t an old bull, but he was mature, with narrow, ugly horns. I stepped into the clear with my double .450; the shot was about ten yards.

As buffalo exploded everywhere, this bull shrugged off the 480-grain bullet with almost no reaction and tried to run with the herd. He lagged behind in just a few dozen yards; as soon as he was clear I shot again, and he went down with no incident.

Few things are more exciting than getting really close to buffalo like that. This is the romantic concept of buffalo hunting that we all dream of, up close and personal with a big-bore rifle. The only thing is, it’s a difficult thing to orchestrate, a matter of time and place and luck. Time: We had it right, with the herd drifting slowly past, but in seconds the front of the herd was sure to get our scent and there would have been no shot at all. Place: Where buffalo occur in Namibia, they’re fairly plentiful. Muller’s area adjoins Botswana, with big herds coming and going. With a limited quota, the buffalo receive little pressure and, while lions are present, they are not plentiful. So these buffalo are fairly calm.

The calmer the buffalo, the closer you can get, but even under the best of circumstances it takes some luck to get a very close shot. The more buffalo in a group, the harder it is to get close! Terrain and vegetation obviously make a huge difference. Much of Muller’s area looks like a sea of grass, and in fact all low areas remain flooded long after the rains. Even so, there are lots of little folds and hummocks hidden in the grass, and quite a few termite mounds, plus the occasional tree and small patches of brush. In my limited experience there, it is possible to get reasonably close without crawling. You still need luck with the wind and the fortuitous location of those scattered trees and clumps of bush.

An experienced hunting team is also a factor. A couple of years earlier, the first time I hunted with Dawid Muller, I had a regular permit. We got onto three bachelor bulls, much easier to close with than a mixed herd. Although the sea of grass looks the same to you and me, apparently the buffalo often graze in consistent patterns, flowing along almost invisible channels. Minding the wind, we made a big circle—walking, never crawling—and came in behind a little patch of thorn. We stood for a few minutes, and then the three bulls appeared in our laps. I shot the best bull at about twenty-five yards. That time I used a Krieghoff double .500 with open sights.

Boddington’s first Namibian buffalo, hunting with PH Dawid Muller, was taken at about twenty-five yards in seemingly open country. He used a Krieghoff double in .500 3-inch, one shot and down.

It was truly a classic encounter, and although I’m getting sketchy with open sights, I can still handle a shot like that. Over the years I’ve been that close to buffalo many times, but it isn’t easy. In 2018 I carried a Sabatti double in .450 3¼-inch, but, thinking that close shot might have been a fluke, I hedged my bet with an Aimpoint Micro H-2 sight. Of course, at ten yards I could have made the shot without optics–but how do you know?

I have much more experience with buffalo in the Zambezi Valley and in coastal Mozambique. The Valley is difficult to characterize. The bush is uniformly thick and there are plenty of lions and quite a bit of hunting pressure. Getting within twenty-five yards of a buffalo is difficult and unusual, but I’ve seen many shooting opportunities within fifty or sixty yards. On the other hand, there are scattered openings, broad sand rivers, and some significant ridges and ravines. It depends on where you catch your buffalo, but hundred-yard shots are not uncommon.

There was a time (not so long ago) when I could reliably shoot that far with open sights. Many can’t, and today I can’t resolve them well enough. True, most PHs use open sights, but their job isn’t to shoot the buffalo; it’s to stop it. As Zim PH Andrew Dawson said years ago, it’s perfectly OK to use iron sights if you wish–just understand you’re giving up 60 percent of your shooting opportunities. Sometimes you just can’t get as close as you’d like.

Coastal Mozambique is a different story. The majority of the buffalo are in the swamps and floodplains in and around the Marromeu Reserve. This country is dead-flat. Papyrus channels and sawgrass flats are interspersed with broad short-grass savannas. Strands of papyrus and fingers of sawgrass offer marvelous cover for stalking, but the buffalo like to graze and bed on the savannas. There are almost no lions out in the swamp and, with over 25,000 buffalo, the harvest is insignificant. These are the calmest buffalo I have ever hunted. However, you can’t just walk up to them, and most of the hunting is in big herds, lots of eyes and ears. Crawling is usually required, and everyone carries gloves and kneepads. This is fun buffalo hunting, but the downside is the shots are, on average, the longest I’ve seen. In a dozen straight years of hunting these swamp buffalo I’ve seen few shots at less than fifty yards. The average is probably ninety to one hundred yards, still possible with open sights, but there are situations where it is essential to reach out beyond a hundred yards. This is no longer open-sight territory! I love the red-dot sights and often use an Aimpoint. However, in coastal Mozambique, you are almost always sorting your way through big herds. Picking out the bulls is difficult—and then you and your PH must pick out the right bull. You will use your binocular, and a low-power riflescope is probably the best choice.

Of course, you can always pass on a shot and wait for a close encounter. That depends on how big the bull, how much time you have and, realistically, how hot and tired you are after crawling hundreds of yards in the hot sun with no shade for many miles. It is a marvelous experience to have a close-range encounter with a buffalo and take him down with a classic iron-sighted big bore. Just understand this won’t happen all the time. Regardless of where you’re hunting, you will take more and bigger buffalo bulls with optical sights, and, overall, kill them more cleanly.

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