African Safari - Rifle and Bow and Arrow. Ed Psy.D. Hale

with the vegetables (no, we had few woodchucks in the garden, they knew better). One of my summer chores was to pull weeds between rows. In my mind, at that age, pulling weeds in our family garden was akin to some form of torture. Dad would break the monotony by pulling out the .22-rifle near lunch and let my brother and me shoot. I could somehow muster the gumption to pull a row or two more of weeds after that. It always put a smile on my face.

      As a teen, my first deer fell to a very well cared for lever action Model 1894 Winchester .38-55, using iron sights. It was exhilarating beyond words when the deer fell on the first shot. The walnut stock quickly tapered off to a very cool looking curved steel butt plate with heat stressed blue and gunmetal on its surface. I don’t think the speed of the bullet was anything to write home about. Even so with that metal butt plate I felt every ounce of recoil. But after I shot my first deer with that .38-55 I was in love with rifles. To shoot the rifle correctly with the original buckhorn iron sight you had to get the front bead in the tiny sliver of the rear notch, a very difficult task indeed if you are full of “buck fever” adrenaline. I was lucky, to say the least, to hit the darn deer because I shot at the deer, not at a spot on the deer. My first accuracy lesson learned.

      Don’t shoot at the deer; shoot at a spot on the deer.

      Back in 1977 my first New Hampshire 9-point buck fell to a bolt action Savage Model 110 in .270 Winchester with my hand-loaded 150g Hornady’s traveling at a modest 2720 feet per second according to the reloading manual I had at the time. I was studying Environmental science in college back then. For fun, I enjoyed hand loading for my .270. I had open iron sights back then, too. I was hunting with my nephew Jim and sister-in-law Ruth. I was on stand where fresh tracks crossed in the new fallen snow when a large racked buck emerged from a thicket to my right at about 60 yards…perhaps kicked up by my nephew. The deer was moving at a fast walk. I held on an opening between trees and when the deer crossed the opening, I fired. Kaboom! My bullet creased under the brisket and struck the top of front leg on the opposite side. The deer believing the danger came from the other side, wheeled around and ran directly at me at full bore. I shot 4 rounds out of that bolt action in those 60 yards as fast as I could work the bolt Kaboom…Kaboom…Kaboom, and suddenly he stopped running at me for some reason. As he veered away from my hail of bullets, he collapsed instantly; the last shot hit him in the spine. Only then did it occur to me:“What if he is still alive?” I had no ammo left. My eyes were as big as grape fruits; adrenaline was oozing out of every pore of my being and my heart was racing like a locomotive out of control. Since steam arose from his mouth and chest, I assumed he was still kickin’ and thought about jumping him with my knife and finishing him off. I wasn’t about to let him get away. You’ve got to say something about youth and exuberance. I am glad I didn’t jump him just the same, as I might have become a soprano that day with a slash from his hooves. I touched his eye to check for blinking. To my astonishment he was, in fact, quite dead.

      The next lesson:

      Carry enough ammo

      I never believed that I needed five rounds in the first place because these bullets were magic. Jack O’Connor said as much about the .270 in every article I read back then. No, that is not what he really said; they are only magic if you hit them where you’re supposed to… in the heart and lungs. The other lesson I learned that day was:

      Make the first shot count

      Note: My sister in law shot a doe (with my twin brother’s 444 Marlin) just a minute or so after I killed that buck. All we had was a Volkswagen bug for our hunting vehicle. What a sight we rode, the three of us and our gear and rifles crammed into our VW bug and our 2 big deer strapped on top.

      On Bowhunting; my first bow-killed New Hampshire deer, a fat doe, fell to my bow and a well-placed arrow. I love to hunt with a bow as well as a rifle, and I get satisfaction by both methods; getting so close to game with a bow that you can see eyelashes is heart pounding. I also take great satisfaction in my rifle shooting skills and the challenge of a well-placed shot from my rifle with one of my pet hand-loads. Today there are millions of hunters like me who hunt with both gun and bow. If you can’t get them close with a bow, then get them far with your favorite rifle.

      I am an enormous believer in maintaining my rifle and bow skills and try to shoot as often as I can. I have taught both of my sons to shoot well. We owe it to the game we hunt. To be practiced with bow and rifle on the practice range… is to be ethical in the field.

      Outdoor books and magazines especially “Outdoor Life” were my childhood hunting influences in the 1960’s. Outdoor Life regularly featured the writings of Jack O’Connor who single handedly made the .270 famous and the Adventures of Fred Bear and the writings of Jim Carmichael, the late Fin Aagaard and Grits Gresham to name a few great hunters and hand loaders. Later came the African writing of Peter Hathaway Capstick who simply galvanized millions of American hunters including me with the dream of hunting Africa. Craig Boddington is now one of the most published authors on Africa. My favorite book of his was “Make It Accurate” published by Safari Press (1999). He is one of the best big game safari hunters on the planet.

      My own contribution to conservation and hunting has been as a Hunter and Bowhunter Education Instructor for the state of New Hampshire, a former director of Granite State Bowhunters establishing anatomically correct kill zones for 3D archery and the New Hampshire Wildlife Federation as a Director and as a writer for many years for the NHWF sharing my experiences with gun and bow.

      I, in turn, write about Africa with the eyes and heart of every hunter that has encountered Africa for the first time. My additional good fortune was having my son, Jason as my hunting partner.

      It was a pilgrimage of high adventure, to explore new hunting opportunities in far away places, which connects us to our hunting roots. A safari can be where fathers and sons can strengthen their bond in the field and at the campfire.