To Hunt with a Legend

Very nice write-ups by both of you I'm embarrased to say that my knowledge of hunting over on the dark continent is sorely lacking Or for that matter, any of the great hunters of yesteryear...Guess I better do some research so I can add something to this topic.

Ed, that is the single best write up I've ever read about the description of a classic hunt in a classic era. Very nice job indeed! I can't approach that level of detail about Africa but I'll give my five legendary hunts a try....... You chose a couple I would've picked so I'll choose others:

1. Roy Weatherby - I would like to go back to the time Roy went to Africa the first time armed with his .257, .300, and .375 Wby Magnums. Testing ground breaking cartridges on the deadliest of game with a soon to be legend in the wilds of Africa would be a hunt I would do if I had the chance. I would hunt with him in the classic bush style in tents and I'd be armed with a .300 and the .375. My Quarry would be the Cape Buffalo, Eland, Gembok, Sable, and the Greater Kudu. Evening campfires would be spent with wine as we recalled the day captured in memoirs.

2. George "Bird" Evans - George Evans is the quintessential image of the classic American upland gunner. He's legendary in the literary world for his pursuits of Ruffed Grouse in the Canaan Valley, situated between West Virginia and Pennsylvania. He developed and bred his own line of English Setters called Old Hemlock and they are still very much alive today. In fact DeCoverly Kennels in Factoryville, PA. keeps that line going. I know that first hand...I owned an Orange & White Setter from them named Duke. Ed, you've seen photos of both Belle and Duke. He lived his days in a hand built stone house with an enormous fireplace where an English Setter or two could always be found warming by the fireplace. I'd hunt with George using one of the 12 bore Purdeys he inherited from his friend, Dr. Charles Norris, author of Eastern Upland Gunning. We'd be hunting behind a black & white female setter and an orange & white male, both wearing the classic Swiss bells around their neck softly indicating their movements. The day would be a crisp Fall morning at the peak of colors. We'd be dressed in classic era correct tan and hand made leather boots stitched around the toe. A sandwich, coffee, a fresh picked apple, would be our lunch in the sun with Setters resting alongside two braces of Grouse and maybe a woodcock or two.

3. Jim Corbett - Tiger hunting on the back of an elephant in the wilds of Bhutan, Nepal, or India would be a hunt in the most dangerous of conditions for the worlds most dangerous predator. Flashes of orange would streak through the dense undergrowth as the Tigers get more and more bold knowing that it either has to kill us, or be killed. It would be a small hunting party. A quick assembly of two hunters in pursuit of a village ravaging Tiger whose tasted the blood of man. The elephants would be used as transport to and from the camp. We hunt on foot and we hunt over bait. All senses are on high alert and you feel the icy tingling through the scalp and down the back because you've heard the low growl of two approaching Tigers who are hungry and also know of our presence. They split up, sure of their insticts, and we clutch our H&H .470 Nitros. The tigers are on us...one is killed with a hip level head shot. One is wounded....we begin to track.........

4. I would like to visit turn of the century England on a visit to a country estate of a wealthy landowner, perhaps high birds at Molland or maybe Endsleigh House at Devon, whose acquaintance I met over a bottle of Scotch in the gun makers district in London while there on business. You see, at that time I was seeking job opportunities as a stocker having just been released from duties by the firm of F. Beesley. Little did I know that I would land a position with James Purdey at the time one of the sons just took over the company. He and I were classmates. At that time Pheasants, Woodcock, and Ducks were so plentiful that daily bags numbering in the thousands would be attainlable and news of the legendary bag would be couriered throughout the land. Bespokingly dressed by Saville Row tailors in Breeks, stockings with flashes, Wellies, waxed cotton coat over wool, tweed cap, and firmly poised at peg #4, which is the station that always receives the heaviest flights and is reserved for the best shots. The shooting would be continuous throughout the day as beaters flawlessly pushed through, broken only by a noontime break of sandwiches and tea. The evening celebration and dinner would be classic British aristocracy with plenty of beautiful girls seeking out a suitor. Maybe driven Grouse in the morning to round out the Glorious 12th?....who knows.

5. This last one is a tough one but maybe hunting the wilds of Alaska for Sheep, Bear, & Moose with Bert Kleinberger. Everything would be packed in with horses and camps would be tent style and cooking over a campfire. Weather would be our biggest challenge but the lure of trophy sheep, goats, and giant Brown Bear would keep pulling us along the ridges seeking what's around the next corner. I'd be dressed warmly in classic wool and leather boots made by a very young Filson Company. I'd have one rifle that was built by Holland & Holland and chambered in the new .375 Belted Nitro Express. I will also have several boxes of Kynoch ammunition. This is a trip for trophies because we've hunted enough together to know exactly what we want. Besides, Herb Klein and Elgin Gates are on their way to fame as worldwide hunters which is reason enough to push ourselves hard. The hunt is a month long expedition into untamed areas of Alaska and each of us would collect trophies to be admired the world over.

5 legends is a tall order. Does it have to be hunting or can it be more on the order of Hunting/Adventure/Exploring.

Well Africa would be easy for me, I have 3 that I would like to have been around.

1. Denis Finch Hatten, he is the Robert Redford character in "Out of Africa". He was a areoplane pioneer in Africa and a unrelenting Elephant hunter. Totally obsessed with Elephants.
This would be a season long pursuit of Elephant along the Sabaki ,Tana and Galana rivers in what is now Tsavo park, Kenya. This is just under the kusp of Kilimanjaro, just awesome thorn brush area that at that time produced enormous Tuskers. 100 porters, pink gin at the evening fire, Malaria, spats with the Masai, etc.......classic Victorian era hunting. I would have a J. Woodward .500 BPE double rifle. Bar-in-wood with island locks and hammers. A beautiful trim Vickers in .303 for the pot and light game would be so very cutting edge for the time. I would be dressed like those pictures of Teddy Roosevelt.

2. John "Pondora" Taylor, he to the unknowing was a legendary Elephant hunter/poacher from the 30's into the very early 1950's. He was a rogue right up to the end of unregulated Elephant hunting.
This would be a HUNT, with me being both Hunter and the Hunted. I would want it to be a clandestine poaching raid into the Lado Englave in what is now Uganda. This would be for huge or nothing Elephants, with the officials in hot pursuit all the time. Sparse camp, on the run, a few dedicated trackers, traveling at night laying up in hiding, friendly native girls, rough and tumble life on the trail. Pondora was a double man as well so of course a double is in order here, but with these circumstances and being in the Lado which at that time was a mixed bushland with the biggest Tuskers taken at mid day in the thickest of Jess, I would have the "King" of Elephant guns and built by the "King" of makers, A .577 3" NE by Holland and Holland in there then latest version of there Sidelock Hammerless "Royal". Also in my battery would be a Mauser C-96 machine pistol. It was a favorite in that area to keep the wabi and portugese at bay.

3. Harry Selby, he was the PH who shired Robert Ruark around East Africa for a "short" 94 days on his first safari that became 2 books (I think) "Use Enough Gun" and "Horn of the Hunter". This would the classic 1950's full board, full service safari of the Golden Era. 70 to 90 days with a full bag of licenses wandering all around Kenya and Tanganika. 2 Elephant, 7 Buff, Rhino, 10 Zebra, Quagga, Hunters Antelope, Lion and Leopard where vermin, dozens of plains game. Full chilled bar everynight, 50 camp staff, 2 Lorries to carry camp. The grand time of excess. I would have the full range of Winchester M-70's. A .458 for the big boys, .375 for everyday carry, a .270 for light game and a .220 for the pot. Along with a M-12 "Heavy Duck" in 12ga for all the great birds.

4. Sasha Semiel, this was a little balls ass tough guy who was a Problem Jaguar hunter in Brasil. After the first 200 or so, he decided that a rifle was too easy. This is the meanest, ugliest, prickly, wet, buggy, disease ridden wetlands on Earth. This is the great Pampas wetlands area. A rifle was too easy so he went to a spear. A friggin spear. Another hundred or so fell to the spear. He spent his last years about 20 miles from me in Pa. and I met him twice, thou at the time I was too young and far too dumb to know the signifigance of this.

5.......................................I will have to see which of the remaining hundred or so rises to the top.

If you could travel back in time and hunt with any 5 hunting legends, who would they be, where would you hunt, and what would be your quarry?