Flying .470's flesh licking buff and other African myths..

[H&Hhunter]

Ok now that I've actually done some of this stuff I'd like to lay to rest some of the B.S. we read from many of the more popular African safari writers. most of whom have passed form this world so I suspect they will not take offense at having their dirty laundry aired.

Number 1.

RURAK,
describes doubling his .470NE (wich means both barrels go off at once for those of you who don't know.)

He describes the rifle flying from his grip and sailing over his back and his finger being dislocated and nearly being knocked out by the fierce recoil. AHHHHBULCHIT........

Just last week I doubled my .470 quite by accident and it has no tendancy to fly from your grip dislocate fingers or really knock the stuffing out of you. It's not that big of a deal. Just a good healthy smackeroo and it's over.

Number 2.

JOHN F BURGER,
claims he knew a native who after being treed by an angry buffalo had the flesh licked from his legs by the ferocious beast. AHHHBULCHIT.....

Can you possible imagine a man holding still while a buffalo walks up to his tree and LICKS the flesh from his leg. Don't you think the ole boy would be kicking and squirming. You'd have to be completly immobile for this to occur.


Number 3.

PETER H. CAPSTICK,

Better pretty much watch out for anything this old boy writes. I love his writing ,however, it's fictional at best. Now before you run me down and stake me to the PHC wana believe stone. Listen up and you can read this for yourselves in his books.

In PHC's book "Last Horizons" he describes being involved in a jeep wreck on his first ever trip to Africa Ethiopia to be exact. In this tall tale he describes being charged by an angry elephant at night in which the PH prys a .270 soft point round from the case turns it around reseats it and drops the rouge bull with a frontal brainshot. Not to fantastic a tale as far as the mechanics of turning a soft point around goes as it's been done before.... However........

In Death in the Long Grass,

Mr Capstick describes how after his client Antonio tells him "Pedro, for mee ees first whan" (regarding an elephant). Capstick writes and I quote "Everbody has to start somewhere.I had never seen a live African elephant in the wild before this day on my first professional safrai in Zambia".

So I guess he wasn't charged by a wild African elephant on his first ever trip to Africa either that or he was in that other Ethiopia that's not in Africa?

More PHC BS. on his Cape Buffalo hunting video he makes the statement during the intro the "after you pull the trigger one of two things are going to happen either he dies or you do".

Very macho very cool and total BS. I am here as living proof that a wounded buff will not always cahrge. I had a little mistake with one several years ago that not only had the opprtunity to charge. We tracked him into the "tall grass" and he broke cover and ran at less than 20 yards numerous times. We could hear him but never see him. He had every opportunity to kill us but ran. Some buff will get busy with the killing you thing and some are cowards just like people I guess.

Finaly PHC is not enetered in one single example in any of the record books of African game. Fairly suspicious for a long time PH as many of the hunters he mentions in his books are listed in the various record books.

There are many more examples especially from the older works. But these are just a few that have been on my mind as of recent as I have just reread these books.

 

[Stand_Watie]

JOHN F BURGER,
claims he knew a native who after being treed by an angry buffalo had the flesh licked from his legs by the ferocious beast. AHHHBULCHIT

I wonder if this strange story is an amalgam of different observations? There is a lady who lives not too far fom here who keeps a lion, and a friend of my wife has visited her a couple times and claimed that if you let the cat do so (I wouldn't) it could take the skin off of your hands with it's tongue. Also I've noticed various types of bovine eating reaching up with their tongue (although I don't remember cow tongues as being rough like cats from my childhood feeding hay through the bob wire fence days) and that they seemed to have an insanely long tongue.

I could see someone concocting a tall tale and getting their animal observations jumbled after a few beers or perhaps a nasty bump on the head while being chased by a rhino.

 

[H&Hhunter]

Stand,

Yeah most likley. And a cow does have a sand paper tounge.....

 

[NRA4LIFE]

Mmmmmmmmm, tongue. You guys are making me hungry. Nothin' like a tongue sandwich with mustard. YUM.

 

[redneck]

As far as the flesh licking thing, thats just weird. Do people really beleive it? this is an animal with teeth, when enraged it will not think of LICKING you to death, even if it has a tongue like a double cut file. For a buffalo, I'd imagine its first instinct after deciding it can't run away is to sqaush you, but given the chance I'm sure it would bite.
Horses are the same way, I've never had a horse try to lick me cause it was pissed, but yes they do bite.

 

[Kestrel]

H&H - Interesting comments on PHC. I've read a couple of his books, but didn't know anything about him. Is he considered a fraud or joke among PHs? He does have some fantastic tales of fearless reactions to deadly animals over there. I always marvelled that someone could so consistantly stare down death AND make incredible, deadly shots at the same time...

Steve

 

[kudu]

When I was in South Africa in 1995 my PH said he knew PHC, as they lived in the same city. He said he was a nice guy but full of himself and a bit belligerant at times.

 

[sm]

Well I am a Ruark fan as I told you H&H ...others as well.

So I get a bit older and read some of the bio on RR.

Seems the old boy liked to have a drink or two or three...

Hey it is hard to walk at times when in that condition...Doubleing... maybe he fell down - woke up - bloody as hell and needed a good story. He got paid for it.

I didn't get paid for "some of the sins of my youth"-usually cost me.

I grow up and find many writers only existed at times. Living was only acheived in the pursuits they wrote about...sometimes that was not enough it seems, life cut short by booze or shotgun.

H&H I appreciate the sharing of real world you do. Always wanted to do some of what you do. Even if some childhood readings are tarnished, best to know the truth.

Thanks,
Steve

 

[Stand_Watie]

I just reread my post and it's a little convoluted. I just wanted to clarify that I was recalling feeding cows hay through a bob wire fence, not cats

 

[H&Hhunter]

H&H - Interesting comments on PHC. I've read a couple of his books, but didn't know anything about him. Is he considered a fraud or joke among PHs?

Steve,

Here is my take on PHC. I think he was a PH for a while. I don't believe he had a fraction of the experience that he claims. I think he hung around many campfires and listened to many stories from many hunters and then wrote them in his unique style and put himself into the story as a first person instead of a narrater.

All of the old time PH's I've spoken to about PHC say basicaly the same thing. Capstick just had to much stuff happen to him in his short career to be believable. These guys who have had a 30 or 40 year career haven't had the number of narrow escapes that Capsticks claims to have had in his writings.

I love capsticks writing and I have found several contradictions like the one I've mentioned earlier. With that in mind his writing is based on truths wether they were his personal ones or not. I just wish that he could still be with us as I've read all of his books some 3 or 4 times. I crave the mental escape that his writing provides for me.

I am just a little amazed at the number of people who quote Capstick when speaking of hunting techniques. I'd be very carefull with that slipery slope of dubious knowledge.

And finally I'd just like to say that there is not an outdoor adventure writer alive today that could hold Capsticks ink well for 2 seconds. he was the best thing that ever happened to the safari industry. I am so sick and tired of the sorry excuse for writers that we have today. the gun/hunting writer whore who always writes something like this: " I went to BLANK I used a BLANK (whoever paid for the hunt) rifle in a BLANK caliber i shot a BLANK the gun was great and i would recomend it!"

The hunting writing of today is just one huge info-mercial. It sucks as do the writers putting this trash out. we need anopther Capstick before I go nuts and do it myself.... Hell i can tell a story with the best of them. I can even tell somebosy elses story if that is what it takes!

 

[H&Hhunter]

SM,

It seems that the bottle was the downfall of more than one safari writter. Capstick was a well known boozer as well.

And I appreciate your other comments as well thank you.

 

[Grayrock]

H&H- you may be just the man to bust this myth. I have been wondering about it ever since I saw "The Gods Must Be Crazy". Do rhinos really stamp out fires? If not, how do you train a rhino to do that for the filming?

 

[H&Hhunter]

Do rhinos really stamp out fires? If not, how do you train a rhino to do that for the filming?

Grayrock,


The Gods Must be Crazy was great entertainment. Go rent it and watch it again and you'll see that the rhino scene was obviously a fake.

 

[41mag]

H & H Hunter,I enjoy reading about your expieriences.Your comment about adventure writer ability makes me wonder if they write their colums/books whilst watching NASCAR?

 

[Smoke]

Never even been to Africa, much less on safari. Most dangerous game I ever shot might possibly be a bubonic prairie dog...although there was that kamakazi jack rabbit...

But I do have a lot of experience with the bovine species. Been licked more than once. For a cow or buff to lick the flesh off of you would take a very long time. I suppose if you passed out in an alcoholic stupor and a buff licked you while you were unconsious....for a week, it could happen.

Smoke

 

[HankB]

I met Peter Capstick at an SCI convention during the early '90s - he was doing a book signing, and oddly enough, there was a lengthy lull in the "action" so I got to BS with him one-on-one for a half hour or so. (BTW, several PH's who've know him confirmed to me that Peter really, really liked to drink.)

He allowed as some of the adventures he wrote about in first person actually happened to someone else . . . he gave me an autographed 8x10 glossy of his grinning self holding up a couple of really BIG elephant tusks, and he admitted someone else had shot the elephant . . . so though all of his stories contain more than a grain of truth, well, let's just say they lost nothing between the time they happened and the time they were published. I also think he had a slightly offbeat sense of humor, and he incorporated that into some of his writing.

I DO remember Capstick was quoted in a Letter to the Editor in Scientific American magazine some years back. An article had appeared which purported to "discover" that elephants communicate over long distances with very low frequency sound waves. Capstick wrote of this in one of his books - published years before the article - and was quoted in the letter, pretty thoroughly rebutting the author's claim of an "original" discovery. (I don't think Capstick claimed he was the first to notice this, either.)

On Cape Buffalo:

"after you pull the trigger one of two things are going to happen either he dies or you do" . . . Very macho very cool and total BS.

When I was in SE Zimbabwe I shot a couple of Cape buffalo in rapid succession in the ironwood thickets . . . I found that pretty exciting. After the hunt, when I got back to Harare, I called home. My mother had been checking my mail for me while I was gone - she had kind of a funny reaction when I told her I shot two buff at close range. I found out that on the front page of The Hunting Report was a story of two men - a client and his PH - both being killed by a wounded buff in Zimbabwe.

Hmmm . . . maybe Capstick's comment wasn't total BS after all.

 

[Al Thompson]

I remember Tom Turpin in some hunting mag just blasting PHC for some action. In my trip to the land of the Tsetse fly, my Afrikanner PH did several things just like PHC described. Completely agree that PHC could tell good tales, but he wasn't a "complete" fraud - more like a reporter with some experiance.

One of the last things he said to his wife was that he "turned ink into gold". I agree completely and enjoy his writing.

H&H, you need to start on your books. Al Miller and Ross Seyfried need some competition.

 

[Kestrel]

When did PGC die? Has Ross Seifried written some books? Are they good?

 

[H&Hhunter]

When did PGC die?

Not sure when PGC died but Capstick died in 1996 I believe.

 

[Balog]

I remember when I heard that PHC had died. It was the first time I was really sad about the death of a "celebrity" if you want to call him that.

 

[WhiteKnight]

As far as the flesh licking thing, thats just weird. Do people really beleive it? this is an animal with teeth, when enraged it will not think of LICKING you to death, even if it has a tongue like a double cut file.

According to my Anatomy & Physiology instructor, many carnivores have a very abrasive tongue in order to be able to lick the flesh off the the bones of their prey.

 

[redneck]

Buffalo aren't carnivorous for one thing. And secondly, licking torn flesh off of a bone is quite different than trapping someone in a tree and tearing a chunk off thier leg with a swipe of the tongue. Have you ever watched a dog chew on a bone? thats the type of licking that cleans it off, its not like hitting it with a belt sander.

Now maybe, he got licked by a buff, and was startled by its tongue, but in that case it was hardly enraged. It just goes completely against the nature of any animal to lick you in an attack.

Sorry but that story just makes me picture some city boy panicing in a tree in some farmers pasture while a lazy old black angus steer licks the salt off his leg