Peter Hathaway Capstick Hunter

monish

AH elite
Joined
Sep 3, 2009
Messages
1,385
Reaction score
856
Media
1,093
Articles
86
Member of
AfricaHunting.com
Hunted
Tanzania, Nepal, Canada,
Peter Hathaway Capstick, Hunter (1940-1996)

watermark.php

Peter Hathaway Capstick (1940-1996)

Peter Hathaway Capstick was a famous American hunter and author. Born in New Jersey and educated at the University of Virginia, he walked away from a successful Wall Street career shortly before his thirtieth birthday to become a professional hunter first in Central and South America and later--and most famously--in Africa. Capstick spent much of his life in Africa, a land he called his "source of inspiration."Though he spent decades hunting some of the world's most dangerous game, his death did not come from a lion's jaws or an elephant's tusks. A chain-smoker and heavy drinker, he died at the relatively young age of 56 from complications following heart surgery.

watermark.php

Peter H. Capstick with the tusks of the famous elephant, Phelwana, which had to be destroyed in Kruger National Park after being injured through unknown causes. The tusks weigh 158 and 141 pounds respectively, making him the largest tusker ever recorded in the region.

After a short career as a Wall Street stockbroker, Capstick headed to Latin America. There he traveled widely while hunting, fishing, and mastering the Spanish language. After a few years he returned to New York, where he founded a business arranging professionally guided hunting trips. Shortly thereafter he took a position as hunting and fishing director of Winchester Adventures of New York, a subsidiary of the famous gun manufacturer. In that capacity he made his first trip to Africa in 1968 . Subsequently he began working as a professional hunter and game ranger in Zambia, Botswana, and Rhodesia.

watermark.php

Peter Hathaway Capstick (1940-1996)

Capstick started writing about his adventures in the late 1960s and soon published numerous articles in various sporting magazines. In 1977 he published his first book--Death in the Long Grass which became a major commercial success and established his reputation as a teller of hair-raising true adventure stories. He subsequently went on to become the world's best selling hunting author with a string of books detailing his own adventures as well as those of other well known hunters.

watermark.php

Peter Hathaway Capstick (1940-1996)

Capstick's name frequently comes up in the same breath as Hemingway's and Ruark's in discussions of influential African hunting authors. But like all good storytellers, some have questioned Capstick's use of "literary license" in embellishing his stories. Nonetheless, his abilities as a riveting storyteller and creative (if somewhat folksy and informal) prose stylist are beyond dispute.

watermark.php

Peter Hathaway Capstick (1940-1996)

In early 1996 Capstick was a keynote speaker at the annual Safari Club International convention in Reno, Nevada when he collapsed in his hotel room and was diagnosed with exhaustion. He was immediately flown back to his adopted country of South Africa and underwent heart bypass surgery in a Pretoria hospital. He died just before midnight on March 13th due to complications from surgery.

After a small private ceremony, his ashes were scattered over the Chobe River in northeastern Botswana.

The .470 Capstick rifle cartridge, developed by A-Square's Colonel Arthur B. Alphin in 1990, bears his name. His legacy is also saluted by The Dallas Safari Club's annual Peter Hathaway Capstick Hunting Heritage Award for the promotion of responsible hunting and wildlife conservation.

watermark.php

Maneaters by Peter H. Capstick. Veteran adventurer Capstick explores the wide world of man-eaters-creatures who regard Homo sapiens as just another noon-day snack. The ultimate horror of being eaten alive is very real, and in this book Capstick covers sharks, lions, leopards, tigers, bears, wolves, cannibals, and some other "marginal" killers such as jaguar and puma. Many people consider this to be one of Capstick's best.

His Books
• A Man Called Lion
• The African Adventurers: A Return To Silent Places
• Death in a Lonely Land
• Death in the Dark Continent
• Death in the Long Grass
• Death in the Silent Places
• The Last Ivory Hunter
• Last Horizons
• Maneaters
• Peter Capstick's Africa : A Return To The Long Grass
• Sands of Silence
• Safari: the Last Adventure
• Warrior: the Legend of Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen

watermark.php

Last Horizons, Hunting, Fishing & Shooting On Five Continents by Peter H. Capstick. Prior to his successful Death in the Tall Grass , Capstick contributed to sporting magazines such as Guns and Ammo , Outdoor Life and American Hunter. This volume, a collection of pieces written between 1969 and 1986, will be welcomed warmly by sportsmen and women, safari buffs and vicarious adventurers. In addition to his tales of stalking and shooting dangerous game, Capstick holds forth on guns and ammunition; he says many safari clients carry more guns than they can handle. He discusses hunting the smaller African game (antelope) and recounts fishing experiences in Central and South America. In the final chapter, Capstick turns to whimsya mythical Open Day on dragons. Even a rabid anti-hunter would find this piece entertaining.

watermark.php

The Last Ivory Hunter by Peter H. Capstick. At a time when elephants were the scourge of the Mozambique countryside, trampling crops and killing villagers, and when lions mauled and killed dozens of people annually, good hunters were in great demand. Wally Johnson was one of the best; a professional ivory hunter, gold prospector and safari leader for more than half a century, he shot nearly 100 lions, 1300 elephants and perhaps 2000 buffalo. After the 1975 revolution in Mozambique, he was forced to flee. Not a conventional biography, this book is really a collaboration, a dialogue, between old friends with shared interests. Capstick, who has acquired a large audience with his books about hunting in Africa ( Death in the Long Grass and others), makes a few explanatory remarks at the beginning of each chapter, leading Johnson into reminiscence. He talks freely about his hazardous experiences in the bush (he survived the bite of the deadly gaboon viper and goring by a Cape buffalo); about safari clients (among them, Robert Ruark); and about the natives and their magic arts. Capstick and Johnson are splendid raconteurs, vividly recalling a vanished era.

watermark.php

Warrior, The Legend Of Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen by Peter H. Capstick. Meinertzhagen (1878-1967) was a fascinating enigma: soldier, ornithologist, spy, big-game hunter, friend of Lawrence of Arabia, gentile supporter of the Jewish state, and killer. Capstick bases much of his account on Meinertzhagen's diaries, adding his own years of experience in Africa to help him vividly portray this British colonial officer who served in India, the Middle East, and especially British East Africa before and during World War I (and donning a uniform to fight at age 70!). A former big-game hunter and guide who died in 1996, Capstick has written widely about African people and wildlife. Here he is deliberately anecdotal, adding his strong opinions in describing the "glorious adventures and cunning bravery" of a man he both admires and abhors as a pioneering influence in guerrilla warfare, military intelligence, and individual resistance to stupidity.

Filmography
• Capstick - Botswana Safari
• Capstick - Hunting the White Rhino
• Capstick - Hunting the African Elephant
• Capstick - Hunting the African Lion
• Capstick - Hunting the Cape Buffalo
• Capstick - Botswana Safari
• Capstick - Last Safari
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Death in the Long Grass, what a GREAT book! I'd always heard my "husband" and his friends talking about this book, reciting funny quotes from it, I decided to read it on my very first safari, by myself back at camp on self-directed down-day. I actually write about it in one of my articles on our site. And I advise people to read it BEFORE or AFTER a safari! LOL
 
Last edited:
Peter was friendly from the start. In 1969 Norman Carr of Luangwa Safaris met him in New York and hired him as an assistant PH. He came to assist me in Chief Nabwalya's country in the Luangwa Valley. It was the first time for many years that it was hunted. Peter was a big-cat hunter, South America honed. I hated baiting so he took on that duty with our clients from Mexico. Together we produced 4 elephant averaging 82 pounds. Those days are gone. He and I invented the Gin Nyampala, named after my safari camp on the Munyamadzi River. And we attempted to spear a lone buffalo - a trusting fellow. In Death in the Long Grass he tells of the time he was with me and was nearly snapped up by a bull hippo. I never saw him again, but tell of his splendid company in my book: With a Gun in Good Country.
 
Read most of his books. Hooked on the dream of Africa and the Big 5 since first reading Death in the long grass. Read it that many times I know what's coming, and start smirking before I've even read the punch line of his classic one liners
 
I was a double shotgun junkie until I saw a photo of a Joseph Lang double rifle in .470 Nitro Express. (It was in the days long before the Internet). At first opportunity I went into the "city" bookstore looking for something on Africa...I found "Death in the Long Grass" - what an introduction.
 
I bumped into Peter in Namibia. He was just finishing an elephant hunt and video taping with Volker Grellmann and I had just arrived to begin a hunt with Volker. Spent the evening around the fire telling stories, he was a much better story teller and drinker than I. He remembered me at SCI that year and again we had cocktails. He was very pleasant company.
 
Last edited:
Peter Hathaway Capstick, Hunter (1940-1996)

watermark.php

Peter Hathaway Capstick (1940-1996)

Peter Hathaway Capstick was a famous American hunter and author. Born in New Jersey and educated at the University of Virginia, he walked away from a successful Wall Street career shortly before his thirtieth birthday to become a professional hunter first in Central and South America and later--and most famously--in Africa. Capstick spent much of his life in Africa, a land he called his "source of inspiration."Though he spent decades hunting some of the world's most dangerous game, his death did not come from a lion's jaws or an elephant's tusks. A chain-smoker and heavy drinker, he died at the relatively young age of 56 from complications following heart surgery.

watermark.php

Peter H. Capstick with the tusks of the famous elephant, Phelwana, which had to be destroyed in Kruger National Park after being injured through unknown causes. The tusks weigh 158 and 141 pounds respectively, making him the largest tusker ever recorded in the region.

After a short career as a Wall Street stockbroker, Capstick headed to Latin America. There he traveled widely while hunting, fishing, and mastering the Spanish language. After a few years he returned to New York, where he founded a business arranging professionally guided hunting trips. Shortly thereafter he took a position as hunting and fishing director of Winchester Adventures of New York, a subsidiary of the famous gun manufacturer. In that capacity he made his first trip to Africa in 1968 . Subsequently he began working as a professional hunter and game ranger in Zambia, Botswana, and Rhodesia.

watermark.php

Peter Hathaway Capstick (1940-1996)

Capstick started writing about his adventures in the late 1960s and soon published numerous articles in various sporting magazines. In 1977 he published his first book--Death in the Long Grass which became a major commercial success and established his reputation as a teller of hair-raising true adventure stories. He subsequently went on to become the world's best selling hunting author with a string of books detailing his own adventures as well as those of other well known hunters.

watermark.php

Peter Hathaway Capstick (1940-1996)

Capstick's name frequently comes up in the same breath as Hemingway's and Ruark's in discussions of influential African hunting authors. But like all good storytellers, some have questioned Capstick's use of "literary license" in embellishing his stories. Nonetheless, his abilities as a riveting storyteller and creative (if somewhat folksy and informal) prose stylist are beyond dispute.

watermark.php

Peter Hathaway Capstick (1940-1996)

In early 1996 Capstick was a keynote speaker at the annual Safari Club International convention in Reno, Nevada when he collapsed in his hotel room and was diagnosed with exhaustion. He was immediately flown back to his adopted country of South Africa and underwent heart bypass surgery in a Pretoria hospital. He died just before midnight on March 13th due to complications from surgery.

After a small private ceremony, his ashes were scattered over the Chobe River in northeastern Botswana.

The .470 Capstick rifle cartridge, developed by A-Square's Colonel Arthur B. Alphin in 1990, bears his name. His legacy is also saluted by The Dallas Safari Club's annual Peter Hathaway Capstick Hunting Heritage Award for the promotion of responsible hunting and wildlife conservation.

watermark.php

Maneaters by Peter H. Capstick. Veteran adventurer Capstick explores the wide world of man-eaters-creatures who regard Homo sapiens as just another noon-day snack. The ultimate horror of being eaten alive is very real, and in this book Capstick covers sharks, lions, leopards, tigers, bears, wolves, cannibals, and some other "marginal" killers such as jaguar and puma. Many people consider this to be one of Capstick's best.

His Books
• A Man Called Lion
• The African Adventurers: A Return To Silent Places
• Death in a Lonely Land
• Death in the Dark Continent
• Death in the Long Grass
• Death in the Silent Places
• The Last Ivory Hunter
• Last Horizons
• Maneaters
• Peter Capstick's Africa : A Return To The Long Grass
• Sands of Silence
• Safari: the Last Adventure
• Warrior: the Legend of Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen

watermark.php

Last Horizons, Hunting, Fishing & Shooting On Five Continents by Peter H. Capstick. Prior to his successful Death in the Tall Grass , Capstick contributed to sporting magazines such as Guns and Ammo , Outdoor Life and American Hunter. This volume, a collection of pieces written between 1969 and 1986, will be welcomed warmly by sportsmen and women, safari buffs and vicarious adventurers. In addition to his tales of stalking and shooting dangerous game, Capstick holds forth on guns and ammunition; he says many safari clients carry more guns than they can handle. He discusses hunting the smaller African game (antelope) and recounts fishing experiences in Central and South America. In the final chapter, Capstick turns to whimsya mythical Open Day on dragons. Even a rabid anti-hunter would find this piece entertaining.

watermark.php

The Last Ivory Hunter by Peter H. Capstick. At a time when elephants were the scourge of the Mozambique countryside, trampling crops and killing villagers, and when lions mauled and killed dozens of people annually, good hunters were in great demand. Wally Johnson was one of the best; a professional ivory hunter, gold prospector and safari leader for more than half a century, he shot nearly 100 lions, 1300 elephants and perhaps 2000 buffalo. After the 1975 revolution in Mozambique, he was forced to flee. Not a conventional biography, this book is really a collaboration, a dialogue, between old friends with shared interests. Capstick, who has acquired a large audience with his books about hunting in Africa ( Death in the Long Grass and others), makes a few explanatory remarks at the beginning of each chapter, leading Johnson into reminiscence. He talks freely about his hazardous experiences in the bush (he survived the bite of the deadly gaboon viper and goring by a Cape buffalo); about safari clients (among them, Robert Ruark); and about the natives and their magic arts. Capstick and Johnson are splendid raconteurs, vividly recalling a vanished era.

watermark.php

Warrior, The Legend Of Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen by Peter H. Capstick. Meinertzhagen (1878-1967) was a fascinating enigma: soldier, ornithologist, spy, big-game hunter, friend of Lawrence of Arabia, gentile supporter of the Jewish state, and killer. Capstick bases much of his account on Meinertzhagen's diaries, adding his own years of experience in Africa to help him vividly portray this British colonial officer who served in India, the Middle East, and especially British East Africa before and during World War I (and donning a uniform to fight at age 70!). A former big-game hunter and guide who died in 1996, Capstick has written widely about African people and wildlife. Here he is deliberately anecdotal, adding his strong opinions in describing the "glorious adventures and cunning bravery" of a man he both admires and abhors as a pioneering influence in guerrilla warfare, military intelligence, and individual resistance to stupidity.

Filmography
• Capstick - Botswana Safari
• Capstick - Hunting the White Rhino
• Capstick - Hunting the African Elephant
• Capstick - Hunting the African Lion
• Capstick - Hunting the Cape Buffalo
• Capstick - Botswana Safari
• Capstick - Last Safari
I've got most of his books in my library. The man could tell a story and make you feel like you were right there sharing the hunt with him. I regret I never had the chance to meet him. I would have liked to share a fire and sundowners and have a conversation to the wee hours in the morning.
 
I bumped into Peter in Namibia. He was just finishing an elephant hunt and video taping with Volker Grellmann and I had just arrived to begin a hunt with Volker. Spent the evening around the fire telling stories, he was a much better story teller and drinker than I. He remembered me at SCI that year and again we had cocktails. He was very pleasant company.
I see that you have hunted in many places. Apart from the hunting, it would be interesting to have your comments on just how much - or little - the indigenous people benefitted. Hunting safaris are potentially of massive importance to the preservation of customary areas and their wildlife. Did you hunt Congo Republic or DRC?
 
@Ian Manning I remember reading the story of you and Peter spearing the Buffalo.
Wyatt, we actually never completed the hunt, the buff running in circles and our tracker and gunbearer looked on amazed.
 
It was Mr Capsticks “Death in the dark continent” that put the hooks in me for hunting africa. I subsequently bought thr rest of his african safari books. what a storyteller. My passion for safari hinting books spilled over to the rest of the great writers. My safari book collection is probably 50 books in its entirety and growing.
 
You know you spend your life early on reading Capstick's books, Roosevelt's safaris with his son Kermit, Selous and Ruark's stories hunting with Selby it gets the blood going! You'd have to be almost dead to not at least contemplate going to Africa. You read those stories and when you are in the bush and realize this is for real! African hunting will never be the same as it was from the mid 50's going back but it's still one of the last great hunting experiences in the world and if I'm still alive to see it pass I'll surely shed a tear of regret. Personally I'll continue to go back as long as I'm able to.
 
I see that you have hunted in many places. Apart from the hunting, it would be interesting to have your comments on just how much - or little - the indigenous people benefitted. Hunting safaris are potentially of massive importance to the preservation of customary areas and their wildlife. Did you hunt Congo Republic or DRC?
Mr Manning I wish I could answer your question as to how much African indigenous people have benefited over my decades of travel around that vast continent. I must confess I liked the old days better. An example of change is behavior of government game scouts while accompanying a safari. Decades ago at the end of a long safari a govt scout would be pleased with a few dollars. A few years ago the first morning the assigned scout wearing expensive aviator glasses along with his designer leather jacket snapped his fingers and said his fee was five hundred bucks. The attitude not the fee was bothersome. Another story if i may. Fifty years or so ago i finished a forty day Zambia hunt and the game scout had been priceless, a classy, gentleman who helped make the adventure a wonderful success. At the end, for various reasons I had no small bills so offered him a 100 dollar bill which he declined. He indicated the Indian at the Duka ( a tiny shop) would cheat him out of it it, and if he walked to Lusaka to spend it he would be robbed. But most importantly if his wives (note plural) knew he had that much money they would give hime no peace. Now there was a wise man. He wanted my old tennis shoes, a small transistor radio with lots of batteries. I tossed in a pocket knife. Kindest regards.
 
Last edited:

Forum statistics

Threads
53,624
Messages
1,131,374
Members
92,681
Latest member
Charlessdiuse
 

 

 

Latest posts

Latest profile posts

Impact shots from the last hunt

Early morning Impala hunt, previous link was wrong video

Headshot on jackal this morning

Mature Eland Bull taken in Tanzania, at 100 yards, with 375 H&H, 300gr, Federal Premium Expanding bullet.

20231012_145809~2.jpg
 
Top