AFRICAHUNTING.COM Campfire Tales

[steve white]

Many of us have enjoyed the stories told around hunt campfires all over Africa. Which ones would you care to share...we'll all just sit around our own campfire here and hear things from the "sublime to the ridiculous." May be true or just told as such....

On my first safari, the PH Bruce Watson asked me not to "prank" his staff too much, as they may take things seriously which we regard as harmless humor. He told of a hunter from Louisiana who set the staff up by telling them the legend of "the Boudreaux"...a man from the swamps who had lived out there so long that he had gone wild himself, was ostracized by others of his kind and kin, and who had actually been known to transmogrify into somewhat of a monster. How this transmogrification was almost inevitable if he was "out there" too long.
Then a day or so later, he pretended to be in some physical distress, retching and bending over beside the Landcruiser. When he came back up, he had on a wig and had slipped in some "bubba teeth" to good effect. When he growled at them, a couple of staff hooked it down the road and had to be rounded up again!
"So no more of THAT, please" said Watson, who had promptly afterward adopted "Budro" as his own nickname and radio call sign with buddy Butch Croaton.

OK, gents...let 'er rip with your favorite hunt stories or even the somewhat arcane.

 

[Ridge Runner]

Many of us have enjoyed the stories told around hunt campfires all over Africa. Which ones would you care to share...we'll all just sit around our own campfire here and hear things from the "sublime to the ridiculous." May be true or just told as such....

On my first safari, the PH Bruce Watson asked me not to "prank" his staff too much, as they may take things seriously which we regard as harmless humor. He told of a hunter from Louisiana who set the staff up by telling them the legend of "the Boudreaux"...a man from the swamps who had lived out there so long that he had gone wild himself, was ostracized by others of his kind and kin, and who had actually been known to transmogrify into somewhat of a monster. How this transmogrification was almost inevitable if he was "out there" too long.
Then a day or so later, he pretended to be in some physical distress, retching and bending over beside the Landcruiser. When he came back up, he had on a wig and had slipped in some "bubba teeth" to good effect. When he growled at them, a couple of staff hooked it down the road and had to be rounded up again!
"So no more of THAT, please" said Watson, who had promptly afterward adopted "Budro" as his own nickname and radio call sign with buddy Butch Croaton.

OK, gents...let 'er rip with your favorite hunt stories or even the somewhat arcane.

Yep. Caution should be key when in a foreign country especially a country where the locals still believe in witch doctors, voodoo, werewolves, witches/warlocks, etc., etc.. Never no how the people will react.

 

[steve white]

No recollections of campfires, past?

 

[deewayne2003]

Many of us have enjoyed the stories told around hunt campfires all over Africa. Which ones would you care to share...we'll all just sit around our own campfire here and hear things from the "sublime to the ridiculous." May be true or just told as such....

On my first safari, the PH Bruce Watson asked me not to "prank" his staff too much, as they may take things seriously which we regard as harmless humor. He told of a hunter from Louisiana who set the staff up by telling them the legend of "the Boudreaux"...a man from the swamps who had lived out there so long that he had gone wild himself, was ostracized by others of his kind and kin, and who had actually been known to transmogrify into somewhat of a monster. How this transmogrification was almost inevitable if he was "out there" too long.
Then a day or so later, he pretended to be in some physical distress, retching and bending over beside the Landcruiser. When he came back up, he had on a wig and had slipped in some "bubba teeth" to good effect. When he growled at them, a couple of staff hooked it down the road and had to be rounded up again!
"So no more of THAT, please" said Watson, who had promptly afterward adopted "Budro" as his own nickname and radio call sign with buddy Butch Croaton.

OK, gents...let 'er rip with your favorite hunt stories or even the somewhat arcane.

The Cajun fellow is lucky he didn’t catch an axe to the head; many people who believe in such things also believe that if you kill the man/woman the demon is possessing then you have killed the demon and kept it from taking someone else.

 

[steve white]

Yeah, but that's just my campfire story--I want to hear YOUR'S!

 

[deewayne2003]

Omay North Zimbabwe - July 2024

It’s the 9th day of a 10day hunt and everyone in camp has their big animals in the salt except for @abnhog who has been putting in LONG days and lots of miles searching for a particular bull elephant named “Mr. T” for the distinct T shaped crack he has in his track.

Early afternoon and @Philip Glass & I are sitting around the campfire ring checking emails and conversing about the hunt, I look over at Philip and say….

“All we need for a fairy tale ending to this hunt is for Dan(abnhog) to put some ivory on the ground.”

Philip agrees and no sooner than we look back down at our phones we hear, bang,…bang,…bang………..bang,bang,bang

After 9 days and over 100mi of tracking, Dan bagged Mr. T less than a mile from camp!

One of my best all time hunting memories and on my first safari.

 

[Ridge Runner]

I have had a lot of good hunts and 1 bad trip in Africa. But my most memorable hunts are hunting with youngsters for their first time.....well there was one exception. So here's the story of the exception.

We met one day as I was walking to work. Cutting across country was quicker than driving plus it gave me added exercise in prep for the hunting season ahead.

One particular day as I was walking past their house on my way home instead of the normal hellos and such youngster's mom invited me for supper.

The conversation eventually lead to a few hunting tales and being outdoors. It fueled the youngsters interests and his mom told him {youngster} to ask me.

Not sure of how strong his interest was I started off showing youngster various tracks, explaining the hunting regulations, etc.

Realizing youngster has a bad case of wanting to learn and a strong yearning for the outdoors and such I started teaching him about how to properly handle various weapons starting with bow and arrow.

Deer archery season opened and I had to work opening day so we made plans to hunt the second day of the season. Later that afternoon early evening on my way home passing by their home youngster's mom stopped me and called for youngster to come out.

After a few short minutes of hem hawling, youngster confessed he had gone out behind their house, into the woods with his archery gear, practicing what I had taught him.

According to youngster; I {he} went out back practicing what you had taught me and I walked, {not stalked, walked,} up on a deer....I {he} carefully and slowly nocked an arrow, drew the bow back, took aim, and released the arrow hitting the deer.

I could sense the excitement in his voice changing....just before the let down.

"I tracked it just like you said and followed it up to the neighbors fence and lost it. I think it jumped the fence......."

Off we went to search for his deer. First stop was to where youngster made the shot, I judged his shot to be between 10 and 15 yards, then checked the blood, the blood trail direction, we did a hasty unsuccessful search for his arrow. Then we returned to the massive blood trail. By the blood and the blood trail youngster had made a solid kill shot. The blood trail did lead to and across the neighbors fence onto the neighbors property.

We could see the neighbor's house and we could also see he weren't home. Since we had never met the neighbor we weren't going across the fence without asking permission first.....I am teaching him good manners and ethics, and it's the law.

We waited a bit then returned to youngster home leaving him to periodically check for the neighbor to arrive home.

Work had me tied up for the next few days before I could get back to youngster about his deer. Seems some rumor was going around about how mean the old neighbor is and instead of going to ask the neighbor for permission to look for his deer youngster out of fear didn't bother to go talk to the neighbor himself.

According to youngster; I never found out the exact manner as to how youngster and the neighbor met. The neighbor had been asking around about someone shooting a deer near his place. According to the neighbor the deer had expired at the corner of his house. Since no one came to claim it the neighbor butchered the deer. The neighbor then gave youngster permission to come onto his property anytime to retrieve a deer youngster shot on his side {on youngster's property}.

The moral here is don't listen to what other people say about someone else until after you have met that person yourself.

Althouth unsuccessful youngster did go out on his own a couple of times during the week after he got home from school.

Youngster and I couldn't hunt the second day of the deer season. It would be the following weekend. That's another campfire tale, bringing home a live deer.

 

[Philip Glass]

Omay North Zimbabwe - July 2024

It’s the 9th day of a 10day hunt and everyone in camp has their big animals in the salt except for @abnhog who has been putting in LONG days and lots of miles searching for a particular bull elephant named “Mr. T” for the distinct T shaped crack he has in his track.

Early afternoon and @Philip Glass & I are sitting around the campfire ring checking emails and conversing about the hunt, I look over at Philip and say….

“All we need for a fairy tale ending to this hunt is for Dan(abnhog) to put some ivory on the ground.”

Philip agrees and no sooner than we look back down at our phones we hear, bang,…bang,…bang………..bang,bang,bang

After 9 days and over 100mi of tracking, Dan bagged Mr. T less than a mile from camp!

One of my best all time hunting memories and on my first safari.

That was a special moment. Just us sitting in camp with a rare quiet moment and then for them to be so close and all hell breaks loose! That was a night to remember.