Pleasure

[Kevin Peacocke]

We can't hunt all of the time, and just as well because the common becomes the ordinary. Looking forward to a hunt, an adventure has so many facets: the anticipation, the planning, and finally the execution. Just as a good meal comprises the smell, the taste and the satisfatioon, let us put faces to the facets of what brings us hunting pleasure - add some tangibility.
I love looking at my rifles in minute detail, I put them on the gun stand in the Ssfari lounge, smell the linseed oil, admire the grain and the modest engraving. I look at my buffalo mount, and remember every minute of that terrific week.
What brings you pleasure? Is it a fine cigar and a Scotch, as you sit in your trophy room with your feet up? Or is it following the dogs an a crisp morning, 28 bore in hand?
A man and woman need to have these places in their life, virtual, real or retrospective to be balanced and sane. Then you can make the future because you know what it should look like.

 

[Rare Breed]

So true! I have a small office in my home. Once I get my buffalo, nyala and black impala to go with my other 5 PG animals I will take pictures for everyone. My wife says I will not be able to move with my gun safe also in there. However to your point it brings me peace and happiness with both memories made and those yet to come

 

[fourfive8]

Hard to pinpoint but something like an effortless cast to rising trout on a fog draped river. Swishing through thick frosted pheasant cover just as the sun breaks the horizon. Sitting next to the campfire, listening to the pre-dawn bush wake up while sipping a cup of fresh strong coffee....

 

[Red Leg]

The separate game room/ gunroom/ guesthouse was created as a place where I could indulge the interests and passions that I have developed through the years and two careers.

I am the son of a historian, and I like to feel that I am a well read if undocumented one. I have spent many hours and days roaming the battlefields of North America and Western Europe with tactical maps in hand. The game room reflects those interests. A place I can spend time with the souls who wore a cuirassier's armor at Waterloo, or carried an Enfield at New Market, or lunged with his assegai at Isandlwana. Also a bit of a Francophile, there is a coffee/ tea service dating from the first decade of the 19th century decorated with strange animals inspired by Napoleon's invasion of Egypt. The port glasses date to the reign of George III. Think of the spirits with whom one can share another sip of coffee or a 25 year old ruby.

There are wooden decoys, several of which I found while guiding duck hunters as a starving student in college in the early seventies. Others I acquired in shops on hunting trips to the Eastern Shore and along the Main River in Germany.

There are carpets on the floors. In the mid-eighties, one was purchased in the old souk in Riyadh and another came from Dubai. I can look at them and still smell the strange odors of the Middle East and feel the heat that presses against one's eyes. There is a Jambiya and French model 1874 Gras artillery carbine that the air attaché and I smuggled out of Sanaa, Yemen in '86. A half mannequin is graced with the uniform of a Republican Guard Brigadier. I have no idea what happened to him, but he took off so quickly he left it hanging in his bunker when he fled. I admit not to having shared a beer with his shade, but the men and women of the 75th BDE are never far from my thoughts when I see it.

And of course there are the trophies of my hunting life - at least many of them. There are Roe deer from cold war Germany of the late seventies, whitetail from military installations across North America, and photos of great fishing trips on all three coasts of this country. There are Spanish ibex, German red stag and the tusks of boar taken from several countries. And of course, there the animals from Africa. All evoke specific and very detailed memories.

I can still feel the electric shock as my best roe deer stepped out of a tangle of brush precisely at the moment I was looking at the exact spot through my binoculars. That was in 1977 - and a moment just as real as wading through the streams of the Caprivi or the swamps of the Zambezi Delta for buffalo in the last decade.

Finally, there is my library. I keep the hunting and exploration titles in the game room, and the primary library is in the main house. I have never actually counted or catalogued them, but there are easily a thousand volumes. They range from a late seventeenth century copy of Josephus through European and American histories to a pretty extensive collection of Africana. I have read them all.

The game room is a place where I can be alone with both my memories and the spirits of all those other warriors, hunters, and adventurers. It also a place where I can share those passions with others.

Appreciate you bringing up topic @Kevin Peacocke

 

[cpr0312]

*Good bourbon
*My office and great room where all my taxidermy is- reliving the memories from time to time while looking at them.
*Travel in general
**Occasionally golf ends with pleasure vs. why did I do this today

 

[Kevin Peacocke]

The separate game room/ gunroom/ guesthouse was created as a place where I could indulge the interests and passions that I have developed through the years and two careers.

I am the son of a historian, and I like to feel that I am a well read if undocumented one. I have spent many hours and days roaming the battlefields of North America and Western Europe with tactical maps in hand. The game room reflects those interests. A place I can spend time with the souls who wore a cuirassier's armor at Waterloo, or carried an Enfield at New Market, or lunged with his assegai at Isandlwana. Also a bit of a Francophile, there is a coffee/ tea service dating from the first decade of the 19th century decorated with strange animals inspired by Napoleon's invasion of Egypt. The port glasses date to the reign of George III. Think of the spirits with whom one can share another sip of coffee or a 25 year old ruby.

There are wooden decoys, several of which I found while guiding duck hunters as a starving student in college in the early seventies. Others I acquired in shops on hunting trips to the Eastern Shore and along the Main River in Germany.

There are carpets on the floors. In the mid-eighties, one was purchased in the old souk in Riyadh and another came from Dubai. I can look at them and still smell the strange odors of the Middle East and feel the heat that presses against one's eyes. There is a Jambiya and French model 1874 Gras artillery carbine that the air attaché and I smuggled out of Sanaa, Yemen in '86. A half mannequin is graced with the uniform of a Republican Guard Brigadier. I have no idea what happened to him, but he took off so quickly he left it hanging in his bunker when he fled. I admit not to having shared a beer with his shade, but the men and women of the 75th BDE are never far from my thoughts when I see it.

And of course there are the trophies of my hunting life - at least many of them. There are Roe deer from cold war Germany of the late seventies, whitetail from military installations across North America, and photos of great fishing trips on all three coasts of this country. There are Spanish ibex, German red stag and the tusks of boar taken from several countries. And of course, there the animals from Africa. All evoke specific and very detailed memories.

I can still feel the electric shock as my best roe deer stepped out of a tangle of brush precisely at the moment I was looking at the exact spot through my binoculars. That was in 1977 - and a moment just as real as wading through the streams of the Caprivi or the swamps of the Zambezi Delta for buffalo in the last decade.

Finally, there is my library. I keep the hunting and exploration titles in the game room, and the primary library is in the main house. I have never actually counted or catalogued them, but there are easily a thousand volumes. They range from a late seventeenth century copy of Josephus through European and American histories to a pretty extensive collection of Africana. I have read them all.

The game room is a place where I can be alone with both my memories and the spirits of all those other warriors, hunters, and adventurers. It also a place where I can share those passions with others.

Appreciate you bringing up topic @Kevin Peacocke

No greater a tribute to life and respect for those who shaped it @Red Leg than to write a book. The above can be your preface.

 

[chashardy]

Sitting by the fire with my Great Dane in my living room, I can see the shoulder mounts of my sable and scimitar oryx on one wall and a grouping of nine euro skulls from three different safaris on the opposite wall. My home contains a lifetime of collecting art, and interesting objects, hunting, reading and travel. It's where I want to be if I am not hunting, playing golf or shooting clays.

 

[Pondoro]

I also have an office in the house...some trophies on the walls, an ele skull on the floor, a couple of gun cabinets, two bookshelves loaded with africana...some military crests from that period. The chair rests on the Hartmanns zebra I shot in Namibia from wibly-wobly bamboo-sticks..

I bring out the guns and rifles, re-oil lightly... waiting for dies to the Joseph Lang 450/400 3.25 I recently bought.. read books....fondle the dogs...dream of Africa..taste some Single malts or red wine..

Not allowed to smoke cigars indoors..

 

[Kevin Peacocke]

I also have an office in the house...some trophies on the walls, an ele skull on the floor, a couple of gun cabinets, two bookshelves loaded with africana...some military crests from that period. The chair rests on the Hartmanns zebra I shot in Namibia from wibly-wobly bamboo-sticks..

I bring out the guns and rifles, re-oil lightly... waiting for dies to the Joseph Lang 450/400 3.25 I recently bought.. read books....fondle the dogs...dream of Africa..taste some Single malts or red wine..

Not allowed to smoke cigars indoors..

@Pondoro have you posted pictures of the Joseph Lang?

 

[Pondoro]

The one in the middle..

 

[thi9elsp]

There is a peace and a longing in my den. It's my sanctuary. Peace created by the memories invoked as I touch an animal or notice a ding in a horn or antler I hadn't noticed before, transported back to that place and time where we met in the wilds. Longing to be in the wild areas - a deer stand states side or on the back of the truck trying to spy an animal before the trackers cool air in the morning waking me up while the return in the heat buffets my skin. I only truly feel alive when in nature - whether hiking or hunting.

 

[Tundra Tiger]

I am closer to the beginning of a journey many of you started long ago. My first trip to Africa happened in May. I have hunted all my life, and with some really good successes, but Africa was different. My trophies are in transit; it fills my heart with joy thinking about finally seeing them again. And it's brought up conversations with my wife, about maybe having an addition to the house built, a space in which to put my new, more exotic trophies, as well as a place to consolidate the trappings of my outdoor life... and allow her to reclaim other parts of the house.

As far as other things beyond the hunt that bring me pleasure... that's a list too long to share here. A short current list would be the beautiful winter we have started here (and getting out on snowmachine), my daughters coming home from school for Christmas, and a new to our family dog that joined our household this past week. We are in the getting to know each other stage but it feels promising. As always, cool topic Kevin. I like how you think sir.

 

[IvW]

Sitting around the BOMA fire, wherever, looking at the bush tv, exchanging hunting stories and adventures or just staring at the flames with your favorite drink in hand as I am doing now.......reliving even if only in memories previous adventures......good food good company....

 

[baxterb]

Books. I get a great deal of pleasure by reading books (or even having conversations) on Safari or east Africa and seeing how the webs of connections go. So many times I will have learned of a connection by some off-handed comment that someone makes that gives me an “ah-ha!” moment and connects two people or events. Makes the whole thing much richer in my book. I am patently bored by “I went there and killed that,” stories.

As far as activities, I just love to be outside with a gun in my hand. There is a distinct difference to me being somewhere with/without a gun in my hand. That extra anticipation of a bird flushing and the potential of making an fine shot adds a layer to an already topped cake. As Harry Selby once put it, “it’s the gilt on the gingerbread.”

Hear, hear.

 

[Pondoro]

I hunt ptarmigan/grouse over standing setters here in Norway....some 1100 meters above sea level...to hunt like this with good dogs is fun and exciting....one shoot the odd double´ and live on that for a while..

 

[Major Bonkers]

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[Kevin Peacocke]

I always get a real warm feeling seeing a picture of a double rifle, especially when it is posted by someone in the group with a bit of a write up on it.
Just dreaming at the gun store again, admining the fine detail and form.

 

[revturbo9967]

My wife and I decided long ago our house needed more space rather than upgrading to a larger home. We were in the planning stages of building a great room/trophy room off the back of our home in February 2020. Well we all knew what happened that year, and the project got put off. Lumber prices have come down a little and we have revived the project. We are hoping to break ground in May of 2022 and get the party rolling. I have many old hunting trinkets, pictures, decoys and rifles from my Grandfather and we want a place to display them rather then have them collect dust in the attic. I know the room will bring my wife and I great pleasure when it is completed.

As for now, I will continue to spend every other second of my non hunting time with my family. My kids are growing up quickly and I don't want to lose any time with them.

 

[baxterb]

I always get a real warm feeling seeing a picture of a double rifle, especially when it is posted by someone in the group with a bit of a write up on it.
Just dreaming at the gun store again, admining the fine detail and form.
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i can distinctly remember holding a double rifle for the first time. It was at Art Harris’ store in Bethesda MD in 1996. They had a small walk-in vault in the back, and there, in its case was a Krieghoff Big Five in 470 Nitro. I asked Art’s employee, Ian, if I could handle it and he put it together and handed it to me. I was surprised by the weight and when I shouldered it, I got a shit-eating grin on my face that remained for quite a while.

 

[Kevin Peacocke]

My wife and I decided long ago our house needed more space rather than upgrading to a larger home. We were in the planning stages of building a great room/trophy room off the back of our home in February 2020. Well we all knew what happened that year, and the project got put off. Lumber prices have come down a little and we have revived the project. We are hoping to break ground in May of 2022 and get the party rolling. I have many old hunting trinkets, pictures, decoys and rifles from my Grandfather and we want a place to display them rather then have them collect dust in the attic. I know the room will bring my wife and I great pleasure when it is completed.

As for now, I will continue to spend every other second of my non hunting time with my family. My kids are growing up quickly and I don't want to lose any time with them.

You have a great perspective @revturbo9967