african hunting on versus

[rickyjames]

actually it is hunting in africa not hunting africans. i am sitting here watching this show and they have a guy hunting a lion and a cape buffalo with a bow.

now picture this. there is a guy that wants to hunt dangerous game with a bow. first they show this guy drawing a bow on an african lion. the guide is next to him with one of those big bore double barrel drilling rifles. the hunter lets his arrow fly and the guide blasts his big bore cannon at the same time. the lion drops like a sack of potatoes. now i was not sure i actually saw what i thought i saw as i am also playing on the computer so now i watch with a little more attention. so next i see them hunting cape buffalo. the hunter draws his bow and lets the arrow fly, the guide again blasts the buffalo with his big rifle as soon as he hears the string release. the cape buffalo drops like a rock.

now i like hunting and i appreciate the extra skill it takes to take a game animal with a bow. i also realize that an african lion or cape buffalo are not animals you just want to **** off. but come on guys why bother shooting an animal with an arrow only to have someone kill it with some big bore african rifle a split second later? i mean the archer might as well have used a freakin paintball gun because it wasn't him that killed the animal it was the guide with his big rifle. what possible pride can the hunter have with these trophys? is he gonna have em mounted and brag to his friends that he took them with an arrow? now i am pro hunting but when i see shows like this it makes me sick. these rich guys should just stay home and play hunting videos on their tv and then buy a pre killed pre mounted trophy from some online catalog. either that or buy a gun and use the right tool for the job. if you are going to show a hunting show then show a real hunter not just some rich dude pretending to kill animals. shows like that even turn me off about hunting.

[Bigfatts]

Yeah, that seems kind of lame to me. I did see a hunting show one time where a guy took a Buff with bow. He had back up but the guy never had to shoot. He took it one well placed arrow. I don't think it was Tred Barta, that other guy...

[rickyjames]

i like tred barta, i like the way he hunts. it's about as real as it gets on tv. btw i hope he gets well soon.

this was just some rich guy that spent a bunch of money pretending to kill a lion and buffalo. the really odd part is he has it on film for everyone to see that it was really his guide that killed the animals. so much for bragging rights

[lt dan]

glad to see this topic. i see some weird things over here in africa on espn and some other programs. to be honest most of what i see is plain good hunting and hunting related info. however every so often i will see something like rickyjames says he saw. shooting dangerous game with a bow and at the same time having a ph firing his double is redundant. this guy is a pretender and not a hunter.

[SAIGAFISH]

i wonder if he aet any lion meat.if you dont plan on eating
it dont shoot it.that almost as bad as hunting over bait.

[Bigfatts]

i wonder if he aet any lion meat.if you dont plan on eating
it dont shoot it.that almost as bad as hunting over bait.

Most of the time I would agree with you, but do you know what a Lion hunt costs? Probably more than my yearly income. How many Lions would be on non protected land if they were not a valuable asset that some American tourist would pay exorbatent prices to hunt? Do you really think they would last long competing with people, eating their cattle/sheep/friends? They would be shot, poisoned and otherwise killed off. As it is they are worth something to the governments and to the locals to preserve and protect. It's sad but if there is no practical value or use to something or some species, man will destroy it.

[Brian Pfleuger]

I saw that same episode. Instantaneously shooting with the gun is ridiculous. A week or so ago I saw a grizzly hunt where the guy with the bow hit the bear like 2 feet back from the vitals, almost in the rear hip. The guide immediately dispatched the obviously wounded but not soon to be dying bear with his rifle, which seems like the obviously right move to me. This deal with blasting the lion and buffalo pretty much before the arrow even gets there is just stupid. It's not like people don't take lion and buffalo (well, at least buffalo) with a bow on a regular basis.

[sc928porsche]

I feel the same way about hunters using their undersized rifles for taking dangerous game. You keep hearing these tales of a hunter being able to take an elephant with a 7x57 or such. It might make for great bragging rights, but it definately isnt the best of ideas.
Use the correct tool for the job and quit depending on others to take up for your mistakes. I feel that once you have a guide show you where, you should be on your own for the stalk and the termination of the game. Of course this is my own opinion and it is definately not shared by the majority.

[bcarver]

Post mortum inspection will tell the hunter if he made a killing shot or not.
There is bragging rights in that aspect. Dangerous game should not be wounded so that is why the guide shoots. Even Tred Barta had a guide with a gun ready to dispatch his grizzly when he killed it with a bow.

[Art Eatman]

To stay with the OP and not wander off into Tred Barta land:

My objection would be more to the TV presentation than to the actions.

That is, as an archer, I'd just as soon not be the target of a wounded lion or buffalo during those last moments before the arrow's wound is actually effective in causing death. The old "stop is more important than kill" deal. So, yeah, a post-mortem would establish whether or not the arrow's damage would have been a clean bleed-out and kill, but the rifle would have ensured a stop.

IOW, if this indeed were the thinking of the scenario, it should have been explained up front in the TV presentation.

[rickyjames]

i can see a ph as a back up and taking the shot if needed but basically shooting at the exact same time to me is just plain bs. if a bow and arrow are not adaquate for taking such game then they should just not be allowed. like i said earlier the hunter might just as well used a paintball gun. as far as looking at the wound to see if it would have been a kill shot.....just more bs it was the rifle plain and simple. dead is dead, an animal can't be killed twice.

[darkgael]

You keep hearing these tales of a hunter being able to take an elephant with a 7x57 or such.

That was W.D.M. Bell, one of Africa's more famous professional elephant hunters.
People forget that Bell was an exceptional shot and extremely well versed in the anatomy of elephants. He also used a load that is hard to come by nowadays, a 172(3?) grain solid. Bell tallied more than 1000 elephants. Mostly brain shots.
He was able, using the same rifle, to wingshoot birds well enough that an observer offered to buy Bell's "shotgun" since he didn't ever seem to miss with it.
There aren't too many Karamojo Bells.
Pete
For more about Bell, the biography is "Bell of Africa"
and there's a nice article at http://www.chuckhawks.com/bell_elephants.htm

[Hawkeye_FH]

When I was younger we had a collection of about 4 VHSs of Fred Bear, I remember him taking a huge brown bear and a cape buffalo with his recurve, and I don't think his guide bothered to take a shot because neither one endangered them.

[Art Eatman]

Back before there was TV, a movie short of Fred Bear showed him killing an elephant with his bow. Late 1940s? 1950s? I disremember. IIRC, it was taken slightly quartering from the left rear. Heart shot. It took a while, but the elephant finally keeled over. It's memory from decades ago, but I don't think the elephant really reacted as though it were aware it had been injured--but I might well be wrong on that.

(For me, a lot of this ancient history stuff is like snapshots frozen in time. I remember the event, but the details are lost or are fuzzy. Olde Phart's memories are like that. )