Africa??? I really cannot wrap my head around why any real hunter would not want to hunt Africa. And I'm not just talking killing a Kudu or anything else...the damn trip and lodging, the sights and sounds, the people....were all worth the money and long flight. The trophies were all gravy. Zimbabwean guides(PHs) are prolly the best guides in the world, the most knowledgeable of flora and fauna, and the beat rifle shots in the world. And you get to spend days and days with such a person, make it what you will.

My PH in 2005 in Zim was a fella named Jim Mackie, bout my age. Fought several years in the Rhodesian War, kinda like doing five er six tours in Nam!!!!! Survived and got a job as a Zim Game Warden, chasing poachers in the old shoot em up days. He lost several Rangers to poacher ambushes. He quit when the black Zim government tried to charge him with murder for killing three Zambian poachers armed with FN-FALs who killed two of his rangers. One tough SOB.

Jim liked to pig hunt above all else, esp at night. We would go sit in the skinning area on a raised slab of concrete, our only cover a knee high wall. It was black dark, can't see yer hand at six inches black. We carried 12ga shotguns and buckshot with a flashlight taped to the barrel. tracker, wife Melanie, me, Jim, and another tracker sitting side by side with NO noise.

After maybe 30 minutes we hear bone crunching at the boiling pot 25 yards away IN THE PITCH BLACK. I whisper to Jim "is that a pig?"...no answer...I ask again and he whispers harshly "shut up, it is a lion".......I shut the hell up and stare into the blackness.

A while later JIm says "pigs"..."get ready"....and the light goes on. Pigs run everywhere and I pick a big one and center it in a buckshot pattern at 20 yards. The pig disappears to out right and Jim is up and running after it. I follow. We go 30 yards and stop, hearing animals running ahead of us. We do this several times and end up in the river reeds where visibility is maybe three feet. I hear an LARGE animal maybe ten FEET away, moving across in front of us. I ask, JIm says Hippo. I ask if my shotgun (or his) will stop a hippo in here. He says hell no and we beat feet back to the more open woods. We walk back to the shed to find wife and trackers have found my pig ....we ran by it chasing a healthy pig.

We walk back to camp in the darkness and spot a large lioness IN the camp area, not near, but between several of the tents. Including the damn broken zipper tent wife and I sleep in. If you call laying all night with one eye open, and a 375 under the covers with you...as that damn lion walks around the tents and the big male Leopard walks the river bank 50 yards away, coughing and voicing his displeasure. Sleep is way overrated......

When we got home and folks would ask about the "safari", the animals we killed were several, several, items down the list of the memories of the "hunt"...I guess I was a "desiginated" adventurer, but I did do some shooting...

some of ya'll really need to rethink yer ideas on Africa....or anywhere else outside the county you were born in..LOL