On Safari with Grant Taylor

AHG: When and where were you born?

Grant Taylor: I was born in 1980 in Zimbabwe’s capital city, Harare.

AHG: How did you get into hunting – what was it that influenced you?

GT: I was raised on a farm and started hunting at a very young age like most farm kids. My father had always hunted and was very influential in teaching us gun safety and how to hunt properly. I was never in any doubt as to what I wanted to do in life after my first few early experiences.

AHG: With whom did you train, apprentice and learn from?

GT: I worked under Pete Fick of Mokore Safaris at the time, and with Russ and Geoff Broom before going on my own. They were all hugely experienced and giants of the industry.

AHG: The early years of professional hunting – any embarrassing and interesting experiences?

GT: Embarrassing stories are too many to mention all in one article. One that does come to mind was following a wounded old buffalo bull in the thick coastal forests in central Mozambique. After several hours on the tracks and having jumped the wounded bull several times we were a little mentally drained and maybe lost a bit of our sharpness. I saw at very close range in the thick forest what looked like the wounded bull lying down facing away from us. I put the client in position and we both shot in quick succession only to find it was a dead tree stump that looked like a buffalo in the low light of the forest.

Another was before I opened up my own business as a PH. Working for another company I had a client that had wounded a large bushbuck that we were following up with very little blood to follow on baked dry ground. We were not making much progress so we spread out 10 meters abreast and combed slowly through the bush in the direction the wounded bushbuck had ran off. As we came over a slight rise no more than 10-15m in front of me was a big bushbuck lying down facing away from me. I was the only person that had seen it and I tried to get the attention of the client who was on my left hand side, but he wasn’t catching my hand signals. Fearing