Into Africa: A Hunter's Safari

By Wayne P. Johnson and Craig Boddington

When was the last time you thought of doing something for the first time? Into Africa: A Hunter's Safari was written about and for a first-time African safari adventurer, with the sense of wonder that only comes with first times. At the same time a personal memoir and how-to guide, it explores what professional hunter and author Peter Hathaway Capstick referred to as "the greatest adventure remaining on Earth."

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Aug 27, 2018
• ISBN: 9781543951219

Book preview

CONTENTS

Copyright

Dedication

Foreword

Preface

Part I – Prelude to an Adventure

Chapter 1 – Devil’s in the Details

Chapter 2 – Paper Chase

Chapter 3 – The Road Less Traveled

Chapter 4 – Things That Go Bang

Chapter 5 – The Right Stuff

Chapter 6 – Above & Beyond

Part II – Field of Dreams

Chapter 7 – Mr. Hobson, I Presume?

Chapter 8 – Dances with Wildebeest

Chapter 9 – The Buck Stops Here

Chapter 10 – Upcountry … The Karoo

Chapter 11 – Surprise Encounter

Chapter 12 – Lipstick & Lead

Chapter 13 – A Tale of Two Kudu

Chapter 14 – Eyes of the Beholder

Chapter 15 – Hide and Seek

Chapter 16 – Tortoise and the Blesbuck

Chapter 17 – Screwing the Pooch

Chapter 18 – Agony and Ecstasy

Part III – After the Smoke Clears

Chapter 19 – Paying the Piper

Chapter 20 – Tip of the Iceberg

Chapter 21 – Crossing T’s & Dotting I’s

Chapter 22 – Thinking Out Loud

Epilogue

References

About the Author

COPYRIGHT

Text, photos, and artwork by the author

Photo of Craig Boddington, included in the Foreword, courtesy of Mr. Boddington

Frontispiece springbok rendering based on an original photograph by T. Norval, courtesy of Jules of the Karoo

INTO AFRICA – A HUNTER’S SAFARI

Copyright © 2018 by Wayne P. Johnson. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be used or reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical reproduction, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system without prior written permission from the publisher or author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, contact BookBaby, 7905 N. Crescent Blvd., Pennsauken, NJ 08110

Cover Design by BookBaby.com

First Book & eBook Editions: September 2018

Hard Cover ISBN: 978-1-54394- 465-5

eBook ISBN: 978-1-54395-121-9

DEDICATION

In remembrance of Major Steve Reich, SSgt Robert Davenport and the courage of the few … to whom so many, owe so much. Be at peace, brothers.

For Mary … who helped me discover the courage to ask tough questions, the imagination to see life’s possibilities, and the perseverance to overcome obstacles.

For Jack … patriot, sportsman, builder, mentor, and a man for all seasons.

Live as brave men; and if fortune is adverse,

front its blows with brave hearts.

Cicero – 106 BC ~ 43 BC

FOREWORD

The founder of Safari Club International, C.J. McElroy, was an interesting character. Some people revered him; others detested him. For sure he was driven, but when I was a very young magazine editor and unknown writer he was extremely kind to me, so I have good memories of him…and am especially grateful for the organization he founded and left with us. One thing that cannot be questioned is Mac’s amazing worldwide hunting experience, which included more than fifty African safaris!

More than once Mac said that the only people he envied were hunters journeying to Africa for the first time. We don’t have to get specific here, but Africa is a particular passion of mine. I suppose I have more than twice Mac’s African experience, and I absolutely echo his sentiment: One’s first African safari is a life-changing event! The sights, sounds, smells; the awestruck excitement. Africa is a captivating place; most of us who have drunk from the Nile—or the Congo, Limpopo, Rufiji, or Zambezi—are compelled to return…some of us time and again. Unfortunately, try though we might, it is impossible to fully recapture the wonder of that matchless first sojourn in Africa. This is what Wayne Johnson has done in Into Africa—A Hunter’s Safari…something that, after forty-odd years of African hunting, I recognize I can no longer do. But I wish I could!

I suppose most veteran writers suffer the same fate, but I’m frequently asked to write Forewords. Over the years I’ve done a number of them, but generally I prefer not to and try to find excuses. For one thing, obviously, it takes a bit of that most precious commodity, time, more in the thought process than the actual writing. Not so obviously, many of my own books, past and present (and perhaps future) are about African wildlife and African hunting. Although it’s a subject that has served me well, ours is a limited market, so on a purely practical, pragmatic, and totally selfish level the sale of one of Wayne’s books may well be one of my books that isn’t sold.

So, I tend to reserve this chore for friends and close colleagues…and for books that I genuinely believe are worth reading. I’ve met Wayne at conventions and we’ve corresponded, but I don’t know him well enough to put him into the first two categories. As for the latter, I was extremely skeptical. I wondered what a first-time hunter could possibly add to African literature…and how he might have the temerity to think he could. Fortunately, albeit with some reluctance, I agreed to a read.

I did so in part because such a bold, almost presumptuous first safari book is hardly unprecedented in the body of Africana. From the time of Cornwallis Harris until nearly our current generation it was common for adventurers to go out to Africa, return, and write books about their experiences. In Victorian and Edwardian England, it seemed almost mandatory, and through much of the 20th Century we brash Americans often followed suit. Many of these volumes are best forgotten…but some are considered must reads for anyone with even a passing interest in African hunting. Among these most students of Africana would cite Theodore Roosevelt’s African Game Trails (1910); Ernest Hemingway’s Green Hills of Africa (1935); and Robert Ruark’s Horn of the Hunter (1953).

I suppose one could point out that all three authors were prominent at the time these books were published. Roosevelt was our most recent President and had long been a prolific writer. Hemingway, though still young, had won acclaim as both a journalist and novelist. Horn of the Hunter was Ruark’s fifth (and, up until then, most successful) book, and he was a nationally known columnist. That’s not the point. This is: All three books are first-person accounts of their authors’ first safaris. All thus stem from limited African experience…but all capture the excitement, frustration, triumph, tribulation, and magic of an initial sojourn on the Dark Continent.

One could argue, correctly, that each captures a snapshot in time of an Africa that is far different from today, and of safaris that were far different. The Roosevelt expedition was epic even for the day, a nine-month odyssey from Kenya up through Uganda and Sudan, and finally north and homeward through Egypt. It was Roosevelt’s only African safari, but he did it in depth and breadth. Hemingway’s first safari (of just two) was a fairly standard safari of the day, about a month’s duration through Tanganyika. Ruark’s first safari (of many), also in Tanganyika, has been described variously as two months or three, but his professional hunter, Harry Selby (just recently deceased) recalled it as less than a month’s duration. Regardless of precise length, safaris were longer in those days. Bag limits were more generous, camps were mobile, and African game country was nearly limitless.

That is also the point. The kind of shorter, specific-area safari that Wayne Johnson describes didn’t exist in Roosevelt’s day, nor Hemingway’s, nor Ruark’s. Nor when I started hunting Africa in the 1970s. Wayne Johnson’s safari is the product of the modern era, to some degree created by the closure of Kenya, the rebirth of game management in southern Africa, and the simple fact that in our faster-paced world few people can become lost to the African wilderness for a month or two…let alone nine.

At this writing the African continent fields around twenty thousand hunting safaris annually. More than eighty percent of these safaris are similar to Wayne and Sarah’s safari: Relatively short in duration, moderate in game harvested, amazingly affordable…and absolutely wonderful! You see, although Wayne has certainly read and often references the great African literature, neither he nor I can ever see the Africa of Roosevelt, Hemingway, or Ruark…and Wayne cannot see the Africa that I saw twenty, thirty, and forty years ago. But this doesn’t matter, because, as Peter Capstick wrote, an African safari still is the greatest adventure remaining on Earth, and because of the shorter safaris so readily available across southern Africa, this marvelous experience is more available and more affordable than ever before.

I don’t know the outfitter and professional hunter that Wayne engaged, but that also doesn’t matter. As you will see, they did a fine job, as do almost all of the hundreds of fine outfitters and professional hunters still following the trade. I do know the region of his safari, the Eastern Cape of South Africa, without question one of my favorite areas, offering a unique variety of habitat, and a wonderful variety of game. Here’s what does matter: Wayne Johnson had a marvelous safari and a fantastic experience. He describes it well, perhaps with the bemused, almost innocent—and totally genuine—wonder that only a first-time African hunter can possibly hope to capture.

This is what I learned when I read his book, and this is why it falls into my third category: This is a book worth reading! And this is why I know you will enjoy his book. I believe it is, and may well remain, among the very best encapsulations of the most typical African safari in the first quarter of our 21st Century. You will share the excitement, the frustrations, the triumphs, and sense of awe at truly being Into Africa. My greatest joy in reading it is that it brought back those same feelings from my own first safari so long ago! If you have been before it will make you want to return, as I’m sure Wayne will return…once she grabs you Africa is reluctant to let go. If you haven’t been, Into Africa will compel you to go. I hope you do…you’ll love it!

Craig Boddington

Paso Robles, California

March, 2018

PREFACE

Why write a book about hunting in Africa? After all, many hunters have done so over more than a century; notably Selous, Hemingway, Ruark and, more recently, Peter Hathaway Capstick, John Pondoro Taylor, and Craig Boddington. As their experience afield proves, those men could handle a gun or pen with equal finesse.

The answer is that many people have dreamt of hunting Africa but are unsure of the costs and challenges of doing so in this day and age. Prior to my safari I faced the same uncertainties and had many questions.

Over the years I’ve heard many sportsmen say, I’ve always wanted to hunt Africa. What those people were voicing was a dream; answering the call of what Ruark referred to as the horn of the hunter. I was one of them, and like many hunters I was more than a little intimidated with what I perceived as an enormously complicated and expensive journey.

After exploring the details of hunting in Africa, I realized that many of my perceptions were unfounded. In the end I decided to live my dreams, not my fears. As you’ll read in the chapters that follow, I’m very glad that I answered the call and my life was enriched in ways unexpected because I made the effort.

This book evolved out of an experience of but twelve days … an amazing twelve days, nonetheless. It is not meant to compete with books featuring action-packed chapters covering a decade or more across Africa. Nor does it contain harrowing tales of risky, high-adventure hunts; stalking, confronting and taking dangerous game, up close and personal, in situations where the hunter may well end up on the wrong end of the bargain. For such stories, the deeds and words of the hunters previously mentioned are a worthy read. Boddington’s Buffalo! and Hathaway’s Death in the Long Grass are among the best examples of the genre.

What those men and others gave me was a genuine desire to see Africa for myself, albeit in less expensive and risky circumstances.

Hunting plains game, although not without risks, is probably what most novice Africa-bound sportsmen are interested in doing. For some, dangerous game will follow a little farther down the track.

Into Africa – A Hunter’s Safari is the journey of not one, but two hunters; each carving their own path in and out of the bush. Even as an experienced North American big game hunter, Africa surprised me and exceeded my wildest expectations. But for my hunting partner, Sarah, it offered a world of adventure she never knew existed or ever thought she’d experience. And that made the safari very special indeed. In some ways, seeing her shoot and get blooded in Africa was better than shooting myself. In every way that matters, her presence and willingness to accept the challenges and demands that come with the territory, enhanced the safari in ways unforeseen, and made it a truly priceless experience.

I don’t contend that my twelve days hunting plains game in South Africa represent a ‘typical’ safari nowadays, but I suspect they’re close. There are many other countries in Africa – it’s a very BIG place – where someone with a gun and the price of admission can scratch his or her safari itch and come away with great memories and, if Africa smiles on you, beautiful, perhaps record-book, trophies. It’s also true that some plains game and other species are not available in South Africa. So if you’re after bongo, for instance, you can expect to hunt in central Africa … in the rainy season! But that’s probably not what the average first-time Africa hunter is after. And that’s what this book is about; the sportsman new to Africa who is interested in a wide variety of game and an affordable hunt.

The point is that it doesn’t take a second mortgage on your home, $5,000 rifle & scope, or athletic prowess to undertake and enjoy a successful African safari. It only requires a modest investment of money and time, reasonable level of fitness, and a sincere desire to make it happen.

Following an overwhelmingly positive experience, coupled with countless inquiries and encouragement from friends, colleagues and acquaintances curious about my safari, I decided that it was worth sharing. I hope my words, art and photographs encourage others to answer the call and discover Africa for themselves.

Into Africa – A Hunter’s Safari is comprised of three parts, largely because it was written about and for a first-time safari hunter. Part I – Prelude to an Adventure – sets the stage for getting there; the how, if you will. Part II – Field of Dreams – is a daily boots-on-the-ground description of what happened afield; the exciting part where imagination met reality. Part III – After the Smoke Clears – speaks to what comes after the rifles are cased for the journey home.

The author gratefully acknowledges the contributions of the men and women who ultimately made my journey Into Africa a rewarding experience … and this book a reality.

To Dave Zibello, whose enthusiasm and questions about my African adventure led to the creation of a White Paper addressing how I planned the safari and my experiences afield; for the inspiration that became the genesis of this book.

To Bobby Carr – good ol’ boy and friend of the highest caliber, mentor, and gunsmith – who encouraged and helped me prepare for an adventure that he himself could not make. I’d give anything I own to have shared Africa and the adventure with you, sir.

To Craig Boddington, whose articles and books written over decades of adventure throughout the world, made me want to actually see and experience Africa for myself; and for bringing a sense of history to the African safari in what he graciously and unselfishly penned in the Foreword.

To Bob Kern, founder and owner of The Hunting Consortium, for what he pursued and built over decades of dedication to wildlife conservation and sport hunting; for his shared knowledge, sound advice and encouragement to see wild places and pursue game beyond North America.

To Ashley Hobson, Dale Cunningham, and Eastcape & Karoo Safaris for the dedication and professionalism that led to a safari beyond expectations. Their detailed planning, sense of adventure on safari, skills afield, patience and mentorship with my hunting partner, and uncompromising pursuit of excellence made it a priceless experience. Bravo, gentlemen!

To family, friends, and colleagues who heard tales of my African adventure and encouraged me to write them down, I owe you a debt I cannot repay. Without the persistence of people close to me, this book would have been little more than a collection of thoughts in the back of my mind.

Last but not least, to Africa … its people, culture, wild places and wildlife, for the mosaic upon which my journey unfolded and was written.

You have my sincerest gratitude, deepest respect and heartfelt admiration … one and all.

Wayne P. Johnson

Kabul, Afghanistan

February 2018

Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp,

or what’s a heaven for?

– Robert Browning –

Devil’s in the Details

Chapter 1

General Dwight D. Eisenhower once commented, The plan is nothing. Planning is everything.

As the Supreme Commander responsible for the overall plan and planning of Operation OVERLORD – the Allied invasion of Nazi Europe in WWII – he both appreciated and understood the criticality of planning as the precursor for success. His words are no less true today, regardless of the endeavor.

Each year millions of sportsmen spend billions of dollars to hunt at home and abroad. And each year some of those same sportsmen return from an experience they’d sooner forget. I’ll wager that, in most cases, the difference between a wonderful experience and a fiasco lay in good planning or lack thereof. The devil’s in the details, as they say, and the more complex and distant the goal, the more planning is necessary to achieve success. At the end of the day, only