Review: The New Zealand Wilderness Hunter

Over the course of this blog I've been in email correspondence with a few readers and ever so often these connections result in something new and unexpected.

A good few years ago I conversed with a chap on the far side of the world, one thing led to another and we kind of lost touch. A couple of weeks ago I was reminded of our mutual interest in WDM Bell and sent him an email update. He wrote back and in passing mentioned that he'd made it into print. I was intrigued enough to order a copy of one of his books. It was with a little trepidation that I turned the first page; anyone can write a witty insightful email, turning out a whole book of it asks a little more of the author, as I've found in my many stop-start attempts.

Phew. He smashed it.

Dear readers; Hunter philosophers, shooters, wild-foodists, and fans of adventure writing. I bring you James Passmore's  The New Zealand Wilderness Hunter.

While we undoubtedly live in a golden age of ammunition we just as certainly don't live in the golden age of writing about hunting. In print, Stephen Rinella, Steve Bodio, and John Gierach aside, most of it is so 'me too', the same tired tropes about 'tradition', 'passion' and the sickly sentimentalism of 'family'. The ex banker who found happiness in the wisdom of his fishing ghillie, the ballsy chick who hunts private estates, the smug hipster visiting his hillbilly relatives, yet another pastiche of Capstick or Hemmingway. Yawn.
Online things are even worse; lacking the discipline of a editors stern scalpel, a hideous 'style' has developed. As moron apes lackwit, and every passing mouth-breather positions himself as an 'expert'. All re-telling the work of the one before, each bad facsimile a little less distinct.
On the far side of the world the Kiwi literary hunting tradition has no greater proponent than Barry Crump, yarn spinner extraordinaire, often described to me as 'the Kiwi's Kiwi, how we'd like to see ourselves'. Crump churned 'em out too, selling a million books into a home market of four million people. Even if his books didn't quite come free with every box of ammo, I'm told Crump's tales of life as a deer culler can be found in almost every home with a rifle, and set the expectation of kiwi hunters for generations to come.

James Passmore's book walks a very different path over the same ground and is all the better for it. There are lots of books that attempt to capture the reverence that exposure to the fecund majesty of the woods brings, I couldn't put this one down. The tales are told in a modest insightful way, JP has obviously spent a hooj amount of time afield, has nothing to prove, but presents a series of observations, often prompted by small errors that lead to larger consequences. I got the impression of someone who'd done a lot, and incorporated each and every insight into an evolved best practice. Cautious and thoughtful as he intwines the emotional and philosophical landscapes with the misty hills and hollows of the unforgiving wilderness of the south island. JP brings us something different in  hunting writing;  some deer are just for the pot, sometimes its a trophy he's after, always it's to immerse himself in the wilderness. The stories are told with equal verve, some of his biggest tales end with the smallest deer. He conjures an unspoken reverence for wild places.

The book wouldn't be from NZ if it didn't also capture some of the eccentricity of his fellow countrymen.

'The old men rose up out of the glacier-fed river, pale and wrinkled, carrying trim Day-Glo coloured packs, and picked their way through the clearing over the tussock grass and bracken. They were both stark naked except for their boots. Dangling from their packs were coils of expensive climbing ropes.
They walked shamelessly up to the hut. I was sitting outside holding a tin cup of tea and watching the late afternoon light over the mountain range; sombre and purple. It was the middle of a pre-roar trip in March, and it was still warm. They both greeted me matter of factly. "Is this a public hut or a private one?" one of them asked.
I regarded the elderly naked climbers for a moment, and then replied honestly.
"It's a public hut" I said " But we do have a dress code".'

More soon
Your pal
SBW

PS Amazon list his other book but not this one, I ordered mine from the publisher and it arrived within a week. halcyonpublishing.co.nz

PPS I cannot recommend Barry Crump's 'A Good Keen Man'  1960 highly enough, a great tale well told.

Book Review: Tracking the Major

The blogger known as the Bambi Basher and myself have a sort of yule-ish end-of-year catch-up tradition. Last year we stalked the Highlands. This year our December catch up was to return to its regular venue. Holts host their bi-annual london auctions - it's the nearest thing to an American gun show central london has to offer. You can 'view' by which I mean 'pick up and handle', firearms from £500,000 to £50. Did I mention it’s catered? You can see the appeal. This year BB couldn't make it, and worried that the excess provisions laid on would go to waste I stepped up to the plate[s], loosened my belt a notch or two, and headed for Hammersmith. 

There were some very nice things on offer: at least three Mannlichers, one with the famous rotary magazine, all with the 'double set trigger' mechanism, that can both aid accuracy and render the consumption of roughage unnecessary. For me the star of the show was a rather scruffy and well used Rigby take-down [obvs chambered in .275]. 

Back in the day when a sport could pop down to the Army & Navy department store and equip himself for everything from a weekend in the country to a multi-year expedition to untraveled lands, Army & Navy’s gun department kept a stock of off the shelf Rigbys, this one delivered to the store in 1901.

As you can imagine it’s been about a bit. The stock has some scratches, while in two pieces it's been dropped onto something hard denting one mating plate where the two parts meet, it had been re-barreled in the 90's and had a chamber sleeve added sometime after. One of the more lived-in Rigbys.
Like a wand in your hands, the stock's semi-pistol grip worthy of the name, super petite, and svelte at 7 lbs 2oz. Now 115 years old the bolt's travel has worn as smooth as a smooth thing's smooth bits. Not, perhaps one for a collectors safe, but a real traveling sportsman's rifle that would earn you a hit-tip from any aficionado, and derision from anyone with an ounce of fiscal probity.

The Victorian-Edwardian transition, the second surge of industrial revolution, must have been a great time for the rifleman. When adventurous english gents would embark on expeditions to far flung corners of the world with a realistic expectation of adding to the sum of human knowledge. For the gentleman explorer it was considered, if not an act of devotion, certainly one's patriotic duty to record the whole escapade. As Queen Victoria passed and Prince Edward sat in the big chair. A new age of recording the moment had begun. The birth of more portable photography, cinematography, the telegraph, audio recording for broadcast, and an age of prolific taxidermy. Newsworthy moments were transmitted by Reuters and Pathe back to the public; samples and specimens were preserved and prepared for display in cabinets of curiosities and diorama, in sizes from desktop to needing to build an extension on to your house.

By the 1970s and 80s the baby had been chucked out with the bathwater. Explorers were still just about ok, fur coats and taxidermy were out, and big game hunters, unthinkable! The once heroic figure of the sunburned Englishman in a pith helmet wasn't a passionate naturalist and ethnographer, he'd become a figure of fun to be mocked and derided. The life stories of these intrepid eccentrics were only remembered at places like Bisley, the reading rooms of moth-eaten gentleman's clubs, and the Bambi Basher’s bookshelves.

Taking a break from leaving greasy paw-marks over the merchandise I happened to be at the right end of the room (funnily enough where the free champagne was being served) to hear someone from Holts announce that Andrew Joynes was launching his book 'Tracking the Major - sketches from the Powell-Cotton Museum'. Then he mentioned Quex Park the major's estate. Theres a street not too far from where I grew up called Quex Rd, which is an unusual sounding place name, my ears pricked up.

'... In my attempt to fathom the mind of the Major, I began to think of his archive, with its variety of objects and documents, as a kind of lair to which a rare animal had retreated...
In the room behind the baize door, I had embarked on an exercise in historical fieldcraft. I had begun to track the Major... “

Andrew Joynes

Curiosity peaked I learned Major Percy Powell-Cotton was a massive celebrity of his time. On over 26 expeditions between 1887 and 1939 he hunted, collected, wrote and was an early pioneer of wildlife film making. He brought back over 2400 specimens and a plethora of artefacts. His collection out-grew his house and he built extension upon extension to house enormous diorama of full size taxidermy.

It’s not so much that his life was like something out of a boys own adventure, it’s more like the boys own adventures were based on him. His zeal for adventure was matched by his abilities as a self-publicist, he was news and he knew it. By sending regular(ish) dispatches from his trips he became a fixture of the newsreels and in newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic. His books best sellers, the public first saw the charismatic mega fauna of Africa in his films shown on the weekly newsreels. 

Such was the scale of his collecting that some of the skins he shipped across the world didn't get incorporated into his museum for more than 30 years. 

The most famous taxidermist of the day, Rowland Ward, wanted to mount Powell-Cotton's elephant, which has the second largest tusks ever recorded, and mount it life-size. This would mean raising the height of the roof at Quex Park. Powell-Cotton felt there had to be an end to the expenditure somewhere and declined. Rowland Ward was adamant, perhaps guessing correctly that the days of the really big elephants were at an end, and made his case that the mount could be life-size if he did the work for free, and Powell-Cotton paid for the raising of the roof. They shook hands and the elephant is still there today.

Andrew Joynes has done a great job of sifting through the major's meticulously notated stories behind many of the exhibits. A favourite anecdote: 

Whilst on honeymoon,  Powell-Cotton was being mauled by a lion he had failed to dispatch with the first shot. His death was postponed when a copy of the satirical magazine Punch resisted the lion's claw. Which gave a few vital seconds for his guides to save him. News of this near-miss reached London before he did, adding to his living legend status. 

The lion in question, as mounted by Rowland Ward & Co.

If that wasn't enough, he added a dash of panache by putting the lion, the safari suit and the copy of Punch on display in his museum. Which the public flocked to see.

It gets better.

A museum in his garden he’d been wise enough to commission, while on his travels, leaving his brother to deal with the builders. 

Genius!

Andrew Joynes tells loads more great tales in 'Tracking the Major - sketches from the Powell-Cotton Museum’ , it's well worth a read.

I’m hoping to make it over to the museum in the next few weeks
I’ll post a field report obvs. 

Your Pal
SBW

Deer Hunting In Paris: Book Review

Gotta flash this one up to you. A while back another former vegetarian Paula Lee got in touch saying 'we have some mutual friends and you might like my book'. I do, a lot. She is very very funny.



Deer Hunting in Paris: A Memoir of God, Guns, and Game Meat


Paula grew up in Maine, which has it's own Paris [who knew?] and lives in Paris [actual Paris], She lives the life of a european academic, she's got all the enthusiasm's of the ex-pat, knows where to eat, and all the cultural sights. The book really captures what its like to live in a foreign city, seeing all the things that are invisible in our home town's. One afternoon, sitting in the sunshine she's surfing a dating site 'for a friend' and sees a guy who piqued her curiosity, and happened to be from a few towns away from where she grew up.


Having moved an ocean away to take up the life of a european intellectual, the book is a record of her adventure rediscovering rural american life with her new boyfriend, who isn't above teasing his 'city-fied blue state girlfriend' . Some very funny scenes follow.

Paula leaps off the page, with her stories of a childhood being a minister's daughter as her korean family make their version of the american dream in rural Maine. Being a bit 'bookish' [to say the least] Paula also peppers the pages with snippets from some very obscure old books on hunting and eating. Through the accident of love she revisits her childhood through the eyes of a more worldly traveler. And its fucking hilarious.


Here are a few snippets from one of our emails conversations.


SBW: What's the best piece of 'woodsman's lore you've picked up?

PL: ...The part I liked best about that outing was Patrick smelling the snow to determine how old the rabbit tracks were. I am still not sure that technique works. He and his brother, my boyfriend John, love to try and convince me that certain "woodsman lore" is for real when it's actually just them making sh*t up.

SBW: In your book I get a sense of a very busy childhood - lessons, chores, work, the church etc Did you always have a wanderlust for travel? And why Paris - probably the second most 'up itself' city europe has to offer?

PL: Every girl wants to go Paris. It's just a question of "which" Paris: foodie Paris, fashion Paris, arty Paris, romantic Paris? I ended up with ratty Paris, which was just fine with me but I don't think it's good for tourism.

SBW: There's a great moment where you seem to see your own anthropomorphism; Homer the dog is either 'got' by coyotes or kidnapped - your new family don't seem that concerned by the fate of a working dog and not very good one at that - but you're still ' but its Homer!' imbuing him with personality, how did that change?

PL: Until I'd met Patrick's pack, I'd never experienced hunting dogs that actually hunt. They're like furry space aliens with wagging tails. Who knew that beagles thrill with doggy joy when there are real rabbits to chase instead of tennis balls?

SBW: In my experience the french are a lot more 'whole animal' than the English, with some americans in between and lots of your fellow countryman even more squeamish than the english, how long did it take you to adapt?

PL: Never understood the squeamish thing. I'll put it this way: for Christmas, John bought me muck boots to wear when shoveling manure, a new skinning knife, and a meat grinder to make venison sausage. I was very happy.

SBW: Why do you hide 'Guns and Ammo' on a church day?
PL: Can't hide the actual guns.

SBW: Looking from the outside the 'culture wars' between americans who can read and americans who watch Fox seem laughable how would you describe them to an overseas observer?

PL: Well, I argue with the Fox News people and John reminds me that they can't hear me, being on television and all. So I guess that it's in a nutshell: a liberal trying to debate with talking heads who don't care what I say, and a conservative reminding a liberal that you can't change reality by yelling more loudly.

SBW: The "sighting my rifle' story is very good, you capture the moment very well, have you thought about buying him a laser bore-sight?

PL: What he really wants is a tank. You can get them on the internet.


SBW: My GF calls internet dating 'shopping for men' I loved the idea of you browsing on behalf of a friend and finding john - have you ever found anyone for anyone? I ask as a GBF found me for my GF.

PL: See: "Tank." You can find just about anything on Amazon. Including frozen whole rabbits.

SBW: Does john ever come to paris to visit you, and does he hunt in france?

PL: John came to France. And to England. He didn't come to Korea. Poor guy finally got so exasperated by my month-long disappearances that we broke up. Then I came back; we had a huge row, and after a Bonobo-monkey-like negotiation session we resumed our relationship. It would be a thrill to hunt in France but have no idea how to arrange that. It's difficult enough to arrange in Massachusetts (a blue state made up of "readers," very anti-hunting).

SBW: When we were emailing about these questions you were skinning a 6 point buck with one hand and texting me with the other, and in the book you express an unfulfilled interest in tanning, have you learned to brain tan?

PL: "Have you learned to brain tan?" Trying saying that in an elevator! So far, it's coyote bait and a bit of suet for the chickadees.

SBW: I used to see a blogger from Massachusetts and she characterised / mocked the bostonians for including the word[s] 'wicked-awesome' in every sentence, was she being unfair?

PL: It is a wicked awesome place except for the Massholes who live here.

You can find her book on Amazon HERE

This post was brought to you, by me and the lovely people at Grammarly, I use Grammarly's free plagiarism checker because encouraging people to do their own writing instead of plagiarizing will make them better writers, I think of it as an act of kindness. It's also 'wicked-awesome' for confirming citations, which can come in very handy.
More soon
SBW

Hank Shaw's Duck Duck Goose

We've waited a long time for this, there are plenty of books about game cookery that have a few pages dedicated to wildfowl, but there hasn't been a single work that puts all the wisdom in one place. Until now.

I've followed Hank Shaw's blog Hunter Angler Gardener Cook since it's first post, we've conversed by email and in the comments sections of our respective blogs. I am an unabashed fan of his writing, recipes and outlook on food and hunting.

There are lots of johnny-come-lately foodie bloggers, and frankly I'd trust most of them to tell me about the ambience of the eatery more than the food, some of them are very experienced customers, no bad thing, its all part of the deal. But if you wish to 'know' your ingredients, you must have put in your 'dirt time' hands on with the soil, walk the earth, gather and hunt from its fecundity.
The GF - Elfa, drank, and sold a lot of wine, but for her to feel her education had begun she had to make seasonal pilgrimages to the vineyard, to walk away from a planned harvest knowing another few days sunlight would take the crop to another level of ripeness, then crush the grapes with her bare feet, before her connection to the wines could become an almost living thing. I've seen a lot of wines sold, but passion will out. It's easy to fake the sincerity, but not the deep connection to the repast you serve.

I'd like to tell you some underdog-tale of how Hank's blog started from small beginnings and grew, but no, Hank was already an accomplished writer when he made his first post. He'd worked as a journalist for many years, he'd put himself through journalism school by slaving at a hot stove and he's walked the forests, fields and beaches with rod and rifle, with gun and basket. His books could be seen as a confluence of that time and many many evenings spent between the stove and the bookshelf.

The book hits AMAZON right about now

The book tour has started, so you can meet and more importantly EAT with Hank - the details are google mapped HERE

You can follow Hank on Facebook HERE

More soon
SBW

Fathers Day Hunting And Fishing Book

A Sportsman's Library: 100 Essential, Engaging, Offbeat, and Occasionally Odd Fishing and Hunting Books for the Adventurous Reader 

Stephen J. Bodio

If you just found this post from its title and you need a book for dad, for a dad who likes Hunting, or Fishing, or Dogs or Birds of Prey you're done, Steve B's book will remind the old man of a few favorites, and leave him wanting to order a few of Steve's favorites. It's a witty book, and as the recommendations of each of the 100 books have amusing and insightful anecdotes about the authors,  he's bound to like it. I did.

For the rest of you.

I've never met Steve Bodio but I avidly read the blog posts he writes from his Querencia in the high country of New Mexico. Hunter and naturalist, a-firearms aficionado, and the author of some very very well written books. He's the kind of guy you would ask for a book recommendation, he's read most of the cannon of outdoor literature and knew quite a few of its writers too. So the idea of asking him to put together a list of favorites was a good one.   

I imagine visiting him in his study, seeking a book recommendation with the background reading to put the recommendation into context, Steve's eyes light up and he turns to his groaning book shelves levers out a couple of volumes and wittily invokes their authors and environments. Done. His 'A Sportsman's Library' is that in a box.

But enough of books, I'm off to flick some lures at the Pike in the canal. 

more soon

SBW

DeerLand By Al Cambronne

Over the last few years of blogging I've noticed a few names coming up in the comments sections of the more literate blogs, Al Cambronne being one of them.

Always one of the more thoughtful and informed commenters he's brining out a fascinating book on the intersection between people and deer.

We live in Deerland. The U.S. is now home to 30 million hungry deer—100 times more than were here a century ago. When we see all those deer out in the woods, most of us believe it’s a measure of the forest’s health. It is, but in exactly the opposite way we think. All across America, overabundant deer routinely devastate ecosystems and alter entire landscapes. DEERLAND traces the story of how we got here, and asks tough questions about what it will take to restore the balance we’ve disrupted.

For a taste of his writing have a look at his excellent blog or order the book its released next week. 

Anyhoo off to work

SBW

Book Review: Steve Bodio's An Eternity of Eagles

A while back I reviewed Stephen Bodio's haunting eulogy to Betsy Huntingdon and pion to New Mexico 'Querencia'. HERE. So I was delighted when a very nice lady wrote to me to say that I was on the review list for Steve's latest work 'An Eternity of Eagles' .

I first came across SB a few years ago when he started to comment on some other blogs, I started to read his blog, and in conversation another blogger (who I had just complemented on his writing) said
"but we all wish we could write like Steve B". As Steve's blog was largely notes to friends and in-jokes I searched for some more of his writing, found this piece about a trip to the Steppes to hunt with Egales and Kazakh tribesmen, and was hooked. Steve's other works have included highly rated studies of fine shotguns, Pigeons and Long Dogs.

The 'An Eternity of Eagles' is quite different to the works I've read so far, it could be thought of as a tour not of some far-flung lands but of a library collected during many many years as a student of Falconry.  It lands pretty squarely between scholarly tome and coffe table book, and is none the worse for doing so. For the casual reader there is a touch more detail than they might be expecting and for the budding Raptor obsessive a tantalising glimpse of where future reading could take you.

“There is so much brute wisdom, sophisticated science, blood magic, and flat out terrific prose in Stephen Bodio’s writing that he makes me think of Merlin, educating Arthur by turning him into other animals for a while. An Eternity of Eagles is worthy of its great subject, which is not only eagles but the earthbound mortals who marvel at them.”
—Jonathan Rosen, author of The Life of the Skies: Birding at the End of Nature

I was going to type up a few choice examples from the book; or try to give you a compressed version of the chronology of our ancient relationship with these fascinating birds, the evolution of the practices of training and hunting with them, and their roles as totems in so many disparate cultures. But instead I'll make you this offer. Buy the book, if you've read it and dont like it, I'll buy your copy off you and give it to someone who will appreciate it.

More Soon
SBW

Falconry In English Idiom

English language idioms derived from falconry

These English language idioms are derived from falconry:

Expression	Meaning in falconry	Derived meaning
in a bate	bating: trying to fly off when tethered	in a panic
with bated breath	bated: tethered, unable to fly free	restrained and focussed by expectation
fed up	of a hawk, with its crop full and so not wanting to hunt	no longer interested in something
haggard	of a hawk, caught from the wild when adult	looking exhausted and unwell, in poor condition; wild or untamed
under his/her thumb	of the hawk's leash when secured to the fist	tightly under control
wrapped round his/her little finger	of the hawk's leash when secured to the fist	tightly under control

rouse	To shake one's feathers	Stir or awaken
pounce	Referring to a hawk's claws, later derived to refer to birds springing or swooping to catch prey	Jump forward to seize or attack something
to turn tail[	Fly away	To turn and run away

I've been off sick for the last couple of days, and spending the time wisely have spit it three ways: watching films of Birds of Prey, reading websites about Birds of Prey, and sleeping.

One of the many great things about Falconry is that the written history of the sport is so diverse and there's so much of it. It's been years since I read anything written in the older forms of English so it's been interesting [read challenging] to get back into it. Of course the marvel of English is the way the language constantly evolves to suit the needs of the speaker, taking words from other cultures and languages, and idiom from popular culture. Today there is an financial advice website that advertises itself on TV with an aristocratic Meer Cat who ends every explanation of the company's services with the word "Simples". It's become a popular way to end 'explanations' and 'discussions' on web forums.

Back in the day, when folks flying Falcons was a common sight, these phrases entered the language and are still with us today. There is at least one example missing from the Wikipedia list and I'm guessing a few more? Let me know in the comments when you think of them.

My Addition:

Expression To 'Hawk up'	Meaning in falconry                                                                    The sound of a hawk expelling the indigestible parts of a meal	Derived meaning Clearing phlegm from the throat

More soon

your pal

SBW

  

Chad's Querencia

We know him as Blogger, Bird hunter, Dog bloke, and Ditch fisherman. But in another life Chad would be the enigmatic [read grumpy] proprietor of a second hand book shop: but not just any second hand book shop, this book shop would be within moments of fine, fine, Trout streams, some of which would be blessed with runs of Sea Trout and Salmon. Deer Stalking would be on the doorstep too, with long seasons for ghostly Roe, and a never ending season for Muntjac. Rabbits and Squirrels could be taken any morning, as the shopkeep turns helpful pest-controller on his morning constitutional. Did I mention the micro-brewery, but a few footsteps away?

Well Chad I've found it for you, Hay-on-Wye is the town for you.

More soon
Your pal
SBW

Book Review: The Lure Of The Falcon

If you like your humor understated and if you've ever found yourself enthralled by small creatures in wild places try this one on for size, its a boy-meets-nature memoir with a difference.

Boy meets nature, boy finds broken Kestrel, boy mends Kestrel, boy takes Kestrel with him to boarding school, boy takes Kestrel with him to WWII. Boy and Kestrel are captured by the Germans, boy and Kestrel escape from POW camp, boy and Kestrel are captured again, boy and Kestrel......

We were thrust at bayonet point into a room on the second floor and lined up infront of a large table littered with papers, telephones,typewriters and other official impedimenta. Behind the table, wearing civilian clothes peering at us through rimless glasses, sat the flesh and blood embodiment of the villainous Gestapo chief that I had seen in scores of films. With pasty face and soulless eyes he was about as alluring as a bird eating spider. As soon as he saw us there before him, bearded filthy and rheumy -eyed with weariness he started barking questions in the approved hollywood manner.
Suddenly his tirade which had sounded like a succession of bursts from a bad-tempered machine gun ceased in mid-volley and I saw our  inquisitors cobra eyes fixed on me  - where a slight but obvious bulge appeared in my ancient jacket just above the waistline. He threw back his chair and, moving with surprising speed, hurled himself round the table and grabbed me. One podgy white hand dived inside my jacket, in search no doubt of the pocket radio he suspected to be concealed in my bosom. there was a slight upheaval, followed by a yelp of pain. He recoiled and withdrew his hand which was dripping with good Aryan blood.

 Cressida had struck her blow for freedom. Now surely Nemesis would strike me down. Feeling if I felt anything, that i really had nothing to lose except life itself I put my hand to my jacket. Cressida scrambled aboard and I withdrew her into the daylight.  There we stood Cressida and i exposed to the full fury of this powerful representative of the third reich.  I glanced at Cressida , her hackles raised, her wings hanging as she mantled, her eyes glowing like red coals. the expected revolver shot never came. I looked at the Gestapo officer who had retreated a few steps,  his pallid face was if anything whiter than ever. I glanced at the armed escort, the henchmen behind the table all were speechless but when I looked longer I saw that they were inarticulate with ill-suppressed laughter.

Well worth a read

more soon
SBW

The Mindful Carnivore Book Tour

You know those blogs where the writer raises some question about food, animals, or human relationships with nature, and engages readers in an interesting conversation? Well, our pal Tovar Cerulli has started a lot of these conversations, and written the excellent book "The Mindful Carnivore" which I have read, thoroughly enjoyed, and shamefully not yet reviewed yet, is takin'it 'on-da-road'. Yep you can meet the blogosphere's hunter/philosopher for yourself! If I had the cash I'd fly out to join in the fun, every event promises to be one of lively debate, and inspirational mindfulness. With your chance to pick up a signed copy

• Denver, CO: Thursday, May 10, 7:00 pm at West Side Books
• Berkeley, CA: Monday, May 14, 7:30 pm at Pegasus Books Downtown
• San Francisco, CA: Tuesday, May 15, 7:30 pm at The Green Arcade
• Seattle, WA: Thursday, May 17, 7:00 pm at Elliott Bay Book Company
• Omaha, NE: Wednesday, June 13, 5:45 pm at Soul Desires

Hopefully he'll get down to Texas and we can arrange a side-by-side picture of him and the LSP.

More Soon

SBW

Book Review: Karamojo Safari by WDM Bell

I first learned about Bell through shooting the .275 Rigby, the tweaked Mauser Rifle he's synonymous with. Rigby bought the workings from Mauser in Germany, smoothed away the tool marks, added his own stylish woodwork, the best barrels available and money no object gunsmithing to set them up. By using a different system of measurement the military (and continental) 7x57[mm] Mauser became the (British) .275 Rigby sporting rifle. A name forever linked to WDM Bell.

Written some years after the fact Karamojo Safari is Bell's second book, widely held to be the best of the Elephant hunting genre, and a glimpse into the Africa of a hundred or so years ago.  This adventuring is a risky business: day in day out, for years on the trot. In a world before antibiotics; where every few seasons whole african nations would be swept by disease, where lurgy carrying bugs patrol the air, land and water, inter-tribal wars flare up, slavers prey on the smaller settlements, brigands kill whole trading caravans, and any number of mishaps can befall a gentleman on a shooting trip. Life has the potential to be full of vigour, and equally the potential to be short. Very short.

Having started young Bell is only in his early twenties when he sets out to make his fortune as an ivory hunter. He'd had already tried his hand at being a professional meat hunter in the Klondike and Lion culler during the expansion of the railways across Uganda where the Government had offered a reward for every lion killed within a mile on either side of the railway. Boyhood dreams of adventure not yet sated, and a young mans dreams of hard cash drew him to try his hand providing ivory for the london trade. Risking all during sixteen and a half years of long safari's off the edge of the map, in the very last days of Africa before the Europeans.

Ivory:
In Africa, in the old days, in what's now known as Kenya and Uganda on the map and Karamoja on the ground, there was ivory, basically just lying around all over the place. It was gathered and traded. Elephants were always killed by the locals for food, hides, ivory and to protect crops. Usually with snares, pit-falls, and falling spear traps, just not in very large numbers. Elephants live a long time before they die of natural causes so with the growing trade route to europe supply of found ivory was outstripped by demand and the price started to rise.

Intermediate technology:
Muzzle loading rifles struggled to generate the stopping power or accuracy required to ensure a clean kill. Unless of course the shooter was almost at spitting distance, and made an 'engine room' shot to the heart and lungs. The trouble with an engine room shot at very close range is it leaves the nervous system intact with the animal still animated for a few very long seconds. Pretty much the only thing more dangerous than an Elephant at close quarters, is a mortally wounded Elephant at close quarters. With such a prospect for loss of life Elephant hunting was more organised than opportunistic. A potentate or king could dispatch troops to hunt Elephant for him, but a village was unlikely to often risk its workforce on such a venture however much food, crop damage, and trade were at stake.

The Nitro Revolution:
Bell is famous for using the .275 Rigby, but the way Bell tells it his adventure was made possible by the evolution of ammunition, both the .303 British and the .275 Rigby he used for Elephants were the latest kit, gone were the days of having to hunt with blackpowder rifles that fired 0.1lb to 0.5lb [!] bullets pushed (slowly) by gunpowder. Bell was shooting at the dawn of the modern Nitrocellulose ammunition with its much higher velocities, and much tougher bullets that can penetrate thick skulls and mud-encrusted hide. With these quieter, lighter, more powerful and more reliable rifles Bell could hunt with less equipment, and not being disorientated by the blast could take quicker follow on shots at second and third animals who were merely puzzled by the crack of its report rather than panicked at the boom of the big bore rifles.

Placement, Placement, Projectile:
For Elephant hunting Bell favoured a solid bullet that wouldn't break up, so he could shoot elephants through the brain leading to instant death. Shooting an elephant through the brain is not as easy as it sounds, the skull is basically a large armoured box for a brain the size of a loaf of bread, so there are a limited number of angles from which the shot can be taken. Most of the time you'd have to be well within 50 yards and sometimes within 50 feet. Both distances an Elephant can cross, faster than you can run, while its still at a jog. Most important that the animals fell where they stood. The story is usually told that Bell used Rigby's proprietary 140gr rounds, or the lower velocity Steel jacketed military ammunition, in 'Wanderings' [his first book] he mentions using Copper Solids of 200grains. About half the weight of bullet that would be fired from an 'express rifle' or dangerous game gun

Local Knowledge:
Hunting in territory well outside the influence of the colonial powers Bell had to be diplomat, trader, and ace negotiator.  Where he could he acted as pest controller - adding to his reputation as a benevolent passer-by, culling elephants that were eating and trampling a settlements crops. In wilder places he set out to gain the consent of the local head man favouring the tactic of walking, preferably unarmed, into the village and asking permission of the headman to hunt his lands. By not acting as though he owed the place he set himself apart from the colonial powers and became an accepted part of the landscape. Word that "Red Man" was in the area with his little rifle that dropped big animals would go before him, his well known offer of cattle for whomever found him Elephants meant the local lads were always keen to help him out. In tribal societies the ownership of cattle was everything. For the local lads this would have been a literally life changing deal, one that would mean they could afford to marry, and have a wife/slave of their own. With a wife to grow stuff, weave baskets and mats, brew beer, and preserve foods the low born male would have a source of income, and the potential to be able to afford a second wife/slave. Helping Bell was literally a way to get on the ladder. Bell took the Ivory and the locals got the meat. Tons of it, Bell was a popular fellow.

Karamojo Safari is quite the tale, but I'm very glad I read The Wanderings of an Elephant Hunter first. Karamojo Safari would have benefited from the guiding hand of an editor, that said its a fascinating tale in 279 pages, just I couldn't help but feel that it would have been a really riveting tale in 179 pages.

Instead of the tribal intrigues and anthropological musings of Wanderings he takes us to the moment of the shot so many times that, this reader at least, became inured to it. As the book entered the home straight I found myself thinking 'If he climbs up on to the body of the first Elephant to shoot the second one more time I'll jump into the path of the bullet to spare myself the tedium.' . The days he describes are long gone, and his style of adventure will never be seen again, so Karamojo Safari is what it is. A fascinating if flawed tale from the last days of pre-colonial Africa.

If you like hunting and adventure stories you'll not be disappointed, personally I wouldn't bother with the massively over priced facsimile edition when for a few bucks more you can get an old edition that'll keep (and possibly gain) value, and has that awesome old book smell.

Stay Tuned for my reviews of Bell Of Africa and some of Bell's journalism

For the Locavore Hunter's excellent review of Karamojo Safari click HERE

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SBW

Photo credit Ann Kovek

Book Review - Glock: The Rise of America's Gun

Not really a handgun kind of guy myself [air pistols aside I've only ever fired an S&W 1911] but I do enjoy a bit of riflery and know a few enthusiasts, as Glock is such a touchstone of the culture I was interested in the story behind the icon. I wasn't disappointed, I would defiantly put this one in the upper tier of business books/corporate histories. It's a really interesting tale.

An outsider who'd never even owned firearms, and whose shooting experience made even mine seem comprehensive, starts with a clean sheet of paper and re-invents the pistol. An ingenious salesman sees the wind change for American law enforcement - wheel guns are out: it's not 'is it going to be an automatic pistol?' its 'which automatic pistol is it going to be?' - and seizes the day.
Ably assisted by lap dancers, with press and promotion by anti-gun pressure groups, and added profits generated by the assault weapons ban, team Glock turn an obscure Austrian radiator manufacturer into a major industrialist, his invention into a design icon and cultural phenomenon.

If you're hoping for pages of technical detail about the differences between Gaston Glock's design and that of his competitors you'll be better off reading Glocktalk.com or perhaps The Gun Digest Book of the Glock.  If you find stories of corporate opportunism and intrigue are to your taste you'll not be disappointed. I've always loved stories of the little team no one has ever heard of, rocking up and changing the game, Glock certainly did that. Well worth a read.

One from the 'ya couldn't make it up files'

Shaven-headed bearded muslim chap, my age, sitting next to me on the train.
"You're reading that and no one's even looking, if I was reading it they'd be pulling the emergency cord". Yep we laughed out loud.


On the blogging front
Not been out and about much lately, but I have been reading some great books, so more book reviews to come, some local history with suburban hunters and, funds permitting, a very special trip to meet another blogger or two. Before the chalk streams dry up completely I'm hoping this season is 'the season' I'll fulfil that longstanding ambition of catching a wild trout within the city limits

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SBW

Stephen Bodio's Querencia: A Book review

I know an amazing carpenter, he has the relaxed air of a man who has it just right for him. Secure in his own skill, comfortable in his life. He has the good fortune to be married to a financial genius, not for him the stresses and stains of billing and tax payments. They have a porsche, and about five houses. If you want to hire him he just tells you his day rate and after that you deal with her, email only, she bills you for his time, gives him pocket money and ensures they live well. Very very well. The rest of us live like street dogs. He works for me and I live like a dog. As MCP said "I wish someone loved me that much"

'Querencia' describes a place where we feel safe, the well from which our strength of character is drawn, that little bit of real estate (in our heads or our environment) where we are truly at home. I'm told It comes from the verb 'quere', to desire, to want. Great name for a book. Or a home.

Back in the days before the rise of the bleached shivering whippet, back when smart was still cool and you could earn living writing long-form journalism Steve finds himself at something of a loose end

I had expensive tastes in belongings , adventure, and alcohol.... I had two fifty year old LC. Smith shotguns, one engraved, 500 books, a master-falconers licence and a captive bred Lanner [falcon]
with ancestors from South Africa and Ethiopia. I liked my life but I had nobody to talk to

Steve hooks up with Betsy Huntington and after a while they pack their worldly goods into a yellow Datsun and trade new england for new mexico. There begins a tale of seven years exploring a remarkable landscape with a remarkable woman.

'If there was a breeze you could inhale the incense of burning Pinon and Juniper from the town a mile up wind, strong and sweet, evocative and nostalgic. My sister from back east thought it was "the scent of Mexican cooking spices" Kit Carson said that if you ever smelled it you would return to the high villages of New Mexico as long as you lived.'

' "sounds good to me" this from Chubby firmly. His hand was extended. I took it, and although I could not know it, started living in Magdalena'.

As naturalists of the old school - red of tooth and claw - Steve and Betsy are the perennial students of their own interest. This is a story of an absorption into the landscape, where every rock and fold in the land is a track, a story left behind in a very very slowly evolving landscape. Giant skys, arroyos that flash from dust to full before your eyes, all in the clear harsh light of altitude.

The area is not short on local colour; Steve paints a backdrop so vivid that the found-words jump off the page into that space of the remembered imagination where all the great books make their home.

The middle of route 60 which just seconds before had contained only a few wandering bodies now held a brawl as thick as a snarl of ants on a summer sidewalk. Above the thwhack of fists against bodies rose a cry I will never forget "That horse never fucked nobody!"

Betsy too leaps from the page; a woman who has seen such a variety of different lives that she must have been an amazing co-conspirator, able to explore without judgement, and to summon up both the wisdom of the well travelled and the childlike enthusiasm Ursula Le Guin summed up as "The creative adult is the child who has survived."

Now Betsy would join us, in her own way. She had always been a leisurely climber, and claimed her smoke breaks revealed more wildlife than I ever saw. Now with her bad leg, she might drop and hour or more behind me. If I waited at all obviously she would be furious. She'd walk up slowly, taking pains to stroll rather than labour, only her reddening face betraying her effort. She's stop and eye me angrily from under her bangs as she lit a camel. "Do not wait for me. I am not an invalid. If you insist on seeing me as a burden I shall not come". I was reminded of the time she had told me about some boyfriend who said he "needed" her . "I told him I didn't want to be a necessity or a responsibility. I'd prefer to be an indispensable luxury"

After my first reading of Querencia I lent the book to MOB (my mum) she loved it too

MOB: 'wonderful writing and an amazing eulogy to Betsy"

SBW: I wish someone loved me that much

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SBW

Here's the Link to Steve's page on Amazon
His blog of the same name 
And a link to some of his journalism 

Girl Hunter: Book Review

I was made-up when I got sent a pre-release copy of Georgia Pellegrini's second book 'Girl Hunter' to read and review. Unknown on this side of the pond she's built her media profile as the champion of 'retro-locavore'; recipes that develop from meals with people, seasonal local ingredients, and seek to evoke those moments again.

I hunt and gather myself, and hone my pioneer skills. I seek ingredients that are anchored to the seasons and a definite place. It is the kind of food once served in simple restaurants and in homes by housewives, now, by grandmothers, by families for generations, and today by people – culinary artisans – choosing to do the hard work required to live off the best their hands can produce.

The good news is she's an engaging storyteller with the 'get stuck in' sensibility of the true adventurer. The bad other news is you'd need to spend a year hunting to get all the ingredients for the mouthwatering recipes at the end of each chapter.

'G' travels from across the US (with a stop-over in england) from the pay-to-play luxury lodge of the Berretta Trident directory where multi-million deals are done as investment bankers follow the dogs, to multi-generation gatherings where families enact their rituals over grandma's recipes. 'The Commish' a former fish and wildlife commissioner takes her on a variety of hunts and to learn the ways of the hunter.

I really enjoyed it and am giving it for a Crimbo prezzie to a couple of people

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The link to the Amazon page is HERE

Hunting Deer For Food: Book Review

'The nuts and bolts of putting meat on the plate'

I've read a fair few hunting magazines in the last few years, I've seen lots of websites that also claim to show you 'how to hunt TROPHY BUCKS!' but if your reading this you'll probably have noticed that that's not really the way I roll, I would love to have a wall hanger but I'd happily settle for one most trophy hunters would walk past, and I'm not the only one. The greatest trophy of all is a full freezer.

Jackson Landers who blogs as The Locavore Hunter has brought out 'Hunting Deer For Food' a book for newbie hunters who don't eat antlers. Unlike the hunts in the magazines where 'just regular guys' drop four and five figures to be flown into the wilderness Locavore Hunting takes place, ideally, footsteps from your house and costs as little as possible.

Where HDFF wins out is it covers everything you need to know in just enough detail to get you asking the right questions when you take those first steps away from the supermarkets and their Factory-Pharm beef. I wish he'd written it years ago.

If you've become interested in having a more honest relationship with your dinner, reading Hunting Deer For Food would be just about the best place to start. Or you could buy it for someone foodie for Christmas?

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On Amazon

Here it is on Amazon in the UK

Eating Animals: Book Review

Jonathan Safran Foer's book runs the whole gamut of possibility, from A to B.

When you're ready to take a peek behind the label, behind the attractive pictures of happy-go-lucky animals living out their days on an idyllic farm, and see the horror of industrialised farming as it really is, Eating Animals is a fantastic place to start. Not too preachy, JSF's book is a thoroughly researched investigation of the madness of modern food culture, and a system so unsustainable and fundamentally cruel that no one who ever had a heart can look upon it's works without dispair. 

I imagine myself to be concerned about these issues and reasonably aware, in reading the book I found I was still hiding from the unpalatable truths of  mass meat and factory fish. If you're the kind of person who's happier not knowing, and who's conscience will permit it, this one is best left on the shelf. Of course you and your children will still be poisoned by the flesh of animals so far removed from their natural state that they can't breed, or live without regular doses of medication that weaken the imune system of first the animal and then everyone at your dinner table. Still, the animals of the packet look sweet don't they?

While I'm a massive fan of this book there is one area where it's scope is a little limited JSF is mainly vegetarian, and to him this is both the solution and the terrain the debate takes place over. A: Factory farmed or B: Not at all. Options C:, D: and E: are never mentioned

I recently spent six weeks eating Venison that I'd shot myself, I'd like to say 'only eating' but the sausages I made from it did have some traded-for pork in them. I was and will be again disconnected from the factory farming of meat.  Holly and Hank have gotten pretty close to 'game only', and The Envirocapitalist has also written about venison being the main source of meat his family eats. 

I've met quite a few families who, even living in the city, only eat eggs from their backyard chicken coops. Deus Ex Machina and Wendy eat Rabbits raised at the end of the garden. Hubert was living on agricultural pests shot within a mile of his home and there's another option, but we'll come to that later.

Clever, witty and wise; Eating Animals made me think again about many of the ideas that first inspired my journey and this blog. Good Work Fella. Well worth a read.

Update: Ankle still hurts, so I've not been out in a while, but the Fallow Buck season is only weeks away and I'll be hobbling to a tree stand in search of more nose-to-tail eating very soon. In the meantime lots more Kit-Tart-ism to come. Lots more.

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Your pal

SBW 

Book Review: The Wanderings of an Elephant Hunter

A while back when I spent what was to be the first of many hilarious weekends with blogger, deerstalker and rifle aficionado, The Bambi Basher.  Amongst other things he considered it essential that I receive a lesson in vintage rifles 101 he showed me around his .275 Rigby-Mauser rifle and mentioned one of it's most famous proponents, the Scottish adventurer and hunter Walter Dalrymple Maitland 'Karamojo' Bell and his numerous african hunts with the 7mm rifle. I'm not an experienced reader of the safari memoir genre, but as usual I was drawn along by The Bambi Basher's enthusiasm, and soon wanted to know more about the story of  'Karamojo Bell' and his adventures on the slopes of Kilimanjaro a hundred or so years ago. I put his long out of print book 'The Wanderings of an Elephant Hunter' on the list and the back burner as other things took precedence. When I was lucky enough to receive a copy of as a birthday present I was intrigued to see how I'd find him and the times he lived in.

Bell is from a different time, when ivory was a common(ish) luxury material and he made a fortune out of the 1,100+ elephants he shot. In one (exceptional) day he tracked and shot nine elephants. He estimated that he had just earned £877 from the ivory the days work brought him. Not a bad wage today - this was in the 1920's!

The style of the day was to try to take as much of the Edwardian world with you as possible.  Eating tinned food brought from home, off tableware from the English midlands, accompanied by fine French wines from Irish crystal glasses. Even having a 'gun-bearer' to carry your rifle, while there's another servant who draws your fold-up bath as you get plastered on 'sun-downers'. More glamping than bushwhacking. As the twentieth century was getting going, this reaches new levels of absurdity with 'motor safari's' becoming fashionable amongst the western elite. Newly rich industrialists positioning themselves as 'sportsman' by shooting wildlife from the safety of the motor car, and their debutante daughters re-branding themselves as fearless 'safari chicks'. Wounded game died unrecovered, and the locals were treated as semi-cognate. 

Then there was Bell. As is usually the case with the people who get truly remarkable results Bell approaches the whole enterprise in a totally different way to his contemporaries. Carrying his own rifle, living entirely on local foods, and importing a pair of Canadian canoes to explore uncharted river courses. While his fellow Europeans stride across the continent with the arrogance of pseudo-gods, Bell and his companions tread a lot lighter, with a mixture of humility and cunning, he's courting the local support he needs as a matter of great urgency. Calling himself by the name the locals have for him Longelly-nyung (Red Man). Seeking to present himself as someone benign, who just happens to be passing through, and if anyone would be good enough to point him in the right direction, as an almost endless source of free food for those that help.  Bell is part adventurer and part psychologist. With balls of steel and an eye to the main chance.

And so we became friends I was not going through the blood-brotherhood business, with it's eating of bits of toasted meat smeared with each others blood, sawing in two living dogs or nonsense of that kind. I took his hand and wrung it hard, and had it explained to him that amongst us that was an extraordinarily potent way of doing it. That seemed to satisfy the old boy, for the act of shaking hands was as strange to him as the act of eating each others blood is to us. 

When an opportunity to defend the underdog (and serve his own interests) presents itself he delights in disrupting the activities of slavers.

A chance to assert ourselves occurred on the first day of our arrival among the Lakkas, for no sooner had the camp been fixed up than our merry band had a Lakka youth caught and bound and heavily guarded . On enquiring into this affair it transpired that this youth had been taken in a previous raid, but had escaped and returned to his country. We had this lad straight away before us, asked him if he   wished to go back to Buba Gida, and, on his saying this was the last thing he desired, at once liberated him. He did not wait to see what else might happen; he bolted. Of course the kings people were furious with us. We, on our part were thoroughly disgusted with Buba Gida for having designed to carry on his dirty work under the cloak of respectability afforded by two Englishmen on a shooting trip...


In short Bell was not as I expected to find him: he wasn't as racist, or apart from the odd incident as keen to enforce his morality on others, most of the time he was the only white dude for miles (not that would have meant anything to the Belgians), he understood that his reputation would be travelling a lot faster than he was, and was even quicker with his wits than he was with his Mauser.


He had of course heard all about our refusing to allow any 'recruiting' of slaves to be carried out and I daresay was furious with us. He remained polite but cold, and we noticed a great falling off in the presents of food, ect., which were demanded by custom. Among other things we were distinctly annoyed to find that we were classed by the king as third-class white men. To Buba Gida there were three classes of european. In the first class were French governors, French administrators and French military officers. For these people sweet Champaign was forthcoming in quantities to suit the individual importance of the visitor. Class two comprised minor French officials, important American or English travellers  scientific expeditions, surveys, ect. ; these got whiskey, while ginger beer was reseved for elephant hunters, clerks, or small commercial people. We were Ginger Beerites.

I've read that 'Wanderings' were originally published as a series of articles in a long defunct Scottish outdoor magazine [Update: it was Country Life which is still published, although with less interesting content] and the book reads as though that's true, its tantalisingly vague in parts, and eludes to a far more amazing set of tales, but is well worth a read if you can face flashing up for the out-of-print price.

The house Bell retired to Upper Corriemoillie, Garve, Rosshire, Scotland

Stay tuned for more about WMD Bell and more of the usual nonsense from yours truly
Your pal
SBW
PS if you know any more about Bell, or who W. was drop me a line

Tales Of A London Poacher Book Review

Here in old Blighty the term 'poacher' is loaded with very different resonance's to the US of A, here there is a long tradition of the peasant taking a few of the land owners animals for the pot, and the poacher is a kind of rural anti-hero specialising in hunting with extreme stealth.


I slowly, very slowly slid my gun into position, eased off the safety, took aim and fired! 'Crack!' went the gun and 'Daylight!' went the scene as lights came on in three different positions. 'Police!' Whether it was just a fluke, a coincidence, or whether I had become too much a creature of habit and had gone over there too often on the same night of the week I will never know, but what I did know was that these coppers' meant business and had been in wait for me and the chase was now on!

Tales Of A London Poacher is a fantastic set of tales - transplanted from the rural setting of most poachers tales, to the outlying London suburbs in the early 60's. I met up with Cleve and over a couple of pints he regaled me with tales his life afield, from his initiation into field craft and hunting as a young lad in the early 60's. Cleve's book is set in a time before firearms hysteria, when two teenagers walking into a suburban cafe with their shotguns was perfectly normal and no one batted an eyelid or called the armed response unit. A time where the checks and balances of the boys respect for the water-board guy were enough to limit their hunting to unobtrusive, and as long as it stayed that way the water board guy never ran too fast to catch them.

Hunting on the reservoirs of east london with an air rifle and later an Anschutz  'garden gun' [which is basically a very small shot gun for pest control without perforated cabbages], he learns his chops from the older brother of a girl he was at school with having already honed his marksmanship from the age of eight as a professional snail hunter - ridding his dads vegetable patch of the evil curse of the Helix Jardiniere. 


What comes alive in the book is Cleve's passion for wild places, even if those wild places are little pocket of land surrounded by the city. He's also a bit of a Hugh Fearlessly-Eats-it-All introducing dozens of people to the delights of eating wild game. Sometimes with hilarious results.

Could this be The Real Suburban Bushwhacker?

You can see his site HERE and then buy his book HERE

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SBW

Some Consideration For The Lobster

From Gourmet.com an amazing piece about David Foster Wallace's visit to the Maine Lobster Festival, where he chews over PETA's role in publicising the festival, the misconceptions about a lobsters experience of pain, the rules concerning feeding lobster to inmates, and the ethics of that pot of boiling water. Consider the Lobster
Well worth a read
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