Our Point of View

The Best Hunt

By Mark A. Jicha

All kinds of outdoor adventures can be found in all corners of the globe, but when it comes to wing-shooting, there is a subtle yet fixed difference between shooting and hunting, even though both involved quick reflexes and a keen eye.

A flight-path shoot for incoming doves can be nothing short of spectacular if you feel lucky with bird shot, but dropping big numbers means really good shooting. When you’ve got a quick young man and an experienced black lab, you begin the game with a few aces up your sleeve.

I’m a self-taught hunter, and my shooting often reflects this affliction, but what I may lack in skill is more than balanced by an over-abundance of enthusiasm. After I posted the only goose-eggs of the entire safari - literally getting shut out on two consecutive difficult guinea fowl shoots - even the bird boys began to feel sorry for me. They even made fun of my little gun - it was humiliating.

Mark Haldane was visibly moved by my plight, so he teammed me up with 2 trusted members crew: Nfana handling Mauser, a strapping lab, and then left me on the hot roost and let me shoot!

All the others - the entire gallery - could watch my sporadic efforts and feel comfortable with their own shotgunning skills.

I clipped a couple of early birds and then missed simple shots by the score. The more I pressed, the worse I shot. In that, shooting is a little like really fast golf - you not only have to identify and acquire the target and then execute the shot - all in a second or two.

Our esteemed PH made sure knew the score. “That was a bloody simple shot you missed, wasn’t it mate?” he asked with a cheerful grin. “Have The Best Hunt you been able to hit any?”

Just then a low burner sreamed into the tree top off to my left, and I raised, swung the 20 gauge O/U smoothly thru the flight path and popped off a very neat little shot.

“I just needed to unload my gun right then,” I smarted off. Professional that he was, Mark just drove off in silence, allowing me ample opportunities to miss some more. But I finally settled down and started shooting a little better, and before long I had a collection of birds that easily amounted to a personal best.

Talk about action - we had hundreds of birds coming from dozens of directions, but there were no less than five different gamebirds in my bag as the sun set on that South African day.

But there was more...much more.

He collected all the hunters and we piled into trucks to leave the field, and there near the gate were a collection of the cutest school children you could possibly find anywhere on God’s green earth. Since we had plenty of game from an earlier hunt that was destined for our dinner, Mark invited the kids to come collect them for their own family pots.

He allowed each to step forward and pick four, and then two and then two more, and when there were only a dozen or so left he tossed them to the group and they grabbed the bunch.

Everyone was laughing and cheering and clapping and suddenly, this neat little gaggle of children just burst into song! We all clapped and cheered some more.

If anyone ever asks me why I embrace the outdoor sports so dearly, I will tell them about this day in Dundee, SA, when time stopped and things were truly right in life as twilight approached. photos by mjicha 2004