Just picked up "Death in Silent Places" and I'm reading his chapters on Colonel Patterson in Tsalvo. He's is pretty critical of Patterson, a tad demeaning. He does recognize that Patterson must have been mentally fatigued, but spends much of his writing mocking Patterson's decisions, even his intelligence.

I liken Patterson's situation to a commanding officer losing men in a theater of war, and the the mental stress it must create having your decisions dictate lives, seems to me Capstick is engaging in some shallow Monday morning quarterbacking?

Am I reading Capstick wrong?

I think Capstick was being quite honest...... perhaps brutally so but honest nevertheless.

By Patterson's own admission, he didn't know what he was doing and the methods described in his book makes it fairly evident he was right in that admission.

I have to agree with Capstick, and besides, what's more fun than picking on a man's self-made predicaments? I mean a rickety Machan built too low to the ground and wrapping a white rag to substitute for a night sight? Capstick's also pretty self-deprecating too. Love the man's writings/

yep Capstick is pretty well raight on Patterson as the others said, if you read Pattersons book he says he was an amature in what he was trying to do.....it became his job to do it cause he was the boss and he had a lil experience with tigers in India, though not a hell of alot...

OK, this was my first reading of the man's writing, and was surprised he would question another's intelligence not knowing really who and what the man had to work with. I guess if he were an arrogant man, he wouldn't have the following that he does.

Does Capstick still write, or has he traveled to the happy hunting ground in the sky?

he died of heart problems in the 90's.....he has a fair number of books out and ive found all a good read but i havent read "Warrior: The Legend Of Colonel Richard Meinertzhage" yet which isnt as good im told cause it was published after his death from his notes and wasnt a finished manuscript but i have it ordered and it should be here next week....

If you read Hemingway's "The Short, Happy Life of Francis Macomber" (it's in his book "The Green Hills of Africa"), the PH in the story was allegedly Patterson.

Do a bit of research on Patterson. His rank of Colonel and aristocratic background are supposedly fraudulent.

I've always heard that Capstick's personal stories were rather embellished, to the point of being stolen from others. Entertaining reading for sure, but should be taken with a grain of salt.

I've heard that for years but think it's unfair. He often tells other people's stories but when he does, he starts by naming those involved.

Either way, he was a great story teller, a master of the purple prose and has done a lot for African hunting and the African hunting industry and for that we should all be grateful.

Colonial Africa was full of "Pattersons". Europeans , sent to Africa with little "real" experience. They had to "learn on the job", and some did better than others when dealing with "Murphy's Law". Right or wrong, John Henry Patterson lived a life of true adventure. BTW, he rose from the ranks to Lieutenant Colonel and retired from the military in 1920.

He wrote 4 books & all are worth reading.

FWIW, I seem to recall that Jim Corbett pulled some similar stunts.

I always enjoyed his stuff and he surely brought the excitement of Africa to the common reader. He didn't do that stuff, but somebody did ... prolly. Makes damned good reading and fun!

Yeah, Pete is dead now. I met him a few times and always found him to be gracious.

God Bless,

Steve

Death in the Long Tall Grass and Death in the Dark Continent are great reads also.

Rattler.....maybe Capsticks book on Meinertzhagen was finished after his death, but nevertheless, I enjoyed it a great deal.

turns out it showed up today when i went and checked the shops mailbox, will start it when i get through with the book im currently reading.....his biography of Wally Johnson was very good, the guy hunted lions for awhile with a Winchester 30-30

Obrigado Steve. You speak the language yet?

Some of the stories Capstick mentioned just got me smiling but he must be one of the most entertaining authors I have read. A pinch of salt? At times it felt like you needed a whole bag full.

Still like his stories and still read him.

if your interested in some perspective of Peter as an individual Ken Wilson has a few chapters on hunting and working with him in his book "Sport Hunting on Six Continents".....Wilson was the producer of all the hunting videos with Capstick....

You will be well served by reading The African Adventurers. Short chapters about the many legends of Earlier Africa and the men exploring for the Empire.
If you will read Capstick as an entertainer and not as a historian you will enjoy them immensely.

For more precise historical or empirical information you might try
Journals of Dr. John Kirk, George Eastman's privately printed Exploration, Commando by Deneys Reitz about the Boer and their war.
Ackely would be another good read along with Osa Johnson.
I had opportunity to meet and talk with Mr. Wilson about his book hunting on Six Continents and he mentioned that although he would have loved to write like Capstick, he did not think anyone could ever again.
I agree.

Frank

i have The African Adventurers aswell, its good...have yet to read a book of his i didnt like...

I think you'll find the last Capstick book was finished by his wife Fiona and Pires who also wrote his stuff about Mozambique and FWIW, Fiona and Pires eventually married.

Pieter

The language a really tough nut to crack because it's soooooooo complicated but the good news is I'm picking it up slowly and most people here speak at least some English.

Other than that, we're having an absolute ball here and although it took us a while to settle in, wouldn't want to go back to living in Africa now.

The hunting is FAR better than I ever thought it would be and I shot my first Iberian red deer last week....... The trophies on these animals are FAR bigger than I'm used to seeing during the stalking I used to do in Scotland all those years ago and the shot was a radical raking shot that wasn't far off of a Texas heart shot from 200 yards with an open sighted K98 Mauser. I was in in the company of some really good/new made Portuguese friends so that made it pretty much perfect.

"I think you'll find the last Capstick book was finished by his wife Fiona and Pires who also wrote his stuff about Mozambique and FWIW, Fiona and Pires eventually married."

Steve is correct. Fiona finished Peter's "Warrior" after his death, and then went on to write Adelino Serras Pires' memoirs "Winds of Havoc" and two other books, "The Diana Files" and "Between Two Fires."

She currently is updating "Winds of Havoc" to include incidents not included in its first printing. The new version will be released soon by Rowland Ward in South Africa.

Bill Quimby

Thanks for the confirmation Bill.

Going back to Patterson, one really needs to cross reference his life by reading other authors such as Lake and Hunter etc to understand the whole story.

As far as I'm aware, Patterson didn't misrepresent himself at all but did go into the Tsavo thing as nothing more than a senior engineer and not a hunter so I guess one can't blame him for his errors.

I have never read Capstick's version of the battle of Tsavo, but the real Patterson, historically, is a bit more complicated than the struggling engineer (who claimed to be, but was not a colonel of engineers). Later, he got into the guiding business and ended up taking a young married couple by the name of Blythe on an extended safari. Upon leaving the coast, things got really "complicated." No one truly knows whether the husband eventually shot himself, was murdered by his wife, or was killed by Patterson. Whatever occured - nearly a century before cell phones and air evac - Ethel and Patterson buried him and then continued with the safari, apparently needing one less tent. It was all hushed up pretty effectively and Ethel's father made sure all future contact with Patterson ended. Hemingway heard the story from Percival and it inspired The Short Happy Life of Francis MaComber. Patterson went on to serve honorably in the Boer and Great Wars (where he did eventually earn that colonelcy) and then was hailed as one of the early Zionist military leaders - though raised a catholic. He eventually died in California of all places.

He didn't know what he was doing in what regards? Overseeing the building of the railroad bridge over the Tsavo river.....or dealing with two man eating lions that were killing and eating his workers?

Sorry. I meant in the way he dealt with the man-eaters..... the book although very interesting is pretty much a catalogue of stuff ups and had he done it right he'd almost certainly have nailed them a hell of a lot faster than he did....... but that said, (as I said before) he was an engineer not a lion hunter and there's no reason to expect him to have known what he was doing when it came to lion hunting.

He did the best he could under the circumstances and it must have taken a lot of courage to do it.

There have been many occasions in my life where I could have made better decisions and choices when looking back. And I did not have anywhere near the responsibility that Patterson had. One of my personal favorite short writings is Teddy Roosevelt's "Man in the arena." I think it applies to Patterson's situation as well.

As far as Capstick, one grain of salt, or a bag full. I don't care. I enjoy his writings. Have most of his books. Have read them multiple times. Have some in multiples which I have been passing along to other young men in my life.

ofcourse she is updating it.....my copy of "Winds of Havoc" just showed up today and now ill have to buy it again had to laugh though in the pic section the guy with the hundred pounder has the same last name as me....

BTW if anyone knows where i can find "The Diana Files" for a reasonable price its another i would like to read....

Good insight gentlemen. I agree that when one tends to take on something he is not familiar with, they tend to look amateurish in maybe even incompetent, but there are many professions that can make a a good capable man look incompetent in the beginning.

Too me it just seemed like there was a touch of jealousy in Capstick's writing, taking the time to inject things that "he knows" into Patterson's story. Comments such as "Patterson doesn't precisely tend to stun one with his smarts", seems a little unfair. How would Capstick have been judged his first ventures into the bush hunting lion? Capstick has no idea whether or not Patterson was a bright guy, so what is with that statement?

I am enjoying the book and as said, this is my first experience with Capstick and I recognize I can't judge the man on one writing.

I sure hope someday I get the chance to hunt Africa.

Rattler

There's a few around, including signed 1st editions but you can expect to pay around $60 & up for those.

PHC was a very gifted writer. I used to send him newspaper clippings of "death by animal" and he always graciously acknowledged them and added that he was pleased to have them to add to his files.

i wouldnt say jealousy cause Capstick lived a life most here would envy including spending time "sorting out" maneaters.....keep in mind Capstick is looking back on Patterson knowing some of the other incidents of poor judgment and lack of smarts like the safari incident previously mentioned....

+1

You can get the "Diana Files" from Safari Press.

One thing that bothered me in reading Patterson's book saw that they found a cave where the man eaters brought their kills to eat. I never heafrd of this behavior. WhereI have hunted, the lions merely drag their kills into the brush a bit so the vultures won't find them.

I think many of those old British guys were a bit daft by our own hunting standards. Jim Corbett, for whom I have a lot of respect, tells about ordering a 7mm bolt action rifle from London. He never even sighted it in or fired it. His first attempted shot was at a tiger and he fouled up because he didn't know it had a double set trigger!! The reason he hadn't shot it (open sights, BTW) was that he assumed the gunsmith in England had sighted it in.

Barkoff,

No, Your not reading him wrong - He is Monday morning QBing Patterson. He wasn't there and is relating his opinion of Patterson's mistakes.

That being said, I also think Capstick (et. al.) was correct in his criticism!

In 3 different accounts of the Lions - The Man-Eaters of Tsavo, The Legend of the Iron Snake and The Ghost & the Darkness,

I've found myself thinking how stupid and naive Patterson really was.

I am heard this mentioned by people before: in Mr Corbett's defence,the rifle was a Rigby, and in those days Rigby regulated their rifles (sighted them in) for a specific load if the customer wished. (I don't remember anything about double trigger though)

Everybody is a product of their times. WE now have another century of 'safari' stories and experience of Africa to base our opinions on.
Mr Patterson didn't have that, and basic knowledge about lion's that even non-enthusiasts may have today from watchign Discovery channel, was not available to him. no one taught him anything, nor were there a body of professional hunters like we have today.
I have read his own acount, and I do not think him naive or stupid in the context of the times, and the job he was doing, adn the social situation with the workers.
What I was suprised by was how little space was accorded to the Lions of Tsavo in his memoirs, I thought the whole book was about them. Obviuosly the story turned to legend later. I got the impression he thought it was just another interesting lion story.
For those interested, the actual cave photogrphaed in his book was found again only lastt year or the year before I think, after being lost ever since that time. There were no bones in there, or remains. It is possible that Patterson added some "colour", or that he was repeating was he was told by others and never went in the cave, or that local people or relatives removed the bones.

i also read recently in a magazine article that they tested the hairs of those lions for a molecule that build up in the lions sytem from being a man eater. They figured by the amount they found that one lion had eaten about ten people and the other about 20-30. However, they noted that if both lions had not completely devoured each body (and reports of the times as well as Patterson say they often did not) then the figures could be three times higher. But those two lions were defiinately maneaters.

It is interesting to me, to find that WDM Bell as a 17 year old got a job on the same railroad as a lion shooter at around the same time as Patterson was working there; lions were attacking camps all up and down that railway in progress. Walter Bell shot one lion. I mention it because they hired him as a lion hunter for that same railroad, and he had never even seen one before.
Different times.

( I have seen some learned experts on the internet disparaging the Lions of Tsavo story, say ing that it was actually hyena's doing the killing. The molecule test above disproves that. Also, one would have to assume that all the people there were blind. Patterson and WDM Bell both can't be wrong either. People were not stupider back in those days, they just didnt have the internet.)

just some more background, as an English officer in charge of jewish soldiers later in WW1, he took the side of his men who were oppressed by prejudice in the English army and his careeer and social position suffered greatly because of this, but he never backed down.
I think there is much to admire in the man.

The story of the Lions of Tsavo is a wonderful story that is now a legend, and I think it could be done much better as a movie than "Ghost in the Darkness".

In a non-hunting book about north Africa by a Polish journalist, I learned that the descendants of those Indian laborers still talk about the terror their grandfathers experienced. They were living in canvas tents, hearing their peers being dragged out and eaten, and were unprotected. Patterson hunted the lions by day, but he didn't come out of his caboose to fight them in the dark.

Those were days when you didn't call headquarters for a specialist when you ran into trouble. You just dealt with it as best you could. In Patterson's case, he was hunting a pair of maneaters with an Enfield .303, which was all he had. He borrowed a double rifle from a visiting sportsman once, and one barrel failed to fire, which he said taught him to test fire borrowed guns! Who would have thought that a visitor on safari would have a faulty rifle, or that he would neglect to tell a borrower about the problem?

Criticising ANYTHING a man in that position did is way beyond Monday morning quarterbacking. Most men would have taken the next boat home.

As for Capstick, he wrote some entertaining stories.

Corbett did in deed seem to do quite a few strange things. I seem to recall reading he nearly coming unstuck once or twice due to the fact he had only taken a couple of rounds to deal with a man eating tiger and had run out of ammo at a critical point..

Getting back to Capstick, I enjoyed his early books when I read them as a teenager, but in his later ones, you could almost tell he had a drink problem. After re reading some of his books not too long ago, I now find his writing style a bit
"flowery" and over the top and much prefer the likes of Corbett, Paterson and Anderson who are much more "understated"..

interestingly, I just found and read a Capstick article about buffalo hunting that was published in a magazine here back in the nineties. I hadn't seen this one before.

His style is 'flamboyant' hard-boiled. It comes across almost as a cariacature of himself. He is clever with a humourous turn of phrase, and some of the lines are almost poetic in their coolness, but it's all over-the-top. This is the attraction of course, it's pure entertainment.
Plainly, Captstick had a lot of fun writing that article, and you can tell he enjoyed himself coming up with all the little Capstickisms...

His stories in my opinion while not complete fabrications, but are 'constructions', designed to be Capstick stories and nothing else.
Perhaps this is what makes people continually challenge whether his stuff his true or not...its sort of the beside the point, the man was virtually an artist, and the story was like his own truth, they are Capstick stories, and that's all.

What I mean is, if he wrote a fully factual, blow by blow account of an incident that could not be challenged in a court of law (which maybe he did, I'm not saying he didn't) it would still come across as over-the-top and not quite in this reality but in some other gung-ho Capstick world, simply because of his love for prose as purple as a smacked eye in a bare-knuckle fistfight.

thats a pretty good observation.....

I met Pete several times and he was always a nice a gracious man. Actually, he rather reminded me of Jim Carmichel ... and I do not mean that in a disrespectful way.

The difference was that my friend, Jim, actually is a fantastic rifleman, shooter and hunter. Pete Capstick was a writer, a rather gifted writer, and while he wrote about stuff, he didn't actually do the acts he wrote about.

Indeed, somebody actually did that heroic stuff ... just NOT HIM.

Many, many times I've been drinking a "sundowner" in Afrika, just shooting the [bleep] with locals and my PH. Then the subject of Pete Capstick would come up. They LOVED the man.

Literally, nobody has captured the hearts of folks of all generations and nations like Peter Hathaway Capstick. Pete captured the romance, the danger, the very essence of Afrika like Peter hathaway Capstick.

And after reading the MASTER, folks simply have to hunt in Afrika. And that sells lots of safariis and that employs lots and lots of professional hunters.

One of my gunny writing friends bumped into Pete at an SCI Convention. Pete was on crutches and informed my friend that he'd been "Bumped and hooked by a bloody [bleep] Cape buff."

A few hours later, my friend was told by the PH on that safari that Pete was drunk and sitting in the back of a Land Rover. The Rover hit a bump and Pete was thrown out of the Rover ... he landed ass-first.

The PH thought that Pete's story about the ficticious encounter with the buffalo was about "Par for the course."

Anyway, I thought Pete was a good gut. He didn't do all of those heroic things, but somebody PROBABLY DID. I'm thinking that Pete probably laughed, at privately to himself, that folks actually believed the wild tales he told.

God Bless,

Steve

I have the man's books and all his videos. I picked up one when I was a kid and had to read the rest. I thought Robert Ruark and Hemingway were very tough to read after Capstick. He was much, much more entertaining. I think the first thing I read was about a lion dragging a sleeping guide out of his tent and eating him in front of his group. That or the guy with his guts hanging out after a leopard attacked him who was wide awake, and talking while they tucked in his guts and sent him off to the hospital. It's like every story you ever heard that began "things were tougher when I was a kid." You've got to be tough to survive out there. My favorite thing he ever wrote was describing what an elephant would love to do to you. He said to the effect.

"An elephant will take great delight in stomping you into a puddle the consistency of furry guava jelly. The won't recognize whether you are lying there facing up or down." He said that running from elephants, climbing a tree is useless. "They'll toot up a bunch of their chums and knock the tree down, and you in it." Then you kind of get the picture! Great stuff. I have to wonder though. He said a heard of elephants were invading a camp and the only rifle was a .270. The guy couldn't get penetration to brain shoot the elephants because they were soft points. He pulled the bullets, stuffed them in backwards, and then shot the elephants and it worked! I don't know about that one. I don't know if Sealous put a bag of change down his 4 bore and shot a buffalo either!

on the turning the bullets backwards.....Capstick isnt the only one ive heard that from......and if you look at the way some of the old solids were produced it is a half arsed facsimile of one.....i think it could work....should be easy enough to test by anyone that handloads.....wonder if someone has done so?

I did read soemthing a while ago where they did just that, (cant remember who) and the main thing I remember was the bullets turned backwards were remarkably accurate. They didnt do any penetration tests though.

Does anyone else agree with me that Capstick wasn't half the writer that Jim Corbett and John Taylor were?

No, I won't go there. Each had there own style. Capstick used a Mickey Spillane style that was energetic and fun. J. A. Hunter's book are some of my favorites.

It has become chic to bash Capstick and his writings now that he's gone, and I think it's unfair. Peter was a fun guy and made no pretenses that he knew more about Africa that those who grew up there. Rather, Peter made no secret that he loved everything about the African bush, and felt very fortunate that he was able to experience it and pass those experiences along. He gave credit to the stories that weren't his, and his self deprecating sense of humor can be seen in his stuff.

There was no one writing about Africa in the 1970's, and there were no publishers buy books about Safari. Capstick's writings, especially those serialized in The American Hunter NRA magazines opened Africa up to a whole new generation of readers and hunters. I was one.

PHC also knew his limitations as a writer, and struggled with his bio of Wally Johnson and Richard Meinertzhagen, and told me so.

Pete was no superman in the bush, and in life never pretended to be. I recall the SCI Convention that Steve alluded to about. I sat in booth with Peter as they sold the leather bound special edition of his works, and he did kid around and tell some of his buddies the buffalo story, but it was all good humored BS and certainly I didn't see him trying to pass that off as genuine. On he other hand, as he would say, he was Irish, and no stranger to a little drink...........so no telling what he would say.

Enjoy his stuff for what it is - fun reading. Hemingway was full of s**t too, but I enjoy his writings.

no..

+1......

Taylor is a very good writer and one of my favorites, PHC is a great writer and is probably my all time favorite.....alot of BTDT guys actually arent that great of writers, infact i find most of them to be just average but that doesnt mean they arent fascinating reads and have great stories to tell, it just means some arent real strong writers.....



i find that interesting hatari, i thought his biography of Johnson was very good, havent read the Meinertzhagen book yet as i have only recently gotten my hands on it and i understand it was finished after his death....

oh and ive read a couple of books by guys that knew PHC fairly well and just about all said that he didnt take himself to seriousl....in Ken Wilson's book(Wilson produced PHC's hunting videos) he lists off a number of ways PHC opened and closed his letters to Wilson and they are funny as heck and give a pretty good insight into the guy given it was private communication with a friend.....i have a feeling PHC was a hoot to be around because he didnt seem to take himself as seriously as some of his detractors do....

He was a hoot to be around.

I liked his Wally Johnson book. The Meinertzhagen was almost unreadable for me. Capstick encouraged me to write (which I did only a little before marriage and kids) and was generous with tips, advise, and his experience. He said doing the biographies was "really writing whereas the early stuff was storytelling".

Most will agree that no matter his bush skills, Capstick was a very good storyteller.

Exactly.

Some people prefer Hemingway or Ruark because their writing wasn't as flamboyant, but I don't think anybody could argue that Capstick wasn't a storyteller.

I tend to prefer writing where every sunset isn't bleeding several kinds of colors, and every shot didn't powder-burn the animal. But I sure don't mind Capstick compressing other hunter's stories into an exciting narrative, even if he wasn't there.

Capstick was scared to death of lions, so if he's putting Patterson down he's just grandstanding.

Barkoff: If I was asked to write about someone hunting man-eating lions-at night and without the aid of artificial lighting, no scope, a .303 rifle with a piece of white cloth tied around the front sight pretending to be a night sight and sitting on top a rackety excuse for a shooting position called a "Machan", I'd make fun of you too, only I'd ask to hold your wallet and your double rifle first

Griz,

I was going to share your Capstick stories, but decided to wait and see if you showed up...

Steve, I have to chuckle at the "bleeding sunsets and powdered burned animals" because it is so true. Peter was at his best in 1500 word clips.

I have it on good authority that many of Capstick's adventures were really the deeds of Geoff Broom. He worked for Geoff Broom when he first became a PH. Geoff's son, Russ, is presently an outfitter in Zim.

Actually I believe he worked for Luangwa Safaris in Zambia first, which is where I knew him. He was a nice guy but in way over his head at the time.

Well, if it's all you got...

I thought he was an excellent writer.....

Have read one book by Capstick. Have read everything J. Corbett wrote 3 times over, maybe 4. If able, I would rewind the clock and read anything of Corbett's again instead of reading Capstick the first time.

Capstick is a joke among PHs in Africa. He did most of his hunting from a barstool. He took other peoples adventures and made them his own. gifted writer though- i have all his books.

I think the video market did a lot of damage to many writers. When you say how they handled a rifle, or shot, you knew.......

I've read most of Capstick's books -- and thoroughly enjoyed them. I knew a guy, however, who hunted the Luangua Valley several times and asked several PH's about Capstick and they all said Capstick was not a PH in Africa. I don't know one way or the other -- but he does spin a pretty good tale!

If I am not mistaken, he was a Game Control officer and not a PH in Luangwa. I know he did an apprentice PH stint in what was then Rhodesia first. He took his veteran tracker Silent with him to keep his butt out of trouble when he went to Zambia. Don't blame him. A smart man surrounds himself with good talent.

I don't see how anyone could allege that Patterson's "lions" were hyenas since there are photos of them in his book. You can see those photos here.

John Henry Patterson

One of the reasons why his last book, published posthumously from his notes, was a disappointment had to do with the way he inserted himself into his subject's story. Several times, at least, he wrote that if Meinertzagen had known him, they would have been close friends. Maybe so, and maybe Meinertzhagen would have slapped him with a wet towel. But this is the kind of wishful longing that is suitable for a private diary, and should have been edited out of the copy long before it went to print.

IIRC, there's a photo of Capstick holding a German battle flag outdoors somewhere, and he says that it is not the battle flag that Meinertzhagen captured during WWI, but one just like it. IMO, the proper way to do that kind of thing is to simply print a photo of the flag, without the author holding it like a trophy (inserting himself into the story again, the attention-hound), and say that it is similar to the flag captured by Meinertzhagen, etc., etc.

Had he lived and the manuscript been put into the hands of a more demanding editor, I'm sure the book would have been better and more entertaining. I enjoyed reading his earlier tales.

How about a quick reminder of Peter's style from a review from Robert F. Jones in a 1989 issue of SI:

Last Horizons: Hunting, Fishing, and Shooting on Five Continents ( St. Martin's Press, $19.95), a collection of Capstick's magazine pieces dating back to 1969. The locales range from Nicaragua (where he harpoons freshwater sharks) to India (pigsticking during the height of the Raj) to medieval England (the setting for a fantasy about the opening day of the dragon-spearing season). The emphasis, though, is on Africa. Whatever the place, the intrepid Capstick evokes it in imagery that seems to have been achieved by feeding a Webster's Unabridged into a Cuisinart. Examples:

Capstick on being attacked by a hippopotamus: "Over my shoulder I saw a bull hippo the size of a mobile home heading straight at me like a bowling ball thrown by an irate Dick Butkus...the [hippo's] mouth open and looking like a hall closet with curving, white tusks."

Capstick on being charged by an elephant in Ethiopia: "As the seconds ticked by, I wondered vaguely to myself what in the world I was doing here, freezing, dying of thirst, and about to be stomped into furry pink Jell-O in a land that was already hoary with history before King Solomon and his Merry Band pried their first diamond from her rugged surface...."

Capstick on confronting Africa's deadliest snake: "The checklist for the black mamba is about as cheery as the 'Things to Do Today' memo pad of a Gestapo colonel.... The mouth contains shortish hypodermic fangs, packing enough venom to kill most of a good-sized cocktail party...."(My all time favorite Capstick line)

Often Capstick's imagery achieves effects other than what he intends, as in this description of an idyllic Yucatan duck hunt: "Ducks were everywhere, trading in clouds around and between the three ponds we were shooting, thicker than houseflies during an August garbage strike." Sometimes the writing is just plain silly. Take his account of having his foot bitten by a supposedly dead jaguar in Brazil: "I untied the bitten-through lace, listening to guariba monkeys shrilling through shaded emerald jungle as green and damp as my mildewed underwear, the whole forest of Xingu a verdant poussecafe of vegetation layered by sun and storm.... Possibly because he didn't like the taste of Neolite, to my infinite relief after a couple of thoughtful chews he accepted a better offer in a nearby patch of bush with the visibility of a pot of fettucine Alfredo verdi [sic]."

Capstick and his hunting buddies never just load their rifles; they "insert" pairs of "brass panatellas" or "frankfurter-sized cartridges." Here's one client arming a double-barreled Jeffery Express: "Quietly, Antonio chambered a pair of the four-and-a-half-inch .475s, like dropping a couple of bananas down a drainpipe." Clearly, Capstick enjoys eating, drinking and smoking as much as he does hunting. (No doubt!)

Yet the impact of these verbal pyrotechnics is refreshingly surrealistic�the narrative equivalent of a collaboration between Bosch and Dali. However, on the bedrock levels of African natural history, tribal sociology and appropriate sporting weapons, Capstick is dead accurate. He also can write action as cleanly and suspensefully as the best of his predecessors, and with far more intentional humor. He is certainly never boring.

Perhaps a whirlwind of mixed metaphors is the most effective way to convey the excitement and contradictions of contemporary Africa.

And that right there, is why he is my favorite outdoor writer.

Are you saying that Capstick was never a PH in Africa?

Capstick is wonderfully entertaining,a joy to read.

Capstick turned me on to Africa. After reading his stuff I got into Corbett, Hunter, Neumann, and Roosevelt. Still it was Capstick that lit the fire and I have a hard time swallowing that he was never a PH at all.

I actually have loaded some of the old nosler solid bases backwards and shot them. They shot fine and penetrated big oak stumps like crazy.

He was,

He was in both Africa and South America. He never said he did did it for a long time or was great, but he did do some. Griz saw him get started:

his story on hunting water buffalo on Maraj� Island at the mouth of the Amazon is a good read and where the photo of him thats on the jacket of most his books where he looks like chit from a rough days hunting was taken....reading a book now bout another guy that did buffalo hunts there aswell...."hell on earth" is a good description of the place in the wet season...

I believe that Capstick made up some stories for the sake of fun and wowing readers. The .270 bullet turned backwards by the guys teeth to shoot the elephant was one and the baboon shooting in Vlackfontein with the full auto Mak-10 being another example. However I don't believe the man was a fraud as many of his stories just weren't that sensational. I've found JA Hunters stories to be more sensational than most of Capstick's and I'm not in any way calling John Hunter a fraud.

Capstick was a PH working for Geoff Broom. Some of his tales were actually things that Geoff Broom did. I was told this by a PH who knew both of them.

He was a PH and had his own hunting block until they pulled him out of it for having too many wounded lions running around in it. Bob Langefeld was the Chief Cropping Officer in Zambia at the time and I'm pretty sure he didn't know who Capstick was. Serving as a cropping officer was a fast track path to PH however. On the other hand if you had connections, you could get a job as a PH pretty easy then.

I never heard about previous service in Rhodesia as he was still talking about gauchos when I knew him. He had Fifth Avenue (or more likely Park Avenue) social connections to the short-lived Winchester Hunting Adventures (or whatever it was called) and that got the door opened for him. To his credit he did take advantage of the opportunity, although I think his mother wanted him out of town anyway.

And his best tracker/gun bearer was one we loaned him when he was moved to our block as his guys didn't know diddly. I don't remember meeting anyone named "Silent" and always assumed he was a convenient fiction but perhaps not.

BTW, and I think I mentioned this before, the reverse seated bullet story was heavily "borrowed" from a story in True or Argosy magazine (or some such) that he would have read as a callow youth. He was quite a reader and knew lots of stories.

He was a fun guy to be in camp with. In the bush, not so much.

actually i dont think he got the story out of a magazine....as i said ive read the story somewhere else before within the last year and i havent read any of Capsticks stuff in that period.....thinking i read it in either on of JA Hunter's books or in one of John Burger's books(i have 3 from each and not sure which book it would be in).....but ive also read a half dozen other African authors and a couple of Asian in this time....though now that i think about it i have a magazine from the 50's that has a couple of Hunters stories in it so maybe the same story appeared in both his book and in "Safari" magazine....

I know he got it from an old magazine because I read the same magazine story when I was a callow youth and he followed the story nearly exactly.

ill have to look tonight, i only have 4 of them and only one has a couple of stories from Hunter...and all this ofcourse still means while i may have read it in a book, the same story coulda made it to a magazine.....i just know ive read it in a book that was prolly out long before Capstick ever went to Africa.....

and ofcourse none of this means the story isnt true, just means Capstick regurgitated it.....flip some of thos soft points around and they do look more or less like a cross section of some of the old solids ive seen.....dont see why it couldnt work...

Griz,would it be indelicate to ask your name by PM? I'm fascinated by your background sir. jorge

Griz,

As I recall (hopefully correctly) Silent worked for Geoff Broom, and Capsitck came to Broom to PH as Broom looked to open a hunting business on his vast land in northern Rhodesia. Peter's bush skills were minimal, so Broom paired PHC with the veteran Silent to teach him bushcraft and keep him from getting "the chop", as Peter would say.

PHC took Silent with with him to Zambia for a season or two and paid him out of his own pocket to be his tracker. This would be somewhere in the years 1969-72. You might could narrow that down.

In one of his later books, maybe Peter Capstick's Africa: A Return to the Long Grass, he tells of searching for Silent, only to find him departed but did reunite with his brother Stomach.

I can remember reading about the .270 turned backwards, but I do not remember where I read it. I thought it was in one of his books, but apparently not.

IIRC, and I wouldn't bet money on it, but I think this incident happened in the Sudan. Capstick and some hunters, or else either business men went to the Sudan to scout to see if it was worth trying to get licensed to open up a hunting business in this country. I do not remember how much game they spotted, but I remember they did find some elephants.

Also, IIRC, they pulled the bullets from the .270 cartridges by sticking the bullet into the muzzle and bending on it until the bullets were loose enough to pull out.

It might not have been the Sudan. Ethiopia also comes to mind, but it could have been one of the other countries where there was very little, if any, hunting.

1234567
That is the Capstick version. I read it recently in "Sporting Classics."

rattler
I first read the story as a work of fiction. I'm sure it has come in other forms, some may have really happened. I don't recall Hunter telling a story like that but that doesn't mean he didn't. I had a favorite great uncle who was a conductor for the AT&SF and after the passengers departed, he gathered up all the discarded "men's magazines" (back when that didn't mean what it does now) and brought them to me occasionally. I read a lot as a kid.

hatari
I really don't remember Peter having any particular "boy" (not intended as racist) but he took our tracker named Petey and made him his #1 while I was there. As a badge of sorts he gave Petey, who was a very small, but tough little guy, a bandolier loaded down with over 60 rounds of .375 to carry every day. (I actually think it was 75 or 80 rounds but that seems hard to believe even now.) Petey wasn't too happy.
Maybe there is a good reason I wouldn't notice someone named Silent. Oh, and Peter made his debut in Luangwa in 1969.

Jorge
Sure, but you won't know me. I'm just someone who was in some interesting places at some interesting times and enjoyed every minute of it. I'll be in touch.

ive "discovered" some of those mens magazines recently:

Wow. Wish my uncle would have picked some of those up. What are the dates on them?

Aug 55, Oct 56, Dec 56 and Jan 57......i picked all these off ebay cause they looked interesting....

A general comment:

It's always interesting to find out how many people believe Capstick was the ultimate African safari author--which, of course, explains why his books sold so well. Some people, however, prefer fewer flamboyant modifiers and more reality.

This doesn't mean PHC didn't deserve to sell so many books. He did, and most (but not all) professional writers try to appeal to as wide an audience as possible. That doesn't mean, however however, that effective writing means lighting up every paragraph with prose as multi-colored as a deep bruise.

Good snag, as they say.

a side effect of him selling well is he was able to convince a publisher to reprint a number of the books from the "real guys" putting the books in the hands of guys like me....i have a copy of Owen Lecher's "Biggame Hunting in Northeastern Rhodesia" that i paid less than $20 for the "Capstick Library" version.....originals go for 10 times that...and with the exception of Roosevelts and Pattersons book most of them hadnt seen more than one printing...some of them a very limited first run...

hell of a thing for him to put his weight against the effort to bring back some of the "lost classics" that otherwise woulda mostly faded into history and book collector collections instead of into the hands of the average guy.....

while Capstick is my favorite author, plenty of other guys are very good writers....John Taylor, J.A. Hunter and John Burger are fine writers aswell....more recently Craig Boddington's books are much better than his writing in magazine articles where he is likely under time constraints and word limits, John Brandt is a pretty good writer aswell though he is mostly an Asian hunter as far as his books, i understand he is far more diverse in his articles in various magazines i havent gotten ahold of....and any number of guys past and present are more than good enough writers that your not struggling through the book....

It was in Ethiopia and he pulled the bullet with his teeth! Is it even possible to pull a .270 bullet with ones teeth?

I have a couple magazines that look just like that but were written by Wally Taber.

I see you are getting into the spirit of the discussion.

Now if this deep bruise was inflicted by a malevolent mass of anthracite black muscle and horn charging as if launched from a Trident submarine, then we have it!

I went back and checked to see what Geoff Broom had to say about PHC.

Peter sent Broom a letter in 1974 telling that he had written a few articles for outdoors magazines, and describing his desire to become an African PH to gain experience to write stories about Africa. He also mentioned that he was fluent in Spanish.

Rhodesia, with sanctions at the time had no US clients, but were getting Spanish clients, so Broom hired Peter to hunt his land in Matetsi. Broom relates that Peter's skills were minimal upon arrival, but in the end "Peter became quite proficient at judging trophies as well as tracking." "Within a month, I was able to get Peter a professional Hunter's license, and he was quickly immersed in taking Spanish clients on ... safaris".

"....it was during this period that he began to achieve enormous success marketing his wonderful stories to the American hunting magazines - and a fair number of the stories had their origins at Matetsi.."

So their you go. He was a licensed PH, he did take out clients, and he did tell a good story.

i have one of Wally's around here aswell....after he would get back from his trips he would travel and give talks on them and sell the magazines and books at the talks....he put a number of them out but i just have one...

Well the 1974 date is strange, not that it matters. Maybe he didn't mention the experience with Luangwa in 1969 on purpose. I can think of a few reasons. He did speak Spanish from his Argentine experience but Tony Sanchez was doing most of the Spanish clients for Luangwa and they did do quite a few of them, due in no small part to Tony himself. Peter's clients when I was there were Italian, and not what I would call comfortable speaking English.
I didn't know anyone ever questioned the part of your quote I put in color.

That said, he was and remains-by far, my favorite African author and the reason I'm even here typing this and Africa remains my passion. As an aside, my family even had a direct connection to Hemingway,my grandparents had their summer home in Cojimar, where Hemingway was a regular. I must say I'm not a fan and his latest book, published years after his death, True At First Light was about the worst book I ever read, worse than even a NATOPS manual!

I thought parts of "True at First Light" were pretty good. Those were probably the parts old Ernest wrote himself.

That part of the quote was directed to others who insist PHC was never a PH. I definitely never question your accounts, and have taken them as a facinating addition to the experince I had with Peter (albeit limited) and his accounts through his writings. Don't take any of it as directed specifically/only your way. If you read back through the pack, there are some common misconceptions about Peter that come up.

1.) He was never a PH and only retold accounts of others. We see he most definitely was a PH, even if for a limited time. Geoff Broom acknowleges that for certain some of his stories were in fact his own experiences,

2.) He was the be all end all PH in his own mind. Nothing could be further from the truth. He loved Africa and considered himself very fortunate for the limited opportunity that came his way. He never claimed to be Phillip Percival, just an American who got a chance to live out a dream.

Many readers falsely draw those conclusions, and for historical accuracy, I think others should know.

You have some great stories about him that you've shared, and I have no doubt that they are consistent with the character I knew. I can see him high centering a vehicle, he was, after all, a city boy.

Griz - always enjoy your posts, and wish you'd do more in this forum. Always good stuff.

I must agree. I was incredibly disappointed. I prefer Something of Value and Uhuru to cover Kenya in the Mau Mua period.

Many years ago I went through the Safari Club International record book for Africa and there are several listings of Capstick as the PH for record book entries. That should put any doubts about his being a 'real' PH to rest.

If any of you guys would like to read something very different to anything mentioned here, see if you can hold of either Tales of a Rat-hunting man or Adventures of an Artisan Hunter, both by Brian Plummer.

Plummer was an excellent writer, a true break-the-mold eccentric, and in someways a British PHC in that he suffered many of the same accusations.

I won't say too much about the books except they are the polar opposite of African hunting, but they are exceptionally well written, and a very absorbing read.

I mention these books as they, along with "Death in the Long Grass" hooked me on hunting a teenager..

Regards,

Peter

As previously mentioned he died more than 10 years ago....but his wife, Feona, took up the art aqnd some of her writings aren't all that bad.

So, when will we see a biography of Capstick? The "truth" would be sure to be controversial; but, also certain to be a big seller.

I think you got most of it here.

About all we didn't cover was:

Education - U. of Va

Occupations - Worked in Wall Street financial for period (probably through family connections). Professional Hunter in Central and South America as well as Africa. He did do a stint as bartender/manager at one of the hotels at Vic Falls in his early Africa years as he bummed around trying to catch on in the Safari trade. He is noted as a writer, but relished the title of raconteur or storyteller, which he admitted to me was what he was and not Hemingway.

Brother - Tom was a salt water fisherman of note

Wives - Mary Katherine Capstick, Fiona Claire Capstick

Residence - Naples, Fla when I first met him in the '80's, moved to RSA in the late '80's, where he met and married Fiona. Pretoria, I believe.

First PH work was in Central and South America - spawned his writing bug. He published articles on hunting and fishing in such magazines as Argosy.

Africa - his work with guiding for jaguar got him some work in Zambia about 1969. Returned to Africa '74 -'75.

Writer - had a difficult time selling his first book. No market for safari stories in the 1970's. Found a sympathetic editor at St. Martin's press to buy it in 1977. Serialized in bits and pieces in the NRA publication American Hunter the following year, it became a hit and is considered a classic of the genre. Death in the Long Grass was a collection of mostly personal anecdotes and experiences. Subsequent books like Death in the Silent Places, Death in the Dark Continent, and Safari, the Last Adventure found PHC drawing more on stories of others as he needed material. I found that when the stories where of others, he credited them.

Lack of personal material by the mid 1980's found him editing re-publications of various safari classics and like many writers, search for his next subject. 1986 found him back in Africa on Safari with PH Gordon Cundill working on what became Peter Capstick's Africa: A Return To The Long Grass.

A collaboration with Ken Wilson of Sportsmen on Film produced the videos that seemed to take the mystique right out of him for many readers. I knew him before the first video was produced, so I for one was surprised that so many had held him up as superman and were disappoint that he was an ordinary guy and not the almighty Bwana Don.

Drinker - yes, but in the old days at SCI every booth had a bottle of JB Scotch and soda water ready to go. The PH's were out of the bush and away from home. Quite a few of us were young and having a good time.
The old MGM in Reno had a long bar right adjacent to the gaming floor. The PH's would all meet at the bar after the show closed at 5 and knock a few back. I can't tell you how many times a PH would reach over the railing standing at the bar a plop some cash down on the roulette wheel and go back to the conversation only to have the winnings passed back. I shared a few cocktails with him as we sat in the Derrydale Press booth a few years. I can't say I ever saw him hammered or ridiculous.
Death - Peter had a bad heart and I believe was fighting some diabetes by the mid '90's. He was a keynote speaker at SCI in January '96, and was hospitalized the Saturday night of the show with heart problems. He flew back to RSA and had heart procedure done, but died of complications that March.


Disclaimer: I rattled all of this off from memory without checking it for absolute accuracy. If I miss handled some details, sorry, or as Ingwe would say GFY!

hatari, thats pretty much my understanding, but i got most of that reading his books.....surprises me that some think he is the "almighty Bwana Don" cause if you actually read his books and pay attention you get that he doesnt consider himself as such.....i have 3 of his videos with Ken Wilson(Rhino, Elephant, and Botswana) and he comes across on screen pretty much what expected after reading his books....Ken Wilson's book also has some pretty good insight on Capstick as it includes some personal correspondence between them and its pretty obvious atleast among friends that he didnt take himself to seriously....

Spot on Jeff, at least as I see it. j

Many people seem to accuse Capstick of taking credit for events that actually happened to others. However from what I remember of his books, while he does recount a lot of different incidents, if they happened to somebody else, he flat out says so..In some ways, I am surprised he's not accused of name dropping!

I never got the impression he considered himself the greatest PH either, as you suggest, just a guy who was lucky and did his best....

"Capstick, what's his problem?"

... he's dead and can't defend himself against critics. I liked the guy and the books he wrote.

Bill Quimby

That should just about settle it. For those who don't know, Bill has penned a few safari books himself.

Amen. I have not read the whole thread, but I have puzzled as to why this thread had such legs considering that the author is deceased for many years. Who cares if he had attitude? Hemingway had attitude. Who cares? You like him, or you don't. End of story.

excellent response!!!

Guys,

Just came across this thread and thought I'd add my two-cents in. I knew Peter as a friend and a colleague writer - not that I put myself in the same league as PHC, only that I was writing in the same general field. He was a wonderful guy to be around, a never-a-dull-moment type. Geoff Broom, a long old friend of mine, told me that Peter was an adequate PH. Still, while I would have loved to spend time in the same camp as PHC on safari, I think I would have probably preferred another as my PH, particularly if buffalo were on the menu.

For toltecgriz, Bob Langfeld certainly did know Peter. Bob and I had a number of conversations on the subject and he told me of a few of his experiences when PHC was trying to become a control officer. PM me and I'll relate one to you that you might enjoy. Bob also told me that everything that Peter wrote in his books actually happened. He qualified the statement by stating that it might not have happened exactly how Peter described it, or to whom, but generally so.

Peter was what he was. He was a totally delightful guy to be around, a tremendously gifted scribe, an experienced hunter, both privately and professionally, and he probably did more to resurrect the safari industry in Africa than all the rest of the writers combined.

Above all, he was a friend, and I will cherish that friendship forever.
TT

Friend Tom,

Perfectly said.

Pete was a great guy and totally fun to be around. I wish that we could all write in a style that entertained so thoroughly.

My Best,

Steve

Steve,

I believe the good Lord broke the mold after spawning PHC.

TT

Thanks for this Tom. It verifies what a lot of us said and believed about PHC. jorge

Capstick is one of those subjects that will ALWAYS evoke a ton of emotion and opinions both positive and negative. I personally love his style and his stories as long as they are first person narrative. His biographies on other people were difficult for me to get through.

You want to push buttons, on an "other" hunting forum, just type these four things and you will see threads that run for days. Push feed, Mark Sullivan, 45-70's and Peter Capstick.

I started a thread about 4 years ago over there called "Capstick was a Fraud" it ran for about two months, it still comes to the surface every now and then even today. For gods sake, I received near death threats for it. And I love they guy.

Some folks just can't get the humor.

Steve

Jorge,

Peter was, as I said, what he was. What you saw was what you got. He was a fun loving guy that really enjoyed pulling ones chain every so often. If he was full of himself, I never saw it. I can't imagine a more enjoyable guy to be in hunting camp with. Yes, he enjoyed a bit of the "dew" of Scotland every so often, or whatever he drank. But then, so do I and I'm suspicious of those who don't.

TT

Well, Bob was around but I was there when some of the incidents alleged to have happened in Death in the Long Grass didn't happen. Not that that means he was a bad guy. I liked him

I am not old enough to have been on the ground back in those days. I do however have lots of time on the ground in the Luangwa Valley. An old hand in Zambia named Abie duPlooy, one of the real pioneers of the game, had Wally Johnson and PHC in camp once. They were filming some movie. He told myself and other there first hand how completely full os [bleep] PHC was.

I've often wondered why with all his writings and experience, why there are virtually no trophy photo's with him and clients together in pictures.

Steve

Legendary Zambian PH Abie DuPlooy, whom I've hunted with, and who has spent most of his career in the Luangwa Valley where Crapstick (Abie's name for him) supposedly hunted, told me personally that Crapstick was full of [bleep] and the stuff with Langefeld, like cropping buff at night with flares, never happened. According to Abie, Crapstick sat in the Cruiser with a notebook and a bottle of Scotch making up stories while Bob and Abie cropped the buffalo herd during the day which is when cropping takes place. Abie was good friends with Langefeld and said that when Peter showed back up in Zambia many years ago he and Bob were standing together at the airstrip when Peter got off the plane with a cameraman to film the scene and Peter grabbed one of Bob's boys and said "Oh Silent, so good to see you again after all these years" and Bob's boy was like WTF? Silent and Invisible were as phony as Peter's PH's licence.

Crapstick was a good writer but a complete fraud as far as his hunting experience. He never even held a PH's licence in any African country and supposedly did hunt for the Brooms for a short time as an appy but was canned after a short time for having clients shoot cow buff because he couldn't pick bulls out of a herd hence why he was only an "adequate PH." I like his books but take with with a huge dose of salt.

That's little harsh.

Among other things, a lot of buffalo were cropped at night but not by Langefeld, as far as I know. The government sent out machine gun bearing jeeps with spotlights, surrounded the herd and took the whole bunch out. Then the heavy trucks rolled in, loaded the carcasses and left so that when the tourists visited the scene the next day (this was in the national park, btw) there was just blood soaked earth that they drove right past.

This was a continuing profit making venture carried out regularly at the direction of Kenneth Kuanda (or whatever the president's name was) and he made a lot of money selling the meat in Lusaka. He did the same thing to a few native villages who objected to the way he did things.

Funny that the illegal activities of the post-colonial thugs who served as Presidents in many African countries never got reported, just as Mugabe skates by today.

Abie du Plooy is a friend of mine. I've stayed at his home in Mazabuka and saw him last less than a year ago. He is one of the great "characters" that make African hunting what it is.

To quote Abie on PHC:

"Capstick? He's a bloody bartender! (But he writes a hell of a good story)."

I also know that Abie is wrong about some of the facts about PHC he freely spouts from time to time.


Bill Quimby should write a book about Abie. Get a dozen of us who know him well (especially his brother) and tape the stories. If Abie's story could be written in a humorous style (because you just must laugh at it all), it would be a safari classic.

Hi Hatari,I too have been within the walls of the house upon the hill. He is in fact one of the more colorful characters in Africa, It's hunting and all the lore that goes with it. I have written a book, waiting for publishing, Abie has his own chapter. Including the "Lisbon Lion Charge"

can you enlighten us a bit as to where Abie was wrong?

Abie is one of the crudest and most profane characters I have ever met and also one of the funniest but definitely not G rated.

And we're supposed to trust his word on Capstick?

Hi Mike,
I really don't see how one relates to the other. I know many people whom do not cuss but I would not trust a word they say. Abie is just "Colorful" and leaves very little to the imagination in his descriptions.

He is BTW, probably the single most successful PH in the entire history of Zambian hunting. He has his name in the "Zambian top 40" more than any man alive, dead or otherwise.

Well he might be the most trustworthy guy in Africa. I don't know him from Adam. He just sounds a bit eccentric by what I'm hearing. You know, maybe the kind of guy that bashes others to make himself look better or is envious of their success or just for shock value for that matter.

As soon as your book comes out, I'm all over it.

As far as Abie is concerned, PHC never held a PH license anywhere and never worked for the Zambian Parks and Game Dept, yet Russ Broom did help get him licensed as a PH in Rhodesia and I have seen PHC old Parks and Game credentials. Forgive me if that branch of the Govt. has a different title, but in any event, Abie says he didn't and the Gov't says he did. He is correct about Peter managing a bar at one of the Vic Falls hotels for a spell.

There are plenty of other things that Abie has been wrong about, especially after a drink or 6, but I've never seen him wrong about anything in the bush. He is a damned fine PH, and absolutely a riot to be around. He is a walking dichotomy - half kind and gentle soul and half alcohol fueled volcano. He is the stuff of legends that people will talk about 50 years after he is gone.

(BTW - I'm booked with his brother Johnny for this summer, but am currently getting screwed by the Zambian government.)

My money's with T2 on this...and Hatari..

Hatari,
Johnny still can hunt Tondwa if you haven't shot your sitatunga. They still have that concession till I believe 2015. I've been there twice.

And Jorge,
I will not be drawn into a AR pissing match. This thread has stayed a cordial discussion.

Would you be willing to trade an old buddy a signed copy for an antelope hunt?

Hey there Lee, That my friend would be an outstanding trade. You doing Reno?

I have NO intention of drawing you or anybody else into a pissing match. Suffice to say, Tom and Jeff have impeccable reputations here and with me and that about covers it. Cordial? I think you better go back and read what some have posted.

Jorge,

I was referring to what I had posted.

Steve

Not this year; I had too much going at work to plan ahead. I'll email you tomorrow and let you know where I am putting in for antelope this year.

In AZ? you need to put in in Wy.?

In WY.

Thought it was OTC. Email me the info plz.

Nice to hear from you Lee.

Steve

Internet forums crack me up. Ant farms have always been entertaining. The idea of social media was floated back in the day in the Fatherland but the Fuhrer shot it down as he felt face to face interactions were far more productive and always more polite. That and the fact he was worried people would spend too much time behind a computer compiling thousands of posts in order to gain credibility and not enough interacting with real people. He was always very perceptive and usually spot on when it came to human nature.

I have an sneeking suspision that Chipolopolo might be an old friend of mine pulling my leg. Chip - you not from the Boston area, are you?

Or maybe not. I didn't see this post signed Steve. Thought you might be my buddy Tom Hunt.

Yeah he was real perceptive when it came to human nature. Great, the Fuhrer was the first Dr Phil..

Are you a personal fan of the Fuhrer?

No. It was a joke, take a look at my avatar.

Are you kidding me, What ever happened to a sense of humor? This is the kind of thing that is so pervasive on internet forum's. I figured this place might be different from others. So a guy has a name and an avatar that was based on a TV show, that make monkeys out of the Krauts in WW2 and you fail to see the humor?

I think it's damned funny.

I wish the mods would lock this thread. I keep checking the newest updates for more on Capstick and I just see this bickering. It seems all the info on Capstick has been put on the table.

Major Hochstetter had a better sense of humor than some of the tightasses posting on this thread and the Gestapo were never known for their sense of levity, the Kriegsmarine were always much more jovial.

Because some of us do not find any mirth in that particular subject.

Internet/computors in the 30's-40's....what planet do you play on?

Your diaper needs changing, I can smell you from here. Once your nappy is changed maybe you can go and look for a sense of humor.

The personal arguments aside, this thread has been a great read for me. I first read "Death in the Long Grass" when I was about ten years old, and have read all Capstick's work save the autobiograpical stuff. About the same time I saw "In the Blood."

Charlatan or not, I loved reading him and remember the news clip in either Peterson's Hunting or NRA American Hunter that told of his death. I had understood he died on the table as a complication from surgery.

What you can smell is emanating from your own cakehole.

"Some of us" you mean, those of us with copious post counts? I just don't get it. Hogan's Hero's was a classic. I guess you didn't laugh at Gilligan's Island either? Life should be fun, laugh at those things that are meant to amuse. An African hunting forum is no place to take yourself this serious. I hope to get to Africa someday, I will make the very best of it, and enjoy every minute of every day. I came here to learn, look and laugh. Lets keep if fun

Steve

No, I mean some of us that had close family killed and otherwise during the second world war.

I guess you're probably not a fan of McHale's Navy or M*A*S*H (people got killed in Korea, too) then either. Or you could be offended by police comedies like Barney Miller or Police Squad because cops get killed all the time. You could also be offended by parodies like "Airplane" because a lot of people die in plane crashes. Grow a thicker skin, I'm sick of everyone today being "offended" by this or that.

Also, the actors who portrayed Col. Klink, Sgt. Schultz, Major Hochstetter, and Gen. Burckhalter were all Jewish and they weren't offended in any way by "Hogan's Heroes" so you look pretty stupid whining about being offended.

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Yes, you are a complete twat...good-bye.

That's all you have? I expected more.

You guys are going fight-to-the-ignore-function about 'Hogan's Hero's' in a thread about Peter Capstick? Seriously?

Invasion of the Troll Snatchers, ought to be a movie....

I prefer the episodes that have Col. Crittenden in them.

You know, if Peter Capstick were still alive, he'd only be 73.

Sitting in front of the computer all the day long, trading insults with internet trolls, one supposes.

Do you go by canerat over on AR?

I could have sworn you've stated and on numerous occassions that you HAVE been to Africa.

Sure he has. Said he's been to Abie's house. It is, indeed, up a hill, at least from where his parent's house is. So that must be a misprint?

Wait a minute. Just for one post further up, Chipopolo took over from Col Klink in an exchange with JStuart, and then Col Klink took over again.

That was weird.

Hatari,

I have in fact. Actually 32 times. I did that just to see who's paying attention. This thread is indicitive of what I find distasteful about forums in general. Here, on a computer screen, we make judgements about people we don't and perhaps never will know. It is an African hunting forum but I see very little African hunting discussed here.

I have always found solice in my time in Africa. I, at first, made an attempt to help people on these forums learn through my particular experience. It was an effort to help people not recreate the same mistakes in time and money that I have. Problem is, "most", not all base people on forums on post count rather than real life experience, on the ground. I could go on and on about what I've done and killed over there, but why. Lets just say that I'm pretty well done. (without shooting duplicates) I don't need to inflate my ego or get stroked.

If I can be of help, fantastic, if not, just ignore my mischevious ways. Levity is a way of life for me.

I got into a bunch of pissing match's on "other forums" I don't wish for that to happen here. Some of the names are pretty similar to names here. If my presence here has somehow irritated some, Just ask and I will vanish just as quickly as I came. Internet forums are not that important to me, I just want to help other perhaps enjoy some of the same sunsets I have.

Regards,

Steve.....off to Reno in 30 minutes

Not going to make it to Reno this year. Going someplace warm and tropical instead.
Post a report and photos of the show!

Chipolo and Col. Klink are friends. Both have been regulars on AR for quite some time, and have both hunted Africa a time or two.

Such good friends, they can finish each others' sentences.

We are a package deal, so to speak. FOsteology is correct, we are old friends who have hunted Africa.

So then, some friendly advise to make your visits to the African forum productive and fun:

- there are experienced hunters here that come to the African forum looking for info for their 1st African trip. These are the guys and gals who deserve the benefit of you experience. They don't deserve to be verbally skewered, unless they are trolling.

- We have had some mega trolls here over the years, Expect to be challenged until you are known. Best way is to post photos along with a write. I was challenged and blasted so badly here early, I nearly told the whole bunch to FOAD. After proving my worth, not only have I been accepted, two of the biggest a-holes that blasted me are now regular hunting pards. Who'd figure?

- sarcasm is used liberally, usually amongst those familiar with each other. You don't know me well enough yet to call me an a-hole, but there is hope for the future.

- FOst speaks up for you two, and he has good cred in my book. Welcome, and drop some of the defensiveness. You might find a home. Things are cyclical on the African forum.

A package deal of what Andy, stirring the pot? I know you guys from over on AR (you under various names over there but let's skip that shall we?) and you ideed have well proven African experience (unlike me with just three trips but many posts which I guess your tag team buddy takes umbrage with). Hatari on the other hand, has multiple trips, is a personal friend and along with Tom, have impeccable credibility with me and on the topic at hand,(Capstick, not some BS TV show)I believe them. So let's dial this back shall we? Your call or do you need to confer before replying?

We're cool Jorge.

Why the hostility towards me? I don't believe I have ever attacked you or been disrespectful towards you and have even traded with you in the past and always liked you. As far as AR, well Saeed and his posse of uptight sandal-lickers are a different story.

Chip doesn't take umbrage or look down on your African experience and I had told him previously that I thought you were a good guy. I think what he may have been getting at is that on many of these forums there are people with little experience at anything but high post counts (he wasn't referring to you or your experience but rather making a point in general) who tout themselves as forum big dogs and disparage posters with low post counts regardless of what experience they may have. That said, I doubt any of us will run into anyone with more African experience than Chip has he just doesn't take himself quite so seriously as most of the old African hands on AR do themselves (and me even less so.) If either of us were disc jockeys we would be more Howard Stern than Dick Clark.

Capstick......I knew him a bit way back in the late 80s - early 90s (I had written to him and then first met him when he invited me to come see him on a book tour he did for Abercrombie and Fitch before they were a kid's clothing line and then kept in touch with him) and also his editor at the time at St. Martins a guy named Lincoln Child who went on to write "Relic" which was made into a horror movie. Capstick wrote some good books but I don't understand the worship some people have for him and the offense taken when it is pointed out he took a certain "literary license" in his writing. I'm a fan, I even gave Chip a signed book as a gift that Peter gave me, but I see the guy for what he was, a good writer who took a lot of other people's stories and made them his own which is why I think most of the stuff after the "Death in the..." books wasn't very good as he had ran out of tales.

BTW, did you or anyone else ever get any sort of resolution with Greg Hein? Any news of his whereabouts? I haven't heard anything about him a long while. I owned one of the Greg's rifles and it was unsafe and would drop the firing pin when I closed the bolt and required costly repairs by a competent gunsmith. I don't believe that fraud ever learned to program his CNC mill and never machined a single action. I think he assembled some actions that Peter had made and were part of the deal when he bought the tooling and designs.

Sorry, but as the saying goes, perception is reality and you guys came across with just one mission in mind. Many of the guys who've posted on this thread DO have extensive African experience AND high post counts and some, like me, have limited African experience and my post count is high, because the bulk of mine are over on the Campfire Forum. Anyhow, hopefully all that's behind us. As to Capstick, I'll say it again, I believe Hatari and Tom Turpin and he indeed was a licensed PH and leave it at that.

On Hein, myself and another member over on AR are making progress is recovering our losses with that POS or at least maybe .66 on the dollar.

Not Africa, but I recall Capstick telling the story of a wild Boar hunt in South America - the traditional type where the dogs catch the boar and you stab it with a big knife. According to the story, the dogs caught the boar, and Capstick grabbed the boar's tail, but was then too terrified to actually stab the boar, so he just held on to the tail. The boar finally had enough and broke free of the dogs. Capstick collects himself, looks around, and sees his guides laughing hysterically. Later, when the boar was finally killed, they gave him the tail as his trophy.

The other story he told in one of his later books was in Florida, he had somehow obtained a fully-automatic BB gun, which was powered by the then-readily-available freon canisters. He then relates a fantasy where he's a machine gunner in WWI, shooting at German biplanes - except what he's really shooting is the BB gun, at dragonflies in his backyard. He switches between fantasy and and reality a couple of times, and left me with my ribs hurting from laughing so hard.

Perhaps, but one can only read so many Saeed hero-worship threads and Happy Ramadan threads from AR sycophants without stirring the pot a bit to take some of the piss out of that crowd of self-righteous, uptight windbags.

Good luck getting your money back from Greg.

Truer words have never been spoken!!!