If he is sending people PM's then he must still be online so I trust you are reading this Tonk. Because I have not received an answer I have to make deductions and tell you how it worked in those days.
A few things before we start and I hope Rick will induldge me some liberty: I used to hunt for Peter Harris for about 6 years before going on my own and thats where I met JJ. The PH mentioned whom he hunted with is where we did most of our hunting in those days. There were several portions of that property that could be hunted, including the surrounding area. Get a beer as this may take a while.
If Tonk was shooting fish in a barrel he must have been some place else as it just did not happen over there. Most of the top section was overgrown with raisen bush at about shoulder height limiting shots to about 20 yards unless an animal was standing in the road or was hunted from one of the many blinds. Then the portion of Springfield Top, or Bottom. Top section extremely dense, bottom section more open with reeds that yielded good hogs. What I am saying here is that hunting was very difficult on those properties.
Some interesting statements by Tonk (and I am not going to quote them all) are that:
1. he hunted/shot 33 animals + 2. An average SA hunt is 10 days making it an average of 3,5 animals per day. Traveling time to the hunting area, hunting and returning for brunch, resting up and leaving for the hunting area again. Add to that loading time, Kodak time and skinning shed time I find it hard to believe that one can average 3,5 animals per day, including the 3 days/nights spent leopard hunting (in that specific region).
2. however, the hunting packages that were marketed then was 4 days up North with 4 hours traveling time there on day 1, 3 full days hunting, then half a day hunting with 4 hours traveling time back to Pretoria. Spend the night in Pretoria, travel 4 hours to the Free State, hunt half a day and then two full days heading back to Pretoria on the morning of the fourth day. The rest of the time was spent in Pretoria looking at the sights. Add all of this and there was only 7 full days hunting. The math changes a bit from this point onward: 4,7 animals per day�oh, and I forgot about the 3 days/nights leopard hunting.
3. Peter Harris may be many things but I have never found him to be a fool (he has a PhD) so no-one will go leopard hunting without a CITES tag. He has too much to loose and it was probably just to get someone out of camp to have him sit in a leopard blind where he has to shut up.
4. He says 58 animals were hunted in total with a value of about $ 80 000. That averages to about $ 2 424 per animal and seeing nobody said anything about the Big 5 I would have loved to have been the outfitter for that hunt! As a comparison, impala were $350 in those days, gemsbok were $950 and kudu about $1 650. There were no huntable nyala in the whole of that vicinity that went for sub $ 2 000 anyway. Now, if I was selling a $350 impala for $ 2 424 I would still be smiling.
5. In those early days email was most unreliable way out on those properties so I find it amusing that Saeed would boast on his website every night about how many animals were hunted per day. If Saeed had wireless then I find that hilarious as there was no cell phone reception at that property in those days. My wife dreaded me going there because of the non-availability of communication.
6. On page 12 he says that "shooting animals was fun" (or words to that effect). May I never hunt with Tonk, or any other person who believes shooting animals is fun. We have fun around the fire at night. Killing has never been fun to me. I enjoy hunting, I enjoy outsmarting animals, I enjoy witnessing a magnificent shot but I never have fun killing anything.
7. I briefly met Saeed once when Harris asked me to do a Pretoria and surrounding area tour with him and his friends. It is but the second time that I have met anyone with so much respect for others (first time was a Supreme Court Judge from Ohklahoma) no matter who they were. I doubt severely Saeed will remember me at all but I learned a whole lot from the man in a couple days.
8. Next about JJ. I have known him for some time now and have come to realise that if he says good morning, I do not have to make sure if the sun is up. Not once, but every time he says: morning.
Tonk you have smeared these peoples names with ugly, dirty mud. That sir is unacceptable. What is even more unacceptable and completely out of line is for you to drag JJ�s personal life into a fight where he has always taken you on directly. So if you cannot win a decent debate you resort to personal attacks? I cannot say for sure if that has anythying to do with your mental (in)capacity or (in)stability, buy it sure says a whole lot about your character. A character I want nothing of.
Your offensive language is really bad, even for someone from Africa and all those who have been here will know what I�m talking about. We treat our staff with respect and get more out of them that way than with money.
On the Weatherby thread you say you know of no-one who uses their real name. I do.
You said to read the Bible to make sure about history. I am a practiscing Christian and never quote from the Bible, but thank you Tonk, I read the Good Book and it was refreshing. I found two parts that I hope will do me good for now, and in future:
a. Galatians 6:3 reads as follows (from the only English translation I have as I think you will not understand much Afrikaans): If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.
b. 1 Timothy 5:1 Do not rebuke an older man harshly, but exhort him as if he were your father. Treat younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity.
Please publish your full name so I can know who I never want to share my campfire with.
