Big Game Shooting, volume 1 (of 2)Phillipps-Wolley, Clive
General
Big Game Shooting, volume 1 (of 2)
Phillipps-Wolley, Clive
Game and game-birds; Hunting
bush, which looks a likely spot for a buffalo to lie down in, the
stalker may not be able to discover whether the beast is there or not,
and if it is there, he may be quite sure that the buffalo, as it is
standing or lying down in the shade, has a far better chance of seeing
him, as he stands more or less in the open, than he has of seeing it.
As the chances are so much against the stalker seeing the beast until
he gets within a few yards of it; as the difficulties of stopping it
should it charge are so great; and as, if it misses him in the first
charge, it will hunt him, I repeat, as a terrier does a rabbit, it
remains for the sportsman, however keen he may be, to consider whether
these risks are worth running, even on the chance of being rewarded
by an exceptionally fine trophy. In any case he should not attempt to
follow up a buffalo unless he is properly armed with a heavy rifle.
Again, such sport is unsatisfactory, because in thick covert the wind
is very changeable, and is apt to chop round when least expected. Such
a change in the wind, even though quite imperceptible to the stalker,
is quite enough to reveal his presence to the buffaloes, and away they
will crash without giving him a chance, just at the critical moment
when he is close up and expecting to see one of them at any moment. As
a buffalo is a very difficult beast to see when standing or lying in
the dark shade, the stalker has in most cases to fire as soon as he
sees it, and even though he kills it, it may as often as not turn out
that the beast is only a cow or a young bull, with a head not worth
keeping as a trophy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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