THE GIFT
The best legacy a dad can give
IIWASA trapper before I became a hunter. My tutor was our full-time domestic gardener, Victor – I could never get my tongue around his Xhosa name. As an eight-year-old boy, I regarded Victor as the cleverest chap in the world because he could make ingenious bird traps out of odds and ends. He passed this skill on to me and it wasn’t long before I kept a variety of garden birds in a small aviary.
Victor also taught me how to make a catapult. Not just an ordinary catty – this was a custom-built precision hunting instrument. The two strips of motorcar tyre tubing, carefully cut to exact lengths and widths, had to be made from red rubber. The V-shaped catty handle was specially selected for correct grip, and had to be just the right size and shape. The leather flap, folded to hold the missile, had to be strong but pliable, and was best cut from the tongue of a well-worn shoe. Even the stones had to be perfect, so, when my father took us fishing along the coast, Victor would collect a bag of roundish beach pebbles, claiming that smooth stones flew faster, further and straighter. Victor was my best friend and I cried when he left for a better job.
Fortunately, my grandfather and his son, my Uncle Phil, had a poultry farm thirteen miles out of town, so I had a place to hunt over weekends and in the school holidays. I spent many hours with a few local pals of my age, hunting with our catties. On my tenth birthday Uncle Phil gave me the wonderful gift of a Daisy Red Ryder BB rifle and taught me how to hold, aim and shoot it. Now, better armed, I ventured out with my band of askaris, determined to slay everything that flew. If I managed to shoot a bird, we’d pluck it and char it over a few burning sticks, then devour it head and all.
On my tenth birthday Uncle Phil gave me the wonderful gift of a Daisy Red Ryder BB rifle and taught me how to hold, aim and shoot it
A FEW YEARS later, my Uncle Artie bought a small farm in a sparsely populated area, providing my cousin Winston and me with plenty of bush to hunt in with our pellet guns. Some days we’d saddle up and ride horses to a nearby valley. I loved the cowboy films that were so popular in the 1950s and got a real kick riding the range with my Winchester-like BB gun cradled in my arm. Life got even better when my mother’s sister married a farmer who became my Uncle Garth – an event that added a big farm in the Grahamstown area to my hunting grounds. As a teenager under Uncle Garth’s strict instructions, I was taught gun safety and hunting ethics.
Eventually I was allowed out with a .22 and a Jack Russell named Bulbul to hunt hares, guineafowl and duiker.
I was having so much fun hunting and fishing that I hardly noticed the years flying by. In almost no time I was in my twenties, married and had my first child – a boy named Shannon. Now I had someone I could enjoy teaching all the things I had learned about hunting and fishing. I was working at an advertising agency and couldn’t wait for the weekends so I could go fishing. I also counted the days until the opening of the bird season, or hunting season, or for the arrival of the quail in spring.
SHANNON’S FIRST GREAT adventure took place when he was about eight; I took him and two slightly older boys on a three-day fishing and airgun hunting trip. We camped at a lovely spot on the banks of the Gamtoos River and fished for carp – a perfect way to teach youngsters fishing skills and patience.
When he was a bit older, I took Shannon on certain hunts. One day he was sitting at my side when I fired a load of buckshot into a bushbuck ram as it flashed past us ahead of a pack of howling dogs and shouting beaters. During those few seconds of extreme excitement, the wide-eyed boy sat dead still and I am sure it was then that he was bitten by the hunting bug.
Shannon used my little single-shot .310 Greener rook rifle to shoot his first game bird – a big spurwing goose. I soon taught him to use a bolt-action rifle and he pulled off one of the greatest shots I have ever seen, and will never forget. We were meat-hunting on a friend’s farm and Shannon was carrying my military long Lee-enfield .303 dated 1900.
Seeing a herd of impala feeding on the slope of a small hillock, I pointed out an animal standing alone and told him to shoot it. As memory serves, the impala was at least 150 yards away. The boy swung up the long, iron-sighted barrel and, shooting offhand, put a shot through the heart of the impala.
He became an excellent shot with any rifle and joined an experienced crew of bushpig hunters which satisfied both his love of hunting and of dogs. Later Shannon started his own pack of blue- and red-tick hounds and, with his selected crew, had a good cull rate. Every year he has hunted for a kudu or two on a friend’s farm and these days his hunting includes springbuck, impala, blesbuck, red hartebeest and gemsbuck. He tells me that his next quarry will be an eland bull.
In 1980 another joyous event took place; my second son, Shiloh, was born, and again I looked forward to teaching him how to hunt and fish. By then I was employed by an East Cape safari operator as a full-time hunter. This meant I was in the bush a lot and could not spend as much time as I would have liked with Shiloh. However, we were living in a cottage right on the coast and I was able to take him fishing from a very early age. He was keen and learned fast, so he was soon going down on the rocks by himself, collecting his bait and catching pan-size fish in the gullies. I always stressed the importance of having the utmost respect for the sea and never, ever to turn his back on it. He insisted on eating everything he caught regardless of the size or type of catch.
When Shiloh grew older I took him with me on trips to the big game ranches. He enjoyed driving around in the Land Cruiser looking at the animals. If meat was needed I would shoot an antelope and he’d look on with fascination as it was gutted, and then ferret
around in the innards asking questions about the various parts. Sometimes we’d get a thornwood fire going to flame-grill the liver and Shiloh would devour thick, juicy slices. In time, he earned an air rifle and, after receiving training, he’d go out and shoot anything edible – just as I did. This trait continued as he grew older and began using my pump-action .22 rifle.
DURING ONE VISIT to a friend’s mountainous farm, Shiloh and a local kid disappeared up a thickly forested valley. A few hours later I took my shotgun and followed the river up the valley to look for rameron pigeons – my favourite game bird for eating. While walking, I caught a whiff of smoke and as I drew closer I could smell the distinct aroma of meat cooking. Wondering who would be having a braai up there, I came upon the two boys sitting around a fire cooking a baboon. Greeting me with a big grin, Shiloh proudly said, “Hello Dad, I shot a baboon. Have a piece.” Then he passed me a charred leg with the toes still on the end of the foot! Not wanting to lose face, I accepted the meat and even had a couple of bites, though it did prompt me to suggest he always carry a small bag of salt on future outings.
Another time, on the same farm, Shiloh insisted he investigate a large cave that went deep into the side of a huge krantz. I was not happy with the idea because leopard spoor had often been seen in the area. But, boys will be boys, so in he went holding the .22 rifle and a little penlight torch. After a while I heard a shot that made me draw my six-shooter and stand with bated breath, not knowing what would come flying out of the cave. I breathed a sigh of relief when Shiloh appeared carrying a big fruit bat. Inside the cave he had found hundreds of the creatures hanging from the roof and was curious to see what one looked like. His first words were, “Can I eat it?” That’s when I put my foot down.
Now, as grown men, both sons are excellent hunters. They learned the thrill of the chase at an early age, just as I had when a gardener aroused within a small boy the ancient instinct to roam, hunt and fish. It’s a passion that should be passed on to every boy.