The Comfort Crisis

My son gave me a book for Christmas, The Comfort Crisis – Embrace Discomfort to Reclaim Your Wild, Happy, Healthy Self, by Michael Easter, published in 2021. This is essentially

The Four Cs – Comfort, Calm, Concentration and Confidence

I have previously written about the importance of the five Ps – Preparation, Practice, Patience, Persistence and the most important P of all, PUP – Performance Under Pressure. Now I

The Benefit of Hunting Books

One of my earliest recollections of my much loved Mom, is of her sitting at the foot of my bed reading to me before I went to sleep. And then

Opportunity Costs

What do I mean by opportunity costs? I mean that, if you choose a particular course of conduct, whether on purpose or by accident, by commission or omission, in all

Hunting Places that Inspire

I have been reading a book by Justin Cartwright, an ex Cape Town boy now living in London, called The Song Before it is Sung, a fictionalized account of one

Be Prepared

Lieutenant General Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell (1857 to 1941), later first Baron Baden-Powell, collected more honours from his own government and others than many people have had hot breakfasts. He

Dealing with Disappointment

Disappointment. A simple, 14 letter, polysyllabic word hiding mountain ranges of experiences each one of us has had to deal with many, many times. Not so? The first time disappointment

Corruption – The Biggest Threat to African Hunting

As we came into land at Harare back in the 1980s I think it was, the stewardess handed out small squares of brown paper without any explanation. On closer examination,

Fear – Facts and Fiction

I noticed it for the first time after Derek had shot his old, hard bossed, fully mature, 39 inch Cape buffalo bull. Up until then I had become progressively more

Fool me twice, shame on me!

It was 1961. I was 13 years old. We were in Knysna for Christmas and staying at the Beach House Hotel near the Knysna Heads. When the tide came in,

‘If Onlys’

For the last many years, I have tried to limit the ‘If Onlys’ in my life with greater and lesser levels of success but, more’s the pity, never entirely succeeding.

IPSAS – Immediate Post Shot Anxiety Syndrome

Despite hunting since I was a little boy, apart from one self-enforced absence of ten years as a young man, some things have remained constant. For example, after firing a

Nature versus Nurture

Some forty plus years ago, we were hunting on my then partner’s unfenced game ranch, Denstaadt, on the banks of the Limpopo River, out of a very rustic camp –

Wine, Whiskey and Trophy Hunting

A few days ago, a good friend emailed me a photograph of an excellent, 12 year old bottle of cabernet we both enjoyed. He had found it in a village

Rifles, Reflections and Rewards

I remember the only ultimatum my wife ever gave me. I was in my 30s, trying to build a legal practice. We had just had our second child and living