Gary Reeder
While I was sitting here Saturday waiting for my
Thursday, October 05, 2023, 16:44

computer to come back to life I was bored silly so I decided to clean out my desk and desk drawers. I found all kinds of stuff I had forgotten. One was a note I got from a good friend that I haven't seen in a couple of years. Some of you that watch a lot of hunting videos may remember Mark Sullivan. Mark was known for his video Black Death, where he was standing about 15 feet from a wounded Cape Buffalo. The buff got us and came at him in a split second and Mark stood there until the buff was maybe 3 feet from him before he pulled the trigger on his double rifle.
Mark sort of specialized in close encounters with Cape Buffalo, hippos, lions and other dangerous critters. The man was and is a great friend. If you look up "gentleman" in the dictionary you would see a picture of Mark.
As he became "famous" and more well known he got a lot of flack from jealous Professional Hunters all over. They would bad mouth him constantly. Kase made a comment that he had to have a wheelbarrow to carry his big balls around. And he sure had them. He had more "balls" than any other PH I have ever known, except maybe for John Abraham, our PH over the last 30 years.
Mark used to come up to the shop here in Flagstaff with his wife every month or so. He would spend the day talking dangerous game hunting. He would always bring us a copy of his latest hunt video where he stood his ground against the buffalo and hippos along with lions and leopards until the last second.
I haven't seen or talked to Mark in a few years. The last I heard he was bummed out about all the bad press he was getting from the other PHs. He said he was thinking of moving to Washington and maybe being a PH for hunters in Alaska. Either way he will always be a good friend and a gentleman.