Reeder Custom Guns - Some good African classic books for cooling weather

As Gary and I discussed the Capstick plagiarisms. Don't let that blight get in your way of reading some good original classics about old Africa. The classics series had some editorial notes by PHC but were the original works of the great hunters. Stigang's book on Elephant is outstanding and note the forward by Teddy Roosevelt, and Bror von Blixen of "Out of Africa" movie fame is a good read. The movie with Meryl Streep and Robert Redford is fantastic, and your wife will appreciate the love story as well. The truth deviated considerably from the cinema but both stories are well done. *Capstick did not write any of these, original pieces.

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This is the other half of the collection a fellow was selling for $850, all signed by PHC. ($70 each for signed first editions if that tells you anything - An out of print Taffin book might bring a couple hundred plus!) These are some of the questionable works, so you are on your own. I will point out the "The Last Ivory Hunter" which was written by PHC but is actually a biography from interviews with Wally Johnson. HE is a VERY famous professional hunter and the work is fantastic. There was also a filmed series of interviews but I cannot find mention of it on the net. The only other work in this group I can personally recommend is "Last Horizons" which is actually a colleciton of magazine articles (very good ones) that PHC published for Petersen publishing. The chapters are short and useful for interest. One In particular on shooting precision airguns for recreational sport I enjoyed very much. It spawned my interest and eventual purchase of a FWB 124-D gun of my own. A 9mm case at 35 yds. is indeed toast, with an average shooter.

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Anyway you now know the truth about the bartender turned writer, stolen valor and all. But some exposure to good classics was borne from it. Even if it is just to search out the original works to expose the real experiences, by the actual men. It worked out screwy, but I'd likely never have heard of some of these guys had it not played out like it did. Some good reading to be had.

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of lies. When Sportsman on Film had a series that featured Capstick he spent the whole video telling what a great Professional Hunter he was... a lie. He was never a PH. He was a bartender. On one of his videos he talked about all the elephant he had killed...lies. He mentioned he never took a shot at more than 25 yards so you could hit the perfect spot to kill an elephant...Lie. In another video he saw a big elephant at probably 75 or 80 yards. He threw up his double rifle and fired both barrel almost as quick as you could snap your fingers. Then looked at the camera and said "perfect heart shot". Kase just reminded me Capstick's favorite shot was "a raking shot thru the heart". Later on after they tracked the elephant down there were 2 holes it in, one in the hip and the other a mid body spot. The hip shot was what Capstick said was "a raking shot thru the heart".You could see the blood running down from both shots. I learned later that the PH had to put the elephant down with a brain shot.
In Africa he was a joke and a liar. Scotty, if you had ever been to Africa you would look at this situation a bit differently. I think Capstick ran more people off from going to Africa than he did encouraging them.
On one of our hunts an older gentleman went with us and Capstick ruined his entire safari. In the mornings before we went out he said he wanted to get back to camp by 3PM. John, the PH, asked him why. He said because Capstick said it was dangerous to be out in the African fields after 3 PM. The old fellow also has an old 375 H&H and tried to use it on everything. On the smaller animals the 375 went right thru and the animal ran off. There were several situations like this where Capstick messed with the hunter's head with his "rules" about hunting in Africa. And this was just on a couple of my safaris.

On my first safari in 1992 I believed everything I had read by Capstick and was almost constantly arguing with the PH about things we were doing on the safari. I found out later my PH was African PH of the year and International PH of the year, and I should have been listening to him rather than spouting crap from Capstick. Thank goodness he set me straight before I ruined my entire safari with BS from Capstick.
Getting the original African hunting books is great and is some good reading, but don't believe Capstick's lies.

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Some good African classic books for cooling weather

The main thing about Capstick is he lies, and a lot