I started hunting with my grandfather in 2003. What began as a few days in the field turned into a tradition that carried me to East Africa most years after that, season after season, right up until his passing. Those trips weren’t just about hunting—they were apprenticeships. He was my constant compass in the bush and in life, a man who embodied the very essence of
Field Ethos long before anyone tried to define it. He was, and always will be, my greatest mentor.
Some lessons are learned with a notebook and a pencil. The good ones—the permanent ones—are learned with bourbon, bees, ants, and extremely poor decision-making in very beautiful places.
This is about three men: myself, my grandfather, and his long-time hunting partner—a man who had been making bad choices in Africa with him since the late 1960s. Decades of shared mistakes had welded them together into something like a two-man cautionary tale. I was the understudy.
Lesson One: The Sand River Is Not a Dining Room
First night in the bush. Spirits were high. Bourbons were flowing—four, maybe five deep—just enough confidence to believe we were smarter than the continent we were standing on.
Someone had the bright idea that dinner would be
better down in the sand river next to camp. Romantic. Cinematic. Utterly idiotic.
So down we went—table, chairs, linens, and the kind of food only a truly gifted camp chef can produce in the middle of nowhere. The first course arrived: a refined squash soup, silky and perfect, the kind of thing that makes you grin at your dinner companions like life has finally figured itself out.
After dinner came the nightcap. Calvados or Vieille Prune—proper brandy. The kind you sip slowly while nodding at nothing in particular. If you’ve never finished a night with a real digestive, take a lap.
Cigars were lit. Laughter followed. And then, without warning, the sand river reminded us whose house we were in.
Siafu ants. Thousands of them. Maybe millions. Angry, organized, and absolutely uninterested in our fine dining experiment.
The bites started low and went everywhere. Chairs flipped. The table went airborne. Three grown men danced, cursed, and swatted like lunatics while the squash soup met its ignoble end in the sand.
Lesson learned: don’t set up dinner in a sand river. Ever.
Lesson Two: Always Look Before You Sit
Another day, another long, unsuccessful stalk on four old dagga boys who wanted nothing to do with us. Sweat-soaked and humbled, we called it and set up a bush lunch under a Baobab tree—the kind of tree that makes you feel small and safe at the same time.
While the trackers worked their magic, my grandfather’s safari partner—who by now should have known better than anyone—sat down.
Directly on a beehive.
The sound that followed was not dignified. Three men scattered across the African plains like gazelles who had just discovered fire. Rifles forgotten. Hats abandoned. Pride left somewhere near the Baobab.
I have no idea how far we ran. I only know we didn’t stop until one of the bravest trackers I’ve ever known drove up and scooped us into the truck while bees bounced off the windshield.
Lesson learned: look before you sit. The ground is alive, and it holds grudges.
Lesson Three: Define the Rules—or We Will
Every year, there were two camps: ours in the south, friends and family in the north. And every year, there was a bet for the largest buffalo taken.
The rules were… flexible. Spread only. No SCI. No Boone and Crockett. Or maybe no one ever agreed. That should’ve been the first warning sign.
Eight days in, we were convinced we’d lose again. Plenty of beautiful old dagga boys, nothing over 42 inches. The northern camp was going to lord it over us for another year.
Then we found
it.
I still don’t know what to call it. Not a bull. Not a cow. Some kind of buffalo horror show. One horn maybe twelve inches. The other well over forty. A biological argument against symmetry.
Ugly doesn’t begin to cover it.
The moment a safe shot presented itself, the bush erupted. Two .577 doubles barking like offended gods. The 500 Jeffery I was borrowing from my grandfather may have joined the conversation. It was decisive. It was loud. It was absolutely within the letter—if not the spirit—of the bet.
Lesson learned for the other camp: always define your rules. If there’s gray area, men like us will live in it.
And that’s the thing about mistakes—they’re only failures if you don’t learn from them. Otherwise, they’re just stories. The kind you tell years later, with a glass of proper brandy in hand, smiling at the memory of ants, bees, and one very unfortunate buffalo.
