Indholdsfortegnelse for July/Aug 2023 i Man Magnum

HE WAS named as we entered the small Eastern Cape town of Adelaide on the way to the hospital where he was to be born. “His name is Jonathan James,” I declared to my very pregnant and uncomfortable wife. The timing of that declaration must have been good because that’s what he was named and, inevitably, called JJ. His upbringing and development was fairly normal for any-one living in a small town except, possibly, that he was exposed to the hunting and fishing scene rather early. When JJ was about three or so, I arrived home one afternoon with a kudu bull on the back of my bakkie and helped him to climb up on the rear wheel to peer into the back. His reaction was somewhat surprising; he rushed…

GUNMAKER William Wellington Greener (1834-1921) was an inventive genius. Not only did he produce superb firearms, he was also the author of an 800-page book on the development of guns. Sometime in the late 1870s, the Greener works at St. Mary’s, Birmingham, made a slim, elegant-looking double-barrelled, under-lever 12-bore with external hammers. I inherited this gun from my grandfather, and my lengthy ownership thereof became the inspiration for this article. This Greener was the first firearm I ever owned and I soon became a dedicated shotgunner with a passion for wingshooting. This story is about my lengthy quest to gather a complete set of original shooting accessories as used by a hunter in the heyday of those early breech-loading shotguns. The search has taken me sixty years to finally assemble…

IT WAS Sunday 22nd August 1982 when Dave, Musaka, Sydney, John, Duncan and I left camp at 07:30. We were happy hunters as only two days into our hunt, we had already shot a buffalo, seen lots and lots of elephant, black rhino and lion tracks. That morning we were going to try for a kudu which, according to Sydney our tracker, tended to gather in the hills to the east of our camp. It was about an hour’s drive to where we parked our vehicle and then we had a strenuous walk to get into the hills. Dave and I were hunting in a Zimbabwe National Parks Board wildlife concession called Nyakasanga on the escarpment overlooking Mana Pools, to the west of Makuti. Our opportunity to hunt here was…

The next time you are in a dry region, search the ground surface for small, funnel-shaped pits in the soft sand with upper diameters roughly between those of R2 and R5 coins. You may find your eye drawn to one by a thin meandering line, as if someone had scratched the sand with a matchstick (though this trail isn’t always present). When you locate one, gently brush away the sand to a level beneath the bottom of the pit. There’s a good chance you’ll find an oval-shaped creature some 10 to 12mm long, with vicious-looking jagged mandibles (pincers) and sharply clawed feet. Gram for gram in weight, you’ll be looking at one of Africa’s most aggressive predators – the antlion. To add to his deadliness, he injects poison into his…

Dagha Boys I refer to Gregor Woods’s article “Buffalo Don’t Back Down” (Jan/Feb 2023 edition) in which he refers to old buffalo bulls as “dagha boys”. I wish to determine the correct usage and spelling of this term. I have read “dugga”, “dagga” and “dagha”. I think the dagga one is definitely incorrect but I am unsure about the other two. Could Gregor please explain why he uses the spelling “dagha”? – André van Heerden, Western Cape Reply from Gregor Woods: Old buffalo bulls were named dagha boys for their habit of rolling in mud, which forms a hard, dry crust over their skins to protect them from insect bites. The word dagha is from the Nguni-speaking tribes (Zulu, Ndebele, Swazi, Xhosa, etc) and simply means mud (as distinct from…

IT DOESN’T really matter what moniker is used to describe the zebra, be it Mr. Stripey, or Pyjama Donkey, the fact is, in a game ranch environment, especially within their indigenous habitat range, a zebra can be an extremely wily adversary. When under hunting pressure, particularly towards season’s end, they soon learn the importance of remaining ultra-alert in their determined efforts to avoid becoming trophy den décor. Southern Africa has three zebra species; in this article I discuss the common Burchell’s zebra, not the scarcer Cape mountain zebra, found in confined parts of South Africa’s Cape Province, or the Hartmann’s mountain zebra of Namibia. Many years ago, a friend of mine, an experienced Zimbabwean PH, remarked that as far as he was concerned, a game-ranch-dwelling zebra was one of the…

BUYING a shotgun that really fits you well is not easy, as most factory-made, off-the-rack shotguns are built for the Average Joe. An easy way to achieve a good fit is to buy a shotgun that is adjustable. The Beretta Silver Pigeon I Sporting with B-Fast system is one of the more affordable ways of doing this. Beretta shotguns need no introduction, and the Silver Pigeon I is regarded worldwide as a quality, entry level steel-proofed shotgun for hunting or sport shooting, yet it affords the same quality and durability as their much more expensive guns. As I use a shotgun solely for hunting, I had never found need of a sporting gun, but a closer look at the Silver Pigeon I Sporting with 30-inch barrels and B-Fast stock has…

Sourcing firearm grips, butt plates, etc grew out of my own need to find these items for firearms I myself collect. Many of the older firearms are no longer in production and therefore these parts are no longer available. In my efforts to find these parts, I came across gunsmiths and gun stores that had grips which were sometimes cracked or with bits missing. I took these to repair, either by sculpting or using my 3D printer to make a set, and from which I was able to make moulds and thereby produce replicas. This started a small hobby whereby I began supplying some gun shops and gunsmiths with grips. If it was a case of not having them in stock, we would source the best available set and make…

IT WAS around the turn of the millennium; Brian Marsh leaned forward to push a burning log further into the fire then sat back. “It’s amusing,” he said, “how this once-in-a-thousand-years calendar change makes us get philosophical about our lives and the characters that entered them.” “Yes,” I said, “And haven’t we known some interesting characters in Africa – characters that only rural Africa could produce, especially in decades gone by. I’m always sad that so many of them died without writing their life stories; so much died with them.” “Too true,” said Brian, “Trouble is, so many of the real characters of Africa just weren’t literate enough to write books. And some had a dark side which, if revealed, would have caused great disappointment to many people. It’s…

ALTHOUGH I love to hunt in all types of terrain, Africa’s open savannahs and plains hold a special fascination for me. The Great Karoo, a semi-arid region where the only borders are the horizons, is one of my favourite destinations. In May 2023, I hunted on Rooiheuwel Guest Farm, some 80km southwest of Beaufort West. Kobus Swanepoel, the manager of this 15 000ha property, bought a copy of my book, Kampvuur en Kondensmelk in 2022 and after a number of telephone conversations I booked a springbuck hunt on Rooiheuwel. Unfortunately, I had to postpone my hunt twice due to two back operations. Quite incidentally, Kobus told me Rooiheuwel belongs to the family of the neurosurgeon who performed my operations. Small world indeed! Doctor Hanno Vivier’s father died six years ago,…

IN DECADES past, I regularly attended the annual Durban Easter Knife Show, but for various reasons, had not done so for the last 20 years or more. That changed this year, and it was pleasing to see that the standards of the SA Knife Makers Guild remained high, likewise the standard of the knives displayed by both members and non-members of the guild. It seems that public interest in custom-made knives has not waned. Admittedly, the show was not quite so well attended as in decades gone by, but no doubt the currently depressed economy had much to do with that. Traditionally, the show was well supported by Easter weekend visitors to Durban, but tourism has now waned due to the high cost of petrol, not to mention concern regarding…

AS Brian Wood and two other soldiers from the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders huddled in a ditch in Almarah, Iraq, in May 2004, they watched as their Warrior armoured fighting vehicle pumped high explosive shells at an enemy trench 200 yards away. Unlike the urban engagements that Wood was used to, this time the insurgents were crammed into a trench overlooking a major road. The cannon shells were useful for keeping heads down but if the trench was going to be cleared, Wood and his tiny assault team would have to do it. After being joined by two more soldiers, Wood and his small team were ordered to ready their secret weapon, an order Wood probably never expected to hear in his lifetime, “Fix Bayonets!” The humble bayonet doesn’t get…

WITH MY annual hunting day nearing, a lot of planning and discussions had already taken place around various campfires and now it was a matter of putting these plans into action. I packed my hunting gear and readied myself, mentally and physically, for the challenging hunt that lay ahead. This was going to be a good, old-fashioned hunt with lots of walking on one of my favourite farms in the Weenen area of KwaZulu-Natal. I was hoping for something different, possibly a kudu or even a trophy nyala bull. My dad and I left early the day before the hunt, to set up camp and sight in my rifle. The next morning I was up at the crack of dawn, no need to be woken by any city alarm clocks.…