billrquimby

Lee: Apples vs. oranges. The 23,000 deaths reported in Mexico over the past 40 months apparently are only those directly attributed to the drug wars. Those 16,272 U.S. homicides in 2008 are from all causes. Also the U.S. population is about 310 million; Mexico's is about 110 million. It should not be surprising that our annual numerical total would be higher than a country one third our size. However, the best gauge of relative safety is that the F.B.I. reports the U.S. has 5.5 homicides from all causes per 100,000 persons while Mexico's rate is said to be 11 to 14 homicides from all causes per 100,000 persons, according to Wikipedia. Bill Quimby

Congratulations, Scotty. That's an exceptionally nice vaal rhebok. I'm stuck in Tucson for cardiology tests all this week. if you want to check out the other place, let me know. I'm free for lunch any day except tomorrow (Tuesday). Bill Quimby

Thanks. I found a story through Google. You have a great memory, for just hearing a news report. The kidnap victim's name is Diego Fernandez de Cevellos. Incidentally, the same article claimed the body count in Mexico's drug war over the past 40 months has passed the 23,000 mark. That's 575 per month or nearly 20 per day, seven days a week. Bill Quimby

Was the ex-presidential candidate's name Ruben Dario Salcido? If so, I know him and have visited his beach house at Puerto Lobos and the factory he owns in Caborca. He is a partner of Pennsylvanian David Hanlin (whose book, "Around The World And Then Some," I wrote) in a high-fence mule deer operation in the Sierra Viejos. Bill Quimby

Your bow and a .338 Win Mag should be fine for South Africa, but only if you shoot the .338 well. You should tell your outfitter that you'd like to hunt with the bow. Not all properties have blinds for archers, and he will want to build them or arrange for you to hunt on another farm. Jeremyb: I would not want to hunt a buffalo or a sable in South Africa (or in Namibia except in the Caprivi Strip, for that matter). Not only are these animals very expensive in South Africa, but they also are all "closely managed" inside high-fenced enclosures. Although free-ranging buffalo and sable were the first two African animals I took in Zimbabwe on my first safari way back in 1983, at the seminars I moderate at SCI's conventions I usually suggest that first-timers hunt South Africa's antelopes first then work into the more primitive countries as they gain experience. Hunting South Africa after you've hunted Africa's wilder places can seem mighty tame, and that's a shame. It has animals indigenous only there, the people you'll meet are great, and the hunting can be a lot of fun. That's why I tell people to go there first. Bill Quimby

It depends upon where you will be hunting and how much money you have for trophy fees. I suspect you bought a hunt in South Africa, though, and will have a tight budget. If so, I'd concentrate on the species indigenous to only that country, such as blesbok, bontebok, common nyala, Cape grysbok, South African springbok, black wildebeest, Vaal rhebok, southern mountain reedbuck, Cape bushbuck, and eastern Cape kudu. (Nyala also occur naturally in Mozambique and Zimbabwe, but they're best hunted in South Africa's KwaZulu Natal province. Game farmers elsewhere in South Africa also may offer nyala, but beware. Some nyalas are bought at a game auction and released a few days before the client arrives.) There are lots of other antelopes in South Africa. Some of them occur naturally there as well as in neighboring countries; others are stocked on a put-and-take basis (especially the big ticket items such as sable and roan). Plan on hunting these other species where they actually are indigenous on your next trip to Africa, because you WILL go back. South Africa is where I suggest first-timers go first, but you should try Namibia next, then Zimbabwe, followed by Botswana, Zambia and Mozambique as you gain more experience. Be prepared for hunting behind high fences in South Africa. Its laws transfer ownership and management of wildlife to landowners when their land is high fenced, so virtually anywhere you will hunt will be inside enclosures. A few "farms" (ranches) are so huge you will not see a fence again after you enter the main gate; a few are so small you will never be out of view of a fence. Most will be 5,000 to 10,000 acres, though. Needless to say, it pays to know the size of the place and the terrain and density of vegetation where you going to hunt. A 5,000-acre farm in the open veldt seems smaller than one that's covered with thornbush. Another thing to remember is you will pay a trophy fee for every animal you shoot, including those that are wounded and lost. A single drop of blood on the ground can be very expensive, so take your time when shooting. Also, don't be caught up in the belief that African animals are tougher than ours and that you need a bigger caliber. I've shot nearly all of the plains game of southern Africa, from tiny grysbok, oribi, steenbuck and duiker to zebra, kudu, gemsbok, waterbuck, sable and moose-size eland -- and everything in between -- with a 7 mm Remington Magnum and 175-grain Nosler Partition handloads. You don't need a .375 H&H Magnum, no matter what some of the posts on the African hunting websites say. A good ol' .30-06 with a quality bullet will work just fine, too. A .300 Winchester Magnum is just about perfect, if you shoot it well. Too many Americans buy big guns for Africa's antelopes and screw up because they can't handle the recoil. I suggest you buy a copy of the African edition of the SCI Record Book of Trophy Animals (520/620-1220) for its photos, natural history text and maps, and learn more about the animals you'll be hunting. Have a great time. You will never forget your first safari. C.J. McElroy, Safari Club International's founder, used to say he envied no man except the man planning his first trip to Africa. I agree. Bill Quimby One more tip: Your professional hunter will expect you to shoot standing up, using a tripod made of long sticks. This can be awkward for someone who is not used to shooting this way. Get yourself three sotal stalks, tie them together at the top and practice shooting off them before you go. It will pay off and could save you a lot of money on trophy fees for wouned animals. Still another: Don't forget that seasons are reversed in the Southern Hemisphere and you probably will be hunting sometime between May and September. I've seen snow in Johannesburg in July, so take warm clothes, including gloves and something to cover your ears. You'll need them at first and last light when driving around in open vehicles.

Except for shooting a bison in Colorado with an original Alex Henry rifle made in Scotland in the mid-1800s, all my experience in muzzleloading hunting was with replicas of percussion and flintlock Hawken and Pennsylvania longrifles that I'd built. We stopped using round balls after a friend and I shot a dozen or so little Texas Hill Country whitetails with them. The round balls penetrated well, but every deer ran at least 100 yards before dropping. Some of them ran a lot more than that. We never lost a deer, but some were hard to find in the high grass and brush on the ranches we hunted. With heavier bullets and miniballs, most of our deer dropped on the spot or ran only twenty yards or so. As for the bison, the Alex Henry English sporting rifle shot a 45-caliber 500-grain bullet (patched with paper) clear through the animal and killed it instantly. The distance was about 45 yards. We also learned that for best accuracy the projectile must match the barrel's twist. Long twists shot patched round balls best. Short twists required bullets or miniballs. This was before Pyrodex came along, and we used only black powder. Our absolute maximum range for accuracy was perhaps 75 yards, and most of the deer we killed were 50 yards or closer. That wasn't a problem. Over the ten years we hunted there with muzzleloaders, the two of us must have shot 40-50 deer, maybe more. Depending on the year, the limit was three or four deer per person and we never went home without taking our limits. Bill Quimby

I learned this by a happy accident, and not from someone else, but the best thing I've found to use for washing my hands after gutting an animal is a can of cola or 7-up. It's a lot better than water, although it can leave your hands sticky if the soda pop has sugar in it. The carbonation actually boils the blood out from under your fingernails. And, to hang a javelina up for gutting or just to get the carcass off the ground, simply open its mouth and let it "bite" a small limb. It will hang there by its teeth. Don't let it hang too long or else you might have to saw or break off the limb after rigor mortis sets in. Bill Quimby

It works out to 459 killed per month over 39 months. So far, no tourists (that I've heard about) have been caught in the cross-fire, but it will happen. That's a real war down there. Bill Quimby Mar. 22, 2010 05:57 PM Associated Press MEXICO CITY - The pre-dawn discovery of two bodies cut into pieces and shoved into two black bags brought a tragic end Monday to a search for two missing police officers in the southern state of Guerrero. Law enforcement officials say the bagged body parts were found at 3:15 a.m. (5:15 a.m. EDT; 0915 GMT) outside police headquarters in Guerrero's capital city, Chilpancingo. One of the victims was a regional commander, the other a state police officer. Notes written on yellow cards were attached to the bags, but police refused to disclose what they said. Drug cartel killers frequently attach messages to bodies. In the nearby resort of Acapulco, police later found another two mutilated bodies and a threatening message outside the house of the city's former deputy traffic police chief. The victims were identified as the former deputy chief's nephews, the Guerrero state Public Safety Department said in a statement. Police also found a message threatening supporters of the Beltran Leyva cartel, it said. Police officers have been targets, and are sometimes complicit, in drug-related killings, which have claimed 17,900 lives since President Felipe Calderon stepped up the drug war in December 2006. On Sunday, Rodrigo Medina, governor of the northern state of Nuevo Leon, announced that he was firing 81 state police officers suspected of corruption. Also in Nuevo Leon on Sunday, the police chief of the city of Santa Catarina narrowly avoided being killed by gunmen believed to be connected to drug traffickers. The assailants attacked a convoy of vehicles carrying Police Chief Rene Castillo Sanchez and other authorities shortly after the arrest of several suspected drug dealers. One of Sanchez's bodyguards was killed and three people in the convoy were wounded, said a police spokeswoman who, under department rules, was not authorized to give her name. The Mexican military set up a checkpoint between Acapulco and the city's airport Sunday evening after a man was killed in a shootout between gunmen riding in separate vehicles. The gunbattle followed the deaths of five men who pulled guns on each other during an early morning fight that began as an argument at a wedding Saturday night

His story doesn't wash. How many people do you know take a centerfire rifle when they go fishing? Sounds to me that the guy knew exactly what he was doing. I suspect he saw the sheep on an earlier trip and returned with that rifle. If so, his crime is even more repugnant IMO because it was planned and not a spur-of-the-moment thing. Bill Quimby

Congratulations to eagarcoues. A turkey with a bow is an accomplishment. However, James, you and everyone else should know before you apply for tags next year that he took the last gobbler in the unit . All our elk, deer and bears have moved to units 3 and 27, too. There still are a few trout left in Big Lake, but otherwise there isn't much of anything else left within 50 miles of Greer. Bill Quimby

Maybie mangie. No thinkee javies sheddy in springie. Bill Quimby

Lark: Too many people wounding and losing aa many bucks as you describe is awful, and I do remember when we could drive through certain places in what now are units 27 and 1 and see 250 to 300 deer in a morning from the roads. Also, your observation that the collapse in deer numbers occurred at about the same time our elk herds exploded concurs with mine. However, excessive killing of bucks can't explain why (seemingly overnight) there were fewer deer of any age or sex, or why this reduced population persisted for so many years under restrictive permit-only hunting., No one knows if the widespread tree thinning that began after the R/C fire is one of the reasons we're seeing more deer now, but for what it's worth, I'm guessing it is. Whatever the reason, I (for one) welcome it and am also happy to see that elk herds so far aren't declining as our deer return. In mid August last year I saw herds in two different locations with more than three dozen does and fawns in them. That's not yet like the good ol' days of the 1960s and 1970s, but it's a darned good start. Bill Quimby

Lark: I've been telling anyone who listens that the mule deer have been coming back in unit one. I'm convinced it's because the tree thinning the forest service has done for fire control also has helped the browse. I drove up to Greer alone last Monday, the day after the big snow, but didn't feel well and spent the entire week in bed without going out to look for a gobbler. I'm back in Tucson now for my grandson's UA graduation and will return next week. That should give me a couple days to hunt. Hope you left a bird for me. Bill Quimby

Way to go, Killer! Bill Quimby

Thanks, Lark for thinking about us geezers. We need an early elk hunt around my cabin for geezers, especially those of us with Pioneer licenses. Like your father and Mr. Jonathon's aunt, I have trouble walking very far but I don't qualify for a CHAMP permit yet. Mr. Jonathon: PM me and I'll suggest a spot down here where glassing from a vehicle should find you a whitetail buck for your aunt. Bill Quimby

Looking back over the past few years, there have been darned few things I've disagreed with Lark about. As for this thread, I couldn't agree more. I smoked cigarettes from age 14 to 66 -- 52 years -- despite a variety of heart problems that began in my mid-30s. I was up to three packs a day when I had a heart attack that darned near killed me on October 7, 2002. Thank God that I was in Tucson Heart Hospital with minor chest pains when the big one struck. In just 12 minutes, a surgical team already prepped to give someone else an angioplasty, opened the main artery feeding my heart and inserted a stent that got me breathing again. They said the artery (they called it "the Widow-Maker") was 100% blocked. Although I haven't smoked a cigarette since that day, my tobacco-caused health problems haven't gone away. I now have a pacemaker and take a gob of pills daily in an unsuccessful attempt to control my chronic atrial fibrillation. Even mild exercise is out. Walking more than 50-75 yards without stopping to breathe is difficult. I'm scheduled to see my cardiologist next month to talk about another laser procedure, and that's not all but I won't bore you with it ... The point is, throw those cigarettes away if you smoke. If I can quit, anyone can. I just wish I'd quit thirty or forty years earlier. Bill Quimby Now, if Lark would just capitalize his sentences and use more short, easier-to-read paragraphs in his posts, all would be right with the world.

Hope you saved one for me. I can't get up until Monday. Bill Quimby

Way to go, Doug! Bill Quimby

I did all my hunting early on with a .303 Savage Model 99, then put a Weaver K2.5 scope on it and never again hunted with open sights. As for open sites, I will not hunt in a site that has been closed. Bill Quimby

Heck, Scott. Photoshop a baseball cap and a T-shirt on Gary Cooper and he'll look just like you. Bill Quimby If only I could have got the ladies back in college to say that, Bill!! The man had his way with the fairer sex for sure! Cooper was a helluva man... Was a huge fan of hunting British East Africa too. I would have enjoyed a nice gin in a sweaty glass around an acacia coaled sundowner with him. I'm sure he had plenty of stories to tell a guy!! I'm sure he did. Don't forget to take notes on your upcoming trip to RSA. Bill Quimby

Heck, Scott. Photoshop a baseball cap and a T-shirt on Gary Cooper and he'll look just like you. Bill Quimby

Scotty, thank you, but you have more than your share of stories of hunting in Africa and elsewhere, too. Look forward to hearing about your latest safari when you return in May. In the meantime, good luck to you on your trip to my favorite place on this planet. Too bad you won't have time to look up some of my friends down there. Bill Quimby

Snapshot: Don't discount the Houserock bison hunt. I know two good hunters who couldn't fill their tags up there. Raymond Ranch is another story. Bill Quimby

Tony: You are to commended for showing Adam -- and the many other young people I know you have introduced to hunting -- what our sport is really like. Not many people would willingly take on the responsibility and all the financial risks that go with it. It must be highly gratifying to receive letters such as those Adam sent you. Bill Quimby