Dave and Sue(E-Mail address only by request for security reasons.)The Exploding Guinea Hen
My wife and I recently enjoyed a wonderful hunt in South Africa with T.G. Safari. To say we had a hoot is an understatement.
One of the great traditions of the hunt is the tradition of the "expanded hunting tale". This is where the 4-point white tail buck continues to grow after death, and adds an additional 6 points. Oh what a monster buck he was…..And I shot him at 300 yds with a shotgun-while he was running!!
When I was young I used to guide in the Adirondack mountains of New York for white tail deer. Most of the individuals we guided were from New York City, and our first job of any hunt was show and tell; this is cow (one of the guides would come out dressed as Elsie the Cow and singing mooo-moo), this is a sheep (OK for sex but not to shoot) ect, ect. Until all of the likely domestic and wild animals were vividly demonstrated. We then provided color photos, all appropriately labeled.
One year I shot a fairly good buck. My lawyer says the crime is limited since the statute of limitation has expired, so I will tell you that I sold the animal to a very unlucky and unhappy hunter from NY City. Over the ensuing year the traditional "expanding tale" reared its ugly, syphilitic head. The hunter returned to our Adirondack hotel that next year. The deer had grown 4 additional points, which could not be seen on the proud post hunt photo-the head was turned the wrong way! That hunter now absolutely swore he pulled the trigger, and indeed shot that deer from ¼ mile!!
Now I am not here to tell you that the "expanding hunting tale" is at work with our African hunt but we did see a tremendous number of animals, laughed a lot, drank some, eat very well and had a blast. Two of my animals made book, not an easy thing to do. And every animal my wife and I took was well above the average for that species. The guiding was tremendous, and that is from someone who has hunted in much of the world. Tino and his guides never give up and hunt for you every moment of the hunt. They went out of their way again and again. If you want to hunt Africa, which is much. much cheaper that a routine USA outing, hunt here with Tino and his team at T.G.Safari.
But I digress. Guinea fowl are a native bird to Africa. They are of course a domestic bird here in the US, used as a guard and foreating. On our hunt we would routinely see flocks of 25-75 birds. That is too much for an old turkey hunter to take! One evening I decided we should have a Guinea Hen for dinner. I had once seen one of my friends take a beautiful Texas turkey on the fly with a scoped 7 mm mag. That bird had only a small But lethal hole in its chest.
I could do this. Unfortunately we had only my wife's scoped 30-06. No small caliber rifle, and we had not brought one of our shotguns that day. I briefly considered attacking with my knife, maybe a medium caliber rock, a spear in true Swahili African fashion? But no I was too lazy to try running down an Italian Hen, sorry Guinea hen (I can say this since I lived in Rome for 5 years and I am married to a wonderful Italian lady!) Medium caliber rocks are not my best weapon, and the bird would be gone during the two days that would be required to build a spear. Anyhow where would the feathers come from to decorate the spear? That would still require me to run down and decapitate some poor African equivalent of a blue jay before I could decorate the spear, which then would allow me to chase down the Guinea Hen and spear it through the chest thus ruining my evening meal of Guinea Hen barbequed breast. (My 8th grade English teacher always warned me of that dreaded disease "The run on sentence".)
Besides all of this bloodletting might possibly end with an acute case of HIV poisoning.
I did the manly thing. Pulling that old faithful 30-06 to my shoulder I took aim and pulled the trigger. There was a tremendous sound, a billow of dust rose from the vicinity of that luckless bird.
Our faithful tracker ran to gather our meal. He ran back, it was only 80 yards. It was obvious that we had come upon that rare beast-the exploding Guinea Hen. Mr. Nosler had won again. I was hungry. I jauntily puller a feather from the 4 presented and placed it in my hatband. Then I turned saying "Home McDuff". Any way I like Kudu better than Guinea Hen.
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