Plains99:

Beautifully stated. You got what far too many "sportsmen" miss.

For hunting to be ethical, there must be a fundamental respect for the game animal and recognition of the hunter's responsibility to it - to take it as cleanly and humanely as possible. I've always thought Elmer Keith said it best: "Many hunters today are apparently small-bore crazy, seemingly wanting to kill as large game as lives with as light and small a bore of rifle as possible, throwing the lightest bullet obtainable; even to hunting big game with the .22 Hornet.......Certainly it is not sportsmanship they display." Elmer wrote that 60 years ago, but the same craze - "stunt" killing in all its forms (elk with a .243, buffalo with a splinter, stick and string, etc.) - is still just as prevalent today as it ever was.

The inclusion of Dangerous Game adds another dimension of responsibility. In most places dangerous game is found today, you won't be hunting alone, and the client has a responsibility to the legally mandated PH. He isn't rich, he's just an ordinary work-a-day guy trying to make a living, often with a wife and kids to support, in a difficult, sometimes hazardous business. That the PH accepts hazard is implied, but to what extent? His primary responsibility is to keep the client alive. The client's responsibility to the PH is to not make that any more hazardous for the PH than is ordinary and necessary.

And nobody is perfect. If, despite best efforts and an adequate rifle, I shoot a buffalo in the guts and he's on his way over, my responsibility is to do my best to stop the charge, as will my PH. For this I will need a rifle of appropriate pattern and power, as does the PH. Lets say that all fails and the PH gets hammered (it is usually the PH, not the client). First, that is the extent of the implied risk that a Dangerous Game PH should be expected to accept, but no more. Second, he may have signed up for the risk, but I fucked up and the blame for his injuries will be, to some extent, unavoidably, mine. Living with that would be hard enough. Were something like that to happen while I was trying to pull off a stunt with a totally inappropriate weapon, I could never justify it, and living with it would be gall and wormwood.

I'm sure a few PHs are thrill addicts who invite such antics. Generally though, it seems to me that asking a PH to accept responsibility for you while you grand-stand by stunt-killing a buffalo with a splinter, stick and string, or an ele with a .275 Rigby, reflects an ignorance of and/or a disrespect for his position. He may say no, and he may not be able to afford to. Sorry guys, this isn't hunting, its stunt killing, and does not involve sportsmen.
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