Well, gentelmen, I have no idea what a "Professional Client Hunter" is, but I think after reading all the rants on this string, I have come to the conclusion that most who down hunting in Africa, have never done any of it, and those who down hunting in OZ, have never hunted there either. And only a couple here have ever hunted in North America! So my conclusion is, Most here are like the old American Indian saying "BIG WIND COME FROM EMPTY CAVE"!

I think of myself as no better, or worse than any other hunter my age! I am 67 years old, and have been hunting on my own since the age of six, I never saw a hunting guide till I was thirty years old, and that was simply because the law In Alaska required me to have one to be able to hunt legally for sheep! I had been liveing in El Paso Texas from the age of 14, and the altitude there is 5000 ft above sea level, and the mountains I hunt there are up to 14,000 feet, so that guide, in alaska, got his ass walked off trying to keep up with me! I hunt Alaska every year, and only use a bush plane to get me,my mates, and my equipment into a drop camp, 100 miles from the nearest road, we hunt ten days on our own, then wait for pick up by that plane. We cut, skin and pack all meat to the lake where the plane can land, and do all our own cooking. Usually in 10 days of cold rain!

Back a few years ago I hunted the NT for Wtr Buff, and pigs, with one man, who owned a rusty bent up Toyota Land cruser, and a boy scout tent, and carried a Britt 303, and that hunt certainly was anything but plush!

I hunt Africa, and though I've taken many plains game there, I really only enjoy dangerous game hunting, and I do it on foot. I spot as many heads as my guide does, if not more! I can track about as well as anyone I've met in Africa. But as far as a clean place to sleep, and good food, with laundry service, I love that, because I've done the eating out of a can, sitting on a rock in the rain, with mosquitos eating me! and I have slept on rocks, after climing mountians all day. None of this is because I'm rich, but that I made these hunts happen, by working overtime, and driveing the same cars for 15 years. Now that I'm retired I can't do these things so often as I used to, but when I can, I do! And I'm not a collector, out of 60 years of hunting I have a total of 18 mount, but 1000 memories!

If all this makes me a pro Client hunter, then, I guess that is what I'll remain, because I'm too old to do it any other way now!

It always amazes me at the people who assume they know what people do in other countries where they have never been!