I suppose you could say that I'm an odd kind of hunter, because for me hunting is simply the ultimate test of marksmanship skill, a demand to put it all on the line, right here and now, no procrastination, no time to contemplate, no excuses and no alibis. In addition, it's the ultimate test of ammunition and equipment, and if you, like me, are shooting a rifle built around a cartridge you designed yourself, tested, perfected and then loaded yourself, then it's a double test, like shooting in the Olympic Games using your own hand loaded ammunition.

You're shooting at an unknown range at a target whose size you can only estimate, at an area of the target you can identify only by much study or by experience, and you have to shoot it now, before it spooks or before something else spooks it. The final factor is that, if it's dangerous game, and you don't perform adequately, you may get gored, trampled or et.

The trophy is a nice thing to hang on the wall to remind you of the moment, but the real thing is the moment itself, when it all comes together. The endless practice, the careful calculation, the painstaking designing, the search for the perfect combination of caliber, action, barrel and stock all fused in the moment when you're close enough and have a good enough view and your tracker whispers in your ear, "piga, bwana". Or you turn to find a couple of tons of angry animal rushing toward you, and your mind goes into auto-pilot and all the practice pays off.

Like the time we were motoring down a trail in the Selous Reserve and suddenly, off on the left, there is a kudu bull with his harem standing in an open field. We stop, I bail out, the Krieghoff .375 is thrust into my hand. By the time it's loaded all the cows have disappeared and the bull is looking back over his shoulder for an instant before following them into the thick brush. I have once chance, shooting off hand unsupported at 150 yards at a target which will evaporate like a puff of smoke, if I don't shoot right away. The rifle comes up, the crosshairs settle, the shot goes off, the kudu makes a giant spring into the brush. I turn to the PH, who is still in the car looking through binoculars. He says, "You got him." And sure enough, there he is, stone dead, one lunge away from where he was standing when the trigger broke.

That is the shot I will remember forever, along with the elephant I brained with a shot behind the ear and the rhino who ambushed us on the slopes of Mount Kenya. And along with the little white tail buck I shot last year, when he was part of a herd of deer which burst out onto the logging road like a covey rise of quail, and I caught him in mid stride with the rifle bullet from my pre-war Sauer & Sohn drilling. No time to think, just react.