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Bell was not the only one who shot over one thousand elephant and countless numbers of other game, most of those early professional hunters clocked up similar numbers even up until the middle of the last century men with such as J A Hunter also having scored over 1000 elephant and huge numbers of other game.

Bell has been scorned at times because he made most use of small bore rifles to effect his tally and that is just not on old chap!! I don't know that Bell was recoil shy as many say that he was, it was just that he found that he had the calmness and ability to shoot accurately with the small bores 303, 6.5, 7mm, and 318 to get his animals. Like all those early pioneering hunters, Bell did wound and lose a few animals until he found the killing spots. Remember in those days there were no illustrated books, videos, DVD's or accompanying PH's to teach them how to do it, they were the pioneering hunters. When reading about many of these hunters of old, most started their careers as young boys sent out from the British Isles to get them out of their families hair.

Of course now many seem to have developed a habit of scorning anything that happened before their lifetime and in the case of African hunting, the game is now build like Sherman or Tiger tanks and needs the biggest and flashest firearms and equipment to hunt. The bullets of old are useless and nothing short of a 375H&H with flat nose homogenous bullets can be used on dik diks and once we get into the realm of the elephant then it seems we need laser guided missiles to effect a kill on them. It is compulsory for the hunter of today to plaster himself with every chemical known to man to prevent all the dreaded diseases and make sure he is dressed in the latest logoed hunting clothes he can find, not forgetting the baby wipes to clean up the animal and a clean shirt to put on for the photo session. Probably needs some lights and boards to get the photo shoot just right too.

Just about forgot, the modern hunter needs a reasonable sized entourage of wives and friends, the mistress is probably acceptable too, so he can receive as many hugs and pats on the back as possible after he has gut shot and chased his animal all over the countryside, given up, and then let the PH finish the job.

It is just so easy to sit back and pour scorn on these hunters of old whose lives and feats we will never emulate and of course are no longer here to defend themselves.

That's my thought for the day.

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