By Mike Arnold
I don’t think I’m a particularly unkind person. Yes, I play tricks on cats – scotch tape on the bottom of their feet etc. – but after all, they’re my cats, not a neighbor’s. I don’t yell at very many small children, since my kids are now adults. I treat those who don’t agree with me as if I respect their views. I avoid almost all bumper stickers, and signs in my reloading shop, that might cause offense to those less conservative than I. And I try to resist the urge to tell people when their baby is really unattractive. But my older brother, Randy, and my buddy Larry Weishuhn managed to turn this overall sweet guy into a vindicative jackass. Let me explain.
The whole sad set of recent events began many years ago when I decided that a good African hunting goal would be the collection of the so-called Tiny 10, a hunter-made-up set of 10 species of pygmy antelopes. In fact, my very first African trophy, the Vaal Rhebok (a.k.a. Vaalie) provided the motivation for my own quest after the Tiny 10. My PH for the Vaalie, Arnold Claassen, mentioned this category unknown to me at that time. He observed I now had one of the most difficult of the Tiny 10 in my collection; he then listed the other nine antelope species belonging to this club. Though membership in this group sometimes differs depending on which knowledgeable hunter you ask, one species that always appears is the Eastern-Southern African Steenbok. If you ask any hunter with even a few safaris under their belt, they’re going to state emphatically that the Steenbok is one of the easiest of the little guys to add to a trophy room. Then they will tell you how many they have in their own trophy rooms.
Fast forward 5 years from that Vaalie hunt and I stood at nine-out-of-ten of the species needed for completion of this, now, very personal quest. That’s the point at which my sweet brother, Randy, and sweet friend, Larry, enter the frame. In their individually unique styles, they encouraged me forward in my journey; both in their quiet, dulcet tones made me feel like a success for being so far down the path. From my brother: “You are missing the Steenbok?! Are you kidding me??! I have two of them. One of them almost ran over me when I was having a sundowner one evening in South Africa. I killed it with a rock. How about I sell you one of mine. It has a damaged leg from a move, but you can just hide it behind a plant or chair.†And, from Larry: “I cannot believe you are missing the Steenbok. Who in the world would imagine someone wanting the Tiny 10 shooting a Vaalie as their first African animal and not being able to manage collection of one of the easiest trophies in Africa. I have four, but it could have been 20 had I not run out of ammunition on a couple of my safaris!†Of course, though Randy’s comments stung, Larry’s unfortunately occurred during one of his well-attended podcasts on which I was a guest. After its airing, my mom sent me a note, pointing out how I’d shamed our entire family by being sans Steenbok.
Fast forward again, and I was back in Africa, this time topping my wish list was the missing piece to my Tiny 10 obsession. However, I didn’t want just any mature Steenbok ram. With careful research involving checking old records, whispered conferences in toilet stalls at the Dallas Safari Club Convention, judicious application of alcohol at mixers, and even the occasional backhander to cash-strapped outfitters and PHs, I now knew the trophy sizes of the Steenboks collected by my brother, and cowboy-hat-wearing celebrity friend. So, Samson-esque in the setting of my face for battle, I intended to slay my brother and friend with the jawbone, and of course horns, of not an ass, but a tiny Steenbok with horns longer than anything Randy or Larry had standing, laying, or simulated-vaping in their trophy rooms.
On the first concession visited on my safari, my PH and Trackers and the owner of the concession all seemed worried by their client when they saw him pacing near the firepit while muttering in sarcastic tones to himself phrases like “I have four of them!â€, “How good of a hunter can you be if you can’t collect an animal that has a death wish?!â€, and “Mom always liked me best!†I suspect this concern explains why my PH wanted the Trackers to always carry my rifle. When meeting my first PH of the trip, James (Quinney) Quin, I immediately let him know that I wanted a Steenbok, and one of a certain size. He looked at me cautiously, and said, “that’s a tall order.†I almost hissed and my eyes felt a bit bug-like when I answered, “It’s non-negotiable! I must end up with a Steenbok that size!†Quinney put his hand on my shoulder and spoke calmly, “You do know we don’t have an ordering system for a certain size Steenbok, right? That’s why it’s called hunting. But we’ll give it our best try.â€
The next two nights were sleepless, making climbing up and down the rock-strewn hills of the Kat River Conservancy a trial. Each day, I felt like my eyes were growing into the lenses of my Vortex binocular-rangefinder. Quinney was patient with me, and slowly worked us through the dense thornbush and open valleys. We saw many Steenboks. Every time one appeared, I asked the same questions: “Ram?!†and if so “How big?!†In retrospect, why my long-suffering PH or his Trackers didn’t practice on me the three Ss (Shoot, Shovel and Shut up) is puzzling. I suppose they considered it unprofessional. Then it happened. James looked at one of the distant, tannish forms and pronounced him “promisingâ€. I stared at the animal and then my PH and asked, “What does THAT mean?!†Without pulling his optics from his eyes, he whispered from the corner of his mouth. “It means, this is a huge Steenbok, in fact the largest I’ve ever seen on this property.†I stuttered…“bbbbut, is he big enough?†Quinney seemed to know just when to put in the spurs. “Chum, no one in their right mind would pass up this ram. So, you shoot, or I will.†At the time it never occurred to me that he might have a different target in mind for the two of us.
I asked for the distance and his reply was 126 yards. The little form came into sharp relief through the Blaser B2 riflescope set at its maximum 15 power. Even so, for the life of me, I could not see the horns distinctly, and was paranoid that Quinney wanted this client’s self-inflicted psychosis over so badly that he would tape horns to a house cat and tell me it was a great Steenbok. But there comes a time in a fanatic’s life that he must trust someone else to help fulfill his fanatical goals. This was that time for me.
Aiming point was back a bit to avoid the shoulder, and at the trigger break of the Blaser R8 in .300 Winchester Magnum, the tiny form simply vanished, with a puff of dust appearing in its place. Quinney slapped me on the back and spoke in a normal voice for the first time in over an hour. “Great shot!†Lifting my face from the R8’s stock, I turned what felt like a sickly grin in his direction and managed a croaky, “Thanks.â€
James’ friend and Tracker, Elliot, headed down the slope to where the little form rested. I watched through my binocular-rangefinder, taking the chance to confirm the range. When Elliot picked the Steenbok up by all four feet, his horns were still indistinct to my untrained eyes. I really don’t tend to want animals of a certain size, but this was important enough to me that I would have sold a kidney (someone else’s, of course) to ensure getting the needed ram. As Elliot drew nearer, I heard Quinney’s excited exhalation, and expostulation of “Holy Sh--!†He was right. Though not in the top 10 of Steenbok records, I had no doubt that payback was gonna be the B-word when I sent photos of this huge, little ram to Randy and Larry. The trophy photos tell the story. I couldn’t quit grinning.
The only downside, and it was a huge one – Randy and Larry didn’t seem to have a clue that I’d been in a diagnosable, psychotic state trying to one-up them in response to all the perceived abuse. A bit disappointing to say the least. Maybe I should have stayed with 9-out-of-10 of the Tiny 10.
Mike Arnold is a Professor of Genetics at the University of Georgia and author of the 2022 book, BRINGING BACK THE LIONS: International Hunters, Local Tribespeople, and the Miraculous Rescue of a Doomed Ecosystem in Mozambique. Mike’s book is available for purchase now at bringingbackthelions.com.
