daverichey July 3rd, 2008

TITLE: Ask The Whitetail Guides
AUTHOR: by J. Y. Jones
PUBLISHER: Safari Press Inc
DISTIRBUTOR: Safari Press Inc
CONTACT:
Safari Press Inc
15621 Chemical Lane
Building B
Huntington Beach, CA 92649-1506

WEBSITE: Safari Press Inc
PHONE: Phone (714) 894-9080
COST $24.95 + S/H; Hardcover, dust jacket, 227 pages and b/w photos.

It seems that everyone and their twin brother has written a deer-hunting book in the past 20 years, including three by this writer. Those books, with some qualified exceptions, provide very little more than the author’s personal perspective. Often, that perspective is based on hunting in just one state or just one area within that state.

Such is not the case with Jones’ book. He draws on the skills and talents of 18 longstanding whitetail deer guides from North America, including Mexico. These guides provide definitive advice on how to hunt whitetails. Amazing enough, some of the tactics used on whitetails in Kansas will probably work in Illinois, Montana, Idaho or Nebraska.

For example, Jones offers the hunting advice of people from widely diverse areas, such as: Hal Blood of Maine; Jeff Charles of Maine; Dan Rosman of Michigan; Chris Pevey of Georgia; Charles Ruth of South Carolina; Jay Steen of Alabama; David Davis of Texas; Mike Gardner of Texas; Don White of Texas; Eric Albus of Montana; Keaton Kelso of Kansas; James Woodley of Illinois; Gary Drinkall of British Columbia; Rene and Kelly Semple of Alberta; Jim Shockey of British Columbia; Duwane Adams of Arizona; Carlos Gonzalez Hermosillo of Mexico; and Kirk Kelso of Arizona.

The table of contents covers such diverse topics as Selecting An Outfitter/Guide; The Whitetail Guides Evaluate The Hunter; Evaluating Hunting Arms; Hunting Whitetails With The Guide; Hunting Big-Woods Bucks; Hunting Old South Bucks; Hunting Brush-Country Bucks; Hunting Big-River Bucks; Hunting Cold-Country Bucks; Hunting High-Desert Bucks; and Parting Shots By The Whitetail Guides.

This book covers all types of methods and techniques from hunting the Michigan fields and woods to hunting the southwest for Coues deer. It covers such places as Maine to Alberta and British Columbia. The plains states of Kansas and others are covered as is the lowlands of South Carolina and the rich palmetto and wooded lands of Alabama.

What this book does, through its various writers, is provide sportsmen with countless different ways to hunt the whitetail deer. Some techniques that work in one place may be adapted for use in another state with similar terrain.

This book is much different than most whitetail titles, and that is just another good reason to buy it. What you’ll find here is totally different than the stuff found in other whitetail books. It’s different, and studying the many hunting methods can make you a better hunter, wherever your whitetail hunts may take you.

Tags: , deer, guides, hunt, j.y., jones, press, richey, safari, whitetail

• Book Reviews
• Comments(0)

daverichey February 23rd, 2008

TITLE: LEGENDS OF THE AFRICAN FRONTIER
AUTHOR: David Chandler
PUBLISHER: Safari Press

CONTACT:

Safari Press
15621 Chemical Lane
Building B
Huntington Beach, CA 90803

WEBSITE: Safari Press.com
COST: $85; Safari Press books are not sold in bookstores and are only available from the publisher.

Safari Press has done it again. This company has become known around the world for producing some of the finest books on big-game hunting that have ever been written. The books are hardbound, cloaked in cloth or leather, and often come in a beautiful slipcase that protects the book.

As superb as the construction of these books may be, it’s what is inside them that sets Safari Press titles above those published by many of the trade publishers. These titles are numbered and signed in the limited editions, and from a literary standpoint, they rate the highest of marks.

I dreamed of Africa as a kid in the 1940s and 1950s, hoping one day to shoot the key big game of the Dark Continent. I wanted to take a Cape buffalo, elephant, kudu, leopard, lion, and rhino. I wanted to go to India to hunt leopards and tigers.

Haven’t visited either place, and likely never will. But the fire of going there, and hunting big game, still burns in my belly. So, if you can’t do it, the next best thing is to read about it. I’ve been hooked on Safari Press books for many years simply because they help keep that dream alive.

This book clawed its way into my consciousness like a wounded leopard ambushing the unwary hunter. My reading about the African continent and its big game has been a part of my life for over 50 years. Some of the names in this book are familiar and some are not, but each of the people listed make up the fabric from which African stories are cut.

I’ve read books by Bunny Allen, Sir Samuel Baker, Karamojo Bell, John Burger, Douglas Chadwick, Isak Dinesen (who wrote Out Of Africa), Raymond Ditmars, Paul duChaillu, Negley Farson, William Finnaughty, Edouard Foa, Atilio Gatti, William Cornwallis Harris, Frank Hibben, William Hornaday, John Hunter, Martin & Osa Johnson, Cherry Kearton, Kalman Kittenberger, Bert Klineberger, Alexander Lake, R. Lydekker, Denis Lyell, Beryl Markham, James Mellon, John Millais, Arthur Neumann, A. Blayney Percival, J. H. Patterson, Theodore Roosevelt, Tony Sanchez-Arino, Frederick Selous, James Sutherland, John ‘Pondoro’ Taylor, Rowland Ward, Harry Wolhuter and many others.

Books by these author-hunters fired my imagination years ago, and many of their books have been read and continue to intrigue me. Over a half-century of reading about their tales of Africa is the stuff of which hunting dreams are made.

There is a short (or long, in some cases) biography of all those who are named in this book, and the biographies give birth and death dates (when known) for each person, and a background on each one. The book kept me up and reading nonstop for three days. This is one great book, and it’s a title to get lost in.

Anyone interested in the history of Africa’s hunters needs this book. It’s one of the best I’ve seen, and I’ve seen others with far less information and less entertaining as well. It gets my vote for superb information about African history and hunting,

Tags: africa, biography, chandler, frontier, history, hunters, hunting, legends, press, safari

• Book Reviews
• Comments(0)