from fellow hunters
Words from Bob Newland:
Hope and a Prayer
I sat in the Anchorage airport waiting on a flight home, dejected and disappointed. I had just spent nine days traversing the Talkeetna Mountains searching for a Dall sheep to complete my Super Ten of North American big game.
Two things run through your mind at a moment like this…boy am I sore, and I just dropped some serious coin on an unsuccessful hunt.
I can’t really call it a waste of money. The experience was incredible and one I will never forget, but I still need a sheep if I’m ever going to complete my goal! I’m not sure I could justify the cost of trying again.
The costs of hunting adventures are becoming prohibitive for the average guy, and that’s all I am. I don’t have that bottomless well of cash on hand to keep funding my passions.
The same dilemma holds when booking big five or dangerous seven hunts on the Dark Continent. Sure, it’s not out of reach to travel to South Africa and hunt cape buffalo behind a fence, but for some reason, it’s in my head that if I’m going to chase black death, I want it to be a ”true” African type safari with tented camps and tsetse flies. I want to face my dagga boy on his turf with a level playing field.
Unfortunately, the costs of those types of safaris are getting out of reach, too. My thoughts are the same when I think of elephant, lion, or leopard but those price tags run even higher. How does a hunter like me find a way to chase those dreams that are buried deep down inside?
The question may have been answered for me with a phone call from a good friend, Dr. Brian Beakler. Brian called me one day excited about a new non-profit he was starting called the Horn and Tusk Society. Horn and Tusk is a membership program whereby periodic drawings will send lucky winners on those safaris they dream of.
For a small monthly contribution, your name goes into a hat where members will be selected to go to Africa and experience that legitimate African bush camp and chase that once-in-a-lifetime trophy.
The membership number is being capped so the odds of selection are good…far better than the chances of being drawn for a Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep tag out west, that’s for certain.
With drawings scheduled every few weeks, there are plenty of chances to win, and they are offering an upgraded membership where you can have multiple entries in each drawing. This seems like one of those no-brainer decisions to me.
The program got even sweeter when Brian explained that a portion of the proceeds are being directed toward anti-poaching efforts in Africa and humanitarian projects as well.
I’m excited to be part of the groundbreaking and have a sincere hope and prayer that I’ll hear my name drawn one of these months for that leopard hunt I’ve been dying to go on for years or even that matchup with that dagga boy who looks at me like I owe him money.
Best of luck to Brian and his team at Horn and Tusk. I hope someone starts something like this for sheep hunts so one day I can hang that Super Ten certificate in my trophy room with my other prized Possessions.
- Bob Newland