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Craig Boddington Iconic outdoor writer tells all
Bruce: What’s it like to be — you look past your history — what’s it like to be in different places, not in North America, but just in places in the country and you’re sitting around after the hunt at the campfire? Is that any different than what you’ve experienced with your buddies down on your farm in Kansas? Craig Boddington Iconic outdoor writer tells all
Craig: No! No, it really isn’t. I mean, in many ways hunting in the same the world over, and certainly the same level of experience. People always ask me what’s my favorite hunt. And the only answer to that is somewhere between the last one and the next one. I’m a junkie for all of it. Obviously some hunts are more difficult than others and more challenging. And some are just plain miserable. But really in many ways, it’s all the same excitement.
understand that that doesn’t make me a better hunter than the good old American whitetail hunter.
I’ve been so, so fortunate to have been able to hunt in a lot of different places and that’s really been part of my occupation. I go places and I write about it and I do a little television. But I think it’s important to say that I fully understand that that doesn’t make me a better hunter than the good old American whitetail hunter.
And quite honestly, we’re fortunate the whitetail deer is the most numerous game animal on earth and it’s created the largest hunting society on earth. But there is nothing more difficult in the world than a whitetail deer. Anybody, especially if we’re talking east of the Mississippi, anybody who has any degree of consistent success on whitetails in the East is probably in the top percentile of the best hunters in the entire world. Nothing is more difficult.
Bruce: So let’s just echo that. The guy who hunts the same 40 — and I’ve been fortunate to hunt whitetails for 50 years now — but when you look at a 40, and it’s yours or your friend’s, and you hunt that and hunt in year-in, year-out. Some years are good; some years are better. If you consistently see the deer and make the choice to take or not, to harvest or not, put them on the ground or not, your experience is something that is really grand. I just want our listeners to hear that. It’s really a special thing to be a whitetail hunter and to challenge probably the most elusive game animal that I know. Would you echo that?
Craig: Oh, I really would. I mean, that is just a class experience. Now obviously in any hunt, there is a home-court advantage, the guy that’s hunting his back 40. I’ve got a little ground in Kansas and I certainly know it better than anybody. I have a pretty good idea where to go, based on conditions, and when I have guests we do try to put them in the right place, based on that knowledge.
“everywhere else in the world” might be the next county over in a patch of public land you’ve never hunted before
You know, when you go somewhere else in the world, yeah, then it’s a whole new ballgame. And really, “everywhere else in the world” might be the next county over in a patch of public land you’ve never hunted before, even a friend’s piece of private ground. When you go into new country, then the game changes.
A lot of the places I go, you’re pretty much required by law to have guides. Some folks that are fortunate enough to have really great hunting close to home and stay close to home look down on that. But you know what? That’s a long-standing tradition. Davey Crockett, Daniel Boone, and Theodore Roosevelt all hired local guides.
We think of the greatest African hunter in the world as being Frederick Courtney Selous, killed by a German sniper in January 1917, when he was 65 for heaven’s sake. He should have been home by the fire. But he actually hunted widely throughout North America. A lot of people don’t know that. But when Fred Selous went someplace, he hired local guides, so there’s really nothing wrong with that, but there is a real special experience to being able to do it by yourself, on your own, figure out the animals, get the shot, and recover the game yourself. There’s really nothing like it.
I’m going to open a can of worms in selection of caliber for whitetails. That’s a great question for you.
Bruce: Now I’m going to open a can of worms in selection of caliber for whitetails. That’s a great question for you.
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