A Buffalo Hunt With Bill Bagwell

Great Read...
Great Adventure...
Great Preparation...
Great Guns...
Great Loads...
Great Bowies & of course, Great SHEATHS...
Great Friends...
Great Hunt...
Great Buffalo...
Great Shot...
Great Eatin'...(wish I had some Buff in my freezer)
Great Memories for all...
Great Photos...
Thanks for sharing this, Joe!
You Rock, my Friend!;)
 
You know guy’s I am simply amazed at the responses to this thread.

What made this special to me was not just that I was with great people using fine period rifles but the speed in which this animal was cleanly harvested.

I love animals and most true hunters do and anybody that has hunted enough will tell you that sometimes things do not go right and you put an animal thru more than you would like to or in the worst case scenario you wound and lose a game animal.

The one year I lost a fantastic deer with a bow shot that should of worked but after three days of looking and even bringing my dog to track I could not recover the animal.

The first night I got home from this incident I had my first and probably only panic attack in my life in the shower I had to take a knee.

Another time I made a quick shot on a magnificent Bull Elk on a coveted unit 34 tag that I had drawn in New Mexico. The guy I was with was already slapping me on the back but I had that uneasy feeling and after a long day looking for that Bull we came up empty. I could of kept hunting but chose to keep searching, alas it was in vein and even while we searched I passed up other animals. I chose to go home empty handed.

You always remember the good shots but the bad one’s haunt you forever.

Point is that sometimes things do not go right so in the case of this great buff trip the biggest thrill to me was the clean harvest.


I will always take a mature animal and a clean kill over a younger better trophy and a sloppy kill. This trip went off seamlessly thanks to Bill taking the time to get me up to speed on the use of these wonderful old rifles. He proved to me they could be very effective with proper loads and bullet placement.

I can remember sitting around Bill’s table after we got home talking to Bill and his wonderful wife Sidra.

Bill was complementing me on my shot I told him I had a good teacher meaning him but I also told him a little story and if you guys do not mind I would like to tell you .

Growing up I had a grandfather, he was a farmer and worked the night shift as a machinist at the famous Bethlehem Steel. He was not a rich man but he was one hell of a man. I can remember my brother and I sitting on his chair by the fireplace he built surrounded by the house he built with his own hands. He was a hunter and an outdoorsman and he would read to us grand stories of the great outdoors. We would sit at his loading bench watching him work on guns and such absorbing everything like a sponge. He taught my brother and I to shoot and they talked about someday the hunts and adventures that they would go on. Sadly both died before there time and before there dream trips came to pass.

So to be honest I am not much of a hunter or a good shot. I have climbed mountains in Asia and all over North America and Canada. I have crawled thru elephant grass in the Selous and felt the salt air and water bite into my skin a hundred miles offshore because they never got to.

So when I make a good shot it’s just one of them smacking me on the back of my head at the right time so the gun go’s off. I give them all credit and I will never forget the tales by the fire and two boys and an old man dreaming.

When I told Bill this story he got a twinkle in his eye that only a lover of the outdoors and all Gods creatures would get.

Shooting these these rifles reminded me of the farm growing up. The puff of smoke and the smell of black powder brought make memories of tales of high adventure read to me by my grandfather.

These guns and knives truly are magic......Thanks Bill

Again thanks for the kind words.
 
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So when I make a good shot it’s just one of them smacking me on the back of my head at the right time so the gun go’s off. I give them all credit and I will never forget the tales by the fire and two boys and an old man dreaming.

Our Loved Ones live forever in our hearts...after all, they are only one breath away...
That Wonderful Feeling that they are close is such a Blessing & Comfort until we join them again.
Thanks for sharing, Joe...you made my day!
 
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