Modern Professional Hunter Books

Modern professional hunter books are by the PHs that may have slightly overlapped the 'white hunter' era, through to those who have followed in their footsteps today.

Eric Balson

On Safari With Bwana Game by Eric Balson (2003) who guided some of the most famous people on earth and their hunting stories are all told in this book. This fascinating biography is full of amusing ancedotes.

George Barrington

One Happy Hunter by George Barrington (1994). As a professional hunter with Ker & Downey, the author hunted the length and breadth of East Africa during the 1950s and 1960s. Barrington was the professional who took out (among other notables) John H Batten. He also married Batten's daughter.

Fred Bartlett

Shoot Straight And Stay Alive: A Lifetime Of Hunting Experiences by Fred Bartlett (1994) is a fascinating book is about Fred Bartlett's lifetime of hunting experiences. He worked as a game control officer in the Kenya Game Department before joining the legendary Ker And Downey Safaris. This is a wonderful story of a life truly lived in Africa's gamelands.

Werner Brach

Memories Of Africa: Hunting In Zambia And Sudan by Werner Brach (2005) are the stories of a professional hunter in Zambia and Sudan.

Bud Branham

Sourdough And Swahili: A Professional Hunter On Two Continents by Bud Branham (1989). Hunting Alaska for bear, sheep, caribou amd moose plus fishing for trout, salmon and char. Africa for elephant, buffalo, rhinocerous, nyala and lesser game.

Joe McGregor Brooks

Joe McGregor Brooks was a professional hunter, problem animal control officer, crocodile hunter, croc breeder and in general, an adventuresome individual in Zambia.

Siatwinda: Fifty Years Of Hunting Problem Crocodile, Buffalo And Elephant In The Zambezi Valley Of Zambia by Joe McGregor Brooks (2009) is a well-written account of a life as a professional hunter in Zambia.

Mike Cameron

My Wanderings Through Africa: The Life And Times Of A Professional Hunter by Mike Cameron (2004). As a professional hunter, Mike Cameron spent more than thirty years hunting in various countries such as Tanzania, Angola, Botswana, South Africa, CAR and Zambia. On one safari, his client and his colleague's client both wounded a leopard and Mike was left to follow both leopards alone into the tall grass.

Sten Cedergren

The Adventurous Life Of A Vagabond Hunter by Sten Cedergren (2000). Cedergren set out to become a cowboy at an early age, so his first stop was Paraguay. After further roaming, he landed in Kenya and joined White Hunters Ltd, in addition to doing elephant control work. Today in his early eighties, he is still hunting elephant in Zimbabwe.

Gordon Cundill

A Hunter's Africa by Gordon Cundill (1998) contains all the vivid safari experiences.

Some Lions I Have Met by Gordon Cundill (2007) is an exciting, specialist book on lion hunting for the lion hunter by an expert lion hunter. It contains many thought provoking and valuable lessons on calibres, cartridges and why not to use an over-and-under double rifle.

Fragments Of Africa: Vignettes From A Hunter's Life 1939-1998 by Gordon Cundill (2004). In these pages you will find what the author calls a random collection of impressions and events that presented themselves in his life as a professional hunter and along the many roads he chose to follow throughout the African continent. He recalls his days with the greats of the industry, such as Harry Selby, Werner von Alvensleben, Eric Rundgren and many others.

Robert De Pole

Robert De Pole is the pen name of professional hunter Robert Kotowicz who came to Africa after surviving Russian concentration camps. During 25 years and well over 100 professionally conducted safaris, he proved he was a man who carved out a life few have been priviledged to live.

Tanzania Safari: Heia Safari by Robert De Pole (2004) describes in detail not only the hunting country but why he selected certain areas for certain clients or certain times of year for certain safaris. This is something noted briefly in hunting company brochures but the detail which De Pole has given really makes this informative as well as interesting. He treats not only the difficulty of terrain, availability and size of game, but size of the hunting party and how a PH tries to assess in advance the ability (physical and mental) of his client.

Kai Uwe Denker

Along the Hunter's Path by Kai Uwe Denker (2006). The author is one of Africa's most respected professional hunters, born in Namibia and grew up hunting both for himself and for clients in Namibia, Mozanbique, Cameroon and Tanzania. He was the first professional to hunt in Bushmanland (East Kavango). Through his pioneering efforts, that blank on the map in the middle of nowhere has yielded some of the finest trophies in recent years. Elephant, lion, leopard, buafflo, rhino plus bongo, greater and lesser kudu etc. The middle of the book is entirely on elephant hunting. Read Review

Fred Duckworth

Far From Ordinary Life: A Diary Of Adventures In An Africa Now Past by Fred Duckworth (2007). The author's descriptive prose vividly brings to life his wanderings and twists of fate as he evolved from his early years assisting game-control scouts in the Selous Game Reserve in Tanganyika to becoming a licensed professional hunter. Along that path in his long career he hunted for ivory at a time when a 110-pound per side tusker was worth four-month's pay as an assistant game ranger. He also describes the personalities, guns and game encountered.

Pete Fick

Cut To The Chase by Pete Fick (2012). The author is one of Zimbabwe's best known professional hunters. He originally joined the Parks Dept to engage in dangerous game culling during which time he shot over 1,000 elephants, plus many buffalo, lion and leopard. Later he became a professional hunter and hunted in Chewore, Matetsi, Ngamo, Kazuma and Save Valley. Most of the stories are about hunting dangerous game.If you ever plan to hunt in Zimbabwe, this book is a must. Recent Addition

Cotton Gordon

F M 'Cotton' Gordon was born in Texas and after hunting in Colorado, decided in 1974 to become a professional hunter in Zambia and later in Tanzania.

Bwana Cotton by Cotton Gordon (1996) is his account of his hunting experiences spanning four decades. This book deals with everything about big game hunting.

Wayne Grant

Into The Thorns: Hunting The Cattle-Killing Leopard Of The Marobo Hills by Wayne Grant (2008). Hunting the leopard with someone who is widely acknowledged as a leopard 'specialist'. The author has won many hunting awards including Professional Hunter of the Year.

Shakari Connection Book Review

Giorgio Grasselli

Giorgio Grasselli started out in west Cameroon when he was asked to shoot a man-killing elephant. From this start he became a PH and started guiding in the Cameroon. After leaving Cameroon, Grasselli settled in Rhodesia where he was until just before that country's independence. In 1979 Grasselli went to the Central African Republic where he hunted large tuskers, eland and bongo. Finally, Grasselli ends up in Zambia where he hunts once again for glamour game such as sable and buffalo.

African Sunsets: The Story Of An Adventurous Life by Giorgio Grasselli (2007) is a fascinating read which takes us on hunts for an elephant with a corkscrew tusk to a rogue gorilla to a bullfrog that weighed about ten pounds. The stories are not kill and kill some more, but rather they are the highlights of a most fascinating life - one that comes from being decades in Africa living and hunting in various countries.

Lou Hallamore

In The Salt by Lou Hallamore (1999) include 26 colour illustrations of shooting 'pay lines' (shot placements) and stalking recommendations. In addition to big game hunting stories, the author recounts his real life war stories during the long bush war that raged in Rhodesia. Each chapter contains sections on: choice of weapons, methods of location, tracking, trophy judgement, the approach, etc. A must for anyone planning to hunt Africa for the first time or for the returning hunter. A book hunters will read and reread.

Chui! A Guide To Hunting The African Leopard by Lou Hallamore & Bruce Woods (1994) presents the techniques used to hunt African leopard. It has stories of many great hunts and a large section of what to do when things don't go quite right. Highly recommended.

Richard Harland

Ndlovu, The Art Of Hunting The African Elephant by Richard Harland (2005) is essential reading for all with an interest in this subject - destined to be a classic. Richard Harland, is a seasoned elephant hunter. In this book he gives a great deal of practical advice on just about all facets of hunting elephant. In addition, there is a photo gallery of live tuskers, the largest known from Southern Africa in the last twenty to thirty years, which is worth the price of admission itself. A great book.

African Epic: The Story Of Paul 'Kambada' Grobler by Richard Harland (2003). Grobler began his career in 1945 and had his last elephant hunt in 1990. In 1949 alone he sold almost 2000 tusks and handed in to government another couple of hundred belonging to crop-destroying animals. Give or take a dozen or two, that year he shot roughly Bell's, Sutherland's or Nyschen's lifetime totals of 1000 to 1200 head. Over the decades while accounting for thousands of elephants, he must have pursued more of the great beasts over more miles of African bush than any other hunter. For sheer weight of experience he is, and will remain, unsurpassed and to have survived so many experiences bears witness to the skill of the master.

The Hunting Imperative: Biography Of A Boy In Africa by Richard Harland (2001) is the autobiography of Richard Harland, one of the greatest living elephant hunters. Richard learned elephant hunting under the tutelage of Paul Grobler, one of the greatest elephant hunters who ever lived. This is Harland's story.

Lionel A Hartley

Hunter's Heartbeat: A Chronicle Of Two Generations Of A Professional Hunting Family In East Africa by Lionel A Hartley (1985) is an extremely well written exciting and entertaining book. The author's adventures come to life, every nerve wracking situation leaves a knot in the pit of your stomach.

Tony Henley

Round The Campfire by Tony Henley (1989) are the experiences of a long term professional hunter in Africa. The author's family have published a small limited edition of this work, greatly extended to include the author's hitherto unpublished manuscript - 'Hunting and Wildlife in Botswana'

George Hoffman

A Country Boy In Africa by George Hoffman (1998). A professional hunter starts out his career with very little money, a new rifle and two young trackers. At the end of his career he has no money, an old rifle and two old trackers. But what adventures they enjoyed in the interim. From Missouri's woods to Africa, George Hoffman made that trip 25 years ago and he's been hunting professionally ever since. Not only has he hunted all the game under the African sun, but he is the developer of the Hoffman .416 rifle caliber - the same used by Blunt, Dyer, Selby, Lawrence and even John Taylor.

William Dayton Holmes

Safari RSVP by William D Holmes (1960) is an account of big game hunting safari in East Africa including almost all types of big game. Holmes achieved prominence hunting world-wide. His rich experience covers adventures with the African Big Five.

A Square In The Arctic Circle: An Alaskan Hunt by William D Holmes (1960). The author is one of the few white African hunters to travel to Alaska in search of a trophy polar bear and Kodiak bear. An amazing hunting story told with some humour by a licensed African PH.

Robin Hurt

Robin Hurt (b.1945) was born in England, the eldest son of Roger Hurt, a Kenya Game Warden. At the age of 18 he became a licenced professional hunter conducting hunts all over Africa.

Hunting The Big Five: Stories Of Hunting The Most Dangerous Game by Robin Hurt (2000). is an extraordinary book containing the hunting narratives of African professional hunter Robin Hurt on each of the African Big Five: elephant, lion, leopard, rhino and buffalo.

Terry Irwin

Memoirs Of An African Hunter: A Narrative Of A Professional Hunter's Experiences In Africa by Terry Irwin (1998) describes his early years as a schoolboy hunting in Botswana and Bechuanaland, his time as a prospector, and later, his employment by the Tanzania Game Department as an elephant-control officer. As a professional hunter he had his own safari hunting company conducting hunts in Tanzania, Kenya and the Sudan.

Mohamed Ismail

The Lost Wilderness: Tales Of East Africa by Mohamed Ismail with Alice Thor Pianfetti (2000) chronicles the life experiences of five native Africans who worked with him during his years as a game warden as well as his own experiences as a professional hunter. Read about the most deadly poachers ever seen in the history of East Africa; the best ivory trackers; the most elusive quarry, the East African greater kudu; and Ismail's dangerous hunts after buffalo and elephant.

John Kingsley-Heath

Hunting The Dangerous Game Of Africa by John Kingsley-Heath (1998). The author was for 30 years a leading professional hunter in East Africa and Botswana. The book features hunting numerous great tuskers with over 100 lbs ivory on each side, record rhinos and buffalo as well as lions and leopards, man-eaters included. Kingsley Heath spent a lifetime in Africa and assisted in bagging an incredible number of trophies for his clients. This book is a virtual who's who of African big game hunting in its golden years.

Leo Kroger

Leo Kröger (1912 - 2004) was born in the Russian Far East, the son of a German father and a Russian mother. He has lived and hunted in Siberia, Manchuria, China, England, Germany. In 1954 he moved to Mozambique to become a professional hunter. 'My Last Kambaku' is the story of his hunting life, particularly in Africa.

My Last Kambaku by Leo Kroger (1996). To the modern reader, Leo Kroger's life will seem like an adventure from long ago but the stories make great reading.

Christian Le Noel

Christian Le Noel is a French professional hunter who has worked in Congo, CAR, Chad and Cameroon.

On Target: History And Hunting In Central Africa by Christian Le Noel (1999) provides some entertaining stories of hunting man-killers and rogues, 100-pound tuskers and record book trophies.

Basie Maartens

The Last Safari: An Autobiography by Basie Maartens (2008) tells of the historic, turbulent and at times, dangerous career of this fifth-generation South African, generally regarded as the first licensed professional hunter in southern Africa. Through evocative stories and hundreds of photos from Basie's personal collection, 'The Last Safari' chronicles not only the life and times of one man but the many thrilling tales and colourful characters that made the southern swath of Africa the legendary hunting grounds they remain today.

Angus MacLagan

A White Hunter's Life by Angus MacLagan (1983) is the story of a professional white hunter in Africa in a time we will never see again. Hunting elephant, lion, leopard, buffalo, crocodile, plains game and more in Rhodesia in the early part of the 20th century. Angus MacLagan died in 1950.

Harry Manners

Kambaku by Harry Manners (1980) is the story of a lifetime spent hunting elephants in the jungles of Mozambique.

Ian Manning

Ian Manning grew up in Africa and was a game cropping ranger, a professional hunter and later a wildlife biologist. He also enjoyed hunting for himself for the sheer adventure of the sport.

With A Gun In Good Country by Ian Manning (1995). Reading this book makes you understand why anyone who has ever hunted in Africa wants to return again.

Brian Marsh

The Hunting Blackbeards Of Botswana edited by Brian Marsh (2007) is the story of three generations of Blackbeards who have hunted and guided in Botswana.

Baron In Africa: The Remarkable Adventures Of An Unusual Hunter by Brian Marsh (1997) is the biography of legendary hunter Werner von Alvensleben, a man without fear who also believed firmly in the value of wildlife and the wild places in modern life.

The Last Trophy by Brian Marsh (1982). Former professional hunter, Brian Marsh, depicts an Africa which even today remains mysterious.

A Pioneering Hunter by Brian Marsh (2006). There are few names in African big-game hunting as iconic as that of Brian Marsh. Elephant cropping, buffalo tales and colourful characters - this book has it all.

Terry Mathews

The Woodpecker Calls On The Right by Terry Mathews (2010). Professional Hunter Terry Mathews worked for both Safariland and Ker & Downey hunting companies in the 1950s and was a contemporary of Eric Rudgren, Tony Archer and John Sutton. He was particularly known for his high-profile celebrity clients. After working on numerous African movie productions, the film stars, such as Stewart Granger, Robert Montgomery, Bing Crosby and others, booked their hunts with him. In 1968, Mathews lost his eye after a bird shooting accident which curtailed his hunting career to a certain extent. He still ran his own company 'Mathews Safaris' hiring freelance PHs, guided photographic safaris and became a renowned wildlife sculptor. Recent Addition

Alec McCallum

Alec McCallum has four generations of professional hunting in his blood and has been a PH for 40 years in six African hunting countries.

My Africa: A Professional Hunter's Journey Of Discovery by Alec McCallum (2003) is an excellent work not only detailing McCallum's life as a professional hunter in Africa but also a pictorial history of the changes in the hunting safari industry.

Gerard Miller

Lives Of A Professional Hunting Family by Gerard Miller (2003) is a rare story about two generations of a professional hunting family in Africa. Frank Miller was one of the legendary adventurers and early professional hunters. His wife Elsie was one of the few women ever given a professional hunter's license.

Robert J Montvoisin

Professional Hunter: Along The Roads To Adventure by Robert Montvoisin (2002). Part I of his amazing adventure packed book is an autobiography brimming with unforgettable experiences and includes stories of big game hunting that took place before he turned professional. Part II consists exclusively of big game hunting stories culled from his exceptional forty-year career in eight central African countries.

Bill Morkel

Hunting In Africa by Bill Morkel (1980). The author has been a professional hunter through most of his life, leading safaris in many of the big game countries of Africa. He has now racked up his rifles and has set down his experiences, conclusions and suggestions on how to and how not to go about the sport. He gives graphic accounts of incidents on his safaris and he gives hints and suggestions regarding equipment, survival and general comfort while living under primitive conditions in the bush.

John Northcote

From Sailor To Professional Hunter: The Autobiography Of John Northcote by John Northcote (1996). The author is one of the few professional hunters to boast a continuous 50 year career hunting in Africa.

Ian Nyschens

Ian Nyschens' career as an elephant hunter began in 1947 in Southern Rhodesia when he found a companion, Faanie Joosten and the pair of them started hunting for ivory for a living. Ian Nyschens has shot equally as many elephants as W D M Bell and under much more difficult circumstances. He was the most notorious elephant poacher in Rhodesia until the time he was finally appointed a game warden.

Months Of The Sun: Forty Years Of Elephant Hunting In The Zambesi Valley by Ian Nyschens (1997). This book will rank or surpass the best elephant-ivory hunting books published this century. Remarkably, his adventures took place much later than the likes of Bell, Sutherland, Neumann and others. This is a highly entertaining story of a time long since gone and of a man remarkable for his adventures.

Footsteps Of An Ivory Hunter by Ian Nyschens (2006) was self published by Ian Nyschens shortly before his death. (Currently unavailable)

Etienne Oggeri

I Killed For A Living by Etienne Oggeri (2009). The author is the last living PH from Vietnam who grew up and hunted in what was known as French Indochina. Oggeri is descended from French settlers who emigrated to Indochina to build railroads and to hunt. He made his living either guiding sport hunters or poaching Asian elephants for ivory. During the course of his career, he also learned how to avoid the guerrillas who infiltrated the country and made hunting in the jungles of Vietnam a very dangerous profession. These very well-written vignettes give us a view into a hunting world that was once equally as vibrant as Africa. Ultimately, Oggeri was forced to leave his beloved Vietnam in 1962, not because the Vietcong, and not because of his poaching, but because of the love affair he had with the sister of the first lady of Vietnam. Etienne Oggeri was not only the foremost outfitter/guide in that country, but he is also a great writer who knows how to tell an interesting story.

Jose Pardal

Jose Pardal hunted for over thirty-two years in Portuguese East Africa, today Mozambique. During the years following World War II, Pardal hunted ivory by himself with only his family and occasional friends for companions. He shot nearly 100 elephants, the great majority above-average tuskers.

Elephant Hunting In Portuguese East Africa by Jose Pardal (1990) chronicles the hunting life story of a nearly vanished breed of man, those who single-handedly hunted elephants for prolonged periods of time.

Adelino Serras Pires

Adelino Serras Pires (b.1928) was a Portuguese born professional hunter and safari operator in Mozambique. He is now retired and resides in South Africa.

The Winds of Havoc: A Memoir Of Adventure And Destruction In Deepest Africa by Adelino Serras Pires with Fiona Capstick (2001). The author went through many set-backs and problems as the map of Africa unrolled with political upheavals. This culminated in many months of interrogation and torture by the secret police in Mozambique after being abducted in Tanzania. This is the story of his disillusionment as told to author, Fiona Claire Capstick.

Rolf Rohwer

Campfire Tales by Rolf Rohwer (2011) The author was a well-known PH who hunted throughout Africa but extensively in Zambia and Tanzania. It was there that he guided such luminaries as Jack O'Connor, HIH Prince Abdorreza, Ted Williams, and Warren Page. However this book is not a run-of-the-mill account of hunts with famous people - it is all the interesting, funny, unhappy and outrageous events that occurred to Rolf and his clients over four decades of hunting in Africa. Recent Addition

Hugo Seia

Hugo Seia has been a PH in Angola, Sudan, CAR, Zambia, Namibia and since 1988 in Tanzania.

Mundjamba: The Life Story Of An African Hunter by Hugo Seia (1995) is a memoir about Hugo Seia's hunting adventures in Africa. 'Mundjamba' is his African name meaning 'the elephant mountain'.

In Any Kind Of Cover: Hunting The Dangerous Game Of Africa by Hugo Seia (2001). Seia's second book, came as a result of demand from those who throughly enjoyed his first book. He treats the big five individually and provides a chapter on rifle and ammo selection.

A M D Seth-Smith

Tony Seth-Smith worked in the Kenya Game Department for three years before entering the safari industry as a professional hunter. He was a full member of the East Africa Professional Hunters Association and one of the original members of the International Professional Hunters Association. He has hunted extensively throughout Africa - Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Southern Sudan, Zambia and Botswana.

For The Honour Of A Hunter by Tony Seth-Smith (1996) is an account of his life of working in Kenya as a big game hunter and guide before hunting was banned in that country in favour of large scale poaching.

If you are interested in the poetry quotations in 'For The Honour Of A Hunter', a rare edition of the 'Poems of Brian Brooke' is available.... Poems Of Brian Brooke (1917)

Stephen J Smith

Stephen Smith (d.1993) was one of Africa's well-known professional hunters based in Kenya. Until his untimely death he was the editor and publisher of 'Rowland Ward's Records of Big Game'.

The Atlas Of Africa's Principal Mammals by Stephen J Smith (1985) is a superb and comprehensive field guide which covers the distribution of over 300 species and sub-species, plus the colouration, habitat, diet, weight, shoulder height, gestation period, birth details, maximum age, and horn or tusk measurement, and gives the track and a silhouette of each animal.

The Hunter And The Go-Away Bird: The Ramblings Of An African Hunter by Stephen J Smith (1992) are his autobiographical tales of his professional hunting days through Africa from 1955 to 1992. Stevie Smith was a great advocate of ethics in the hunting field, believing that it is a privilege to hunt, not a right.

Mark Sullivan

Death And Double Rifles by Mark Sullivan (2000) is an in-depth look at what motivates Sullivan to risk his life, why he deliberately walks up to wounded Cape buffalo and rogue bull hippo, challenging them on their own turf, just so he can hunt "his way".

Kevin Thomas

Kevin Thomas was a Rhodesian game ranger, professional hunter, special forces soldier and personal security officer.

Shadows In An African Twilight by Kevin Thomas (2009) is a collection of fascinating stories about a life of adventure spread across nearly four decades in Africa and culminating in Iraq.

Tracking The Memory: Tales Of Hunting by Kevin Thomas (2011) A personal account of early life on a Rhodesian farm near Chipinga, later experiences as game ranger and living along the Sabi River, and recent adventures as a wildlife guide and hunter. Recent Addition

Gilles Tre-Hardy

The Path Of A Hunter by Gilles Tre-Hardy (1997) includes more photos of 100 pound elephant tusks than in just about any other book. Throughout the book Hardy comes through as a man who never tires and won't rest until he gets his job done. No wonder he was selected to be the PH for most French presidents during his career, as well as for anyone who who wanted a really big elephant.

Bruce Truter

How Not To Hunt Pigs And Other Cautionary Tales Of Gun & Rod by Bruce Truter (1997) is a mixed bag of stories from a true outdoorsman. All of these stories have previously been published in either 'Magnum' magazine or 'The Fishing and Hunting Journal' and focus on hunting, fishing, camping and just being out in the bush.

Geoff Wainwright

Hunting For Trouble by Geoff Wainwright (2007) are stories of hunters, game rangers and clients who survived harrowing, life-threatening and never-to-be-forgotten experiences.

Hannes Wessels

Strange Tales From The African Bush by Hannes Wessels (2006). A former PH in Tanzania, some of the stories in this book which will make you laugh out loud.

William York

William York was a British adventurer and professional hunter. He travelled to the Sudan when he was only sixteen seeking an adventurous hunting life. By the time he turned eighteen, he had already shot 250 elephant. He crossed southern Sudan on his own, with only a small band of hired help and made a living from ivory hunting. He learned to feed his men after his cook was eaten by a lion, he traversed the Lado Enclave eschewing big tuskers in favour of bulls with smaller tusks so his caravan could carry them and he was arrested and flogged in Uganda. York returned to Britain for a short period then joined the Kenyan police once back in Africa. He then gave up police work to become a professional hunter and mercenary. Robert Ruark got his inspiration to write Uhuru while he was in York's bongo camp.

Out In The Midday Shade: Memoirs Of An African Hunter 1949-1968 In The Sudan And Kenya by William York (2000) is the fascinating true-life story of a born adventurer, filled with adventure and humorous stories.

African Adventures And Misadventures: Escapades In East Africa With Mau Mau And Giant Forest Hogs by William York (2003). As with York's previous book, the pages are loaded with interesting anecdotes, fascinating tales and well-written prose that give insight into East Africa and its more famous characters.