Life Insurance for a Warthog
The stalk worked perfectly, and the warthog remained blissfully unaware of the group of humans huddled on the other side of the tree. I slowly slipped the .300 Winchester Magnum ‘camp rifle’ into the fork of the tree, silently moved the safety to fire, lined up the sights, and squeezed the trigger. Immediately following the rifle’s report, Dylan, watching through his binocular announced, “You shot the top half off his right tusk!” Chambering another round, I attempted to get onto the rapidly departing boar, but to no avail. Probably less so than the Warthog, but stunned was the only apt descriptor for me. How could I have possibly shot that far off from the shoulder hold I remembered seeing in the rifle scope.
It was as we made our way back to the truck that Dylan and Albiño shared something in the unique, English-Afrikaans-Sena-Portuguese mixed-language known as Fanagalo that made both chuckle. I wondered what they found humorous. Dylan smiled and said, “You just bought that boar a life insurance policy. No client will want a Warthog with one of its tusks shot in half.” Right then the levity didn’t penetrate my gloom. It would take several days, some good-natured kidding by other PHs, Trackers and camp staff concerning ‘Warthog Life Insurance’ before I would lighten up and start accepting that everyone makes a bad shot occasionally. Yes, mine was a doozy, but it wasn’t going to help for me to sulk about it, and in fact would likely contribute to additional poor shooting if I didn’t relax and go on.