I feel the same.

This kind of thing is why I don't watch hunting shows anymore. Most of them seem fake, the celebrating after the kill shot is way over the top, and I can't stand how often they waste meat by waiting until the next day to recover game. I don't think they are a good representation of how most hunters approach the sport, and they make our pastime look bad to the non-hunting public.

Guy makes a mistake and the hunt goes sideways. If he already made a bad shot and there's trackers and a PH around you want him to have a rifle and be up front? It's the PH's call on where the client is and if he has a gun. They can ask the client to not even be in the follow up party; PH's call. As you've stated, it's dangerous business. Although, even though leopards are the quickest and quietest charge when wounded, very few deaths occur. Lion is a different story. Yeah, they can mess you up bad and put you in the hospital fighting infection. I spoke with a PH at the Dallas Safari show a week ago that had recently (last season) got his arm mauled and elbow pretty much crushed by a leopard. He was in the hospital 2 weeks.

Leopard hunting, even at 50 yards, isn't always a slam dunk. This guy paid for his hunt to be videoed, but probably signed all kinds of waivers for them to use it on their show and yes, the producers probably want a smiling client at the end. Maybe the guy was contrite, we don't know. I'm acquainted with the guys and the company that make this show. I don't care for video cameras on hunts, but it's a business to them. I don't think the show is perfect, and I too regularly armchair quarterback, but there's a lot worse on the tube.

I've met the PH in that show. And the picture of the young PH on a stretcher with his arm bandaged is Ian Gibson (years ago). Ian just stayed at my house this past week.

I certainly wouldn't call the client at the end "all smiling". All he did was compliment his PH. That part certainly doesn't seem strange to me.

Exactly!!

Well, how big was that muke deer?

I don't get all bent over legal things others celebrate or enjoy.

Seems a huge waste of effort to me, since it's out of my control.

There was a PH who used to put out a new hunting video every year full of charging cape buffalo and putting them down at the last second. From what I heard, but it was just rumors, he was intentionally getting them to charge in order to get it on film and he was investigated for endangering his clients and unethical hunting methods.

The PH I hunted with in SA over the summer had a client hunting leopard up in Zimbabwe just before we got there. Big money client who has been hunting with him for years, but is now getting older and has a bit of a drinking problem. He missed his leopard on three different nights at close range. He told me that he was never more terrified of having to deal with a wounded leopard then he was with that client.

Eddie

Two words:

Tony Romo.

I see your Tony Romo and raise you Johnny Manziel

Wow! So cool Jeff!!