The Professional Hunter
They is or they ant.
No other profession has been romanticized as much as the African professional hunter. Generally, they’re assumed to be a handsome but rugged character that can steal the heart and the virtue of the most devoted wife, and in another instant kill a charging, man eating lion. It’s a vocation that lends itself to legend. This is mostly due to the written words of H. Rider Haggard, Ernest Hemmingway, and Robert Ruark. More recently, in the made for television series 1923, an African professional hunter character by the name of Spencer Dutton – played by a no name actor –stole the screen, even from the likes of Harrison Ford of Indiana Jones fame.
When Ruark penned Horn of the Hunter in 1953 he was one of America’s most popular syndicated writers. The book was about Ruark’s first safari. A safari during which he specifically wanted to hunt with a tracker named Kidogo, who’d hunted with one of Ruark’s friends. At the time, Kidogo was working for Ker and Downey Safaris and was assigned to a young and unknown professional hunter named Harry Selby who’d just recently been working as a field mechanic. Ruark would go on to write for Field & Stream, who declared Horn of the Hunter the best book on Africa hunting ever written. The book made the young Selby famous. The demand to hunt with Selby was so great he remained booked years in advance for most of his long career.
I’ve been hunting in Africa for two decades, generally for a month or more at a time, and I’ve hunted with a lot of professional hunters. For the most part they have all been just men. Men, who like in any other profession, are generally of average talent. Only two of the more than two dozen professionals I’ve hunted with have stood out.
In the early 2000s, Hennie Badenhorst operated Lyon Safaris out of Thabazimbi. Badenhorst was a consummate gentleman and professional, and as they say, he had seen the elephant – and the leopard; the claw marks on his bald head was proof of the latter. Badenhorst also owned the greatest hunting dog I’ve ever shared the field with. Known as Nimrod of the Limpopo, the dog is legend, and is still talked about around the fire ring with reverence. Badenhorst had a freak accident and lost his sight in one eye. This caused him to stop guiding, figuring no one would put their trust in a one-eyed hunter. I hunted with Badenhorst as recently as 2023, and he was still better than most of the professionals I’ve shared the veld with.
I’d rank Badenhorst in the top 10% of the professional hunters in Africa, but I’d put Geoffrey Wayland in the top 1%. I first hunted with Wayland in 2013 on his farm in the Northern Cape, situated between the Orange River and the Mokala National Park. He was young then, closer to my son’s age than mine, but I was instantly taken by his skill and demeanor. I took my first and second kudu bull with Wayland, and though Badenhorst gave me my introduction to Africa, it was Wayland who solidified my addiction.
Wayland’s farm has been in his family since the mid 1800s when it was granted to them by the English Crown. They trekked north from the southern coast in wagons for the more than 400 miles and settled a vast expanse of nothingness to become farmers. During the Boer War the British commandeered their farm and established a Fort. Walther Wayland, the patriarch at the time, sent his family away and remained at the farm to protect their vast holdings from the King’s men. Today the Wayland family still farms the same land, but in addition to raising cattle and sheep, Geoffrey, the current patriarch, is a hunter.
Geoffrey’s father was also a professional hunter and outfitter, and when Geoffrey was not working the ranch he was helping and learning from his father. Geoffrey did the hard work, work often left to trackers and skinners, but by the time he was 17, schooled by his father Neil, he had established a reputation as a hunter himself. He was also schooled by his amicable mother, Annamarie, in how to be a gentleman and associate with others, of any cultural and financial background. Both of his parents also instilled the value of a man’s word in young Geoffrey.
And then Geoffrey’s father died, leaving Geoffrey and Annamarie with a decision. By law Geoffrey was too young to be an outfitter, but because of the tutelage of his father, the skill that he had shown, and because other outfitters in the area spoke for him, at 17 he became the youngest man to ever receive an outfitters license in the Northern Cape province.
Geoffrey and Annamarie, and now with the help of Geoffrey’s wife, Victoria, have been running Fort Richmond Safaris ever since. But taking clients hunting on his family farm was not enough for Geoffrey. Unlike most humans, Geoffrey seems to have gotten more of the hunting DNA than everyone else. He’s hunted in just about every location in Africa where sport hunting thrives. And he has excelled at it. There’s a string of clients longer than a week-old buffalo track that can attest to his hunting, educational, and entertainment skills.
Geoffrey and I once hunted ground mostly new to Geoffrey and I, and in defiance of the expectations of the other professional hunters working there, we brought in more game than anyone else. We even declined – I’ll admit at Geoffrey’s urging – to pursue kudu, which is our most favorite thing to hunt together. Geoffrey feared our success, which we both knew would be immanent, would alienate the rest of the professionals and their clients.
Geoffrey has a unexplainable way about him when it comes to hunting. He can look at a landscape and seemingly divine where the animals are. And not just any of the animals, most specifically the ones you’re after. Though not in the same way as a tracker, Geoffrey is also a slave to the spoor. The black African trackers are known for the amazing way they can decipher a track. Geoffrey explained their extreme skill, saying, the African tracker only sees what’s on the ground. They do not speculate or try to anticipate what the animal has done; they simply and undistractedly follow the sign.
Geoffrey on the other hand – like most white hunters – does anticipate and speculate. The difference is that he has developed an innate ability, tempered by the time of year, the weather, the condition of the vegetation and frequency of rain, and coupled with all he has learned as a farmer and a hunter throughout his life, to anticipate and speculate with a high degree of probability. A hunter once remarked about how much Geoffrey liked to track. Politely, I offered, he was not just tracking, he was hunting.
But this professional hunting occupation that has been so romanticized is not just about hunting. Professional hunters, especially those who are outfitters, must manage all the logistics associated with a hunt. This includes the food, lodging, laundry, and the duties and moral of the staff and the clients. It’s like Green Beret level 10; an African outfitter essentially runs a miniature — sometimes mobile — township. They must also — in various languages — cater to the whims and ridiculousness of the clients who are quite often spoiled city folk and who are paying the bill.
I once watched Geoffrey establish a remote tent camp for four hunters in only three days. Each hunter had their own tent, the professional hunters had a tent, and there was a mess tent and a supply tent, and four showers with running hot water and lights. If that was not enough, every day every hunter had a custom tailored lunch, and then finished the day with a three course, five-star meal. Just as importantly, during this weeklong safari deep in the African bush, all four hunters were successful in taking a nice free-ranging kudu bull. Making that — even half that — happen, is not easy.
Since 2015 I’ve tried not to hunt with other outfitters or professional hunters. I’ve seen enough to know who is worth my money and who is not. But due to my job, that’s sometimes unavoidable. Recently, I was reminded of how lucky I was to find Geoffrey Wayland, after spending a week with an outfit where the professional hunters got drunk and paraded around the camp singing and displaying their belligerence every night. Most of them eked through each day, not to hunt, but only to overcome their hangover enough so they could rinse and repeat each night.
I often equate the skill of the African professional hunter to a firearms trainer. A good firearms trainer knows their material, but more importantly they can effectively convey that material to any student, regardless their gender or experience level. The same is true of a real professional African hunter. Not only must they be able to hunt, but they must also be able to hunt successfully with any client. I’ll admit, I’m not easy to hunt with, partly because I’m what they call a grouchy gun writer, but mostly because I insist on being part of the hunt and not just a shooter. Geoffrey embraces that, and he does not hunt for me. We hunt together.
But it’s his skill with others that has most impressed me most. When my son was 17 I arranged a buffalo hunt for him and the only professional I would let direct that hunt was Geoffrey. Early one morning we worked very close to a nice bull, and my son was on the sticks and ready, but Geoffrey called it off and we backed out. Later, I asked him why, and he said he wanted my son to experience the moment and adrenalin rush at least once before it mattered. Later that day we celebrated a wonderous and perfectly shot bull.
Last year I asked Geoffrey to guide my daughter who was 19 at the time. Though I’d taught her how to shoot – and she can shoot well – a single whitetail doe was all she had taken. Geoffrey was with her for her gemsbok, wildebeest, and zebra, and he calmed her excitement and helped her deliver perfect shots on each. Geoffrey can hunt; his father taught him how and he learned the rest on his own. But just as importantly for a professional hunter, his mother and father both taught him how to interact with people, gain their trust, and lead them to success – entertainingly and safely.
Geoffrey Wayland is a big, strong man, just as an iconic African professional hunter should be. He can damn near drag a young kudu bull into the back of a Land Cruiser by himself. But Geoffrey is unassuming and mostly devoid of the macho-like persona most professional hunters believe they must display. I’ve seen his soft side, with both of his infant children sleeping on his barrel-like chest. Almost boyish in his looks, with a farmhand-like, happy go lucky personality, he has a voluminous laugh and a Labrador retriever like disposition that will make you think he might be the happiest man in the world. And he just might be.
However, there’s also some Rhodesian ridgeback in Geoffrey. There’s a sleeping — lion hunting — dog under the surface waiting to deal with evil and nastiness. Geoffrey would be a great bouncer in a nightclub, peacefully and jokingly guiding a drunk ruffian to the door, but capable of breaking him in half should the boozer step across the line.
I once wrote that an African safari is like a drug, and that the professional hunter is your dealer. And that with the right dealer, the addiction can be managed and tempered to the point it is survivable, for life.
But Africa can also be a devilish bitch. If you try to force her, she will break your heart. If you try to steal from her, she will cripple your soul. The best advice Geoffrey ever gave me about Africa was to take what Africa gives you. Africa’s gift to me was a hunting partner who at sometimes seems like my son, at other times like my father, but at all times like my friend. I sincerely hope you can one day find an African professional hunter half as good. Unfortunatley, you might have better luck hunting unicorns.
Epilogue
Ruark once wrote , “Things are very simple in the African veld. You is or you ain’t.”. Unfortunately, based on my experiences, most professional hunters, ain’t. I’m not Ruark; I’ll never write with his flare, colorfulness, and masterful skill, or drink as much gin. During Ruark’s first safari of about six weeks, Ruark, his wife, and Selby, consumed nearly a bottle of gin every day.
And Geoffrey Wayland is not Harry Selby.
The thing is, Wayland might be better – at least at their comparable ages. If it’s in Africa and you want to hunt it, I cannot think of another professional better equipped to make that happen. But the pitiful damned shame of it all, the bloody travesty for all those hunters who still want to experience Africa – as magnificent, grand, and magical, as Africa can be – is that there’s no one like Ruark left to tell the world about Geoffrey Wayland.
It’s left to me, and I ain’t worthy.
So many wanna-bees in the world today. I would imagine that a safari to Africa would sort them out rather quickly. Ruark's most sought-after book, 'Horn of the Hunter' is back in print. As a kid I looked forward to his articles in Field & Stream.
Another great Emptycases Substack, Richard!