very true. i guess for me when it comes to family idont care. i could honestly say that if my son or wife wanted an elephant we would shoot one asap. i will spend any amount of money necessary to buy memories but hunts for myself have no value to me. lets just say i love my family more than life itself and africa had provided me with riches greater than i could have ever imagined.
You don't have to convince me tap, I'm planning a PG hunt with my 14 year old for next year for exactly the same reasons. FWIW I am also a member of the other site and I caught your thread shortly after it began. At the time I didn't make the connection between tap and tony, but I can tell you my first thought was that you had stirred up a pot and it would turn a bit ugly. I'm not saying it was your intent, only you know what your intention was.
Whatever the case, you walked in to the other site as a new member which obviously means you have little if any rapport built up with its long term members. With one of your first if not first post you bring up the very controversial subject of high fence vs open ground hunting. the other site has had it's share of trollers and those who want to stir up trouble, again not saying that was your intent. So when you as a new member come in and start off with that subject, you're going to naturally put at least some of the members on high alert. Right or wrong that's just going to be the way it is.
Making matters worse as someone who admittedly has never hunted elephant, you made it sound like you just take a drive around until you see the one you want and then hop out and shoot it. This statement whether you knew it or not came soon after Buzz Charlton of Charlton McCallum Safaris had posted a thread about one of his trackers Criton getting stomped by an ele. That fact along with a community of very experienced elephant hunters.....well I think you may have an idea now of how that comes across.
Now finally with respect to your shooting ability. Again with no rapport built up with it's members you laid claim to regularly shooting mulies at 400 yards on a dead run. Now having been a western hunter for the last 20 years and an absolute Coues deer nut, I have found myself shooting much longer distance than many hunters do. I get it, it's the nature of the game out here. But 400 yards on a dead run is a shot that the vast majority of hunters are never going to even have an opportunity at, if they do they won't take it and even if they did they're not likely to be successful. I'm not saying you haven't done it nor that you aren't a good enough shot to do that, but you must understand that your audience had no rapport with you in this situation. Naturally there are going to be those that at the very least raise their eyebrows at such claims.
I don't post all of this to either attack you or to defend the other site, just trying to make an objective analysis of what happened. As an engineer exhibiting many of the stereotypes associated with my profession, I have a lifetime of personal experience saying things I now wish I could take back. There's a funny Dilbert cartoon about "The Knack", engineers and their "utter social ineptitude." I've on way too many occasions exhibited this social ineptitude.
So I'd be inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt that you were just being honest perhaps brutally and/or ignorantly so, but in the end honest. This is not something that I have a problem with, but I know in doing so I've had at times the same effect on people.
the other site has a huge amount of very experienced knowledgeable people in the hunting and shooting world. While I do post here more often, I spend as much time over there as I do here. I am grateful that the other site exists and it has provided me a huge amount of help. I am also grateful for AH, I've met whether over this forum or also in person several of the members here and consider them friends.
There are a few of us with "dual citizenship" both here and there. This obviously includes Mike70560 as well as safari-lawyer. It was my pleasure to meet both of these individuals at DSC this year as well some other the other site members. I have to agree with Mike, the other site while it may have it's less than stellar moments is another great website for the hunter and shooter. I'm sorry that you got off on the wrong foot over there, but I hope you can see how that happened given perhaps a more complete view of the bigger picture.
I think there's plenty of room in this world for AH, the other site and any other internet community that shares the same passion we all feel for hunting. IMO I think hunting and hunters are much better of if we avoid an it's Us or Them mentality.
