As a young primary school teacher in the '60s who loved hunting and had a dream to be a hunting guide, Joll took a punt and wrote to overseas hunting outfitters offering to work for them to learn how to become a hunting guide himself.
He had only one reply. It was from Alaska and said: ''... you come work for me, I no pay you, you no pay me. You work - you hunt.''
Taking up the offer, Joll collected a handful of American trophies, as well as honing the skills necessary to become one of New Zealand's first professional hunting guides.
This is not a story about his own very successful guiding career; it is about his personal trophy-hunting adventures, where he is most often hunting as the client of another guide.
Despite this collection of adventures spanning half a century, Joll recounts his trophy hunts with drama, and a freshness that almost has the reader being pricked by the same African thorns, bitten by the same flies and feeling the same elation.
- Stephen Jaquiery is ODT illustrations editor and a keen hunter.
