Beauty in hunting, fishing

Peter Ryan is a captivating writer. Right from the get-go he stirred memories of what seems a lifetime ago of myself as a young fellow who also shared a strange suspension, breath held, gun at the ready, waiting as ducks made their final approach to the pond, and the following depressurising moment as the quarry is retrieved and banter among mates resumes.

''It looked like the shadow of a stone, but it wasn't. A moment later the dark shape drifted slightly towards shore, and for the first time the slim line of its back broke the surface as it entered the true shallow.''

Again this could have been a sunburnt blond kid wearing shorts and sneakers, perhaps crunching the same stones underfoot on the shores of Lake Wanaka, except I would have heaved a hefty black and gold toby directly at the fish, unlike Ryan's Black Gnat which sat ''cockily on the quiet surface''.

This is not a hunt-and-kill book, but one where the places, the characters and the locations are the stars. The author shares the beautiful aspects of hunting and fishing in New Zealand, Australia, Africa and South America.

Stalking a buffalo bull, which had been terrorising African villagers in dense scrub, unseen to within 5m, close enough to hear the thrum of the oxpecker wings before .. . Or a once-in-a-lifetime chance to stalk the king of beasts and its dramatic, thought-provoking conclusion.

This is a book hunters will be proud to be associated with and non-hunters will be enriched by in its reading.

- Stephen Jaquiery is ODT illustrations editor.