wizard with local cuisine; I brought many of her
recipes and ideas back to my family, and we now
eat cavolo nero with crispy prosciutto at every
opportunity! I first met my guide for the week at
the range. His name is Spartaco, and he is simply
impossible to describe in written word without
including some explicit content. Spartaco is
everything I wish to be when I grow up: enigmatic,
handsome, eccentric, charismatic and completely
genuine to boot. On more than one occasion, I
wished he would adopt me, training me to be his
rightful heir!
On the second day, we arose early to be in
place for a boar ambush. The Italian style of
hunting involves sitting and waiting on vantage
points while dressed in blaze orange gear, a very
strange thing to do by our cultural standards. The
morning was a blank, but we went back for a
good breakfast along with coffee strong enough
to stand a spoon up in.
This was followed by a spot of fishing at the
lake; using a fly rod for black bass was a first for
me, but the fish were hungry (or extremely foolish)
and everyone had good success. The day ended
with a wonderfully relaxed afternoon sampling the
world-class wine the estate has to offer with
lunch followed by boar hunting, but once
again the cinghiale failed to bless us
with their presence.
Our third day started with one of the
most beautiful sunrises I have ever
experienced. We watched roe play in
the valley below us, but still no boar. The
day was spent in Bulgari, the wine capital of
Tuscany, which distracted us from the nervous
thought that our last stalk was that evening – and
our last opportunity.
As the evening came, we sat in the bush
overlooking a fallow field for one of the longest
evenings of my life, praying at every moment that
something would come.
It didn’t.
We went back to the Marana in silence, each of
us contemplating what we had done wrong; if we
had worn different clothes, prayed different
prayers or stood in different spots, would things
have been different?
This was a turning point in my life, causing me
to reassess how I scored a successful hunt. Up
until this moment, I appreciated being out hunting,
and the stories that you gain being out in the
pursuit of game, but it genuinely mattered to me
that I had some victory over mother nature and
came home with something. This changed for me
in an instant. Looking back now, I realise it was a
milestone in my maturity as a hunter. On returning
to England, I found that whether I am pheasant
shooting, stalking or fishing, the end goal is no
longer to take an animal home, but rather to bask
in the glory of the world, and I am thankful for the
opportunity that Terriccio gave me for my current
perpetual humility as a hunter.
I left feeling enlightened and not in the least
disappointed, although everyone I spoke to aboutthe trip seemed to think it silly that I would travel
over a thousand miles to come home empty-
handed. My hands were most definitely not
empty. The memories of the tranquil estate, the
lessons learned as a hunter, the cultural
enrichment from Italian hunters – all of these
things were worth more than a boar.
A few months after our arrival back in England, I
yearned to see paradise again. Hunting now
meant something different to me, and I wanted to
see how I would feel upon returning to hunt
cinghiale. I booked a date to return and a good
friend also decided to come along and see what I
had been talking about for the last few months. SPORT ABROAD
‘The day started with
one of the most beautiful
sunrises I have seen.
We watched roe play
in the valley below, but
still no boar’
The food itself was worth the tripAn invitation to wander the
grounds as he wished was snapped upYOU
CAN DO THIS!
Contact Howard at
Outside Days for details of
this and similar trips:
http://www.outsidedays.
com