Finn Aagaard

Finn Aagaard was a special man. He was a highly respected Kenya professional hunter (1967–1977) and, later, a gun expert and writer. After the hunting ban in Kenya, he and his wife of thirty-two years, Berit, moved to the USA where Finn became a hunting guide in Texas. Soon thereafter he became a writer for the NRA, and his opinions on guns, calibers, and African hunting gained him worldwide recognition. The first part of Aagaard’s African Adventures contains the complete, original manuscript of Aagaard's Africa, which was published in an abridged form in 1991. Berit, who knew him better than anyone, has expanded on Finn’s hunting stories while offering new, and never-before-published material found in Finn’s meticulously kept journals dating back to 1956. Together with these and the adventures and tales recorded on CDs shortly before his death, she paints a unique picture of the man. We follow Finn through the bloody Mau Mau uprising; we learn what it took to become a PH; we share in his courtship and engagement on an elephant hunt; and we watch as he tracks after large-tusked elephant and big buffalo. Berit and Finn describe the animals Finn pursued in such a way that it makes the reader feel as if he could reach out through the pages and touch them. Berit interviewed clients who still, after thirty years, recall how their hearts raced when a charging buffalo or leopard came at them. This new and hugely expanded version is double in size and has more than five times the photos. No other African hunting book of the last few decades does such a masterful job of transferring the flavor of Africa, its game, big-game hunting, and people to the reader. Finn and Berit’s humorous outlook on life is evident in the writing. A tracker once told the Aagaards he intended to vote for the same corrupt cabinet minister of Kenya as always. Asked why he would vote for a known crook, he answered “Because if a new cabinet minister wins, he will have to start stealing from us all over again!” Foreword by John Wootters and tributes by Jeff Cooper, Craig Boddington, the late Gary Sitton, and Phil Shoemaker.