Book Review
“Sam the Trap Man” – subtitle -”cracking yarns and tall tales from the bush.” by Sam Gibson published by Allen and Unwin, price $45. Reviewed by Tony Orman
This has to be one of the best hunting books I’ve read in a long time. Sam will be well known to readers of the “New Zealand Outdoor” magazine as his column, test reports and articles regularly feature. I’m not sure on the sub-title of “tall tales” because the author comes across as very authentic, genuine, sensitive and sincere.
Sam is a trapper and conservation worker who runs the popular Instagram page @sam the trap man with 17,000 followers.
The book’s narrative follows his early days when bagging his first deer, to his turbulent teenage years through to adulthood and currently living in Gisborne with partner Roimata and their two young children and still hunting and fishing for rainbow trout in the Urerewa rivers..
At one stage, Sam Gibson worked in Fiordland for the Department of Conservation but he and the department drifted apart as DoC opted for contractors instead of caring field workers, plus “internal politics and tensions in the workplace” and his relationship with his boss had turned sour.
He struggled with being told to take part in an aerial 1080 poison drop.
“This poison is a tool that takes life slowly and disconnects people from the process of predator control.”
There’s much for the hunter reader as experienced as they might be, to learn from the author’s experiences. I was intrigued with the chapter on the horopito, a shrub I encountered often in the southern Ruahines. I learned from the book, horopito has “incredible anti-bacterial properties”, can be used to pepper steaks plus other attributes. It plays a very important role in the ecosystem of forests too.
Sam Gibson understands the dynamics of ecosystems. He writes “everything has a balance and plays a role in the ecosystem. Every plant is connected to another plant — .” he writes of “rongo” meaning “not just to listen with our ears but to listen with our eyes, our nose, our feeling and the internal knowing we each have within us.” Sam Gibson has a deep affinity with not only the animals he hunts but with the forest, the rivers and the ecosystem. With that and an insatiable curiosity comes knowledge and wisdom.
His approach to predator control is “a predator is not a ‘pest’ and is worthy of respect even though I know that it’s life must be taken all the same.”
Sam Gibson comes across as a sensitive family man now, delighting in introducing his partner Roimata and his young children to hunting for deer and fishing for trout in the mountain rivers.
There have been a few hair raising episodes among them being shot at, not just once but multiple times.
And of course there’s oodles of hunts and selectively taking a deer or two, relative to the time of the year, such as with pregnant hinds and velvet stags.
I delighted in reading the chapters on his son Rehua’s first trout and Rehua’s first roar where Sam didn’t take a rifle and another introducing his partner Roi to hunting.
But then every chapter should resonate with the reader. They all so good!
The many photographs are excellent and enhance the author’s easy style of writing. To reiterate, “Sam the Trap Man” is the best hunting book I’ve read for ages. Thoroughly recommended!
Well, this does seem a fine book. Some hunting books leave a lot to be desired when they frequently indulge in four letter expletives. Looks good. His views on 1080 and predators seem realistic – unlike DoC’s approach to those matters
The author seems to have it altogether so well. Reminds me of a classic quote ” A peculiar virtue in wildlife ethics is that the hunter ordinarily has no gallery to applaud or disapprove of his conduct. Whatever his acts, they are dictated by his own conscience, rather than by a mob of onlookers. It is difficult to exaggerate the importance of this fact.”
It’s by Aldo Leopold, from “A Sand County Almanac”
Interesting review with the quotes on predators.