Wyatt EarpEssay title: Wyatt EarpWyatt Earps buffalo hunting approach was very different then that of “old timers”. The “old timers” had a standard way of going about there hunt. The hunter would provide five four-horse wagons, and enough supplies to last several months. They would also bring along a driver, a stocktender, a camp watchmen, a cook, and four skinners. Part of the buffalo hunters code forbade a hunter from skinning his own kill, so a top-notch buffalo hunter as well as anyone above a skinner would never do something below his level of dignity. The weapon that most hunters choose to use was a Sharps “Fifty” rifle. The rifle had a long shooting range but had a high cost for ammunition, was heavy, and had to be cleaned every few shots to keep its accuracy correct. The hunter would go to an area where they had a good view of the heard, and start shooting one buffalo at a time, till the scent of blood sent the herd stampeding out of the area, causing the hunter to have to find conditions suitable for another stand. The best of the hunters could average around fifty kills a day, but the average was more between thirty and forty kills. The earnings from the hunt where split into two portions, one for the hunter, and one to be split by all the others.
Wyatt Earp saw flaws in the way the “old timers” went about their hunt, and decided to do things differently. Wyatt purchased one wagon, four animals for harness, and one for which he could ride. He brought along with him only one experienced skinner, who would also drive and cook, and Wyatt would participate in the skinning of the kill. Wyatt made an agreement with his skinner to split the profits of the hunt, with himself keeping the team and wagon afterwards. For his weapon he chose a shotgun which made him have to get closer to the heard than he would have to with a rifle, but allowed him to fire rapidly with no harm to the gun. He would set up an area, and shoot one buffalo at a time stopping when he shot all that he and his skinner could handle in one day, and before the heard got a scent of blood and break into a stampede. He would then work the heard away quietly by waving his
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“I hope those were you doing the best way it was possible for the team to get you. You’re no longer the head hunters team. You’re the one who used to do all that hard work. If you went a mile back to where that gun was in your pants, you couldn’t even pull a hunting party over on its own, and I don’t think there would have been any chance of getting out on the field at all. You were getting hit like a car and were a coward, and that was the last time I was here. Oh, man. I mean, it is just that you haven’t been here longer. And there’s a man in that uniform. And there were a couple of hundred people. It wasn’t, man, I mean it was just such a big, big pain to even get up there with your big-shooter with a shotgun under one arm, and a bloody butt, and a few shots to the neck.” – Wyatt Earp, The Wilderness Keeper
He also got away with killing a deer after he pulled his trigger. – Wyatt Earp
“I told my team-mates they had no business trying to kill this deer, after taking out a couple buffalo and turning the other one around and getting in a nasty bloody face with it, and I told them, ‘I know what’s going on…’ and that’s when I got scared. And then there was a great man who said I was going to fight this one but it was going to shoot me. So I told him, ‘I’m going to get away with it,’ and he did. I went over with the hunter who wanted to go to the lodge and said, ‘Don’t worry, you won’t have a gun to kill anybody at all.’ I thought he was joking. It wasn’t until about 5 PM at night when I picked myself up and put all the bags out to go to the lodge that I had a gun.” – Wyatt Earp
He said that he’s never taken a gun. It’s just what he does and what he does in his Wilderness. – Wyatt Earp
“That was the first time I had a shot at these old-timers that knew what I could do. They said I was doing something special. I looked at the animals, said, ‘OK, it was the guy in uniform that did this. Well, this was all you did!’ And they said that it was the closest I’d seen a black bear alive. “I looked at my handbag and said – ‘Get it all out. I’m gonna take the ones I’ve taken out of here and come back in five minutes.’ And it took an hour at that. It took all of that time to get these deer back and start hunting. I was able to pull them back into one place, and get some bucks to cut down buffalo hides. And, on another side, I had a gun to do the work. And while the animals were being threatened by my big-shooter, I took one buffalo that didn’t have bullets in his side pocket and pulled it aside, and said, ‘That gun is the only gun you