It's Friday afternoon. We met with Antonello on the motorway to reach the Bolognese Apennines together where a weekend of deer hunting awaits us. He invited me to accompany him and I gladly accept, I will neglect a bit the family and my team for a hunting experience in the company of a friend that I see very little. The CDs are scattered on the rear seats and will remain there, as Antonello has such a wealth of adventures and stories to share that we could go around the world twice. This year has been fantastic for him, especially from a hunting point of view. He is back in Africa for yet another safari, this time with the ambition to take the king of predatory felines: the leopard. I had seen one of the first photos that, moved, he shared with his friends, but hearing him talk about this adventure, the adrenaline, the fear of preying on the most ferocious predator… well, that's another story! Those who have been to Africa are infected with an incurable disease that is mitigated only by returning there. For me, as I listen to it, it is only barely imaginable how much wonder hunting in Africa can arouse, but it is clear that these experiences have left an indelible mark on him and have made him experience emotions otherwise unobtainable at "home".
The kilometers flow smoothly while in his stories the journey continues and through the months of physical preparation, between the gym, diuretics and cardiological visits, Antonello prepares for the most demanding journey, he has always dreamed of: Kyrgyzstan, hunting for the legendary Marco Polo sheep . To aspire to take this magnificent animal, Antonello had to prepare himself, follow riding lessons to be able to move in those harsh and wild lands, and above all make a service to his body when he was no longer twenty to face the rigors of the climate at almost 5000 m above sea level.
"The leopard made me experience an explosive mixture of emotions, where the thrill and fear evoked by this large and very dangerous animal was mixed with the satisfaction of having caught with surgical precision a predator that makes the savannah tremble just to name it. The Marco Polo was the realization of a dream, and holding that trophy in my hands made me relive in an instant the physical sacrifices and discipline I had towards myself to present myself in front of it.".
Antonello's emotion is tangible and in some passages contagious, and I too get excited just hearing certain wonderful scenarios being evoked. The more fascinating the recent past becomes, the more curiosity tickles me: how can a man, a hunter who has lived through similar experiences, "be satisfied" (pass me the term) with a hunt for a - albeit beautiful - specimen of fallow deer? What drives my friend to grind all these kilometers to hunt a "trivial" deer after having had the honor of hunting a leopard? I keep this question of mine, so simple but I fear embarrassing, I fall asleep and almost forget it during our outing, and then the next day.
When Antonello bends over the buckskin spindle that nature has granted us, I notice a flickering between his eyelashes. It will not be the "tear" he shed on the ferocious leopard or on the majestic Marco Polo, but it is still an emotion. This small shapeless tear is proof that, regardless of the contexts and the "prestige" of the prey, the innate feeling that moves man towards hunting is not divided between the experiences lived, but can only multiply.