billrquimby

All: Safari Press shipped me a few more copies today, which means they should reach me Tuesday or Wednesday (Feb. 8-9). Three copies are already promised, but if anyone wants a signed copy just send me a PM and I'll get back to you with the details. The price is $50 and includes shipping and handling. Bill Quimby

When I was a boy in Yuma in the early 1950s, my brother, father and I sometimes would shoot 15 Canada geese over a weekend (the limit was five each then and virtually all the geese on the Pacific Flyway still came down the river). It was my brother's and my job to clean and pluck them. The only help our father gave us was set up a tub of paraffin over an open fire. We'd pluck all the easy feathers, then dip the birds in the hot wax. When it cooled on the bird, a lot of the smaller feathers would pull off with the wax, then we'd repeat the process until all that was left were a few pinfeathers, which we pulled with pliers. It was a lot of work, but we must have plucked a couple hundred geese during my early years. Hot paraffin also probably would work with a turkey, but I never tried it. I've always skinned mine. Bill Quimby

C.J. McElroy, a self-made millionaire who founded Safari Club International, hunted all over the world and took a couple hundred different types of animals, told me that the only people he envied were those who were making their first trip to Africa. He said they would spend the rest of their lives trying to recapture the sense of awe and excitement they would experience on their first safari. If you are like me, you will return again and again. Just one taste simply isn’t enough. Enjoy. Bill Quimby

Well said. Bill Quimby

"So I guess if your talent was art work, then by drawing or painting pictures (doing what you're good at and enjoy) that would automatically make you gay?!" Drawing and painting help me relax, and early in my career I was an art and creative director for advertising and public relations agencies. Three longtime friends are well-known, world-class wildlife artists whose paintings and sculptures regularly sell for $50,000 to $100,000 each and more. Not one is gay, nor am I. Your comment deserves the scorn I have for it. I shot more than a few animals at long ranges when I was younger. I also spent a couple of years competing in silhouette matches fired offhand without slings or rests from 100 to 500 meters at half-size metal cutouts of animals. That's not 1,000 yards or even 800 yards, of course, but it taught me how little it takes for a shot to go astray as distance increases, no matter how much I practiced or what type of equipment I used. When calculating a hunter's skill, his or her ability to get close enough to an animal that it can be killed cleanly must be included and given more points. If that distance is 1,000 yards for you, more power to you. You enjoy long-range shooting, and have practiced enough to be capable of taking such shots. You also have the personal restraint to know when not to shoot. Again, more power to you. However, the difference between putting a bullet into a deer's vitals or shooting off its jaw and forcing it to a miserable death from starvation is only an imperceptible wiggle or a slight shift of wind at such distances. Few hunters are as skilled and as practiced as you, and few have any business shooting at game more than 250 to 300 yards away, if that. Bill Quimby

Great story, beautiful buck, Amanda. Congratulations. Wish I still could walk and climb. I truly miss hunting our special little deer. Bill Quimby

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That's amazing. What do the licenses for antelope, cow elk and deer cost for residents? Incidentally, friends and I had similar experiences with wounded javelinas while bowhunting. One also was in a shallow cave, and we eventually ran out of arrows and had to come back the next morning after the javelina died. The other was in a thicket of whitethorn, where another friend couldn't draw his bow. I crawled (carefully) into the thicket and repeatedly poked the animal with my walking stick to get it out where he could shoot it. Bill Quimby

Hi Amanda: I have a reproduction Navy-style cap and ball .44-caliber revolver that I bought as a kit in about 1984 or so, but I can't help you. I was losing interest in muzzleloading about then and never fired it after putting it together. Earlier, I had built a 1700's-style, single-shot .50-caliber flintlock pistol from a section of barrel I'd cut off from one of the Kentucky-style rifles I built back then. I fired it a couple of times, but that was all. I can't hit the inside of a 747 hanger with a handgun, so I never considered hunting with either of them. Bill Quimby

I never knew the real name of the sheriff of Fremont County in the 1980s and early 1990s, but everyone called him "Pee Wee." He guided me and Wyoming Governor Ed Hirshler the year I was on a team. I really enjoyed the morning I spent hunting with him. He informed me at breakfast that he already had flipped a coin to see who would shoot first, and the governor won, just as he did every year. Was he your uncle? You would know my friends Jack Brody, Chuck Gustavsky (don't know if this spelling is correct, but his family owns Fremont Motors) and Jack Scarlett in Lander, I suppose.. I miss the good times we used to have up there so much that I may return in September. It's been a while since I hunted antelope. Bill Quimby

Tines: That's exactly what I was talking about. High-speed web printing on low-quality newsprint requires photos with proper lighting and contrast. The editor and/or art director obviously were on vacation when someone chose that photo. Anyone in their positions certainly should know better. Lance: Suggest you submit a variety of your best photos to Game and Fish, especially those with the girl's head closer to the bison's and now shadows on her face. Flash and a higher pixel number (300 ppi {dpi} is best for reproduction) from a better camera will increase your odds of it being selected if they decide to show another bison so soon after using one on the last cover. Bill Quimby

You probably would interested in knowing about James Reavis, the so-called "Baron of Arizona". It was the basis for a great movie in 1950 with Vincent Price. I was a freshman in high school in Yuma, but I still remember it. Like most movies, there was more than a little exaggeration. The true story was fascinating. Bill Quimby

Who is your uncle? I may know him. It's been at least ten years since I attended, but if he was guiding from 1982 to about 2000 or so, I probably met him. I returned to Lander virtually every year until about 1995. Bill Quimby

I would bet your friends knew my friends well. Their ranches are on each side of the border at about the same place. We used to drive through Kemmerer on the way to South Pass and the Lander One Shot Hunt every year. We used to tank up on coffee and candy bars there during our marathon drives up from Tucson. We sometimes saw antelope from the service station/store's parking lot. Bill Quimby

Hi Amanda. Yes, I've had them. My son-in-law has a source for raw peanuts and every year he boils them. (He is from the northeast, go figure.) I really don't care for hot sauce (I'm an Arizona native, go figure) or for soggy, warm peanuts. Give me a can of Planter's heavily salted, dry and crunchy peanuts every time. Bill Quimby

Senior? You're still a young pup. Have a great day. Bill Quimby

My birthday is September 30, which means that after 74 years as a Libra, I now am a Virgo. Golly. Imagine that. Will wonders ever cease? Bill Quimby

I had good friends -- Glenn and Faye Wadsworth -- who owned a ranch on the Wyoming side of the border there. There always were a few elk on their place and they sometimes had moose near their house. Another friend, Don Taylor, lived down the road at Fort Bridger. Did you know them? Glenn and Don have died, but Faye is still there. Bill Quimby

I stand corrected. Incredible photos. Do they hold an organized antler hunt every spring also? Bill Quimby

If it is true that our sheriff and his office did not investigate multiple complaints about someone threatening to kill people, then we can lay a big part of the blame for this tragedy on Mr. Dupnik and his management skills. Bill Quimby

There is an unsubstantiated report -- and I emphasize that it has not been verified -- being sent around the internet that says our sheriff's department received several complaints about this nutcase threatening to kill people, and deputies didn't follow up. Bill Quimby

In southern Africa, many local hunters say it is unethical to hunt anything with anything (including bows) within 1/4 mile of water. They get bent out of shape knowing that the outfitters who specialize in bowhunting will encourage foreigners to shoot from blinds at waterholes. They abhor hunting leopards with hounds, but approve of baiting and shooting at night, even though it is more difficult and dangerous to use hounds. Many also disapprove of shooting females, including gemsbok, eland, and other animals, even though the females of those species have horns that often are longer than those on the males. There are lots of North American hunters who believe hunting bears over bait is unethical, but using dogs is OK -- and vice versa. Some people feel using dogs to hunt anything, including birds, is unethical. In some countries, it is legal to shoot from helicopters. Others allow an animal to be located from a helicopter, but the "hunter" must get out before shooting. Some would say that everything that is illegal is also unethical, but that ignores the fact that laws vary from state to state and country to country. Just because it is illegal to use bait to hunt bears in Arizona, is it unethical for a hunter to shoot a baited bear in eastern Canada's dense forest where it not only is legal but also is about the only way anyone hunts a black bear? Or for that matter, is it unethical to shoot a deer pushed to you by a pack of hounds in a U.S. state where it is legal to hunt deer with dogs? This leaves the question: just because it is legal, and everyone else is doing it, is it ethical? I don't know. Ethics and morality are impossible to quantify. The closest I can come to an answer is to say that if a practice is approved by the majority of my peers, then it's ethical. If it is prohibited by law, it is illegal, but not always unethical. Bill Quimby

AZGFD has reprint copies of this book listed on its website for $14.95. Bill Quimby

+1 Bill Quimby

If that is on the National Elk Refuge outside Jackson, which it probably is, every inch of that place is scoured each spring by hundreds of Boy Scouts. Eighty percent of the money from the auctioning of sheds goes to the refuge. The Boy Scouts keep 20% for their projects. I've not been up there when the elk are wintering there, but the photos of the place are amazing. If you go, be sure to check the wildlife art museum on the hill overlooking the refuge. It has some of the most amazing wildlife art you will ever see. Bill Quimby