billrquimby

"I highly reccomend it for a great read. It's about the maneating lions of Kruger Natl. Park and the migrating Mozambicans that have become their dinner. Kind of parallels on some level, the immigration problem that we have here in the U.S. without the lions. Maybe Billl Q. has read this book or knows more about the situation. " I've not read the book, and I couldn't open the video here, so I can't comment. I do know that "canned lion hunting" is so common that SCI removed lion entries from South Africa and Namibia from its record book at least 10 years ago. Just last year new laws in South Africa spelled out how lions could be hunted on game farms. For now, though, any lion taken in South Africa most probably came from one of the dozens of farms raising lions speciically for "hunters." A few wild ones do get out of Kruger, Pilansburg and other parks, or come across the Limpopo River from Botswana, but most of these are promptly put down by the locals. As for maneaters in Kruger -- and in every park with lions -- what can I say? Lions are strictly carnivores, and a human is merely another meal. On my first visit to Africa after becoming SCI's publications direction in 1983 I was the guest of the South African government and among other perks on that trip I was given a VIP tour of Kruger. The park's director took me to a room filled with computers linked to our satelites. They had divided the park into sectors and were able to use heat signals to count every animal the size of an impala or larger. T he whole setup, I was told, had been put together by U.S. Army Signal Corps geeks from Fort Huachuca, Arizona -- small world, eh? -- for tracking humans. While I was in the room the South Africans showed me the heat signals of three or four humans crossing the border from Mozambique. They said only about one in every 30 persons who tried to cross the park on foot was eaten by lions or killed by elephants. Bill Quimby

I've never had a rangefinder so I can't say for certain. Back when I was younger I shot at a lot of running bucks across some very big canyons and managed to have a couple run into the hailstorm of bullets I sent after them. Today I try to keep my shots way under 300 yards. The mark of a good hunter, IMO, is not the ability to shoot game animals a quarter mile away. A good hunter would cut that distance in half. I watch the Men's Channel when I'm in Greer and I want to scream when some clown checks his rangefinder, adjusts his scope, steadies his bipod, and drops an elk or a deer or an antelope in its tracks at 994 1/2 yards. It makes me wonder how many animals he wounded when wind drift or a wiggle caused him to hit a jaw, the gut or a lower leg of that animal before he got a "clean kill" on tape. Bill Quimby

Thanks for the info Bill. I have not had time to research the whole state, but it is good to know I can go west, and possibly find more access. Check the BLM maps of Wyoming for areas around Jeffery City, The Red Desert and the Sweetwater River, and other places with ample areas of public land. It's all good antelope country in that region. We see plenty of antelope around Rock Springs, which is not far from the Utah border and is a couple of hours closer to Tucson, but I have no idea what the access situation is there. My friends and I fly to Salt Lake City (Delta usually has specials if you watch for them), rent a 4x4 and drive into Wyoming, get a motel room, and eat in restaurants. We've found our costs are about $400 each -- including air but plus license and tag -- for three days in North America's best antelope country. Flying saves a v-e-r-y l-o-n-g day of driving to Salt Lake City from Tucson, and another from Salt Lake City home. If you drive, you need to add the cost of food and motels on the way up and back. Bill Quimby Bill Quimby

It depends upon what you mean by "hunting alone." If you mean lcamping or staying in a motel, driving to a hunting area without a buddy, that's what I call "alone." I've hunted deer and elk a couple of times that way, and it's no fun -- especially when it comes time to cut up the game and pack it out by yourself. It's lonely, too. If you mean going out with your partners, then splitting up to hunt different directions, that's the only way I've ever hunted when I'm hunting without paid guides. I don't call that "hunting alone." As for knowing whether you've hit the animal, you often can hear the bullet strike meat or notice the reaction of the animal. Even when I think I've missed, I've always checked the spot where I last saw the animal and often found blood and eventually found the buck or hog. As for knowing where to look, figure that you will have trouble finding the game when you get across the canyon and make sure you have two or three landmarks firmly in your mind before going over there. Also do not leave the spot you shot from without marking it in some way so that you can find it again. A couple of times I've returned to that spot, looked at where I last saw the deer, selected new landmarks, and eventually found the animal. Bill Quimby

"Can't those with problems walking (because of health, not laziness) apply for a permit that allows them to hunt from a vehicle?" CHAMP permit holders are not allowed to “road hunt” as we would define it. They cannot “pursue” (road hunt) game with a vehicle or shoot from a moving vehicle. The way I read the CHAMP regulations, a person needs to lose a leg or be close to blind to qualify. Those of us who are slowly losing our lung functions because of medicines taken for other more threatening conditions do not qualify, even though we can no longer walk more than a couple hundred yards without having to stop and rest, even on flat ground. Bill Quimby

"One thing to consider, for anyone thinking of heading to Wyoming for antelope hunts, is the latest trend is the landowners are charging tresspass fees for antelope moreso than other game. Private land is everywhere and public lands are hard to find with antelope. Many areas that are public are designated as "walk in" only, with no vehicle access. " The eastern half of the state has always had an access problem because there are few public land areas. The "walk-in" only areas on public land must be something new because I've not encountered them in west-central or southwestern Wyoming where I've done all of my antelope hunting. There still are good numbers of antelope on BLM land in the Red Desert. Bill Quimby

Congratulations, and welcome to Wyoming's wonderful antelope hunting. In 1983, Dave Petzel of Field and Stream Magazine, Craig Boddington then-editor of Petersen's Hunting, and I comprised one of the eight teams competing in the Lander One Shot Antelope Hunt. This is not a trophy hunt. Participants go out with guides, drivers and timekeepers to kill legal bucks of any size in the fastest time possible, and are timed with a stop watch. Anything more than one shot constitutes a miss. I shot my buck in three minutes, Petzel shot his in four minutes and Craig shot his in fifteen minutes. We not only won the event that year, but we also set a record with a consecutive team time of just twenty two minutes. I don't know if our record still stands. As Craig told everyone at the victory banquet, "As outdoor writers we could do no less." In truth, it took a lot of luck in both the hunt and the coin tosses. Dave and I won tosses that allowed us to shoot second to the shooters we were competing against, which meant we already were among the antelope and didn't have to hunt them up when it was our turn. Craig was the first shooter in his group, or we might have posted an even faster team time. Bill Quimby

Don't worry about grain weight. Use the load your .30/06 shoots best. A .22/250 has enough "knock down power" for a little deer that weighs only 80-100 pounds. As with any game, it's bullet placement, bullet placement, bullet placement. Bill Quimby

If I'm hunting within an hour of Tucson or Greer, I don't camp out. I drive out from home. If it's more than an hour from Tucson or Greer, I also don't camp out. I reserve a room at a motel close to my area as soon as I learn I've drawn a permit. I graduated from Camping 101 through 500 a hundred years ago, and I no longer enjoy it. BillQ

Two questions: 1. Why set up a site in competition with this one? 2. Do you have Bob Campbell's permission to use his photo of the pair of whitetails? Bill Quimby

It may sound crazy, but it's my opinion that Arizona's whitetail bucks are a bit like big bass. There are "honey holes" that seem to always produce good bucks year after year, no matter the season. I know of two places -- a certain rocky outcropping in the Santa Ritas and a short, steep ridge in the San Cayetanos -- where I would bet I could find good bucks any day in October or November. As with bass, it is not long before other good bucks move into these places when the original bucks are removed. Bill Quimby

My only experience with the .257 Weatherby was in Wyoming at the Lander One Shot Antelope Hunt many years ago when I guided Anne Thompson, wife of country/western singer Hank Thompson. She and Hank both had .257 Weatherbys. The buck she shot at about 250 yards died in its tracks. If I needed to buy a rifle specifically for 100-125 pound deer, pronghorn, impala, blesbok, etc., the .257 Weatherby would be among my top choices. However, I already have a .257 Roberts Improved and a 6.5mm Remington Magnum, and both also are appropriate for such game. That said, if I were to hunt pronghorn or Coues deer tomorrow, I'd take my faithful ol' 7mm Rem Mag. It's really too much gun for animals of that size, but it's what I have used more than any other caliber in recent years. Bill Quimby

Nor will I. Bill Quimby

What Bret doesn't mention is that he comes from a long line of elk slayers dating back to his grandfather. Every member of his family seems to be able to pull bulls from areas with the lousiest hunter success, so filling his tag -- even with a bow -- in Unit 1 actually wasn't that tough for someone with such great genes. Bill Quimby

Thank you.

Mike" What I didn't say is that the great hunters also have been filthy rich. They have had the time, money and influential contacts to hunt wherever, whatever, and whenever they wanted. One of the guys whose book I wrote made THIRTEEN major expeditions that took him to five continents in a single year! Any one of those hunts would be "once in a lifetime" hunts for most of us. C.J. McElroy, while he was amassing his collection, had two secretaries who did nothing but book his hunts and arrange for taxidermy and trophy shipments. He'd hunt somewhere in the world for two or three weeks, be home for a few days, then take off again. The greatest of them all was Prince Abdorreza, the brother of the last Shah of Iran. With the U.S. State Department's blessing and the aid of Jack O'Connor, Herb Klein, Elgin Gates, a whole bunch of guides, and museum collecting permits issued by the game departments of Alaska, Wyoming and Nevada, he shot eighteen of North America's twenty seven big game animals (including a Grand Slam of North American sheep) -- twice -- in just SIXTY DAYS! He took two specimens of each species -- one for his personal collection and another for the National Natural History Museum in Tehran. What's more, nearly everything he shot on that historic trip made the Rowland Ward or B&C book. I suspect if you were a member of the royal family in a country loaded with oil fields that dozens of countries wanted access to, and personally had more money than you could possibly spend in six lifetimes, you could make the "great hunters" look like rabbit plinkers. Bill Quimby

Alan: My tenure as SCI's director of publications from 1983 to 1999 gave me an education about international hunting. I not only got to know most of these hunters, I was fortunate to be able take about 50 types of big game animals on six continents myself. Actually I goofed when I said Iran was the only country Jack O'Connor hunted in Asia. He and his wife also hunted tiger and lesser game in India. My books are available from www.safaripress.com, www.trophyroombooks.com, and www.safariclub.org They are: From Safari Press: -- McElroy Hunts Asia (I ghost wrote this many book years ago for SCI's founder) -- Yoshi by Watson Yoshimoto with Bill Quimby -- The Heck With It, I'm Going Hunting by Arnold Alward with Bill Quimby -- Royal Quest by Bill Quimby (about Prince Abdorreza of Iran) -- Wind In My Face by Hubert Thummler with Bill Quimby Available early in 2007 will be: -- Around The World And Then Some by David Hanlin with Bill Quimby -- A book on mountain game hunting ghost written for a noted sheep hunter From Trophy Room Books (I ghost wrote these shortly before C.J. McElroy died) -- McElroy Hunts Dangerous Game -- McElroy Hunts Mountain Game -- McElroy Hunts African Antelope and the Antlered Game of the World From Safari Club International: -- The History of Safari Club International by Bill Quimby I'm temporarily (I hope) "between projects" for the first time since I retired in 1999. All of my books are limited, signed and numbered, deluxe editions, costing from $85 to $125 each. One exception is Royal Quest, which was published in two editions -- a super deluxe goatskin-bound edition of 50 copies for $1,250.00 each and a deluxe version for $325.00 each. Another is McElroy Hunts Asia. Safari Press has it clearance priced at $10.00 each. I don't know how many copies are left. Bill Quimby

M77: There is a Fred Bear museum, but I've forgotten where it is located. The world's best hunting museum, I'm told, is in Paris. It has collections of the finest firearms, wildlife art, and mounted specimens of the largest big game trophies from across the world. The article you mention was written by my friend Buck Buckner, a former Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest ranger now living in Oregon, who is the unofficial repository of all things having to do with Jack O'Connor. He has a couple of O'Connor's rifles and has assembled virtually word O'Connor ever wrote. I suspect he also may have a few of O'Connor's game heads. There is no O'Connor museum I know of other than Buckner's collections. I hope Buck forgives me but Outdoor Life's late, great gun editor was not really a "great hunter" when compared with the Weatherby Award winners who came after him. O'Connor hunted on only four continents and probably took only 50 to 60 different types of game animals, tops. He only scratched the surface in sheep hunting. His only huntng in Asia (the continent with more types of wild sheep than all the others combined) was in Iran. He never hunted a blue sheep or any of the sixteen or so Ovis ammons (the largest and most glamorous of all sheep) or the six snow sheep, for example. The only urials and mouflons he took were those found in Iran. That man could write, though! As far as I know, Fred Bear hunted only in North America, Africa, and (maybe) Europe. There probably are a dozen living bowhunters who have matched and exceeded his feats. Gary Bogner and Wayne Pocius are the best known. Both have taken all the important types of big game animals found on six continents with their bows. Theodore Roosevelt hunted a bit in North America, South America and Africa, but although any museum featuring "great hunters" would want to include his material, even Roosevelt was not a "great hunter." His sons Kermit and Theodore Jr. come closer to qualifying for that title, but even their experiences were limited compared to a lot of people who have done and are doing a lot more hunting than the Roosevelts, Bear and O'Connor ever imagined possible. The truly great hunters of the late 20th and early 21st centuries are lesser known: C.J. McElroy, Elgin Gates, Jay Mellon, Herb Klein, along with the guys whose "autobiographies" I've written, such as HIH Prince Abdorreza, Arnold Alward, Watson Yoshimoto, Soudy Golabchi, Hubert Thummler and David Hanlin. All of them hunted on six continents and took more than 200 DIFFERENT TYPES of game animals. But so have Craig Boddington, Steve Chancellor, Ken Behring, Warren Parker, Ali Ustay, Mike Simpson, Don Cox, Thornton Snyder, Dan Duncan, Art Dubs, Jimmy Rosenbruch, Gary Ingersoll, Pete Papac, Ricardo Medem of Spain, Adrian Sada and Jesus Yuren of Mexico, the Klineburger brothers, and perhaps another 15-20 guys. And these are just the "great" English-speaking hunters. There are people on every continent who deserve to be included, too. I have heard of Frenchmen, South Americans, Pakistanis and Scandanavians whose trophy rooms are reported to be packed with heads of virtually every type of the world's big game. I'm afraid not many visitors would be interested in seeing the memorabilia of hunters they've never heard of. Besides, museums almost always lose money. Their admission fees are never enough to keep them open, and curators and directors are constantly looking for grants, gifts and government support. Bill Quimby

My friends and family thought I was crazy when I left a great position in advertising and public relations to become a full-time outdoor writer earning about 1/3 of what I'd been making the first year out of college. My new occupation took me around the world several times, however, and gave me more opportunities to hunt and fish more creatures and more places than I could ever have imagined when I started out. Financial security eventually came, too. So, as I've always told my grandchildren, follow your dreams and never look back, az4life. Good luck in all you do. Wyoming is a great place to be (except in January and February, IMO). Bill Quimby

The Hornady Handbook of Cartridge Reloading says: "The 280 is not as popular as the .270 but is catching up. The major reason for this probably lies in the fact that it was not offered to the shooting public until 32 years after the .270 and offered no appreciable gain in ballistics. However, the 280 does have greater loading potential than the .270 because of the wider range of bullets available." Bill Quimby

I voted for the 7mm Remington Magnum because that's the caliber I now use for everything from javelinas to elk, eland and moose. It's not the best choice for a 100-pound-tops Arizona whitetail though. More appropriate for this size animal, I think, would be one of the .25 calibers -- .257 Roberts, .25-06, or .257 Weatherby. Bill Quimby

My first rifle was a Savage Model 99 in the now-obsolete .303 Savage caliber, which is ballistically almost identical to the .30-30 Winchester. It had a curved steel buttplate. I remember paying $30 for it, which was a lot of money for a 11-year-old boy who had to pay for it by selling the Yuma Daily Sun at $0.025 per copy. With it, at age 12, I shot my first mule deer where Lynx Creek Lake now sits near Prescott. Virtually everyone hunted with open-sighted lever action rifles in 1948. I don't think I ever saw anyone afield with a bolt-action rifle until a few years after that. When I had a "new" Weaver 2.5X scope (it had a crosswire and a heavy post) mounted on my old Model 99, everyone in my family thought I was nuts. "Nobody can hold a rifle with a scope steady," they said. "You won't be able to hit a running target." My first Arizona whitetail was shot with a .270 Winchester on an FM Mauser action in 1955. It was sold by Sears under its house brand, J.C. Higgins, and came equipped with a 4x scope for $89.99. I later had Harry Lawson restock it with his Cochise thumbhole stock. I shot nine of Arizona's Big Ten animals with it, and fired perhaps 2,000 rounds through it in metalica silueta matches in Sonora, before its barrel went south in about 1965 or so. I've acquired several dozen centerfire rifles (I still have every gun I ever owned) since then, in just about every caliber made -- from .17 to .458 -- but have settled on a 7mm Remington Magnum with a Czech-made Mauser barreled action and a stock I made myself from a piece of walnut we cut in Texas. It has a 3-9X Leupold compact scope. I've taken 60-70 head of big game with it on six continents. Bill Q

Thank you everyone, but I've decided it's too late for me to try new things. The odds of my drawing an elk tag in the four or five years I'll be able to hunt are awful. I'm content just helping friends with their hunts. Beside's I'd rather take the money a quad costs and go back to Africa again. Bill Quimby

Thank you everyone for the great advice. The question I have to answer now is whether I would get enough use out of a quad to justify buying one. I really appreciate your help. Bill Quimby

Bret: Donny made a great shot that broke the bull's spine and dropped it where it stood. We took lots of photos, but with your grandfather's and uncle's cameras. They should have prints by the time you get up here. The antlers look even more awesome off the animal. Amanda: Would you change the date, please. It's September 30, 1936. Ernesto: Thank you for all the kind things you say about me. They truly are appreciated, mi amigo. Bill Quimby