Wildlife Museum

[m77]

I just finished reading the Outdoor Life article about Jack O'Connor and his love for sheep hunting. It talked about some of his best sheep hunts and also about Jack and his wife's ashes scattered in an area Jack loved to hunt.

 

Many times when I read article like this about Jack and other great hunters I wonder where all their hunting memorobilia has gone to. Fred Bear's bows, Jack's 270, and the mounts of the animals they took with them.

 

I wonder if it would be possible to have a museum, possibly in Phoenix or Tucson, that displays the legendary hunters memorabilia. Any thoughts??? Does something like this already exist beyond Cabelas or Bass Pro Shops??

[billrquimby]

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

[m77]

WOW!!!!!

 

Thanks Bill, sounds like you really know your hunters. Are the autobiographies you've written published and available for purchase? I would enjoy reading them.

 

Maybe instead of a "Museum" we could get some sportsman investors to start a "Hardrock Cafe" style cafe for hunters. Growing up in Wisconsin I remember as a young man, going into bars and restraunts in Northern Wisconsin that were filled with mounts from local hunters. The bars were always packed, not only with mounts but also consumers (customers), as bars in Wisconsin always are.

 

Thanks again Bill for sharing all your knowledge with us.

 

Alan

[billrquimby]

WOW!!!!! Thanks Bill, sounds like you really know your hunters. Are the autobiographies you've written published and available for purchase? I would enjoy reading them.

Alan

 

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

[Rembrant]

Guess I'm not the great hunter I thought I was!

Mike

[billrquimby]

Guess I'm not the great hunter I thought I was!

Mike

 

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