As i work my way through safari literature, i just finished Elgin Gates book "Trophy Hunter in Africa". Very good read.

My questions are pretty simple.

1. How did he make a living? He seems rather young in a lot of his pictures and he surely had the financial means to hunt for extended periods of time in exotic locales.

2. Pictures of his trophy room = does anyone have any pictures of his room?

3. Information about him = Anyone have neat or interesting information about him?

I believe he worked for one of the big boat engine companies (Mercury??) and then bought the licensing/distribution rights from them--which was later purchased back by the company. After that he got into real estate development in Needles, CA.
If you do a google search there was a great interview with his son about Elgin.

By coincidence, I just finished that book and wondered the same thing about him.

One thing about the book that disturbed me was his habit of shooting at hair. Took a lot of shots in heavy cover that he didn't know exactly where on the animal he was going to hit.

I'm trying to recall how he addressed that in the book. I think he said that if he was hunting a true trophy animal, he'd take extra care to make sure he had a good shot.

He sure loved that 300 Wby.

He did love that .300. Seems like the main gun used through the entire book. Pretty neat and amazing hunts. Almost as much exploration as hunting adventure.

Is anyone that posts here old enough to remember Elgin boat motors????? Sounds like a good read, thanks for the tip.

I recall that he was a speed boat racer and a champion at that...

There is a story by Elgin Gates in the book Great True Hunts titled "My Hunt for the Rams of Shangri-La". Gates describes how he and Herb Klein hunted Marco Polo Sheep on the "Red China Border" in 1959.

This is a very good book with hunts by Kirk Douglas, Sam Snead, Roy Rogers, and others. The book is by Peter Barrett.

My husband has an old copy of an Archer's Digest from when he was young. Gates hunted Africa with a crossbow taking lion, buffalo, etc.

He seems to have really lived life to the fullest.

I remember Elgin motors in the '60's in Ontario.

Elgin Gates has been discussed often in the Books and Videos section on this forum.

If you have his Africa book, inspect the photos carefully.

Bill Quimby

What do you mean by that? The picture thing that is.

somewhere ive got a big paperback book, about his IHMSA shooting.... i shot silhouette back in the 80's....

Elgin Gates had lots of influence in the developement of that long cased 357. Isn't it called the Maximum? He also developed several other pistol rounds used in the IHMSA matches. During his time he wrote lots of articles.Regards, Keith

I have read all his books, and enjoyed them very much.

I remember there was a controversy about his trophies, and I cannot remember what the final outcome was.

In some of his trophy photos, he was shown holding the horns somewhere in the middle, ad the claims were that he had two sets of horns on that animal, and his hands were covering this.

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:
I have read all his books, and enjoyed them very much.

I remember there was a controversy about his trophies, and I cannot remember what the final outcome was.

In some of his trophy photos, he was shown holding the horns somewhere in the middle, ad the claims were that he had two sets of horns on that animal, and his hands were covering this.

Agree here - read a bit that he was a very difficult man to be with, not a shred of compromise in him, etc. Whether or no this was envy, jealousy or fact I do not know - maybe same sort of thing as with Capstick or Annabel? I can only say Gates did an awful lot of things I would have loved to do myself! Still the only man to break a perfect 100 straight not once, not twice but three times in International Clay Target Championship. And as mentioned he loved the 300 Weatherby, even killed an elephant with some 350 plus pounds of ivory using the 300 - how many others have ever taken one like that?

May he rest in peace.

I will have to go back and look at Boddington's book "Where Lions Roar", but I believe Mr. Gates was found to committed fraud concerning some of the trophies he entered. He was believed to have done some real underhanded stuff to get "his" trophies in the books.

I don't give a flip about the trophy books, but it is hard to respect someone who cheated to get his name at the top....

In the book Safari-Safari the author quotes Lionel Palmer from Safari South as saying Gates was a fraud and made mention of him using horns from different animals to make the book etc. Who knows if this was first hand info or not.

In Boddingtons where lions roar, I think Craig said there were 2-3 trophies from a country I can't remember that were questioned and then removed from the record books.

Several of his "field" photos in his Africa and Asia books were claimed to have been shot in a studio. And, as Saeed said, he has been accused of adding additional horn sheaths to a kudu.

Also, many years ago, when the NRA and Tucson Rifle Club held the first international siluetas metalicas rifle championships in Tucson, Gates showed up and took me to lunch "to learn more about the sport." I was the Tucson Citizen's outdoor editor then and he had read an article I'd written that the AP had picked up a year earlier. A couple months after our lunch, I read how Gates claimed to have competed in Mexico for several years and was instrumental in bringing the sport across.

I'd shot in the northern Mexican leagues for two years before that first NRA event in Tucson, and can tell you the guys in Sonora had never heard of him. He did adapt the sport to pistol shooting, and I'll grant him that, but what he claimed about his role in silhouette shooting in Mexico was B.S.

My primary problem with Gates, though, was his tedious "dark and stormy night" style of writing. He never saw an adjective he didn't like, and when he wrote, he must have searched his Thesaurus frantically to find one he hadn't tossed in somewhere.

Bill Quimby

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Still the only man to break a perfect 100 straight not once, not twice but three times in International Clay Target Championship.

Not close to true, but he was a fine shotgun shot.

If I remember right from Boddington's book, the trophies were from Ethopia that were lated retracted from the books. I don't know anything else about the man, really, but I have read where he was a world class trapshooter, which wasn't exactly true. When International Trap (actually, wobble trap) was an ATA event at the Grand years ago he won that event there, but when it came to the regular 3 disciplines of trapshooting (singles, handicap, and doubles), he was better than most, but not nearly the best. Honestly, no one person can be the best at trapshooting, silhouette shooting, big game hunting, and speed boat racing. He seems to have been a talented man, but I think people have made him to be more of legend than he really was. However, I admire the man because he did seem to be there and do it in most of the activities that I enjoy! It must've been the life and I would've liked to have had a drink with the man at some point.

Gates and his generation of shooters/hunters/sportsmen had the world as their oyster in those days. There was only a hand full of them. They had the money and the time. Africa and Asia were cheap. So were the shooting, automotive and boating sports. They were big fish in an exotic world few had access to. Regulations were few, and easily overcome. Media scrutiny and technology were almost non-existent and rudimentary, respecively. They could get away with almost anything. And they were successful in doing so most of the time.

But in my book, their conduct was not much different than some of the stuff that goes on today. It's just harder to get away with things today. But guys still try to play games with taxidermy, unethical conduct in the field, switching heads, etc, etc. And of course the dispicable behavior associated with hunting leopard with hounds. Bullshit still goes on.

quote:

Originally posted by JustinL01:
If I remember right from Boddington's book, the trophies were from Ethopia that were lated retracted from the books.

It was kudu, sable and ? that were supposed to be from Mozambique. The sable was 56" an would have been a new world record.

quote:

Gates and his generation of shooters/hunters/sportsmen had the world as their oyster in those days. There was only a hand full of them. They had the money and the time. Africa and Asia were cheap.

I disagree that international hunting or anything else was really cheaper then. I believe the international hunters of that generation were, as a rule, very rich. Today there are many more blue collar people who hunt Africa.

I have that book and I enjoyed it. However some of the photos are clearly staged, using taxidermy mounts. I thought they most likely did not have any field photos so they "made" some. No problem there really, but kind of funny! Look at the photos again and see if you can tell which ones are mounts.

From memory, the picture of the giant forest hog is a definitely a mount.

Still a great read and a great hunter.

Exactly. That giant forest hog just doesn't look right...at all.

quote:

Originally posted by Gatogordo:

quote:

Still the only man to break a perfect 100 straight not once, not twice but three times in International Clay Target Championship.

Not close to true, but he was a fine shotgun shot.

"All I Know is What I Read in the Papers." W. Rogers

http://www.traphof.org/gates-elgin.htm

I guess they lied about it, do you think?

Bottom line to me is that he was a gentleman when I knew him, ...hunted with him, shot with him, and visited with him and Dollie. There's few photos of his trophy room and what I remember were the pair of walrus' ....uglier than warthogs! He lost all the trophies in a house fire in the 70's.

There's stories galore about all the big name hunters of that era, ..some true, some gossip, but rules then were often bent a bit.

Nice website, TrapperP. Thanks for posting.

I particularly like this Gates quote:

"The true trophy hunter is a self-disciplined perfectionist seeking a single animal, the ancient patriarch well past his prime that is often an outcast from his own kind... If successful, he will enshrine the trophy in a place of honor. This is a more noble and fitting end than dying on some lost and lonely ledge where the scavengers will pick his bones, and his magnificent horns will weather away and be lost forever." -- Elgin Gates, Trophy Hunter in Asia

There is no doubt that trophy hunting in Gates' day was purely a game for the very rich, and a very competitive game at that.

I believe that the need to be the "best" or get the "best" or do the "best" can be a sickness in some people. I know it can lead to the worst kind of behavior.

I am not saying that Gates was like that, but I have seen it happen enough to wonder. I have always enjoyed reading Gates' stuff.

quote:

Originally posted by SilentT:
As i work my way through safari literature, i just finished Elgin Gates book "Trophy Hunter in Africa". Very good read.

My questions are pretty simple.

1. How did he make a living? He seems rather young in a lot of his pictures and he surely had the financial means to hunt for extended periods of time in exotic locales.

2. Pictures of his trophy room = does anyone have any pictures of his room?

3. Information about him = Anyone have neat or interesting information about him?

As to how he made a living, my undertanding was that he was the founder of Gates Tire and Rubber Company. They not only made tires, but more so, radiator hoses, fan belts and all other sort of automotive and industrial rubber products.

An interesting article about Gates that will answer some of your speculation.

http://vault.sportsillustrated...G1092676/1/index.htm

I first met Elgin when I was 13, we used to shoot trap at the Skyline trap club in Idaho Falls, Idaho when you shot over the Snake River years before it was relocated to the "desert" where it is today. Elgin was a great shot with shotgun and rifle and yes he did love his 300 Weatherby!

Elgin told me that he was like many guys right after the war looking for a job and not much hope of getting one on the west coast. Long story short he was fortunate enough to get in on the early franchises of either Mercury or Evinrude OB Motors and things went from there.

One thing I know about Elgin is he was Intelligent, Loved Hunting & Shooting and was loyal to those who were to him. Jealousy was not in short supply when he was around as women were attracted to him and men resented that. He was also disliked because of his wealth.

OH YES, he always wanted to be one of the first in to shoot the biggest animal in the most out of the way place but who of us doesn't? How many others of his day were immortalized in books for doing the samething? That was the norm of the time and to criticize his based on a different standard today is ignorant. In fact all of the great hunters of our day whom today talk of "trophy" not being of inches or pounds have all themselves filled their trophy cases with the inches and pounds-a bit of hipocracy?

Elgin simply did what everyone of us would have done if we had been in his place in history with the wealth and opportunities that he had, I'm sure.

I can tell you that I knew him to be very frugal but generous, where and when it was warranted. A complete gentleman and never did I see or hear of him to be anything but absolutely honest.

Yes, Elgin did have a lot of influence with the 357 Max. which was short lived in revolvers but was quite popular in TC type single shot's.

Not many people know but Elgin,nearly by himself, financed the IHMSA range by Idaho Falls through personnal finance until the organization had strong enough legs to stand alone. It is my belief that he never did receive total reimbursement for what he invested to save the range.

It's pretty easy to kick a guy when he is no longer here to defend himself but he would not have minded as he had heard it all before. I for one feel lucky to have met him at an impressionable age cuz he even had time for a young kid with wide eyes and for that and many other good hours of shooting and conversation I will always be greatful.

My father guided him on a hunt on our ranch in the Eastern Cape in the 70's or late 60's, I think.
He was here for a trap shoot. My Dad said he was great company, but got quite exciteable when the springbok got in range.