Hi guys,
I was trying to find some info on the great hunters of the last 50-60 yrs and it is pretty hard to come by.
Just wondering who you guys would class as the most prolific/successful globetrotting hunters and if you knew any backgroud info too...
----A starting list could be
-Elgin T Gates, outboard motor company, 100s of trophies in Asia and Africa
-H.I.H. Prince Abdorreza; Iranian aristo, shot a bunch of mountain game + the full menu of african fare
-C.J. McElroy: don't know any background but has a huge list of trophies
-Hebert Klineburger: no background info, shot a few of everything...
----anything more recent guys? I know its easier to be a globetrotter now, but with the resources these guys had that didn't seem to be a problem at all.

Herb Kline probably has as many trophies as any of the hunters you list. He was a very successful oil man from Dallas, Tx and passed away some years ago. He was a Weatherby award winner and did much of his hunting in the 50's and 60's.

Fred Bear, how could anyone not have Fred in the top of this list!

Boghossian

Rudolf Sand

281 different species of game with a 7X61 super...

Cheers
/ JOHAN

Growing up in South Dakota, the name that comes to mind is Henry Brockhouse. He owned the local hardware store, and would travel the world hunting different animals. Everything he shot, Jonas Bros. mounted, most of them lifesize and then displayed in the hardware store. I think he ended up with around 200 different species. We stopped in that hardware store many a times. After he passed on, they mounts formed the basis of an exhibit within what is now a museum attached to the zoo in Sioux Falls.

In the days before the internet, Cabela's stores, and the like, that hardware store was the coolest thing since sliced bread!

Chuck Adams. Love him or hate him, he is the ultimate bow hunter. He holds more records than anyone else. I read his book and gained a lot of respect for him.

Barry Brooks, Memphis, TN.

There is a chapter on him in one of PHC books (forgot which one) with some great stories.

Mr. Brooks was one the great "American" sport hunters with a passion for African and Dangerous Game Hunting around the world.

There is a story of him and an African PH after a very large Elephant...(170+lbs, I think that is what the est. was). They caught up to the Elephant...Barry Brooks took the bullets out of his 470 and fired on the Elephant! I guess thought it was to magnificent to kill...He ended up taking pictures of it.

I am attempting to find out more about Barry Brooks, since he was from Memphis, if anyone has information please let me know. I would enjoy having the chance to see his old pictures, etc...

Recently some of his trophies were sold at an auction...I wish I could have attended but unfortunately could not...A friend of my purchased one of his Whitetail Deer...I was told someone purchased the Black Rhino, Barry Brooks took.

jjs

I would certainly consider Basil Bradberry for your list. Outstanding hunter, more game taken than you could find in a zoo, and one hellova nice guy!!! -memtb

Not mentioned yet:
James Mellon

Jesus Yuren

Rasheed Jamsheed

Craig Boddington

Yoshi

I would say the late Carlos Hathcock was the ultimate hunter.

quote:

I would say the late Carlos Hathcock was the ultimate hunter.

What he hunted could also shoot back.

Check the Weatherby awards. All of these winners are certainly the most active international big game hunters hunting today. What they have done is incredible. Also, its Bert Klineburger- still going strong in San Antonio Tx.

quote:

I would say the late Carlos Hathcock was the ultimate hunter.

Mousegun!

"One shot - One kill!" Yes Carlos was an amazing shot! read his book, once I started on it I couldn't put it down!
A friend of mine, (who just passed away, god rest his sole) told me a story about Carlos, how he owed his life to him, it's too lomg to get into, but quite a story!

No one has mentioned Jack O'Connor or John Jobson. These two men were great American hunters.

You can add Warren Page and Bob Hagel to the list. Both were great hunters and rifleman and each wrote a couple of good books on rifles and hunting.

Starting with the A's: Finn Aaguard, Russel Anabelle, the Atchesons and Ray Atkinson.

I've read the book by Keith Atcheson of Atcheson and Son's booking agent. he has certainly been there - done that.

Migt i mention Franz Rosenberg, he was a Norwegian hunter who kne and corresponded with Roosevelt and elmer Keith and he hunted Africa in 1914 and a couple of times more the. he waas a truly great hunter and weapon conniseur . he had several H&H weapons and many others.

Glen St.Charles and Fred Bear

quote:

Originally posted by SBT:
I've read the book by Keith Atcheson of Atcheson and Son's booking agent. he has certainly been there - done that.

Keith wrote a book?

Maybe you mean Jack Sr., Keith's father.

Frans

Fred Bear for sure.

Reloader

Definitely Fred Bear. Also, what about Peter Capstick? I don't know about the rest of the world, but I know he did a sh*t load of hunting in Africa. He describes being a culling guy for ele and buffalo in one of his books. I believe he said he personally killed something like 800 buff and 1,000 ele.

Fred Bear. Oh, yes, Fred Bear was the guy who stuck sharp sticks into 4 or 5 brown bears and they had to be finished off by the guy with the rifle. The 5th or 6th bear died from just the stick and that's the one he told the stories about.

PHC. Right. He's the guy who could tell a hell of a tale of somebody else's hunting exploits as if it were his own.

Those are hunters?

Fred Bears hunting diary from the 50's and early 60's is a great insight into the guy. This book was written prior to the advent of censorship. So talk about making 70 and 80 yard shots with a recurve,are all over it.Plus plenty of wounding. Then when politics entered in years later, 30 yards and less was preached.

Recently there was a book published,that looked into mans need for hunting,both in the past and present. The book really isn't pro or antihunting. One of paragraphs in the book deals with fred bear during the last year of his life. Evidently Bear wasn't real comfortable with his past hunting exploits and the manner in which they occured. He even said it was all about "killing",when pressed by a friend,as to why he hunted and what drove him.


The weatherby award has to be the biggest waste of fucking space around. Giving some jerkoff an award for dropping the hammer on 300 or 400 animals. Craig Boddington wrote an article a few years back for predator magazine. He talked about shooting feral donkeys and camels in australia. The whole attraction to this type of hunting,is the oppurtunity to shoot 100 plus big game animals in a week. Boddington claimed he had never seen so many weatherby award winners,in the same camp. Evidently the attraction to killing another 100 animals was to strong for these guys to pass up.

I'd say there's probably several thousand guys around,in their 60's and 70's or older that live in montana,wyoming or idaho,that have harvested everything these states offered. Antelope,deer,black bear,grizzly,goat,sheep elk and moose. They did it all without a guide and you'll never see their names in print.

How do you measure the "greatness" of a hunter?

Jack O'Connor may not have been a "great" hunter but he hunted with some of those mentioned above (Elgin Gates, Prince Abdorreza and Herb Kline to mention some)
And he had a talent for telling a great story of his hunts. Reading one of his tales was entertaining as well as educational. He often gave a detailed description of how the bullet traveled through an animal, mushroomed and how and why it killed the animal effectively. These kinds of details always facinated me as I was learning about hunting.

Robin down under

My Dad

Gary Reeder, a hell of a handgun hunter/builder who has taken hundreds of game animals from all over the world with his custom handguns. He also holds a more than few #1 and #2 SCI records and many top 5 records. Gary has gotten many a person into the handgunning sport and not because he builds them either.

Leon Munyon, another handgunner with many top 5 SCI records from around the world, but mainly African game.

How about Larry Kelly and J D Jones?

I once met a man in Colorado unit 74 who was a house painter from Boston, MA. He was carrying an old 7600 pump with a K4 in weaver rings. It looked like it had been used for digging post holes! It was one of those moments where you have an encounter in a bar, airport, or on the trail and you know you have found a kindred spirit. After 30 minutes of talking elk and turkeys he invited me to his camp where I spent the night. He had rented a couple pack horses and a saddle horse and had set up a very comfortable camp with nothing more than the basics. After a little prodding I learned he had taken several trophies of the north american 27. I hunted with him a few more times over the years, but eventually we drifted apart. That little old dude was a living legend of mine. He was from a modest background and lived to hunt. For every book printed, and every Weatherby and SCI award out there, there is hundreds of individuals just like that old bird.

Hello;
I think a lot of these modern day "famous" hunter types belong to the same class of celebrity as your basic Hollywood actor type. It's more about appearance and image, than about Hunting. the name of the game is to create an image for yourself that can sell and make oodles of money.
I have a special place in my heart for Harry Snyder, a man who hunted the world over and at one time held the record for the largest bull elephant. The old geezer once owned a ranch a little ways from here, that I hunt regularly. We were messing around in one of the outbuildings there once, when we came on the cape of a giraffe head.
I also have an autographed book by one Jim Bond, that I found in the wall of an ancient house, I was renovating. Don't know much about him, but the book, From Out of the Yukon,, describes a pioneering Hunt in the Wind River area, right after the war. Some unbelievable moose.
Grizz

peter capstick wrote in his book "death in a lonely land" about barry brooks. and its a fine read. my list of famous hunters is like this


Rudolf sand
Herb klein

elgin gates

capstick

barry brooks

theodore roosevelt

svein solli ( a very famous norwegian hunter/writer/gunjournalist that passed awy 2 years ago)

Frantz rosenberg (norwegian baron that hunted africa and who knew roosevelt and keith

mr rigby

Harry Selby

Robert ruark

Roy Weatherby

wdm Bell

jim corbett

john taylor

Craig boddington

Elmer "Mr. Big Bore" Keith!