After reading the post of the 13 year old girls GSCO Super 10, I say congratulations to her and it’s great that she has a father that gave the time and money for her to accomplish that.

I grew up in Colorado, but I didn't come from a hunting family. As a kid my Dad bought me my first BB gun and .22 single shot rifle and took me to a shooting club where I learned the basics and safety of shooting. It wasn't until my second year of college that I actually went hunting.

One of my college roommates had grown up hunting with his Dad in Craig, CO, and invited me to go deer hunting with them. The first year he loaned me a Model 94 Winchester .32 Spl and I shot my first big game animal, a spike muley buck. I proudly hung those spike antlers on my bedroom wall, and we enjoyed eating his venison that winter.

The next year he invited me hunting again, and along with two of my other roommates, we brought 3 elk back to our college rental house where we processed them ourselves and enjoyed eating them the rest of that college year. My elk was a 5x5 bull, and he turned me into a lifelong hunter. The following summer I bought my first centerfire rifle, a Herter's Model U-9 .30-06 barreled action and a semi-inleted walnut stock that put together that summer. That's also when I started reloading.

Then, after I finished college and 3 years in the US Army, I got married and we moved back to Steamboat Spgs, CO, where I continued hunting deer and elk every year along with expanding my hunting with hunts for a black bear and pronghorn antelope. My first hunts were DIY with friends, and I've continued with most of my hunting in my home states being DIY with friends or solo.

In 1975 we moved to NW Montana where many new hunting opportunities opened up for me. Back then I knew about the Boone & Crockett Club but I had never heard about the Grand Slam Ovis Club. I just knew that I liked to hunt and that Montana had many varieties of big game animals that I could hunt. Actually, Montana has 9 of the 10 varieties of big game animals that GSCO requires for their Super 10 Award. In the '70s and early '80s, tags for Montana's big game animals were either OTC for residents (including Grizzly bear), or there was not a real high demand for the drawing tags.

My first few years in Montana I just shot a deer, an elk, and a pronghorn antelope each year along with my second black bear. Of the 9 categories of the 10 animals that GSCO requires for their Super 10 award, I was able to shoot 7 of them on DIY solo hunts in my home state of Montana:

A black bear that I shot on a DIY solo spot and stalk hunt with my 1911 .45 acp pistol...


A mule deer I shot on a DIY solo spot and stalk hunt with my Herter's .30-06...


My best bull elk from a public land DIY solo spot and stalk hunt with my Herter's .30-06...


I've been lucky enough to have drawn 2 Montana Shiras bull moose tags. I shot this one with my .30 Gibbs on a DIY hunt with a friend...

And this bull also with my .30 Gibbs rifle on a DIY solo hunt...


I shot this late season mountain goat with my .30 Gibbs on a DIY solo hunt in -5* F...


One of my pronghorn antelope that I shot with my .257 Ackley on a DIY solo hunt...


Montana still has some Unlimited bighorn sheep tag units. Over the years, I've hunted in several of those units and have been lucky enough to have killed these 3 rams with my .257 Ackley on DIY solo hunts...




In 1980 some friends invited me to join them on a DIY caribou hunt out of King Salmon, Alaska where I got this bull with my .30 Gibbs...


In 2002 I went on a guided combination Musk ox and caribou hunt in the Canadian Arctic and shot this bull with my Remington 7mm RM. He was the only bull Musk ox that we saw and he also qualified for the B&C Record Book...


I live in the country and have seen several mountain lions from my house, and have bought a tag for many years, but never saw one at the right time or place that I could shoot, so in 2015 I booked a lion hunt with an Outfitter in western Colorado and shot this tom with my .30-30 Win which completed my GSCO Super 10.


From my first deer hunt to my mountain lion hunt was a span of 50 years that gave me many great memories and kept my freezers stocked with great tasting venison. All of the Montana animals that I've listed here I hunted on public land and none cost me more than a $25 resident tag and a tank of gas for my truck. I also had a taxidermist make mounts of all of these animals so I can see them and enjoy the memories of their hunts for the rest of my life.

Thank you for sharing your hunts and pictures. You definitely have some wonderful memories.

Congrats and that's the way IMHO to do it.

You have done very well! Lots of great trophies there. Oh, and good eats!

Wow! That's a lot of great critters, memories, and meals. Thanks for sharing your pictures.

That is very impressive!

From a self started hunter in your college years to getting such a wide selection of game, primarily DIY, I’m impressed.

A hunting life well-lived!

A life time of hunting well done.

Well done. I started out doing that and then got addicted to Africa and Europe…

quote:

Originally posted by dogcat:
Well done. I started out doing that and then got addicted to Africa and Europe…

I also got addicted to Africa after my first trip to south Africa in 2000, and I made 5 successive trips there and to Zimbabwe and Mozambique, along with hunts in New Zealand, Azerbaijan, and more hunts in Canada and Alaska for additional subspecies of the Super 10 animals.

My Trophy Room is filled with far more mounts than the basic GSCO Super 10, but they're a whole bunch of different stories.

Buffy:

Thats impressive, so are the heads.

Congrats on a great hunting life.

Don't quit now, you're still ahead of most of us.

George

Great, and as we see, hunting is one of those endeavors that is earned over time with time, energy and of course some money

Great hunting life Buffy