Best & Most Accomplished Big Game Hunters
 

Where do you feel the best AND most accomplished big game hunters are to be found?
No breaking the two measuring sticks apart....
Both best AND most accomplished.

Young, old, individuals, clients, guides.... it don't matter.

RE: Best & Most Accomplished Big Game Hunters
 

I'm not sure what your looking for, wether we are talking trophy animals or just simple sucess.

I would say the best and most accomplished hunters are those that are still sustinence hunters, people who rely on what they kill to survive.

Granted there are fewer of those than ever before they do still exsist.

I am in awe of the patience of those that can stand over a hole in the ice for hours on end waiting for a seal to take a breath, and still have the ability to drive a spear through the ice and make a kill. (I personally would be too stiff to move).

Or I would say someone who is regurlaly sucessful without gimicks.

Rogue

RE: Best & Most Accomplished Big Game Hunters
 

I don't necessarily classify the best hunters with the most successful hunters. Success does not necessarily mean they are good hunters. Especially in this day of guaranteed bone for $$$$$$$$.

If I had to keep both classifications together then Fred Bear would instantly come to mind.

RE: Best & Most Accomplished Big Game Hunters
 

Ihave a friend in southern MO who is about as good as it gets. He's a blue collar guy who does DIY hunts(except where prohibited by law) on a shoe string budget all over North America and consistantly takesmeat home for his family. He doesn't always shoot trophy animals and that's fine by him, he's in it for the hunt! Don't get me wrong, the guy has more mounts than wall space (including the garage and basement!), but he's as humble a manI've ever met.He' ll be the first in the group totake anew hunter under his wing and you'll never hear theman complain about ANYTHING. He saves hismoney, does hisown research,sets uphis own hunts from top to bottom. He butchers his meat himself andhelps his taxidermist with the mounts. When it comes to hunting, he just hasthat 6th sense that most hunters dreamabout. The greatest thing about the guy. . .if he considers you a friend, he'll gladly teach you everything he knows.That's my definition of a great hunter.

RE: Best & Most Accomplished Big Game Hunters
 

I agree 100 percent with Rouge. People who have to get it done regardless of conditions. Like maybe the Eskimos.

RE: Best & Most Accomplished Big Game Hunters
 

If you're talking trophy hunting and doing it with a weapon that takes the most hunting skills to be successful.. then Chuck Adams without a doubt.

RE: Best & Most Accomplished Big Game Hunters
 

Not sure what the guys name is, but I was watching a show where a guy filled his last remaining North American slam animal (stone sheep) with a recurve bow. As in he's killed all 27or 28 North American big game animals with a recurve bow. That's pretty impressive.

RE: Best & Most Accomplished Big Game Hunters
 

Ok then, I'll put Chuck Adams second to that guy since he uses a compound..

RE: Best & Most Accomplished Big Game Hunters
 

I will throw in atrivia question to give my answer. The best ever was the last living link between those who hunted for survival alone and those that resembled modern day hunters. This link died of TB in a university after teaching the crafts handed down by thousands of generations before us. Anyone know the answer???

Hint: This man was Chucks mentor......

RE: Best & Most Accomplished Big Game Hunters
 

Joseph Idlout

He was so renowned as a hunter that he was portrayed with his hunting party on the back of the old Canadian $2 bill.

http://www.collectioncanada.ca/obj/021013/f1/xx008787-v4.jpg

RE: Best & Most Accomplished Big Game Hunters
 

Elkcrazy i believe the answer your looking for is Ishi. I completely agree very limited in technology and able to survive for as long as he did.

Although I do believe there are still some native tribes in the world that still hunt with traditional methods, though maybe they get there now by snow machine LOL.

Rogue

RE: Best & Most Accomplished Big Game Hunters
 

Ishi is it!!! Many of todays tactics have come down from what Ishi taught, He taught Pope and Young the art of decoying and calling......

RE: Best & Most Accomplished Big Game Hunters
 

In the non-yankee category, akin to Eskimos probably best include the bushmen of the Outback of Australia and Africa, perhaps the pygmies as well.

RE: Best & Most Accomplished Big Game Hunters
 

I believe you have a good point there. Its just that this weather make me think more of Eskimos.:D

They turned the temp down in Nor Dukotah. ooooofdaa

RE: Best & Most Accomplished Big Game Hunters
 

The guy who did the slam with a recurve is Fred Eichler ( don't know if he finished or not yet). But I believe the absolute best in the game you will not find. They are so absorbed in the game they don't seek the spotlight and therefore don't enter the books. The best hunters I have known are pretty quiet about what they do and don't need to see their name in some book.

RE: Best & Most Accomplished Big Game Hunters
 

1)Herb Klien,
2)Chuck Adams
3)Jim Shockey


IMHO Herb Klien, was the best hunter.

RE: Best & Most Accomplished Big Game Hunters
 

Sounds like a heck of a hunter and person joshw020!

RE: Best & Most Accomplished Big Game Hunters
 

Hmmm.... along the lines of good ole, Western European Imperialist lineage:

Harry Selby
Craig Boddington
Jack Brittingham

RE: Best & Most Accomplished Big Game Hunters
 

Where? In the past.
Corbet and paterson, people who took on maneaters to make life more bearable for the less fortunate.

RE: Best & Most Accomplished Big Game Hunters
 

delete.

RE: Best & Most Accomplished Big Game Hunters
 

True enough, and certailnly an interesting genre (and a favorite of mine); however....

Present tense, hence present day.
(Interesting how most folks are "greater" dead than alive.... never understood that, I guess the only time they get "bragged on" is at their eulogy and then it is too late; personally, IMHO if you've done it, it aint bragging.)

The majority of the "most accomplished" accolades attributed to native peoples so far, IMO really fall under the "best" category. Taking the "most accomplished" descriptoras referring to the diversity and quantity and quality of big game animalstaken may subtract from the native peoples a bit.

So, whereare the best AND most accomplished big game hunters to be found, TODAY?

RE: Best & Most Accomplished Big Game Hunters
 

If you base accomplishment on corporate sponserships and a hefty bank account, then ya, Chuck Adams, Fred Eichler and Ted Trueblood all cream of the crop.

I think true accomplishment by everyday blue collar americans that do all there own research and hunt self acquired land "No guides" are true testiments of success! And there are still and always will be great hunters out there.

Just my .02

RE: Best & Most Accomplished Big Game Hunters
 

Alaska for the bears, etc. will legally require a guide. Africa &Asia for anything.... (with the rarest of exceptions) you ain't gonna legally hunt without a guide and for sure you won't "self acquire" any land and thus to deny the hunters who venture outside of the "Lower 48"might be a just a twitch provincial.

The discussion was really intended to include a bit more than just"home town USA." Hence the up frontrequirement of both "best" (skill) and "most accomplished" (diversity & quantity & quality of big game taken).

BTW, lots of these hunts being done by folks that don't have corporate sponsors, though I can perhaps understand your aggravation.

RE: Best & Most Accomplished Big Game Hunters
 

A united states marine with his gun

RE: Best & Most Accomplished Big Game Hunters
 

Ah, big game hunting for people?.... I'm thinking that is generally frowned upon. I'm truly talking big game hunting, though in the late 1800's in Africa, the safarimenu in some areas listed "one pygmie" to be included in the take.... I couldn't believe it when I read it.

RE: Best & Most Accomplished Big Game Hunters
 

EKM perhaps you are looking for some really big game hunters. How about some of the old Ivory hunters, George Rushby, Arthur Neumann or W.D.M. Bell. Taking elephants point blank range with more guts than I could muster.

Rogue

RE: Best & Most Accomplished Big Game Hunters
 

In my eyes the best and most accomplished are the regular joes that are able to harvest animals trophy or nontrophy on their own with no support other than your hunting party. After all isn't that how hunting was born without ranches and professional guides.

RE: Best & Most Accomplished Big Game Hunters
 

Again, half the equation is addressed, i.e."best" (skill)
Skill as in "really good hunter compared to those I know" or"having talent for making the best of what one has got to work with" such as native peoples, or perhaps in the lower 48, the ever popular "Joe."

Still the other half of the equation to go, i.e..... most accomplished (diversity, quantity, and quality of big game taken).
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I'm kinda surprised that no one hasalluded tothe Professional Hunters, especially towards the upper end. As a PH,if you are no good, the word travels incredibly fast in those kinds of circles and you find yourself without any clients. You have to be pretty good hunter to lead your client (who may be a really good hunter in his own right or very mediocre)onto game and have taughtyour client the who, what, where, when, and howof what is going down and thenback up your client after his shot,often in cases where the game is about to dissappear due to range or cover or at the opposite end of the continuum, point blank in a charge; most PH's have shot more than their fair share of game on their own ticket. (The same would be true to a lesser degree of theirdistant cousins, the North American "guides.")

Following that though, in most sportsI can think of, the greatest talent usuallymeets thegreatest accomplishmentsat the confluence of where the reknowned highest level of game is played and where themoney is paid. The money allows the buying of time, the honing of skill, the gaining of experience, and simply being able to "stay in the game"in themost noteworthyarenas....

Common Examples:
Boxing, Rodeo, Figureskating, Rock Climbing, Snow Skiing, Fishing, Mountaineering, Karate, Football, Baseball, Basketball, Hockey, Volleyball, Targetshooting, Auto Racing, Trap Shooting, Golf, Pistol Shooting, etc. etc..... hunting.

RE: Best & Most Accomplished Big Game Hunters
 

While I am not saying they would all qualify by any means, some of the best and most accomplished hunters will likely be found atSCI's events inReno and Dallas.

May find some hard charging locals in British Columbia, Yukon, and Alaska.... pretty hot hunting arena.

RE: Best & Most Accomplished Big Game Hunters
 

With best (being skill) and most accomplished (being number and variety of animals taken).

I would have to say that Jim Shockey is right there at the top. He has taken animals all over the world with only a ML, has many world records to his name, isa professional guide himself in some of the harshest climates in NA, etc... etc...