Saturday, August 1, 2009

A Bowhunting Legend

I took a trip over to the Cabela's store in Fort Worth this afternoon. Except this time it wasn't to buy something. I went to hear a presentation being given by one of the greatest bowhunters of all time - Chuck Adams.

If you've never heard of Chuck Adams, well, you must not be a real bowhunter. He has quite the bowhunting resume. He is the first archer ever to complete the North American "Super Slam" - the taking of all 27 North American big game species with his bow. He has also taken 111 Pope & Young record-book trophies - more than anyone else in history. He also is widely known for his books and articles about bowhunting. Throughout the hunting community, Chuck Adams is known as "The World's Most Successful Bowhunter".

Before his presentation today, I got the opportunity to meet Chuck and get an autograph as well as a quick picture. In our conversation I asked him how long it took him to complete the "Super Slam" and he told me 23 years.

During his presentation, he talked about his "Bowhunting Misadventures". He had some very interesting stories of his encounters with big game throughout the world. My favorite was his story about an elephant hunt in Africa in which he arrowed a huge bull elephant. After shooting the massive animal, Chuck, his guide and his tracker were tracking the elephant and it charged. All three men ran in different directions and the elephant got within feet of the tracker. Just as it was reaching out with it's trunk to grab the man the guide shot the elephant right through the brain with a .458 caliber elephant gun. The big bull fell like a sack of potatoes almost landing on the tracker. Chuck said that to this day, that is the only animal he has arrowed that has had to be dispatched with a bullet.

The main topic of the presentation was that bowhunting is not easy. To quote Chuck, he said, "What I like about bowhunting is that it is not easy - if it were easy it wouldn't be as special as it is." I couldn't agree more.

I was glad I had the opportunity to get to meet Chuck and hear him talk about some of his hunting adventures. He is to archery what Nolan Ryan is to baseball.

2 comments:

Albert A Rasch said...

Some folks get all the luck.

Rob meets Chuck Adams one of the nicest guys out there in the hunting scene, and I get to meet Jim Zumbo who proceeds to snub me in front of everyone at the SHOT Show...

Congratulations Rob! It really nice to know that there are celebrities that still know who their real fans are.

Best regards,
Albert
Trophy Merriam’s Turkey
Fallow Deer: Hints and Tips

Anonymous said...

I am so bummed, 19 seasons ago when i started hunting it was with a bow and arrow and what spurred me to do that was reading about Chuck Adams. He is why I started bowhunting in the beginning.

Nice story, congratulations on meeting a legend.