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To the hunting world Bill Quimby is best known as the longtime editor of SCI’s Safari magazine. In this position Quimby had the chance to hunt on multiple continents for all the sundry game animals found there. In this book he tells us of hunts across North and South America; South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and other parts of Africa; Spain; Mongolia; and New Zealand. Also included is Quimby’s successful quest to become one of the very few to take all ten of Arizona’s big-game species.
Several of his hunts were memorable for what went wrong. A horse panicked and fell off a series of ledges during a hunt for a mountain lion, which led to Quimby and a friend spending a cold New Year’s Eve on a ridge without shelter or fire. Then, after he had waited thirty-nine years to draw an Arizona desert sheep tag, Bill is changing a tire on the first day of hunting when a bumper jack slips and breaks his arm. (He shot his ram and completed his “Big Ten” quest twelve days later by firing his rifle one-handed.)
Some other stories include the time an Indian guide fell from a boat in the Northwest Territories and drowned on the author’s caribou hunt; the time a storm on a Yukon moose hunt kept Quimby and his guide snowbound in a plywood shack for nine days; the time a man died from a sudden heart attack on a javelina hunt and had to be carried off a cactus-covered mountain after dark; and the time a cow elephant in Zimbabwe took an immediate dislike to the hunters and their vehicle. These anecdotes are just a small sample of Quimby’s adventures over the years.
In addition, the author gives readers a glimpse into what South Africa was like during the final days of apartheid, and he provides behind-the-scenes insights into Safari Club International and founder C. J. McElroy—all interesting tidbits gained during the sixteen years Quimby worked at SCI.
The author, widely recognized for his hunting and writing skills, was inducted into the Arizona Outdoor Hall of Fame; he also received the Peter Hathaway Capstick International Literary Award. After writing eleven hunting-related books, this is finally his own life in his own words as an outdoors columnist, author, editor, publisher, and hunter on six continents.
In the foreword for Sixty Years a Hunter, Craig Boddington writes: “Relatively few in our business are equally adept as hunters, writers, and editors. Bill Quimby is one . . . [this] is a fine story of a great life of hunting, writing, and editing.
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