Famous Hunters in the Record Books: Part One

From Hollywood cowboys to the Olympians to racing moguls, presidents, and kings, these hunters left their mark on history—and in the Boone and Crockett Club records

From left to right: King Mahendra of Nepal, Slim Pickens, and A.C. Gilbert.  

Among the 60,000 big game entries in the Boone and Crockett Club’s records, there are plenty of extraordinary entries taken by ordinary hunters. There are a handful of names and faces that are not ordinary. They are presidents, actors, musicians, athletes, and the list goes on. We dug deep in search of famous hunters who submitted their animals to the Club’s records. We hope you enjoy part one. 

Left, Pickens plays Taggart in the comedy classic, Blazing Saddles.  Pickens also worked with Marlon Brandon who directed and starred in One-Eyed Jacks. 

Slim Pickens 

You might recognize this Stetson-wearing actor from his work in movies like Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles and Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove. Pickens appeared in dozens of films and television shows over three decades beginning in the 1950s, and he didn’t just play a cowboy in Hollywood Westerns. Slim Pickens was a bronc buster, rodeo clown (and hunter) before he made it to the big screen. In fact, that’s why he ended up changing his name from Louis Burton Lindley Jr. After getting bucked off a bronc and breaking both wrists, Slim’s dad told him he better not see his name on any rodeo entry lists. In an interview, Slim said, “While I was fretting about what to call myself, some old boy sitting on a wagon spoke up and said, ‘Why don't you call yourself Slim Pickens, ’cause that's what your prize money will be.’" Slim had an Appaloosa horse that could buck on command. When Hollywood wanted to hire the horse, Pickens told them they were a package deal. 

Even though Slim’s record-book entry is an elk from New Mexico, his heart belonged to Wyoming’s Wind River Range. He hunted several years in the Wolf Lake area, and bought a piece of property near Boulder Lake and built a cabin. His grandson, a hunting guide, lives there with his family now in the summer. In an interview with Cowboy State Daily, Slim’s grandson described his love of hunting. "Grandpa loved to hunt and he hunted all over, including in Alaska," said Dustin. "His agent used to get mad when he would turn a picture down because it was during hunting season.” 

Alfred Carlton Gilbert was an American inventor, athlete, magician, toy maker and businessman. As the founder of A. C. Gilbert Company, Gilbert was known for inventing the Erector Set. And he was die-hard hunter as well. ​​​​​​​

A.C. Gilbert 

You’ve likely never heard of A.C. Gilbert, but chances are that you’ve been entertained by his inventions, especially if you’re old enough to draw Social Security. Alfred Carlton Gilbert was an American athlete, toymaker, entrepreneur, and die-hard hunter. He is best known as the inventor of the Erector Set, which featured various metal beams with regularly spaced holes for assembly using nuts and bolts. These sets provided hands-on engineering lessons disguised as play, and likely helped prevent toys from being classified as non-essential items during WWI. 

Gilbert was a Renaissance man. Aside from his Erector Sets, he won a gold medal in pole vaulting at the 1908 Olympics and studied medicine at Yale. He held more than 150 patents and loved to hunt since he was a kid. When he was just seven years old, he spent a summer trapping squirrels because the state of Oregon was offering three cents per pelt. He caught more than 500. One of his first hunting trips was to the Cascade Mountains. Once retired, he had more time to hunt, and hunt he did! According to Big Game Records LIVE, Gilbert has four brown bears, one grizzly, a bighorn, and three Rocky Mountain goats in the records. All of the brown bears came from Alaska, and the rest from Canada.

Nascar legend Richard Childress with his 2003 record-book tule elk, scoring 312-5/8 B&C points. 

Richard Childress 

Richard Childress is a former NASCAR driver and current team owner. He was born in 1945 in North Carolina, began racing with a $20 car, and competed as an independent driver for over a decade. In 1981, he transitioned to team ownership, founding Richard Childress Racing (RCR). His partnership with Dale Earnhardt from 1984 led to six NASCAR Cup Series championships and the 1998 Daytona 500 win. RCR became a dominant force, winning titles across NASCAR’s top series. Childress was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2017. 

Childress has also been a prominent figure in hunting, conservation, and shooting sports. He has served as chairman of the Congressional Sportsman’s Foundation and as honorary chair of National Hunting and Fishing Day. He is a prominent member of the NRA and served on its board of directors. He created the Richard Childress Wildlife and Conservation Reserve in Lexington, North Carolina. He partnered with Johnny Morris, founder of Bass Pro Shops, to launch co-branded merchandise that raised over $10 million in just 30 days, with all profits donated to conservation initiatives. As for the records, Childress has two entries: a tule elk and a non-typical American elk. 

Theodore Roosevelt, right, living the dream in Colorado on a cougar hunt the same year President Mckinley was assasinated and Roosevelt become president.   

Theodore Roosevelt 

Theodore Roosevelt is the only U.S. president with his name in the Boone and Crockett records. And as far as we know, he’s the only hunter to kill a World’s Record with a hunting knife. Aside from being the most conservation-minded president by establishing the National Forest System, national monuments, wildlife refuges, and the Boone and Crockett Club (the list goes on), Roosevelt also loved hunting. We covered his hunt for a Colorado cougar in an installment of Adventures from the Archives, but here’s the hunt in a nutshell. 

Before being sworn in as vice president, Roosevelt needed an adventure and a little fresh air, far from politics and the East Coast. In January 1901, he left for Meeker, Colorado, to chase cougars for five weeks. He was heading to the White River between Coyote Basin and Colorow Mountain.

On February 14, the final day of the hunt, the dogs picked up a fresh scent and ran a huge cougar for at least three hours. It would run up a tree to catch its breath, then climb down to take a few swipes at the dogs and take off with hounds in pursuit. Eventually, they treed it in a pinyon, and Roosevelt broke the cat’s back with a bullet. The cougar fell to the ground and began knocking out dogs as they came within striking distance. One of the dogs grabbed the cougar’s ear and stretched out the cougar’s head. At that point, Roosevelt “drove the knife home.” At 227 pounds, the cougar was the largest of the expedition. Local ranchhands claimed this was the same cougar that prowled the area for a few years, dining on cattle and a workhorse.

The king of rock & roll meets with King Mahendra (far right) and Queen Ratna while on the set of "G.I. Blues."

King Mahendra of Nepal

King Mahendra was king of Nepal from 1955 to 1972, and he is likely one of the most controversial figures in the records. Not only that, he never paid his hunting tab when he hunted Alaska in 1967, stiffing his guide with more than $60,000 in charges. In 1960, Mahendra led a coup d'état by dismissing the elected government, jailing political leaders, suspending the constitution, banning political parties, and establishing an autocratic royal regime. He introduced the Panchayat system, a partyless political system that centralized power under the monarchy and lasted until 1990. He established a national language and banned foreigners from purchasing land. He worked to modernize Nepal by building dams, universities, and hospitals. 

While he was redefining the country, he also found time to go hunting. At the time, Nepal was a popular destination for big game hunting, particularly for tigers and rhinoceros. The Chitwan region, now a national park, was previously a royal hunting reserve where King Mahendra and other royals would host elaborate hunting expeditions for visiting dignitaries. He was also known for later establishing conservation efforts, with the creation of the National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act in 1973 being influenced by his earlier policies, though this was enacted after his death. In 1967, he found some time to head to Kodiak Island, where he killed a record-book brown bear and a pile of other big game. Among a mind-blowing amount of pomp and circumstance surrounding the hunt, including using Air Force One as his ride from D.C. to Anchorage, few rules were followed while the State Department looked the other way. Plus, he never paid his guide, Al Burnett, who ultimately lost business and his guide license because of the hunt. A fascinating, albeit infuriating account, can be found in a 2021 article in the Anchorage Daily News. 

 

The Importance of Records in Big Game Management

When you enter your trophy into the Boone and Crockett system, you aren’t just honoring the animal and its habitat. You are participating in a data collection system that started in the 1920s and was refined by Club members in 1950. Today, there are nearly 60,000 trophy records. By establishing a records database more than 70 years ago, the Boone and Crockett Club established a scientific baseline from which researchers can use to study wildlife management. If you’re still  on the fence about entering your trophy, we encourage you to read Why Should I Bother to Enter My Trophy. To the best of our ability, we ensure that the trophies entered into the records were taken in accordance with the tenets of fair chase ethics. Despite what some may think, the Boone and Crockett records are not about a name or a score in a book—because in the end, there’s so much more to the score.