50 Fun Facts About Hunting and Fishing

Which US president's refusal to shoot a tied-up black bear on a 1902 Mississippi hunt inspired a famous toy?

Theodore Roosevelt called shooting the exhausted animal unsportsmanlike, and a newspaper cartoon of the scene led toymaker Morris Michtom to name his stuffed bears after him.

Which German liqueur's label shows a stag with a glowing cross, the vision of hunters' patron Saint Hubert?

Jägermeister means master hunter in German, a title used for centuries for the high official in charge of hunting and gamekeeping.

Noodling, legal in only some US states, means catching which fish with bare hands from underwater holes?

Catfish guard their eggs in submerged holes, so a noodler reaches inside and waits for the fish to latch onto the hand before hauling it out.

Which Canadian island, rather than the mainland region in its name, is the true homeland of the Labrador Retriever?

Newfoundland fishermen prized the breed's ancestor, the St John's water dog, before British aristocrats imported it in the 1830s and turned it into a gun dog.

In which city did Bass Pro Shops turn a pyramid-shaped basketball arena into a megastore with a hotel inside?

Memphis opened its Pyramid as a 20,000-seat arena in 1991; it reopened in 2015 with a bowling alley, an archery range and an observation deck beside the apex.

Which light gun did 1980s players point at the television to shoot the birds in the NES game Duck Hunt?

Zapper shots register only on old CRT televisions, which is why Duck Hunt and its smugly laughing dog cannot be played on a modern flat screen.

Which catch do the Bering Sea boats chase each October in Discovery's long-running series Deadliest Catch?

King crab fishing off Alaska is considered even more dangerous than other commercial fishing, with most deaths caused by drowning or hypothermia.

Which giant fish does the aging fisherman Santiago struggle to land in Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea?

Marlin and old man earned Hemingway the 1953 Pulitzer Prize, and the novella was the only work named when he received the Nobel Prize a year later.

Which animal joins the lion, leopard, elephant and rhinoceros in Africa's Big Five, a list coined by big-game hunters?

Buffalo made the cut because hunters coined the term for the five most difficult animals to hunt on foot, not the five largest.

Which word for the illegal taking of wild animals also names a gentle way of cooking eggs in simmering water?

Poaching was once mostly the work of impoverished peasants feeding their families, in defiance of the hunting privileges of the nobility.

Which Looney Tunes hunter keeps failing to bag his archenemy Bugs Bunny, usually humiliating himself instead?

Elmer Fudd anchors Chuck Jones's hunting trilogy, three shorts in which Bugs and Daffy Duck argue over whether it is rabbit season or duck season.

In Richard Connell's story The Most Dangerous Game, which prey does General Zaroff hunt for sport on his island?

Humans shipwrecked on the island get food, a knife and a three-hour head start, and any who evade Zaroff for three days go free, though he has never lost.

Which constellation, known for the three bright stars of its belt, is named after a hunter of Greek myth?

Orion works as a signpost for stargazers: extend the line of the belt one way to find Sirius, and the other way to reach Aldebaran.

Which bony growths do male deer shed and regrow every year, unlike the permanent horns of cattle and sheep?

Antlers grow and drop on a timetable set by the length of daylight, and they serve both as weapons against rivals and as displays to attract mates.

Which small British scent hound, the breed of the Peanuts dog Snoopy, was developed mainly to hunt rabbits and hares?

Beagle packs gave their name to beagling, the hunting of hare or rabbit with a pack, and the breed resembles a much smaller version of the foxhound.

Which burrowing animal was the dachshund bred to flush out, the quarry that the German name Dachshund spells out?

Badger dog is the literal meaning of Dachshund, and the breed's earliest recorded names translate as badger crawler and badger warrior.

Which Ohio sharpshooter paid off the mortgage on her mother's farm at fifteen by selling game she had shot?

Annie Oakley supplied shopkeepers, restaurants and hotels across northern Ohio with game long before trick shooting on tour made her famous.

Which word for deer meat comes from a Latin verb meaning to hunt or pursue?

Venison once described the meat of any hunted animal, including rabbit, hare, wild boar and goat, before the word narrowed to deer.

Which animal, the tallest and heaviest living member of the deer family, is called an elk in British English?

Moose are outweighed in North America only by the bison, and there the word elk belongs to a different deer altogether, the wapiti.

Which curved Aboriginal Australian throwing tool famously circles back, though hunting versions did not return?

Boomerang originally meant only the returning kind; many Aboriginal peoples also carried non-returning hunting sticks, and some used those alone.

Which angling method draws baited lines or lures through the water behind a boat moving at a steady, low speed?

Trolling is easily confused with its sound-alike trawling, which drags a net instead of lines and is mainly a commercial method.

Which English writer published The Compleat Angler in 1653 and kept adding to it for a quarter of a century?

Izaak Walton set the book on fishing trips up the Lea Valley, though it is thought to reflect his own days on the River Dove.

Which tool, hand-held or powered, do ice anglers use to drill a round hole through a frozen lake?

Auger in hand, many anglers then fish from inside a shelter known as an ice shanty, fish house or bobhouse, some built on wheels for towing.

Which churchly name do anglers give the small club used to kill a landed fish quickly?

Priest comes from the notion of administering the last rites to the catch; the tool is usually a heavy metal head on a metal or wooden stick.

In which country do the earliest known pictures of a fishing reel appear, in a painting dated to about 1195?

China also has the oldest written mention of a reel, an ancient collection of immortals' lives that calls the device an angling lathe.

Tenkara, a reel-less style of stream angling whose name can mean fishing from heaven, is traditional to which country?

Japan kept tenkara largely to itself until 2009, when a company called Tenkara USA began popularising the method abroad.

Which diving bird have fishermen in East Asia trained for over a thousand years to catch river fish for them?

Cormorant handlers tie a loose snare at the base of the bird's throat, so it can swallow small fish but must surrender the large ones.

Which fish hatches in freshwater, lives as an adult in the ocean, then returns to its birthplace river to spawn?

Salmon may owe their name to the Latin verb salire, to leap, which fits a fish that clears waterfalls and rapids by jumping.

Which giant grass, split into strips and glued, was the prized material for fly rods before fibreglass took over?

Bamboo rods had a heyday of about 75 years, from the 1870s to the 1950s, and makers favour one species above a thousand others: Tonkin cane.

Which US state is the setting of A River Runs Through It, Robert Redford's 1992 drama about two fly-fishing brothers?

Montana scenery helped the film win the Academy Award for Best Cinematography, with Brad Pitt cast as Paul, one of the two Maclean brothers.

Which gun dog breed takes its name from the rigid stance it adopts on scenting hidden game birds?

Pointer ancestry is traced by popular belief to Spanish dogs brought to England by soldiers returning from Spain early in the 18th century.

Which 1942 Disney film leaves its young hero motherless after a hunter, named only as Man, shoots her?

Bambi was drafted with a brief shot of the mother being hit, but the makers judged the scene emotional enough to let her die off screen.

Which Roman goddess of the hunt and the Moon is usually shown with a bow, a quiver and hunting dogs?

Diana had her own origin in Italy but absorbed the myths of the Greek Artemis early on, including a birth on Delos and a twin brother, Apollo.

Which name is given to the loud, high-pitched whistling call that bull elk make during the mating season?

Bugling can reach 4,000 Hz, unusually high for so large an animal, and Lakota men played courting flutes that imitated the sound.

Which US state chose the ring-necked pheasant, a game bird imported from Asia, as its official state bird?

South Dakota's pheasant is one of only two state-bird species not native to the United States; the other is the chicken, honoured by both Delaware and Rhode Island.

Which shaggy camouflage outfit, first used in war by the Lovat Scouts, shares its name with Highland game attendants?

Ghillie suit wearers in the Lovat Scouts, many of them former stalkers and gamekeepers, became the British Army's first sniper unit in 1916.

Which American gunmaker's Model 1894 lever-action rifle, soon chambered in .30-30, became a classic deer rifle?

Winchester built it as the first commercial American repeating rifle for smokeless powder, and gave the millionth one to President Calvin Coolidge in 1927.

In which country was Cecil the lion killed by an American trophy hunter in 2015, sparking outrage around the world?

Zimbabwe never charged the hunter, a dentist who held a permit, but officials said he would be welcome back only as a tourist.

In which US state do the Robertsons of the reality series Duck Dynasty run their Duck Commander business?

Louisiana's West Monroe is home to the firm, named after the duck call it sells; the show's merchandise went on to earn some $400 million.

Which name, shared with a metal fastener, is given to the arrow-like missile shot from a crossbow?

Bolt and quarrel are both correct terms for it, and a crossbow can be held cocked and ready, though it takes longer to reload than a bow.

Which mall clothing brand began in 1892 as an elite New York outfitter of shotguns, fishing rods and tents?

Abercrombie & Fitch counted Ernest Hemingway as a regular customer and filed for bankruptcy in 1976, long before its rebirth as a fashion label.

Which US president fended off a hissing swamp rabbit that swam toward his fishing boat on a farm pond in 1979?

Jimmy Carter was unhurt, the press billed the episode as a killer rabbit attack, and a zoologist said the animal was probably just scared and seeking dry land.

Which fish, the mainstay of Canada's east coast for 500 years, was put under a moratorium after stocks collapsed?

Cod stocks had fallen to about 1% of their historic level by 1992, largely through decades of overfishing, when minister John Crosbie closed the fishery.

Which author of the Western bestseller Riders of the Purple Sage also held numerous big-game fishing world records?

Zane Grey invented the teaser, a hookless bait still used to attract fish, and by his son's account fished about 300 days a year.

In which Nordic country did Lauri Rapala found his lure company in 1936, after carving a floating minnow from cork?

Finland's Lauri Rapala whittled the prototype with a shoemaker's knife, then coated it in chocolate bar wrappers and melted photographic film.

Which Vermont company, founded in 1856 to sell fishing tackle, is the oldest mail-order retailer in the United States?

Orvis began as a tackle shop that Charles Orvis opened in the town of Manchester, and the company specialises in fly fishing and hunting goods.

Which reputed medieval prioress, credited with an early hunting treatise, gives her name to women's fly-fishing clubs?

Juliana Berners is linked to the Book of Saint Albans, printed in 1486 with essays on hawking, hunting and heraldry; one on angling was soon added.

Which hunter of man-eating tigers in northern India wrote the 1944 bestseller Man-Eaters of Kumaon?

Jim Corbett turned conservationist, helping to create India's first national park, which was renamed in his honour after his death.

Which fish, the largest member of the pike family, takes its name from an Ojibwe word often translated as ugly pike?

Muskellunge went by at least 94 different common names in English before the present one won out.

Which game bird's shooting season opens in Britain on 12 August, a date known as the Glorious Twelfth?

Red grouse could not legally be sold before 12 August under the Game Act of 1773, which in effect started the season on that day.