Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/742011
48 • S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S pheasant in Iowa. In May he was back at Las Cruces to fish and celebrate his birthday. He headed north in June to Alaska to fish and in September, attended a Ducks Unlimited event to speak about waterfowl conservation. The year 1974 started poorly. On New Year's Day Bing was admitted into the hospital with pleurisy and a lung abscess and was unable to attend the Bing Crosby Pro-Am. But he was up and about to narrate an American Sportsman's show on the cheetah and efforts to conserve the threatened cat. In February he and Phil Harris flew to Alberta to hunt grouse and afterward, Bing headed down to Baja for a month of fishing at Las Cruces. The following year, 1975, the Crosby family spent Easter in Las Cruces and enjoyed a month of fishing. Bing loved Las Cruces in the Sea of Cortez, and lived off his yacht until he built a home there. Mounted on the cabin walls of the True Love were some of Bing's most spectacular trophy fish, among them a dismissed the incident. In March, he took a photographic safari to Kenya to observe wildlife conservation for a segment of The American Sportsman. He returned to California in time to head down to Las Cruces for a month of fishing. June found him fishing in Seven Islands, northern Quebec, where he caught a 17-pound salmon. In August, he was grouse shooting in Scotland. In January 1972 Phil Harris and Grits Gresham joined Bing in Mexico for whitewing shooting, and the following month, and again in April and May, he returned to Las Cruces to fish. He retired his fishing yacht, True Love, named after the song he sang to Grace Kelly, his friend and co-star in two films, with a new, 38-foot Chris Craft he christened the Dorado. In July, he and his only daughter, Mary Frances, flew to Kenya, where she shot a 12-foot killer crocodile on the Tana River. In February 1973 Bing and hunting buddy, Phil Harris, set out to hunt A big part of a life lived large Between 1971 and 1974, Bing's schedule was filled with back-to-back appearances on television, including his annual Christmas show, time spent in the recording studio, appearances at various benefits, traveling with his family, and, of course, hosting the annual Crosby Pro-Am Tournament and playing golf himself, both at home and abroad. But in those few years he consistently broke away to replenish his soul with the peace and fulfillment he derived from hunting and fishing. Following are some sporting highlights from those years: In 1971 Bing had flown to Iceland to fish for salmon and tape a show for The American Sportsman the previous April. In January, at a gala dinner at New York's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel honoring Bing's conservation efforts by the Committee for Atlantic Salmon Emergency, a Danish film distributor announced Crosby's films will ceased to be shown in Denmark in defiance of Crosby's support of the Committee's platform. Bing