Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/742011
92 • S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S had a lot of shooters coming in on corporate jets. Sometimes they even took their planes to the ranches they were assigned to hunt." Chambers notes that there are actually four separate entities that cooperatively sponsor the hunt: the Grand National Quail Club, the Grand National Gun Club, the Past Shooters Council and Executive Committee, and the Grand National Quail Foundation, a non-profit spinoff created to raise funds for quail research, conservation, and education. He emphasizes, too, that there are literally hundreds of individuals, businesses, and even corporations that contribute importantly to ensuring the event's continued popularity and success. It's a community effort in every respect, a quintessential example of the grand American tradition of putting your best foot forward, welcoming guests as if they were old friends (and old friends as if they were family), and sharing the bounty of the good earth with them. Folks around Enid take a palpable pride in being the home of the Grand National Quail Hunt—and rightfully so. E very year before taking the field, the first-year shooters, called "Bobbies" (for bobwhite quail), must pledge the "Oath of Colinus Virginianus." A part of the oath reads as follows: From this day forward, I pledge to hold in disdain, and to heap scorn upon Pheasant Flushers, Partridge Poppers, Rabbit Runners, and Chukar Chasers; and to purge from memory my own previous transgressions with other unsavory birds. I do further vow, as an honored and worthy contestant in the Grand National Quail Hunt . . . to fully respect the rights of my fellow "Brother of the Bob" . . . to deny him not his privilege of foul speech . . . to covet not his covey . . . and to claim no more than half the birds he shoots. Here's to the next 50 Grand National Quail Hunts. n Editor's Note: This article will also be featured in our new The Greatest Quail Hunting Book Ever, scheduled for release in November. The hardcover Collector's Edition will be $40 and the Deluxe Edition, leather-bound and limited to 300 copies, will sell for $75. To order, call (800) 849- 1004 or visit www.sporingclassics.com. well-known celebrity hunts is the Grand National Waterfowl Hunt in Cambridge, Maryland, which debuted in 1982.) I think it's safe to say, though, that no celebrity-style hunt rivals the GNQH when it comes to the luster of its roster of participants, the visibility of its profile on the national sporting scene, and its sheer cachet. If you're a quail hunter who moves in certain circles, an invitation to shoot at the Grand National (which comes directly from the Office of the Governor of Oklahoma, by the way), is not just a badge of honor but a stamp of authenticity. It says, You have arrived. E vans Chambers III, the son of the hunt's founder, has been involved in the Grand National in virtually every possible capacity since 1970. As such, he's the "institutional memory" of the venerable organization. "The original concept," he reflects, "was to showcase the entire state of Oklahoma by moving the hunt around to different cities. They were thinking in terms of a four-city rotation, but once they discovered how difficult it is to put on one of these things, they decided to keep it in Enid." Adds Chambers: "Two people who really helped bring in a lot of celebrities in the early years were Lee Majors and Richard Anderson, the actor who played Majors' 'handler' in The Six-Million Dollar Man. The 1970s and '80s were also the 'oil boom' years in this part of the world, so we "Why couldn't we do a celebrity-style hunt in Oklahoma with quail?" Why not, indeed? Back home in Enid, Dr. Chambers floated the idea to various friends and fellow sportsmen, all of them prominent in the community, and they latched on to it like a litter of pointer pups attacking a meaty bone. The Grand National Quail Club was formed in April 1967. At the same time the club announced its intention to hold a "national championship quail hunt" that November, an event that would attract celebrity sportsmen from throughout the country and shine a flattering light not just on Enid, but on all of Oklahoma. Still, it almost didn't happen. That September, just weeks before the hunt's scheduled starting date, Dr. Chambers died in a plane crash in New York. He had been the Grand National's guiding light and driving wheel—but if the club was staggered by his loss, they also recognized that the best way to honor his memory was to get up off the canvas and rededicate themselves to making his dream a reality. And that's exactly what they did. The inaugural event was a smashing success, and within a few short years the Grand National Quail Hunt had become the premier event of its kind. The One-Shot Antelope Hunt may be older; for that matter, so is the One- Box Pheasant Hunt in Broken Bow, Nebraska, which marked its 56th renewal in November. (The fourth in the quartet of "Guess which one is Baxter's?" by john troy – courtesy skyhorse publishing