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Trophies Aplenty: Hunter's 100 or more kills now keeping him company
Journal Photo by Jennifer Rotenizer
O.T. Fowler Jr. stands among the animals he has killed and brought home since he began hunting as a hobby.
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Published: February 23, 2009
KING -- On a hunting trip to the wilds of British Columbia, O.T. Fowler Jr. and his guide had settled in for the night in a tiny cabin when they heard a commotion outside. Fowler went to the window and peered through the glass to see what was up.
It was a black bear.
"I had my hands on the window -- he had his nose on the other side," Fowler said. "I backed up and shot him through the window."
The bear now stands by the television in the one of the rooms where Fowler keeps his trophies from more than 40 years of hunting in North America, Russia and Africa.
Fowler and his wife, Margaret, live on a Stokes County farm that Fowler's father bought when he was a young man. As his collection grew, Fowler built an addition to the farmhouse. When the collection outgrew that room, he added a second one.
Sharing the two rooms with the black bear are more bears, a Russian boar, a waterbuck, assorted deer, a bush pig, a black wildebeest, a sable, an impala, bobcats, a giraffe, an otter, a Siberian fox, a beaver, an elk, a zebra, a warthog and a Cape buffalo.
Fowler, 82, is particularly proud of the Cape buffalo that he shot in South Africa in 2006.
"This is the Super Bowl of hunting," he said. "They are the meanest. This was one shot dead in the heart at 60 yards."
The Cape buffalo weighed the better part of a ton. At that range, Fowler said, it could have easily charged him if he had just wounded it. "You never know which way they are going to run."
He hasn't made an exact count of his trophies, but it's somewhere in the neighborhood of 100. In some cases, Fowler had the entire animal stuffed. In others, he had the upper body and head stuffed or just kept the skin. He gave the meat and other usable parts to the guides and others who helped him on his hunts so that nothing went to waste. Hunting in Africa is highly regulated, and he often had to wait for some time before the animal was approved for release, prepared and shipped.
When it comes to hunting, he and his wife have an understanding.
"We have always had a great agreement," he said. "She likes to go to New York and do her thing."
New York offers her the chance to visit their daughter, Mollie, and two grandchildren, to see Broadway shows and go shopping.
Fowler's father -- O.T. Sr. -- was a founder of Fowler-Jones Construction Co. and Grandview Construction Co. Fowler went into the family business and worked hard for many years. One day it sank in that, in seven years, he hadn't taken more than a day off here and there. The time had come, he decided, to make more time for himself. He took up hunting deer, and things went from there.
"I got into where I wanted something that would bite back," he said. He began traveling to such places as Montana, Canada and Alaska and, in many instances, hunted bear with a bow-and-arrow only. From North America, it was on to Siberia and Africa. Sometimes, he hunted with a friend. Other times, it was just Fowler and the professional hunters and locals helping.
Certainly, he finds satisfaction in the hunt itself. Much of the satisfaction in such adventures, though, he said, comes from the camaraderie and from being outdoors -- standing in snow up to his hips, being out on a 90,000-acre preserve in Africa. He has plenty of photographs to go with his adventures but he doesn't really need them. Looking at his trophies brings it all back.
"I can just about remember every shot that I ever took," he said.
■ Kim Underwood can be reached at 727-7389 or at kunderwood@wsjournal.com.
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