Gary Reeder
The pictures posted down below of friends that
Saturday, December 09, 2023, 15:13

have passed on made me look up some of the friends that I hunted with thru the year (most are still here, just older).The Celebrity Handgun Hunt brought a lot of us together. Taz Ridley, who was in charge of the SCI chapter including getting the hundreds of things concerning the hunt going and had a lot of weight on his shoulders and it was getting to him. He was going thru some paperwork on the last day at the hunt one afternoon and about to blow his stack. I asked him what was the problem. He just held up a handful of paperwork and said this was killing him. We had the next Celebrity Handgun Hunt coming up within about 9 or 10 months and he obviously needed some help. I asked him what could I do to help. He said "just get me some %^**^T$ people in here that will support the handgun chapter". I volunteered to help as there were maybe 35 people coming to the hunts at that time and most were just coming for the open bar and to play poker all evening and never do anything to help the chapter. They didn't bid on some of the raffle items, they didn't hunt some of the high dollar animals to keep the ranch folks happy.

Kase and I donated a gun each and it wasn't unusual for a $2000 gun to go for $600. He told me to get some new blood into the hunts, people that would help spend some money (the hunt was for charity for the needy at Christmas). And before I go any further like I just mentioned the Celebrity Handgun Hunt was a charity handgun hunt. It was by invitation only and they needed to have 50 to 55 hunters every year to attend the hunt and keep the SCI chapter alive.

The Celebrity Handgun Hunt was mentioned in the major gun magazines and it was considered something special to be invited. By the second year I hunted the hunters spent a minimum of $1000 to get to hunt. When I first started going in 1995 it cost $750 to hunt. As of the last year the hunt was held if I remember right it cost $1495 to hunt, IF you got invited.

The hunt was held at the Y.O. Ranch which was known for the largest amount of exotic animals of any exotic ranch in Texas. Each year the ranch would pick out an animal that they had way too many of and we were to cull out some of them. They were mostly "management" animals, animals with a broken horn or an odd amount of points, and so on, not trophy animals. All the meat taken was going to the needy at Christmas plus a portion of the money taken in by the hunters. The $1000 or more we spent to hunt my second year included your room and food for the 4 days plus paid for the animal you shot but only if you shot the exotic animals they said you could hunt. If you decided to hunt a Bison for instance, then the cost was much more, closer to $4000. And thank the Lord we had some hunters there each year who felt it was a privilege to be invited and they spent a LOT more than the $1000 we paid to hunt. A couple of the fellows from Texas who were there every year went on a shooting spree to see how much meat they could bring in. The ranch people took a count of the amount of meat these guys brought in. One fellow got into a herd of elk size animals and he by himself brought in almost 10,000 lbs of meat for the needy that year. And if I remember right he didn't win the prize as someone else beat him in the amount of meat they brought in.

Kase and I both donated a gun to be raffled off and the chapter made some money like that. Bob Baker of Freedom Arms was there and donated a revolver, Thompson Center donated a handgun, plus a lot of others were donating either services or items their company made.

Up until about 1998 or so the attendees were there to just be there and enjoy the open bar. They seldom bid on any of the items they raffled off and the chapter simply didn't make any money. I was enjoying the hunt and didn't want it to go under. I had met some great people there since 1995, my first year to attend. The Celebrity Handgun Hunt was where I met John Taffin for the first time. I also met Bob Baker there plus a lot of others. Bill Grover was there as was George Faerber, our Alaskan bear guide. Michael Talbot of the Miami Vice TV series was there as were several TV and movie folks. But the amount of hunters attending dwindled down to way less than what they needed to keep the hunt going, and that was the reason Taz was asking for some help getting new blood in there.

Anyway I got on the forum here and mentioned the hunt and started calling some of the regulars on here to invite them and by the time the hunt came around (1st weekend in December)thanks to many of the Misfits on here we had more people signed up than we had room for. Taz arranged for rooms in some of the log cabins there on the ranch and we had an overflow crowd. That year, instead of having 12,000 lbs of meat for the needy, we had well over 35,000 lbs of meat thanks to some of the guys shown on here, and continued having capacity crowds every year. There were people there that I had never met and a whole lot of folks that were to become good friends over the next few years. Here are some of the folks who started coming to the hunts after that and continued coming up until the SCI folks decided to shut down the chapter (there was a second handgun chapter that consisted of some of the high dollar crowd in SCI so our little chapter had to come to an end somewhere around 2012 or so).

Anyway here are some of the folks that were willing to spend some money to keep the Celebrity Handgun Hunt going. They spent an absolute minimum of $2000 to $2500 to get to hunt and some spent much more.
Down about 20 pics or so there is a pic of me holding 2 Emus that I had shot. The Y.O. had bought out another exotic ranch and got a large amount of Emus in the deal. The Emus were causing trouble and the Y.O. wanted to get rid of them so they put a price of around $200 per Emu if anyone wanted to shoot one. There is the pic of a Suburban with the rack on the back loaded with Emus. I sorta went berserk that day and shot 12 or 15 of them. After all it was a sale so why not take advantage of a sale.







In the next pic, good friend Taz Ridley is in the PINK shirt.

look closely at some of the faces in this next pic. Some well known folks in there, like Al DiPrima and Bill Grover..































In this next pic James Swidrick has a good friend and well known person with him as his hunting partner, Bill Grover again..