I'll try to keep this brief, but it may get a little lengthy. I first met Fred in either 1967 or '68 so I've known him a long time. He worked at IBM at the time. Fred, Bob Pitt and Pat Wolf were all bowhunting buddies from Indiana. And all three were world-class bowhunters at the time. There weren't ANY better in my opinion. It's been a very long time so don't hold me to these details.
Fred wrote about an elk hunt he and Pitt went on in Montana if I remember right. It was a terrible hunt. The guide was very inexperienced, and the area generally sucked. Not only did they not get any elk, but they also never heard a single bugle or even saw a track. Both Bob and Fred said the guide and outfitter were drugstore cowboys and a joke. To make it worse in the end one of them stole either Fred or Bob's wristwatch. I'm thinking this may have been in the late '70s or early '80s. I honestly can't remember if Fred's article about this hunt was published in Bowhunter Magazine or maybe PBS magazine. Either way, it was great and showed that even the best of us gets scammed occasionally.
Well, me being a Wensel and them being friends, I couldn't let the opportunity pass. It was my pleasure to completely re-write Fred's entire story in reverse, like it was written by the outfitter/guide. I completely turned it around making Fred and Pitt look like inexperienced greenhorns. And in the end the cowboy claimed instead of a tip they left him his wristwatch. I have to admit, it was one of my better written articles the way I twisted it around. A month after Fred's version was published my piece came out (with fictitious cowboy names). I have to admit, it was really funny when you read both pieces back-to-back.
Not long afterwards I saw Fred at a sports show/banquet and asked him if he saw that rebuttal those drugstore cowboys wrote about him? He looked me in the eye and said, "When did you first realize you were an A-hole?"
We both had a good laugh. He said he was going to get me back, but he never did. It's always been one of my favorite memories of G. Fred. Yes.. we'll all miss him... and I thank him for his friendship. BW AKA UB
Topic: G Fred Asbell has passed..... (Read 6797 times)
