Tracy,
There are three framed photos of Mr. Rutledge on the wall at Backwoods Quail Club. One of the pictures has Mr. Rutledge posing with a deer he harvested. One gentleman at the club told me that all the years Mr. Rutledge hunted he never could harvest a buck. He said that the horns in the picture were probably screwed on. Don't know if that is true or not. One of the other pictures has him on a bird hunt and looks to be a "P" grade Parker he is holding.

I can’t believe Archibald Rutledge never harvested a buck. I could believe he never shot a doe as that was the accepted ethics of his day

His writing was published during his lifetime and it would seem likely that he would have been called out as a fraud by neighbors and guests he hunted with. He was also invited to hunt clubs and killed deer there in front of and with people who would later read those stories.
Cause someone said it does not make it true.

For me Rutledge’s carved up Parker ranks right up there with Jack O’Connors Winchester Model 70 Biesen custom 270’s .

Tom, I believe Mr Rutledge shot many bucks but did not kill a really trophy till he was middle age . In An American Hunter published in 1937 he has a story “ Hunting with Half a Gun “ his firing pen breaks and he kills a buck with the second barrel and the second day he kills another buck with his one barrel gun . He is about to kill his 101st buck with his old fusee when the firing pin broke but he got it with the second barrel . “Yet I had no reason to complain, for that pin had never failed me in thirty years of pretty constant shooting.”

This picture is the epitome of Archibald Rutledge for me !

He kind of resembles Charlie Herzog although Charlie is much more handsome.

He's wearing the tallest available LL Bean Maine Hunting Shoe, so called.





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The old 18-inch model? The maximum height today appears to be 16-inch.