About the Author

Author Bob Penfold first experienced the outdoors at age four while fishing with his father. At age eleven he discovered spearfishing, and moved on to hunting in his mid- twenties. His father was a fisherman but not a hunter, so Bob taught himself how to hunt and shoot rabbits and foxes. He progressed slowly to larger game as his experience in hunting, shooting and ammunition reloading grew. Writing about these hobbies for Australian sporting magazines expanded his communication skills. Operating his own body shop and a news film company taught him how to run a successful business. Simultaneously teaching and pursuing his adventure hobbies taught him how to combine many activities at the same time. This knowledge became important when he launched Australia's very first guided big game hunting business more than forty-five years ago. It was an adventure in itself to start a industry from scratch. There were no rules, no regulations, and no clients at first. In pioneering Australia's international big game business, he had to develop both the rules and the industry while learning about international marketing and conducting his growing big game outfitting business. Wherever he went, he carried a couple of Nikon cameras. (The results are included in this book.) It should be no surprise that many of his former guides became competitors who followed him into the inter- national marketing arenas and the hunting fields. However, he led the industry for all of the twenty-seven years he practiced his craft. Today, international big game guiding in the South Pacific is a huge business as a result of Bob Penfold. In his retirement, he is respectfully referred to as "the grandfather of the big game hunting industry in the South Pacific."