About Inductee

J. Wayne Fears election to this years Silver Anniversary Class of the Huntsville-Madison County Athletic of Fame posed something of a minor dilemma for the 18 electors on the Board of Directors. Everyone agreed his rsum was amazing. The only question was, whats his category? Master Outdoorsman? Writer? Hunter? Fisherman? Adventurer? Survivalist? Conservationist? The answer is, all the above. As someone on the board said, For all this guy has done, he deserves a Hall of Fame all his own." Many of Fears real-life adventures sound like movie fiction. Once he was stranded alone, without a firearm and carrying only a hunting knife, while mapping a vast uncharted section in the remote Yukon territory of northwestern Canada. For more than two weeks, Fears had to forage the deep woods for food, trying to stay alive. During this harrowing predicament, he built a tiny lean-to near the banks of a small lake and kept a campfire burning at night to fend off a stalking grizzly. He was finally spotted from the air and rescued by a passing bush pilot, who banked sharply and deftly landed his little float plane on the nearby lake. I felt like kissing that guy, almost," said Fears. Born in 1938 near the Alabama-Tennessee line in northern Alabama, Fears is the eldest of George and Aneeda Fears two sons. At an early age, he learned how to live in the wild from his father, a trapper and expert woodsman. He inherited a love of the written word from his mother, a school teacher. Both acquired skills would prove invaluable in the years to come. During his time in high school at Huntsville High, most of the boys in his class gravitated to the traditional team sports. Fears, on the other hand, was spending much of his spare time in the woods, often alone, fishing and trapping and hunting wild turkeys, rabbits, squirrels, raccoons, and bobcats. His love of the outdoors also led him into scouting, where he mastered map reading, compass navigation, leadership and pioneering. By the age of 15, he had already attained the rank of Eagle Scout. His junior year, Fears and a handful of fellow students joined the National Guard, which carried a commitment to join the U.S. Army after their senior year. The day after receiving his diploma in 1956, Fears was off to Fort Jackson, S.C., for basic training. After a six-year hitch in the army, he enrolled at Auburn University, graduating in 1964 in a customized curriculum: Wildlife Management and Outdoor Education. He then worked at the University of Georgias Cooperative Extension Service as a wildlife specialist, earning a Masters degree along the way and later overseeing 500,000 acres in southern Georgia as the chief wildlife manager for the Gulf States Paper Corporation. During this period, Fears began what would become one of the most prolific writing careers in the outdoors world. Over the past four decades, he has contributed some 6,200 articles to nearly every wildlife magazine on the market, including Outdoor Life and Field and Stream, and has published 32 books on such topics as shooting, trout fishing and cooking wild game. A world traveler, Fears has hunted and fished around the globe, including all 50 states and fi ve continents: North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. I never set out to hunt in so many places," Fears said. It just happened that way, but I enjoyed the journey." Among his favorite memories in the journey is the time he hunted goat-like chamois and tahr on the steep slopes of New Zealands Southern Alps. That was probably the most dangerous thing I ever did because we had to ride helicopters to get up there, and Im afraid of heights," said Fears. The walls of his rustic home in New Market are lined with many of his prized trophies, including deer, a stuffed mountain lion, a musk ox head and an Arctic caribou from the North Pole region, and the pelts of two black bears and a grizzly. A culinary aficionado, Fears has sampled nearly every wild animal on the planet. Monkey meat tastes a lot like beef," he says, and rattlesnake, properly prepared, is a delicacy." In 2012, Fears was inducted into the Legends of the Outdoors Hall of Fame in Nashville, and just two months ago he was inducted into the Legends of the Fly Fishing Hall of Fame in Atlanta. Tonight, he goes into the Huntsville-Madison County Athletic Hall of Fame. This one," he said, is probably the best of them all. Theres nothing like being honored by your home folks."