The expedition started the way so many of Fred Bear’s great hunts did.
A long chain of travel halfway around the world to do what few archers had ever attempted, hunt a tiger with a bow in India.
Commercial flights took him from the United States across the world to India. Then a train from Delhi some 250 miles to Kota, followed by a rugged drive through small villages in a hunting car. The destination: the palace of His Highness the Maharaja of Bundi, who would serve as host for the hunt in the dry, unforgiving countryside of Rajasthan.
Fred had not come this far for nilgai, sambar, or axis deer. He had come for tiger the great Asian tiger, Sher Khan himself. One of the most magnificent and powerful cats on Earth. An animal that had never, as far as he knew, been taken by a bowhunter under these conditions. Fred intended to be the first with his bow.
His party operated out of the Maharaja’s palace at Pagar “Flower Lake” a relatively new but impressive orange-and-white fortress built in 1947. The Maharaja, an avid hunter educated in England who spoke excellent English, took great interest in Fred’s bow and arrows. Palace staff, including David Singh, and the famous elephant Rosie (named for the pink hue of her trunk) rounded out the colorful support. These were serious men and traditions. Closing the distance to bow range was the whole point. Not just the kill. The stalk.
The country made that kind of hunting possible. Ancient palaces and forts rising above dry-season landscapes. Grassy fields, jungle thickets stripped of green leaves, and villages where life followed the rhythm of the monsoons. A landscape built for patience and for testing a bowhunter’s resolve.
Which was exactly Fred’s situation in the early days of the hunt.
Fred first toured the Red Fort in Delhi and the Delhi Zoo to study Bengal tigers up close. Then the real hunting began. He took a fine nilgai (blue bull) with a well-placed arrow after a careful stalk, followed by a good sambar and a beautiful axis deer. The palace skinner, Benoir Val a 65-year-old veteran who had skinned over 600 tigers in his lifetime stayed busy. Fred sharpened his broadheads, practiced, and observed the local customs, from snake charmers to ritual dances.
But the tiger remained elusive.
Then word came from a nearby village: a tiger had been sighted. The palace sprang into action. Ceremonies were performed for success ritual dances by local maidens, a banquet featuring roast wild boar, and the burning of symbolic gunpowder effigies of the tiger. Baits had been set near water, and machans (tree platforms) built with shooting lanes cleared through the brush.
The drive began with beaters advancing through the forest, yelling, hurling stones, and occasionally firing an ancient musket to push the cat forward. Fred took his position on the machan nearest the cover while the Maharaja and photographer occupied platforms behind him.
The tiger, gorged from the night before and resting in the shade, was roused by the commotion. It crossed a stream, changed direction multiple times, and eventually headed uphill toward Fred’s position. Through an opening in the cover, Fred spotted the striped marauder some distance away. He considered holding off, but realized the animal might not come closer. He drew his bow and sent the arrow flying straight down the narrow lane.
The arrow passed completely through the tiger. The great cat roared and flashed into heavier cover, but Fred knew it was mortally wounded as the growls quickly faded.
Shortly after the beaters came through, Fred and a tracker moved into the thicket and found the magnificent tiger dead just a short distance away. It had run only a little way before collapsing. The powerful jaws that could break a bullock’s neck now lay still.
What they found exceeded anything Fred had hoped for on this journey. A prime striped tiger taken cleanly with an arrow a feat almost unheard of at the time. The entire village celebrated. The tiger was lashed to a pole and carried out triumphantly. Rosie the elephant took her own vengeance on the ancestral enemy, trumpeting victoriously. At each village on the return to the palace, women performed victory dances while the Maharaja rewarded them with rupees.
Back at the palace there was just time to carefully skin the trophy and stretch the beautifully marked hide before evening. The Maharaja presented Fred with a Bundi dagger a family heirloom over 300 years old along with floral garlands. Rosie added her own unforgettable farewell.
Fred reluctantly bid his generous host goodbye, the memory of the hunt forever etched in his mind.
What makes this hunt worth knowing is not just the successful kill. It is the full experience the ancient palaces and rituals, the dry-season jungle stalks on lesser game that built confidence, the beaters and elephant, and the perfect arrow through a moving tiger in heavy cover. Fred was honest about the challenges: the long travel, the waiting, the pressure of the moment on the machan, and the trust placed in local knowledge and tradition.
Fred Bear was not just a great shot. He was a man who immersed himself in the culture of the hunt, prepared meticulously with his own broadheads, and made the shot when the opportunity came. Who kept going through the rituals and the dry country until the tiger appeared. Who trusted the moment and sent the arrow true.
That is what made him Fred Bear.