When you think of the greatest international hunters of all time, one of the names that comes to mind is James Mellon II. Mellon was already an international hunter of renown in his teens, and in 1972, at the age of thirty, he became the youngest hunter ever to win the prestigious Weatherby Big Game Trophy. By that time, according to the Weatherby records, he had collected more than two hundred varieties of big game, including one hundred and thirty-five African animals-a feat unlikely ever to be eclipsed.

The Weatherby Big Game Trophy is considered the "Oscar" of the hunting world. Since its inception in 1956, only two people under the age of forty have won the award; the average age of the winner has been fifty-seven.

Mellon hunted almost nonstop from 1964 until 1976. He lived in Nairobi, Kenya, most of the time, coming home to the United States for only a few weeks each year. He is the only person in the history of big-game hunting to have collected the giant sable, walia ibex, and royal antelope. However, his collection of Asian animals is no less impressive; Mellon made New Delhi, India, his headquarters for several years while hunting the game of the Asian continent in places such as India, Pakistan, Nepal, Indonesia, Thailand, Afghanistan, and Cambodia.

Mellon no longer hunts extensively, but he is still a respected and influential figure in the big-game hunting world. His book African Hunter, published in 1975, stands as the single most important book on big-game hunting on the Dark Continent in the twentieth century.