Local author publishes his fish stories
Moving to Montana was a life-long dream for Jack West.
“I had been out here on vacations with my family several times to visit the National Parks, so I always liked the Big Sky Country,” West said.
West ended up settling in Eureka and makes his living as a third-generation chiropractor. But his other passion has always been hunting and fishing.
“I started thinking about writing a book because my son sent me a book from Florida of the world’s greatest hunting stories and I thought “well heck I can tell a story as good as that’. So I tried to make the book as complete as possible.”
“I just thought I’ve lived a life that was very interesting and fulfilling that was like 60 years of the outdoors. I also talk about how to fix stuff up and eat them also,” he said.
West recently published his first, and what he said will likely be his only, book titled “Jackson in Action: True Tales of Adventure.” The 97-page book is billed as an entertaining, informative and humorous account of the author’s hunting and fishing successes, secrets and lessons learned.
The compilation recounts West adventures with friends and family, record-book catches and hunts, and the ones that got away.
West broke the book into short fast-paced stories. “I’ve got 30 chapters in there, 15 on fishing and 15 on hunting pretty much worldwide. It starts off in Florida and ends in Montana with about 60 years of stories from Northwest Territories, Canada, to Zimbabwe, Africa and in between,” West said.
“It came in right at around 100 pages with each story a page-and-a-half or two pages. But with small print like that it’s still chalk full so what the heck,” West said.
West was born in Zanesville, Ohio, but moved to St. Petersburg, Fla., where his father ran a successful chiropractic office. West grew up in St. Petersburg in the early 1950s and 1960s. When he was introduced to hunting and fishing around eleven years of age, he was hooked.
West vividly remembers his early years of hunting with his father and grandfather.
“I’ve had a number of people say they can’t believe my memory is so good. I knew what areas I’ve hunted and dates from years ago. To some of my old high school friends it’s like a history book,” West said.
After operating his own chiropractor business in St. Petersburg for 24 years, West thought it was time to go west.
“I just got the nerve one day. Florida was getting so crowded, there was 29 million people, I said to myself ‘Well I’m going for it.’”
West visited the Eureka area from Florida to hunt deer and bear several times throughout his early years in practice. “We would just do like a week for spring bear and fly back to Florida, but I shot deer there as well as in 11 other states,” West said.
West said he put a lot of detail into his stories, especially when reminiscing about his bass fishing. “I got a whole bass stringer of seven bass I got mounted on a gold stringer that were between seven-and-a-half and 10 pounds each. I mounted them on Texas cypress and they look really cool hanging on the wall,” West said.
The last chapter of West’s book is entitled Northwest Montana.
“I compiled stories about buffalo, bear, cougar and elk in my last chapter and all the crazy things that happened to me while hunting to keep peoples’ interest,” West said. “The hunting was so much better years ago when we got so many trophy heads out of this area.”
From bow to black powder and reel to spear, West takes the reader on adventures most people only dream of. He handpicked unique explorations from tales of his first squirrel hunt with his grandfather to cast netting endeavors in Florida.
West said so far he’s gotten good reviews from people who have read his book. With his retirement nearing if the book pans out for him he would consider writing more books. “It would be really wonderful to take trips and sell your book at sporting goods stores,” West said.
West’s book can be found at Amazon.com.