© Lucy J. LaFaive

Biography

Richard P. Smith is an award winning outdoor writer and photographer living in the Upper Peninsula (U.P.) of Michigan who has been hunting whitetail deer and black bear for more than 40 years. The author/photographer is a recognized expert on whitetail deer and black bear behavior and biology as well as hunting these popular big game animals. He has interviewed the top bear biologists in the country and accompanied them in the field on their research. A number of the books he's written have been about deer and black bear.

One of his more prestigious honors was receipt of the coveted Ben East Prize for 1997 from the Michigan United Conservation Clubs for conservation journalism about bear management. He also received the Outdoor Journalist of the Year Award from the Flint, Michigan Chapter of Safari Club International the same year.

Smith is a nationally recognized writer, photographer and speaker who has written 21 books and thousands of magazine articles, specializing in all types of wildlife, but especially whitetail deer and black bear. He contributes regularly to Michigan Sportsman Magazine, Woods-N-Water News and the Porcupine Press. He's a field editor for Bear Hunting Magazine and Michigan Hooks & Bullets. He also writes and edits the quarterly newsletter for the Michigan Bear Hunters Association called Bear Facts. His writing and photography appear regularly in national magazines including Deer & Deer Hunting, Buckmasters, North American Whitetail, American Hunter, North American Hunter, Outdoor Life, Bowhunter, Harris Publications and National Wildlife.

During the spring of 2002, Richard bagged a huge black bear in Saskatchewan with a .45 caliber Knight Super Disc Muzzleloader that is the second highest scoring black bear in national muzzleloading records maintained by the Longhunter Society. The bruin's skull officially measures 21 14/16, also qualifying for a spot in Boone and Crockett Records. He was hunting out of Lone Wolf Camp operated by Brian and Shelly MacDonald when he got the trophy bear. A full mount of the animal completed by Outdoor Ventures Taxidermy in Marquette is on display at a Cabela's Store in Hamburg, Pennsylvania that opened in 2003.

He is only the second person in Michigan to collect a CBM Grand Slam. To complete such a feat, a hunter must shoot deer, bear, elk and turkey that qualify for listing in state records maintained by Commemorative Bucks of Michigan (CBM). It took Smith a lifetime of hunting in the state to achieve the goal. His slam was completed on November 3, 2000 when he bagged a turkey that qualified for CBM records.

The head mount of a snarling black bear that Smith shot with bow and arrow during 1974 plays a prominent role in the movie "Escanaba In Da Moonlight." The movie was filmed in and near Escanaba, Michigan during 2000 and began showing in Michigan theaters during February of 2001 and is now available on DVD and video. A screen-filling image of the bear head appears near the beginning of the movie as well as in a number of later scenes as it hangs on the hunting camp wall depicted in the film.

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