Famed Falconer Still Hawking

The most famous falconer in the world lives in retirement here, retirement being a relative notion.

Hal Webster, a Navy man, was the man responsible for giving the Air Force Academy its Falcons mascot, live and otherwise. He was co-creator of the association of falconers and grouse hawkers in North America, and he co-authored the consummate book on the sport on this continent 53 years and nine editions ago.

Webster turns 95 next month, and he’s not done yet.

“I’m writing a new book on gyrfalcons,” Webster said recently in his second-floor apartment at the Sunrise Bluff Estates. “We’ve already got the title copyrighted, and I’m not going to give it to you.”

Webster started on his book-to-be-named-later two years ago and figures he has three-fourths of it in the can. He knows what you’re thinking, but don’t worry.

“I’ll get through it,” he assured.

One room and a corner of another in Webster’s apartment overflow with 10,000 fish hooks and the streamers he ties on them. Fly-tying and fishing is a distraction from writing, for sure.

“I’ve already got my application in for this year with Joe Sowerby on the Smith River,” he said.

There’s not enough room in this newspaper or any other to cover half the Hal Webster stories – the years he spent well into his 90s living in a remote ranch house on a Hutterite colony north of here, the fish he’s caught, the sport he built, the cigar he smokes and fine whiskey he sips to watch the Denver Broncos play.

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