Before He Was a Monument, Washington Was an Outdoorsman

Before George Washington became marble and monuments, he was a serious outdoorsman. His diaries and Mount Vernon records reveal a dedicated hunter and angler.

The George Washington outdoorsman story is easier to see in small details than in monuments: fishing tackle sized for a pocket, foxhounds in the kennel, fowling guns at Mount Vernon and journal entries that mention turkeys, deer, ducks and fish as naturally as they mention travel and work.

Washington’s outdoor life wasn’t a hobby pasted onto a statesman. It was part of how he moved through the world as a soldier, surveyor, farmer and landowner.

For America 250, that gives readers a more interesting version of Washington than the usual powdered-hair portrait. Yes, he was commander in chief and president. He was also the man who carried fishing gear, built a serious hound pack and, according to one well-known story, rode into the water to confront a duck poacher at Mount Vernon.

*This print shows George Washington returning to Mount Vernon from another successful fox hunt.*

The Outdoorsman Behind the President Washington Portrait

Washington’s diaries don’t treat hunting and fishing as grand statements. They show up the way outdoor pursuits show up in real life — a line here, a note there, part of the day’s movement.

One early account has Washington shooting at wild turkeys and missing, then killing two birds the next day. The birds were cooked over a fire and eaten from pieces of wood used as plates. That is not the marble version of Washington. That is a man eating what he and his party managed to kill.

The same records connect him to deer, ducks, buffalo, wildfowl and fish. The details are scattered, but together they show a George Washington outdoorsman who was comfortable in camps, on rivers and on horseback long before the presidency turned him into an icon.

READ MORE: Guns of the Dead Presidents

The Fisherman of Mount Vernon

For the George Washington outdoorsman story, Mount Vernon’s fisheries are as important as any hunting tale, because fishing there was much more than a pastime.

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Washington’s estate stretched along more than 10 miles of Potomac River shoreline, and the spring runs of shad and herring made those waters a major source of food and income.

The fisheries were part of the plantation economy and were worked by enslaved people, overseers and other laborers who hauled, cleaned, salted, packed and shipped fish during the short, intense spring season. The scale was enormous, with herring catches that could reach more than a million fish in a typical year and shad runs that produced tens of thousands more.

Washington also fished for himself. One of the most personal surviving artifacts tied to his outdoor life is not a boat or a rod but a small tackle case believed to have belonged to him. The pocket-sized box held hooks, fishing line and wax — the 18th-century version of traveling light.

Modern anglers can appreciate that. No giant tackle bag. No plastic trays. Just enough gear to rig up and fish when the chance appeared.

From Barbados to the Constitutional Convention

Washington’s fishing adventures didn't stop at Mount Vernon.

His records and surviving artifacts connect him to fishing in several places, including Barbados, Pennsylvania and the Ohio River frontier. In 1770, he wrote that he went fishing in the evening with his brothers Samuel and Charles. Years later, during a recess from the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Washington joined Gouverneur Morris on a fishing trip near Valley Forge.

*John Ward Dunsmore's "The First Gentleman of Virginia" shows George Washington fox hunting with his beloved hounds.*

That 1787 trip is especially interesting because Washington was not merely escaping work. While Morris fished, Washington rode over the old Valley Forge encampment, revisiting the ground where the Continental Army had endured the winter of 1777-78.

It is a small scene, but a revealing one: Washington the statesman, in the middle of helping shape the Constitution, stepping away to fish and ride through one of the most difficult places in his military past.

Frontier Hunts and Wild Country

Washington’s notes from the Ohio and Kanawha river country almost read like an 18th-century game report: turkeys along the river, deer on the shore, swans, geese and ducks in the ponds, and buffalo in the bottoms.

Today, we would call those buffalo American bison. To Washington and his contemporaries, they were part of the abundance that made western land so valuable.

That is the important distinction. These trips were not just hunting stories. Washington was also a surveyor, soldier and land speculator reading the country in front of him. Game meant food. Fish meant commerce. Rivers meant travel. Land that held all three was worth paying attention to.

Foxhounds, Horses and the American Foxhound

Washington was also a serious foxhunter.

Foxhunting was a long-standing British tradition, and Washington adopted it with enthusiasm at Mount Vernon. His love of riding and hounds became part of his daily rhythm when he was home, especially during fall and winter.

He was not casual about his dogs, either. In 1785, the Marquis de Lafayette helped send Washington seven French hounds, likely Grand Bleu de Gascogne. Washington bred those dogs with his existing hounds and remained deeply involved in developing a faster, more capable hunting pack.

"The Home of Washington" by Thomas Oldham Barlow shows George Washington conversing with the Marquis de Lafayette, who sent him seven French hounds and started our first president on a successful breeding hobby.

That breeding program helped shape what became known as the American Foxhound. It’s another piece of the George Washington outdoorsman profile: methodical, ambitious and never content to leave a system unimproved, even when that system involved hounds, horses and fox country.

READ MORE: Hound-Hunting Black Bears

Mount Vernon’s Deer, Ducks and “Wilderness”

Mount Vernon was Washington’s home, business headquarters and outdoor refuge.

He referred to parts of his woodland as his “wilderness,” and he spent long days moving through that ground on horseback, with hounds or on foot with a fowling gun. He enjoyed hunting waterfowl, which he called “ducking,” and he kept close watch over the game on his property.

Washington also created an 18-acre deer park at Mount Vernon, following an aristocratic landscape tradition that mixed status, scenery and wildlife. The paddock held English fallow deer and native deer, giving visitors the impression of wild animals moving through the estate.

Washington was a hunter, but he also cared deeply about the presence of game on his land. Deer, ducks, fish, hounds, horses, woods and water were not separate parts of his Mount Vernon life. They were part of the place itself, and he managed them with the same attention he gave his farms, fisheries and household.

The Poacher Who Picked the Wrong Water

One of the best Washington outdoor stories involves a duck poacher at Mount Vernon.

As the story goes, Washington was riding through his property when he saw ducks flush from one of his ponds or coves. A gunshot followed, and one of the birds fell. No one was supposed to be hunting there without permission, and Washington immediately rode toward the sound.

a pencil drawing depicting George Washington confronting a duck poacher in boat

The poacher, trying to get into a boat, reportedly warned Washington to stop or he would shoot. Washington kept coming. He rode into the water, disarmed the trespasser and made sure the man understood he was never to hunt the property again.

Whether the story grew larger in the retelling or not, Washington prized his land, guarded his game and had little patience for trespassers.

The Outdoorsman Behind the Monument

That might be the more useful way to see George Washington during America’s 250th: not only as a monument, general or president, but as a working landowner with a tackle box, hounds, fisheries, deer, ducks and favorite pieces of ground. The George Washington outdoorsman angle doesn’t shrink the man; it makes him more complete.

George Washington hunting and fishing stories do not replace the larger history. They make it more human. Behind the powdered hair and formal portraits was a man who knew the value of a fish run, the sound of hounds, the utility of a good horse and the fury of finding a poacher.

Editor's Note: If you found this article interesting, you'll love Hook & Barrel's special series on the American Revolution, highlighting the firearms and people who made a real difference in the birth of the United States. Get locked and loaded at the links below.