The Hunter Spotlight Series | Samir Suleiman

This week's Hunter Spotlight Series highlights former NFL executive Samir and his ability to navigate the difficulty of a tight schedule and his love of hunting.

By Cliff Cadet | Equalized Outdoors Newsroom

Name:  Samir Suleiman

Hometown:  Washington, DC

Currently Residing:  Belmont, NC

Young Samir posing with a big buck harvest.

How long have you been hunting? 

46 years

How did you get into it? 

"My father (who learned to hunt from his father) taught me how to hunt at an early age (as soon as I could walk, according to him). 

"He used to take me hunting with him for small game, doves (I was his retriever), waterfowl (in the famed Maryland Eastern Shore), and deer. I still remember the day that I came home from kindergarten when my father bought me a pellet gun. 

"Then, when I was 9 years old, he took a hunter's safety course with me and was with me when I harvested my first deer that same year. 

"When I was 11 years old, my parents moved us to a house on over 100 acres in Luray, Virginia, and that's where I began hunting on my own before and after school for small game (rabbits, squirrels), upland birds (grouse, quail), foxes, turkey, and deer."

What's your favorite wild game to hunt?

"Doves - - still remember the first dove that I ever dropped out of the sky when I was a kid, after a lot of frustrating misses up to that point.

"It's the same feeling of achievement that I got when I took my father with me to Argentina in 2007, where I harvested almost 4,400 doves in only four days, and it's the same feeling that I still get to this day when I'm fortunate to harvest a daily limit.

"I respect the level of difficulty that it takes to hit a small target that can fly up to 55 mph.

I like the amount of action, with a high daily limit of 15 doves. I relish making dove (instead of chicken) nuggets out of them to eat. My other favorite wild game to hunt is turkeys, pheasants, and predators."

Samir after a crocodile hunt.

As an NFL executive, you probably had a rigorous schedule to follow....especially with the football season taking place in the fall and running through the winter. How were you able to balance getting out to hunt and keeping a potentially tight schedule? 

"Yes, my career working in the NFL financed my hunting passion, but it also kept me from hunting as much as I would have liked to. 

"It was a difficult balance that I struggled with early in my career when I hunted only once in the first five years of my career and really missed it being a part of my life. 

Fortunately, when I worked for the St. Louis Rams, my boss was an avid deep-sea fisherman, so he understood my love for hunting and encouraged me to get out whenever I could, so I was able to adjust my schedule and do things like postpone a meeting a few hours if I was going hunting that morning, and I began waking up at 3:00 a.m. to go into the office to get a jump on my workday so that I could leave an hour or so early in the afternoon to get out into the dove field. 

Samir with a big cat kill. Can you name this predator?

"I also began planning hunts around my team's bye week and away games schedule so

as soon as the NFL schedule was released in May, I would look at ours and plan hunts during our bye week and with buddies that I know in those away game cities. 

"Over the years, I was able to squeeze in seven good hunts for doves, ducks, hogs, pheasants, and even my mountain lion just by arriving at the away city at least a day before the team arrived, borrowing gear from my buddies and getting the hunts in either before my team arrived or, in the case of night games, sometimes I hunted those mornings."

Samir and his mountain lion.

Earlier this year, you and your wife welcomed a beautiful baby girl into the world. Do you have hopes of her growing up to want to hunt like you? 

"She already has her own camouflage onesie outfit with a matching hat and socks that she looks incredibly cute in. So, it's only natural for me to have those hopes for her, but it will be a topic of discussion among her, my wife, and me when she gets older and mature enough to practice gun safety and understand what it means to take the life of an animal-- because those are the two most important factors of hunting that should never be taken lightly. Then I will leave the choice completely up to her to decide if she ever wants to join me."

A while back, you wrote a piece for "American Hunter" magazine. In it, you shared your experience of a hippo hunt in Mozambique. Could you share that story with us?

"In 2015, I went to Mozambique for my dream hunting safari, and upon my arrival, my guide informed me that a hippo had recently killed a boy in the village near our hunting Coutadas (areas). 

"The local government deemed the hippo to be a PAC (Problem Animal Control) and asked me if I would help them by hunting it to eradicate it from the area, to which I quickly responded, "Yes!" without a second thought. 

"We spent two days speaking to the villagers, scouting for it, and building a makeshift blind along the bank of the watering hole where it was territorial and then we waited for it to emerge from the water while we tried calling it out of the reeds to no avail.

When the hippo finally popped his head out of the water from about 121 yards away, I made what I felt was a perfect brain shot between his eyes, but it immediately sunk into the water. 

"We waited until dark for the hippo to float to the top of the water, but since it can take up to three hours for all of the gas and air in their bodies to release, we decided to leave and return in the morning for it.

"As soon as we arrived the next morning, we could see it floating at the top of the water where I shot him. The entire village was already waiting for us at the edge of the water in great anticipation. 

"Six men jumped into the neck-high water and pushed it as close to shore as they could and then we used a tractor to drag it on land. The villagers erupted in celebration, dancing, cheering and chanting. 

Samir and villagers posing with his hippo.

"The mother of the boy that was killed approached me, knelt down in front of me and spoke to me. My tracker, Gotchie, translated for me that she was thanking me. I fought back tears. To be able to bring some solace to a grieving mother, I have never felt more proud to be a hunter than I was at that moment.

"After posing for pictures with the hippo and villagers, the six men that pushed the hippo to shore immediately whipped out knives and machetes and went to work field dressing the two-ton beast. We lined up all of the villagers single file and once all of the meat was butchered and set aside in piles, we distributed a huge chunk of meat to every villager until there was none left to give. To be able to literally feed a village was the most fulfilling moment of my hunting career."