Fritz (Fredrick) Kribs H & B Loan Portland, Oregon. If there was a man that knew weapons, guns and rifles it was Fritz Kribs. He was the man behind the firearm counter at H & B Loan Company in Portland, Oregon.My background with Fritz and his wife Madaline would have started when I was knee high to a grasshopper in the last Century. Madaline would babysit my brother and I in the Sellwood district where my Grandma Elsie lived. My mother and father were close friends for a long time.Many did not know that Fritz was a diver in his early years. He would bring Abalone to our house that he got off the Pacific Ocean Floor. He also worked on the many of the dams that were put on Oregon & Washington Rivers. That was pretty tough work and Fritz got hurt many times on the job. I always loved it when he would talk about the monster fish that he would see, especially on the Green Peter Dam outside of Sweet Home, OR.Anyway Firtz was the go to guy on buying or selling guns. You were sure to get a pretty good deal if you knew him. He would call whenever he got something new in or was of interest to most of us.I also bought a lot of Leupold Scopes from Fritz and saved about 50% on them.
Fritz was also a hunter, love to shoot Picket Fences (small rat like squirrel), Rock Chucks and Gray Diggers. The ranchers over in Central Oregon would always have him over, as they knew he could get rid of a lot of them.
One place that Fritz and his old timer gang go to hunt for deer was the McKay Ranch outside of Antelope, Oregon. He was very close friends with Sandy McKay and Sandy’s boy Herb McKay. The bucks were big and they got a great number of them.
The year was somewhere around 1998 or 1998, I had been hunting area near the Tower of the Rancho Rajneesh. We had permission to hunt the Old Baily place and given Forman some money to access to the area. What a hunt it was going to be, Ben and myself in there all by ourselves on the closing of archery season. It wasn’t long after getting into the bottom that I spotted a monster buck that I had taken a picture of while he was in the velvet during a pre-hunting season scouting trip.
The buck was at 45 yards lying down. I went to full draw with the 85lb Martin Onyx that I was testing out for Martin Archery. I thought for sure that the buck would get up and I could release my arrow. He was looking straight at me, but never moved but his head. I could not hold any longer and felt I had the shot. The arrow went straight at the buck’s chest cavity. He got up and fell over on his back. Oh! Dead buck and what a trophy. Wrong! He got back up and took off at high gear up the draw. Ben and I spent the next couple of days looking for this buck. Never found him! Did not find the arrow anywhere either, just simply disappeared.This is where the story gets going. It wasn’t long until I was told by another hunting buddy that was down at H & B Loan buying something from Fritz that he told the story of a monster buck with an outside spread of 35″, the biggest buck that they had ever seen or gotten. Oh! There was much more to the story though…
I had to go down to Fritz and see what the buck looked like. I had a funny feeling about the whole thing. I enter the store and there was Fritz behind the counter, he sees me and has a big grin on this face. His comment was “since when do you wear pink panties”, I said “what the hell you talking about?” “Well you shoot short Pink fletch arrows, I thought maybe you wore the same in panties.” “Fritz, I shoot Pink Fletching so I can see it fly and hit the target, and how do you know that, as it is a secret amongst my hunting partners.” My friend MJ let it out about my arrows that I shot with the extra long over draw that Mel Stanalaski made for me. I would shot 24″ Easton XX-75 arrows with Thunder Head 100gr three blade broadheads.“I know because I found a big buck you got during archery season next to McKay’s fence line with this short ass Pink fletch arrow in it chest.”I never got to see the hunting pictures or the buck hanging. One of the guys at Les Schwab took the horns and put a new cap on the buck. Who knows where the buck hangs these days.I never lived it down, but it happens to all of us sometime to loose a game animal. They can travel a lot further than we can in a short period of time and even in death will disappear in the landscape. So I do have a live picture of the buck with his buddies…
Fritz was always good to take one of my Weatherby’s in to fund one of my trips to Hawaii with the Navy. It made it possible to hunt on one of the islands. My Weatherby’s would always be worth a grand to hock on loan. As soon as I got back I would take them out of hock. I do believe one time I walked in to H & B Loan with Doug Graven to drop off my 340 Weatherby Custom for a trip out of Conus. We had just got back from a mission into the Big Muddy. Fritz grabs the Weatherby and clears the bolt… Guess I was to ready on this past trip. There were some Portland PD that we all knew in there. Fritz had to have the last word!
“Frankie how many times do I have to tell not to bring them in loaded?” It didn’t help that the round all dropped on the glass case though. Always on the ready in those days! I sure as heck didn’t want him to keep the ammo at about $4.50 a round would I? That was a really great moment and worth some laugh in the store…
It just isn’t the same when the persons of the past leave us. I’ll and a lot of other old buddies with miss Fritz…