Eugen “Gene” Mueller got his first shot as a writer because of someone else’s mistake. But the German immigrant became a staple of the Washington, D.C., outdoors community because he was funny, humane and kind.

Mueller did not start his decades-long newspaper career as a columnist — he was a printer at the Washington Daily News in the 1960s.

But when an outdoors writer wrote that a dead squirrel falling from a tree was “the most beautiful sound in the world,” Mueller received his first chance to turn his love of fishing, hunting and shooting into a career.

“I wrote a how-to column and mentioned that if you hunt squirrels — or any other game — you owe it to your God to dispatch the animal quickly and humanely. … ” Mueller told “Fat Boy’s Outdoor Blog” in 2011. “The word ‘humanely’ did it. I was told I’d be the new outdoors editor of the newspaper the following Monday.”

He never looked back.

For more than 40 years, Mueller wrote regular dispatches about fishing, hunting and his international sporting travels for a group of loyal readers in national newspapers. The German immigrant began his career with the Daily News before moving to the Washington Examiner and finishing his newspaper career with a 25-year stint at The Washington Times.

Mueller died on Jan. 1 at his home in Anderson, South Carolina. He was 84 years old.

Mueller, who immigrated to the U.S. from his native Germany as a teenager, considered himself a dyed-in-the-wool patriot and conservative — a breakfast and fishing trip with then-President George H.W. Bush ranked among his most honored accomplishments.

He became an American citizen shortly after crossing the Atlantic, landing in the capital region, where he adored fishing along the Potomac River and hunting in southern Maryland.

Though Mueller loved to write about his international travels – he penned columns about a dinner with the Argentinian president and battles with peacock bass in Venezuela — many of his proudest moments occurred in his adopted home country.

His favorite outdoor memory came in Maryland, where he watched a deer give birth to two fawns while he was hunting.

“It was a wonderful miracle of birth and I didn’t move for hours, lest that doe became worried and abandoned her young,” he later wrote. “You never know.”

That kindness, the same energy he brought to his first column, carried him throughout his career.

“My dad was all about protecting the animals and doing it the right way,” said Sherri Jewell, Mueller’s only child.

Mueller is survived by his daughter; three grandchildren, Lindsey, Jake and Lane; and many great-grandchildren. His family was “the light of my life,” he said.

He was preceded in death by his first wife, Linda Livesay, and his second wife, Margaret Wideman. They both died due to complications from Alzheimer’s disease with Mueller by their side.

“He was a great father and a wonderful, wonderful husband,” his daughter said.

In his final years, Mueller enjoyed the solitude of living alone. He texted his daughter every morning at 9 a.m. with the day’s most important information: where he went for breakfast and how many deer he saw in the park.

“That was a daily thing. He’d say, ‘I saw 16 deer today!’ He’d be so excited,” Ms. Jewell said. “Then some days he’d say, ‘I got skunked.’ He didn’t see any. But that made his day.”

He opted against a formal memorial ceremony, instead asking his loved ones to visit their favorite outdoor spots. There is no better way to honor his memory.

His final published work arrived in 2013 when he shut down his blog after nearly 50 years of writing.

He didn’t accomplish his final goal: writing the great American novel with “lots of fighting, loving, fishing, intrigue, maybe a mysterious, voluptuous woman who’ll say she will kill herself if I don’t make love to her.” But Mueller was always grateful — grateful for the opportunity to build a career based on his beloved hobbies and grateful for the people who helped him along the way.

He thanked more than a dozen friends and colleagues in his final blog post.

“They’ve supported my efforts to bring anglers and hunters a fairly informative and entertaining view of our outdoors endeavors,” he wrote. “I hope I succeeded.”

• Liam Griffin can be reached at lgriffin@washingtontimes.com.