Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters where are the stories

In high school used to be one of the first on in the morning and last off the bus in the afternoon. I'd check out F&S and Sports Afield from the school library and read them on the way home. Good stuff back then.

American Rifleman has become so annoying anymore with single column strips and page skipping for the very few articles I find worth reading, all bloated with carni-grade ads. I skim each volume now quickly and toss them out more often than not. On rare occasion, I see something worthwhile and cut it loose for a notebinder reference.

John,
I too want to thank you for the stroll through the history of hunting magazines; with the added insight to the reader driven and business interests affecting the content between the pages. Starting way back in 1949 or 1950 (a couple of years before I got my first single shot 410 at age 11) my love of hunting, fishing, and the outdoors was routinely fed by the likes of Field and Stream, Outdoor Life, Sports Afield, and any other outdoor book/magazine I could get into my young hands. The changes in content you described were noted, but you provided a logical explanation to the change in content that had not occurred to me before. As much as I am interested in the "how-to and gear information", I love and miss the "smell, taste, and thrill of the hunt, or setting of the hook", described in the old hunting and fishing stories. Guess I need to buy more books!

And without a doubt, with only an exception or two, one of the very worst enemies of our hunting tradition. Most of them simply reinforce an ever-growing negative stereotype.

RM

You mean the gap-toothed, bubba-hugging, inappropriate-giggling, NASCAR-style product-placement stereotype?

Hadn't noticed.

Pretty much. It's up there with the fist-pumping, chest-bumping, sitting on the animals, etc. If hunting is ever outlawed a big part of the decision will be our own fault. There are some pretty good shows out there - Steve Ranella comes to mind. But there are also a whole lot of really poor ones too.

I like Rinella's show too. The other two I watch are Solo Hunter and The Shooting Show (about shooting and hunting in the UK), both on YouTube.

I too miss those stories in the "big three" of decades past. As a 9 year old kid,the barber in the little town not too far from our farm got all three. When he learned I liked guns and hunting, he started giving the month old issues to me when the new ones came. I devoured them. At 12, Jack O'Connor announced his retirement......I read "Hail and Fairwell" with horror! But I learned to enjoy Carmichel (spelling) too. One thing I always liked about O'Connor's writing...he wove little mini stories into his "how to" articles. Books like The Hunting Rifle and The Rifle Book are full of one or two paragraph tales of his experiences. I've noticed that Mule Deer does that as well. Instead of just saying that polymer tipped bullets increase BC and thus increase effective range of a rifle, he tells of a prairie dog hunt where he used his smaller rifles more due to the increased performance of this technology. This seamless weaving of good hunting stories and information makes for very pleasant reading.

I am one that enjoys articles that review gear for hunting, target shooting or self-defense. Out of all the authors, I enjoy anything John writes. His wry sense of humor keeps me laughing through his articles even if I'm learning something at the same time. I've been steeped in academia for 20 years; dry, concise, technical writing. John's writing style is a delight for me to read regardless of the subject matter. I read Peter Capstick's Death in the Long Grass, Death in Silent Places and Death in a Lonely Land, greatly enjoying each book. I didn't read those books to learn "how to", but rather for pure escapism. I've read a lot of other authors over the last 44 years. My wife used to get pissed off when I would lay 5 magazines on the conveyor belt with the groceries. John consistently has been my favorite author. He entertains and teaches simultaneously.