Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters John Wootters for the younger guys and gals

I was just discussing john Wootters book on whitetails, with a British deer hunter. I recommended that he should read it. I googled it and found that used copies were incredibly cheap. Less than $10 in most cases. I would highly recommend it to any of you that haven't read it. capt david

Great book! I have it somewhere.

"Hunting Trophy Deer"?

I have that one. Wooters was a good writer.

I found out many years ago John Wootters didn't like to see his name misspelled.

That is a good book and I too, have one stashed on my shelves somewhere.

John, is responsible for my interest in the Sako full stock carbines. His was a .308 and another in .25 Copperhead iirc......
I was delighted to find and purchase a fs Forester many years ago and it’s still a favorite.

"John, is responsible for my interest in the Sako full stock carbines." I wonder what he thought of the neat little Ruger RSI's? I have three, all in .308. It's a long story. I have his book "Hunting Trophy Deer" and I agree, it's a very good book.

Paul B.

I have shaken his hand at the Dallas Safari Club expo and he seems like a real standup guy. Judging by his writing not the hand shake.

His Sako Forester in .308 was easily the most "famous" of its kind. Wootters once wrote in an article of "Buck Sense" that Sako contacted him about his famous rifle.

It was the only Sako he ever owned he had said many times in his writings.

I really miss his writing, along with Bob Milek.

+1


Two of my all-time favorites.

I met Bob Milek while he was walking down an aisle at the "Shot Show" sometime in the '80s. He was very casually dressed as a Wyoming cowboy would be I guess but what also surprised me how short he was.

I did have to stop him to chat, he was very engaging. My first question to him was on a recent article he had written For "Guns and Ammo" magazine where he printed having achieved 2975 FPS with a 160 gr bullet
in the then new Remington 700 Mountain Rifle. " I asked Bob was accuracy he achieved at that speed." Bob replied " The publisher's position was accuracy was a personal issue and did not publish accuracy results with a given load", I thanked him for the opportunity to meet Bob Milek and his time. and moved on.

Bob has to be given credit for championing the 25-06 in his writings until his death. One of the few who did.

Liked Wooters as he was a specialist writer of sorts with whitetail and you have to know an awful lot to consistently write on the same subject as long as he did.
Milek always disappointed me as his loads were so light for his chosen cartridges. What I eventually learned for myself was that he was always right in that those cartridges still and always performed at the low velocities and loads he used. He proved the value of his chosen rounds to suit any user.
John

While John is recognized as an authority on whitetail, he had the most diverse intellect of anyone I've ever met. Even in those conversations when I could choose the subject, his knowledge was intimidating. His quiet and gracious behavior kept his powerful intellect well hidden. If he wrote it, he knew it, and it was easy to read.

Ken,
I think that is the real artform in writing, to maintain point, cover what is useful and relevant to that point and then shut up. Overselling becomes annoying, especially to those that really do know.
John

Wootters, Milek, Skelton......used to enjoy reading all of them.

Another gun writer who wrote often in the '80s yet for some reason disappeared was....Dan Flores. His writing focus was on varmint hunting.

If it's the same Dan Flores I beleive he has moved on to writing books like Coyote America and American Serengeti. Heard him on a few podcasts, a very knowledgeable guy.

couldn't wait for the next magazine to show up!

Yetti,

It is the same Dan Flores. He taught in the history department at the University of Montana from 1992 to 2014, when he retired from teaching. He now lives in New Mexico, I believe. I met Dan at a book-writer event at a big bookstore in Bozeman in the early 1990's, because we both had new books out. (Back then I was writing for a New York City publisher.) When we were introduced, I asked him if he was the same Dan Flores who wrote for GUN DIGEST and some other shooting/hunting magazines--and he said, somewhat startled, "Man, that was a LONG time ago!"

I got to know John Wooters pretty well after meeting him at the SHOT Show maybe 20 years ago. As Ken Oehler notes, John knew a lot about a lot of subjects, and could certainly discuss them at length. We had some very interesting conversations both in person and over the phone, but his comment I really remember was that "hunting and gun writing isn't real journalism. It's entertainment. I've worked in real journalism!"