Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Jim Carmichel Essay

Several years ago, Jim Carmichel wrote an essay that had to do with the appearance of shooting ranges. He said that our shooting ranges are often poorly maintained, covered in broken targets and trash.He opined that the places we shoot sould look more like golf courses than sandpits. He made the observation that we as shooters don't expect enough of ourselves. He observed that a litter covered range was not a place one's wife would want to spend a Sunday afternoon.

I used a printout of that article to persuade a gun club to do some attractive plantings around the perimeter of the skeet and trap fields. Twenty years later, people still remark how pleasant it is to spend time there. Carmichel was right. Now, I am trying to persuade another club to pay attention to how the grounds look. Unfortunately, I can no longer find a copy of Jim Carmihel's article. Cany anyone here find a link to that article?

Thanks in advance.

I have shot matches that Jim has attended, and he is right. A few ranges are nicely maintained, some are a complete sch!thole.

Gentlemen pay a visit to Cavalier Rifle and Pistol in Hanover county Virginia. We are still working on the range, adding more amenities.

I haven't really been interested in hunting or shooting magazines since Jim Carmihel got out of the business. I thought magazine articles would always be in the same content as the ones he wrote, didn't appreciate fully what I was blessed with at the time.

Much of the decline of the content of hunting/shooting articles has come from changes in editorial requirements. Shorter articles and less story telling. Trend to do reviews to flatter advertisers into continued support. That sort of thing. MD can tell us much more on that subject.

That and reduced compensation limits or eliminates editorials and story telling.

Can't imagine any publication running something like Robert Ruark's Old Man series (Field and Stream) or Peter Capstick (American Hunter), or even stuff by Francis Sell and others these days.

If you were successful in getting one range to plant some purty bushes, credit yourself.

You don’t need some old fart’s new paper article from 1964 or whatever to run around sticking in people’s’ faces.

Just tell them hey, this place is a dump and you let human filth come here and trash it up. Well...maybe that’s more of how I would tell them. You probably have a more softer, convincing approach.



Lol, I told the pain mgt clinic which is next to my orthopedic knee doc’s office, I went to the suite over there and told them their landscaping and waiting room was a shîthole. Cigarette butts, monster energy drink, Mountain Dew bottles, Doritos bags, wads of copenhagen slung out by the shared entrance doors. Looked like a damn carnival had rolled up and left town.
All I got were looks of bewilderment from the front desk staff.