Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Would Jack O'Connor still pick Lewiston Idaho?

Mike Venturino long ago devoted a column in Guns (anybody have the cite) to say that the time had passed when an eastern boy could move west and make a living as writing rifle loony. Norm Nelson in a book Mule Deer now somewhat dated itself began by saying the day had passed when somebody could hunt mule deer as he had in his youth because the access to land is gone forever. Ted Trueblood lamented the plight of a crowded urbanite whose only hunting experience could be rats at the dump. But speaking of Trueblood or maybe Pulling it's been said there's no pleasure hunting public lands close enough to Boise (read Pocatello/Idaho Falls for Pulling/Ormond et. al.) for day trippers.

The risks of cabin fever with the price of driving, especially say a 3/4 ton 4X4 with a cap or a popup, making the cost of getting out and about and hitting the metroplex or just making the rounds of gun shows suggest what might be called a Unabomber lifestyle or what has been called tripwire won't be that pleasant either.

Taking that as given where would an impoverished rifle loony with no particular wealth beyond $600 and .30-'06 want to live today?

assuming he could work, maybe alaska?

Alaska maybe, tough to get work there for some.

If I were in that status and a hell of lot younger I would give some thought to hiring out as a ranch hand on a big ranch in Montana, Idaho, or Wyoming if they would allow me to hunt when I wasn't working.

When wouldn't you be working?

Well it depends on what kind of marketable skills you have. Alaska can be a tough nut to make a living. I use to fly for a living up there, I am looking to return for good. But I ended up being very busy with work during most of the hunting seasons. Lot of jobs there are seasonal in nature. If you can weld and do pipe fitting then you should have no problem getting on with one of the Oil companies I would think. Or you could spend 20 years working hard in the lower forty eight and then retire to a cabin off the grid some place. I know a couple of pilots that did just that.

Only if Hemingway would still pick Key West.

Although I love the west, elk hunting is not my thing...varmits, deer, and bird hunting is my pick...I think I would look at South Dakota, or Neb...

If he wanted to live on Welfare Alaska might be his choice.

Jack would have stayed in Idaho to be near his bud Elmer Keith.

Lewiston is still a pretty good place for an outdoorsman. I really can't think of anywhere notably better in the Lower 48.

Chet

Outdoor Life did.

http://www.outdoorlife.com/blogs/newshound/2012/04/35-best-hunting-and-fishing-towns-us/

April 11, 2012
The 35 Best Hunting and Fishing Towns in the US.

by The Editors

Now in its fifth year, our annual �Best Towns for Sportsmen� feature is an OL institution. Readers love to argue the merits of their burgs based on our rankings; local newspapers crow about the inclusion of their town; and realtors call to ask for extra copies of the issue.

This year we�re forgetting all the socio-economic data and focusing on what matters most: hunting and fishing. In the next few pages, you�ll find the 35 towns in the U.S. where we would live right now, based solely on the outdoor opportunities there. Some boast bass and deer, others elk and trout or ducks and redfish. Regardless, each of these towns is an outdoors mecca in its own right, and from sea to shining sea, they offer the best hunting and fishing in America.

#1 - Appleton, WI
More than 170 years ago, trappers and fur traders chased the promise of lucrative beaver pelts up the Fox River and settled the town of Appleton. Today, enormous whitetail deer draw outdoorsmen and -women to the Fox River Valley. The Boone and Crockett Club recently anointed Wisconsin the number-one trophy whitetail state in the country, with Cheesehead hunters logging 383 B&C entries in the last five years. In the last three seasons, three different bucks killed within 50 miles of downtown Appleton have either broken or threatened Badger State records. But there�s a lot more to do in Appleton than sit in a treestand.

Nearby Lake Winnebago and the Fox River, which runs through town, are premier walleye fisheries. Green Bay, 30 minutes to the north, offers some of the best smallmouth bass and muskie fishing in the country. Horicon Marsh State Wildlife Area sits 70 miles to the south and is the largest freshwater cattail marsh in the country. Hundreds of thousands of geese migrate through the region each fall. Sixty miles to the north, the 661,000-acre Nicolet National Forest, home to deer, bears, and grouse, is one of the last true wild places in the northwoods.

Difficult to imagine a place with a 9 day or so day gun season the 'best'

Lewiston Idaho is still a great place to live if you don't read to many magazines.You have spring and fall Stealhead and Salmon that run by town on two sides(The Clearwater and Snake Rivers) and within 100 miles you have some of the best hunting in Idaho whether it is the Snake River breaks(Hells Canyon) the Salmon river breaks of the Gospal Hump the upper Clearwater and Palouse which is Elk heaven for Idaho.

Great winters but hot summers but there is always something to do outdoors wise.

Jayco

Idaho is terrible, the fish run is gone, the deer and elk have all been killed off by wolves, the bird hunting is gone due to the drought. Whatever you do don't even consider Idaho - I highly recommend that any out-of-staters that are even considering it go somewhere else. Wyoming, Montana, Wisconsin - anywhere but Idaho. PLEASE!

drover

What was I thinking..Your absolutely right.

Jayco

Bless you, my son.
Good advice right there.
Wisconsin rocks......or Jeff-O's 10 acre patch.

Can't say much for other states but I can't say I concur with his choice of the one town in Montana that he mentioned...

I don't know much about Lewiston, but I'd say the Cactus Jack could of done quite well with what he loved in do in several of Montana's towns that weren't on this list....

Dober

Looks to me like there are two questions here. The first deals with O'Connor and Lewiston, and the second with everyone else and where to go.

I believe that Jack would still pick Lewiston. He was well established as a successful writer when he gave up his day job as a Professor of Journalism at the University of Arizona in Tucson, and moved to Lewiston. If he ever wrote much about hunting in Idaho, I never saw it. I don't believe he moved to Idaho for the hunting opportunities there, rather he felt Tucson was getting too big for him, and he wanted to escape the summer heat there.

As far as a guy with $600 in his pocket and a 30-06, looking to move somewhere and make a living as an outdoor writer, he'd better have a bank vault full of hundred dollar bills to fall back on. There are precious few outdoor writers that totally rely on their writing income to survive. Many of those who did have already starved. The only writers that I know that are reasonably well off were reasonably well off before they started writing. I've been doing it for four decades now, but thank goodness, I've never had to rely totally on my writing income to survive.

In today's electronic world and ease of travel, it doesn't make a lot of difference where one lives anymore.

TT

Outdoor Life pretty much picks a new town each year. In this top 200 story they picked three Idaho towns in the top 10 with Lewiston as #1.

http://www.outdoorlife.com/photos/gallery/hunting/2009/05/top-200-towns?photo=10#node-1001312972

For whitetails, black bears and grouse, I have no doubt that Wisconsin is great. But, Idaho has whitetails, grouse, mule deer, elk, black bears, antelope, mountain goats, California bighorn sheep, Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep, moose, and really good trout and steelhead fishing too.

Idaho has more wilderness than any other state in the Lower 48 and has 66% public land. In fact, the public land in Idaho is bigger than the entire state of Wisconsin (35,245,000 acres of public land in ID vs. 34,761,000 total acres in WI). WI, incidentally has 5,633,000 acres of public land.

http://www.nrcm.org/documents/publiclandownership.pdf

On the plus side, Wisconsin does have 5.5 million people while Idaho only has 1.5 million. The extra 4 million people probably makes those smaller public hunting areas really fun on the opening day of deer season.

The question was whether Jack O'Connor would want to live somewhere else? Since Jack was extremely fond of sheep and sheep hunting, I would think he would want to live somewhere that actually has some sheep.

How is the bighorn sheep hunting in Wisconsin?

Despite all of these facts, I really encourage more people to move to Wisconsin and stay out of Idaho, Montana, Utah, Wyoming etc. It really sucks here.

Chet

Tom,

Actually, from what I've read O'Connor did pick Lewiston for the hunting--the bird hunting. He loved to hunt upland birds, and always had a bird dog or two around, as well as a fine collection of shotguns. There's a great variety of upland hunting around Lewiston, in both Idaho and Washington, and he liked to go out with his own dog and just go hunting for a day, or even half a day. (I'm the same way. My local area in Montana isn't the best upland bird hunting in the state, but there's quite a variety, and it's very nice to be able to go out just for part of a day, especially after work. During fall I keep a shotgun and vest ready to go, and can be hunting within 15-20 minutes if the time is limited.)

Jack and Eleanor did do some big game hunting in Idaho, of course, including hunting locally for mule deer, and having some outfitter to pack them into elk country (and the elk out), but it was more for meat and recreation rather than articles. The feature-article trips usually did take place somewhere else.