Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Poetical writer on hunting...

Red Green (The winter of our discount tent)

Atta Boy, John! Just remember, one aw sh.t wipes out all gold stars.

All in fun, jack

Havilah Babcock, Burton Spiller, and most certainly Corey Ford. Ed Zern for a bit of humor.

Thanks, I did a search and came up with his titles. I will check that one out. Sounds like it's about more than just hunting, which most "poetical" hunting books seem to be.

Aahh....yes. Burton Spiller and Corey Ford were among the best!

What could beat the old F&S with Ford,Ruark,Page and AJ McClane? Nice stuff there.

A far cry from the micro-bite,techie,two paragraph, "how to" drivel that appeals so much to the attention-deficit readers of today.

As with many aspects of our society, in this case it's more about the audience than the "content providers," as they're now called by some.

I have no doubt there are writers/hunters who could be as poetical as any of the older writers, but the sad fact is that today there's almost no market for such stories. This wasn't true as recently as 25-30 years ago, but not now.

Part of the problem isn't just ADD, but the fact that the world is increasingly urban. There's less land open to hunting, especially public hunting, so hunters don't get to spend as much time in the field. This is exacerbated by the simple fact that most hunters live in cities surrounded by suburbs, so it takes even longer to get to hunting country. As a result, hunters have become more dependent on their gear than hunting skill, so tend to obsess over technology, hoping it will make everything come together in the relatively little time they have to hunt.

Which is exactly why so many of today's "hunting" magazines are more about gear than hunting techniques. During the off-season we can fool around in our man-caves with reloading, changing scopes, and tinkering with triggers. It also explains why do many rifle loonies sell one custom rifle about as soon as it's sighted-in, or even sell the parts before they're put together. They're searching for the rifle that will change their lives, when if they could actually hunt more they might even be happy with one rifle, chambered for an antique cartridge instead of the chambering of the month.

Sad but true. My very limited experience in working with an editor to get an article published included the advice to "think USA Today" and "keep it under 3,000 words, 2,000 is better." There are still a few good reads out there though, Like Gray's Sporting Journal.

Yep, Gray's is an exception, but unfortunately isn't the kind of market that attracts many professional writers. That's not because of the content, but because Gray's doesn't run their freelance stories in any kind of predictable fashion--and like most magazines, these days, they pay on publication, not acceptance. As a result, it may be two years before somebody is paid for a story that's accepted for publication.

Of course, we could also say that professional writers might not be the best for creating Gray's-type stories. But Corey Ford, Gene Hill and many of the others mentioned made their living writing. Much of Gray's freelance content is from part-time writers who do other things for their real living, or people who have one or two good stories to tell, and that�s it. (This is aside from the columns, which are assigned and so their authors know when they�ll be paid.)

I know all this because I sold my first article to Gray�s in 1976, the year it started up, and wrote feature stories for them steadily through the mid-1990�s, when I also served as editor for a while. The other factor is that as far as I know, they�re paying the same as they did 20-some years ago, but then that�s true of a lot of hunting and shooting magazines.

In the late 1970�s and throughout the 80�s several other magazines frequently ran Gray�s-type stories, and others ran them more than occasionally, even Petersen�s Hunting, back when Craig Boddington was editor. But aside from Gray�s and some other, lower-paying magazines there just isn�t much market anymore, which is why most people who could be a Corey Ford or Gene Hill aren�t even trying to write hunting stories (as opposed to articles) anymore.

Apparently the best we can hope for in the future is poetical tweets...

"brd hntng 2day. wrm sun, brds flying, vry spirtal"

Yep, that is a hard way to make a living. Anyone who manages to do it has to be both prolific and very good. And if they're that good, no doubt dumb it down for the audience.

John that's as good an explanation of what I was thinking as I have read. Well said.I have no doubts about the writer's abilities today....it's the market they play to...

Pal Rick told me that a scope company rep at Shot Show or Safari this year, told him less than half of scope sales today go to hunters...their marketing tells them the majority of scopes are sold to shooters.

Based on a lot of what I see,there are fewer hunters out there.Besides, who knows grouse hunting like Burton Spiller had....unless it's Battue.

One of my all time favorite "poetical" articles of any genre is "Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego; Into the fiery furnace of the great Zambezi." by Roger Pinckney published in Gray's Sporting Journal, Sep/Oct 2012.

Pinckney writes really good stuff from time to time.

I miss good hunnting stories in the magazines that I grew up reading. I continue to read books and I am always looking for new to me books to add to the library. I like these threads because I find more materials to look for.
I try to teach my children to enjoy reading by reading to them. I am currently reading "The Old Man and the Boy" to my youngest.

Archibald Rutledge should be on the list

Add this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Greatest-Hunting-Stories-Ever-Told/dp/1592284825

smokepole,

Thanks, that book is already in the library.

kandpand

Thanks to for all the suggestions. Grays is a good contemporary example of the kind of stuff I'm looking for. If another author comes to mind, please let me know.

Mule Deer, I think your diagnosis is spot on. There's also the problem of free "content" that displaces columns and extras that used to help pay writers' bills and leave them time to produce more measured pieces. In addition, more people read online and online reading does not encourage longer more reflective appreciation. What happens when a reader's attention span is conditioned by the average length of a tweet or text message?

LJB, that's a heck of title!

Ella

Baxter Black.

More cowboy poeticalness, but I recall some huntical stories.

Not exactly huntin, but BB wrote a poem on how we could make fur coats politically correct by recycling roadkill that ended with one of the great quatrains ever published in the English language:

�MAKE IT A HABIT TO PICK UP YOUR RABBIT.

DON�T LEAVE HIM TO DRY IN THE SUN.

FOR THE SAKE OF A GARMENT, RECYCLE YOUR VARMINT,

IT�S TACKY TO JUST HIT AND RUN!�

Classic!