Points well taken, Steve! Obviously logical. Obviously true.
Responses to my survey of readers' preferences confirmed (in spades!) my notion that (for example) the Alabama farmer who hunts bob whites, doves, cottontails, and gray squirrels with a 20-gauge and a .22 rimfire for a few weeks every year isn't terribly thrilled to read about the 20-gauge, the .22, or hunting his local game the rest of the year.
A significant percentage of the respondents said that they preferred to read about hunting game that they would never be able to hunt, with guns and cartridges that they knew they'd never even see. Very few preferred to read stories that mirrored their own experience.
That was "one man's opinion, nothing more" in the beginning � but it turned-out to be "one man's opinion" for each "one man" of hundreds of hunters who gave me their opinions. Writers learn a lot about what readers like, from readers. My survey just formalized and extrapolated what I already sensed was so.
