Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters A Writers' Craft Question

Last night I was reading Mike Cramond's "Big Game Hunting in the West" A 1964 publishing date. He wrote thee or four books, but his main job was the outdoor editor for the Vancouver Daily Province. We took the evening paper, the Vancouver Sun, so I never read him as kid. He would write a short hunt or encounter, the hunting method and then game description. His details were impressive. I've crossed enough talus slopes hiking , but a few days later I would not be able to give that level of detailed description. I had a photographic memory in my younger days. So would the writer just fill in the blanks days or weeks later ?

His hints on Black Tail hunting soundrd pretty good.

I can't speak for others, but I knew that I wanted to write about my Brooks Range grizzly hunt, so I took a small journal with me and tried to write a description of each day while I was in the field for nine days.

Along with my photos, that handwritten journal was a excellent resource for me a few weeks later when I was writing the article.


Regards, Guy

I write things down either as I am performing a task (at the range) or at the end of the day (when hunting). Since I don't usually write for magazines,I enjoy the hunts for what they are. Any hunting notes - basically anything unusual that happens through the day - are included in a short daily journal. Striking details, no matter where they occur or what happened, are always etched in my memory.

I use a cell phone for pictures to jog my memory later, or the voice recorder on my phone.

I carry either a tablet or laptop to amend or append any information collected or modified during range visits. I carry a clipboard with targets and notes. Finally, I keep a piece of paper inside of my ammo boxes. It sounds like a lot, but everything is compartmentalized, as I did in my service days. I write with my left hand, so my clipboard and ammo boxes are to the left of the rifle rest.

Everything gets sorted out and cleaned up when the sun goes down.

These days I make notes in my phone during and after the hunt.

I write daily notes in a paper journal on major hunts, and take LOTS of photos--which digital photography has made far easier.

Before going totally digital in 2004 they were color slides, which most magazines required back then. This was a PITA, because on a major trip you could only carry so much film, and the general rule was to allow 2-3 36-exposure rolls for each day. (It also risked exposed film being ruined by X-ray exposure when checking through an airport. Only had this happen one time, on my first trip to Argentina in 1996. Theoretically you could ask that the film rolls be hand-checked instead of X-rayed, but that sometimes didn't work in foreign airports.)

And even in the early days of digital the cards were far more limited in capacity--and expensive, though far better than film. These days it's really easy to take hundreds of images a day, which also helps to recall details.

Might also mention that I had a pretty good "photographic memory" when younger, apparently inherited from my father. He could recall entire pages of text from books when taking tests in college, which obviously helped. Mine wasn't quite like that, but still pretty good....

I could use a photographic memory. I seldom write anything down, and if I do, I lose the paper. This would be a concern if I ever wanted to recount stories of any of my hunts, but it occurs to me, in order to make my hunting stories interesting, I would probably have to lie anyway. It's better to not have recorded truth get in the way. GD

With the loss of that level of memory due to age ?? comes a high level of frustration and fear. I have to use all my swear words twice.I now have to put things in their place after use if I want to find them again. Just the other day I had to buy another stud finder .

My father used a micro cassette tape recorder in camp. We have great recordings from hunting blinds around the world.

It helped with his columns in Spirts Afield.

I kept notes on hunting trips. Those, along with tons of photos, allowed me to write about various hunts.

Funny. I remember Mike Cramond from the annual conferences of the Outdoor Writers Association Of America.

Spirts Afield~~ ...cracks me up, I'll have to use that in my column sometime~~
Thanks Tom~~

Creative Typos. 😉

I checked where O and I were on the keyboard.

Mike Cramond was of my Dad's generation, a year younger in fact. What was he like? His adventures around Vancouver before the war were very interesting since I'm from the Vancouver area.

In this fine company, I am embarrassed to say that I never took anything other than a camera and then sometimes not even that, for my own hunts. I drafted everything off the top of my head in one sitting post hunt, then went back through it to tidy up spelling and phrasing. My loading manuals accompanied my table mess as references to the loads to be incorporated, as I commonly took several rifles and used them all. Even on deer hunts, I usually carried a different rifle each day until successful. (That's how you find your lucky rifle.)

I soon learned to delay the editing process for best results. On typewriter, it was tough, as I wanted perfect error free manuscripts. On computer, I commonly deleted a paragraph and more simply to stay focused on the topic or deciding upon a better way to state something. Sometimes, I just don't like what I wrote, this being the send draft as an example............

Today, it is easier to write and harder to get material, as hunting costs a lot more than the petrol, food and ammo costs I used to outlay for a hunt. Detail today matters more. (Just skip the travel issues) I would recommend following the aforementioned advice and record each day of a hunt in scribe or pics or whatever means you are comfortable with. Just don't put any of your pics on social media or you loose the impact, ownership and relevance when writing for publication.

Don't forget to Keep and electronic file copy on everything your write and especially for all submissions to editors. Pre computer, we kept copies of the magazines and that is a pain.