Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters What ever happened to .........?

I grew up reading JO'C, so Carmichael and Zumbo were a huge disappointment to me when JO'C retired. I quit reading Outdoor Life a couple of years later. Granted, it is hard to replace a legend, but I never have felt that Carmichael and Zumbo were in the same league as Cactus Jack, sort of like 2 utility players being asked to fill Babe Ruth's shoes.

Jeff

It is always easy to criticise, but this article shouldn't have been written, let alone printed. Even the best seem to shoot themselves in the foot...

Shrapnel,

I absolutely agree. Shouldn't have been printed.

Another brain-fart was when Dave Petzal totally dissed the Red Mist Society and the shooting of prairie dogs. He was just at Red Mist a month before (Yep, I was there, just like I was for fourteen straight years) and Dave was whooping it up and having fun.

Literally any of us can screw up ... And gun writers, the best we can do is be totally humble and never forget how much we constantly learn from our readers.

We never attain the status of SHOOTER-GOD, as much as the long-winded amongst us think they have. Gunny writers are simply like the rest of us, except that they can express the sport in words, so that it may be passed on to the next generation.

One day, I will put into words what my simple published writings meant to a young man and his father (who returned from being a prisioner in North Vietnam for four years.) The boy and the daddy did not, could not communicate. Mom had committed suicide, not being able to handle the husband. Only my stupid words, printed in a dip-[bleep] rodent-killing magazine, brought son and father forever together. Every time I look at their letters to me, I cry. It was probably why God placed me upon this earth and gave me the ability to string three words together. That I bonded a needful son and an on-so-[bleep]-up daddy ... well, it make me cry. And it makes me so grateful.

One day, I will write about it. For now, it IS in written form, but only in my Private Writings.

Humble, enjoying shooting and the total sport, and never forgetting to learn .... that's what being a gun writer is about. And then, carefully helping each and every reader to the best of our ability. That's what it's ab out.

OH, I forgot to mention. One of my hunts with John Laroquette was also with Jim Carmichel. When those guys get together, it is a total riot. At dinner, I learned to eat small mouthfuls because in a second, one or the other would crack a funny that might make me launch my streak twenty feet.

We shot prairie dogs and smoked fabulous Hubanas and just had a blast for almost a week. Too soon, it was over.

Great men, good men, both of them.

Blessings, May God Bless All,

Steve

I admit that I liked Night Court because of John Laroquette, a wonderful comic actor.I didn't know about the hunting and shooting part. Nice to know. I never could warm up to Jim Carmichel. And as far as the legend in his own mind Jim Zumbo goes, I will not read or watch anything he is in period. As for the 260 , or 6.5 -308 or 6.5 -250 savage, I shoot a 6.5 x 55 plenty accurate and plenty flat shooting enough for me, to kill just about any herbivore on this or any other planet. If you want more that that, get a 270!