Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Ted Trueblood

The three used to get together every year in Idaho for some hunting, fishing and general tale-telling. Pete Barrett once told me a story from one of those trips. He and Zern had flown into Boise, where Trueblood met them at the airport with his pickup camper already loaded for a September trip after fish and upland birds in eastern Oregon's Owyhee country.

It was getting late in the day when they finally neared the lake where they were going to camp. The pickup crested a rise, and there before them was a beautiful western sunset, with an orange and purple sky spreading above the desert buttes. Immediately Zern said," Ted, stop right here!"

Trueblood immediately braked, both he and Barrett thinking Zern wanted to take a photo. But Zern opened the door to the pickup and stood there, just gazing at the sunset for a long moment, then pointed at the horizon. "That butte," he said, "looks just like a tit."

"I Do Not Want To Kill a Deer" is one of the best hunting stories ever written.

Unfortunately, Ted Trueblood didn't write many books, partly because he discovered they paid what he called "sheepherder's wages." But those he did publish are well worth reading, though some include more of how he felt about the outdoors than others.

I never met Trueblood, but did write him after selling my first magazine article, thanking him for all his excellent writing. He wrote a very nice letter back, which I still have.

I did get to know Ed Zern a little, who was a good friend of Trueblood's, and Pete Barrett, a writer and editor for many years for various magazines, including TRUE (anybody remember that one?) and FIELD & STREAM.

The three used to get together every year in Idaho for some hunting, fishing and general tale-telling. Pete Barrett once told me a story from one of those trips. He and Zern had flown into Boise, where Trueblood met them at the airport with his pickup camper already loaded for a September trip after fish and upland birds in eastern Oregon's Owyhee country.

It was getting late in the day when they finally neared the lake where they were going to camp. The pickup crested a rise, and there before them was a beautiful western sunset, with an orange and purple sky spreading above the desert buttes. Immediately Zern said," Ted, stop right here!"

Trueblood immediately braked, both he and Barrett thinking Zern wanted to take a photo. But Zern opened the door to the pickup and stood there, just gazing at the sunset for a long moment, then pointed at the horizon. "That butte," he said, "looks just like a tit."