My consumption of outdoor magazines has really dwindled over the past 10 years. Most of it is due to the ready access to free information that I am getting over the Internet. If someone wanted to really intrigue me with an article it would probably be:

1) An historical article: How did they do it back then? How can I do what they did back then? Why would I want to?
2) A scientific article: Give me a digest of the scholarly work on the subject, and point me towards what the data is suggesting.
3) A DIY article: How can I do it for myself? How can I do it on the cheap? Don’t just show me what you’ve done and let it go at that.
4) An expert spills his guts: Give me the 10 dirty tricks you’ve learned that I can use to get better results.

If I hadn’t been at it for 25 years, I’d probably want:

1) Beginner’s tips: How do I get started?
2) Where do I find a place to hunt?
3) I’ve got a problem. What’s the fix?
4) Most of all, I’d want to know this: If you weren’t being handed all this stuff for free to evaluate and someone was not paying your way to hire a guide. If you worked a 60 hour week, had a wife and kids to support and only got 2 weeks vacation a year, what would you do to be successful?

Unlike a lot of hobbies I could have picked, there is not a whole lot of change in hunting. The game has gotten more plentiful, but it hasn’t gotten smarter and has yet to chose to wear body armor. They still move from where they sleep to where they eat twice a day, and the easiest time to kill them is when they’re love-sick and being stupid. I can shoot a deer with a 100 yr old cartridge and it still falls over dead. Turkey still fall to high-brass #4’s. Squirrels fall from the trees when hit with a .22. It’s an uphill battle to write new stuff and make it seem fresh.

On the other hand, I’ve been reading outdoor mags for over 45 years. I’m not the guy the mags are targeting. They are writing for the wide-eyed neophyte who believes that this year’s deer rifle is somehow better than last year’s, and that you really need an $8 round to kill a gobbler.

I enjoy outdoor writing. I don’t get paid for it much. I just like doing it. Most of what I enjoy writing about meshes with the feedback I get from my readers:

1) I am not an expert on interior ballistics, but I am the world’s foremost expert on the interior of one particular hunter. The funny thing is that whenever I’m out and about, I see I am walking in the tracks of others. This may mean that the poachers are back, but I was speaking figuratively. If I can describe what’s going on inside of me, it might communicate what is going on inside others.
2) I do not claim to be an expert on much, but I do claim to be a beginner with 25 years experience at beginning. I love to write about all the stupid things I have done along the way, of the blind squirrel that eventually finds a nut (or the nut that eventually shoots the blind squirrel), and the joy of getting lucky once in a while.
3) I have three sons. Two hunt. Even more than hunting and shooting, I love watching my sons grow as outdoorsmen, and I love telling about it.
4) Since I do this outdoor writing strictly as a nervous habit, I am free to answer the great question: Since I’m not being handed all this stuff for free to evaluate and someone is not paying my way to hire a guide, since I work a 60 hour week, have a wife and kids to support and only recent started getting more than 2 weeks off a year, here’s what I do to be successful.

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