Sports Afield has come a long way, it's very well done.
My only other magazines are membership mags, SCI, B&C,WSF,
even then these sometimes become nothing but catalogs for the industry. Reading printed material in general I think has taken a death spiral with all the electronics available.

Looks like car magazines are headed the same route. C&D, MT, R&T, and Automobile all hit the mailbox this afternoon. 90% of the new 2014 cars they featured were the same. Three of the four had the same RR Wraith, tested in England. At least the same color inside and out.

The good news, a year sub to all four cost me $32.

quote:

Originally posted by Idaho Sharpshooter:
the younger generation is not into hunting as we were.

I thought I had raised one nephew to enjoy the shooting sports over video games.

His father died and left him a nice collection of firearms. He is selling them off to accessorize his Dodge Hemi half-ton. I wonder where his father and I went wrong...

You did not "go wrong". You can drive a truck but only look at a closet full of guns. Hunting is a hobby like anything else we do not get paid to do but enjoy doing. Some kids like trucks and driving, others like to hunt, others like to play video games. In our lifetimes we have seen a migration of "interest" from things outside to things done electronically. It is a progression of entertainment. Hunting is one type of entertainment, video games or skate boarding or whatever is another type.

It happens. Hunting will be here as long as people enjoy doing it - just like ice fishing or mountain climbing. Do not rely on the numbers of licenses sold or guns sold - that data is misleading. People still hunt. You did not go wrong.

I don't get too worked up with guys hunting all over the place for free. Good on 'em. Am I envious? Yup, sad to admit it but I am. Do I resent them for it? Not at all. I get a laugh out of people that seem to hold a grudge against guys like Craig Boddington for taking advantage of their position as writers, feigning indignance as though they wouldn't jump at the opportunity themselves. It's the most pathetically transparent show of jealousy out there.

Another couple of magazines that I enjoy, aside from Sports Afield, are African Hunting Gazette and African Outfitter (which I discovered while waiting at the SAPS office in Tambo. I wonder how many others made the same discovery?). Between these three I get my hunting fix. The bonus with African Outfitter is the different point of view you get when you don't have American writers and sponsors. Most everything we read in the sporting field comes from you cousins to our South (and that's not a bad thing). A fresh perspective is a welcome change.

The only magazine I subscribe to is Sports Afield. Anything else I get through membership (SCI, SSAA).

When in Africa I like to buy Man Magnum magazine.

I find the crass commercialism of some writers a bit disconcerting. It flows through to their books too, sadly.

Other magazines I buy if I see them and there is something that really piques my interest.

I still love a good story with properly constructed sentences and paragraphs, good spelling and fine outdoor photographs, and photographs of the weapons used in the hunt. Something that many internet/forum stories lack.

Best wishes, Chris

My grandmother gave me a subscription to Outdoor Life when I was 11, back in 1964, so I grew up reading Jack O'Connor. After Ross Seyfried, he's still my favorite. I have a couple of his books that I read over and over, not just for the content, but for the quality of his prose -- and the common sense. If I want colorful bombast and strongly held opinion, I dig out some Keith.
Although these two allegedly hated each others' guts, they both had a wealth of experience and brought unique conversations to the printed page.
Seyfried brings so much passion to his writing, and his fondness for old/odd/British firearms just tickles my fancy.
I don't think of any of these three as product placement types. So what if O'Connor liked Bill Sukale and Al Biesen? They were great at what they did. And he hunted with Vern Speer? Well, they both lived in Lewiston as far as I can recall.
In my experience, readers want to know the details of what gear writers hunt with, but they don't want a bunch of logos shoved down their throats. This leaves guys like Larry Weishuhn and Jim Shockey looking pretty crass.
I agree the emphasis on product shilling has made many if not most of the hunting/shooting press mostly irrelevant.
Me, well, the only two I subscribe to are Double Gun Journal and the SPG Blackpowder Cartridge News.

My grandmother bought me a subscription to Outdoor Life in the early 60s. During that time span I read Field and Stream, Sports Afield and a few others at the barber shop. A neighbor of my grandparents was put in a nursing home and he left a large collection of magazines in his abandoned house that I would stop by to read on occaision. None of the other writers were as entertaining as Jack O'Connor. He even had a little technical stuff now and then.
What burned me about all the hunting magazines were their north east and snow country bias. I did not want to read a story about tracking deer in the snow because I did not live in the snow belt. I also did not want to read about musky, salmon, pike and trout fishing because we had none of those either.
I eventually subscribed to Gun & Ammo to read Ackley and Keith. I subscribed to Shooting Times to for some reason though I felt the writers were more amateurs than O'Connor.
Then I discovered Handloader and Rifle Magazine.
O'Connor retired and I never really liked Jim Carmichael so I dropped OL. Ackley died and I dropped G&A and Shooting times just got old so it was dropped.
Scovill has managed to trash Handloader and Rifle Magazine so they are about to go bye bye be cause of the editor. I enjoy technical articles and the current staff are more like outdoor life writers writing in a gun magazine. They think they are writing technical articles but it only would seem technical to a 12 year old or a shoe salesman.

these days, I expect mostly shills for the industry. Carter's last show, I figured he should get a little jumpsuit like the NASCAR drivers wear so he can properly advertise.

quote:

PR hunt is something setup by a PR firm to showcase outdoor goods to writers. If you look at almost any story today, it is typically sponsored by an industry supplier. The result is a pretty unremarkable story that invariably profiles the wares of the host company, typically using a sidebar.

I am more interested in Guns than hunting. I have an extensive collection of American Riflemans back to the 1920’s, have read the Arms and Man from 1906 to 1921. Guns Magazine has a great 1955-1964 http://gunsmagazine.com/classi...s-magazine-editions/ “Classic Magazines” to download for free.

After reviewing enough “Classic” magazines, I feel that many of the hunts featured in the magazine were funded by the equipment manufacturer’s . The older magazine writers have opinions, which were probably edited down by the editor, but you sense they had favorites. Older magazines have a different, almost sitting around the fireplace feeling about them. They are more chatty, a wider variety of stories, especially shooting stories and national defense stories. Today’s magazines are totally focused on product sales. Subscriptions are so cheap because today’s magazines are basically advertizing media. You pay the postage because people don’t respect free.

The only magazine/periodical I actually subscribe to is Double Gun and Single Shot Journal. I used to get about all of them, SA, OL, took FF&G for close to 40 years but haven't even bought one off the newsstand in 20+ years. Same with Shooting Times & Guns and Ammo...dropped them all about the same time. Times and things change and they don't appeal to me. The days of O'Conner, Keith, Page, Nonte, et al will never be again.

Cars, I still subscribe to "Classic Motorsports" and I do enjoy Woodenboat Magazine. The rest...boring as hell to me.

Seems all segmented like television, the end result being less advertising, less income, lower pay and lower quality for each mag. Some have the poseurs who grow chin beards and wear wrap around sunglasses and black shirts using tactical gear...all the way to the elitist gentleman-hunter almost liberal viewpoint on hunting and fishing.

I also used to subscribe to the Double Gun Journal and really enjoyed it, till I sold my drillings. Might be time to pick that up again, awesome magazine for the topic it covers.

I took part in a "test" (quotes are for sarcasm in this case) for hunting gear with one of the top well known hunting mags. Nice guy, good heart, really trying and he has to fill column inches with interesting reading. No harm, no foul but it wasn't any kind of a test and we were rushed. It was good to talk to him and learn about the tough realities he's facing: reduced sales because we get our fix on the internet AND that it's very difficult for those brands to get an on-line presence when there are sites like this with a wealth of information.

I'm optimistic that a few good ones will survive and remain or become good reading, education, entertainment.

I just re-read this thread. All good observations and ideas. I still subscribe to several but usually scan them for anything of interest vs reading everything. I really like Sports Afield and a couple of others. I really do not like the hype of some of the writers obviously writing nice things about average products.

I recently read one review of binoculars that did not include Swarovski and Leica. Not much of a review except the guy seemed to pander to the cheaper models saying they "are just as good as....". When I read that, I realize who is paying who to write dribble.

When I was a teenager, a few decades ago, I subscribed to Outdoor Life and Field and Stream. I very much enjoyed reading the stories they would have, which included reprints of real classics like Jim Corbett. For cost reasons, I ended up letting the subscriptions lapse. Now the only time I see them is in the doctor's office and it astonished me to see how awful they are now. Nothing but ads and "articles" telling you what products to use. No actual stories to speak of!

Sports Afield was given to me as a gift a few years ago and I have kept receiving it. Lots of very good stories and not too many ads. As an RMEF member I also get Bugle, which is, in my opinion, one of the best hunting-related magazines around right now. For a few years I took African Hunter, but then after a while it seemed all the stories were about guns and not very many about hunting, so I dropped that. (Nothing against guns, of course, but I just don't have much interest in reading about them.)

Man Magnum out of South Africa is still old school.
You can order it on Amazon.com

infomercials in print...

I get some of the specialty mags, Muzzleloader, BPCR report, Handloader, and African Hunting Gazette are about it.

Ah, and Wooden Boat. I still have the fantasy of getting a 24"+ motorsailer on the East Coast and sailing it around thru the canal and up the Columbia home. It is most likely better as a dream than the reality would be.

Rich