Hear The One About...

I often hear things like "I wish I had your job" or "You have the greatest job in the world." To the latter, yes, I do, and I'm fortunate to make a living doing things I really enjoy doing. These include not only hunting and shooting, but also writing about hunting and shooting. To the former, well, maybe you do, but be careful what you wish for.

The schedule is difficult, hard on the family and on the body. Take the last month, for instance. Dallas Safari Club's convention, SHOT Show and Safari Club International's convention back-to-back. I rushed straight from SCI to a hunt in Pakistan, a 36-hour journey each way. Inevitably, I got my annual colossal winter cold. Now, bolstered by antibiotics, I'm on another airplane to a speaking gig in Texas.

No complaints; I love what I do, and I'm grateful to all of you who read my stuff and watch the shows. Otherwise I wouldn't have been able to do what I do these past 30 years. I have no illusion that all of you like my work. Some of you do; some do not. I think the former group is bigger, else my editors would have gotten rid of me long ago. However, the latter group is often the more outspoken.

That's OK with me. Criticism is helpful, and I try to take it to heart without taking it personally. One of the things I don't like about this job is some of the stories I hear about myself. I get only the occasional genuine hate letter, and only once was there a bomb threat. But some of the stories are genuine whoppers. Some of the better ones have surfaced in the Internet chat rooms, which makes a lot of sense. While hiding behind an anonymous screen name, one can say pretty much whatever one wishes with no likelihood of legal or physical reprisal.

There was a good one some time back, someone who had it on good authority that I charged outfitters fees for being present in their camps. Wow! What a great idea. Does that really make sense to anyone? Is there actually any outfitter anywhere in the world so foolish and well heeled as to buy into such a scheme? And of course there are the standard stories about me--and all other writers and outdoor TV "personalities"--lying, cheating, cutting corners and so forth.

At one point I opined that I'd been accused of just about everything except being gay. Uh, that, too, popped up in a chat room. It seems unlikely to me that sexual orientation has much to do with writing, shooting or hunting abilities. For the record, however, no, I'm not.

In my writing, I've been consistently honest about missing or requiring additional shots--if anything, too honest. I'm not much of a self-promoter, so it isn't unusual for me to imply that my shooting is worse than it really is. TV is a bit different. Common sense and network rules dictate what can be shown. Also, there is the necessity to cram an episode into 22.5 minutes.