Need A Gift, Buy Books Now

Let's face it, folks. We live in troubled times.

Jobs are in peril. Job security is questionable or even doubtful. Management in many areas care little about the worker. Insurance rates are rising, as are prescription drugs, and many wonder how long they can hang on to their job.

Amid all these worries is the desire to fish and hunt more often, and to spend time outdoors. The cost of travel with $2.50-per-gallon gas, and fuel prices show no signs of going down anytime soon. Jobs have left this state like rats fleeing a sinking ship, and billions of dollars go overseas while our workers wonder about the security of their future.

Sportsmen want to fish and hunt. We find it difficult to justify a trip north for a two-day fishing or hunting trip because we'll easily spend $75-100 for gas, another $50-100 for a motel, and then add another $50-75 for food and suddenly the price of fishing and hunting becomes very expensive.

What can anglers and hunters do to take the edge off their outdoor cravings. It's simple, and much like my need for a fishing or hunting fix when I was a Michigan kid. If a round-the-world trip cost $10, I couldn't get out of Clio, my home town.

Invest in fishing and hunting books …..

Each year I squirreled away money to pay for subscriptions to Field & Stream, Outdoor Life and Sports Afield magazine during my teens. I devoured every word, and then as my meager job began to pay a bit more I took a second job, joined the old Outdoor Life Book Club and read avidly. Once a month would come a notice about an upcoming book, and if I thought I'd like it, the book would be ordered.

Mind you, being entertained in your mind through the magic of the written word and a wonderful photograph isn't quite the same as actually fishing or hunting, but it provides an escape for those sportsmen who financially can't shake loose $200 or more for a weekend fishing or hunting trip.

Books provide that escape we need to visit another world, to a place where fish bite and deer are abundant. It can take us to places where big browns sip flies off the surface, where grouse and woodcock inhabit tag alder runs and dogwood thickets, to places where rooster pheasants cackle in mid-air, and a wedge of bluebills skim the tops of white-flecked waves under a pewter-gray sky.

Read what the great wordsmiths wrote …..

 Books can carry us along on a voyage of discovery, to a place where vicariously, we could have fished alongside Ernie Schwiebert for trout or listened to the tales of Robert Ruark's Old Man talking to the boy. Now, because of books, we can learn about Louis Spray’s muskies and the meanderings of his life, to the Green Hills of Africa with Ernest Hemingway (Spray and Hemingway both committed suicide), to the wonderfully written hunting books of the incomparable George Bird Evans.

We can read and inherit the love of hunting from the late Jack O'Connor, whose books are steadily increasing in value. O'Connor has almost as many fans now as he did 50 years ago, and his skill at writing hunting stories became legendary.

Book catalogs that deal with fishing and hunting titles are wondrous things and I get a few every month. Name the genre, and there are books out there to fit the wallet of every sportsman. Muskie fishing and turkey hunting are my two passions, and I spend time looking for those titles I don't have or simply can't afford.

I maintain lists of books I need. Some books are author signed, and many are not. Some books I need are low-priced and common and a few are expensive. Books allow people who can't afford a fishing or hunting trip to pour themselves into a good book and come out the other side knowing they've experienced something grand and wonderful.

I buy & sell fishing & hunting books …..

Most of you know I buy and sell books on by Scoop’s Books through my web site. Click on Scoop’s Books on my Home Page, and numerous book are available, and there are many more that are not listed.

I still have time to read, and my choice of reading material includes everything from a cereal box to a mystery to a nonfiction fishing or hunting book. Some people don't know what they want, and they contact me and we discuss it their wants and needs by email. I’m happy to make suggestions.

Books are the gift that keeps on giving. Christmas is coming, and instead of a goofy power tie for work, take his mind off the office with a book on a topic of interest to him. Buying book gifts now removes the panic that sets in if you forget to shop.

Reading a good book may not be quite as exciting as catching a fish or taking a big buck with a bow, but when travel to do these things becomes prohibitive in these economic doldrums, reading about fishing and hunting beats whatever else could come in second-best.