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What are your top 3 hunting books.

The Old Man and the Boy: Ruark
Green Hills of Africa: Hemingway
African Game Trails: Roosevelt

Different times require different reads.
I enjoyed Babcock’s stories then, Buckingham’s, and Hemingway’s.
Now? Nickerson, and old tomes about the birth of conservation and game management.

Are you looking for fiction? Non fiction?

Any book by the recently departed Guy de la 'Valdene or Russell Chatham. Gil

" A Fine and Pleasant Misery", "the Grasshopper Trap" by Patrick McManus
"Live Pigeon and Trap Shooting". by Cyril Adams

Shooter’s Delight, C. W. Thurlow Craig, Hutchinson 1952, surprising breadth, sound advice and great fun.

The Art of Shooting by “Charles Lancaster” (H.A. Thorn) 1906, my shooting grandfather’s 7th Edition .

Shooting, 2 volumes, “Field and Covert” and “Moor and Marsh”, Badminton Library, also my grandfather’s.

Close runners up, The Sporting Rifle and its Use in Britain, Henry Tegner (“The Ruffle”) and his other works, “The Gun” W.W. Greener and so many others!

10th Legion by Tom Kelly
Race at Morning by William Faulkner
Multiple other books by Kelly, especially The Boat, The Season, and Dealer’s Choice

Hunting books
The Upland Shooting Life, Evans
A Handful of Feather, Valdene
Pheasants of the Mind, Proper

Gun Books
Shotgunning, The Art & Science, Brister
The Mysteries of Shotgun Patterns, Oberfell & Thompson
Gunfitting, Yardley
Sporting Shotgun Performance, Jones

(But with over a hundred Shotgun titles I could go on forever to include authors like Dallas, Burrard, Ash, McIntosh, Brown, Hadoke, Adams, & the list could include so many more

both fergus books from the 90's...


"a hunters road" and "a rough shooting dog"...

Game warden, Chesapeake Bay Assignment. Willie Parker. I knew him, knew those he was after, heck was one myself almost once. When I read it I know almost the exact place and people he writes about. Truth is his version is fairly close to the truth.

Most anything written by Charles Waterman but especially "Gun Dogs & Bird Guns" & "Field Days".

Any three of Jim Corbett's books.

Such a wide ranging subject. I enjoy some of historical accounts, never to be seen again. Maybe, some of the compilations Batten did for the old Amwel press, and some of the Safari Press stuff is interesting. Maybe, far too much for a short list.

To second Mike Rowes Choice but specifically in this order :-
A. Man Eaters of Kumaon
B. The Temple Tiger and other Stories
C. The Man Eating Leopard of Rudraprayag
I put C last as it's a long read, slow and somewhat tedious but well worth it.

Guitar king

A Shooting Man's Creed by Sir Joseph Nickerson

Moss, Mallards and Mules by Bob Brister

Big December Canvasbacks by Worth Mathewson

I will second Brittany Man’s mention of Charlie Waterman. In addition to the two titles he listed, The Part I Remember and Ridge Runners and Swamp Rats are also very good. I also like Gordon MacQuarrie’s old duck hunter stories. And of course, a bunch of Gene Hill’s.

My favorites include the Jim Corbett books and anything from Nash Buckingham. My favorite all time hunting story appeared in the September 1994 Grays Sporting Journal: “The Worlds Greatest Duck Gun” by Ed Dvorak Jr. I still have the magazine and kept it on a bookshelf in my office at work. I’d pull it out from time to time and read it when the workaday doldrums became too much.

It's far more than a hunting book, but I enjoyed reading the journals that John Fremont produced regarding his surveying trips of the West in the 1840s. There are lots of stories about hunting in it's purest form - for survival. It's interesting what people will decide is good when it's all you can get. He once referred to a "fine mess of seagulls shot by Kit Carson."

Here's a link to an ebook:


https://www.gutenberg.org/files/9294/9294-h/9294-h.htm

I believe some people are readers and some are not.
The best solution is to start.

I read a lot, so there is a seasonal rotation.

My personality doesn’t lend itself to sitting down and reading lengthy novels or accounts. It has to catch me in the first few pages.
Here’s a stack I’m chewing through right now, next to my chair.

Here’s an old book about managing grouse moors.
Fits in at a grouse camp.


Half.com is a good low cost source.
If you spell something on it, or just don’t like it, you’re not out much.

Interesting to see Parabola's choices as I have all three. I will also second the Jim Corbett books. So, I will throw in three English titles: 'The Modern Fowler' & 'The Modern Shooter' by James Wentworth-Day. I will also include a fictional one which is a sort of thriller along the '39 Steps' theme and that is 'A Rough Shoot' by Geoffrey Household. Lagopus.....

One I always reread before grouse and woodcock season: "The Whispering Wings of Autumn" by Gene Hill and Steve Smith. Written for the Ruffed Grouse Society. Great book that should be reprinted.
"Modern Pheasant Hunting" by the late Steve Grooms.
"The Upland Shooting Life" by George Bird Evans. Read that while I was living in Morocco (with surprisingly good bird hunting). I have Evans to thank for coming home to the States with my first bird dog and my first side by side. Both have been afflictions of mine ever since.

Re the Corbett recommendations: I was a brand new high school teacher and had been assigned to study hall duty in the library. That's where I met Corbett. Fortunately, I had a good group of kids, because they all could have walked out the door on me and I wouldn't have missed them when I was reading about one of his hunts for a maneating tiger or leopard.

I appreciate your modesty Larry.

I spent 5 weeks in India visiting my son and family. I read 4 of the Corbett books at that time. MY INDIA was not as much hunting as some of the others, but really addressed the people of India. The condo we stay in in Kona has bookshelves full of the authors on Africa. Ruark and others are quite interesting when on has time to sit on the lanai and read.

It's not hunting stories per se, but Ted Kerasote's book Blood Ties does a fine job of exploring the ethics of hunting. He has a lot to say about the kind I think most of us here do: neither subsistence nor trophy hunting, but mindful taking of game that provides both sustainable recreation and food.

It’s hard to narrow this down to 3 books.

Africana for times we can only read about:

- African Game Trails (the ultimate Safari) by Theodore Roosevelt
- A Hunter’s Wanderings in Africa by Frederick Seleous
- Elephant Hunting by Arthur Newman

Upland Hunting
- I Don’t Want to Shoot an Elephant by Havilah Babcock
- My Health is Better in November by Havilah Babcock
- Shotgunner’s Notebook by Gene Hill

Ken

and #3...

https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Man...Y2tSZWRpcmVjdCZkb05vdExvZ0NsaWNrPXRydWU=

For those who enjoyed the Corbett maneater stories, the books, The Best of Tiger Hunting, and Hunting the Big Cats, have dozens upon dozens of accounts, of hunting maneaters.

I found out about Corbett in a reprint article in "Boy's Life" magazine, the publication of the Boy Scouts of America, when I was a young teen. I was mesmerized. I remember where I was when I read that story, some 55+ years ago.

Along a similar line to Corbett's works are three books I have by Kenneth Anderson: 'Nine Maneaters and One Rogue', 'The Black Panther of Sivanipali' and 'Tales From the Indian Jungle'. You might also like 'Tiger! Tiger!' by William Baze.

Just been digging through the forgotten corners of my bookshelves and found three other possibles: 'Mauled by a Tiger' by Arthur W. Strachan, 'The Tigers of Trengganu' by Lt. Col. A. Locke, and another good read with an unusual finale and that is 'Between the Elephant's Eyes' by Robert L. Scott. I refuse to divulge the ending but it worth the read. Lagopus.....

One high on my list that hasn’t been mentioned is Kingsley-Heath’s Hunting the Dangerous Game of Africa.

It has to be a generational thing.

One generation, the allure and fantasy of Africa filled their dreams. Authors beyond measure stoked the fire.

A generation later, and all we ever heard was how we had to save what is left. Endless documentaries of Africa’s miseries.

How the post colonial world has changed.

It's similar with the US. There are great books on the fur trade, buffalo hunting, the frontier, market hunting waterfowl, and on and on. Not exactly topics to bring up, while chatting at a free charging station.

Hard to pick a favorite. Those of you who enjoyed Corbett might like Sasha Siemel's "Tigrero" and "Jaguar Hunting in the Mato Grosso and Bolivia" by Tony De Almeida.

Next on my list is "Kambaku" by Harry Manners as a primer for my trip to Mozambique this fall.

A very interesting and enlightening read are anything by Gough Thomas . Shooting Facts & Fancies is a goldmine of useful information .
But the 'Bible' surely has to be 'The Shotgun' volumes 1, 2, and 3 by Major Burrard.

If you can find it, "Mambas and Maneaters: A hunter's story " by C.J.P. Ionides is a terrific window on East Africa in the first half of the twentieth century. Iodine, as he was known locally, was a wonderfully eccentric Brit who started his career as a soldier in India, then became an ivory poacher in Africa. He went legit and became a professional hunter, and eventually was hired as warden of the Selous Game Reserve in then Tanganyika, still the largest reserve in Africa. The life of a warden back then was daily adventure, hence the Maneaters in the title. In those days, British officials in the colonies got long leaves of absence, as most went back to the UK and travel was by steamer. Instead, Iodine spent his leaves hunting in remote areas all over the continent, collecting specimens of everything on four legs, using mostly his .470 NE, of which I am now the proud owner. His descriptions of travel and hunting in remote areas are fascinating, but even then he witnessed the decimation of species which are now essentially extinct in the wild.

When he retired from the Game Department, he made his home in a part of the Selous which he reckoned had the highest density and diversity of poisonous snakes in Africa, hence Mambas. He was Africa's first herpetologist and collected specimens both for research collections and to supply venom for the production of antivenin. He was bitten many times by a variety of snakes, used no antivenin afterwards, and took detailed notes on the effects of the venom and his recovery. E. Africa in those days had plenty of wild characters but few matched Iodine.

Thanks for the tip on "Mambas and Maneaters", I just snagged an old library copy off ebay for 30$. Looking forward to this one.

Jiffy Pop?? I haven't seen that stuff in decades. Great pics, by the way!!

I don't see a book that we were all clamoring about back in the early 2000s. Reflections, "Man And Boy" by Ron Forsyth. Great book!

'Maneaters of Tsavo' by Patterson maybe? Good read by any standards. Lagopus.....

I recommend "I married Adventure" to everyone, but especially your daughters.
Mike