Double R 2 wrote:What appeals to me is the "beyond the hunt or how to" of the sporting lifestyle that LL attempted to acheive under certain and other editors. The full context: camphouses (not just luxurious, but quaint and personal), recipes, crafts, tales, sporting artifacts, and not just Mississippi but more regional in scope to include, perhaps, travel to other places - like many of us do; if not to Argentina, then certainly to domestic sporting destinations. And there's a ton of folks that can tell a great story that don't have a printed voice because publishing business is a close-knit institution - to the point that too many regular contributors read like canned regurgitations. The few magazine stories that I read are as far removed from protypical barbershop hunting fodder as can be imagined, and seems like most that embraced the first couple issue LL also liked seeing and reading contributions that were creatively unique. Gray's Sporting journal was once popular, at my house anyway, for "in the moment" photography and extremely well-written stories (beyond teh 4th grade level) that were only remotely hinged on actual hunting, but were nonetheless connected. Ran across so many great stories - like the written story of the horse-riding doctor at turn of the century near Tutwiler, MS, who's dad killed 19 panthers and countless bears, or the folks that kayaked down the Mississippi River from Clarkasdale during the recent great flood, or guy that makes beautiful knives as a tribute to his deceased wife, or the dog that showed up at a camp with a scaup in his mouth having chased it miles down the Mississippi River and become seperated from its owner, or growing up duck hunting at the old mule pen (I think it's called) that's now the site of upscale housing in the Metro area, the old stove in teh woods where the original tent camp was located generations ago, etc., etc., etc. As one person said, it was great to be made to feel by reading that you were among friends after the hunt, sipping whiskey around the camp fire instead of being talked to like you'd never held a shotgun, killed a duck or ever driven off a paved road.
This. This day and age is about anonymous people with talents that in any other day and age would have gone unnoticed. Not now. And we finally know that now. Put readers in the driver's seat. Unlimited content, low r&d costs, and most certainly, success, if you get your business plans lined up.
