Field and stream and outdoor life all digital

I enjoyed Rancid Crabtree myself. It has been a while since I subscribed.

As a teenager still at home, I looked forward to, and poured over every page in those magazines.

Those of us in that era were brought up that waiting for the prize was something we had to do. These days the word moves at 186 thousand miles a second and there are too many using instant gratification that act before they think and make a mess of things. The world could stand to slow down a bit and chill!

I got hooked on F&S, Outdoor Life and Sports Afield in the high school library in the 1970's. I subscribed to all 3 for many, many years after graduating.

I used to subscribe as well.
Love, love, loved them in high school in the 70’s!
Even as recently in the last ten years or so.
But, it felt like, to me, that the mag was 50% advertisement and not what it used to be in “the good old days”, so I stopped my subscriptions.
It is sad as I prefer to read an actual magazine or newspaper over reading them online.
Just the world we live in now I guess…..

As an almost lifetime subscriber, I too waited for each monthly dose of outdoor adventure and lore. Cut to quarterly, I was saddened. Now that it is all digital, I feel for those who are computer challenged. No more cutting and filing. No more saving "that best issue to reread". Got an old buddy that refers to anything from a cell phone to a computer as a "FRED", or Fricken Rediculous Electronic Device. My dad would be appalled.

I was not aware of this change. I have been a subscriber to OL and F&S for over 40 years. I too prefer the magazine over reading on a computer. I guess I will be letting my subscriptions end. I have to spend enough time on computers, that is why I like the magazine. It is more relaxing to me. End of an era I guess, just like me.

I subscribed through the 90's, I finally ended my subscription to both sometime in the early 2000's. I realized that the articles were on a 3 year cycle, and once you went through that cycle you just aren't going to learn any new tricks to catching more fish or bagging a big tom. The hunting stories were always nice, but even those eventually all started to sound the same. As to guns and gear reviews, I trust reading reviews from 15-20 randos on forums like this who dropped their hard earned money than one guy from Field and Stream getting paid to review stuff he's handed for free (even if he has to give it back when he's done).

Grew up reading F&S, Outdoor Life and Sports Afield. School libraries even carried Guns&Ammo. Anyhow, out in the woods as I watched my very first deer --shot somewhat off-center-- running away bawling and making all sorts of horrible noises it occurred to me in all of those hunting stories they never once mentioned a deer might scream when you shoot it.

Nope, did not see that coming.

Grew up in non-hunting family.

swg1 said:

Grew up reading F&S, Outdoor Life and Sports Afield. School libraries even carried Guns&Ammo. Anyhow, out in the woods as I watched my very first deer --shot somewhat off-center-- running away bawling and making all sorts of horrible noises it occurred to me in all of those hunting stories they never once mentioned a deer might scream when you shoot it.

Nope, did not see that coming.

Grew up in non-hunting family.

Click to expand...

Yup. Hunting authors tend to not write about those sort of things. But I grew up in a avid hunting family, so I'd heard about it. Still, it was still quite a shock the first time I heard a little buck "cry" for real after I shot him through the ribs.
It happens. Thankfully not too often. As best as I can recall, that was the first and last time I've ever heard it.
My wife also shot a little forked horn buck that "cried" after she shot him. But I wasn't with her at the time though, so I never heard it. I did hear my wife crying when I finally caught up to her - over an hour later. And I had to stop and listen to her sob two or three times as I was helping her drag that little deer out.
BTW, the first deer I killed was a doe mule deer. And she ran a hundred yards uphill after I put a bullet from my .308 Winchester through her heart and ribs at no more than 40 yards. I did not see that coming either. Going by things I'd read in F&S and Sports Afield, as well as "old timer" hunters, a .308 Winchester would knock deer right off their feet - unlike the little 30-30s and 25-35s those "old timers" used to hunt with.
So I learned rather quickly - sometimes a deer appears to be "knocked off its feet" when you shoot it. Sometimes it doesn't.