Article by Capt. Mark Sampson
A while ago my mother sent me a couple articles she had clipped out of her daily newspaper that contained some information she thought I needed to know.
Seeing the envelope filled with an assortment of little snippets reminded me of when I was a kid and mom would post similar articles on the refrigerator door for myself, my brother and my sisters to read and hopefully learn from. I’m sure I didn’t read everything she plastered up on the old Frigidaire, but considering at least a dozen times a day the written words stood between me and the milk, bologna and ice-cream, I know that I at least read the headlines.
This had me wondering if anything I’ve written has ended up on a refrigerator door? Not too likely I suspect, at least not by mothers trying to nudge their children along the right direction in life. Articles about fishery regulations, tackle and how to land a fish aren’t as likely to catch a mom’s eye as would something that might help her children get better grades in school. Then again, maybe if some of the moms out there knew “the rest of the story” about this writing thing I’ve got going on here they might consider grabbing the scissors and refrigerator magnet.
I’ll be the first to admit that “I ain’t no Hemingway”. Most of what I end up hammering out on the keyboard is just basic reporting of what’s going on in the outdoor world. “Hook and bullet” is a term often used to describe this form of writing which could have me explaining how to tie a clinch knot one week and how to skin a deer the next. But then again, writing is writing and just as there are a lot more people in this world who make a living painting houses than by painting pictures, basic journalism will always be in demand by both readers and (perhaps more importantly) by folks willing to pay for it.
By spending too much time hunting and fishing and not enough time studying, I was anything but a model student and my grades were far from exemplary. Of all my classes, English was probably one of my weakest. Not only did I do poorly, I HATED the subject. All through high school and even during my first year of college I absolutely dreaded having to put words to paper. Prepositions, adjectives, participles, I could see absolutely no reason why I needed to learn all that “stuff”. I wasn’t going to be a writer!
But I guess no one really knows what the future holds. When I became involved with a Fishing Club, I suddenly found myself writing a few paragraphs for their monthly newsletter. Soon after that a friend asked me if I could write a fishing report for a (short lived) summer paper that came out every couple weeks. After a few how-to articles in the Coastal Fisherman paper, I was actually wishing I had paid more attention in English class and learned some of this writing stuff while I had the chance.
I’m not sure if it was because people actually liked my writing or that there was no one else who would agree to do it, but for whatever reason, I started getting requests from various publications to provide them with articles. Sometimes they would ask for an article on a specific topic, other times they would leave it up to me to decide what I thought would be appropriate. Either way I always looked at each assignment as another opportunity to hone my writing skills and actually make a couple bucks in the process.
Somewhere around the mid-80’s the folks at the Beachcomber asked if I’d be interested in doing a weekly column for them. Already working a full-time job, the thought of meeting a writing deadline every week just seemed like it would be too much of an extra burden, so I was hesitant at first, but knowing that such opportunities don’t present themselves everyday, I figured I’d better give it a shot. One thing lead to another and in 35-years I ended up writing weekly or monthly columns for six or seven different publications and I’m the same guy who hated English class so much!
While my writing career is still only a part-time job, it certainly helps to enhance my charter fishing business – just as my fishing business provides me with material for my writing and the extra income isn’t bad either. One pretty cool thing about outdoor writing is that it actually requires that the writer spend time hunting and fishing. If you don’t do it, you can’t properly write about it, so like it or not, outdoor writers are going to have to immerse themselves in the great outdoors for their work to have any credibility.
Going full-time in the outdoor writing business is a challenging road to take and not one I’ve aspired to follow, but having at least dabbled in the business for a few years I can see that there’s certainly opportunities out there for others who might want to make a go of it. In my case, everything just sort of evolved on its own, but for those who have the desire and the drive to climb to the top in this industry there’s a lot of possibilities in the field of outdoor writing. As a long time member of the Outdoor Writers Association Of America (OWAA) I’ve been able to catch up on at least some of the writing skills I missed out on by not applying myself more in school, but if I could turn back the clock, I would surely have spent more time listening to my English teachers as they were preaching all that “unimportant” stuff about sentence structure, verbs, dangling participles and how to get your work taped to a refrigerator door!
Capt. Mark Sampson is an outdoor writer and captain of the charter boat, “Fish Finder”, docked at the Ocean City Fishing Center. During the winter months, Capt. Mark runs charters in the Lower Keys.
