Book Review: Wingshooter's Guide to Oregon

[Richard]

I impulsively ordered a copy of "Wingshooter's Guide to Oregon" by John Shewey, and thought I'd post a quick review.

The book is part of a series of wingshooter's guides and has general information game birds and places to hunt, organized by region.

Good: general information on birds was pretty good and informative. However, distribution maps were poor -- very coarse and uninformative. No color photos or drawings.

Bad: Much of the book is devoted to descriptions of places, organized by region and I found this information useless. For example, the Northeast region is divided into sections including Joseph/Enterprise, Lagrande/Union County, Baker City/Baker County etc. This looked promising -- but the detail I was looking for is not there. It simply provides a very general description of these places and lists motels, restaraunts, sporting goods stores and vet clinics. I can get this information from a phone book, thank you. What I hoped was detailed information on time of year and places to go in these regions! The maps again were very coarse range maps by species -- not really helpful.

Disappointing: the last 100 pages or so of the book includes a section on oregon state wildlife areas, national wildlife refuges and other places to hunt. This was what I was looking for in this book -- but could have been much much more detailed and useful. It basically lists a bunch of areas and provides directions how to get there, but very little information on where to hunt within the area, what to expect, where to camp/stay etc. Basically, much of the staple information that I'd expect in a guide book was missing.

Overall, it's a good general overview of bird hunting in oregon, but not that useful. I don't recommend it.

Richard

[skein]

My review would mimic yours exactly. I've read other books by John Shewey and thought they were informative and readable, but this one is pretty much a waste.

Maybe it was that I expected different things from the book, but overall I can only use one word to describe it, and that's "disappointment."

In keeping with the AUP policy on complaints I will add my name to my "seconding" your review.

Jim Crotts - Skein

[younggun20]

Thanks for the review, I was thinking about picking that up also. Looks like I won't be getting it any more. Thanks, Cody

[Mark Vickers]

Thanks for the review. I agree completely.

I picked it up off the shelf at Powell's a couple of months ago and looked through it. It went back on the shelf for the very same reasons you mentioned. The book "Game Bird Hunting In Oregon" produced by the ODFW is way more informative, and it could use some revision and added heft.

[duckboy]

Sounds like there is a real need out there for someone to put out a true guide book of good places to go to encounter birds.

I may decide to make this happen, since i have the mapping software and some of the background.

This could be something in which i could have lots of write offs, and for sure, i 'd need to have different guns for different types of bird hunting, so those could be write offs too. My lodging and maybe my dogs lodging and training and ammo could be other possible write offs.

Hmm.... i do believe i am on to something here.

I am going to grab my pencil and get started.

[waterfowlin101]

Hey duckboy...don't sell out your honey holes for a buck . If they don't know, make em work for it!! It took a lot of time to know what you know right now...is money worth everyone knowing your tricks?

This is precisely the reason why there is very little good literature out there with detailed locations and info. The REAL hunters wouldn't share it for the world.

Jon

[duckboy]

I should mention that i picked up a copy of the idaho one. It was pretty general, and I suppose that is how it has to be in order to preserve some of the "you have to spend some time in the field" aspect of hunting.

I think it needed photos, Nice photos.

I don't know about you guys, but a picture is pretty cool, especially if has a cool looking dog, some birds, and a salty looking character that can gun the birds down... someone that looks like they know what they are really into it.


Good maps too, a dark area over a region from 100000 ft is too general.