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I did not read Zeno's story. Flap does a good job of writing and Manzi's is chock-a-block full of factoids. I think David Pickering does a very, very good job of how-to, Frank D can still get me "horsed-up -to-fish." But I think we really need to be looking at the big picture before we set our expectations.
Outdoor writing can occasionally be high art - but it's not usually of much merit. Where-to and how-to constitute the majority of the stories and they are simplistic and topical. Given the format, there is not much room for anything else. Set the mood in the first paragraph, wrap up the details in the last - in the middle, it's a series of facts and anecdotes - that's it. Send it in, and cross your fingers in the hope that the public does not roast you in appreciation. (A wise writer would scratch doing any future where-to if he wants to keep the air in his tires.)
Often times you will get a better story out of the occasional writer as opposed to the part-time writer because a person who dabbles in writing has fresher ideas and is much more likely to spend more time on piece than a person who does 30 articles a year. Many prolific part-time writers approach any given topic this way: "Ok. This story, it pays $100. If I can't do it in under two hours and if I can't pull the images from stock - it's not worth doing." That's why so much stuff appears formulaic - because its only worth doing if it is.
It's naive to expect that all traditional journalistic standards (i.e. a writer must be impartial, a writer should have no conflict of interest, etc) should apply to outdoor writers. They never have and I doubt they ever will. Outside of a magazine's staffers, virtually no one is writing full-time because you can't make a living doing it. In other discusions I've heard people mention Zane Grey and Ernest Hemingway - as if we should expect greatness from small publications with even smaller budgets. Get real. Like all small-market trade and hobby magazines, content for outdoor magazines is provided by a mix of practicing hobbyists and industry professionals - not literary giants. In the outdoor industry, these people are often guides, outfitters, charter captians and wildlife managers.
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