PDF The Complete Guide to Hunting Butchering and Cooking Wild Game Volume 1 Big Game Steven Rinella John Hafner 9780812994063 Books

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Product details Paperback 416 pages Publisher Spiegel & Grau (August 18, 2015) Language English ISBN-10 9780812994063 ISBN-13 978-0812994063 ASIN 081299406X

The Complete Guide to Hunting Butchering and Cooking Wild Game Volume 1 Big Game Steven Rinella John Hafner 9780812994063 Books Reviews

• As a new hunter and huge nerd, I've been on the lookout for really good, soup-to-nuts resources that would help me grow as a hunter. In the midst of that search, I encountered Steven Rinella's podcast and TV show. I've enjoyed them both thoroughly and was excited when I found his books since I was certain I'd enjoy them, too.
  
  If you're a new hunter, these books are a great purchase though - if I'm being honest - they fell just short of what I was truly hoping they'd be.
  
  The positives are many...
  
  At a technical level The writing is excellent. Topics are covered in depth and with excellent clarity. In the midst of every discussion, great stories and anecdotes are woven such that you feel like you're reading a beautiful cross between a manual/textbook and a hunting memoir. It's an engaging read that I found hard to put down. The book is VERY well organized and the ideas flow into one another in a very sensible way. As the author states, you'll want to read this book from cover-to-cover without skipping things. Concepts and illustrations build on the material that came before it, and there's a lot of information you can apply from one discussion (say hunting something as seemingly foreign to me as an East Coaster like bighorn sheep) to another (like the more recognizable whitetail deer).
  
  Similarly, the last section of the book on butchering is clear, detailed, and beyond helpful... Principles for butchering large animals are presented in general terms where needed so you can apply concepts to whatever animal is in front of you. But specifics are given where appropriate, too.
  
  In addition to the technical aspects of the book, it's absolutely beautiful. The photography, layout, and colors draw you into the book and make it all the more engaging. I'm not usually someone who gets into aesthetics, but this book's got 'em and I'm sure people who enjoy that more than I do will be well-pleased.
  
  Throughout the authors make a beautiful case for conservation of both these beautiful animals and the public lands on which they can survive and be enjoyed by us all.
  
  But, there are a couple of places where I felt the book just fell short of being EVERYTHING I'd hoped. For one thing, there's nothing on identifying sign and tracking... There's reference to rubs, scrapes, trails and the like in the varied sections on different animals. However, I can't think of a place where a photograph of any of them. As a novice woodsman, a big part of locating productive grounds and the animals that inhabit them will include being able to know what to look out for (short of an animal's silhouette slipping through the brush) and how to read the story it's trying to tell you. For example, I found what I thought was a scrape in the woods and, all excited with my newfound woodsman skills, showed it to another hunter. At a glance they said, "That's not a deer scrape. It's from a turkey." I'm sure that I'll make more mistakes like that in the woods until I have more experience - after all, nothing's better - but I think this is a definite gap in the book's content as a 'complete guide'.
  
  I also think a little more practical examples might've been helpful... I'd have appreciated something like an example hunt for one of the more popular animals in the book (say elk, mule deer, or whitetail). Seeing pictures of a map and how the authors dissected it, where they entered, what they found scouting, how they approached the hunt based on that info, etc would've help me put the excellent information in the book in order inside my head.
  
  So, if you're a new hunter, I think this book is a must read... I'm sure there are other, species-specific books that will include more nuggets pertaining to your animal of choice. But, I'm also confident that none of them will do more to make you a well-rounded hunter and put you in a better position to utilize the game you harvest than these books will. AND you'll just have a ton of fun reading it along the way.
  
  (Side note I have a decent background in firearms use and think that the firearms treatment here is very good - especially for the novice. However, I wonder whether some of the information - like understanding caliber, cartridges, etc - would've been better treated in a separate volume in order to focus more on the hunting-specific aspects of shooting or to leave room for some of the topics I thought were omitted. It's hard to figure out if I'm being biased here, so I just offer this as a note rather than a praise or critique.)
• I can't put this book down. If you are interested at all in hunting and what that means, get this book. This is truly a comprehensive, "complete" guide to hunting. Rinella starts out with gear and works his way all the way to cooking and consumption. Very detailed. The first 100 pages alone covered dozens of things that I have attempted to research on my own through dozens of different sources. Now I have something I can reference in one place.
  
  This is a fantastic foundation and introduction to hunting. Nothing will beat real, hands on experience, but as Rinella himself says, you have to learn the rules before you can break them. This is one of those books that my kids will grow up reading. I would still consider myself new to hunting and this book is getting me very excited about hunting in general again and providing a deep longing to get outside.
  
  As far as quality goes, there are pictures and illustrations that explain nearly everything. If there's something that doesn't quite stick after reading it, you need only glance up to the corresponding image and vice versa. Rinella and team have done a great job making this information very accessible. The writing is simple, but not in an uninformative way; it's easy to pick and up read and I find myself getting lost in the pages as if it were fiction.
  
  I cannot recommend this book enough. If you are interested at all about hunting and how to get started in it, do not look any farther. This should be required reading.
• I am a fan of Rinella's from watching "Meateater" and listening to his "Meateater" podcast. I bought his first book "Meateater Adventures in the Life of an American Hunter" and was hooked.
  
  I bought this book via but after a once-through reading decided to buy the paperback version of it so my other family members could read and reference it too. Once I got the book in hand I re-read it and I'm glad I did. For whatever reason I picked up a lot more from the paperback than I ever did from the version. I guess it probably has something to do with the reference-book feel this book has and the ability to skip around and gather in the whole picture of what this book offers up. The format works really well for a novel or a mono-formatted book like a historical non-fiction.......this book is neither.
  
  One thing I want to point out about Rinella..........his style of writing (and talking) and his methods, tools and attitudes towards the animals and pursuit really make sense to me. As a transplanted Mid-westerner now living and hunting in the West myself I can really identify where he's coming from on having to evolve from Midwestern traditions and methods about hunting to the Western US approach to the critters out here in the West. Until I'd read Rinella I hadn't stumbled across anyone that eloquently and accurately describes this transition.