Confessions of an Eco-Redneck

Confessions of an Eco-Redneck collects the best of outdoor writer Steve Chapple's short pieces. This is outdoor adventure writing at its best, in a league with Tim Cahill, Randy White, or PJ O'Rourke, and the essays range from fishing: for tigerfish on the Zambezi, tarpon in the Keys, trout on the Yellowstone; to hunting: the "Bambi Syndrome" (Hollywood's bias against the sport), "Dinner Bell Grizzlies," and stalking televisions in Montana; to the larger questions: "Now or Never for American Rivers," and the great unasked question about the Lewis & Clark expedition: "How were the bugs??" Underneath Steve Chapple's laugh-out loud wit there's a serious plea to environmentalists to remember that sportsmen (the eco-rednecks of the title) are among the most passionate and effective advocates for conservation of the environment that we've got.


"Steve Chapple teased the first spring belly-laugh from a long brutal Montana winter. Confessions of an Eco-Redneck demonstrates good humor and the wisdom to know that the modern American conservation movement is in real danger from disengagement with the natural world."

--Doug Peacock, author of Grizzly Years

"With wit and insight, Steve Chapple tries to reconcile the red-neck killer and the spirit of Thoreau that divides the hearts of American outdoorsmen. This book is worth reading for the chapter on TV hunting alone."

--Phil Caputo, author of a Rumor of War

"Chapple writes from the edge--and you will never view sport or wildness the same after his shrewd takes on hunting, fly fishing,the Zambezi, Bambi, dinosaurs, ecology, marriage, grizzlies, and much "mountain mayhem." He's brilliant, irritating,and uncommonly wise."

--Nick Lyons, author of A Flyfisher's World

"This red neck is nodding her eco-head back and forth saying, 'Yes! Yes! Yes! And I'll have whatever he's having! Steve Chapple's Confessions of an Eco-Redneck is great. He combines really funny stuff with the prophetic and the true, thereby insuring that every good outdoorswomen will think again. Read it."

--Rebecca Gray, Co-founder, Gray's Sporting Journal and Contributing Editor, Sports Afield

"Steve Chapple is the ideal paddling buddy: a keen observer, a fine storyteller, and a man who knows when to hang up his wetsuit and go find a cold beer."

--Joe Kane, author of Running he Amazon and Savages

"Steve Chapple writes with a machine gun--no hypocrite is safe."

--Rita Mae Brown,