Charles Latham Gaines, Jr. (born January 6, 1942) is an American writer and outdoorsman, notable for numerous works in both the fiction and non-fiction genres. His writing most typically concerns the outdoors sports of fishing in general and fly fishing in particular, as well as upland bird hunting and mountaineering, often with an intellectual and philosophical bent, and an eye towards the various cultures and traditions surrounding different forms of fishing around the world.
In addition to his outdoors writings, Gaines covered the "Golden Age" of professional bodybuilding and is the author of Pumping Iron, considered the definitive journalistic work in that field, and credited in large part for bringing greater public awareness to what was formerly a little-known subculture, as well as helping to launch the career of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Gaines also narrated and contributed to the documentary film of the same name.
During a long and varied writing career Charles Gaines has published 25 books, among them the novels, "Stay Hungry" (a finalist for the National Book Award), "Dangler", and "Survival Games"; the non-fiction international bestseller, "Pumping Iron"; and the award-winning memoir, "A Family Place". The book “Pumping Iron” and a later film of the same title written and narrated by Gaines, are widely credited for having introduced both bodybuilding and Arnold Schwarzenegger to the general public.
He also wrote the scripts for two produced feature films, two award-winning feature-documentaries, and a 2-hour PBS adaptation of Edith Wharton’s, “Summer”, as well as numerous segments for ABC’s “American Sportsman”, a show for which he also directed and produced. For his television writing he was the recipient of two Emmys, and two Cine Golden Eagle Awards.
He is a life-long bird hunter and angler who has fished in over 20 countries and on 5 continents. His two collections of essays on angling, "The Next Valley Over"[3] and "Waters Far and Near" [4] are widely considered to be among the best American books of that genre. He was a founding member of the US Fly Fishing Team, and fished as a member of that team in World Championship Fly Fishing Competitions in New Zealand and Tasmania.
He is a lifetime board member of the US Fly Fishing Team, and a US National Council member of the Atlantic Salmon Federation. He was named a Distinguished Alumnus by both The Altamont School and Birmingham Southern College, and has taught periodically as an Associate Professor in the Graduate Creative Writing Program at Spalding University in Louisville, KY. In 2018 he was inducted into the Alabama Writers Hall of Fame, and he was the 2020 recipient of the coveted Truman Capote Prize for lifetime achievement in non-fiction
Invention of paintball
In 1980, Charles Gaines and his friend Hayes Noel, a stock trader from New York City, had an argument about whether the talent for survival was an ingrained instinct adaptable to any environment (Noel), or a pattern of learned behavior specific to a particular environment (Gaines). Noel held that his ability to survive and thrive in the Wall Street jungle was transferable to a true jungle, the woods, or anywhere else. Gaines, a life-long outdoorsman, argued that while he could not compete with Noel in the city, he would be more than his match in the woods.
Gaines lived at the time on a farm in New Hampshire where he raised sheep. Shortly after the argument with Noel, a friend sent him a catalogue of products for stockmen. In it was a CO2-powered pistol, made by a company called Nel-Spot, which shot a single oil-based dye pellet and was used for marking bred-ewes, and by foresters to mark trees. Seeing a way to finally test their argument, Noel and Gaines ordered two of the pistols and some pellets and hunted each other in the woods on Gaines’s farm.
Doing so proved to be so exhilarating that they decided to invite ten other men to play a game they devised off the trial run, which they named “The Survival Game”. The object of the game was for a player to collect each of four different-colored flags located at widely separated “flag stations” inside a large tract of woods, and to be the first player to emerge from the woods with all four flags without being marked by another player’s paint pellet. Gaines enlisted his friend Bob Gurnsey, a New Hampshire ski-shop owner, to help him and Noel organize the game, and in June of 1981 the three men, along with nine other friends, played the first paintball game ever played in Henniker, New Hampshire.
Among the players in that game were three writers for national magazines. All of them wrote articles about the game, and Gaines was deluged with letters from people all over the country who wanted to play the Survival Game. To meet that demand, Gaines, Noel and Gurnsey formed a company called The National Survival Game, which standardized rules for both individual and team versions of the game, and was the first company to sell paintball equipment.[5][6]
Related Research Articles
Pumping Iron is a 1977 American docudrama about the world of professional bodybuilding, with a focus on the 1975 IFBB Mr. Universe and 1975 Mr. Olympia competitions. Directed by George Butler and Robert Fiore and edited by Geof Bartz and Larry Silk, it is inspired by a book of the same name by Butler and Charles Gaines, and nominally centers on the competition between Arnold Schwarzenegger and one of his primary competitors for the title of Mr. Olympia, Lou Ferrigno. The film also features segments on bodybuilders Franco Columbu and Mike Katz, in addition to appearances by Ken Waller, Ed Corney, Serge Nubret, and other famous bodybuilders of the era.
Recreational fishing, also called sport fishing or game fishing, is fishing for leisure, exercise or competition. It can be contrasted with commercial fishing, which is professional fishing for profit; or subsistence fishing, which is fishing for survival and livelihood.
George Tyssen Butler was a British filmmaker and photographer, and a pioneer of the theatrical documentary. Some of his most popular films include Pumping Iron (1977), which introduced a wider audience to Arnold Schwarzenegger, The Endurance films, retelling Sir Ernest Shackleton's saga of Antarctic survival, and Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry (2004), about his friend John Kerry's leadership in the peace movement.
Richard Stuart Walker was an English angler.
In Britain and Ireland, coarse fishing refers to angling for rough fish, which are fish species traditionally considered undesirable as a food or game fish. Freshwater game fish are all salmonids — most particularly salmon, trout and char — so generally coarse fish are freshwater fish that are not salmonids. There is disagreement over whether grayling should be classified as a game fish or a coarse fish.
Sheridan Andreas Mulholland Anderson was an American outdoorsman, fly fisherman, author, and illustrator.
Hugh Falkus was a British writer, filmmaker and presenter, World War II pilot and angler. In an extremely varied career, he is perhaps best known for his seminal books on angling, particularly salmon and sea trout fishing; however, he was also a noted filmmaker and broadcaster for the BBC.
An artificial fly or fly lure is a type of fishing lure, usually used in the sport of fly fishing. In general, artificial flies are an imitation of aquatic insects that are natural food of the target fish species the fly fishers try to catch. Artificial flies are constructed by fly tying, in which furs, feathers, thread or any of very many other materials are tied onto a fish hook.
This general annotated bibliography page provides an overview of notable and not so notable works in the English language regarding the sport of fly fishing, listed by year of first publication. Although not all the listed books are devoted exclusively to fly fishing, all these titles contain significant fly fishing content. The focus of the present page is on classic general texts on fly fishing and its history, together with notable public or university library collections dedicated to fly fishing.
Fishing is a prehistoric practice dating back at least 40,000 years. Since the 16th century, fishing vessels have been able to cross oceans in pursuit of fish, and since the 19th century it has been possible to use larger vessels and in some cases process the fish on board. Fish are normally caught in the wild. Techniques for catching fish include hand gathering, spearing, netting, angling and trapping.
This page is a list of fishing topics.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to fishing:
Favorite Flies and Their Histories - With many replies from practical anglers to inquiries concerning how, when and where to use them-Illustrated by Thirty-two colored plates of flies, six engravings of natural insects and eight reproductions of photographs is a fly fishing book written by Mary Orvis Marbury published in Boston in April 1892 by Houghton Mifflin. It was considered by most fly fishers as the standard reference on flies in its era.
Blacker's Art of Fly Making - comprising angling and dyeing of colours with engravings of Salmon and Trout flies shewing the process of the gentle craft as taught in the pages with descriptions of flies for the season of the year as they come out on the water is a work of fly tying literature with significant fly fishing content written by William Blacker, a London tackle dealer and first published in London in 1842 by George Nichols. The 1842 and 1843 editions were only 48 pages while, the 1855 edition was considerably expanded by Blacker with hand-painted, colored illustrations and 252 pages.
This annotated bibliography is intended to list both notable and not so notable works of English language, non-fiction and fiction related to the sport of fly fishing listed by year published. Although 100% of any book listed is not necessarily devoted to fly fishing, all these titles have significant fly fishing content. Included in this bibliography is a list of species related fly fishing literature.
This annotated bibliography is intended to list both notable and not so notable works of English language, non-fiction and fiction related to the sport of fly fishing listed by year published. Although 100% of any book listed is not necessarily devoted to fly fishing, all these titles have significant fly fishing content. Included in this bibliography is a list of fly tying, fly tackle, regional guides, memoirs, stories and fly fishing fiction related literature.
Fly Fishing, first published in 1899 by English author and diplomat Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon (1862–1933), is a book about fly fishing English chalk streams and spate rivers for trout and salmon. It includes reminisces about the author's fly fishing experiences on Hampshire rivers. The book was in print for nearly 50 years and has been extensively reprinted in the 21st century.
Lee Wulff, born Henry Leon Wulff, was an artist, pilot, fly fisherman, author, filmmaker, outfitter and conservationist who made significant contributions to recreational fishing, especially fly fishing and the conservation of Atlantic Salmon.
Arthur Victor Oglesby was a British writer, photographer, filmmaker, broadcaster and fisherman. He was best known for his books on salmon fishing.
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