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Published on: 5/13/2008
Last Visited: 5/30/2008
"Everybody loves a list," said Andrew McKean, Outdoor Life's hunting editor and the man who wrote the Top 200 article for the magazine."Vernal's actually one of the towns that prompted this list.I've always been enamored or enchanted by Vernal because it's a nice size town, but also because it's just surrounded by this really stunning diversity of opportunity."
The top 10 spots on the list are occupied by: Mountain Home, Ark.; Lewiston, Idaho; Sheridan, Wyo.; Cody, Wyo.; Pocatello, Idaho; Lewiston, Mont.; Marquette, Mich.; Dillon, Mont.; Page, Ariz.; and Bismarck, N.D.
McKean, who lives in Glasgow, Mont., said the list was the product of 3½ years of gathering personal experiences in communities across America, and casually quizzing fishing and hunting guides, Realtors, public officials, and well-traveled hunters and anglers.That effort led to a roster of about 400 towns.
"There as nothing real scientific about choosing 200," McKean said."We filtered the list through criteria like demographics, economic information, climate, and fishing and hunting opportunities - how in the world do you rank and rate something like that?"
Editors with Outdoor Life assigned a greater value to the number of wildlife species that could be hunted or fished for in a given area; the accessibility or proximity to public lands; whether wildlife were of trophy quality which might give a locale destination appeal; and the average weather conditions for each town on the list.
"The public land value is really one that benefited the western states," McKean said."You've got a lot more public lands in Utah than in Massachusetts.It's a double edged sword though: with this national energy policy you've got an awful lot of exploration - and I would say exploitation in some cases - going on, but you've also got the great benefit of public lands right outside your town."
McKean said there was a debate by the editorial staff about whether it was fair to look at average income and home price and weight it against wildlife opportunities.
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"I really appreciate his perspective and it's been fun to look at the collective reactions of people to this ranking," said McKean, who called Stewart one the best wildlife outreach managers."Some people are very possessive of the opportunities in their town and they don't want anybody to know about it.Other people are saying, 'What about us?You didn't give us a fair shake.'"
McKean said Outdoor Life plans to update its Top 200 list every year, with tweaks to the ranking criteria.He call the list a "snapshot" of the areas surveyed, but added that over time he believes it will become a real value for outdoor enthusiasts.
"We had some real favorite towns as we developed this list," he said.
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