They Shoot Canoes, Don't They? by Patrick F. McManus

They Shoot Canoes, Don't They? Reviews

• 
  Caleb CW

  Man, I love these books. This shit gets funnier and funnier with every new essay. I highly recommend all of these. McManus got it right every time with his outdoor stories. This guy was truly a gem. 10 out of 10 will read again.
  
  There it is and there you have it.
• 
  Peter Tillman

  Huntin' and fishin' humor. My first try at McManus, and likely the last. I've read or skimmed a third of this slender collection, and really haven't liked any of them, though there are moments.
  
  I'll let it sit a few days & try again. Maybe.
  
  Or not. It came due; No loss, SFAICT.
• 
  Julie

  I grew up listening to my Dad and brothers read McManus stories aloud to the family. I didn't always get the jokes, but I loved all the silly antics. As an adult, I married into a family that has a lot of outdoors men in it. I was surprised to find that none of them had read any McManus, although I guess part of the reason is that none of them are big into reading at all.
  Anyway, I started looking around, trying to find some of the books to give to these men as gifts. That was when I discovered that McManus books can be difficult to find, except used from places like Amazon.
  As such, whenever I have found a copy of one at a thrift store I've snatched it up just in case.
  That is how I acquired this book, and even though I'm not super big into hunting or fishing myself, I do love camping and decided I'd read through it until the occasion arrived when I might give it away.
  It definitely gave me a good chuckle and brought back many memories.
  It was kind of funny to read them from an adult perspective and be able to get all the jokes.
  I would highly recommend them to any outdoors man.
• 
  Jim Corn

  Great bedside read if you get one of his books you will be hooked and want them all. This man is funny with great stories of his childhood hunting fishing and the great outdoors.
• 
  Connie Johnson

  This is a book that Lee has had for many years. Jackson loved it so I decided to venture outside my normal reading selections. It was like Erma Bombeck for dudes. I did laugh out loud a few times.
• 
  Stephanie R.

  A collection of very funny stories about "outdoorsie" things that happened to the author. Not only do they provide you with helpful hunting/fishing/camping advice, but they also provide insight into what it was like growing up in the 1970's, when a pair of "Tenner shoes" was 95 cents and that was very expensive. The author favors running gags and brick jokes, making it hard to pick out funny lines to quote. So, here are some of my favorite anecdotes:
  
  =The description of how a hunter's first deer grows in size, number of points, intelligence, and personality over time.
  =Explanation of why men go fishing in the winter
  =Tenner shoes (tennis shoes) and why they were so great
  =When the author built his own canoe but modified the design to make it easier to build by giving it a flat bottom and two square ends, so it ended up looking like a coffin for a snake.
  =The list of bad gifts bought by well-meaning people who want to get something "outdoorsie" such as "sleeping bag warmers for backpackers" which are actually bricks.
  =Terrible camp cooking, like the stew that contained pipe tobacco because the author was cooking in the dark
  =How Mr. Sneed the game warden sneaked up on people in humorous ways to catch them poaching.
  =Going backpacking in order to make it rain
  =When the author shot his first deer and tied it onto the back of his bicycle to take it home but it wasn't really dead and it woke up and tried to get away
• 
  Omar

  What can I say, Patrick McManus is awesome!
• 
  Mitch

  I almost wrote this only halfway into the book itself, so confident was I that Mr. McManus would stay consistently funny until the very end...and he didn't let me down.
  
  He writes about his outdoors woodsman experiences, many of which he recalled with considerable inaccuracy, from his childhood.
  
  He's hilarious.
  
  I'm not a camper, hunter or fisherman. This should be credentials enough to prove that the subject matter is not near and deer to my hart, but I still enjoyed Mr. McManus' comedic capabilities immensely.
  
  I am, however, a guy. I'm fairly certain you need to have at least one of these traits going for you to enjoy this book.
  
  If you qualify, go dig it up somewheres and head on out to a mountain stream where you can read it uninterruptedly while not doing all that annoying camping, fishing, etc. What an ideal spot for reading!
• 
  Sarah Piper

  Seriously cracks me up. There were a couple good stories (The Green Box, the B Western, Tenner Shoes) but Journal of an Expedition was Freaking Hilarious. Hip flask, snow shoes, a toboggan and three friends on a winter hike ... what a wonderful combination!!!
• 
  Robert

  If you know McManus, this is him. Nothing unexpected.* Always entertaining.
  
  *Now that I think about it this might be the first time I recall him ever using the word S-E-X. It was just the once, but still.
• 
  Marfita

  Funny as ever - especially the story about the first deer, which has a Wodehouse flavor to it. I had read this before, but some of it was still fresh. I don't agree with the comment that McManus writes the same story over and over and I was on the alert for this. You could say that about Wodehouse as well, but it's the way the story is told, not the story itself. McManus careens between self-aggrandizing and self-deprecation as he tells stories of life in the outdoors and of his brief love affair with someone from the office whose husband is supposed to be out of town. He gives "fileting" a whole new meaning ... that is totally undeserved.
• 
  Dan

  Reading McManus' column in Field and Stream was something that my Dad turned me on to many, many years ago. I still appreciate cornball humor from time to time.
• 
  Jerry

  Another great treasury of stories...and the fish tales get bigger....
• 
  Sharon M

  Very well written and hilarious!
• 
  Jay French

  I’m reading my way through Patrick McManus’ books of his articles from sporting magazines, and am nearing the end. “They Shoot Canoes, Don’t They?” is the one for today, and I say that I enjoyed this one quite a bit. There seem to be more of my favorite types of stories here, the ones from the author’s childhood, with his normal cast of characters, and with some new introductions, like the sporting goods store owner and Sneed, the fish and wildlife guy. Favorite of the bunch is a dog story, called Skunk Dog, of course about his dog Strange. McManus’ stories remind me not necessarily of what I and my friends did when we were young, but what we considered doing… Funny, one of his better ones.
• 
  Anthony

  Another collection of twenty-five short stories about the exploits of outdoor adventure as shared by the author as he tells of camping, fishing and hunting in a humorous way that only he can spin a yarn. A fun read, sure to bring a smile, if not a laugh out loud snort and giggle.
• 
  Wendy

  We read this for bedtime stories. We laughed and explained things that didn't quite make sense. It was great to laugh together.
• 
  Lila Deline

  So funny, great for hunters and non hunters alike.
• 
  Betsie Bush

  2019 Reading Challenge - A Humor Book.
  2019 Recommendation from Andrew.
  
  My dad read these books when I was a kid. So, this was a blast from the past for me.
  
• 
  Raine Parsons

  OMG! This writer is so funny. I am not a hunter or outdoorsman but I laughed my head off reading this. I loved it so much that I ordered 3 more of his books as a gift to my father.
• 
  Sharon Barrow Wilfong

  This is not my favorite McManus because it deals more with his adult life and I prefer his kid stories, but still very funny.
• 
  Mandy

  hilarious.