You've had a busy life as a family man, physician and adventurer. How did you come to be an outdoor writer as well?
I suppose it was an inevitable collision of two urges. My parents are avid outdoors people. I grew up with waterfowl, wingshooting and bird dogs. I actually have always loved to write and have a degree in English from the University of
California I earned before enrolling in medical school. I began to write about the outdoors professionally in the early '80s and found I enjoyed it. It gave me a fresh perspective on a lot of things I was doing in the outdoors, so it became a marriage of two basic instincts.