Keith McCafferty

Contributing Writer

Keith McCafferty has wanted to write for Field & Stream since reading A.J. McClane’s fishing columns as a boy. He has been writing for F&S for 42 years, with many hundreds of articles under his byline. He has been the Health and Safety columnist, the Outdoor Skills columnist, and the Survival columnist, yet none-the-less has managed to get lost in the woods in four different states. He lives in Montana, probably.

Highlights

Covers survival, big-game hunting, and steelhead fishing
Award-winning journalist and author
Author of the Sean Stranahan mystery series set on the rivers in Montana and published by Penguin Books

Experience

McCafferty’s flair for writing has earned him many awards. He is a two-time National Magazine Awards finalist, for stories in Field & Stream, and winner of the 2003 Robert Traver Award for angling literature. McCafferty is the recipient of the Will Rogers Gold Medallion Award and the Western Writers of America Spur Award for Best Novel. Two of his novels were chosen as Best Reads by Oprah Winfrey's "O" magazine. McCafferty has been the featured speaker at the Outdoor Writers of America conference and at Bouchercon, the annual World Mystery conference. He is a veteran of podcasts, television interviews, and book events around the country. In 2022, he will speak at the International Hemingway Society Conference in Cooke City, Wyoming.

Education

McCafferty graduated from Steubenville High School in Ohio. He has a Bachelor’s Degree in Zoology from Duke University and a Master’s Degree in Journalism from the University of Michigan.

Interesting Fact

McCafferty has always gravitated to the most difficult of outdoor sports—fly fishing for steelhead and tracking elk on public lands. He is a wild-bird rescue person and an amateur herpetologist. Among his most interesting finds are rubber boas in his home state and an Indian python in India.