From Jim Shepherd
Hearing a deep “So… whattaya know” when answering my phone always brought a smile to my face.
It was a standard greeting from my longtime friend Jim Scoutten when he initiated one our too-infrequent catch-up phone calls. Calls that went on considerably longer than either of us would admit -and were marked with bursts of raucous laughter.
On Tuesday, a text message from his eldest son and TV successor, John, told me there wouldn’t be any more of those calls coming. Our friend, Jim Scoutten, 77, passed away yesterday after a brief illness.
For some of us, this loss is deeply personal.
For the thousands of us in the shooting community, it’s a sense of collective loss.
We’ve lost a friend and fellow shooter, an unapologetic Second Amendment supporter, and a guy we happily invited into our homes for more than three decades.

Jim Scoutten, 1945-2023
Jim Scoutten has been a permanent, positive figure -a celebrity, if you will- in the shooting industry and with outdoor television enthusiasts’ TV screens for three decades. He played a pivotal role in helping launch the careers of many of our sport’s best-known figures. He helped turn shooters into personalities by showing them as people. Read more