In the days before before my friend and G&G contributing editor Charles Gaines died this past July, I sent him a note telling him how much our relationship meant to me. And I reminded him of the day we spent off Sea Island, Georgia, in search of tarpon during a G&G event. Along with the guide, we had a Presbyterian minister aboard who was decidedly better versed in spiritual matters than decking fish. That day I watched Gaines pivot between talking flies and strip sets to discussing gratitude walks and the duality of Saint Francis (who would become the subject of his last novel, which will be published in October). That was part of Gaines’s magic: A master of the classics and the art of living, he could hold court with anyone on nearly any topic.
I began working with Gaines in 1995 at Men’s Journal. He had by then become an expert at snagging assignments for his enviable fishing escapades and other adventures, and I was a lowly editorial assistant fact-checking his work. He was the embodiment of my magazine dream job. Of course, I knew of his past. Gaines’s 1974 book, Pumping Iron (inspired by a story he wrote for Sports Illustrated), introduced the world to Arnold Schwarzenegger and a reserved fellow named Lou Ferrigno. The resulting documentary, which the two bodybuilders starred in and Gaines narrated, launched Schwarzenegger, as he said in an Instagram post after Gaines’s death, “into the mainstream.” His first novel, Stay Hungry, with bodybuilding at its core, became the eponymous movie with a cast that included Sally Field, Jeff Bridges, Fannie Flagg, and, of course, Schwarzenegger.
Gaines wrote many more books, but my favorite is A Family Place, his memoir about building a cabin in Nova Scotia. It plumbs so much more than that, though—it is a treatise on hubris, fatherhood, and rebirth. I return to it often.
In many respects, Gaines and Garden & Gun were made for each other. For one of his last pieces for the magazine, I asked him to write a love letter to the largemouth bass. And in true Gaines fashion, it included an anecdote about taking the author Ralph Ellison fishing in a farm pond while Gaines was a student in the graduate writing program at the University of Iowa. An Alabama boy at heart, Gaines knew how to enjoy life in high style. He appreciated a great day on the water as much as he did a fine cigar and a glass of Armagnac. On his fishing trips, he always made time for a dive into the local culture, whether visiting a castle in Scotland or a seven-hundred-year-old church in Slovenia. And always with notebook in hand, fishing for the story that was more than fish.
David DiBenedetto is the senior vice president and editor in chief of Garden & Gun. He is the author of On the Run: An Angler’s Journey Down the Striper Coast and the cohost of The Wild South podcast. A native of Savannah, DiBenedetto now resides in Charleston, South Carolina, with his wife, Jenny, their two children, and their Labrador retriever, Story. Follow him on Instagram and X.