David Payne grew up on the banks of the Elk River, where he developed a love of hunting, fishing and writing. Influenced at an early age by the columns of Andy Hansroth, Lewis Grizzard, Dave Barry, and John McCoy, Payne has been writing outdoors columns since the mid 1990s, when he wrote a monthly outdoors column for his college newspaper, "The Battler Columns" at Alderson-Broaddus College in Philippi.
For several years, he wrote a weekly West Virginia Press-Association award-winning outdoors column for The Parkerburg News and The Parkersburg Sentinel newspapers. He currently writes a weekly outdoors column for The Putnam Standard and The Cabell Standard and is Fish and Game editor for West Virginia Explorer.
David Payne can be contacted via e-mail at davidpayne@theputnamstandard.com
