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An American humorist who writes about outdoor activities such as hunting and fishing; for many years he contributed articles to Outdoor Life magazine, and is now an "Editor At Large". Said articles usually focus on his misadventures in the outdoors, or his retelling highly-fictionalized anecdotes from his youth, which was mostly spent in the small town of Sandpoint (AKA "Blight"), Idaho.
In recent years, he has turned to writing a series of comedic mystery novels set in an even more fictionalized modern-day Blight; the sheriff protagonist's elderly father is essentially an Author Avatar.
His work contains examples of:[]
- The Alleged Car: the Mountain Car, affectionately named after his high school English teacher, Mrs. Peabody.
- Always Gets His Man: Sneed, the local game warden.
- Big Sister Bully: the Troll.
- Blatant Lies: Cheerfully lampshaded.
- Brick Joke: His articles often end with one of these.
- Captain Ersatz: Not of anyone famous, but of the people he grew up with.
- Horrible Camping Trip: Numerous examples of It Got Worse.
- Lethal Chef: Important hunting-camp tip: never ever eat the green hash.
- Another such example, also mentioned in the same narrative as Green Hash, is Whatcha-Got Stew, a concoction which is always improvised on the spot and composed of whatever foodstuffs the campers have in their possession, regardless of whether or not said foodstuffs were ever intended to be used together. Instructions for preparation include not staring directly into the pot.
- Mountain Man: His childhood mentor, Rancid Crabtree.
- Narrative Profanity Filter: "Bleeping bleep of a bleep!"
- No Sense of Direction: McManus himself; he invented the Modified Stationary Panic, which helps keep you from getting even more lost.
- Nostalgia Filter
- The Pig Pen: Rancid
- Rambling Old Man Monologue
- Self-Deprecation: A Running Gag in his writing is his own inability to successfully hunt or fish for pretty much anything.
- Too Dumb to Live: Several inhabitants of Blight, such as his cousin Buck, and his best friend Retch Sweeney.
- Unusual Euphemism: His neighbor Al Finley likes to call people by crude anatomical names, like "elbow" or "kneecap".
- Write Who You Know