A writer, Gaines mostly wrote about outdoors topics, especially fishing: he was a founding member of the U.S. Fly Fishing Team. But he always had his eye out for something unusual to write about, and his best-known title came from that: he covered the “Golden Age” of bodybuilding, resulting in the book, Pumping Iron: The Art and Sport of Bodybuilding * (1974), still considered the definitive journalistic work in that field. Spectacular photos by George Butler made it a huge best-seller, and led to a documentary of the same title, with Gaines narrating and Butler producing. The 1977 film about the 8 November 1975 Mr. Olympia competition in Pretoria, South Africa, primarily focused on the battle between 5-time champion Arnold Schwarzenegger, who hopes to win one last time before retiring, and Lou Ferrigno, who wants to dethrone the champion.
Schwarzenegger wins and retires from competitive bodybuilding, and the film made him a celebrity, leading to film roles and, eventually, to being elected Governor of California (2003-2011). “There was no adventure too big for Charles Gaines,” Schwarzenegger posted online after Gaines’ death. “You hear me say it over and over: I’m not a self-made man.” Gaines, who became a “lifelong friend,” is “one of the people who helped make me who I am. … I can still hear his voice. ‘Hey Oak!’ — always followed by some unbelievable insight or philosophy, always giving us the greatest gift: making us think.”
While that was certainly Gaines’ best-remembered writing project, he’ll probably be better known for what came after one of those philosophical insights. In 1980, he and his best friend, stock-trader Hayes Noel, had an argument. Noel said that the survival instinct was just that, and adaptable to any environment — his ability to survive the “Wall Street jungle” would transfer to help him survive in a real jungle or other wild environment. Gaines said that no, despite his years of experience as an outdoorsman, he could easily survive in the wild, but could not compete with Noel’s experience in “surviving” New York City.
Shortly after that, Gaines saw a pistol in a catalog: it shot an oil-based dye pellet for foresters to mark trees. He had an epiphany, realizing that would be a way to test Noel’s argument. He ordered two of them, and competed with Noel in the forest around his farm: they hunted each other, with each entering the 40-acre plot on opposite sides. “Within about 20 minutes I came around a big maple tree, and Hayes was sitting on a rock,” Gaines remembered. “I walked right up behind him, and put the barrel of the gun right on his neck. I said, ‘Alright, I don’t want to shoot you, who wins?’” They both knew the answer.
They were so exhilarated by the experience that they devised “The Survival Game” and invited friends with what Gaines called “demonstrable survival capacity” to try it out. Gaines called in friend Bob Gurnsey, a ski-shop owner, to help set it up, and Noel, Gaines, Gurnsey, and nine of their friends did the first trial run in June 1981: the game of “Paintball” was born. It helped that three of the guests were magazine writers: they all wrote about the Survival Game. That set up such demand that Gaines started a new company, National Survival Game, which standardized rules for both individual and team versions of the game, and was the first company to sell paintball equipment. Why was the game instantly popular? “The idea of running through the woods, competing and in a way, sort-of symbolically surviving, those go way back into our genetic development.” Presumably, some situational experience is still required.
In April, the American Museum of Fly Fishing in Manchester, Vt., honored Gaines with its 2026 Heritage Award for his primary profession: writing about the outdoors. At that event, Gaines said that “As you get older, your passion for catching a lot of fish — the bigger fish, more fish than the guy you’re fishing with — starts to wane, and you start to appreciate the experience of being there, wherever you are.” In other words, he was more interested in simply being. “Every time you cast a fly, you’re throwing a question into something you can’t see, and I’ve always seen the metaphor between questioning why we’re here, what we’re supposed to do with our lives, as analogous to fishing in that way. Because every morning when we wake up, we’re casting a fly into the unknown. And so, I think there’s a profound connection between angling and spiritual life.” Charles Latham Gaines III died July 21 from cancer in Monastery, Nova Scotia, Canada. He was 84.