Phil DiFatta is a sportsman who has a way with words. Starting this week, he’ll be bringing those words to readers of PineBeltNEWS.
DiFatta is one of a number of columnists for the Hub City’s once daily newspaper who have brought their talents to the pages of the Pine Belt’s largest circulation newspaper. You’ll find his column weekly in PineBeltSPORTS (See Page 3B).
The lifelong outdoorsman – hunting, fishing, salt water and fresh water fishing and camping – is a Hattiesburg native who has been writing his outdoors column since 1982.
DiFatta is one of nine children, whose father, Charlie, ran a produce warehouse on East Hardy. Making his way through the Hattiesburg Public School District, DiFatta went on to further his education at Pearl River Community College where he played football, William Carey, where he played baseball and the University of Southern Mississippi where he was an average student – his words.
He and his wife, Regina, live in Purvis and have two grown children – Heather and Daniel. He also has five grandchildren – all girls.
He’s proud to say that the oldest, who is 16, got her first deer with a bow this year.
“The good part about that to me is that it was during gun season,” he said, grandpa proud. “She had taken a deer with a gun before, but never a bow.”
DiFatta said he’s got a couple of more granddaughters who are interested in the great outdoors. Most of them fish, according to DiFatta, but the oldest is real interested in hunting and fishing.
DiFatta considers his father the greatest fisherman there ever was and that’s where DiFatta’s interest was born.
“He could catch fish in a mud puddle and I couldn’t dynamite them in an aquarium,” DiFatta said jokingly.
He believes the love of the hunt was in his blood from an early age and recalls being 10 or 11 and armed with a child-size bow, making his way around the neighborhood shooting squirrels. The 68-year-old tucks his head in shame. With two younger brothers, who mostly enjoyed fishing, DiFatta doesn’t know why he was the one in the family who loved to go out and kill things…legally.
These days bow hunting and turkey hunting are at the top of his list of favorites.
“I’ve been fortunate,” he said, “that through the years I’ve had the opportunity to meet some famous people and hunt with them. It’s been fun.”
DiFatta doesn’t claim to be a professional journalist, with just one journalism course at USM under his belt.
“I still don’t know how to write, but I’ve just stumbled into it and have been doing it, more or less, as a hobby,” he said “Fortunately, I have had some good material provided to me.”
DiFatta said he’s worked on Royal typewriters, electric typewriters, where he thought he was in hog heaven, then a word processor, which left him with stacks and stacks of discs from all of those years.
“I enjoy bringing mostly stories of kids, like my granddaughter, to the written word,” he said. Currently he has two stories floating around about some pretty impressive recent takes he’s heard about around the Pine Belt.
DiFatta has also been lucky enough to have some of his stories published in national magazines. “Mostly regional, but nonetheless.” Some of those include Mississippi Game and Fish, Mississippi Woods and Waters, Gulf Coast Outdoors, Bowhunter Magazine, Turkey Magazine, Buckmasters, Rack and Magnolia Turkey Tales.
DiFatta also enjoys a good camping trip, especially with friends. “We hunt hard and lie big time around the campfire at night and have a great time,” he said. “It’s just more fun when it’s you, your friends and the outdoors.”
DiFatta hopes his newspaper columns encourage people to get outdoors and experience something wholesome.
“I understand and realize that there are some folks that it’s just not for them,” he said. “I don’t want to push it on them and don’t want them to push the anti on me. I try and educate the kids, as best I can, to do the right thing and be safe and get them involved so we don’t lose our privileges. Right now that’s what I’m dedicated to. That, and a lot of the organizations, who have come to rely on DiFatta getting their message out, like Ducks Unlimited, the National Turkey Federal, hunting seasons, safety and such as that.
And he has lots of ideas for specific type columns. Writing a book has been on his to-do list for quite some time.
“I said I was going to write a book when I retired from the produce business,” he said. “I have stacks and stacks of notes. My son says my middle name is not Allen, but procrastination.”
His daughter loves the hunt of the sports and his son, well, DiFatta said he created a monster there. He and Daniel have enjoyed hunts across the United States and had quite a record-breaking trip to New Mexico, where they both fared quite well, hunting for elk. But most of all, he’s proud that both his children are sportsmen.
DiFatta has been a member of the Outdoor Writers Association of America since 1984 and was awarded first place in outdoor writing by the Mississippi Sports Writers Association in 1983, 84, 85, 86 and 93. He was named the Mississippi Wildlife Federation Conservation Communicator of the Year in 2004, Forrest County Soil and Water Conservation District Wildlife Reporter of the Year in 1986 and 98 and won the National Wild Turkey Federation Outdoor Communication Award in 2006.
He encourages people to send him information, story ideas and photos to pdifatta@hotmail.com.
