Zane Grey – High Seas Prophet

Zane Grey – High Seas Prophet

So what can we say of Zane Grey, this dentist turned novelist turned outdoor writer? He was a dentist and photography and a storyteller. He was one hell of a baseball player. He was husband and father and perpetual wanderer and a hunter and fisherman who once held...
All Writers Are Liars

All Writers Are Liars

All writers are liars, whether reef-fishing miles offshore on the Atlantic or fishing through a hole in the north country ice. The smokestack of the hulk gloomed from the depths, barely visible when the July sun ricocheted off the surface of the sea. Halfway to the...
Greatest North American Hunting Trip Ever

Greatest North American Hunting Trip Ever

It was the greatest North American hunting trip ever, though the men’s survival was always in doubt. Fall of 1804, Meriwether Lewis was halfway up the Missouri, St. Louis to Great Falls, though he could not name the Great Falls until he had seen them, yet many months...
Eastern Panther – Myth, Ghost, Legend

Eastern Panther – Myth, Ghost, Legend

The Lowcountry panther entered my dreams and my life. Haunting me when I slept, quickening my pulse and step when I was alone in the swamps come sundown. Daytimes, the Old Man looked off into middle distance. Nights, he gazed deep into campfire flames. He held us...
Bullets, Birds, and the Blessing of Saint Expedite

Bullets, Birds, and the Blessing of Saint Expedite

Shooting trip of a lifetime, Delta Flight 101 out of Hartsfield, non-stop to Buenos Aires. Easy flight, eat supper, stretch out, drift off, wake up speaking Spanish.   Five thousand some-odd miles at 700 some-odd miles-per-hour at 26,000 some-odd feet. But it’s hard...
The Family Rifle

The Family Rifle

Remington called it “The Gamemaster.” Serial number 260,000, one of more than a million made between 1952 and 1982. We met on the beach. I was doing turtle work for the DNR, she was on vacation. I was registered with the Feds with authority to possess and transport...
Deep South Bugs and Bucks: When Itches Collide

Deep South Bugs and Bucks: When Itches Collide

Lowcountry of South Carolina. Two-thirds of my county is underwater at high tide. If it bites, it lives here.   Deer flies, horse flies, dog flies, chiggers, sand-gnats, three flavors of ticks, assassin beetles, 56 separate species of mosquitoes, any number of...