Fishing Guide – My Short, Brilliant Career

Fishing Guide – My Short, Brilliant Career

The novelist John Gardner posited that there are really only two stories: A man goes on a journey, or a stranger comes to town. With all due respect to Gardner’s memory, however, I’d like to add a third: The telephone rings, and you answer it.  The caller identified...
The Day the Duck Hunters Died

The Day the Duck Hunters Died

Nothing escaped the “winds of hell” and the deadly, suffocating snows that swept across the Upper Midwest on that fateful day in 1940.

English Springer Spaniel: The Happy Medium Flusher

English Springer Spaniel: The Happy Medium Flusher

When it comes to flushing dog breeds, the English springer spaniel is a near-perfect blend of fun and functionality. If the German shorthair is the “happy medium” of the pointing dog set, the breed that fills this role in the flushing dog division is the springer...
German Shorthaired Pointer: The Low Maintenance Pointer

German Shorthaired Pointer: The Low Maintenance Pointer

In just about every respect you can think of, the German shorthaired pointer is the “happy medium” of pointing dogs. Years ago, I saw a sign near the first tee of a golf course that had a phrase in Latin inscribed above its translation in English. I don’t remember the...
Golden Retriever: The Original Party Animal

Golden Retriever: The Original Party Animal

Make no mistake – as eager as the golden retriever is to sniff out a good time, it’s even more eager to sniff out a skulking rooster. A while back, someone sent me a link to one of the damnedest video clips I’ve ever seen. There’s a wounded rooster pheasant sort of...
The Irish Setter: A Victim of Its Own Beauty

The Irish Setter: A Victim of Its Own Beauty

Askew’s Carolina Lady was, and is, the foundation female—the Eve, if you will—of the field-type Irish setter as we know it today. One day a friend of Ned LeGrande’s stopped by to visit him at his Willow Winds Farm, near Douglassville in southeastern Pennsylvania. At...
Lynn Bogue Hunt: The Best That He Could Be

Lynn Bogue Hunt: The Best That He Could Be

Angler, hunter and above all artist, Lynn Bogue Hunt was America’s most popular and prolific outdoor illustrator of the mid-20th century.  Note: This article is an excerpt from Tom Davis’ Lynn Bogue Hunt: Angler, Hunter, Artist.  Flushed by his success at Sports...
In the Field Trial Kingdom, Labs Rule 

In the Field Trial Kingdom, Labs Rule 

The Labrador retriever’s distinctions are many. If there’s one arena in which the Lab is utterly and incontrovertibly dominant, it’s retriever field trials. The most popular purebred dog in America; the most popular gundog, too: the Labrador retriever’s distinctions...
NFL Legend Bert Jones: A Bird Dog Man?

NFL Legend Bert Jones: A Bird Dog Man?

It might surprise you to know that NFL legend Bert Jones and his father Dub are hard-core quail hunters and bird dog men. Joe Augustine, who happens to be a friend of mine, is one of the handful of sportsmen who’s bagged every species of upland gamebird in North...