Why the Wye

Why the Wye

An act of God combined with a dash of Grace creates a trout stream of royal proportion. Not far from the dirt path was a field thick with wide stalks of dark green, calf-high grass. To get a glimpse of the sun, wildflowers in nearly every hue—soft purple and blue,...
Winchester Lofts

Winchester Lofts

In my late teens, the Connecticut drinking age was a youthful 18 years of age. As a result, my buddies and I spent time knocking around in the closest city, which was New Haven. Sometimes we hit a place called the Brewery that sold 130-something different types of...
Dog Fight

Dog Fight

What gives with such shabby treatment toward man’s best friend? After a week of sunshine, the field made muddy by heavy spring rains transformed the clover and alfalfa into a thick sea of green. There were lots of wildflowers, and the few I could identify—primrose,...
Lost & Found

Lost & Found

Nothing about pulling a kennel from the back of my pickup and placing it on the ground in the jack pines’ shadows felt right. Tossing in a stinky t-shirt in the kennel was something you do with puppies not adult dogs. Leaving bowls of chow and water next to the open...
25 Years of the Super Retriever Series

25 Years of the Super Retriever Series

Spring rains in southeastern Georgia can be either a blessing or a curse. If they’re cold, then handlers running Labs will need a lot of layers to knock down the chill. If they’re warm, then the heat combined with high water levels will bring out the water moccasins....
Arriving in Tinkhamtown

Arriving in Tinkhamtown

“He was going back to Tinkhamtown. It was a long way, but he knew where he was going. He would follow the road through the woods and over the crest of a hill and down the hill to the stream, and cross the sagging timbers of the bridge, and on the other side would be the place called Tinkhamtown. He was going back to Tinkhamtown.”

Hunting Retriever Club: Celebrating 40 Years

Hunting Retriever Club: Celebrating 40 Years

Happy 40th Birthday HRC!  I rolled down the window when I saw the cloud of smoke billowing out from behind the food truck. It didn’t matter that there weren’t many restaurants in Bono, Arkansas, ’cause this one smelled great. There was a man sitting at a picnic table...
The Meat Dog

The Meat Dog

“Any dog courageous enough to bust himself up to point a bird for me earns my respect. And it is for their tireless and gritty hard work that I am forever grateful.”