Texoma Stripers!
“We’re almost over the top of them . . . start dropping ‘em. When they hit bottom, crank up three rounds.” Chris Carey instructed Luke Clayton, Jeff Rice and me. Turning toward me specifically, Chris said with a chuckle, “Larry start stripping!” Smiling wryly, I said:...
The Phantom Setter
Originally published in The Saturday Evening Post in 1961, this story is one of the finest ever written about gundogs and grouse hunting. It is certainly the most chilling.
The Fog
The battered F-150 pulled onto the beach at 3:00 a.m. The air, heavy with fog, smelled of rotting kelp, salt air and wet sand. It was a scent that he seldom thought of, but today it made him briefly reflective. I took this crap for granted, he thought. If a smell...
Negley Farson Forgotten Giant of the Angling World
Over the years I’ve read what I personally consider one of the great books of angling literature, Negley Farson’s Going Fishing, three or four times. It’s a book, similar to Robert Ruark’s The Old Man and the Boy or Nash Buckingham’s De Shootinest Gent’man, that...
A Master of Stellar Heights
On a summer afternoon long ago in Bozeman, Montana, a grouping of paintings stopped me in my tracks. These were not major works by painter Ralph Oberg, but depictions of high elevation lakes in Glacier National Park of Montana. Their water, set in bowls carved out by...
Arrow for a Battlewagon
It may sound strange to talk on the subject of hunting an African rhinoceros with a bow and arrow. In fact some folks thought the idea insane, and to attempt the feat sheer suicide. Despite such a negative attitude, I believed a seasoned bowhunter could do it. But I’d...
Ghost Light on the Land’s End Road
I was suddenly awash in pale blue phosphorescence and I briefly reckoned poor ventilated Private Quigley had his chilly arms around me! Right turn at Frogmore, south down a dozen miles of two-lane island blacktop, through woods and swamps and fields, to old Fort...
Russell Moccasin 2026 Patina Thunderdome Boot
The Stitchdown Patina Thunderdome is an annual institution in the boot world. Its a chance for enthusiasts to show off their boots and how they age. This year we are building a dedicated boot specifically for folks who want to enter a pair in the competition. These...
Grizzly Encounter
Rick bent to one knee checking blood splatters on three-day-old snow crunching under his weight. It appeared pinkish—possibly lung blood. Staring up the hill, his gaze followed the mule deer’s tracks running straight to the top before disappearing into exposed rocks....
A Door in the Woods
“Good boy, Rex, easy now. Whoa on the bird!” The gathering gloaming of the approaching evening made it rather difficult to see what I was doing as I fought my way through the wicked tangle of greenbrier vines draped across the dense trees in front of me. I struggled...
The Back-up Plan
Magnum raindrops pelted the north wall of the lodge. Early pre-dawn temperatures continued to drop. I loved it! For the past several days, the afternoon highs had been in the mid-80s, not what most would consider “ideal deer hunting weather.” The falling temperature...
How to Become A Great Fly Fisherman
I had an interesting phone conversation with angling legend Tom Rosenbauer. Tom, who has been the face of Orvis fly fishing for as far back as I can remember, called and wanted to talk trout fishing. Specifically, he asked me what folks need to do to become truly...
The Bird Wrangler
For South African Trevor Comins, perfection is a safari on the fly. The beast is dead, but that’s when it becomes dangerous. Forty yards in the sky, the 22-pound spur-winged goose plummets toward my blind like a feathered meteorite. When calculating the lead on the...
A Battle for Survival
Precariously perched in the small tree, the hunter peered into the night, his eyes slowly adjusting to the eerie light cast by the moon. The year was 1903; the place: Sabi Sands, South Africa. Harry Wolhuter was shaking from a combination of cold and fear. What was...
The Killer of the Wynaad
To the south-west of the city of Mysore lies the heavily forested area of the Kakankote jungles, for centuries the home of many herds of wild elephants that are partial to the kind of jungle that grows in this district. The rainfall is heavy and the vegetation is...
Boundary Waters Vote Provides Fuel to Raise Money, But the Reality is Far From the Posturing
You’d think, listening to the loudest voices in the outdoor community lately, that the Boundary Waters had just been handed over to a mining company with a bow on top. Fundraising emails, social posts, and urgent alerts have painted a picture of imminent, irreversible...
Colonel Colt and His Pistols
For nearly two centuries, Samuel Colt's firearms have been changing the course of history. And the legacy lives on. By all indications, he never should have succeeded in life, and if he had listened to what others told him, the name of Samuel Colt would probably be...
The Legacy of James Purdey & Sons
In the long and storied history of gunmaking, there is no name more renowned than that of James Purdey. His rise to fame began 200 years ago, give or take, when he opened a small shop at 4 Princes St., Leicester Square, London, for the purpose of making and selling...
“Caring Karen” Messer Goes Bream Fishing
As those who have read previous episodes of the ongoing misadventures of Mollygrubs Messer will recall, his nosy, busybody, and termagant-in-training mother, who in rather grandiose fashion styled herself “Caring Karen,” was, to use a description common in the...
Last Moment Grizzly
We were hunting just west of the line that divides Alaska’s coastal brown bears from inland grizzlies on a broad river where both grizzlies and black bear lived along with a few red and dog salmon as well as delicious Dolly Varden trout. With me was my guide, Blake...
Some Grouse You Never Forget
He was a young man, barely past his 25th birthday, slim and fit in the way of young men who follow dogs in the high mountains. His companion, Big Sam, was a huge, muscular, raw-boned pointer with a head like a mule—in size as well as temperament. Sam was a “big-going,...
The King of Birds and the God of Thunder
It is said that in the early days of the world, the ocellated turkey (Meleagris ocellata; in Maya, Yuum kuutz) was a bird of pedestrian plumage with a melodious voice while the nightjar (Antrostomus badius; in Maya, Pu'ujuy) was clothed in resplendent finery. So, Kuutz...
Lone Eagle
He drove 70 miles of rugged road carved through bush country in the Outaouais region of western Quebec. The final leg of a long haul. Three weeks into May along the Canadian Shield meant rutting bears. Jack had bow sights set on a big boar. He followed camp owner...
The Problem With Non-Resident Fee Increases
There is an old understanding in the American West—one that predates wildlife agencies, tag lotteries, and glossy brochures—that the land belongs to all of us. Not in the romantic, abstract sense, but in a very literal one. Millions upon millions of acres across...
The Photograph
It hangs on the wall in my study, framed and matted, and like all photographs, freezing one fleeting moment in time. I call it One Old Double in a Field of Autos, but actually, the title isn’t totally accurate. The “field” really consists of four autoloaders and four...
Fishing for Night Crawlers: A Mollygrubs Messer Angling Adventure
In some senses you have to feel sorry for the seemingly endless mélange of misery which Mollygrubs Messer somehow managed to become involved. A prime example involved an out-of-state trout fishing trip with a buddy and a couple of adult companion. The plan was for the...
The Lasting Legacy of Nash Buckingham
Regrets are scratches on the furniture of our lives that can never be polished away. The scars of fate that shoved aside dreams, the wounds of choices ill-chosen, the lesions of opportunities lost or dreams abandoned. Some are shallow; some are deep. Some settle...
The Waterhole
At the muddy little pond, a 12-year-old boy would find his place in the world.
A Record-Book Bruin
Two hunters head out after moose and wind up in the record books instead.
Grand Canyon Bucks
The legendary hunter and gunwriter pursues big mule deer in the shadow of the Grand Canyon in this 1938 classic.
Trout Magic in Words: The Anatomy of a Fly Fisherman
More years ago than it is completely comfortable for me to ponder, I wrote a series of profiles on celebrated angling writers for a little publication, Fly-Fishing News. The bimonthly offering, featuring noted sporting scribes such as John Gierach, Lefty Kreh and Paul...
NRA Reloaded: Returning to the Fold
I’ll admit it plainly: I was among the early and unflinching critics when the National Rifle Association’s internal failures came into public view. I wrote about it, spoke about it, and—like many longtime members—wondered how an institution with such a storied history...
New England Woodcock and Storied Shotguns
Storied is not exclusive to price tag or class. Occasionally the twain rub shoulders and have a bountiful supply of tales to tell, but there are no guarantees. This Purdey, however, had it all. Scratches and dings and rubbed-smooth spots. Cost? Likely something...
Highly Desirable Turkey Books From The Library of an Icon
Soon after the National Wild Turkey Federation was founded in 1973, the organization began publishing its house magazine, Turkey Call. The publication’s first editor, Gene Smith, was a veteran in the field who had cut his editing teeth working for Florida’s state...
Brays Island Plantation: Your Sporting Life Awaits
Spring has arrived at Brays Island, and owners get to enjoy all that the change of season brings: turkey season; hungry redfish in the waterways surrounding Brays; cobia season; and perfect weather for a day on the sporting clays course, golf course, or equestrian...
The Best Grouse Hunting Writer and More?
Some years ago, I was bird-hunting in Idaho with the brothers Wayment: Shawn, a veterinarian who blogs as the “Bird Dog Doc,” and Andy, an attorney who also happens to be the author of Idaho Ruffed Grouse Hunting. One afternoon, walking through a golden seam of...
Training Across
Those of us who spend lifetimes hunting and fishing learn in time that skills attained wild serve very efficiently in the struggles that eventuate in tamer, but trying, environs of modern living. Attributes of stoicism, self-discipline, perseverance, determination,...
Attacked by a Leopard!
Although Robert Ruark was regularly exposed to dangerous animals during his hunts, and though he had a great many narrow escapes, he only got hurt once. This happened on shikar in 1962, in the Madhya Pradesh region near Betul in Central India. There, a wounded leopard...
The Winchester Model 97
The first time I saw the 97, I knew where it came from: that era, that time around the turn of the century when men just hunted and really did not ask the question, “Why?” That is simply what they did; you can see it in the eyes of the men in an old photograph from...
Thumping “Button Trout!”
It’s like someone thumped the middle of your back with their fist, firmly, but not too hard,” Capt. Justin explained. “When you feel that, tighten your line and strike the fish with everything you’ve got.” But before the “thump” happened, I needed to sling a...
Cheju Do Pheasant Hunt
Back in 1968 I was doing penance for some perceived past sins at Kwang Ju, a remote air base in Korea. I had arrived there on a hot, sweltering night in mid-August to serve a 13-month tour as an Air Force munitions officer. As I staggered out the rear cargo door of a...
In Pursuit of the MacNab
I’m very sorry, sir, but you cannot take a handgun to the United Kingdom. Confused, I responded, “I understand that, Ma’am. Handguns are also prohibited in Canada.” Yes, but your booking form says you are bringing a “shot gun,” which is a type of handgun. Err . . . ...
Little Windy and the Wingshooting Woman
She was a green-eyed freckle-faced redhead, long of hair and limb, married a couple of times before I met her but neither lasted too long. Her name, literally translated, meant "the daughter of an angel of bright shining light," and it was true, mostly. She was a...
The Gift Bird
There wasn’t a turkey gobbling anywhere as I moseyed toward the log landing where Jill and I were to rendezvous at midmorning. We’d selected the spot because it was convenient, because we could both find it with no problem from where we’d each started, and because it...
The Borrowed Gun
Our son, Jamie, is 10 years old. Today, after much pleading, he is with me at a cabin on the South Island of New Zealand, a long way from anywhere. There at the head of the valley, the snow looms high overhead, waterfalls cascade off the mountainside and fingers of...
Little Guns Big Birds
I’ve always had a healthy respect for the .410 as long as it was restricted to small birds at short range.
Fishing Up Emmaus Way
To this day I’m still not certain where he came from, and for the briefest moment he startled me. It doesn’t much matter where I have been or where I am going; I still can’t quite decide which is the better part of a fly fishing day, the Going In or the Coming Out. It...
Watch: Chasing Light
Wildlife photographer Wyman Meinzer is, more than anything else, a Texan. After years as a hunter, trapper & marksman, this outdoor pioneer traded in his rifle to stare down the barrel of a zoom lens. https://youtu.be/iPQrCMadE1U?si=U5ieYNyakuyPMKHH In this YETI...
A Russian Wolf Hunt
During the winter of 1882, business complications made it necessary for me to take a journey into a wild and remote part of Russia. The house with which I was connected had had some very unsatisfactory dealings with one of its branches, and thing’s had come to such a...
Pat McManus: Into the Twilight, Endlessly Making People Laugh
The last shall be first, we’re told, and for many years, when Outdoor Life arrived in the mail, readers would skip straight past the latest on guns and gear to get to the back page. “I heard that almost daily,” says Todd W. Smith, who served as editor of the magazine...