Illinois Odyssey
When the subject of pheasant hunting comes up, most people think of South Dakota. For bobwhite quail hunts, they envision a Southern plantation. Who thinks of upland hunting in Illinois? As a lifelong resident of this state, I can understand the lack of enthusiasm for...
An excerpt from The Kings of Curlew Island
It was Richard who showed me the huge antler—a dropped horn from a whitetail buck. Massive to a degree rarely seen, not less than five inches it measured around the handsome beading. Moreover, there were nine clear points, none mere craggy excrescences; they were...
When the Ducks Begin to Fly
The author swears off duck hunting for good, but something pulls him back into the salt marsh again.
A True Tale of Faithfulness
We were hunting the legendary Lodge and Ranch at Chama in far northern New Mexico on that cool autumn evening, and when we hit Cañones Creek, we bore north. We reached the base of Cerro Venado Macho, or “Big Buck Hill,” and commenced climbing its steeply ascending...
Martin Frank “Bubba” Wood 1940 – 2024
We hunted quail with heavy hearts as we learned of the passing of Bubba Wood. Bubba was a beloved sportsman whose knowledge and passion for the outdoors was matched by his generosity in support of wildlife and habitat conservation. He created the Texas Duck Stamp...
2024 January/February Issue
Shake off winter and warm up to the promise of an exciting African safari with the January/February 2024 issue of Sporting Classics. In this issue we go after leopard in Namibia and sit with Jim Corbett in what was likely his most important night vigil. Meet Jim...
The Cutthroat’s Tomb
Fishing for a trout that many once believed was extinct.
Reunion Hunt
The author and his old TV sidekick Gerald McRaney get back together to hunt big whitetails, and in some unusual ways.
The Festive Hunt, 1909
The long line of native pagazi, each man carrying his allotted 60 pounds of supplies and equipment, moved like a giant mamba through acacia bushes and across the savannah. The American flag was held proudly aloft at the front of the long, seemingly endless line. Some...
This Humble Wildling with a Benelli Super Black Eagle 3
SPONSORED CONTENT Benelli’s Super Black Eagle 3 is the combination of legendary shotgun performance with features recommended by Pro-Staff and hunters that make it better. The sun had just begun to cast its golden hues across the vast, open prairies of Saskatchewan....
Got Your Pa’tridge Yet?
The common hail becomes a sick taunt when ruffed grouse are scarce.
A Doe in the Snow
Do you have to bring home antlers to consider a hunt successful?
Come See SC at the 2024 DSC Convention Booth #3749
“The Greatest Hunters’ Convention on the Planet” runs January 4-7. Make plans now to attend!
Gambling for Gambel’s
Perhaps it’s simply luck. Perhaps it’s some sort of obscure instinct which guides a hunter. Or possibly it is as the Indians believe—if you live right and observe the proper rituals, the spirits of the woods and prairies will take you by the hand and lead you to good...
We Have Rifles
We have the rifles. We have the cartridges. We have the bullets. What we don’t have is consensus. Which is why we have so many rifles, cartridges and bullets. Welcome to free choice, an unusual option in most parts of the world. A challenge if not conundrum in the...
EP 157: Campfire Talk with Luke and Larry
Click Here to Listen With Christmas festivities behind them Luke and Larry are looking forward to new hunting and outdoor adventures. But not before they had the opportunity to hunt one of their favorite hunting places, the Cotton Ranch in Northeast Texas. And as Luke...
Tiger Hunting In Africa
It was our second morning of fishing on Tanzania’s Ruhudji River and we had just skirted a pod of agitated hippos on our hour-long boat ride to where we’d be fishing. Our guide, South African Mark Murray, told my partner Phil Satre to swing his fly across the head of...
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...
The Longest Month
There’s no slump like a grouse hunting slump.
Sporting Classics with Chris Dorsey
It is the final week of the season for Sporting Classics with Chris Dorsey and we are ending the year on a high note. Make sure you catch the action on Outdoor Channel this week for an epic adventure in Tanzania as Steve Hicks and I hunt massive Cape buffalo with PH...
Karamojo Crossing
The rains were gone but the rivers were still swollen. He looked on in amazement as the men calmly walked into the river, each man carrying a big elephant tusk across his shoulder. As they neared the middle of the river, they continued to walk until one by one they...
Ode to the Check-In Station
Technology makes reporting a kill easier, but there’s something to be said for the traditional way.
The Christmas Rifle
This story by an unknown author reminds us the best gift of all is sharing with those in need.
The Christmas Star
I thought the day would never end. The whole class had drawn on incessantly about every Christmas they had ever had, about every gift they had ever received and what they were wishing for this year. Each one was like a punch in my belly. Mrs. Priddy told of snow and...
Blindsided
It had been a chain of thrills. First, the answer of one bull from the top of the darkening ridge, screaming, rolling into a chorus of chuckles, earnest and deep. Then a second, 200 yards right, angry and urgent. And yet another, in the canyon below, maybe a half-mile...
Leopard On the Rooftop
Jadu Manji tried desperately to keep the tattered umbrella over the head of his wife Rongo as she attempted to shield her two-month-old infant from the incessant rain. The little family huddled under the eaves of a small rural bus stop near the village of Dharampur in...
Roosevelt Elk Are Different
Forget the business of slams; it was simple wanderlust, the desire to experience anything foreign and untried that placed bow-hunting Roosevelt elk at the top of my wish list for so many years. I’d long contemplated driving westward from my home in New Mexico to...
A Good Thing
“The Falls Hole is the defining run in this stream that had defined our lives for so many years, and Dad had learned its every nuance in decades now long passed.” Snow and rain tracked nearly horizontal, and tiny shards of ice bit into our faces when we turned into...
Mollygrubs Messer: Trials and Tribulations with an English Pointer
Although Mollygrubs Messer grew up in a region of the South not known for abundant populations of quail, during his youth that grand game bird Havilah Babcock once described as “five ounces of feathered dynamite” was still fairly commonplace in agricultural regions...
A Southern Christmas Hunt
South Carolina’s first poet laureate recounts a holiday hunt on the family plantation.
EP 156: Campfire Talk with Luke and Larry
Click Here to Listen Larry recently returned from his Alberta whitetail hunt with Ron Nemetchek's North River Outfitting, during which he experienced mild northern Alberta temperatures, along with little to no snow. In spite of a lack of good hunting weather Larry...
Upland Hunting’s Bookmark Days
Make sure to catch this week’s encore airing of Sporting Classics with Chris Dorsey as he marches through the high plains of Arizona for Mearns, scaled and Gambel's quail - then we're off to South Dakota for pheasants at Tumbleweed Lodge with Veteran, author and FOX...
Mixed Bag in the Yukon
We were out of the wind up there on that Yukon ridge. In the polished blue of the sky, fluffy white clouds were sailing along like jet planes, but where we sat, it was quiet and pleasantly warm. It was late August, the tail end of the Yukon summer, and the rolling...
The Best Plains-Game Rifle for Africa
The gun has to be capable of dropping everything from ten-pound dik-dik to 2,000-pound eland.
Hunting for “Ground” Venison
Ditch the treestand and kill your bucks at eye level.
To the Top
To the top!” I said, grinning, when Jake asked where we were going while pointing nearly straight up to a spot where two giant peaks collide. For few such as us, this is where dreams of trophy bighorn sheep, elk, and mule deer begin. Five hours later Jake Worthington...
Colter’s Hell
The half-naked young man lay breathless inside the dark and dank beaver lodge, his legs and feet covered in cuts and scratches. He had narrowly escaped death after being captured by Blackfeet Indians while canoeing up the Jefferson River and had sought refuge in the...
Syren Julia
I was just a youngster when I first noticed that men and women were different. Long before I encountered puberty, I noticed that women thought differently than men. And acted differently, too. My daddy was a stern disciplinarian, but somehow, he seemed to “get me”...
The Bear of Her Life
Steve and Caroline Hicks share an epic adventure in Alaska as they hunt for both brown bear and black bear with Glacier Guides. The team uses a yacht as home base, cruising along the shores of the Last Frontier while glassing for bear before landing ashore for a...
The Greatest Game Animal On Earth
Blessed with imagination and a library card, I hunted dangerous game from a tender age. My companions on those early safaris were Corbett, Ruark, Hemingway, and a dozen others, adopted uncles whose manifest pleasure in the beasts and bush of wild places shaped my...
Old Europe, New Frontier
Our forced march was exhausting, and I was cold, wet and miserable. For nearly an hour we’d been trudging across a heath bog in eastern Europe, trying to reach the blind before daylight. It was like walking on a six-inch mattress floating in a foot of water. I’d...
A Christmas Present
The colorful flats around Christmas Island are the world’s best place to fly fish for giant trevally.
Moments of Perfection
Covey rising, dogs holding point, one bird dead in the air as you swing on another. Might there ever be another moment so pure? Every time I head out for some far-flung destination like Quinhagak or Kinnakeet or Tierra Amarillo or the wilds of southern Georgia, it’s...
The Final Stalk
Hunting sheep among the lofty mountain peaks of the Yukon.
Northern Georgia Quail
This week, Sporting Classics with Chris Dorsey visits northern Georgia for a cast-and-blast adventure with quail hunting at Barnsley Gardens and fly fishing for trout at the headwaters of the Soque River. I am joined by retired Ducks Unlimited executive turned...
Pa’tridge Fever
The proper hunting man experiences a special reverence for grouse country.
Mollygrubs Messer: Duxbak Debacle—Redux
The Misadventures Of Mollygrubs Messer Episode 10: Duxbak Debacle—Redux An earlier chronicle of Mollygrubs’ seemingly unending misadventures involved a prized Duxbak cap, misbehavior, and a “sho nuff whupping” from a high school English teacher who had endured all the...
Pair of Mallards
An essential tale by the South Carolina legend.
Blue Ridge Bear Hunt
Bear hunting sure has changed here in the southern Appalachians.
Fish Conservation at Vermejo Park Ranch
Rio Grande cutthroat trout in New Mexico rebounding thanks to private lands conservation.