The Rain In Spain Falls Mainly When You’re Trying To Hunt
Pedro Alacron and I were at a taxidermist in Cordoba, Spain to drop off my Beceite and Southeastern Ibex at a local taxidermist. They would prepare the skins and skulls for export to my taxidermist, Double Nickle Taxidermy in Texas. While filling out paperwork I...
American Rifles vs. the British Product
British gunmakers have long had an enviable reputation for turning out superior sporting guns and rifles. This has been mainly because from the very start they have always catered to the well-to-do class of discriminating sportsmen who have demanded the very best and,...
Good Samaritan Elk
There are many good Samaritan opportunities, but how do these deeds entwine bull elk with cutthroat trout? I had been living on the floor for ten days. My surgeon said I would need back surgery to repair a torn disk unless I could somehow drag myself up and start...
Bowhunting Walkabout
Mum always said everything happens for the best. Who would of thunk a conked-out Cruiser could lead to so much bowhunting fun? Standing alone in dry, desolate outback, I feel first rage, then fear, then can do nothing but laugh out loud at my predicament. I had blamed...
Russell Chatham: Moods of the American West
It would be very easy – and so much fun – to write about Russell Chatham as a Rabelaisian voluptuary, the kind of man who woke up every morning in a California-king-sized bed surrounded by empty bottles of Chateau Haut-Brion and empty-minded cheerleaders and with only...
Two for Two: Selous’ Double on Elephants
The author makes a perfect double on elephants during his famous African wanderings.
This Hunting Tale’s No Croc!
Motor softly and carry a big stick when you’re in croc-infested waters.
Winchester’s Lever Evolution: 165 Years and Counting
Even though Americans invented—among other things—the electric light bulb, the microwave oven and (for better or worse) personal computers, as far as I’m concerned, one of our country’s greatest achievements has been the perfection of the lever-action rifle. Yes, even...
Properly Grounded!
Our shipment of cattle feed arrived later than expected and took much longer to unload than I had anticipated. I badly wanted to hunt deer that afternoon. A cool front had passed through our area. Whitetails would be moving late afternoon. Sun near sinking into the...
The Meeting of Pope and Young
The biggest thing to happen to archery since sticks and string.
Walther Arms: Nobody Does It Better
My name is Bond, James Bond.” In the annals of the spy thriller genre, no other secret agent has achieved the iconic status of Ian Fleming’s 007. An agent with lethal skills and a license to kill, Bond, as his millions of fans know, is a dashing and debonair figure, a...
My Old Man
Everyone should have an old man. I’ve got one; he’s in his 80s, and he lives on a ranch on a wide, sage-studded plain surrounded by mountains. How about your old man? Maybe he stokes a morning fire in a gray clapboard house along the Chesapeake. Down there the land...
The Chowgarh Tigress
Jim Corbett’s adventures with man-eating tigers have made his name famous in tiny villages of the Kumaon Hills in India. The man-eater is the rare tiger, usually one so weakened by old age or wounds that it cannot do its usual hunting and is forced to prey on human...
Watch: Westley Richards Factory Tour
A fascinating behind-the-scenes look at Westley Richards in Birmingham, showcasing the precision and tradition behind their handcrafted shotguns. https://youtu.be/saEDMMmMp2o?si=KOtkPeuWV9uoErM_
The Greatest Hunter in the World
Hey Jed, what are you doing for the next four days?” The call was from my brother who a long time ago nicknamed me Jed. “I drew a late-season elk tag and I want you to come with me. Get in your car and I’ll meet you in Cody,” he instructed. I looked over at my wife,...
Building the Ultimate A.H. Fox
Dig the sun from the sunset? Retrieve the river from the sea? Beg back a life that has been wrestled to the grave? For a great part of our being, we are drawn against a metaphysical world of imponderables, an ethereal vacuum of longing, where hope is scarce and...
The Life of the Boot: A Russell Moccasin Documentary
For the first time, Russell Moccasin takes you behind the scenes and into their shop to see the full process of making a pair of Russell Boots.
Chester Saves the Day
As was the case the last several days, the bay and three sorrels had not moved far from where they had been hobbled the evening before. The dappled gray gelding, Chester? No telling where he had roamed. I had seen him run with tight hobbles as fast the other horses...
Helle 2025 Knife of the Year
Back in 1975, Helle launched a knife that would in many ways change how we thought about knives in Scandinavia. In collaboration with Tor Indergaard, we created a new knife where the blade was only half as long as was common at the time. This small, new invention was...
The Colt Chronicles
A skilled and fearless Indian fighter, the Comanches called him “Devil Jack.” In early June of 1844 Captain John Coffee “Jack” Hays and his 14 Texas Rangers were scouting for Comanche raiders some 80 miles from San Antonio along the Pedernales River. After setting up...
Confessions of a Shotgun Scribe
One of Ed Zern’s hilarious books is titled How I Got This Way. As you would expect, the book relates the mishaps and misadventures that caused him to develop into the mildly warped personality that wrote some of the funniest outdoor stuff ever written. I ran across...
A Letter from Aldo Leopold
The year was 1909 in America and a young, green scientist stepped boldly from a stage on the campus of Yale University, his hard-earned Master of Science degree firmly in his grasp. Now, he was a forester! Bonafide, certified and anxious. The university had captioned...
Song of the Kalahari
In the latter part of her life, Karen Blixen wrote wistfully of her one-time home in East Africa. The story became the book, Out of Africa and the movie of the same name. Africa still called to her decades after her departure. And I think I understand. Unlike her, I...
Cat’s Eyes
I have often searched the wilderness for something that is right under my nose. On this particular day I had just returned from a grueling backpack hunt deep in Colorado’s South San Juan Wilderness. Elkless again. As a field biologist working the area, I had seen...
Governor DeSantis’ Everglades Work Adds To Conservation Legacy
Florida’s 2,400-square-mile Everglades wetland is a water, wildlife and fisheries reserve unrivaled on the North American continent, and for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, saving the ecosystem is vital to the future of the state. Since taking office, DeSantis has...
The Indefatigable Charles Newton
“Ahead of his time” falls short. His tenacity matched his genius. But war and the Depression would have their way. When rifle maker Buzz Fletcher asked me to photograph a Mauser he’d stocked, I said, “Sure!” Would I like some 256 Newton brass to check it on the range?...
Nighthawk: Unique and Custom Perfection
A long, long time ago, when I was flat-bellied and wide-eyed and had more hair than brains, a much older, more sophisticated friend took me to a rare gun store in his hometown. It was in an old part of his historic town, where the buildings all dated back to the...
Buffalo on the Choctaw!
“Got a question!” said Jim Bequette shortly after we had finished recording an episode for my weekly DSC’s Campfires with Larry Weishuhn podcast. My first thought was: “No, Jim I’m not going to sell you another one of my favorite rifles!” A year earlier I had sold him...
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 Least of Your Worries, Pt. 1
A safari full of parasites, crocs, stampeding buffalo, and terrorists with automatic weapons and mortars.
Tomorrow’s the Day
Tomorrow is the moment he’s been waiting for. Tomorrow the fisherman will emerge from his annual six-months’ hibernation, which began with the close of last year’s trout season, and head once more for that favorite pool he has brooded about all winter. Tomorrow – nor...
UnMistakably British
Cleverly designed and impeccably made, the guns and rifles, clothing and accoutrements of British craftsmen have influenced sport the world over. We can be justifiably proud that we are the greatest melting-pot nation in history. Our willingness to absorb...
‘Secrets Of Great Salt Lake’ Brings Urgent Environmental Story To The Giant Screen
Utah’s Great Salt Lake is drying up, foretelling a dire future for residents of Salt Lake City and the surrounding region if something isn’t done soon to reverse the lake’s decline. An unprecedented coalition of state leaders, agencies, conservation organizations,...
Fallen Lady
The other day, while rummaging around in the attic for an air rifle with which to instill some respect for authority in the blue jays that had been raiding my roasting–ear patch, I chanced upon something more interesting than what I was looking for. This may well...
Shadow the Wonder Pony
Shadow is living proof that a pedigree is just a piece of paper, and that there’s ultimately no substitute for heart, guts and desire.
Tom Foolery
The boys’ agreement with the Colonel was simple: “An hour’s work for an hour’s hunt. Pay as you go and no quitting until the season ends or you kill a turkey. Fair enough?” A cold May morning in Michigan found Dave and me climbing trees on a field edge, hoping to...
Guns of Late Winter and Early Spring
I live for the “season of the painted leaves,” but for the time being, those crisp days of fall and early winter are precious memories to remember and to anticipate in a few months. With the closing of deer and other big game seasons, it’s time to switch to late...
Death in Sidamo
May 1979 Ethiopia, much like Nicaragua, ain’t what it used to be. It’s the same problem of Marxist incursion that has so altered life there that the country I knew really was a last horizon. There is still safari hunting in Ethiopia, but I think things have a very...
Ghost Ram
Wild sheep. No hunting adventure strikes deeper into your soul than stalking wild rams – those majestic monarchs who rule fortresses of stone and ice in some of the most stunning and unforgiving terrain on earth. Blocky shouldered, square-chested and crowned with...
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...
Fishing the Island of the Dead
Fishing a reef known for its monstrous fish…and its reputation for driving men to madness.
An Old Parker Finds New Life
To restore or not, that is the question. How many times have each of us thought about having a fine old gun refinished only to be cautioned that having it reblued or restocked will diminish its value? Several years ago at a small gun show in a church social hall, I...
From A to Zoli: Rethinking the Over/Under Shotgun
Many, if not most of us, would be glad to take the helm of a company owned by our family, certainly that is if good ’ol dad—or perhaps it was mom—had kept the business humming along quite nicely over the years. On top of the money rolling in, if the family operation...
Grouse of the Little Hills
I have always felt that the ruffed grouse is the wariest, the swiftest and the most beautiful gamebird in the world. The bronzed magnificence of old gobblers allures me; so does the gleam of sunlight on the tall and craggy antlers of the whitetail. Yet a hunting...
The Extraordinary Howard Hill
Viewed from the end, an imbedded arrow is an obscenely small mark, cleaving it the stuff of fairy tales. But film director William Keighley wasn’t working on a cartoon. He needed that arrow split. For real. On camera. Who better than an archer who shot as if drawing...
Fine-tuned Firearms Fashion
One of the touchier subjects in the hunter’s world of guns and ammunition is — of all things — rifle fashion. By that I mean much more than AR-rifles versus lever-actions. This isn’t about mechanical cycling systems so much as pragmatic design and functionality. Form...
Turkey Tracks in the Big Cypress
When the creatures of the wild were named, the wild turkey should have been christened “Wise Turkey.” The big bird is by nature sociable, and if at times he seems distrustful of human beings, it is because he is quick to recognize a hostile purpose. The Indian hunter...
Grover Cleveland: Our Kind of President
Not many years ago, while residing in a non-sporting but delightfully cultured and refined community, I found that considerable indignation had been aroused among certain good neighbors and friends, because it had been said of me that I was willing to associate in the...
Poulin’s Spring Premier Firearms Auction, May 8-11, 2025
The Poulin Antiques and Auctions’ Spring Premier Firearms and Militaria Auction is right around the corner May 8th-11th. This sale features collections from across the globe including the private collection of Lewis Drake which includes extraordinary sporting arms...
Borealis
It’s a fairly young river as fair rivers go, born in the mountains of far western Alaska before making its raucous way down from the heights and out across the tundra on its broad braided ramble to the sea. I have never seen its mother lake Kagati, but I know the...