Betrayal and Death Hunt Unseen
An insensible threat was at fore, a primordial evil. The calico dog stopped dead-still, using the dusky shadows of the bush to secret himself from the revealing glimmer of the building moon. He had the fragile night breeze in his nose. On it had been borne the...
Time for Spring Antler Hunts
It's that time of year, ladies and gentlemen, when we hunt for the hidden gems! While the fall and winter hunting seasons have faded into memory and geese and ducks are starting to reverse their wandering course and now fly north, I have the strong urge to head...
The Legacy Of Ruth Leupold
But of all Portland’s personalities, Ruth Leupold was very likely the best known. In 1991, Ruth Leupold passed away in Portland at the age of 89. During her lifetime, Portland had its share of notable personalities — such as famed photographer/naturalist William L....
The Guns Of The Celebrities
In 1939, before the U.S. entered World War II, movie star Robert Montgomery enlisted in London for American field service and drove ambulances in France until the Dunkirk evacuation. In a break from helping British heroes, he acquired a pair of guns from James Purdey...
Maynard Reece’s Legacy Is Protected Habitat
In all of art history, never has there been a more venerable emblem of wildlife conservation than the tiny U.S. Federal Migratory Bird Hunting Stamp. Invented by an American sportsman during the Dust Bowl to protect habitat for migratory birds, revenue generated...
The Great Emu War
Ugly, shaggy, wide in the hips, quarrelsome, six feet tall, prone to grunting, sneaky as the cagiest Appalachian gobblers, with spurs that can rip down steel fences and a brain the size of a small walnut ... no, not your mother-in-law, but potentially a new game...
The Butt of the Joke
Only when Mike pushed me did I stop. He was saving me from an embarrassing error. I like to hunt, and even enjoy going to deer and elk camps, though pesky hooman rules keep me from participating in most of the hunting action. I like chasing deer, elk, pronghorns (fill...
Most Embarrassing Mistake In Gunmaking
For gunmaker Al Biesen, misspelling Jack O’Connor’s name was a tiny mistake, but something he would never be able to live down. Spokane was as far from her family as my rightfully cautious bride would move, at least in the direction of Montana’s elk country, so we set...
Benelli New Super Black Eagle 3
Benelli’s New 3-inch-chambered 28-gauge Super Black Eagle 3 brings with it an unmistakeable air of confidence to its owner. SPONSORED CONTENT Benelli’s new 3-inch-chambered 28-gauge Super Black Eagle 3 semi-auto shotgun combines professional-level performance with a...
The Smile of Death in Africa
Largest of all reptiles, the crocodile is arguably the deadliest creature ever to walk or swim the face of the earth. Water beckons to most of the world. The inland bodies: lakes, streams, rivers and ponds, shimmer blue and tempting, time of passage, a respite from...
Eleven Timely and Timeless Sculptors
No art form can touch all people with the same force, but it would be hard to imagine a medium with more universal appeal than the bronze statue. It can be sculpted into a delicate hummingbird resting on a tabletop, heaped and hewn into a life-size grizzly guarding a...
Buffalo Dream, Bison Nightmares
No time to fart or fumble, on my belly with a beast that had tried to kill a man only the day before. Willard Sumption had a buffalo ranch a little south of Aberdeen in that rolling country east of the Missouri breaks. Willard had one bad eye from the time two of his...
EUKANUBA Launches Ambassador Program
EUKANUBA is announcing its Ambassador program at the EUKANUBA GEAR UP Summit in Nashville, TN on March 7-9. Bringing together an influential group of top sporting industry professionals this program aims to educate on the research that goes into EUKANUBA's Premium...
The River Collector
It was not a conscious choice, but it seems that I have been building a collection. It is a collection of trout rivers. The collection was started almost 50 years ago, the summer our family rented a cedar shingle cottage on a small Michigan lake. Lily pads filled its...
Jim Kasper On Sentimental Journeys
It seems ironic that Jim Kasper would look at any painter's life with envy. It would only seem natural to assume that the prime source of inspiration for an animal artist would be, well, animals. And Minnesota artist Jim Kasper has indeed been inspired by a host of...
When It Is Enough
We would hunt one last time in the morning, one last time before he went away. I would gift that to myself. How swiftly and irreversibly, Danny's season had arrived. From the day almost 10 years before, when first I had invested a portion of my heart in a fledgling...
Spring in the Tenth Legion
From the middle of May until the first of the following March, a turkey gobbler is straight forward. He is reliable, he is sober and sedate and reasonable. There may from time to time pass through his head erotic flashes of pleasant passages last spring, but these...
Weapons of Mass Destruction
These ears, they can be deadly — deadly annoying! Well, here goes: Weimaraners like me are well known for having big — make that huge — floppy ears. When I shake my head and flop my ears, no one can sleep through the resulting noise and turmoil. Mike told someone my...
Whiskey and Palaver at the Dying of the Sun
“We had no lion tag and there was no game scout to give permission." Moses threw another load of sticks upon the coals. The fire crackled, sparks flew and smoke rolled. Zambia, in the valley of the Great Zambezi. Out on the sandbars, hippos were grunting up dates,...
EcoTour Adventures 2023 Digiscoping Workshop
Swarovski Optik’s Clay Taylor will be leading EcoTour Adventures' 2023 Digiscoping Workshop at Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. EcoTour Adventures, along with Swarovski Optik, is partnering up with digiscoping phone case manufacturer Ollin for a six-day...
The Chance and Challenge for Kobus Moller
"To me, you should judge the painting by the emotion it creates." About a year ago, South African artist Kobus Moller arrived at a crossroads in his career. Though demand for his work was high and he was making a comfortable living from his art, Kobus was experiencing...
A Cold One in Formidable Country
What compels hunters to enter into difficult, even life-threatening situations? Dangerous terrain, fierce winds and bitter cold are never fun, yet many hunters not only accept these hardships, they're challenged by them. The mountain climber's answer, "because it's...
Fighting the Goose
Mike informed me the other day that the end of goose season was near, so we were going goose hunting. I had to don my neoprene camouflaged vest and hop into the truck — make that inside the cab with the heater. I never ride in a box in the bed but that would be the...
Where the Wind Blows Free
"I told him I'd bury him in the meadow and not tell anyone. We shook hands on it, and I can't go back on my word to him, I just can't. If I get sent to jail, I'll go." “Ellie, make note of the date, time, people present and that this is an informal hearing with no...
Double Barrel Doves
I swore to lock up the 28-gauge Perazzi, safe and sound, and return it when asked. But I simply could not, would not, make this trip without her. I have always been lucky with dogs and shotguns. Or maybe just unlucky with everything else. In any event, one evening the...
Frank Benson Inspirations
When Frank Benson decided to hang a dozen or so intaglio prints, most of sporting subjects, in the 1915 exhibition of his paintings at the Guild of Boston Artists, he unwittingly put his career on a new path and founded a new artistic genre: the sporting print. One of...
The Big Sixth Should Be a Hippo
Hippos will fool you. Fat, slow, benign and slightly cartoonish. Except they aren't. This two-and-a-half-ton herbivore kills more humans every year than lions, leopards, elephant and buffalo combined. The Big Five should be the Big Six, and the biggest of the lot...
Mike Needs to Be Bringing in the Bucks
Getting the birds yourself could be far cheaper than having to buy ready-to-cook birds at the grocery store. The other day Mike stopped at the grocery store and went inside, leaving me alone in the truck — again. Why can’t I go inside? I promise not to graze on too...
SEWE 2023 NEW SPORTING SHOWROOM
After visiting the Sporting Classics booth, check out the new SEWE Sporting Showroom at Charleston Marriott! Explore carefully curated exhibitors in a setting that allows for meaningful conversation. Experience showroom exhibitors include sporting and adventure...
Death in the Wild African Dust
We were standing three abreast when a cow charged through the dust. It was Rick Stoeckel’s second African hunt, as with most he had cut his teeth on plains game and couldn't wait to return for something big. By the time our plane bounced down hard on the old military...
Sporting Classics at SEWE 2023
Sporting Classics will be in attendance at the 2023 Southeastern Wildlife Exposition. Come by and say, "Hello!" The 2023 Southeastern Wildlife Exposition (SEWE) is just around the corner. This Friday-Sunday (17th-19th) is the largest gathering of wildlife art and...
Peter Principals In African Wildlife Art
Peter Gray and Peter Stewart, two painters living in South Africa, inhabit different corners of the Cape region and chronologically are a generation apart. But each welcomes the direction that contemporary wildlife art is taking. In case you haven't noticed, these are...
The Fury of A Lion
We were camped on the edge of Pom Pom Lagoon in the game-filled Matsebe concession, located deep in northern Botswana’s 4,000-square-mile Okavango Delta. Here, brush-covered islands, mopane sand and big herds of buffalo, primary prey of the area’s magnificent lions....
Legends of the Elephant Tail
Aspiring elephant hunters dream of large tusks and an elephant hair bracelet on their right arm. Before the turn of the 20th century, natives living in remote regions of Africa begrudgingly shared their home ranges with elephants. They were often forced to defend...
SK Customs Donates for NWTF’s 50th Anniversary
America’s only limited-edition, series-driven production manufacturer, SK Guns, through SK Customs division and the SK Gives Back initiative, is eager to showcase a new collectible firearm set to celebrate the National Wild Turkey Federation’s 50th Anniversary. Two...
NEW at SEWE 2023 The Sporting Showroom
Directly across the street from Brittlebank Park, visit the new Sporting Showroom at the re-imagined Charleston Marriott. Peruse the carefully curated exhibitors in a setting that allows for meaningful conversation. Showroom exhibitors include sporting and adventure...
World Hunting Celebration Comes to Nashville
If there’s a Super Bowl of the hunting world, it’s the annual Safari Club International convention. SCI is comprised of more than 50,000 members with 180 local chapters and affiliates across the globe. Come February 22, tens of thousands of hunters, guides,...
Ice Fishing is Just Insane
The oddest thing I have discovered about hoomans is that when lakes freeze over in the winter and rivers are choked down with thick ice — they want to go fishing. Really? It’s cold, there’s ice everywhere and you had all summer to fish. Why go now? The other morning...
The Other Side of the Dream
Webster was adrift in time again. For 30 minutes, or it could have been hours, the leopard fed. The sun was setting behind the dangling bait, a shoulder from the zebra Webster had killed two days before. Forty yards away, Webster watched through a peephole in the...
Larry Norton and The Searching Spirit
Larry Norton's subjects are not only anatomically proportionate but portrayed in body positions as they appear in the wild. One notes the malevolent cast of a lurking croc, the rubble of scattered bones, virtually hears the forlorn call of the turtle dove. Terror...
Taking On the Biggest Game
Young men unthinkingly take chances by driving fast cars and chasing fast women because they believe they are immortal, that they will never die. More mature men choose to openly embrace danger because they know they are not and most surely will. Hunting an animal...
SEWE 2023 Raffles
Go ahead and reserve your raffle tickets! SEWE has some excellent prizes in store — and Sporting Classics is spotlighting a few of them! ***Images link to corresponding page*** SEWE 2023 is kicking off! Get everything in order for your trip and see us there!...
Hooman Special Days: Valentines Day
You hoomans have way too many special days to remember and track — like the one coming up with flowers and candy. When I see flowers, I remember to raise a rear leg and start watering, har har! As for chocolates and candy, those are off limits for dogs and by the...
CSF Welcomes New Board Members
Last week, the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation (CSF) Board of Directors (Board) welcomed new members to the Board rounding out a full slate of individuals representing various industries who all share in the mission of working with the Foundation’s leadership and...
Capturing Life On the Edge
Africa, the Dark Continent. Ask anyone what comes to mind when they think of Africa, and they will say its wild animals. And invariably its dangerous game. As a wildlife biologist turned wildlife photographer, megafauna and man-eaters are what first drew me to visit...
David Langmead and Dangerous Liaisons
"If I have any legacy, I want it to be that of an artist who was passionately in love with Africa." Ross Parker knows the color of truth in African wildlife art. As a native Zimbabwean raised in the dust of ruby red sunsets, he says no day in the bush is more...
Southeastern Wildlife Exposition 2023
Sporting Classics will be in attendance at the 2023 Southeastern Wildlife Exposition (SEWE) this coming February - here's what you need to get started! Whether you are looking for SEWE's Brochure, FAQ's, Raffles, Tickets or Hotels, you can begin — or continue — to...
First Snowfall of the Gray Days
When I remember my best days of hunting, the memories dawn mostly cloudy and gray. I'm thinking about the gray days and cloudy skies preceding a storm. Every hunter knows that animals sense and instinctively move in advance of a storm. And I think the same urge stirs...
Frightening Eyes Aglow in the Night
The young naturalist pulled back the tent flap and peered into the inky blackness of the African night. He was certain he'd heard something. As he raised his lamp, his worst fears were confirmed. There, only a few steps away, were the glowing eyes of approaching...
The Villain of East Africa – John Patterson
Whatever the goal, the safari became a recipe for disaster. The great elephant rounded a clump of acacia and swung toward the two hunters. Drying blood made dark stains down its wrinkled shoulder and neck, but despite its wounds, the big animal moved deceptively fast...