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...
Death By Night – John Seerey Lester
From Legends of the Hunt – Campfire Tales by John Seerey-Lester
Uganda Gold
Hunting the kob in the Jewel of Afria.
New Beginnings
You’re not really a Westerner until you’ve taken your first elk.
Ducks Down Under
The author would enjoy many pleasant surprises during his week of waterfowling in Australia.
Roosevelt’s Game Preserve
Once barren of elk, Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge now affords once-in-a-lifetime hunting opportunities.
Well You Can’t Fix Stupid
When I was researching my book, Legends of the Hunt, I came across some unbelievable and farfetched stories. The one recounted here is perhaps the most incredible, yet it was verified by two independent sources. In 1900, Mr. Larkin, an engineer for South African...
Banovich Living What He Paints
"My work has evolved a great deal in recent years, particularly in the way I apply paint to canvas. I hope that I'll still be growing at the same rate 10 years from now." These words by John Banovich appeared in an article by Editor Chuck Wechsler in the March/April,...
James Stroud and South Africa Now
There is nothing meek or ambiguous about a charging elephant, especially when the tusker in question appears to be lunging off a canvas from South African painter James Stroud. Stroud's vivid wildlife portraits are so different from the flat surfaces of most sporting...
Old Values In New Times
In 1985 Holland & Holland bought W&C Scott of Birmingham, a purchase that brought together two of the oldest and most influential gunmakers in England — two firms that helped create the modern gun and thus helped shape tradition. And then Holland & Holland...
First Side-Lever Over/Under Rising Third Bite Shotgun
For the first time ever, a rising third bite action has been paired with a side-lever over/under format. The new gun – produced first in a trio of 16-bores for a European customer – joins Boss & Co’s 1812 Edition family of guns that utilize a purpose-built bespoke...
Han Solo’s Blaster Sells for More Than $1M
The only surviving blaster originally used by Harrison Ford as Han Solo in “Star Wars: A New Hope” sold at Rock Island Auction Company’s August Premier Auction for $1,057,500. Han Solo’s blaster headlined the three-day event that drew international interest and...
The Man Who Knew Ruark Best
"...the most incredibly wonderful, generous, humorous and likable son of a bitch who ever lived." To many discerning readers, Robert Ruark ranks as the finest outdoor writer ever to grace the American literary scene. His enduring fame is linked to three immensely...
Julie Jeppsen Believes Practice Makes Perfect
"...I could do it if I practiced enough." It's not uncommon, upon meeting Julie Jeppsen for the first time, to find yourself doing a double take just a few minutes later. Let's say you're at the Southeastern Wildlife Exposition in Charleston, South Carolina, one of...
Furrow Auction Company 2023
This is YOUR chance to own what very few in the world do! SPONSORED CONTENT: Furrow Auction Company is conducting an online-only auction for the Estate of Safari Club International lifetime member’s collection of Taxidermy from around the world and a huge assortment...
The Santa Claus Buck
Both of us were nine at the time, impressionable if not gullible, and we were awed by the significance of the event...for our first deer hunt we alone were awarded the honor of accompanying our fathers to the woods to learn how to hunt whitetails and the Santa Claus...
A Christmas Buck
TR gets meat and memories from a pre-Christmas deer hunt.
My New Years List for 2023
You hoomans seems to be list makers — for everything. I know lists help you reach goals and stay organized, so here goes with my 2023 New Year resolutions list. First, get some huns, alias Hungarian partridges. Those birds are like small rockets with hyper-speed...
The Ledge
They were the absurd, precarious axle around which reeled the surged universal tumult. On Christmas morning before sunup the fisherman embraced his warm wife and left his close bed. She did not want him to go. It was Christmas morning. He was a big, raw man, with too...
Where There is a Wil…
A painter he is, and that's what he always wanted to be... His house is what realtors, in Salisbury, Maryland, call a two-story “Colonial.” It sits near the back of a tasteful subdivision — meaning one where developers have left standing the native loblolly pine, oak...
River Spell
The secluded river and soul-quieting snow...together they would cast just the right spell for losing himself while regaining a sense of belonging. Day 1: I am all by myself in the canoe, maybe on this whole river given the time of year and the fact that for days...
Taking the Icy Plunge
Sometimes I have to take the icy plunge to retrieve Mike's Ducks. BRRRRR! While Weimaraners like me are well known for finding, flushing and fetching upland birds, like pheasants and grouse (which I do when Mike finally connects and shoots one of those birds), I also...
A Trip Back To Yesteryear (Pre-1900)
Why are American deer hunters so infatuated with the past? What is it about looking at old pictures from yesteryear that stirs our very being? Hunting touches the soul. When we go back in time and see how our grandfathers and great grandfathers took to the woods and...
Springing Into Action – Candid Cameron
The other day I was hunting pheasants along with other upland birds and Mike and his friend, Marlon, were dragging along behind. I, however, was springing into action, nabbing birds out of the air! Anyway, the place had that classic Here’s Your Sign! appeal. I spotted...
A Letter to My Cousin
Written on a Sunday evening in Charlotte, North Carolina, this letter originally appeared in Sundown Covey (1986). The author dedicated his book to his grandsons “and all who share with us the precept that the hunting and the fishing are more important than the kill...
Visions from the Veldt – Kim Donaldson
A touchstone of Donaldson's work is his ability to translate the feeling one gets in encountering tremendous volumes of open space. Kim Donaldson could do nothing to prevent his eyelids from closing. His mind was drifting in and out of fitful sleep and his body,...
Overcoming In-Season Obstacles with Your Duck Dog
You’ve waited to hit your honey-hole spot for the perfect day. You know that you’re hitting the migration just right, and if you’ve played your cards correctly, you’ll be limited out by early morning. SPONSORED CONTENT: Eyes to the sky, your calls have a large flock...
A Woman in White
By all the laws of nature, George Blackwell should have quietly died of hypothermia in that very spot. But nature doesn't always apply her laws with an even hand... At about the midpoint of his 67th season, George Blackwell looked at the world around him and decided...
Dining with Dogs Across America
I am making a list of restaurants where dogs are welcome. I understand that in many countries in Europe (where my ancestors came from), when the folks go out for supper, the dog goes along, sits at the table and in some places can grab a bite. Wow, I mean, I have to...
White Death in the Icy Wind
The scent of an unknown flesh grew stronger and stronger in the bear's nose as he ambled towards its source. He, too, was looking for fresh meat. Sergeant Long dutifully studied the distance between ice flows, completely unaware that he was being hunted. Oblivious to...
Linda Besse Adventures in Art
Don't think of Linda as some sort of five-foot-four female Indiana Jones who's hellbent on adventure. Rather, she's a rare spirit who is both good and lucky, an unbearable combination for a wildlife artist. The leopard had appeared fairly tame. Reared on a South...
A Prayer from Dark Timber
The wisdom of the father, the wonder of the son, Wander together, 'til this life is done- And comes time to remember, all that was one. As I lie dying, if I've yet the mind to know, Where I've been, and how I came, and why I'll hate to go, Then spare me a few minutes...
The Holidays are Here
The best holidays are just ahead for me. You hoomans have a holiday almost every month it seems. Most of them involve handing out candy, flowers — or hamburgers and hot dogs on the 4th of July, for example. My favorite holidays are just around the corner. First, there...
Benelli BE.S.T. LUPO: Unlike Any Other Rifle
Benelli’s BE.S.T. LUPO bolt-action rifle is a cutting-edge firearm hunters everywhere will want to take a closer look at as the company expands the products it places into hunters’ hands. SPONSORED CONTENT: Out-of-the-box — or off your local store’s firearms rack —...
The Funniest Man I Ever Knew
The ground began to rumble and the toilet seat commenced to shake!
Derrydale Press Prints Without Peer
Derrydale. To American sportsmen the name brings to mind handsome, leather-bound, strikingly illustrated books and prints that convey the essence of the sporting experience. Eugene V. Connett III founded The Derrydale Press in 1926, "to produce a group of books on...
A Company of Gentlemen Adventurers
The huge beast literally ripped off Pickering’s head.
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...
I Need a Vacation
All work and no play makes Cam a dull boy! Well, as I write these words the grouse and waterfowl seasons have been open around 70 days and I have been in pursuit of feathers for 62 of those days. Whew, I’m tired, and Mike needs to get a job so he does not hunt all the...
Killing a Lion With a Knife
Harry Wolhuter, a ranger in South Africa’s Kruger National Park for 44 years, led an amazing life. From Wolhuter’s memoir comes his amazing escape from a pair of hungry lions.
Warrior Axe Premium Coffee
Something good is brewing in the Sporting Classics Store South Carolina based Warrior Axe Coffee was born in a small garage by Bobby Allmann and his father, Bob “Papa” Allmann. As avid coffee drinkers, the two began roasting small batches of beans from Central America...
Overcoming In-Season Obstacles with Your Bird Dog
Between dangers in the field and training-related issues while hunting, how do you handle and prepare for obstacles that may arise this season? You’ve waited since last fall for the hunting season to roll around, and your expectations are high for your bird dog....
Helle: Quality Outdoor Knives Made in Norway
Helle represents the history and traditions of Norwegian knifemaking where both beauty and functionality go hand in hand. All knives are handcrafted using traditional methods and traditional materials along with some modern influences to improve the overall usability....
Dove Hunting in the Heart of Texas
There’s an old and much quoted saying that everything is bigger in Texas, and when it comes to football and dove hunting, that’s no lie. But for the sake of this story, I’m going to talk dove hunting in Coleman County. It has one of the highest dove populations in the...
Where Giants Fought
Morgan Hillard Tracked the grizzly 90 miles by following prints and carnage left in its wake. Three miners dead; torn limbs and partly consumed bodies, grieving widows and children, and a horde of hunters now camped near “the meeting of the rivers,” a place named by...
What To Hunt
So, what to hunt? Everything with feathers! Mike sometimes says he thinks he needs to show me a picture of the bird(s) we will be hunting that day. OK, I get distracted because any and all birds are on my radar. I live to hunt birds. This is the time of year when...
Eric Forlee A Painter Charged with Life
And "charged" with life is exactly what he means. Incredibly, he has had no formal art training, yet he is considered by many to be among the world's best wildlife artists. He considers himself a cultural orphan, whose life experiences span three continents and...