The Cartridges of Townsend Whelen
It arrived in a small box not on its first trip. The return address, hand-scrawled, was unfamiliar. I slit the tape. Inside, a nest of paper held an old hunting knife, a fixed-blade Marble’s of the type popular in deer camps when I was young. It had been well used,...
Colorado’s Elk Creek Ranch: America’s Ultimate Sporting Community
For nearly 20 years, the sparsely populated western slope of northwest Colorado has harbored one of America’s most exclusive—and little known—sporting communities. Simply put, Elk Creek Ranch is a 25,000-acre sportsman’s playground like none other. At its core, it’s a...
Escape From A Hell Hole
Finding a big billy wasn’t difficult, but getting his trophy out of the mountain wilderness would become the most perilous struggle of his life.
Where Rifle and Shotguns Meet
"East is east, and west is west, and never the twain shall meet.” So said Rudyard Kipling, and it’s been gospel since the day he wrote it. It’s elementary stuff, but if you’ll bear with me a bit, there’s a point at the end of this little discussion. Shotguns and...
Springtime at Brays Island
SPONSORED CONTENT It is springtime at Brays Island. Turkey hunting is in full swing, the redfish are biting, cobia season is just around the corner, and the weather is perfect for a day on the sporting clays course, golf course, or equestrian trail. Owning property at...
Buffalo Hunting in Northern Tanzania
In the weeks leading up to our safari, Reid Freeman insisted that on this, his first, he’d go slow on buffalo, wait until he’d gotten a feel for them, maybe stalk a few with me and see how it all worked, maybe not hunt them at all. That sensible plan worked for about...
Furrow Company 2024 Online Firearm Auction
SPONSORED CONTENT Eldridge Shively, known as “Uncle Dit” served as a medic in the Korean War, where he was awarded the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star. After retiring from his work as a boilermaker, he enjoyed many happy years in his second career as an antique...
Not Perfect, but Close Enough
The gobbler silently stepped from the thick brush 25 yards away, looking for the hen that had been calling intermittently. He had called to her early, but she had not come to him as he’d hoped. Now, after the initial breeding period, he had come looking for her. I...
Trust Your Dog
Give a pointer the benefit of the doubt when he or she makes a stand. You’ll usually be glad you did!
Classic Alaska Charters
SPONSORED CONTENT Now Booking for 2024! 2024 is Classic Alaska Charters 34th season navigating the protected wilderness waterways of Misty Fjords National Monument/Wilderness Area! They offer outstanding adventure cruises for 5 days, 4 nights, saltwater fishing,...
A Turkey Trifecta
A hunt of firsts for a lifelong turkey addict.
Grace in Bronze: Wildlife Sculptures by Fred Boyer
SPONSORED CONTENT For Fred Boyer, there is no separation between living a rich outdoor sporting life that has little to do with money and celebrating it in a way so that we, the viewers, literally feel the texture of what he’s expressing in our hands. If Boyer’s not...
Mollygrubs And The Birds And Bees
Similar to pretty much any teenage boy in the time around the onset of puberty, Mollygrubs Messer talked with his buddies about the birds and bees, bragged of planned sexual conquests, boasted around backcountry campfires of upcoming plans to date some “hot chick”...
The Legacy of Roger Pinckney
Roger Pinckney, who wrote the immensely popular “Horizons” column for Sporting Classics, died on April 3 from complications after a fall at his home on Daufuskie Island, South Carolina. He was 77. Pinckney wrote his first story, entitled “Big Empty Encounter,” for the...
The Phantom Trout of Sullivan County
The First of April has for untold ages been the Day of Fools! Why? No one in particular seems to know. There are patron saints for everyone from the prelate thief, but who is the Saint of All-Fools?” Thus spoke Tom Marks, one of a merry trio of trout fishers who had...
SecureIt: Revolutionary Home Gun Storage
Several years ago, I produced a TV special for Discovery’s Destination America network called Armageddon Arsenals, a gritty take on the doomsday prepper craze that continues to sweep the world—especially in the aftermath of the global pandemic. The documentary...
Sporting Firearms & Antique Advertising: A Perfect Pair
SPONSORED CONTENT Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Our admiration of the antique is not admiration of the old, but of the natural.” I arguably have one of the best jobs in the world, selling the rarest and highest condition antique advertising pieces on the planet. “How...
Fool’s Paradise
Never feel sporting about turkeys for they’ll dupe you more than you’ll dupe them.
America’s Best Trout Streams
The middle of the night is a wonderful time to go fishing. No matter how heavy the flow, we can wade to the most advantageous position. Our casts unfurl with uncanny precision, and flies drift wakelessly until the dimpled take. It is then that slashing rainbows,...
Bullets and Blessings: An Easter to Remember
The fork-horn buck was big trouble, even after he was dead, and the wild stories about the little deer rattled around town like
a rock in a milk pail.
EP 167: Choctaw Buffalo Hunt
Click Here to Listen Now This week Luke and Larry discuss a recent buffalo at the Choctaw Hunting lodge. It was a successful hunt with the hunters shooting the classic 1874 Sharps rifles.
Gunwerks “Ready to Werk” Special Offer
For a limited time buy any Gunwerks Ready to Werk rifle packaged with a Revic Optics riflescope and get a free Revic BR4 ballistic rangefinder or BLR10b ballistic rangefinding binocular! Supplies are limited and this offer is only valid for 30 days, expiring April...
Broken Down and Shot Out
When the Tin Liz breaks down five miles from home, the Old Man and the Boy discover a new way of bird-hunting. A classic from the September, 1956 issue of Field & Stream.
The Bell
The sound of the small brass bell was his link to three dogs and almost three decades of bird-hunting.
River God
“The River God” by the late Roland Pertwee first appeared in the Saturday Evening Post in July, 1928. An Englishman, Pertwee was an actor, playwright, screenwriter, novelist and painter. He wrote screenplays for Warner Brothers in the 1930s and ’40s. Pertwee died at age 78 in 1963.
There Are Strange Things Done in the Springtime Sun
Aficionados of campfire poetry in general, or fans of the so-called “Poet of the Yukon,” Robert Service, will likely recognize that the title of this piece comes from his eerie yet wonderful poem, “The Cremation of Sam McGee.” The setting for the saga lies far from...
How Valuable is Your Old Side-By-Side ?
Just because it’s an old side-by-side doesn’t make it valuable.
Introducing the Diana Bird Shooter for Her
Introducing the new Russell Moccasin “Diana Bird Shooter”, the first woman specific model in their made-to-order Premier Build program. With a 9” height, oak-leather heel counters, leather lined quarters, Double Vamp construction, and a lightweight Vibram outsole, the...
Hunting With Vintage Lever Actions
Still making meat after more than a century.
Helle 2024 Knife of the Year
The 2024 Helle limited edition knife is designed by our chief handlemaker Audun. Starting in 1973, Audun first worked on the cutlery before taking over as chief handlemaker and foreman. For the past 50 years he has worked with and for three generation of Helles and...
EP 166: Outdoor Cooking
Click Here to Listen Now There is no doubt food cooked in camp or in the outdoors simply tastes better, regardless of the "makings". Both Luke and Larry are adept at cooking outdoors particularly over an open-fire with cast iron. Luke too has mastered cooking with...
Quail of the Kalmias
These birds of the hills develop both a speed of flight and a finesse of dodging that are superior to anything the field birds can show.
Lost, Alone and Fighting to Survive
Troy Galow hadn’t planned to hunt that January day a few years back. But a friend of a friend was looking to shoot a “cull buck”—a nice but non-trophy animal, basically—and Galow, who makes his home in Liberty Hill, Texas, and has a deer lease on a ranch in the South...
Tooth & Hound
You can’t teach people the way of the woods in a thirty-second soundbite. You have to live it.
Hunting With a Mission on Kodiak Island
Mark, Richard and I dangle from toes and fingers on a steep slope 2,100 feet above the surf. We’ve finally broken out of the claustrophobic alder thickets, and behind us the view is spectacular—the islands of the Kodiak archipelago rise green and brown and black from...
2024 March/April Issue
Spring is almost here and with it the promise of bears leaving their dens, gobblers strutting and fish biting. In the Match/April issue of Sporting Classics, join Duncan Grant and Brad Fenson on an epic bear hunt in Alberta that reflects on bear hunting since the...
Australian Giant Trevally and Barramundi
Hoping to complete his bucket list, the author journeys to far-off Australia to pursue the world’s most spectacular gamefish.
Too Perfect to be Random
It's so perfect, in fact, that most serious quail hunters would rather go afield without a shotgun than without a dog. Some veteran bird hunters pay exorbitant lease prices to exercise their dogs. Oh, they may shoot a bird now and then, but they shoot mostly because...
How Trout See and Perceive Colors
The following is an excerpt from Fly Fishing the Blue Ridge Parkway By Sam R. Johnson. For the first time, fly fishing savant Sam Johnson has captured in one guide an incredible “bucket list” of over 210 of the most serene and productive places to chase trout along...
EP 165: Bear Talk
Click Here to Listen Now With Spring just around the corner Larry and Luke talk about some of the things they're looking forward to, from fishing for white bass to especially spring bear hunting. Larry has spent many years hunting spring bear and talks a bit about...
At Greystone Castle, It’s Great Being the King
The Greystone Castle Sporting Club did not, like a phoenix, arise from a bed of ashes. This superb Texas hunting and shooting facility did, however, end up being built, in good measure, on a pile of bricks. The story begins in the late 1800s when a large vein of coal...
The Old Man and the Fly-Fisherman
He had admired them from afar during the past years of his life. These young, reckless, 20-something-year-olds who had a zeal and zest for fly-fishing that seemed to consume their lives and take precedence over all responsible pursuits. These youngsters had no worries...
Kentuck Turkey Tango
Some 480 million years ago, plate tectonics waltzed the lapetus oceanic plate into what is today’s United States to form part of the supercontinent, Pangaea. For a hundred million years afterward, the Central Pangean Mountains lifted skyward, as high as the Alps....
The Shape of the Future
Another flight around the sun and here we are, 138 years after the invention of the first centerfire, bottlenecked, smokeless powder cartridge, the 8x50mm Lebel, watching cartridges evolve. For better or worse. The “better” part of this equation are the bullets. In...
General Custer’s Trout
Did trout fishing seal Custer’s fate at the Little Bighorn?
The Captivating Art of Suzie Seerey-Lester
A quest to express her creativity in reverence for the joys of the natural world impelled Suzie Seerey-Lester to turn a pastime into her life’s work.
A Fishing Story – Hard Rain, White Noise
Hitch knew the boy didn’t know anything about fishing. “Would you like to learn what fishing is all about?” He needed to get the boy headed in the right direction without frightening him. No one realized it, but Hitch Barlow had a very special need to find the lost boy.
EP: 164 The Never Give Up Buck
Click Here to Listen Now Thanks to Texas’ Managed Land Deer Permit, properties under the program can hunt whitetails until the last day of February. In this episode Larry and Luke talk about a buck, Larry initially passed in November, and then the long subsequent hunt...
RMC Sporting Clays Invitational
For 125 years Russell Moccasin have crafted footwear for the greatest sportsmen of every generation. This March, they are starting a new tradition that will bring their customers, friends, and partners of all ages together for a day of good company & competition....
The Morris Museum of Art: Joseph H. Sulkowski
View the extraordinary exhibition, Apokalupsis: An Uncovering at the Morris Museum of Art. Featuring more than thirty remarkable paintings and drawings by celebrated animalier Joseph H. Sulkowski, it is an interpretive vision inspired by the natural world and the...