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.
The Cull
The common link spanning the wide chasm of wealth and status were the dogs.
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?
One Dog Night
In the early years, African leopards commonly preyed on cattle and other livestock, and even humans. But their favorite prey of all was the dog.
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...
If You Can’t Lick the Weather, Join It!
“The only way to handle weather,” said the Old man, “is to know what to do with it – and use it accordingly”
Fish Are Such Liars
In this classic from the pages of The Saturday Evening Post, you’ll be surprised to learn that fishermen aren’t the only ones who stretch the truth.
The Mysterious Red Ghost
A camel carrying a ghastly burden would haunt the locals for years on end.
A Thousand Rebel Yells
It was black dark and there was the disarming gush of the swollen, little stream, and I could only sense the rise of the earth above me. But I had done battle here before. I could feel it in my bones, as in the ghostly lines of Mary Fahl's "Going Home," from Gods and...
Fishermen Are Not (Necessarily) Liars
It is evening. The day’s fishing is over, and the faithful of Portage Bay have wreaked havoc on the wonderful dinner Aileen and her hand-maidens have set before them – a dinner, to use the words of Izaak Walton, “too good for any but anglers, or very honest men.” Now,...
The Steakhouse Stickup
Hugo, Minnesota, straight up U.S. 61, the murderous old two-lane between St. Paul and Duluth. Up and down some timbered red-iron hills, around others, potholed, icy sometimes, frosty others, slick always, so deadly Bob Dylan wrote it into a song: “God said to Abraham,...
Notes on Dangerous Game
The Third Tanganyika Letter This article originally appeared in the July 1934 issue of Esquire magazine. In the ethics of shooting dangerous game is the premise that the trouble you shoot yourself into you must be prepared to shoot yourself out of. Since a man making...
Are Damascus-Barreled Shotguns Safe to Shoot?
Damascus-barreled shotguns are considered inferior to those made with fluid-steel barrels, but are they really more dangerous to shoot? Damascus, the capital of the Syrian Arab Republic, is a big city surrounded by an even bigger desert. Nearly two million inhabitants...
The Perfect Farm and Ranch Rifle
Have you ever noticed how sometimes great ideas grow from the tiniest little seeds? That happened to me recently. I was talking to Todd Ramirez, the Alba, Texas-based master gunmaker, about a rifle that I wished I had. The more we talked, the more the idea grew, until...
Mollygrubs To The Rescue!
As Mollygrubs moved into his mid-teenage years amidst a seemingly never-ending series of snafus and strokes of bad luck, through dogged determination on his part and patient tutelage from his father, he nonetheless somehow managed to develop modest skills as a...
Hit the Drink!
An unforgettable day on – and in -the beautiful Brule. A classic story from 1958.
Lead vs Copper Bullets
All-copper, hollow-point bullets typically mushroom like the best lead core bullets without losing mass to jacket separation or core erosion.
Hunting Rhinoceros On the Upper Nile
In the last despairing hope of obtaining fresh supplies from Kampala by the road from Uganda to the Upper Nile, I remained at Wadelai, Emin Pasha’s old station, for upward of a month. Lieutenant Cape, R. A., was in command of the station, and together we went into the...
Last Waltz
Though I had known her for nearly two decades, I had never seen her like this. I had first come to her in autumn, myself still nearly a youth, her lovely, angular shoulders discreetly draped in purple and amber and varying shades of gold, glowing soft and warm as she...
Great Guide Not
I owe much of what I know about how, where, and when to fish to great guides. Guides who spend day after day on the same water accompanying myriad clients of varied ability and temperament amass an abundance of knowledge that’s ours for the learning. Most of the time...
The 100 Mile Boot by Russell Moccasin
From tannery to finished boot in only 100 miles. American Bison is truly America's exotic leather. The hides have been prized for centuries by both native tribes and settlers for their high durability and beauty. Once endangered due to the massive overharvesting in...
EP 163: Muzzleloaders
Click Here to Listen Now What's Old is New Again. Luke and Larry started shooting muzzleloaders back in the past century, fueled somewhat by the "Jeremiah Johnson" movie. Larry started with kits for .50 Hawkens from both CVA and Thompson/Center. Luke followed suit a...
History of the Development of Spanish Shotguns
Spain has a long and venerable history of weapon making; these tools led to incredible success during its wars within Europe and afterwards in its quest for global expansion. Many of these triumphs predate those of the French, English and German success. To put our...
The Elephant’s Got the Gun
One of the first hunters to take advantage of the "Ivory Rush" in the Lado Enclave, John Boyes soon learned just how dangerous his new occupation would be. The death of King Leopold of Belgium in 1909 created an elephant hunters' free-for-all in the Lado Enclave, a...
In Austria, Historic Gunmaker Aims To Save Craftsmanship And Wildlife
Ferlach, Austria, is a hamlet of some 7,000 souls nestled in the Karawanken mountains to the south. It’s a land rich in forests, beauty, and gun-making traditions. Because of those traditions, Ferlach has become a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage community. Firearm...
How SEWE Is Helping Reshape The Image Of South Carolina
Today, as a percentage of its existing population, South Carolina is one of the most moved-to states in the union. There are many reasons: mild weather, friendly southern hospitality, job opportunities and its location on the Atlantic Coast. But one reason may...
Long Island Pond Shooting
The greatest sporting artist of the 20th century hunts black ducks on an icy pond.