Bobwhite Quail – Comin’ Up With Bob
It was boots and chaps. Gents and hats. Shotguns and spats. It was dog-folks gentle and gay. It was dignified old live oaks, bearded grizzled and gray. It was a lazy old mule wagon, creak rattle and sway. “The Lord’s own symphony,” my Grandma Betts would say, “in the...
Siberian Ibex – Heart of the Tian Shan
And here, among these crumbling cliffs and dizzying heights, I had come to hunt the Siberian Mid-Asian ibex in the dark heart and sharp teeth of dead winter. Eons ago, in a great battle of continents, the Indian and Eurasian plates collided with planetary force,...
Tiger Attack in Vietnam
In the dark night, the men sat listening. Originally no more than five feet from the last team member, Sgt. Phleger had disappeared. As a Marine deployed to Southeast Asia 25 years ago, I had heard of tiger sightings in the bush and an incident where a Marine had been...
Art For The Ages, Through The Gifted
Fine and decorative sporting art can gather up your soul, bringing happiness to you or whoever else might come to own and cherish it. Life is life, and even in the theater of our greatest passion the difference between a laugh and a tear is as capricious as the...
Advice On Selecting Gun Pups
It’s that time of year when many dog breeders have pups for sale. I can give my advice, if you are seeking a dog — they are all good. I understand dogs. I speak with authority, I am a dog. First rule of thumb is look at the pup’s parents and guess how much that adult...
Daniel Smith – Nothing Less Than Magic
In a market increasingly dominated by loose, painterly works that imply rather than show, Daniel Smith is an unreconstructed realist. “Let me show you some real cool sheep,” Daniel Smith says. He rifles through a stack of slides, pushes one of them across the light...
Shoot United Effort From Winchester
In the 1984 film Red Dawn (48 percent on the Tomatometer), director John Milius harnesses Cold War tensions with a portrayal of a joint Russian and Cuban invasion of the central part of the United States. A band of teenagers led by Patrick Swayze and C. Thomas Howell...
The Cremation of Sam McGee
An unlikely life. He was an English banker who ran off to America at an early age. He nearly starved in Mexico, bunked in a California bordello. He passed himself as a cowboy, farmer, lumberjack, Yukondog-musher and gold miner. He drove an ambulance in the First War...
New Zealand – A Sporting Country is Born
There was once a land with no people, no mammals, just forested mountains and clear rushing rivers since the rocks were laid down. No deer or antelope, no wolf or bear had ever left a footprint there. That place lay brooding for millions of years, a thing unto itself....
Why I Bark – Cameron the Weim
Candid Cameron Just the other day I was riding down the road – Mike drives and chauffeurs me about, as it should be – and then I saw it. Another dog on a leash being led along the highway by a hooman. I instantly let out a few loud barks — never mind Mike’s ear was...
Al Agnew – A Love Indefatigable
"Many people have the basic ability to draw what they see. All children love to draw. It's just that most lose interest in it for whatever reason. But I never did. I fell in love with art and the outdoors when I started fishing the stream by my house as a kid, and...
Leo Tolstoy and The Bear Hunt
I felt something warm above my head and realized the bear was drawing my whole face into its mouth; my nose, already in it and feeling the heat of it... Have you had summer in Moscow and St. Petersburg this year? "the bundled-up June tourist asked at the train depot...
Iceland Brown Trout – A Place Out Of Time
The situation in Iceleand reminded me of an existentialist stage play, like Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Being lost in the fog, with its sensory and sound-deadening effects...was akin to having wandered into the off-stage of life. Iceland it...
From One Hunter To Another
I could go on and on; the bill of laden is interminable . . . all the things that can displace or render to anguish a joyful day of hunting or fishing. But it's quibbling over pocket money. Folks who've lived past yesterday will tell you life is unpredictable. But I...
Henry Repeating Arms Maintains Continued Growth
Through Products and Customer Service Henry Repeating Arms Continues To Grow. SPONSORED CONTENT When it comes to American firearms manufacturers, Henry Repeating Arms may offer the most extensive and eye-catching firearms line of any manufacturer. This is great news...
Things Lost and Found – Candid Cameron
While milk cartons (Remember those? They were made of paper, har har!) once featured the faces of lost or missing folks, I know that many people who venture outdoors also lose things — lots of things. The list of things I have discovered, or pointed to so Mike could...
A Killing in Saskatchewan
It was a scene of primal, primitive savagery; it seemed like something out of a corrupted Moby Dick, with the inept, half-crazed Wolf in the role of Queequeg, the aboriginal harpooner who prided himself on his lethal professionalism. Below Elizabeth Falls, where it...
The Guides: A Collection of Untamed Stories
This book is a collection of stories from guides, outfitters, professional hunters and trappers. These stories are not about the game hunted or the fish caught. They are about everything else a sportsperson experiences in the field: the environment, the weather, the...
Dennis Anderson – Art With Attitude
"Dennis identifies with big, powerful animals; the bold and the dangerous," Smith says. "But he shows you some nuance of them that you've never seen. It's like he knows we have some preconceived notion of what a certain animal is, so he doesn't bother with that." The...
Grizzly Hunt – Fear in Fairyland
Soon I found a path which led me over a deep gouge in a log. I realized, this was a bear path! I'd followed deer trails, but never had I walked a path used only by bears. Roland Burrows turned his boat out to sea and said, "I'll be back tonight at ten.” At...
Meeting Miss Montana – Candid Cameron
Life is full of paths to travel, and recently my path crossed the path of a celebrity — Miss Montana, alias Jessica Criss. Once I looked past her sparkling crown and flowing sash, I noted she was wearing a fur coat (ok, a faux one) but I decided she was worth my time,...
Salmon Fishing in the Aleutians
If Hell was cold, wet and windy, it would probably look a great deal like Volcano Bay in Alaska's Aleutians. But in one of those lovely little touches of irony at which God is so devilishly good, if Heaven was made just for fishermen with a sense of adventure, the...
Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson Hole
Drive north from Jackson on Highway 89, into the heart of the National Elk Refuge. If you're alert, if you know it's there and you're looking for it, you might see the museum. On the other hand, you might not, and that's intentional. When my father was stationed in...
The Old Timer, Wandering Always Like The Wind
He was an older man with a look that hearkened back to the days of draft horses in logging rigs and two-man flat saws...he was a complete throwback. He pulled a pipe from his mackinaw and lit it, all the while carefully surveying the scene, moving only his eyes. There...
Monsters, Mayhem and Miracles
New from Sporting Classics, Monsters, Mayhem and Miracles is an endearing and absorbing collection of wild and wacky stories featuring both fictional and true-to-life adventures. Truly a first in the world of outdoor publishing, Monsters, Mayhem and Miracles is a...
The Day I Found Myself – A Wood Duck Hunt
The day I found myself, the wood duck came full-speed. From upriver and darting among cypress and willows — spilling air from his wings. Things had not been going particularly well, one single and specific vehicle of distress difficult to identify. Perhaps it was...
New Shotguns – Candid Cameron
Now is the time for you hoomans to look into purchasing new shotguns! Since bird hunting seasons are closed or closing, the demand for shotguns and shotshells has decreased. I think many hoomans are now thinking of vacations on remote sandy beaches and taking a cruise...
William Robinson Leigh – Artist of Enchantment
William R. Leigh ranks with Russell and Remington as one of the great eyewitness artists of the Old West. But his finest works may be of wildlife and sporting subjects. William Robinson Leigh was nearly 40 years old when he traveled to the Southwest in 1906. Disgusted...
Beneath A Snow Moon – First Light
Man ponders by coincidence. Nature knows better. The difference can sometimes be unfathomable. Late December . . . The Maryland Shores. . . Snowfall. . . Mystic, mesmeric, beckoning. Almost eight decades along for this wayfaring, wildfowling warrior — and still, when...
Deadly Botswana Cape Buffalo
The most rarefied air on Earth is the painfully thin atmosphere between you and the malignant stare of a wounded Cape buffalo. The tiny bit of oxygen on the top of Mt. Everest must seem like molasses by comparison. You are connected in a wild, primordial way, as he...
Texas Solutions for Bobwhite Quail Population
About a quarter century ago I shared a quail field near Albany, Georgia, with an aging quail plantation owner who, like me, also enjoyed hunting big game across the American West and beyond. As we walked toward a brace of his pointers that froze simultaneously at the...
Don’t Waste Winter – Candid Cameron
It certainly has been cold outdoors lately, and the snow is becoming deeper. It’s official, winter is underway in North America — it began back on December 21 in case you do not have a calendar. While several bird hunting seasons are closed, or closing soon in some...
Arthur Burdett Frost – The Sportsman’s Artist
A. B. Frost's paintings captured all the tenseness & humor of sporting situations while retaining the natural characteristics of the hunter & the hunted. Because of the artist's familiarity with human nature, his love for the sport and the creatures of the...
Jay Kemp Swinging for the Fence
"I don't want to bunt every time. I'm going to swing for the fence." Jay Kemp is explaining how his most successful painting came to life. He wanted to paint a big bull elk, he says, running a hand through his hair, green eyes looking beyond the glass doors of his...
Dead or Alive in Zimbabwe
I had an uneasy, anxious feeling as we drove to the bait tree just east of camp. It was with a bit of apprehension that I viewed my trip back to Zimbabwe and a patch of hunting land I had come to know and love. Through my long-term partnership with property owner...
Thoughts on Fly Fishing – Subimago Blues
57 years ago, on January 14th, 1965, Bob Dylan recorded his hit single "Subterranean Homesick Blues" Here are some thoughts on fly fishing set to this classic tune. Down in the basement, Thinnin' out the head cement, Thumbin' through a catalog, Last...
Hunting Caribou in the Arctic – My Saudade River
It’s cold and gray. That time of year when you gaze out the window, your breath condensing on the glass, and let your mind wander. The Portuguese have a term they call "Saudade." It doesn’t translate well to English, but it connotes a deep longing for places,...
Tales to Tell in Winter
When I was seventeen, it was a very good year. It was a very good year for small- town girls and soft summer nights. We'd hide from the lights on the village green When I was seventeen. - Ervin Drake I was not yet 17 when I first heard The Kingston Trio sing Ervin...
State Dogs – Candid Cameron
There are state dogs! I am launching my campaign! Well, during some recent research, alias computer surfing online, I stopped ordering dog treats and suddenly discovered some dog breeds have been appointed to the high position off official state dog in several states....
10 Best Hunting States Ranked
Fresh off my annual multi-state fall hunting tour — part of the occupational hazard of being an outdoor television host, former magazine editor and book author (I know, it’s a dirty job…) — it seems an opportune time to assess the state of hunting. That is, with more...
Road Trip Discoveries – Candid Cameron
Road Trip Time! On a recent bird hunting road trip (yes, Mike was driving the truck in case you were wondering), I passed through South Dakota. It’s a great state with more ring-necked pheasants living there than people. WOW! There is also South Dakota’s Governor...
The Cold Burn Cognition of Living
Islands in the stream...eras in the flow of a man’s lifetime. Days lapse January meager now, and this one is dying. In the twilight of its wake, snow is born. Death to one, life to another. Waylaid at my threshold by the magic, rescued from the zephyr of melancholy...
Blacktail Bait with Wine Grapes
Blacktail hunting in California vineyards is an uncommon pursuit because California vineyard blacktails are an uncommon animal. Texans have a saying. Don’t Californicate Texas. Keep your ground hugging Ferraris, man buns and cappuccinos on the Left Coast. Texas is the...
Hunting Gear – Ode to Old Ways
We all know the type. Maybe it’s you, most likely it’s your old man or, perhaps, a grandfather. The one who is stuck in the “good old days.” “God almighty this is heavy,” doing my best impression of Atlas carrying what only could have amounted to the weight of the...
New Year’s Resolutions, Candid Cameron
What are these New Year's Resolutions hoomans keep talking about? I have heard many hoomans make plans for the New Year, and they set lofty goals or unreachable restrictions upon themselves. Yikes, more of you should live carefree like we dogs do. Nothing matters, har...
Dispatch From the Caribbean 4
At the intertidal zone on the north shore of St. Croix, located on the west edge of Annaly Bay, rests a tidal pool. Access to this rock formation where saltwater deposits pool together, separate from the sea, is not easy, though rather simple: You either hike the 2.7...
Dispatch From the Caribbean 3
The people along the sand All turn and look one way. They turn their back on the land. They look at the sea all day. As long as it takes to pass A ship keeps raising its hull; The wetter ground like glass Reflects a standing gull The land may vary more; But wherever...
Dispatch From the Caribbean 2
“Long have you timidly waded Holding a plank by the shore, Now I will you to be a bold swimmer, To jump off in the midst of the sea, Rise again, nod to me, shout, And laughingly dash with your hair.” - Walt Whitman There are moments when you feel an action. Something...
Candid Cameron – Deer Camp
This week on Candid Cameron, the Weim speaks of going to deer camp and finding the best of a situation where he doesn't get to hunt. If you have been reading my columns here, you know I live to hunt—birds! When Mike announced another hunting road trip, I was in the...
Dispatch From the Caribbean
We arrived in St. Croix around three this afternoon. The atmosphere was a bit heavy, some weighty humidity. The wind carried in an air of salt — mnemonic zephyrs of days yester. Scents have an uncanny power to conjure old memories. Catch a whiff of the sea when you...