After Brazilian Jaguars
During his famed and troubled exploration of “The River of Doubt,” Roosevelt and his fellow travelers take time to pursue the deadly jungle cats.
NEW: Gallery by SEWE
Gallery by Southeastern Wildlife Exposition (SEWE), a new, brick-and-mortar extension of the annual Charleston SEWE event. The Southeastern Wildlife Exposition (SEWE), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and the southeast’s premier wildlife art show and outdoors...
EP 160: Squirrel Hunting
Click Here to Listen This week Luke and Larry talk squirrel hunting, skinning and cooking. They also discuss the upcoming white bass creek run, recent deer hunts, venison cooking, wild hogs and more.
Ducks of Wood: A Good Investment or Not?
In my half-century of collecting antique duck and shorebird decoys, I have been asked countless times: “Are they a good investment”? My answer is always the same. “It depends.” And then I go on to explain. Just for the purpose of answering this question, I will...
Martial Rounds Afield
Contradictory though it sounds, a military connection usually predicts cartridge popularity in the hunting fields. Despite a few naysayers condemning martial cartridges as “nothing but mankillers,” most centerfire rounds that emerge from battle go on to long careers...
Keeping Counsel with a Creek
We were transients moving from one epoch in life to another, but the little stream and the woods and fields it drained live larger than one can imagine.
EP 159: Hog Killing Time
Click Here to Listen With most big game hunting seasons coming to a close, it's time to start thinking about North America's most popular introduced big game animal, thees days either available to or coming to you soon, the wild hog. Larry and Luke both love hunting...
High Plains Lover
So there I am. In the rapidly fading sunset roughly 85 miles southeast of a city in New Mexico that I’ve never been able to spell, straddling a six-foot sheep fence on wobbly legs and a cramping left foot with three strands of needle-sharp “bobbed” wire mere inches...
The Reluctant Guide for Roosevelt
The fresh-faced young man from New York was eager to hunt mountain goats and was doing his best to persuade the rugged man from Missouri to act as his guide. The Missourian was Jack Willis and the tenderfoot was 28-year-old Theodore Roosevelt, who was with a...
The Rifle That Took The Smithsonian’s Giant Of Kumaon
The yellowed newspaper clippings and fading photographs tell a remarkable story. It was in November, 1967, that David Hasinger, Dr. Karl Jonas and their wives traveled to India to hunt tigers. Beyond the slightest doubt, they were mindful of Jim Corbett’s famous...
A Tribute to Wildlife Artist Jim Killen
“Life is like a painting. It starts with a dream and a blank canvas and it’s anybody’s guess how it will turn out. Then brushstroke by brushstroke with time and care, something beautiful starts to take shape and you have then created a masterpiece.” Jim Killen The...
Howa Super Lite 6.5 Creedmoor
Conventional wisdom suggests this rifle shouldn’t exist let alone function smoothly and shoot precisely. Yet here it is: Howa’s Super Lite. If there is a lighter weight mass-produced bolt-action hunting rifle than the 4-pound, 7-ounce Super Lite, I’ve yet to hear of...
EP 158: Campfire Talk with Luke and Larry
Click Here to Listen This week Luke and Larry discuss late season Muzzleloader hunting, ammunition selection, accuracy, distance and more.
The Most Expensive Sporting Arms
Have you ever noticed how any time there’s a gathering of outdoorsmen, an argument always breaks out? The B.S. level rises with each successive opinion, and pretty soon, things get heated. It happens all the time at Sporting Classics. The problem is, we’ve got so many...
One Versatile Beagle
Want a dog that can track rabbits, squirrels, pheasants, and wounded big game? Consider the beagle.
Great Morning
Originally published as a piece in his “Tailfeathers” column for Sports Afield, this tale is a splendid example of the author’s genius in pulling on the heartstrings of his readers. It subsequently appeared in one of the many collections of Hill’s tight, bright little...
Hunting the Crown Jewels of the UK
On a cloudy, cold, dank, boot-wearing morning, I began my hunt for the unique saber-tusked Chinese water deer. I was paralleling a hedgerow separating forest from cropland planted in rape – grown for its valuable oil-bearing seed, but extremely attractive to these...
Two Brothers. Two ‘Real’ Fish. One Great Memory
My parents made a serious error raising me. I was their firstborn, so I suppose I can cut them a little slack. They were still trying to figure out the whole parenting thing. One of their most critical mistakes, notwithstanding the one they made nine months before I...
Time to Hunt Memories
The middle of January is tough on New Hampshire bird hunters. The waterfowl and upland seasons are over, there is a foot or more of snow on the ground, and the temperature is cold. Very cold. It is hard to look forward to spring white geese and turkey hunts when they...
Illinois Odyssey
When the subject of pheasant hunting comes up, most people think of South Dakota. For bobwhite quail hunts, they envision a Southern plantation. Who thinks of upland hunting in Illinois? As a lifelong resident of this state, I can understand the lack of enthusiasm for...
An excerpt from The Kings of Curlew Island
It was Richard who showed me the huge antler—a dropped horn from a whitetail buck. Massive to a degree rarely seen, not less than five inches it measured around the handsome beading. Moreover, there were nine clear points, none mere craggy excrescences; they were...
When the Ducks Begin to Fly
The author swears off duck hunting for good, but something pulls him back into the salt marsh again.
A True Tale of Faithfulness
We were hunting the legendary Lodge and Ranch at Chama in far northern New Mexico on that cool autumn evening, and when we hit Cañones Creek, we bore north. We reached the base of Cerro Venado Macho, or “Big Buck Hill,” and commenced climbing its steeply ascending...
Martin Frank “Bubba” Wood 1940 – 2024
We hunted quail with heavy hearts as we learned of the passing of Bubba Wood. Bubba was a beloved sportsman whose knowledge and passion for the outdoors was matched by his generosity in support of wildlife and habitat conservation. He created the Texas Duck Stamp...
2024 January/February Issue
Shake off winter and warm up to the promise of an exciting African safari with the January/February 2024 issue of Sporting Classics. In this issue we go after leopard in Namibia and sit with Jim Corbett in what was likely his most important night vigil. Meet Jim...
The Cutthroat’s Tomb
Fishing for a trout that many once believed was extinct.
Reunion Hunt
The author and his old TV sidekick Gerald McRaney get back together to hunt big whitetails, and in some unusual ways.
The Festive Hunt, 1909
The long line of native pagazi, each man carrying his allotted 60 pounds of supplies and equipment, moved like a giant mamba through acacia bushes and across the savannah. The American flag was held proudly aloft at the front of the long, seemingly endless line. Some...
Got Your Pa’tridge Yet?
The common hail becomes a sick taunt when ruffed grouse are scarce.
A Doe in the Snow
Do you have to bring home antlers to consider a hunt successful?
Come See SC at the 2024 DSC Convention Booth #3749
“The Greatest Hunters’ Convention on the Planet” runs January 4-7. Make plans now to attend!
Gambling for Gambel’s
Perhaps it’s simply luck. Perhaps it’s some sort of obscure instinct which guides a hunter. Or possibly it is as the Indians believe—if you live right and observe the proper rituals, the spirits of the woods and prairies will take you by the hand and lead you to good...
We Have Rifles
We have the rifles. We have the cartridges. We have the bullets. What we don’t have is consensus. Which is why we have so many rifles, cartridges and bullets. Welcome to free choice, an unusual option in most parts of the world. A challenge if not conundrum in the...
EP 157: Campfire Talk with Luke and Larry
Click Here to Listen With Christmas festivities behind them Luke and Larry are looking forward to new hunting and outdoor adventures. But not before they had the opportunity to hunt one of their favorite hunting places, the Cotton Ranch in Northeast Texas. And as Luke...
Tiger Hunting In Africa
It was our second morning of fishing on Tanzania’s Ruhudji River and we had just skirted a pod of agitated hippos on our hour-long boat ride to where we’d be fishing. Our guide, South African Mark Murray, told my partner Phil Satre to swing his fly across the head of...
The Longest Month
There’s no slump like a grouse hunting slump.
Sporting Classics with Chris Dorsey
It is the final week of the season for Sporting Classics with Chris Dorsey and we are ending the year on a high note. Make sure you catch the action on Outdoor Channel this week for an epic adventure in Tanzania as Steve Hicks and I hunt massive Cape buffalo with PH...
Ode to the Check-In Station
Technology makes reporting a kill easier, but there’s something to be said for the traditional way.
Roosevelt Elk Are Different
Forget the business of slams; it was simple wanderlust, the desire to experience anything foreign and untried that placed bow-hunting Roosevelt elk at the top of my wish list for so many years. I’d long contemplated driving westward from my home in New Mexico to...
Mollygrubs Messer: Trials and Tribulations with an English Pointer
Although Mollygrubs Messer grew up in a region of the South not known for abundant populations of quail, during his youth that grand game bird Havilah Babcock once described as “five ounces of feathered dynamite” was still fairly commonplace in agricultural regions...
EP 156: Campfire Talk with Luke and Larry
Click Here to Listen Larry recently returned from his Alberta whitetail hunt with Ron Nemetchek's North River Outfitting, during which he experienced mild northern Alberta temperatures, along with little to no snow. In spite of a lack of good hunting weather Larry...
Upland Hunting’s Bookmark Days
Make sure to catch this week’s encore airing of Sporting Classics with Chris Dorsey as he marches through the high plains of Arizona for Mearns, scaled and Gambel's quail - then we're off to South Dakota for pheasants at Tumbleweed Lodge with Veteran, author and FOX...
Hunting for “Ground” Venison
Ditch the treestand and kill your bucks at eye level.
Colter’s Hell
The half-naked young man lay breathless inside the dark and dank beaver lodge, his legs and feet covered in cuts and scratches. He had narrowly escaped death after being captured by Blackfeet Indians while canoeing up the Jefferson River and had sought refuge in the...
Syren Julia
I was just a youngster when I first noticed that men and women were different. Long before I encountered puberty, I noticed that women thought differently than men. And acted differently, too. My daddy was a stern disciplinarian, but somehow, he seemed to “get me”...
The Bear of Her Life
Steve and Caroline Hicks share an epic adventure in Alaska as they hunt for both brown bear and black bear with Glacier Guides. The team uses a yacht as home base, cruising along the shores of the Last Frontier while glassing for bear before landing ashore for a...
The Greatest Game Animal On Earth
Blessed with imagination and a library card, I hunted dangerous game from a tender age. My companions on those early safaris were Corbett, Ruark, Hemingway, and a dozen others, adopted uncles whose manifest pleasure in the beasts and bush of wild places shaped my...
Old Europe, New Frontier
Our forced march was exhausting, and I was cold, wet and miserable. For nearly an hour we’d been trudging across a heath bog in eastern Europe, trying to reach the blind before daylight. It was like walking on a six-inch mattress floating in a foot of water. I’d...
A Christmas Present
The colorful flats around Christmas Island are the world’s best place to fly fish for giant trevally.
Moments of Perfection
Covey rising, dogs holding point, one bird dead in the air as you swing on another. Might there ever be another moment so pure? Every time I head out for some far-flung destination like Quinhagak or Kinnakeet or Tierra Amarillo or the wilds of southern Georgia, it’s...