Smith Setters Revisited
It was quiet when I drove down the long, sandy, Smith Setters Plantation road. On both sides were fields full of warm weather grasses that were rimmed by a mix of pines and oaks. Two quaint guest houses were on my left, and a big kennel and an expansive horse corral...
New Polls Show Blue State Colorado In Play For Republicans
A recent Denver Post report on the state of affairs in Colorado affirmed what Democrats have seen nationally—that their brand is struggling. Another recent Quinnipiac University poll affirmed the same; the Democrat Party is deeply unpopular nationwide, and...
Copley Launches New Exhibitions with the Waterfowl Festival 2025
Copley is pleased to announce a landmark collaboration with the Waterfowl Festival and the Academy Art Museum. On November 13-16, Copley Fine Art Auctions, the nation’s premier decoy and Sporting Art auction house, will present “Copley at the Academy” during the...
Bob Ruark and the Boy
Bob Ruark left every lover of nature, every hunter and fisherman a bountiful legacy. To virtually all contemporary lovers of fine sporting literature, not to mention the millions who came to know him through his biting newspaper columns or best-selling novels, the...
A Country Store
What a store was doing out in the middle of nowhere I didn't know, but there it was. I should never have had that second green chili burrito. The gas in my stomach told me I had made a big mistake and it was getting worse by the minute. I had finished my sales calls...
Confessions of a Deer Processor
Some of this may sting a little, but these tips could help improve the way you handle your harvests, the venison you put on the table and may even help improve relations with your favorite deer processor. Like most struggling writers, I have often been forced to seek...
Woodward/Purdey
The change from side-by-sides to over-and-unders is unquestionably the biggest shift in game guns during our current era. The undeniable success of the superimposed shotgun at all manner of competition has led most of us who pursue wild birds to believe we’ll bag more...
Most Embarrassing Mistake In Gunmaking
For gunmaker Al Biesen, misspelling Jack O’Connor’s name was a tiny mistake, but something he would never be able to live down. Spokane was as far from her family as my rightfully cautious bride would move, at least in the direction of Montana’s elk country, so we set...
Sporting Classics TV Season 7 Episode 15 Trailer
This week, Sporting Classics with Chris Dorsey features a unique hunt for giant red stag and elk in Oklahoma for two experienced hunters. It's a New Zealand hunt without the jet lag! The series airs on prime-time on Thursday at 10pm ET, with additional airings every...
A Place of Wind
The fundamental issue with Alaska Southeast is there’s so much for the sportsman to do and so little time to do it, despite the kind of dogged weather that can change your hopes and plans in a heartbeat. There are a variety of outdoor distractions in Southeast, but...
Brays Island Plantation: Your Sporting Life Awaits
Brays Island Plantation is a unique coastal community dedicated to providing residents and their guests with an array of recreational opportunities suited to their outdoor lifestyle. To this end, Brays Island meticulously maintains an expansive wingshooting program....
Bones Among the Blazes
Only 30 minutes into the first day of the season on a brisk December morning, I am at full draw on an old battle-scarred ram. A slight breeze coming up off the North Fork of the Big Thompson River is trying its best to cut through my layers and give me a chill. The...
Roaning Burkina Faso
Our tracker pointed his steel-tipped spear at the lion’s spoor. Pug marks indicated the big cat was headed toward the verdant creek bottom that starkly contrasted with the khaki and brown that surrounded us. Green trees indicated the serpentine creek flowed toward the...
Jackson Hole Art Auction Brings Highest-grossing Result In Event History
The 19th Annual Jackson Hole Art Auction (JHAA) was held live at the Center for the Arts on September 13th in Jackson, WY. A staggering 97% percent of the 432 lots were sold, realizing $13.5 million in sales. The sale set a new benchmark, realizing the highest sale...
Kings of the Hill
Only four years apart in their native Germany, Wilhelm Kuhnert and Carl Rungius would go on to become preeminent painters of the world's big game. For a short time in the late-1880s their trails crossed, the two young bulls setting out to make their ways in the world,...
Sporting Classics TV Season 7 Episode 14 Trailer
This week, Sporting Classics with Chris Dorsey pairs two waterfowl fanatics as host Chris Dorsey and guitarist Steve Farris enjoy the world's greatest duck and goose hunting destinations, and we help celebrate a unique real estate transaction in Nebraska. The series...
No More Mr. Nice Guy
He just wasn’t going to take it anymore: the snow and cold and bass that seldom grow much bigger than your bait. No. The time had come to pull out all the stops in one last-ditch, hell-bent-for-whatever quest for a trophy bass… a gut-wrenching, arm-busting, heart-pounding wallhanger of a fish.
Whiskey and Palaver at the Dying of the Sun
Moses threw another load of sticks upon the coals. The fire crackled, sparks flew and smoke rolled. Zambia, in the valley of the Great Zambezi. Out on the sandbars, hippos were grunting up dates, a-hunka-hunka-hunka. A leopard coughed in the gathering dark and the...
Death Wore A Lion Skin
The lion came in low and very fast, seemingly out of nowhere. Pete Barrett saw Henry Poolman knocked aside, and the next thing he remembered he was looking down at the top of the great cat’s head, and it had his left forearm between its jaws and was crunching down on...
Paul Mauser: The Man Who Repurposed the Door Latch
His rifles armed world powers in titanic wars, and hunters in the greatest game fields on Earth. The spoor, braided at first, was unraveling. “Ready to bed,” John mouthed the words. Short yards ahead, a patch of dried mud came to eye—two feet off the ground....
The Dragon Hunter Roy Chapman Andrews
Beloit, Wisconsin, was a small town of just 6,000 people, but that was still too many for young Roy Andrews. The boy lived on the western edge of town, close to a mosaic of fields and woods and rushing streams, and those became his solace and his guide. By the age of...
James Hautman Wins 2025 Federal Duck Stamp Art Contest
After two days of competition, James Hautman of Chaska, Minnesota, emerged as the winner of the 2025 Federal Duck Stamp Art Contest with an acrylic painting of three buffleheads. The announcement was made at an in-person event and via livestream at Patuxent Research...
El fatasma del cepillo… Or The Ghost of the Brush
“What do you mean he was a ghost deer?” TC inquired. Before Roberto could answer, TC asked: “Did you shoot at him and he disappeared when you thought the bullet should have hit him?” “Noooo! You weren’t listening, were you?” said Roberto. “I said that I watched him...
Buffalo Soldiers
I got my first good look at the mountain just before dawn on the second day of the trip. The morning was clear, and as the sky began to lighten, the mountain appeared and quickly dominated the skyline of the flat Masai steppes in northern Tanzania. I knew it was...
Sporting Classics TV Season 7 Episode 13 Trailer
This week, Sporting Classics with Chris Dorsey returns to the Iberian peninsula for an unforgettable wingshooting and big game combo as Chris Dorsey and friends enjoy driven partridge and Ibex hunting . The episode is a celebration of the fantastic hunting culture...
Through an Old Man’s Eyes
The following is an excerpt from the "Characters" chapter of Jim Spencer’s book A Life Well Misspent. With a keen eye for detail and a deep connection to the natural world, Spencer invites you to walk in his footsteps, feel the thrill (and disappointments) of the...
High Peril on Polychrome Mountain
For two bone-chilling days, he pursued the rams unrelentingly, from dawn to dark, scaling precipitous cliffs, inching across narrow ledges and sliding down icy slopes. March 9. While climbing the mountains the past few days, I had been uncomfortable because of warmer...
Roosevelt the Rifleman
With horse and rifle he explored frontiers, indulging a lust that would transcend politics. Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. defined the bully pulpit, spared the teddy bear and led the strenuous life. “I do not believe,” he declared in a late retrospective, “that any...
Pit Blind Geese
Field-hunting geese from a pit blind represents the epitome of waterfowling. Each gust of wind brought the smell of freshly spread cow manure from the cut cornfield below. The maize had been harvested in the fall, and the ducks, geese, turkey and whitetails devoured...
No Such Thing as a Bad Day Fishing
The bumper sticker read: A bad day fishing is better than a good day at work. I was sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic wondering how I had allowed myself to get in such a frustrating situation. Like all of the other miserable souls around me, I was growing more...
Big Game Hunting and Adventure 1897-1936
(The following selection is from Marcus Daly's classic book, Big Game Hunting and Adventure 1897-1936 published in 1937 by Macmillan and Co. Ltd. In London.) Leaving the steamer and friends I had made, I fitted out my safari again and plunged into that great country...
Fred Selous Heart of Steel
In the words of his contemporary and close friend, Teddy Roosevelt, Frederick Courteney Selous (1851-1917) was "the greatest of the world's big-game hunters." Certainly, there were few sportsmen of the late Victorian and Edwardian period who would have disputed the...
Sporting Classics TV Season 7 Episode 12 Trailer
This week's episode of Sporting Classics with Chris Dorsey features a tour of the pheasant belt as Chris Dorsey and Domenico Orzi take a road trip through South Dakota to hunt at three spectacular venues. The series airs on prime-time on Thursday at 10pm ET, with...
Watch: A Closer Look at the New Montana Rifle
Wayne Van Zwoll takes a closer look at the new Montana rifle, highlighting the design and features across different models and eras, showcasing how the rifle has evolved while retaining key characteristics. https://youtu.be/5Dem3fwbXMw?si=o-PM_6wWX3LJxD8g
Atlantic Wildfowl Heritage Museum to Host Mark McNair
Virginia Beach, VA – The Atlantic Wildfowl Heritage Museum (AWHM) is honored to announce a once-in-a-lifetime event celebrating the artistry and legacy of renowned decoy carver Mark McNair, widely regarded as “the most celebrated living practitioner of duck decoy...
Theodore Roosevelt’s First Buffalo Hunt
One September morning in the late 1880s, Theodore Roosevelt had a sudden desire to hunt buffalo on the western prairie. He had been honing his ranch-craft by staying at a cow camp a few miles up the Little Missouri River from his ranch in the Badlands of South Dakota....
Bones In the Heat
At first light, Core Hart climbed the outside spiral stair onto his flat roof. He sat down at the rooftop picnic table and, using a spotting scope, scanned the turtle grass flat that was his front yard. A half mile out, at the edge of the flat, he marked a pod of...
Eight is Enough
On January 23, 1990 Kevin Thacher, my wife Marge, and I made our way a mile over rolling sand dunes from the English village of Wells-next-the-Sea. There was a very strong wind, alternating with ice, rain and heavy snow. We were there for the goose flight....
Ghosts in the Ravine
I'm not a superstitious man. I’m not afraid of ghosts. It’s just a skull I tell myself, but contemplate my pale, frail host. Author's Note: While it appeared in the fall 2020 Guns & Hunting issue of Sporting Classics magazine, I wrote this little poem/story for...
The Happy Man
Good luck is a capricious commodity. Completely unpredictable, you need to be thankful when you get it. Consider me thankful. I was fortunate to hold membership in a hunting lease in North Florida for five years. A scant 7.2 air miles from my home in Jacksonville, the...
The Whisper in the Grey of Morning
America had been attacked with a murderous sucker punch. That day of infamy stirring the deep soul of a patriotic nation. Lines of young men eager to join the fight for their country wrapped around city blocks and through town squares. Women rolled up their sleeves...
Sporting Classics TV Season 7 Episode 11 Trailer
This week, Sporting Classics with Chris Dorsey celebrates the best of land, sea and air on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains as elk, mule deer, pheasant and trout are all in play at Elk Creek Ranch. The series airs on prime-time on Thursday at 10pm ET, with...
The Treasure of Simply Belonging
For restless years I harbored an unrequited craving for a 28 gauge. It came from reading too much Mcintosh, and misconceptions, perhaps, of life and love. In a hundred fantasies, the little 28 would come as breathlessly to shoulder as my high school heartthrob, a...
Pa’tridge Fever
The proper hunting man experiences a special reverence for grouse country.
I’ll Take Desert Mule Deer… For a Lifetime
It started simple enough, a long time ago. Even now, after the passage of several decades, I am still caught in its clutches. And I love it! My lifelong addiction to hunting desert mule deer began even before I could read the high desert tales of hunting great stags...
Marc Hanson Savors the Path
In Marc Hanson's personal hierarchy it will always be fine painting, not subject matter, that takes precedence. There's a painting in Marc Hanson's studio that fans of his art will probably never see. It's a simple piece, really — a winter landscape that is likely...
Double Barrel Doves
I swore to lock up the 28-gauge Perazzi, safe and sound, and return it when asked. But I simply could not, would not, make this trip without her. I have always been lucky with dogs and shotguns. Or maybe just unlucky with everything else. In any event, one evening the...
Leopard On the Rooftop
Jadu Manji tried desperately to keep the tattered umbrella over the head of his wife Rongo as she attempted to shield her two-month-old infant from the incessant rain. The little family huddled under the eaves of a small rural bus stop near the village of Dharampur in...
First Deer
The following chapter is from We'll Do It Tomorrow by John P. Faris, Jr. In this collection of stories, John takes us along the creeks and rivers of his native Laurens Country, South Carolina to shoot mallards and wood ducks. He also tells of unusual yet successful...
The Voice Inside
On the same night on the same mountain, two hunters face a deadly storm. Only one would survive. The worst type of danger is the danger that’s brought on by one’s own ignorance. Overconfidence and familiarity can blind a man to the peril that lies ahead, and he...