Fishing for Muskie in Lake Chautauqua
They say it's the fish of ten-thousand casts. Maybe so. I truly believed that for many years and still won't argue with those odds. Twice before I had traveled all the way from Georgia to Canada to do battle with the great muskellunge only to fish for days with nary a...
Roping Elk In the Rockies
One of the redeeming features of existence in a small Canadian town is that at all seasons of the year some form of woodland sport lies within an hour’s walk or drive or paddle of your door. For the monarch moose and the shy, capricious caribou, one must go far afoot....
Pig Medicine
Turning a .300 H&H Magnum on Texas’s feral hogs.
Diary of a Market Hunter
A real-life account of a market hunter’s day-to-day, warts and all.
The Youngest Hunter
I took a few steps forward, holding my rifle cocked and ready. The animal dropped to all fours and gave a hoarse whoof! Then I knew what it was – a grizzly. It had found Johnny’s moose, and was breakfasting on the carcass.
Ames Plantation: Birds Gone Wild
In 45 American states, January is the coldest month of the year. Frigid temperatures are challenging enough, but ladder in precipitation and you have a recipe for disaster. Wet, gnarly conditions knock down trees and limbs causing power outages and, if you’re in...
The Thak Man-Eater
Never in history has one man so devoutly pursued and killed as many man-eaters as did Jim Corbett, saving untold numbers of human lives in the process. What follows is Corbett’s exciting conclusion to his tale of “The Thak Man-Eater,” which originally appeared in his...
$5.9 Million: Copley’s Record-Setting Winter Sale
Copley Fine Art Auctions, LLC (copleyart.com), the nation’s premier decoy and sporting art auction house known for its accurate descriptions and verified results, realized $5.9 million in their recent Winter Sale. It marked the highest total for any auction in the...
Memories…
All of us have special memories from our days of hunting and fishing, which we have no doubt shared around campfires or inside sporting lodges. Now, in our new Memories feature, we would like to share your fondest hunting and fishing experiences with all of our...
The Jewett Gap Grizzly
Using a .30-30 Winchester, the one-armed hunter would finally slay the Jewett Gap Grizzly, ending its ten-year reign of terror among cattle ranchers in the Old West. In the 1890s an unusually large and savage grizzly had been marauding the livestock of ranchers in the...
Ernest Hemingway: Angler, Fighter, Lover
Ernest Hemingway fought in two wars, battled huge marlin and tuna in Bimini and Cuba and then survived two plane crashes and deadly encounters with lions and elephants in Africa – all while creating some of the greatest sporting literature ever written.
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, Yukon dog-musher and gold miner. He drove an ambulance in the First War...
Maybe Once
"I'll send for you,” Mike said to Jackie as he kissed her goodbye. He didn’t see her roll her eyes through a big smile as she threw her arms around his neck. She’d heard the same thing every year for the 12 years he’d taken this trip. Only in the last few had she...
Once in The Stilly Night
It plum tickled his perversity to jist think ’bout chasin’ rarecoons. A classic from the November, 1935, issue of Field & Stream. Dud Dean held the empty frying pan over the glowing coals of our little fire. The fat caught, flared and burned out. After that burst...
Road-Tripping with your Shotguns
To say I travel quite a bit for bird hunting and sporting clay tournaments is a bit of an understatement. It’s a little comical if I stop and think about it, and truthfully, I only recognize that because of the strange looks I get from family and friends when I try to...
Bear Hunting the Traditional Way
Your chances will be fewer, but traditional spot-and-stalk bear hunting on horseback enables you to see more of the countryside and its wildlife. There’s nothing quite like the romance and tradition of hunting from horseback. Rather than concentrating on where you...
Jim Muir The Quiet Men
Beware of over-concern for money, or position, or glory. Someday you will meet a man who cares for none of these things. Then you will know how poor you are.— Rudyard Kipling There was once a land with no people and no animals, just forested mountains and cold, clear...
Back to Bucks and Bears
Deer hunters don’t need exotic, expensive ammo, just accurate, reliably lethal loads. Herewith an update! Hitting far-off targets, informally or in competition, has shooters spending wildly on rifles, ammo and optics. Per backyard mechanics burying speedometer needles...
Fishing For Dinosaurs
Hook into a 250-pound fish whose ancestors date back 100 million years, and you begin to wonder if you’re reeling a dinosaur through a wormhole—as if you’re about to reveal a beast that doesn’t belong in our epoch. Such are first impressions when sturgeon fishing on...
Blacktails Don’t Come Easy
I sat in the pre-dawn darkness in the soft glow of the instrument panel of Roy’s 1947 Plymouth coupe, heading out on my very first buck hunt. A 12-year-old boy yearning to be a buck hunter never forgets moments like that. As the old Plymouth began its first climb up...
The Day the Lake Went Mad
The gale-force winds and driving rain were bad enough, but then the island itself began to move.
Big Empty Encounter
A long stretch of dark, empty woods stood between them and the truck, and the big bear kept edging nearer, so close now they could hear his nasally whine and the soft rumbling in his throat.
The Dead Man on Wendigo Brook
What trout fisherman, plunged into despair by hyper-selective fish that refuse all his imitations, hasn’t wished for a “magic” fly? In this cautionary tale from the anthology Seasons of the Angler (1988), the author reminds us to be careful what we wish for . . .
Hunting Oryx in the Journey of Death
A descent into a cauldron of scorched earth in pursuit of oryx.
Black Bear Danger
A man-eating bear stood between the hunter and his rifle.
The Giant Serpent of Cebu
On a tiny Pacific Island, American naturalist Dr. John N. Hamlet responds to the pleas of a luckless farmer and decides to track down a pig-eating python. But what begins as a casual search for a marauding snake soon becomes a harrowing adventure deep within the...
The First Leopard
The famed tiger hunter goes after a cat of a different stripe. A simple bird hunt turned into an unforgettable encounter with dangerous game for Jim Corbett.
Wintersong
You will always be my children; I will always be your pa.
Dark Legends
The hut smelled of must and dampness. Slivers of light pierced through thin gaps in the grass walls. The old shaman sat with his legs crossed. His dull, green eyes seemed void of life, staring through rather than at them. His skin hung on a bony frame and his voice...
New Editor-in-Chief at Sporting Classics Magazine
Renowned hunting and fishing writer and editor Skip Knowles has been named Editor-in-Chief at Sporting Classics Magazine. “I tried to hire Skip a few years back,” says publisher Duncan Grant. “He seemed perfect for this position at Sporting Classics. He’d been at the...
Ernest Hemingway: The Early Years (1939-1948)
Ernest Hemingway is inextricably linked to both Sun Valley and the nearby town of Ketchum, Idaho. He had a special affinity for the countryside with its backdrop of the Sawtooth Mountains, which reminded him of Spain, for the excellent bird hunting he found there and...
The Great Missouri Lion Hunt
Never mind the cost and the public outcry, the wealthy businessman was determined to bring African dangerous game hunting to his home state.
Planning a Custom 260 Remington
Remington Custom Shop manager Carlos Martinez and I put our heads together in an attempt to buck the trend, to create something different, functional, beautiful. Personal. The rifle you see here is the result. Notice the stock is not hand-laid carbon or even...
The Rise of Remington Arms
This brief retrospective of Remington’s 200-year history barely touches upon the many innovations of this venerable and venerated gunmaker.
Weep No More, My Lady
A most unlikely bird dog lifts a boy to the cusp of manhood.
Samuel “Baker of the Nile”
In autumn 1858, on a beautiful day in the Scottish Highlands, a remarkable sporting feat that would be recounted innumerable times until passing into legend, occurred. During dinner the previous evening at the Duke of Atholl’s estate, Sam Baker, recently returned to...
Watchers of the Campfire
He was not going to let himself become the hunted instead of the hunter.
Copley Spotlight: Shorebirds from the Estate of Henry Bishop
Henry Bishop was a good friend of legendary decoy collector Dr. Peter J. Muller Jr., and there is substantial overlap between their collections. Both from Atlanta, the Muller and Bishop Collections are known for their near-mint birds by top makers, including Elmer...
Ice Bound: Stranded in Antarctica
He sat in the makeshift camp on the polar ice as a cold wind heralded the approaching long dark winter. Soon the sun would not be seen for three months. He and his men had been trapped on the ice for nearly a year. As the winter darkness descended, he could hear the...
The Magic of Hunting Memories
The following is an excerpt from Duncan Dobie’s book Dawn of American Deer Hunting Volume III. Featuring over 375 images, you'll enjoy seeing classic rifles, snowy campsites, straining meat poles, trophy antlers and more. Click here to order your copy today! Every...
J.A. Hunter’s Africa
He saw Africa raw, tapped its treasures and chafed at what his generation had wrought.
The Ghost of Arthur Woody
Duncan Dobie tells of Arthur Woody, a visionary character for forest and wildlife restoration extraordinaire in the early 20th century mountain ranges of Northern GA. The sudden spring thunderstorm stopped almost as quickly as it had started. It blew...
Hall of Fame Trainer Billy Wunderlich
As good with people as he was with dogs.
Choke Tube Mysteries Explained
Need help deciding on the best choke tube for your shotgun? Here is your guide to different choke types and choosing which is right for you. Searching for the best choke tube? Which is it? Traditional, wad-retarding, ported, un-ported, the one your buddy uses? The...
Our All-American Bear
Assigned to cover a draw high on Old Smokies’ spine, Kephart kindled a thin fire between roots of a mountain oak that wasn’t warm enough to thaw his fingers and toes. Rifle across his lap, he listened for the dogs to bay, announcing they’d caught a black bear’s trail....
The Erie Jinx
Even on the best damned walleye lake in America, sometimes you have to lower your standards a bit and catch what you can. The guy I’ll call X-Factor kept calling and leaving messages on my phone. Somebody told him that I planned to fish Lake Erie in September, and he...
Sea of Cortez: Cinnamon Teals and Pintails
Mexico offers spectacular waterfowling for those bold enough to travel there.
The Once and Future 7mm Kings
Herr Mauser may not have known he was designing the King, but by 1910 his 7x57mm cartridge had scaled the heights of big game cartridges. From roe deer to elephants, it had settled everything. See Bell, Karamojo, W.D.M. By 1970, the 7mm Remington Magnum had added...
A Presidential Pursuit: Hunters Who Led the Nation
Roosevelt and Cleveland weren’t the only presidents who spent time afield.
Travelers of the Edge
They stood, Helen and Webster, side by side in black water beneath a canopy of moon-bleached trees, trunks white as ghosts raising slender claws toward the streaks of shooting stars. ''I've never seen them like this," Helen said softly. "So many at once." "Like...