Mr. Theodore Castwell
An enchantingly beautiful chalk stream, perfect cast after perfect cast, big trout rising to the fly each time it alights on the water... For Theodore Castwell, it seemed that St. Peter had indeed given him very special consideration. Mr. Theodore Castwell, having...
Love Gloves
Never underestimate the power of suggestion, especially from a crafty old codger with a bird dog.
Little Guns Big Birds
I’ve always had a healthy respect for the .410 as long as it was restricted to small birds at short range.
Big Bore: Rifles for Dangerous Game
Just when you think you have hunting dangerous game figured out, a wake-up call comes knocking, usually during the follow-up of a wounded animal.
Sporting Classics TV Season 6 Episode 8 Trailer
This week's episode of Sporting Classics with Chris Dorsey features a dream fulfilled for one lucky hunter who wins the big game adventure of a lifetime in New Zealand and an impressive haul of prizes. Check out Sporting Classics with Chris Dorsey on Outdoor Channel...
On the Southbound Home
Had a man once who said, “The older the boy, the younger the man.” Strikes me he was right. No matter how old you are, you got to hang on to him—the boy—never let him go. Hardly back from Chile and Patagonia, languishing in a chair before the fire—even as the...
Roosevelt’s Smoldering Savannah
A raging wildfire threatens to bring President Roosevelt's safari to a quick and untimely end. It was a terrifying sight that greeted Theodore Roosevelt as he stepped from his tent that morning in 1910, and it was something that could have brought a costly and...
Little Windy and the Wingshooting Woman
She was a great Nordic beauty, and she came with a duck lease. She was a green-eyed freckle-faced redhead, long of hair and limb, married a couple of times before I met her but neither lasted too long. Her name, literally translated, meant "the daughter of an angel of...
Angling Through the Ages
Those who build a rod, fly or lure are participating in one of the world’s oldest professions. The history of man as hunter is partially defined by the history of fishing; the history of fishing is intertwined with the invention and evolution of fishing tackle. Thus,...
The Savage Model 99
Here’s a gun that carries better than some considerable few others of no greater efficiency. And a man carries a gun a blame sight more than he shoots it.
Requiem for a Peregrine
Everything about the peregrine falcon is spectacular — even in death. "One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds." – Aldo Leopold Early one evening toward the end of April, my English setter, Tina, and I were on the...
Nothing To Do for Three Weeks
I left long before daylight, alone but not lonely. Sunday-morning stillness filled the big city. It was so quiet that I heard the whistle of duck wings as I unlocked the car door. There would be ducks leaving Lake Michigan. A fine sound, that, early of a morning. Wild...
The Knobbly Buck
The magnificent old buck was a once-in-a-lifetime prize…and now it stood only 25 yards from his son’s stand.
Arriving in Tinkhamtown
“He was going back to Tinkhamtown. It was a long way, but he knew where he was going. He would follow the road through the woods and over the crest of a hill and down the hill to the stream, and cross the sagging timbers of the bridge, and on the other side would be the place called Tinkhamtown. He was going back to Tinkhamtown.”
Shoot and Shoot More Often!
Let’s be honest—most of us don’t practice enough, but it’s essential for becoming a better, more confident shooter. The first step is deciding to change that behavior and plan ahead for practice time—and stick to your guns. Handle your gun frequently, even when not...
Sporting Classics TV Season 6 Episode 7 Trailer
This week's episode of Sporting Classics with Chris Dorsey is an adventure in the Gulf Stream as Chris Dorsey and friends are after tight lines on saltwater. The fly fishing adventure starts in Cape Cod in pursuit of striped bass, then heads south to Puerto Rico to...
Sam “Bird” Fite
Seven Decades of Chasing the Elusive Drummer
Woodcock Days
The best hunting spots are secrets among friends, where a bird in the bag is just a bonus. A mist conceals these mountains. They are gray like bone. The sun will not rise above them for another hour, and yet it is eight o'clock. This is a favorite spot. I find...
Rising Buffalo
Instead of just two bulls, Theodore Roosevelt and his party were suddenly confronted by a huge herd of angry Cape buffalo. The buffalo rose like massive black warriors from the papyrus swamp. Theodore Roosevelt and his party had just come face-to-face with one of...
Bad Day In the Bush
On the morning of September 30, 2001, professional hunter Johan Calitz awoke with a start. Outside his tent the quiet sounds of a safari camp coming to life mixed with the chatter of raucous francolins greeted the sunrise. This is how Johan began most days, his ears...
2024 Guns & Hunting Issue
Our special 2024 Guns issue is now available! It features an incredible collection of articles on exquisite shotguns and rifles from both past and present. The cover sports The Millionth Savage Model 1899 Lever Action Rifle, currently on exhibit at the NRA National...
Warped Perspective on Precision Rifles
We hunters might be suffering from a warped perspective on rifle accuracy or, more accurately, precision.
River of Many Returns
I must tell you a story. A story of old Argentina. A story older than two centuries, but as young as yesterday. A story within a story, for one would be untold without the other. A story of many things, though at its core the strength and soul of a woman. Not of Evita...
Experts Warn Mountain Lion Attacks Likely To Rise If Colorado Ballot Measure Passes
In David Baron’s 2004 environmental classic, The Beast in the Garden, the science author explains why large predators like mountain lions are increasingly frequenting suburban communities—specifically his hometown of Boulder, Colorado. Since the 1980s, mountain lion...
Sporting Classics TV Season 6 Episode 6 Trailer
This week's episode of Sporting Classics with Chris Dorsey features an epic hunt for red stag and fallow deer in the stunning mountains of New Zealand. Chris Dorsey returns to the south island to pursue big game with his old friend John Scurr in an adventure that...
Watch: Tough Hunt for Moose in Newfoundland
Shane Jones hunts moose on Newfoundland in a grueling hunt on 'The Rock,' and stalks within range of a massive bull.
The Tail of the Mangy Mutt
It was my very first hunt with Lacie, and I said to the plantation manager, “Could you please put out twelve quail, two chukars and two pheasants, and all as singles in a small field.” He replied, “We have a small training field that is planted with sorghum. But you...
Sables Are Hard to Hit
In this article for Outdoor Life, Jack O’Connor revels in the name given him by the natives, Medala Pala Pala “Old Man Who Can’t Hit a Sable,” but in the end he manages to silence his African critics by taking a fine bull.
The Russell Chukka
The Chukka fills that "what-should-l-wear" gap between a loafer and a boot. Comfortable and light for everyday wear but with enough height to keep out dirt and sand. Slips on and off easily and laces quickly. The Chukka's many uses will make it your favorite daily...
The Brook Trout’s Province
Newfoundland and Labrador’s crystal-clear waters teem with brook trout, a telling testament to this unspoiled land.
The Cost of Hesitation
The old saw, “Good things come to those who wait,” rarely applies to hunting trips.
Leopards are Different
Of all the African big game animals, Chui the leopard is the most beautiful and exotic – even in death.
Sporting Classics TV Season 6 Episode 5 Trailer
When bobwhite quail populations in West Texas plummeted in 2010, concerned hunters took notice and banded together to fund research to find a solution to the mystery. Now the efforts from the Rolling Plains Quail Research Foundation are bearing fruit for wildlife in...
Menace On Flat Water
Hazards from beasts in the bush are no match for daily perils along Africa’s waterways!
John Clymer Illustrates the West
John Clymer was a painting phenomenon. None of his contemporary artists even came close to achieving the kind of success Clymer enjoyed with his history and wildlife paintings. Toward the end of his life, collectors were happily standing in line to pay $300,000 for...
Father’s Boats
He fished for panfish, bass, and maybe, just maybe, a muskie.
Ruffed Grouse Are Not Gentlemen
Ruffed grouse are survivalists, like anything wild. Keen masters of escape, Houdini had nothing on them. I’ve had them use the back door too many times to think it’s chance. And when that door is covered, they fly out the side window. I am convinced they thumb their...
Getting Socrates Drunk
Stuck for a name, we had it when Uncle Harry christened the stray pup “Socrates,” given his proclivity to poison himself. Worse than a baby in a bathroom cabinet, right from the git-go he liked stuff he shouldn’t and revealed a fatal attraction for everything liquid....
Sporting Classics TV Season 6 Episode 4 Trailer
The world’s most watched outdoor television series embarks on an unforgettable safari adventure in Tanzania as Chris Dorsey and Steve Hicks hunt myriad plainsgame on this week's episode of Sporting Classics with Chris Dorsey on Outdoor Channel. The two intrepid...
Mr. Detwiler: A Ghostly Grouse Hunt
Who was this strange old man who handled a shotgun like no one I'd ever seen? When I first saw him, I tried to duck back into the pines, but he raised his hand in greeting and I was stuck. All the while he was coming on over through the hawthorns, I cussed under my...
Birds on the Wing
“When you have shot one bird flying, you have shot all birds flying. They are all different and they fly in different ways but the sensation is the same and the last one is as good as the first.” Before I was old enough to own a gun, wild game came to me via a boyhood...
To Bite the Bullet
An overturned jeep, no water, and a charging elephant in the night. What else could go wrong?
The Parson Lied
First published in the April 1939 issue of Hunting & Fishing magazine, and then in Tales of Quails ’n Such in 1951.
The Day Momma Killed Corky
It was an act of violence rougher than anything Hemingway ever wrote about – the blood-curdling screams made me sick to my stomach. But about that time I hooked a monster bluegill... A Southern Tall Tale Excuse me, gents. Jimmy Shakes here, nice to meet ya. I couldn’t...
A John of All Trades: Winchester’s John Olin
Whether gundogs, shotshells or firearms, John Olin always sought to create the best.
Hemingway’s Pilar – Chasing Billfish and German U-boats
Papa called her Pilar and she was a fishing machine, a 1934 Wheeler Playmate, custom built to his specifications in a Brooklyn boatyard. She was 38 feet at the waterline, with a low-cut transom rigged with a roller for sliding fish aboard. She held a ton of ice, had...
An Excerpt from “A Toklat Grizzly Comes A’knockin'”
In seconds a section of wall was gone and the bear was on its way in.
The Golden Age of Sporting Art
Harrowing encounters with big predators. Life-threatening disasters. Dramatic, last-second rescues. All of these dynamic situations were almost commonplace during the golden age of sporting art. From the turn of the twentieth century through the 1940s, action-oriented...
The Ultimate Quail Gun. Really!
Quail Unlimited’s best-of-the-bunch 28 gauge shotgun modestly named “The Ultimate Quail Gun”
Sunset Bear
I visited that spot for the rest of the season, and it was like returning to the scene of a crime and every time the sunset forced me to leave, I felt a terrible weight on my shoulders.