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...
The Trophy Cost More Than the Fish
A fisherman can spend a lot of time and money on his trophy, even a plastic one.
Sporting Classics TV Season 7 Episode 10 Trailer
Make sure to catch this week's episode of Sporting Classics with Chris Dorsey for a pursuit of Scotland's ultimate sporting quest - the MacNab - where one must take a stag, a brace of grouse, and a salmon in one day. The series airs on prime-time on Thursday at 10pm...
A Walk in the Park
Sometimes that’s all you get on the ruffed grouse opener. Sometimes . . .
Death in the Peripheral Vision
A Kalahari lion nearly turns the tables on a hunter and his father.
Old Three Toes
"Three Toes," said an old rancher, with a kind of reverence, "is the fastest, longest-winded wolf that ever lived." A smile swept across the craggy, weather-beaten face of Clyde F. Briggs as he read a telegram from the U. S, Biological Survey: "Advise when you can...
Roosevelt’s Rules to Hunt By
Theodore Roosevelt laid down a hunting code of ethics he lived out every time he went afield.
A Woman in White
By all the laws of nature, George Blackwell should have quietly died of hypothermia in that very spot. But nature doesn't always apply her laws with an even hand... At about the midpoint of his 67th season, George Blackwell looked at the world around him and decided...
A Lesser-Known Name Find
I suspect that most non-shooters view gun trading as some sort of mental or emotional deviance. Gun trading isn’t universal, but it does appear in enough humans to be readily recognizable to those who are not afflicted with the malady. I think it’s kind of like a...
A Hunter’s Guide to Classic Imported Doubles (Part 1 of 2)
During the 50 years between the end of our Civil War in 1865 and the start of the First World War, American wingshooters had an extraordinary number of choices in double barrel shotguns, both foreign and domestic. This article is about classic imported doubles that...
A Slithery Bedmate
Texas’ Wild Horse Desert is home to many things that stick, prick, bite and a few that “slither,” but also a land of “change.” It was here aboriginal tribes were forever changed with the arrival of the shipwrecked Spanish explorer, Cabeza de Vaca and a small handful...
Sporting Classics TV Season 7 Episode 9 Trailer
It is a pursuit for a beast from another era as Chris Dorsey and Steve Lamboy look to hook giant white sturgeon on Idaho's Snake River in this week's episode of Sporting Classics with Chris Dorsey. The series airs on prime-time on Thursday at 10pm ET, with additional...
Misses (and Worse)
The following is Chapter 1 from Jim Spencer’s latest 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 hunt, the serenity of...
Fall’s Better With a New Gun
A long time ago, when I was a younger man, anticipation seemed to be the better part of everything. Everything, it seemed, was better, sweeter, more perfect in the planning stage than in the eventual reality. The “other hand” is that with the passing of considerable...
TR In The Land Of Giants
By September 1909,Theodore Roosevelt’s year-long safari had moved on to the Meru region on the northeastern slopes of Mount Kenya where, with the help of Edward Butler Horne, the first district commissioner, they would hunt for more elephant. TR had already shot his...
Elk Camp
The challenge is great, the reward even greater for the bowhunter who outwits a big bull. It begins around the end of August in the Rockies when the dawns turn chilly, the aspen leaves turn golden, the small ponds freeze over at night, and the bull elk get a little...
Tarpon Don’t Come Easy!
Fish that require effort, skill, knowledge and perseverance, along with some luck thrown in to land, are special indeed—tarpon are super special. It’s been said that the greater the challenge, the greater the appreciation. This means your sense of satisfaction is...
A Buck Named Mordecai
“I had plenty of time to come up with a good story for the men at camp as I lay bleeding in the woods.”
Choice of the Litter
It was to him a very simple thing and the wonder was that the others, the older ones, were so stupid and confused. It was only a matter of going back a few years to when he was ten and her age, and thinking as he had thought then. The old urges and desires and faiths...
Fallow
“What two species of deer do you think have been introduced to more continents than any other?” Asked Scandinavian Prohunter’s Stefan Bengtsson. “Hmmmm…it would have to be either red deer or fallow deer based on my personal experience. I’ve hunted introduced red stag...
Where the Clouds Are Birds
I think I know what Otis Redding had on his mind when he crooned “Sittin’ on the dock of a bay.” Only there’s no dock here. There’s no bay either, but I’m sitting on a high bluff overlooking the Parana River in Argentina, takin’ the rest of the day off. Mi amigos...
Sporting Classics TV Season 7 Episode 8 Trailer
From time-honored driven shooting to cutting-edge night vision technology, its a global pursuit of tusks and tradition as we journey across the country and around the world for high-energy hog hunting in this week's episode of Sporting Classics with Chris Dorsey. The...
Poulin Antiques Late Summer Auction Realizes $1.4 Million!
This finely curated sale offered a full spectrum of weapons, ranging from Revolutionary-era arms to modern Class III guns, as well as shooting accessories, accoutrements, and militaria of all sorts. Poulin Antiques & Auctions is pleased to announce the results of...
After Moose in New Brunswick
TR’s favorite hunting companion takes a trip of his own, chronicling his adventures just like his legendary father.