Chester Saves the Day
As was the case the last several days, the bay and three sorrels had not moved far from where they had been hobbled the evening before. The dappled gray gelding, Chester? No telling where he had roamed. I had seen him run with tight hobbles as fast the other horses...
Helle 2025 Knife of the Year
Back in 1975, Helle launched a knife that would in many ways change how we thought about knives in Scandinavia. In collaboration with Tor Indergaard, we created a new knife where the blade was only half as long as was common at the time. This small, new invention was...
The Colt Chronicles
A skilled and fearless Indian fighter, the Comanches called him “Devil Jack.” In early June of 1844 Captain John Coffee “Jack” Hays and his 14 Texas Rangers were scouting for Comanche raiders some 80 miles from San Antonio along the Pedernales River. After setting up...
Confessions of a Shotgun Scribe
One of Ed Zern’s hilarious books is titled How I Got This Way. As you would expect, the book relates the mishaps and misadventures that caused him to develop into the mildly warped personality that wrote some of the funniest outdoor stuff ever written. I ran across...
A Letter from Aldo Leopold
The year was 1909 in America and a young, green scientist stepped boldly from a stage on the campus of Yale University, his hard-earned Master of Science degree firmly in his grasp. Now, he was a forester! Bonafide, certified and anxious. The university had captioned...
Song of the Kalahari
In the latter part of her life, Karen Blixen wrote wistfully of her one-time home in East Africa. The story became the book, Out of Africa and the movie of the same name. Africa still called to her decades after her departure. And I think I understand. Unlike her, I...
Cat’s Eyes
I have often searched the wilderness for something that is right under my nose. On this particular day I had just returned from a grueling backpack hunt deep in Colorado’s South San Juan Wilderness. Elkless again. As a field biologist working the area, I had seen...
Governor DeSantis’ Everglades Work Adds To Conservation Legacy
Florida’s 2,400-square-mile Everglades wetland is a water, wildlife and fisheries reserve unrivaled on the North American continent, and for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, saving the ecosystem is vital to the future of the state. Since taking office, DeSantis has...
The Indefatigable Charles Newton
“Ahead of his time” falls short. His tenacity matched his genius. But war and the Depression would have their way. When rifle maker Buzz Fletcher asked me to photograph a Mauser he’d stocked, I said, “Sure!” Would I like some 256 Newton brass to check it on the range?...
Nighthawk: Unique and Custom Perfection
A long, long time ago, when I was flat-bellied and wide-eyed and had more hair than brains, a much older, more sophisticated friend took me to a rare gun store in his hometown. It was in an old part of his historic town, where the buildings all dated back to the...
Buffalo on the Choctaw!
“Got a question!” said Jim Bequette shortly after we had finished recording an episode for my weekly DSC’s Campfires with Larry Weishuhn podcast. My first thought was: “No, Jim I’m not going to sell you another one of my favorite rifles!” A year earlier I had sold him...
Nervous Water
A father and son are finally reunited, on a secluded lake high in the Colorado Rockies. On a clear June morning, I took my father bass fishing into the Colorado Rocky Mountains. I had not seen or spoken to him in ten years. We ate an early breakfast at a truck stop on...
Greatest North American Hunting Trip Ever
It was the greatest North American hunting trip ever, though the men’s survival was always in doubt. Fall of 1804, Meriwether Lewis was halfway up the Missouri, St. Louis to Great Falls, though he could not name the Great Falls until he had seen them, yet many months...
The Least of Your Worries, Pt. 1
A safari full of parasites, crocs, stampeding buffalo, and terrorists with automatic weapons and mortars.
Tomorrow’s the Day
Tomorrow is the moment he’s been waiting for. Tomorrow the fisherman will emerge from his annual six-months’ hibernation, which began with the close of last year’s trout season, and head once more for that favorite pool he has brooded about all winter. Tomorrow – nor...
UnMistakably British
Cleverly designed and impeccably made, the guns and rifles, clothing and accoutrements of British craftsmen have influenced sport the world over. We can be justifiably proud that we are the greatest melting-pot nation in history. Our willingness to absorb...
‘Secrets Of Great Salt Lake’ Brings Urgent Environmental Story To The Giant Screen
Utah’s Great Salt Lake is drying up, foretelling a dire future for residents of Salt Lake City and the surrounding region if something isn’t done soon to reverse the lake’s decline. An unprecedented coalition of state leaders, agencies, conservation organizations,...
Fallen Lady
The other day, while rummaging around in the attic for an air rifle with which to instill some respect for authority in the blue jays that had been raiding my roasting–ear patch, I chanced upon something more interesting than what I was looking for. This may well...
Shadow the Wonder Pony
Shadow is living proof that a pedigree is just a piece of paper, and that there’s ultimately no substitute for heart, guts and desire.
Tom Foolery
The boys’ agreement with the Colonel was simple: “An hour’s work for an hour’s hunt. Pay as you go and no quitting until the season ends or you kill a turkey. Fair enough?” A cold May morning in Michigan found Dave and me climbing trees on a field edge, hoping to...
Guns of Late Winter and Early Spring
I live for the “season of the painted leaves,” but for the time being, those crisp days of fall and early winter are precious memories to remember and to anticipate in a few months. With the closing of deer and other big game seasons, it’s time to switch to late...
The Winchester Model 97
The first time I saw the 97, I knew where it came from: that era, that time around the turn of the century when men just hunted and really did not ask the question, “Why?” That is simply what they did; you can see it in the eyes of the men in an old photograph from...
A Collector’s Guide to Parker Shotguns
I guess I should tell you up front that I have some misgivings about this column. Not because it’s bad stuff, but because I have a lot of friends who may not be too happy about it. You see, I make an annual pilgrimage to the Southern Side-by-Side Championship in...
Death in Sidamo
May 1979 Ethiopia, much like Nicaragua, ain’t what it used to be. It’s the same problem of Marxist incursion that has so altered life there that the country I knew really was a last horizon. There is still safari hunting in Ethiopia, but I think things have a very...
Ghost Ram
Wild sheep. No hunting adventure strikes deeper into your soul than stalking wild rams – those majestic monarchs who rule fortresses of stone and ice in some of the most stunning and unforgiving terrain on earth. Blocky shouldered, square-chested and crowned with...
Eastern Panther – Myth, Ghost, Legend
The Lowcountry panther entered my dreams and my life. Haunting me when I slept, quickening my pulse and step when I was alone in the swamps come sundown. Daytimes, the Old Man looked off into middle distance. Nights, he gazed deep into campfire flames. He held us...
Brays Island Plantation: Your Sporting Life Awaits
Springtime has arrived at Brays Island, and owners get to enjoy all that the change of season brings: the start of turkey season; hungry redfish in the waterways surrounding Brays; cobia season; and perfect weather for a day on the sporting clays course, golf course,...
Fishing the Island of the Dead
Fishing a reef known for its monstrous fish…and its reputation for driving men to madness.
An Old Parker Finds New Life
To restore or not, that is the question. How many times have each of us thought about having a fine old gun refinished only to be cautioned that having it reblued or restocked will diminish its value? Several years ago at a small gun show in a church social hall, I...
From A to Zoli: Rethinking the Over/Under Shotgun
Many, if not most of us, would be glad to take the helm of a company owned by our family, certainly that is if good ’ol dad—or perhaps it was mom—had kept the business humming along quite nicely over the years. On top of the money rolling in, if the family operation...
Grouse of the Little Hills
I have always felt that the ruffed grouse is the wariest, the swiftest and the most beautiful gamebird in the world. The bronzed magnificence of old gobblers allures me; so does the gleam of sunlight on the tall and craggy antlers of the whitetail. Yet a hunting...
The Extraordinary Howard Hill
Viewed from the end, an imbedded arrow is an obscenely small mark, cleaving it the stuff of fairy tales. But film director William Keighley wasn’t working on a cartoon. He needed that arrow split. For real. On camera. Who better than an archer who shot as if drawing...
Fine-tuned Firearms Fashion
One of the touchier subjects in the hunter’s world of guns and ammunition is — of all things — rifle fashion. By that I mean much more than AR-rifles versus lever-actions. This isn’t about mechanical cycling systems so much as pragmatic design and functionality. Form...
Turkey Tracks in the Big Cypress
When the creatures of the wild were named, the wild turkey should have been christened “Wise Turkey.” The big bird is by nature sociable, and if at times he seems distrustful of human beings, it is because he is quick to recognize a hostile purpose. The Indian hunter...
Grover Cleveland: Our Kind of President
Not many years ago, while residing in a non-sporting but delightfully cultured and refined community, I found that considerable indignation had been aroused among certain good neighbors and friends, because it had been said of me that I was willing to associate in the...
Poulin’s Spring Premier Firearms Auction, May 8-11, 2025
The Poulin Antiques and Auctions’ Spring Premier Firearms and Militaria Auction is right around the corner May 8th-11th. This sale features collections from across the globe including the private collection of Lewis Drake which includes extraordinary sporting arms...
Classic Alaska Charters: Now Booking for 2025!
Now Booking for 2025! 2025 is Classic Alaska Charters 36th season navigating the protected wilderness waterways of Misty Fjords National Monument/Wilderness Area! They offer outstanding adventure cruises for 5 days, 4 nights, saltwater fishing, crabbing and shrimping,...
Borealis
It’s a fairly young river as fair rivers go, born in the mountains of far western Alaska before making its raucous way down from the heights and out across the tundra on its broad braided ramble to the sea. I have never seen its mother lake Kagati, but I know the...
Quicksand & Curses
Not everything in Africa that tries to kill you is even alive. Well, okay. I’ve since learned that that first sentence is a bit of trumped-up, deltoid-pumping rhetoric. Maybe you’ll forgive me, though, because at the moment it happened, I genuinely believed I would...
The New Russell Safari
Marrying the lightweight comfort of the PH and the performance of the Backcountry, the new Russell Moccasin Safari isn't just an upgrade, it's a whole new animal. The Safari is built for Africa, but will probably end up on your feet everyday. Best paired with some...
Shotguns Across the Pond
At one time, controversy raged over who made the finest guns. Americans pointed to Parker, L. C. Smith, Fox, Ithaca, Lefever and late-to-the-party Winchester. British gentleman would talk James Purdey, Holland & Holland, Henry Atkin, Grant, Lang, Westley Richards...
Hunting Camp
Growing up in rural Texas, in the gravel hills near Cummins Creek just above the Gulf Coast Prairie, hunting, fishing and camping played an important role in my early life. My first real “camp” was my Dad’s enclosed dog trailer, wood walls with a tin roof, all of...
A Battle for Survival
Precariously perched in the small tree, the hunter peered into the night, his eyes slowly adjusting to the eerie light cast by the moon. The year was 1903; the place: Sabi Sands, South Africa. Harry Wolhuter was shaking from a combination of cold and fear. What was...
Zane Grey in Print: A Collector’s Guide
There are many facets, some of them controversial or even contradictory, to Zane Grey’s career: oddball youngster with an overbearing father, exceptionally skilled collegiate baseball player, disillusioned dentist, struggling and often depressed young writer trying to...
Unique Auction Is A Calling For Conservation
That a country kid from Mississippi could build a game call company into a household brand among America’s 15 million hunters is a classic American success story. That he would use his fortune from the sale of the company to, among other things, order a custom...
Kelsey’s Rifle
Bill was morose, angry really, as only a drunk can be when things are not going his way. “Bad Bill,” as he was known, had been causing big trouble in Butte and the local lawmen set out to change his address whether he liked it or not. The city fathers wanted him gone...
Carrie Stevens: Rangley’s Favorite
Over the years, one category of fly has truly impressed me with its consistent ability to produce violent strikes and exceptional fish. It’s called the eastern streamer, and it’s found in two basic forms. One is a gaudy abstraction known as an attractor; the other, a...
Dorsey: “Time is Now” to Mainstream Hunter-Conservation Message
Chris Dorsey was the featured Keynote Speaker at the 2025 Bobwhite Ball to open the 2025 Pheasant Fest & Quail Classic in Kansas City, Missouri. Dorsey stressed that the time is now to bring the message of hunter-based conservation to mainstream media to protect...
Hunting with Dad
It was 2 o’clock on the afternoon of January 20, 1978, when the agent with the steamship company called my Seattle house to tell me that Jack O’Connor – my mentor, hunting partner and best friend – had just died of an apparent heart attack on the S.S. Mariposa en...
Old Dog
The light in the old dog’s eyes fell, and he dropped loosely back from the gate of the kennel run. He had reared . . . trembling . . . begging with all the equity of his years . . . hoping against hope to go. But the man he adored most in the world had offered only a...