This Blessed Rage to Order, Pale Ramon
Ernest Hemingway, Wallace Stephens, Mark Twain and a Cock-eyed Consideration of Time and Space Wallace Stephens wrote an obtuse poem, “An Idea of Order at Key West,” wherein this gal was singing on the beach at sunset, about 1934 near as I can figure, and Stephens was...
Legendary Game Warden Forrest Hanks
“There’s only two things to fear in Alleghany County— that’s God, and Forrest Hanks.” The Texas firing range was hot as blue blazes, but not as hot as Forrest Hanks’ M1. His Garand boomed, each time the .30-'06 bullet ripping another dime-sized hole in the tattered...
The Foundation Formerly Known as NRA
NRA Foundation and the Art of the Steal: A Heist So Clever Donors Must Forget Why They Donated America has produced some remarkable business models over the years. Apple convinced millions of people to stand in line overnight to buy phones that were only marginally...
Full Circle
The fact that I am sitting here writing this makes me smile a little bit in serendipitous gratitude, for it is abject proof that you can, in fact, will something into existence. My journey to Sporting Classics actually started 11 years ago. I was hosting a gun...
Wolving (With Complications)
It began with a lucky shot. a cave and a rattlesnake furnished the complications.
Uganda: The Pearl
While rummaging through some of my father’s old books, I stumbled across African Game Trails by Theodore Roosevelt. It’s an interesting read regarding the exploits and African journeys of an American hunter and conservationist. One chapter, “Uganda, and the Great...
A Rogue Elephant
This article originally appeared in the December 1892 issue of Outing. Some 10 ten years ago, toward the close of the hot season, I was traveling through the somewhat sparsely inhabited district of Bintenna, in the Eastern province of Ceylon. The country was wild in...
Oh, Lucky Man! Sigbot “Bodo” Winterhelt
Na, ja, my father hated all hunting and hunters. He didn’t understand. He thought, first of all, that all they did was destroy, and my father lived only to preserve things. And hunters in Germany wear a uniform, green loden cloth, you know, and my father hated...
Shallow-Water Ducks
When the ducks come—splayed feet anticipating a frigid plunge into shallows; wings cupped, rocking in a jerky side-to-side; keen eyes scanning—there is no finer experience in the hunting world. Oh, there is the enhanced palpitation of heart when distant leaf crunch...
Never Invisible
“For extended trips, where time is no object and cross country work is intended, the ox-wagon is the best means of conveyance, especially if a bulk of heads and skins is to be collected, and carried about. The hire of a wagon, with a full span of oxen native driver,...