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...
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....
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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.