Playhouse
A Tennessean born in 1880, Nash Buckingham holds a unique place in American literature. A graduate of Harvard and a four-letter man at the University of Tennessee Law School where he received a law degree, he excelled equally on a sports field, hunting field or in the...
If You Build It, They Will Come: Conserving Virginia Quail
The tense second before a whopping covey explodes is the most nerve-wracking silence in history — Havilah Babcock, I Don’t Want to Shoot an Elephant (1958) Virginia’s wild northern bobwhite quail population isn’t what it once was, but for Mr. Bob fans, there’s good...
November Was Always the Best
“I like November best,” the Old Man used to say, “because it reminds me of me.” A heartwarming remembrance from Ruark’s classic, The Old Man and the Boy. A lot of people figure November to be a middling sad kind of month, with the trees showing naked against the...
Down On the Border: Mearns’ Quail
I’d been following my Brittany, Tess, through the steep, rocky canyons of southeastern Arizona’s Coronado National Forest for the better part of an hour when her bell fell silent. I found her upslope—bug-eyed, trembling and stretched out on point—at the base of a live...
True Blue
Grandma’s farm consisted of five acres, mostly wooded except for a half-acre garden loaded with berries and vegetables. Out back stood a shed stuffed with old rakes and spades and other hand tools. Mason jars were scattered among bushel and berry baskets filled with...
In The Court Of The Ruffed Grouse King
In the pine barren, the pasture’s edge, the orchard, this is his court . . . and we are honored to be there. In an orchard, long abandoned, we make our way toward a solitary tree, one of few bearing apples this fall. That it has fruit at all strikes me as promising...
A Day with Egyptian Quail
In the shadows of the pyramids, the author and his odd group enjoy excellent hunting for a migratory species of quail.
Pa’tridge Fever
The proper hunting man experiences a special reverence for grouse country.
Why I Stand with Ducks Unlimited
A mallard dropping through flooded timber is a pretty good argument for getting out of bed at four in the morning. So is a Labrador trembling beside you, convinced that you are the only thing standing between her and the greatest day of her life. In those moments, I’m...
The Old Maid
Good covey dogs are, as Lincoln said of Civil War generals, “as plenty as blackberries.” Hardy, spirited rangers that will put up whatever there is to be put up and give you your money’s worth day in and day out. That is, in good bird country. But if you are ever...