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...
To the Top
To the top!” I said, grinning, when Jake asked where we were going while pointing nearly straight up to a spot where two giant peaks collide. For few such as us, this is where dreams of trophy bighorn sheep, elk, and mule deer begin. Five hours later Jake Worthington...
Karamojo Crossing
The rains were gone but the rivers were still swollen. He looked on in amazement as the men calmly walked into the river, each man carrying a big elephant tusk across his shoulder. As they neared the middle of the river, they continued to walk until one by one they...
A Southern Christmas Hunt
South Carolina’s first poet laureate recounts a holiday hunt on the family plantation.
Blindsided
It had been a chain of thrills. First, the answer of one bull from the top of the darkening ridge, screaming, rolling into a chorus of chuckles, earnest and deep. Then a second, 200 yards right, angry and urgent. And yet another, in the canyon below, maybe a half-mile...
Gunkholing for Ducks
In September, the summer folks trade their beach lives to head home. The public boat ramp near my home, the one that once was clogged with all sorts of recreational craft, is deserted. It’s a busy process to haul and winterize boats tied up in slips just as it is to...
Roosevelt’s Smoldering Savannah
A raging wildfire threatens to bring President Roosevelt's safari to a quick and untimely end. It was a terrifying sight that greeted Theodore Roosevelt as he stepped from his tent that morning in 1910, and it was something that could have brought a costly and...
A Thanksgiving Day’s Bear Hunt
Thanksgiving Eve at length came around and I was off for Norfolk with the lightest of hearts and the gayest smile I had worn for many days. My friend and companion in arms, Mr. Parkins, met me there, and away we went together, as jolly a pair as could be found in a...
These Old Shoes
Decades became years, years became days, days became hours, and it seemed I had been born only yesterday. Peering north , the creek appeared to narrow to little more than a trickle before vanishing altogether up where the lush green grass glinted backlit in that...
Your Ultimate Holiday Gift Guide
From the Producers of Sporting Classics TV If there is a hunter or angler on your holiday shopping list, we’ve got you covered with this season’s Holiday Gift Guide for the Outdoors. This season, give the gift of adventure – after all, the real present is not what’s...