The Stalemate
Ryan Bybee is a tough guy to fish with. Well, for me, anyway. It’s not that we don’t have a good time when we’re fishing together, it’s just that we have different ways of fishing. I like to run and gun. Find the active fish, pick off the biters, move, move, move....
The Old Man’s Leopard and the Omen
It had to be an evil omen. The first glow of the sun eased out the night and pinked the peaks of the majestic Water Berg Range. Towering mountains, like a series of huge waves about to crash onto the land below and a crumbling old stone house guarded by flat-topped...
In The Court Of The Ruffed Grouse King
In the pine barren, the pasture’s edge, the orchard, this is the ruffed grouse’s 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...
A Turkey World Slam
The pursuit of mountain game throughout the world has been a passion for most of my life. But now, having reached four score and three and endured four heart operations, I was not looking for strenuous high-altitude climbing. So, finding myself once again hunting at...
The Phantom Setter
Originally published in The Saturday Evening Post in 1961, this story is one of the finest ever written about gundogs and grouse hunting. It is certainly the most chilling.
Deadly Botswana Cape Buffalo
The most rarefied air on Earth is the painfully thin atmosphere between you and the malignant stare of a wounded Cape buffalo. The tiny bit of oxygen on the top of Mt. Everest must seem like molasses by comparison. You are connected in a wild, primordial way, as he...
The Homecoming
Returning to his favorite squirrel woods after 40 years, he would rediscover the land and a few things about himself. Dank black pools of standing water enveloped the timber, mostly oak and hickory. The trees were massive in their maturity, casting the woodlot and its...
The Bear Slayer
A hunter extraordinaire, Ben Lilly was regarded by his contemporaries as one of the greatest bear-slayers of his time.
The Guinea Worm
Pursuit of the tiny African parasite had fallen to his drinking buddies, who found it an amusing— though quite dangerous—game. Wait a minute!” said Bucky Blackrod. “I can feel it moving now. Get ready. Okay, nail the bastard!” A group of drunks lunged at his hairy...
Nothing Like on Paper
I was beginning to wonder if the tom had been spooked by a this strange “hen” yelping from inside a vehicle, when I heard a shotgun blast.