Roger Pinckney: High Priest of Daufuskie Island
Most of us can say where we were when some big historic event happened. Well, I can also tell you where I was the very first time I ever read Roger Pinckney. Yes, that first paragraph of his was just that good. When I first discovered Roger,I had just recently...
John Madison Culler: Tinkhamtown Bound
The old man holds my hand in a frosty grip. But his weak, raspy voice and eyes warmly thank me for being his friend for almost 50 years. Staring past his fish tank and sagging shelves of sporting books through a window and into the far distance, he silently raises his...
Finding Socrates
The story of how a boy found a stray puppy that went on to be a great pheasant dog for him and his dad. A dog surprised us the spring of my 10th birthday when Aunt Helen banged the screen door behind her. As she shuffled in the dark of dawn toward the Sunday paper, a...
The Day I Found Myself – A Wood Duck Hunt
The day I found myself, the wood duck came full-speed. From upriver and darting among cypress and willows — spilling air from his wings. Things had not been going particularly well, one single and specific vehicle of distress difficult to identify. Perhaps it was...
Desert Dreams
It was a dream come true working with desert bighorns for research, and soon my dream of taking a bighorn ram would be realized. Less than 75 yards away the desert bighorn ram was indeed going down! As he faltered, I took off running. The ram staggered and fell. I...
Every Man Goes Out Alone
It is not a thing life prepares one for, no matter how much meat has been secured in this fashion following a successful elk or deer hunt. The name fits. Clyde. I picture a "Clyde" and see leathery features beneath a black, grease-crusted Stetson, floppy leather chaps...
Deep South Bugs and Bucks: When Itches Collide
Lowcountry of South Carolina. Two-thirds of my county is underwater at high tide. If it bites, it lives here. Deer flies, horse flies, dog flies, chiggers, sand-gnats, three flavors of ticks, assassin beetles, 56 separate species of mosquitoes, any number of...
Still-Hunting Secrets Revealed
Ditch the treestand and strike out on foot. Big bucks are waiting, and lots of them.
In the Valley of the Shadow
A misfiring rifle leads to a gruesome bear attack for one California prospector.
New Year’s Eve was a Dark and Doggy Night
I did not intend to be stuck deep in the woods on a moonless night, one so dark you could feel the blackness wrap around you. But two of my beagles saw to it that New Year's Eve 2018 was a memorable one, although less than celebratory. Anyone who has owned beagles...