The Santa Claus Buck
Both of us were nine at the time, impressionable if not gullible, and we were awed by the significance of the event...for our first deer hunt we alone were awarded the honor of accompanying our fathers to the woods to learn how to hunt whitetails and the Santa Claus...
A Christmas Buck
TR gets meat and memories from a pre-Christmas deer hunt.
My New Years List for 2023
You hoomans seems to be list makers — for everything. I know lists help you reach goals and stay organized, so here goes with my 2023 New Year resolutions list. First, get some huns, alias Hungarian partridges. Those birds are like small rockets with hyper-speed...
The Ledge
They were the absurd, precarious axle around which reeled the surged universal tumult. On Christmas morning before sunup the fisherman embraced his warm wife and left his close bed. She did not want him to go. It was Christmas morning. He was a big, raw man, with too...
Where There is a Wil…
A painter he is, and that's what he always wanted to be... His house is what realtors, in Salisbury, Maryland, call a two-story “Colonial.” It sits near the back of a tasteful subdivision — meaning one where developers have left standing the native loblolly pine, oak...
River Spell
The secluded river and soul-quieting snow...together they would cast just the right spell for losing himself while regaining a sense of belonging. Day 1: I am all by myself in the canoe, maybe on this whole river given the time of year and the fact that for days...
Taking the Icy Plunge
Sometimes I have to take the icy plunge to retrieve Mike's Ducks. BRRRRR! While Weimaraners like me are well known for finding, flushing and fetching upland birds, like pheasants and grouse (which I do when Mike finally connects and shoots one of those birds), I also...
A Trip Back To Yesteryear (Pre-1900)
Why are American deer hunters so infatuated with the past? What is it about looking at old pictures from yesteryear that stirs our very being? Hunting touches the soul. When we go back in time and see how our grandfathers and great grandfathers took to the woods and...
Springing Into Action – Candid Cameron
The other day I was hunting pheasants along with other upland birds and Mike and his friend, Marlon, were dragging along behind. I, however, was springing into action, nabbing birds out of the air! Anyway, the place had that classic Here’s Your Sign! appeal. I spotted...
A Letter to My Cousin
Written on a Sunday evening in Charlotte, North Carolina, this letter originally appeared in Sundown Covey (1986). The author dedicated his book to his grandsons “and all who share with us the precept that the hunting and the fishing are more important than the kill...