The Old Timer, Wandering Always Like The Wind
I have often sat, solitary, in twilight's slow dissolution to gray, awaiting the unmistakable sound of hooves as they rustle their way through the dusk. It is a time of relentless solitude, and in the whispered vespers of the hemlocks, there is a fleeting sadness that...
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...
Roosevelt’s Last Hunt
"The man should have youth and strength who seeks adventure in the wide, waste spaces of the earth, in the marshes, and among the vast mountain masses, in the northern forests, amid the streaming jungles of the tropics, or on the deserts of sand or of snow. He must...
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...