Siberian Ibex – Heart of the Tian Shan
And here, among these crumbling cliffs and dizzying heights, I had come to hunt the Siberian Mid-Asian ibex in the dark heart and sharp teeth of dead winter. Eons ago, in a great battle of continents, the Indian and Eurasian plates collided with planetary force,...
New Zealand – A Sporting Country is Born
There was once a land with no people, no mammals, just forested mountains and clear rushing rivers since the rocks were laid down. No deer or antelope, no wolf or bear had ever left a footprint there. That place lay brooding for millions of years, a thing unto itself....
Iceland Brown Trout – A Place Out Of Time
The situation in Iceleand reminded me of an existentialist stage play, like Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Being lost in the fog, with its sensory and sound-deadening effects...was akin to having wandered into the off-stage of life. Iceland it...
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...
Hunting Caribou in the Arctic – My Saudade River
It’s cold and gray. That time of year when you gaze out the window, your breath condensing on the glass, and let your mind wander. The Portuguese have a term they call "Saudade." It doesn’t translate well to English, but it connotes a deep longing for places,...
Canadian Waterfowl – A Red Letter Day
I am a New England Ruffed Grouse hunter, and the Western Canadian waterfowl, upland birds and prairies were a new world to me. Sharptail grouse thrive in Saskatchewan and so do those who hunt them. Around Tessier the Sharpies feed in the huge grain fields and shelter...
Lessons Handed Down to a Son – The Borrowed Gun
Peter Ryan on lessons handed down to a son. Our son, Jamie, is 10 years old. Today, after much pleading, he is with me at a cabin on the South Island of New Zealand, a long way from anywhere. There at the head of the valley the snow looms high overhead, waterfalls...
Buffalo Hunt – A Tale of Two Buffs
James Stejskal details two occasions across the world where he is on the buffalo hunt and just how he went about claiming his prize. The early morning fog on the river was starting to dissipate as I stood in the waist high grass surveying the terrain ahead. I was...
Mayan Ruins – Campeche Brocket
It was hot. Horribly hot. Well over the century mark. Humidity approached the saturation point. I hate the heat! I have even less tolerance for high humidity! But there I was in the midst of both! The only stirred breeze came from the overhead slow circulating fan in...
A Black-Maned Lion
I realized no matter how long I lived or what future hunts might bring, nothing else would ever compare. Such it is when one takes a lion. It seems customary for those who write about hunting lions to begin by citing influences of others gone before. They will first...