The Big Predators

The Big Predators

With lions, wolves and grizzlies on the increase, I may start wearing a bulletproof vest when I go to these remote areas. I like hiking in fields and forests to sniff about for deer, elk, birds and rodents. Now, however, I must look over my shoulder and stay alert for...
Perspectives On Hunting Myself

Perspectives On Hunting Myself

I, as often as not, enjoy the day when nothing happens, like a nothing day I spent on a deer stand. A friend of mine told me that an old wrangler in Montana had expressed it best when he said “the thing that a man hunts when he hunts is himself.” I...
The Profound Impact of Hunting

The Profound Impact of Hunting

Hunting sculpts intrigue into incomparable adventure, places us center stage, and folds us into the metamorphosis. At the New York office of Blount, Reynolds, and Poirer, the torch of jurisprudence will pass to eager young associates for a spell. The senior partners...
John Bryan is Wild in Wood

John Bryan is Wild in Wood

If John Bryan was looking for the easy way out, he never would have tried to make it as a sporting artist in wood. But then again, this is a guy whose favorite quarry is the ruffed grouse, whose idea of fun and games is slashing through thickets of alder and oak in...
The Odyssey of An Artist

The Odyssey of An Artist

“From the very beginning, being an artist was my first choice.” You can tour the most discriminating galleries, visit the most thoughtfully-curated exhibitions. As you walk these clean, well-lighted places, you stop, as much from duty as interest, to study...
Rambling Boy and an Island in the Sun

Rambling Boy and an Island in the Sun

He was a rambling boy. They called him Kid Carolina. Dick Reynolds, officially Robert Joshua Reynolds Jr., born to wealth and privilege. He was the eldest son of the North Carolina tobacco magnate of the same name, the creator of Prince Albert pipe tobacco and Camel...
Eleven Timely and Timeless Sculptors

Eleven Timely and Timeless Sculptors

No art form can touch all people with the same force, but it would be hard to imagine a medium with more universal appeal than the bronze statue. It can be sculpted into a delicate hummingbird resting on a tabletop, heaped and hewn into a life-size grizzly guarding a...
Spring in the Tenth Legion

Spring in the Tenth Legion

From the middle of May until the first of the following March, a turkey gobbler is straight forward. He is reliable, he is sober and sedate and reasonable. There may from time to time pass through his head erotic flashes of pleasant passages last spring, but these...
Double Barrel Doves

Double Barrel Doves

I swore to lock up the 28-gauge Perazzi, safe and sound, and return it when asked. But I simply could not, would not, make this trip without her. I have always been lucky with dogs and shotguns. Or maybe just unlucky with everything else. In any event, one evening the...
Mike Needs to Be Bringing in the Bucks

Mike Needs to Be Bringing in the Bucks

Getting the birds yourself could be far cheaper than having to buy ready-to-cook birds at the grocery store. The other day Mike stopped at the grocery store and went inside, leaving me alone in the truck — again. Why can’t I go inside? I promise not to graze on too...