Don’t judge me on this last hunt of the season. I have my reasons! OK, let me make something clear, I have not been on my last upland or waterfowl hunt, just the last one for this ending season thanks to a nearby shooting preserve. For those who snub their noses...
She would leave him soon, and for this reason she had insisted that he fish the opener without her, the only gift she wanted for their anniversary. The first day of trout season usually filled him with excitement. Even as a man he felt like a boy awaiting Christmas...
When Parker Whedon died on March 16, 2012 after a long struggle with Parkinson’s disease and the myriad complications associated with the illness, the world of turkey hunting lost perhaps its final direct link to the sport’s great names of yesteryear. From the time...
You can do it all on Alaska’s rivers as long as you’ve got the right outfitter and guides. The idea is traditional. Go to the wilderness. Fish and hunt. Everything. Moose. Bears. Waterfowl. Salmon. Whatever pops up. It’s what sportsmen used to do. It’s what they...
Mind-boggling numbers of mallards, mallards like blackbirds, tornadoes of mallards, more mallards than sky. Way down in October, in The Moon of Falling Leaves, me and Joe Merganser on the back loading dock of the farmer’s co-op elevator. Joe Merganser was full-blood...
I’ve always had a few BB guns around the house, but now there’s a whole lot more, and I’m hungrily riding happy trails looking for the rest. I suppose if you’re going to revert to childhood, you might as well just get on with it, whole hog and all the daisies. My...
With the death of Neil Cost on May 29, 2002, at the age of 78, the turkey hunting world lost the most renowned of all callmakers. I was also fortunate enough to personally know this extraordinarily skilled craftsman whose callmaking earned him national acclaim and to...
My Grandpa Joe was chock full of weather-related wisdom. For example, about this time of year, whenever a premature warm spell hinted at a change in the seasons, he would opine: “A fellow can’t trust spring. It tends to be mighty fittified.” He knew, by dint of long...
Maggie “Aunt Mag” Williams (1863-1961) In the halcyon days of childhood, most of us had the distinct privilege, although we might not have recognized it at the time, of being in close contact with older folks who merited the description of being “a genuine character.”...
With each of us, Grandma passed on her love for nature, for hunting and, of course, all things the color of blue. Grandma’s farm consisted of five acres, mostly wooded except for a half-acre garden loaded with berries and vegetables. Out back stood a shed stuffed with...
