On the Red

On the Red

During the past millennium, I was fortunate to spend time in northern Texas as a wildlife biologist and hunting in south-central Oklahoma a few miles north of the Red River, the border between our two states. Drawing from my experience as a biologist and as well as a...
The Heart of a Sheep Hunter

The Heart of a Sheep Hunter

Wind seems to be an almost constant on mountain peaks in sheep country. Exposed on a ridgeline in Idaho’s highest mountain range, the wind whipped hard and relentlessly as our party of three picked apart the terrain with spotting scopes mounted on tripods.  It had...
The Surrender

The Surrender

The old man sat on the cold ground leaning against a cherry tree, taking in the fields before him. Harvest time was past, and a cornfield lay fallow under the slate gray sky of a cold fall day. The stalks lay broken and twisted from the event; their bounty taken. The...
An Unreal Buck

An Unreal Buck

“Y’all be inside our preserve, where we hunt whitetails before the opening of Oklahoma’s regular deer seasons,” said Dusty Vickrey, manager of the Choctaw Hunting Lodge. “The enclosure is big with a lot of hardwoods and pines, deep cuts, tall grass and extremely dense...
Old Ephraim Part 2 of 2

Old Ephraim Part 2 of 2

Click Here to Read Part 1 Early next morning we were over at the elk carcass, and as we expected, found that the bear had eaten his fill during the night. His tracks showed him to be an immense fellow and were so fresh that we doubted if he had left long before we...
A Christmas in Moose Land

A Christmas in Moose Land

This article originally appeared in the January 1899 issue of Outing.  The world was white. Day after day the cold had held, the only changes being from fair to snow and from snow to fair. Such days as the fair ones had been! The sun blazing from flawless blue, the...
Old Ephraim Part 1 of 2

Old Ephraim Part 1 of 2

Wounded or cornered, the grizzly will attack with a headlong, reckless fury that renders him one of the most dangerous of wild beasts. As the restless frontiersmen pressed out over the Western plains, they encountered in the grizzly a beast of far greater bulk and...
Stalked by the Predator

Stalked by the Predator

It was November in rural Virginia, solidly into whitetail season. Well south of Richmond, with a respectful nod to musician Oliver Anthony. I was on a huge farm, owned by a retired Army Lieutenant Colonel who had become a key mentor to me. I had no idea going in that...