Lost & Found
Nothing about pulling a kennel from the back of my pickup and placing it on the ground in the jack pines’ shadows felt right. Tossing in a stinky t-shirt in the kennel was something you do with puppies not adult dogs. Leaving bowls of chow and water next to the open...
September’s Lessons
It was the kind of heat that has weight—like an enormous hand pressing down. Every so often a puffy cloud would pass, obscuring the sun and providing a few moments of blessed relief. But then the sky would clear, the sun’s unblinking gaze would hammer down once again,...
Black Dog Handlers
For the past 43 years, on the first Monday in March, after the close of bobwhite quail season on the fabled plantations of the Red Hills Region that that spans Tallahassee, Florida, north to Thomasville, Georgia, the invitation-only Georgia-Florida Shooting Dog...
25 Years of the Super Retriever Series
Spring rains in southeastern Georgia can be either a blessing or a curse. If they’re cold, then handlers running Labs will need a lot of layers to knock down the chill. If they’re warm, then the heat combined with high water levels will bring out the water moccasins....
The Opening Weekend Tragedy
This October marks the 21st anniversary of one of the most tragic events in the history of upland bird hunting: opening weekend of the 2003 South Dakota pheasant season. Over the horrifying course of those two days, more than 100 gundogs (no one knows the exact...
Love Gloves
Never underestimate the power of suggestion, especially from a crafty old codger with a bird dog.
Arriving in Tinkhamtown
“He was going back to Tinkhamtown. It was a long way, but he knew where he was going. He would follow the road through the woods and over the crest of a hill and down the hill to the stream, and cross the sagging timbers of the bridge, and on the other side would be the place called Tinkhamtown. He was going back to Tinkhamtown.”
The Tail of the Mangy Mutt
It was my very first hunt with Lacie, and I said to the plantation manager, “Could you please put out twelve quail, two chukars and two pheasants, and all as singles in a small field.” He replied, “We have a small training field that is planted with sorghum. But you...