Pit Blind Geese

Pit Blind Geese

Field-hunting geese from a pit blind represents the epitome of waterfowling. Each gust of wind brought the smell of freshly spread cow manure from the cut cornfield below. The maize had been harvested in the fall, and the ducks, geese, turkey and whitetails devoured...
Big Game Hunting and Adventure 1897-1936

Big Game Hunting and Adventure 1897-1936

(The following selection is from Marcus Daly’s classic book, Big Game Hunting and Adventure 1897-1936 published in 1937 by Macmillan and Co. Ltd. In London.) Leaving the steamer and friends I had made, I fitted out my safari again and plunged into that great...
Fred Selous Heart of Steel

Fred Selous Heart of Steel

In the words of his contemporary and close friend, Teddy Roosevelt, Frederick Courteney Selous (1851-1917) was “the greatest of the world’s big-game hunters.” Certainly, there were few sportsmen of the late Victorian and Edwardian period who would...
Theodore Roosevelt’s First Buffalo Hunt

Theodore Roosevelt’s First Buffalo Hunt

One September morning in the late 1880s, Theodore Roosevelt had a sudden desire to hunt buffalo on the western prairie. He had been honing his ranch-craft by staying at a cow camp a few miles up the Little Missouri River from his ranch in the Badlands of South Dakota....
Eight is Enough

Eight is Enough

On January 23, 1990 Kevin Thacher, my wife Marge, and I made our way a mile over rolling sand dunes from the English village of Wells-next-the-Sea. There was a very strong wind, alternating with ice, rain and heavy snow. We were there for the goose flight....
Ghosts in the Ravine

Ghosts in the Ravine

I’m not a superstitious man. I’m not afraid of ghosts. It’s just a skull I tell myself, but contemplate my pale, frail host. Author’s Note: While it appeared in the fall 2020 Guns & Hunting issue of Sporting Classics magazine, I wrote this little...
The Happy Man

The Happy Man

Good luck is a capricious commodity. Completely unpredictable, you need to be thankful when you get it. Consider me thankful. I was fortunate to hold membership in a hunting lease in North Florida for five years. A scant 7.2 air miles from my home in Jacksonville, the...
The Treasure of Simply Belonging

The Treasure of Simply Belonging

For restless years I harbored an unrequited craving for a 28 gauge. It came from reading too much Mcintosh, and misconceptions, perhaps, of life and love. In a hundred fantasies, the little 28 would come as breathlessly to shoulder as my high school heartthrob, a...