The Opening Weekend Tragedy

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

Love Gloves

Never underestimate the power of suggestion, especially from a crafty old codger with a bird dog.

Requiem for a Peregrine

Requiem for a Peregrine

Everything about the peregrine falcon is spectacular — even in death. “One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds.” – Aldo Leopold Early one evening toward the end of April, my English setter, Tina, and I...
Nothing To Do for Three Weeks

Nothing To Do for Three Weeks

I left long before daylight, alone but not lonely. Sunday-morning stillness filled the big city. It was so quiet that I heard the whistle of duck wings as I unlocked the car door. There would be ducks leaving Lake Michigan. A fine sound, that, early of a morning. Wild...
The Knobbly Buck

The Knobbly Buck

The magnificent old buck was a once-in-a-lifetime prize…and now it stood only 25 yards from his son’s stand.

Arriving in Tinkhamtown

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.”