When Wolves Come Calling

When Wolves Come Calling

I spotted a dark figure moving in the dense north Canada forest to my left, and my mind somehow convinced me it was a black bear headed my way—no need to move or be ready. I was hunting wolves. Moments earlier I ceased calling when four wolves suddenly appeared down...
Fine Guns, Fine Dogs

Fine Guns, Fine Dogs

My introduction to quail hunting came nearly two decades ago on an old family plantation in the piney woods of South Georgia. Since that unforgettable moment in that picturesque woodland, I’ve been hooked on quail hunting.

Roger Pinckney: High Priest of Daufuskie Island

Roger Pinckney: High Priest of Daufuskie Island

Most of us can say where we were when some big historic event happened. Well, I can also tell you where I was the very first time I ever read Roger Pinckney. Yes, that first paragraph of his was just that good.  When I first discovered Roger,I had just recently...
John Madison Culler: Tinkhamtown Bound

John Madison Culler: Tinkhamtown Bound

The old man holds my hand in a frosty grip. But his weak, raspy voice and eyes warmly thank me for being his friend for almost 50 years. Staring past his fish tank and sagging shelves of sporting books through a window and into the far distance, he silently raises his...
A Killing in Saskatchewan

A Killing in Saskatchewan

It was a scene of primal, primitive savagery; it seemed like something out of a corrupted Moby Dick, with the inept, half-crazed Wolf in the role of Queequeg, the aboriginal harpooner who prided himself on his lethal professionalism. Below Elizabeth Falls, where it...
The Old Timer, Wandering Always Like The Wind

The Old Timer, Wandering Always Like The Wind

I have often sat, solitary, in twilight’s slow dissolution to gray, awaiting the unmistakable sound of hooves as they rustle their way through the dusk. It is a time of relentless solitude, and in the whispered vespers of the hemlocks, there is a fleeting...
Finding Socrates

Finding Socrates

The story of how a boy found a stray puppy that went on to be a great pheasant dog for him and his dad. A dog surprised us the spring of my 10th birthday when Aunt Helen banged the screen door behind her. As she shuffled in the dark of dawn toward the Sunday paper, a...
The Day I Found Myself – A Wood Duck Hunt

The Day I Found Myself – A Wood Duck Hunt

The day I found myself, the wood duck came full-speed. From upriver and darting among cypress and willows — spilling air from his wings. Things had not been going particularly well, one single and specific vehicle of distress difficult to identify. Perhaps it was...
Desert Dreams

Desert Dreams

It was a dream come true working with desert bighorns for research, and soon my dream of taking a bighorn ram would be realized. Less than 75 yards away the desert bighorn ram was indeed going down! As he faltered, I took off running. The ram staggered and fell. I...