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.
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...
Christmas for Two
“Look out, Dad!” Through the network of brown November branches I could see into the little open where my father watched for the driven grouse. This was the shot he loved best in all bird shooting. He had taught me its strategy the I was twelve, taught me right here...
Cumberland Estate’s Historic Revival And The Renaissance Man Behind It
In the 1994 classic, Shawshank Redemption, Andy Dufresne, played by Tim Robbins, delivers the film’s memorable manifesto to Ellis ‘Red’ Redding (Morgan Freeman), “Life comes down to a simple choice…get busy living or get busy dying.” For 80-year-old Texas native John...
A Christmas Eve Swan Shoot
Two old renegades pull off an illegal nighttime hunt, despite a surprise collision and dunking. Shooting swan by night may seem hardly the correct thing in the estimation of many, but we fowlers of the wild and “feathery” West occasionally obtain under cover of the...
A Week Before Christmas
One morning, a December long-ago, a week before Christmas, Bob walked into a local store in Millerton, New York. The owner, Phil, a friend, was behind the counter taking care of a customer as Bob came in from the cold. “Late night, Bob,” he said. That wasn’t a...
The Light At Middle Ground
Fall is fading fast. Naked branches click like dry bones in the wind, and the choppy, pewter-toned lake mirrors an apocalyptic sky. Winter’s wrath brooks no quarter when the wicked weather turns minutes into hours, and few know its fury better than the late-season...
Sporting Classics TV Season 6 Episode 23 Trailer
When bobwhite quail populations in West Texas plummeted in 2010, concerned hunters took notice and banded together to fund research to find a solution to the mystery. Now the efforts from the Rolling Plains Quail Research Foundation are bearing fruit for wildlife in...
Nate Smith’s Dairy Farm
The right or wrong of hunting has nagged at me from the beginning, and after a decade of hunting I finally set out to think it through. I agree with the sentiment of writer Edward Abbey: “Hunting is one of the hardest things even to think about.” As is my way, I...