Quail of the Kalmias
These birds of the hills develop both a speed of flight and a finesse of dodging that are superior to anything the field birds can show.
Hunting With a Mission on Kodiak Island
Mark, Richard and I dangle from toes and fingers on a steep slope 2,100 feet above the surf. We’ve finally broken out of the claustrophobic alder thickets, and behind us the view is spectacular—the islands of the Kodiak archipelago rise green and brown and black from...
Too Perfect to be Random
It’s so perfect, in fact, that most serious quail hunters would rather go afield without a shotgun than without a dog. Some veteran bird hunters pay exorbitant lease prices to exercise their dogs. Oh, they may shoot a bird now and then, but they shoot mostly...
Kentuck Turkey Tango
Some 480 million years ago, plate tectonics waltzed the lapetus oceanic plate into what is today’s United States to form part of the supercontinent, Pangaea. For a hundred million years afterward, the Central Pangean Mountains lifted skyward, as high as the Alps....
If You Can’t Lick the Weather, Join It!
“The only way to handle weather,” said the Old man, “is to know what to do with it – and use it accordingly”
A Thousand Rebel Yells
It was black dark and there was the disarming gush of the swollen, little stream, and I could only sense the rise of the earth above me. But I had done battle here before. I could feel it in my bones, as in the ghostly lines of Mary Fahl’s “Going...
Last Waltz
Though I had known her for nearly two decades, I had never seen her like this. I had first come to her in autumn, myself still nearly a youth, her lovely, angular shoulders discreetly draped in purple and amber and varying shades of gold, glowing soft and warm as she...
Long Island Pond Shooting
The greatest sporting artist of the 20th century hunts black ducks on an icy pond.
Oh, Canada! A Waterfowler’s Dream Destination
Canada is home to nearly a quarter of the world’s wetlands, and the prairie potholes of the country’s western provinces are the planet’s richest water bird nursery—aka, the duck factory. For the North American waterfowler, it is a land of hope and opportunity. Witness...