Dowsing, Ducks, Dynamite and Damnation

Dowsing, Ducks, Dynamite and Damnation

I felt the shockwave through my feet before I heard the thunderclap explosion. Mud flew, water ran and two days later, I had a new pond. Brothers and Sisters, I am a water witch. Water witching, dousing, doodle-bugging— call it what you will, finding unseen things...
Wayward in Hayward

Wayward in Hayward

The man who taught me grouse and woodcock lives with his wife in a Vermont hamlet just this side of Canada. He has some gray in his beard these days but only enough to make him look as wise as his years, and he smells like pipe smoke and cherry-wood shavings. He heats...
Fallen Lady

Fallen Lady

The other day, while rummaging around in the attic for an air rifle with which to instill some respect for authority in the blue jays that had been raiding my roasting–ear patch, I chanced upon something more interesting than what I was looking for. This may well...
Tom Foolery

Tom Foolery

The boys’ agreement with the Colonel was simple: “An hour’s work for an hour’s hunt. Pay as you go and no quitting until the season ends or you kill a turkey. Fair enough?” A cold May morning in Michigan found Dave and me climbing trees on a field edge, hoping to...
Grouse of the Little Hills

Grouse of the Little Hills

I have always felt that the ruffed grouse is the wariest, the swiftest and the most beautiful gamebird in the world. The bronzed magnificence of old gobblers allures me; so does the gleam of sunlight on the tall and craggy antlers of the whitetail. Yet a hunting...
Turkey Tracks in the Big Cypress

Turkey Tracks in the Big Cypress

When the creatures of the wild were named, the wild turkey should have been christened “Wise Turkey.” The big bird is by nature sociable, and if at times he seems distrustful of human beings, it is because he is quick to recognize a hostile purpose. The Indian hunter...
Grover Cleveland: Our Kind of President

Grover Cleveland: Our Kind of President

Not many years ago, while residing in a non-sporting but delightfully cultured and refined community, I found that considerable indignation had been aroused among certain good neighbors and friends, because it had been said of me that I was willing to associate in the...
Bullets, Birds, and the Blessing of Saint Expedite

Bullets, Birds, and the Blessing of Saint Expedite

Shooting trip of a lifetime, Delta Flight 101 out of Hartsfield, non-stop to Buenos Aires. Easy flight, eat supper, stretch out, drift off, wake up speaking Spanish.   Five thousand some-odd miles at 700 some-odd miles-per-hour at 26,000 some-odd feet. But it’s hard...