An Afternoon on the Handles
This story is Tom Kelly at his inimitable best – evocative, filled with emotion and in some senses, downright eerie.
Broken Down and Shot Out
When the Tin Liz breaks down five miles from home, the Old Man and the Boy discover a new way of bird-hunting. A classic from the September, 1956 issue of Field & Stream.
The Best Grouse Hunting Writer and More?
Some years ago, I was bird-hunting in Idaho with the brothers Wayment: Shawn, a veterinarian who blogs as the “Bird Dog Doc,” and Andy, an attorney who also happens to be the author of Idaho Ruffed Grouse Hunting. One afternoon, walking through a golden seam of...
Training Across
Those of us who spend lifetimes hunting and fishing learn in time that skills attained wild serve very efficiently in the struggles that eventuate in tamer, but trying, environs of modern living. Attributes of stoicism, self-discipline, perseverance, determination,...
There Are Strange Things Done in the Springtime Sun
Aficionados of campfire poetry in general, or fans of the so-called “Poet of the Yukon,” Robert Service, will likely recognize that the title of this piece comes from his eerie yet wonderful poem, “The Cremation of Sam McGee.” The setting for the saga lies far from...
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 because...
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”