Down On the Border: Mearns’ Quail

Down On the Border: Mearns’ Quail

I’d been following my Brittany, Tess, through the steep, rocky canyons of southeastern Arizona’s Coronado National Forest for the better part of an hour when her bell fell silent. I found her upslope—bug-eyed, trembling and stretched out on point—at the base of a live...
True Blue

True Blue

Grandma’s farm consisted of five acres, mostly wooded except for a half-acre garden loaded with berries and vegetables. Out back stood a shed stuffed with old rakes and spades and other hand tools. Mason jars were scattered among bushel and berry baskets filled with...
In The Court Of The Ruffed Grouse King  

In The Court Of The Ruffed Grouse King  

In the pine barren, the pasture’s edge, the orchard, this is his court . . . and we are honored to be there. In an orchard, long abandoned, we make our way toward a solitary tree, one of few bearing apples this fall. That it has fruit at all strikes me as promising...
Autumn’s Greatest Hits: My Favorite Upland Bird Hunts

Autumn’s Greatest Hits: My Favorite Upland Bird Hunts

Choosing a favorite upland bird hunt is like choosing a favorite dog. You may have an answer, but it is probably best not to say it too loudly within earshot of the others. Besides, upland hunting was never meant to be ranked. Its pleasures are too varied, its birds...
Woodcock Shooting on the Upper Mississippi

Woodcock Shooting on the Upper Mississippi

In few places has there ever been woodcock shooting that for certainty of finding the birds and ease in following them equaled the sport of the bottom lands of the upper Mississippi River 20 years ago. Scarcely any of the resident sportsmen then troubled this charming...
Some Grouse You Never Forget

Some Grouse You Never Forget

He was a young man, barely past his 25th birthday, slim and fit in the way of young men who follow dogs in the high mountains. His companion, Big Sam, was a huge, muscular, raw-boned pointer with a head like a mule—in size as well as temperament. Sam was a “big-going,...
error code: 521 1