Greatest North American Hunting Trip Ever

Greatest North American Hunting Trip Ever

It was the greatest North American hunting trip ever, though the men’s survival was always in doubt. Fall of 1804, Meriwether Lewis was halfway up the Missouri, St. Louis to Great Falls, though he could not name the Great Falls until he had seen them, yet many months...
An Old Parker Finds New Life

An Old Parker Finds New Life

To restore or not, that is the question. How many times have each of us thought about having a fine old gun refinished only to be cautioned that having it reblued or restocked will diminish its value? Several years ago at a small gun show in a church social hall, I...
Dreams of Duxbak Days

Dreams of Duxbak Days

There’s wisdom aplenty in his words, and as I become increasingly long of tooth and sparse of hackle fond memories of youth’s halcyon days seem to grow in importance. That’s a common human trait and likely always will be. Most of these dreams of yester-youth are...
Roosevelt’s Last Hunt

Roosevelt’s Last Hunt

“The man should have youth and strength who seeks adventure in the wide, waste spaces of the earth, in the marshes, and among the vast mountain masses, in the northern forests, amid the streaming jungles of the tropics, or on the deserts of sand or of snow. He must...
A Christmas Eve Swan Shoot

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 Thanksgiving Blessing

A Thanksgiving Blessing

For more than 50 years I’ve been going up there. If it happens to be during hunting season – that is, deer season in the fall or turkey season in the spring – I usually have a rifle or shotgun in hand. For at least 30 of those years, my aging mother-in-law always...
From Pin Oak Flats to the High Country 

From Pin Oak Flats to the High Country 

I definitely learned more about elk hunting by assisting others than I ever learned hunting on my own. Hunting out west in the high country is a totally new experience for many of us “flatlanders.” I was in my early thirties before I had the opportunity to head to the...
Generations Of Sheep Hunting

Generations Of Sheep Hunting

Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge in far southwestern Arizona is remote beyond compare, yet afforded one family a most uncommon sheep hunting experience. Autumn is for remembering. The last light of summer yields to the first beautiful days of fall. This time of...
Three Boys and a Cannon Barrel

Three Boys and a Cannon Barrel

It was a Federal Criminal Conspiracy: three boys, a cannon barrel and scaup to drive them crazy. The saltwater scaup are mostly gone now, but back when I was a boy they would raft offshore, a thousand, ten thousand at a time. It would take a booming gale to get them...
Beard Beauty

Beard Beauty

Turkey beards are a meaningful memento of success in the field—one with the potential to provide ongoing pleasure limited only by your creativity. There is a pronounced tendency among turkey hunters to consider the length and thickness of a turkey’s beard the ultimate...