Q Fix

Q Fix

There’s a rifle maker named Q, Inc. This raises a question: What does the Q reference mean? Quality? Quirky rifles? Both? Quirky is defined (in part) as unorthodox, unusual, unconventional and out of the ordinary. Q’s Fix rifle is all that plus high-quality materials,...
Culmination

Culmination

Ancient walls of huge, dry-stacked, weather-worn boulders hint at a distant past and parallel us as we travel through crisp morning air along a sandy, sun-dappled road toward our shooting pegs. They look European. Beyond the stone walls, giant hardwoods rise over the...
On the Red

On the Red

During the past millennium, I was fortunate to spend time in northern Texas as a wildlife biologist and hunting in south-central Oklahoma a few miles north of the Red River, the border between our two states. Drawing from my experience as a biologist and as well as a...
The Heart of a Sheep Hunter

The Heart of a Sheep Hunter

Wind seems to be an almost constant on mountain peaks in sheep country. Exposed on a ridgeline in Idaho’s highest mountain range, the wind whipped hard and relentlessly as our party of three picked apart the terrain with spotting scopes mounted on tripods.  It had...
The Promised Land

The Promised Land

It was one of those golden autumn days you read about and, as they worked their way through the stand of bluestem grass and past the little plum thicket at the bottom, Dean couldn’t help but smile at Maggie, the pup, bouncing along with all the exuberance of a...
The Surrender

The Surrender

The old man sat on the cold ground leaning against a cherry tree, taking in the fields before him. Harvest time was past, and a cornfield lay fallow under the slate gray sky of a cold fall day. The stalks lay broken and twisted from the event; their bounty taken. The...
An Unreal Buck

An Unreal Buck

“Y’all be inside our preserve, where we hunt whitetails before the opening of Oklahoma’s regular deer seasons,” said Dusty Vickrey, manager of the Choctaw Hunting Lodge. “The enclosure is big with a lot of hardwoods and pines, deep cuts, tall grass and extremely dense...
The Ghost of Christmas Present

The Ghost of Christmas Present

I parked in the cul-de-sac where the suburban world ended. Unhitching my rod from the roof of my pickup, I crossed the bridge over the thundering creek and walked past the pump housing that the cougar liked to lie upon in the midwinter sun. Once again, I had passed...