The Knobbly Buck
The magnificent old buck was a once-in-a-lifetime prize…and now it stood only 25 yards from his son’s stand.
A Healing Place
It was the day of his birth, the genesis of his sixty-third year, and it had been a good one. It could have been celebrated anywhere in the world, as so many times before it had. But not today. Not this time. Today, it had been spent on the small streams near home,...
Sweet Elsie: A 1970s Childhood Revisited
It might be hard to believe, but there was a time before hunters posted “Who hunts in the rain?” and “Not seeing any deer!” updates from the treestand. A time before the rise of Deer Hunting & Food Plot Facebook Groups, before forums for...
When Older Men Gather Around
After an unsuccessful day in my stand on Thanksgiving Day, my daughter and I drove the next morning back to the Philly suburbs where I was born and raised. I suppose I’ll always call that place home, although Lynchburg, Virginia where I now live is becoming more and...
A Letter to My Cousin
Written on a Sunday evening in Charlotte, North Carolina, this letter originally appeared in Sundown Covey (1986). The author dedicated his book to his grandsons “and all who share with us the precept that the hunting and the fishing are more important than the kill...
Legacies Lost and Found: The Ithaca 20 Gauge
The lost Ithaca 20 gauge of his boyhood would be the only thing he could leave to his daughter to pass on the legacy…or so he thought. Michael wiped the sweat from his brow with an old grease towel from his grandfather’s workbench and slumped to the floor. He...
The Birth of a Fisherman
You never get over the sight of your first bluegill or redbreast. Maybe that’s why we always return to the ponds and waters of our youth. It was shaping up to be a day for the Daddy Diary. I was sitting, legs swinging carefree, on the well-worn dock of the...
The Art of the Hunt – A Daughter’s Experience
The dull thud kicks her wiry frame and the bird falls like a sack.
