Little Windy and the Wingshooting Woman

Little Windy and the Wingshooting Woman

She was a green-eyed freckle-faced redhead, long of hair and limb, married a couple of times before I met her but neither lasted too long. Her name, literally translated, meant “the daughter of an angel of bright shining light,” and it was true, mostly....
The Firing Line

The Firing Line

Last November in Scotland, a line of seven friends spaced 20 yards apart marched across a harvested field in pursuit of pheasant. On that misty morning, hunters, dogs and gamekeepers were eager to find birds and almost immediately they did. A brightly feathered...
The Ultimate Holiday Gift Guide For Sportsmen

The Ultimate Holiday Gift Guide For Sportsmen

For many, the holidays are about family, where young and old recall the magic of Christmas morning—when kids sneak wide-eyed downstairs and witness a twinkling tree surrounded by a sea of presents. Then there is the look on the face of loved ones as they open...
A Legacy of Decoys: Cameron McIntyre

A Legacy of Decoys: Cameron McIntyre

One of the first duck hunters I met when I moved to the coast of Georgia in 1968 was a game warden named Dick McIntyre. He lived just a hop and a jump across the Savannah River in Beaufort, South Carolina. And no, I didn’t meet him because I was guilty of some game...
Woodcock Days

Woodcock Days

The best hunting spots are secrets among friends, where a bird in the bag is just a bonus. A mist conceals these mountains. They are gray like bone. The sun will not rise above them for another hour, and yet it is eight o’clock. This is a favorite spot. I find...
Mr. Detwiler: A Ghostly Grouse Hunt

Mr. Detwiler: A Ghostly Grouse Hunt

Who was this strange old man who handled a shotgun like no one I’d ever seen? When I first saw him, I tried to duck back into the pines, but he raised his hand in greeting and I was stuck. All the while he was coming on over through the hawthorns, I cussed under...
Birds on the Wing

Birds on the Wing

“When you have shot one bird flying, you have shot all birds flying. They are all different and they fly in different ways but the sensation is the same and the last one is as good as the first.” Before I was old enough to own a gun, wild game came to me via a boyhood...