Elvis is a small, chocolate brown, utterly captivating cocker spaniel who rode, perched up in a corner of the wagon, beside David.

Read more…

A few weeks ago, I was shooting with a friend who owns a pair of Boss side-by-sides. On one target, the clay appeared, he pulled the trigger, and nothing happened. He made
some adjustments and shot. A few targets later, the same thing occurred.

Read more…

Black Ducks by Richard D. Benson courtesy of South Carolina Department of Natural Resources.

P.J. O’Rourke, satirist, writer extraordinaire, and our longtime friend and hunting buddy, first dubbed me “Martha Stewart with a shotgun” when he wrote a blurb for the back cover of my Eat Like A Wild Man: The Ultimate Game And Fish Cookbook.

Right Place, Wrong Time by Scot Storm courtesy of courtesy of Scot Storm and Wild Wings.

Read more…

K is for Kansas. Some would say it is also for King, the new king of pheasant hunting states. While Kansas still ranks second to South Dakota, the perennial leader in the number of pheasants taken by hunters, the gap is small and closing. If Kansas is not yet the King, definitely it is the Krown Prince.

Read more…

In February, optimism begins to bloom inside of me, riding on warm thoughts of the coming spring. Maybe it is the same with you when you see the days getting a bit longer and the gray, leaden clouds occasionally opening up to provide a much-needed glimpse of a warm blue sky. Under these conditions, my first thoughts are always of woodcock returning from their southern wintering grounds to nearby brushy fields and clearings, and of the magic and wonder I feel when going to those secret coverts on March evenings to watch the males perform their mating ritual in the thin, fading light. My wife, Debbie, and I go there with old friends and hunting companions—Mark and Lois, Jim and Linda, Billy and Linda—just to be among these little russet migrants that have captured our hearts over these many years and, quite simply, as Mark often says, “to see the woodcock dance.” We thrill to the male’s peenting and his erratic, spiraling flight into the dusky sky and then watch amazed—over and over again—as he plummets to earth, seemingly out of control, only to catch an occasional glimpse of him stopping short and then fluttering softly to earth, at nearly the exact place from which he began this aerial display for a female tucked into the cover somewhere nearby. It is a fine way to welcome spring and the best of excuses to be among old friends with whom I’ve shared the woods and waters for most of my life.

Read more…

Long before I could ever afford a “Best Quality” gun, I admired the oak and leather cases of Marvin Huey. Each was a finely bound book that was to be opened, a holder of history and a resting place for heirlooms. A fine Huey oak and leather case is the binding which holds an heirloom for generations yet to be. 

Read more…

The problem of how we view the different shotgun gauges can be illustrated by a real-life example from two plantations where wild quail are shot over dogs.

Read more…

Read more…

November Slough—Pheasant by Jim Rataczak Courtesy of Wild Wings

Fortunately, late in December, the diminishment of your desire to kill a pheasant, or anything, after you’ve killed so many, is balanced almost perfectly by the increase in your desire to do right by your dog, and to keep on hunting.

Read more…

Photograph by Terry Wieland

We’ve only one virginity to lose, wrote Rudyard Kipling, and where we lose it there our hearts will be. Kipling was writing of the sea. I am writing of ruffed grouse. I was nine. It’s like it was yesterday. That’s not the day I shot a ruffed grouse, for that would come some years later. No, it was the day I first saw one, heard one, and felt it as it landed near me in some leaves on a brittle day in October.

Read more…