In 1900, Paris staged the largest world’s fair ever held up until that time. Fifty-one million people attended—phenomenal numbers, when you consider the difficulty of travel and the fact that the entire population of France was then only 38 million.

You’ve been going every year to the “Grouse Camp” up in Minnesota to hunt grouse and woodcock for who knows how long now. And every year when autumn flavors the wind, you start thinking, almost continuously, about the countless memories you and your friends have made in this place that continues to draw you back year after year.

Photography by George & Brodie Calef

For many years I spent far more days afield as a rifleman, hunting big game, than as a wingshooter. So it is not surprising that my ballistic epiphany came to me while thinking about rifles. I was considering buying a new rifle chambered for 7mm magnum, a cartridge I had always liked (with the sort of groundless prejudice riflemen are prone to) in opposition to a .300 magnum, a calibre I equally irrationally disdained. Suddenly the ridiculousness of my preference stuck me. These two cartridge cases are identical, and thus, in most practical respects so is the ballistic performance. Sure, if you load a 150-, 160- or 175-grain bullet in a .300 mag, it leaves the muzzle a little faster than a comparable weight bullet from a 7mm, but over longer ranges the 7mm projectile catches up with the .300 owing to higher ballistic coefficients. Conversely, the .300 bullet may hit a little harder because of its slightly larger diameter bullets, but the 7mm projectile will likely penetrate better owing to its higher sectional density—again little to choose between.

Photography by Hal Lauritzen

A bloated harvest moon, resplendent in all its autumnal glory, ascended ever-so-slowly over the duck marsh, as though silently tip-toeing over the cattails and bull rushes to avoid disturbing the aquatic creatures that call the marsh home. The trilling of pintails, the shrill two-toned whistling of widgeon and the seductive come-hither quacking of hen mallards permeated the pungent evening air, punctuated only by the occasional plaintiff hooting of a great horned owl.

Story & Photography by Terry Wieland

In 1882, Mr. J.H. Walsh (a.k.a. Stonehenge), then editor of The Field, published a massive, two-volume work called The Modern Sportsman’s Gun and Rifle. As one might imagine, what was modern in 1882—almost 130 highly eventful years ago—would be considered anything but modern today. In 1882, the hammer-gun era was coming to an end, but both black powder and Damascus barrels were still the standard. This is a long, long way from our situation in 2011.
Or is it?

To read more go to www.thecontemporarywingshooter.com

Story & Photography by Terry Wieland

On the evening of May 16, 1816, just as the play was ending at Covent Garden, George Bryan Brummell slipped out of the theatre, climbed into a hired coach, and hurried south across the Thames.

At Clapham Common, hidden where it would not be recognized, his personal coach was packed and waiting. They galloped through the night, arriving at Dover before dawn. There he chartered a boat to carry him across the channel to Calais. Brummell—Beau Brummell—was fleeing the crushing weight of his gambling debts and the looming threat of debtors’ prison. He would never see England again.

To read more go to www.thecontemporarysportsman.com

Story and Photography by Terry Wieland

On the evening of May 16, 1816, just as the play was ending at Covent Garden, George Bryan Brummell slipped out of the theatre, climbed into a hired coach, and hurried south across the Thames.

At Clapham Common, hidden where it would not be recognized, his personal coach was packed and waiting.  They galloped through the night, arriving at Dover before dawn.  There he chartered a boat to carry him across the channel to Calais.

We’d enjoyed a delightful afternoon’s pheasant hunt; my little chocolate lab Heidi and I, bagging a limit of three roosters. Now we sat in the sunshine, reveling in one of my favorite rituals of the hunt, cleaning the birds. As I finished plucking and drawing each bird, I lopped off its head, cut off the feet and one wing, leaving the other wing attached as proof of species and sex, just as we always do in Alberta, and in a couple of other US states where I’ve hunted. And thereby became a criminal.