Hunting Posts
How To Ruin Your Bird Dog
There are plenty of dog training articles out there that help you teach your dog everything from basic obedience to running 250 yard blind retrieves. Hundreds of articles will walk you through different drills on how to build your dog’s confidence or how to teach sit on a whistle. This is not one of those articles. I’m…
Anticipating the Hunt
The seasons will soon change and it will be fall. That time of year that all upland hunters anticipate all spring and summer. Many of us have worked our dogs in the summer heat, spent sleepless nights thinking and wondering if that one bird dog will make the fall hunting string.
Northampton County Dove Hunt
Northampton County is located in northeastern North Carolina and sits on the Virginia border. The county seat is Jackson, North Carolina. Once upon a time, I worked in this area when I was a Parole Officer in the early 1990s. Little did I know I would be invited back annually as a hunting guest of one of…
Africa Queen, My Beautiful Mother-in-Law! Circa: 1968-1971
You don’t have to be a hunter to be a true outdoors woman. Take my Mother-in-Law, Dotsy Boineau for example. She was in her late 30’s and though she loved to travel, going to Africa was the last thing on her mind. Her husband, who loved to hunt, wanted to take an African safari and she was…
For Whom The Bell Tolls: A Buffalo on Hemingway’s Birthday
It’s one thing to be sitting in the comfort of your home, in a comfortable chair, with a glass of bourbon, reading Peter Capstick’s “Death In the Long Grass” and dreaming of hunting Cape Buffalo in the grass so tall and thick that you can barely see a foot in front of you. It is another thing to leave the safety…
Robert Ruark, “Bwana Ndege!” the Bird Master
Make no mistake, writer Robert Ruark was a bird hunter long before he even pulled the trigger of a rifle. The shotgun was the instrument that emotionally connected Ruark when he was a young boy hunting quail, ducks, and training dogs, with his grandfather. Though he is more well known for his wild exotic hunting exploits, much…
The Southerner’s Guide to Safari: Accommodations
As someone who has traveled to Africa, I often get asked where to stay and if bathrooms are available. This is a reasonable question, especially for those planning to travel or hunt in the remote regions of Africa. We have grown accustomed to certain comfort levels in today’s modern world. It may surprise some that even in some of the…
South Africa Warthog Adventure
It was day four of my African safari and I had already taken three of the animals on my Most Wanted list. The only thing remaining standing between me and hunting a bushbuck was a boar warthog. I bang-flopped my blue wildebeest on Day 1 but Nic, my Professional Hunter, had me put an insurance shot in…
A Perfectly Wonderful Quail Hunt
We were fortunate in being able to book a last-minute quail hunt at Back Woods Quail Club in Georgetown, South Carolina, where we have enjoyed membership for many years. The weather was delightful, with partly cloudy skies, a meager chance of rain, and temperatures hovering around 70 degrees. Unfortunately, two previous quail hunts had been canceled because…
Tar Heel Traditions
In the faded light of his driveway, down the road a piece from his hunting lease, Chris Fuller hastily shoots a photo of the biggest deer he’s seen in his life and texts it to his buddies. This was not just any whitetail mind you, this was one that later would qualify for the “Book”. You’d never…
Ode To A Chesapeake
I walked behind her as she drove back and forth through the milo. She worked ahead of us, moving in no real pattern, but we had a routine, her and I: She would get twenty or so yards ahead and then look back at me; I would whistle to bring her close, and…
Questionable Medical Advice
There are certain times in your life when you look back and recognize the exact origin of your current misery; the poorly made decisions that eventually flourished. The chickens came home to roost… or in my case: turkeys. We were camping along one of the many tributaries of the Columbia River, hoping for salmon but settling…
Before it was “Old School” Camo
Long before it was “old school”, it was just camo. Before it became the preferred camouflage of North American duck hunters, its story began on the backs of Marines and soldiers in the Pacific campaign of WWII.
Sheep Hunt for a Flatlander
There in the scope of my .30/06 were the two rams we had seen two days and two mountains back: both past prime breeding age and fine trophies. As I lay there on the side of a grassy mound, I hesitated. Not only for the purpose of taking a careful shot. Many other thoughts raced through my…
Afghanistan Duck Decoys
I deployed to Afghanistan in December of 2001 and was operating out of Bagram Airbase. Bagram was a former Soviet airbase and the scene of intense fighting as the Taliban retreated under pressure from the Northern Alliance with the help of United States Special Forces.