Black Ducks at the End of the Earth
If you hunt or fish the same places enough times, over the course of enough years, a script evolves. You go HERE. You do THIS. The animals do THAT. There’s nothing wrong with this script, and our knowledge of it gives us some success in the field. But our confidence can betray us – to...
Smiling Like Fools
“Do you own a handgun?” Dave inquired. “Yeah,” I said hesitantly. “Better pack that along. Never know what can happen down south,” he said with a half chuckle. I had been invited by well-known quail hunting outfitter, Dave Brown, to join him on an Arizona Mearns hunt a week before the season ended. Guiding season...
Saturday Morning Goose Blinds
We settle in the furrows. Busted cornstalk & camo. Coffee, pipe and tobacco for me, graham crackers, juice and a goose call for Cam. My pipesmoke drifts from the embers, disappears weakly east. The waiting is easy, we have our distractions. Sunrise discovers our black-gray-white decoys in their plastic readiness. Birds wind up their volleys on...
How We Hunt
I think as hunters we like to do the type of hunting that best fits our personalities. I’m restless and can’t sit still, so I’m drawn to upland game and squirrel hunting. I’ve tried quite a few other things. I hunted deer in Virginia years ago. Had to do it from a ground blind because...
Winter Eclipse
Winter in Idaho feels like lock down to me. I realize the calendar says that Winter does not officially start until December 20th, but try telling that to Ol’ Man Winter. Come November, he already rules over Idaho with a frigid, iron fist. As an outdoorsman, Idaho becomes a frozen landscape during this harsh season...
The Miracle Half-Mile
The trouble with fire is that it indiscriminately consumes everything in its path. As alien cheat grass takes hold in Idaho’s high-plains, sagebrush desert, it’s great for chukars and chukar hunters, but hell on the sensitive sagebrush ecosystem. When cheat grass catches fire – which it does regularly – it burns fast and hot such...
