Gray's Sporting Journal

Gray’s Sporting Journal The Bird Hunting Edition VOLUME FORTY-FOUR

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ISSUE 4

AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2019

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Features VOLUME FORTY-FOUR ISSUE 4 • AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2019

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Driven by Dušan Smetana

A PHOTOGRAPHIC JOURNAL

Christmas Eve

by Chris Dombrowski Relying on a dog for more than finding and retrieving birds.

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Grouse Dinner

by Richard Yatzeck A series of fortunate accidents.

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The Lost Chukar

by Ehor Boyanowsky History led you to this—a walk you had to make in a dry riverbed.

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Baja Races by Brian Grossenbacher A PHOTOGRAPHIC JOURNAL

44

The Last Time

by Mitchell Lee A familiar story of a love lost suddenly and far too early.

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Feeling Lucky

by David Books On occasion, things just go right.

109 EXPEDITIONS Cripple Creek

by Kris Millgate Repairs for the birds, but don’t tell the cows.

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God’s Country by Russell Graves A PHOTOGRAPHIC JOURNAL

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FRONT COVER: A Limit in Eric’s Shed by C. D. Clarke

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Columns & Departments VOLUME FORTY-FOUR ISSUE 4 • AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2019

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8 JOURNAL

84 ART

by Russ Lumpkin

by Brooke Chilvers

The First Time Memories of an old coat.

A remembrance of things past.

64 TRADITIONS

89 EATING

The Chicken Hunting of Old Bill Higgs

by Charles H. Morton Edited by Will Ryan

On the importance of good ground, good dogs, and a steady horse.

78

Brett James Smith

72 SHOOTING

Come November

by Terry Wieland

Ruffed untamable grouse and the ties of friendship.

78 ANGLING

Italian Marinades

by Martin Mallet

Beyond salad dressing.

130 BOOKS

Bird Hunting, Then and Now

by Chris Camuto

132 POEM

The Road Hunter

by Mark E. Clemens

Naming Names

by Scott Sadil

The nuances of writing about rivers while preserving self-interest.

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70 Gear & Lifestyle 120 People, Places & Equipment 124 The Listing

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Gray’s Sporting Journal Group Publisher John Lunn A s s o c i at e P u b l i s h e r Michael Floyd

(706) 823-3739 / mike.floyd@morris.com

~Purveyors of Fine Sporting, Wildlife and American Art~

Editorial Russ Lumpkin, Editor Wayne Knight, Art Director Terry Wieland, Shooting Editor Scott Sadil, Angling Editor Seth Fields, Digital Content Manager

(770) 696-7619 / seth.fields@morris.com

Nina Eastman, Advertising Production Coordinator Contributing Editors R. Valentine Atkinson Barry & Cathy Beck Denver Bryan Christopher Camuto Brooke Chilvers Pete Fromm

Brian Grossenbacher Martin Mallet Will Ryan Dale C. Spartas E. Donnall Thomas Jr.

Advertising Sales Northeast ~ Scott Buchmayr (978) 462-6335 / buchmayrscott@gmail.com Midwest / Southeast ~ Amos Crowley (216) 378-9811 / amos@crowleymedia.us.com West ~ Scott J. Cherek (307) 635-8899 / cherekgroup@bresan.net Stone Wallace Communications (512) 799-1045 / jimkstone@gmail.com Write to the Editor

editor@grayssportingjournal.com C i r c u l at i o n ProCirc: 3191 Coral Way, Suite 510, Miami, FL Kolin Rankin, Consumer Marketing Director, ProCirc Mike Bernardin, Circulation Coordinator, ProCirc Retailers: To carry GSJ, call (646) 307-7765.

Subscription Inquiries:

(Orders, address changes, problems)

1-800-288-5892

www.grayssportingjournal.com Email: grayssportingjournal@emailcustomerservice.com Back Issues:

(706) 823-3526

A Publication of MCC Magazines, LLC a division of Morris Communications Company, LLC 735 Broad St., Augusta, GA 30901

Donna Kessler, President Patty Tiberg, Vice President Scott Ferguson, Director of Circulation Donald Horton, Director of Manufacturing Karen Fralick, Director of Publishing Services Morris Communications Company, LLC William S. Morris III, Chairman William S. Morris IV, President & CEO ©2019 by MCC Magazines, LLC. All rights reserved.

Gray’s Sporting Journal (ISSN 0273-6691) is published seven times a year in March/April, May/June, July, August, September/October, November/December, and January/Expeditions issues by MCC Magazines, LLC, 643 Broad St., Augusta, GA 30901. Subscriptions are $39.95 for one year, $68 for two years. Canada and Mexico add $20 per year (U.S. funds only). Outside North America, add $40 per year (U.S. funds only). Periodicals postage paid at Augusta, GA, and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address corrections to Gray’s Sporting Journal, P.O. Box 433237, Palm Coast, FL 32143-9616.

Contributions in the form of manuscripts or photographs will be gladly considered for publication. A self-addressed, stamped envelope of the proper size must accompany each submission. Please write for editorial guidelines if submitting for the first time, and enclose a SASE; this is very important. We cannot guarantee against damage or loss of materials submitted, but we take great care in handling all submissions.

Address all correspondence to Gray’s Sporting Journal, P.O. Box 1207, Augusta, GA 30903-1207. For subscription inquiries or if you do not wish to have your name provided to qualified users of our mailing list, call 1-800-288-5892.

Gray’s Sporting Journal may not be photocopied or otherwise reproduced without express written permission from the Publisher. First published September 1975.

Inventory includes works by: Robert Abbett Roger Blum Frank Benson Richard Bishop George Browne Ken Carlson Roland Clark Michael & Nick Coleman A.B. Frost Philip R. Goodwin David Hagerbaumer Eldridge Hardie

Francis Jaques Bob Kuhn David Maass Edmund Osthaus Odgen M. Pleissner Chet Reneson Aiden L. Ripley Brett Smith Frank Stick John Swan A.F. Tait John Whorf

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JOURNAL

The First Time Memories of an old coat.

by Russ Lumpkin

N

ot long ago, with some urging from my bride, I cleaned out my closet. It proved to be no small task. I not only decluttered, but also culled clothes that I thought might be put to better use at a local men’s shelter. While deciding whether shirts were too far gone to give away or if I’d ever wear them again, I ran across an old hunting friend: a faded canvas coat.

The label on the jacket reads drybak, and the black-and-red plaid lining is still intact. All the buttons remain, and the bloodstains on the back of the coat where the game pouch used to be have turned almost black. The coat still fits and I like to wear it when the weather calls for such. It smells of outdoors and hunting; the pockets smell of gunpowder. I don’t think I could bear to part with it. It had been handed down to my two brothers and fina ly to me (and likely to my dad some years prior). It’s been a part of all of us.

I wore it the first time I ever accompanied my dad quail hunting. On that winter day, the coat fi like a 30-gallon garbage bag and the sleeves covered my hands with generous excess. I cuffed the sleeves with a few rolls, and along with my tennis shoes, that old coat added to my appearance as something of an unpainted clown. But of all my accoutrements that day, that coat is the only thing that had ever been present on a hunt of any kind, and I wore it to help me look and feel like a hunter.

I remember brilliant sun and clear blue sky, likely in January. A boy of seven or eight, I felt excited to be with my father and Lucky (we always had a dog named Lucky) and in the sun on a cold

day. My overarching memory from that hunt, though, is the difficul y I faced trying to keep up with my father. Briars and soft dirt hindered me, and he maintained a diligent, untiring pace. He stood nearly six foot two, had been a very good athlete, and was strong—a strength that lingered into his eighth decade. More than anything, he had grown up hungry. Hunting and fishing always meant food on the table and were serious matters.

I knew he wouldn’t make things easy for me. In the field or on the water, I knew to expect only modest tokens of consideration from him.

That day, we hunted a series of small fields and the connecting woods. Some of the plots had been fallow a few years, and others had been in production the summer prior. In and around the unplowed fields blackberries grew in great hedges that were often taller than me, but we plunged through many that day following Lucky. It seems Dad didn’t shoot many birds, but I remember one covey rise vividly.

At one point, Dad forced his way through a briar head, which reluctantly gave way to the might and consistency of his forward push. Even after he beat them back and down, the blackberry vines, purple in the winter landscape, dug into me, grabbing my legs, hands, coat, and cap. I fell far behind.

Dad kept going, and I heard him say something about the dog being birdy. He moved with purpose.

I knew whining wouldn’t sway him, so I pressed on.

I fina ly exited the briars into an open, narrow field strewn with corn shucks and cobs. Bare stalks stood forlorn in irregular rows. On the other side of the field Dad closed in on Lucky. I took off

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running. Dad waited as long as he dared. The dog inched forward. Just as I arrived, Dad held out his hand to offer a silent whoa. He took a few steps, and bobwhites erupted—each a drum corps unto itself. I had never seen a covey burst, and it took my breath away. Dad fi ed and killed a bird. Lucky remained locked on point.

About the time I regained my good senses, other members of that same flo k, with a beat of wings that startled me all over again, rose in singles and doubles from what seemed a solitary square inch of earth. Dad killed one of the singles and, after the entire covey had flushed chuckled at the surprised look on my face when that first salvo of birds rocketed skyward.

Unknown to me, Dad marked where the birds had fallen. He soon found one of them and stood over it, saying, “Dead. Dead in here, boy. Lucky.

Dead in here.”

If there had ever been a chance to create a breed called “plodder,” Lucky the Third could surely have been its progenitor.

He had his own way.

Lucky seemed to know what Dad implied and put his nose to the ground. He worked tight circles with intense scrutiny and his wagging tail keeping time. In short order, he had retrieved both birds with a methodical efficien y that characterized his entire approach to hunting. Lucky’s lineage leaned heavily toward pointer—the short hair, thick chest, black saddle and ticking, and a great nose—but he had big bones and jowls and a slow, close-hunting gait. If there had ever been a chance to create a breed called “plodder,” Lucky the Third could surely have been its progenitor. He had his own way.

Dad handed me the birds, and I examined them closely, especially their masks—identical save the rufous face of the hen. Handsome birds both. By the time I tucked the two quail in the game pouch, he

and Lucky were already in search of the next covey.

Up ahead, I saw Lucky freeze. He moved a few feet and froze again. I began to run, scurrying to catch up to see the next flush With each step, I felt the weight of the birds as they bounced in the game pouch. As I recall, the covey flushed wild, too far for a shot.

We continued walking and Lucky hunted through the afternoon. The sun grew redder as it sank lower in the sky. The landscape mirrored the hue of the sun, and the various browns and beiges of winter foliage lit up in vividness almost unimaginable. Broomsedge bluestem the color of my coat and the hollow brown stalks of dead goldenrods blended beautifully with occasional blackberry hedges and the gray of defoliated woods in the distance. The broomsedge and goldenrods were just weeds to me then.

Toward the end of the day, after we’d meandered and crossed fields and traversed copses of mixed hardwoods, I found my bearings. I knew we weren’t far from the truck—within a few hundred yards. I asked Dad if I could carry the gun.

He felt secure we had seen all the birds we were going to see, and he cleared the magazine. I picked up the shells and handed them to him.

As he extended the gun, likely an Ithaca that he shot for years, he said, “You’re going to have to carry it all the way to the truck.” He smiled, and I didn’t know if he was joking or serious. I knew if I got to suffering, he’d take it—but he’d be disappointed­­. I carried the gun the rest of the way.

With the sun on my back, I felt warm.

I climbed into the cab of the old Ford F-150, while Dad put Lucky in the bed of the truck. My body sank into the seat, tired and worn.

Dad was weary too. I could tell. Generally, he was a talker, but during the drive home, he said little.

I asked, “You think Mama has made vegetable soup and corn bread?”

“There’s a good chance she has,” he said. “I hope she has.”

“Yessir, me too.”

I don’t know how many miles we walked that day, but several would be an accurate guess. My legs and arms felt heavy, and my hands were very cold and crisscrossed with scratches. As we passed field along the highway, I just kept thinking, I can’t wait to do this again. n

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EL 42 LIMITLESS PERFECTION SEE THE UNSEEN Untitled-47 1 GSJMG_190800.indd 11

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Christmas Eve I Relying on a dog for more than finding and retrieving birds.

by Chris Dombrowski

f there’s a finer pleasure in wing shooting than cresting a hill and, after scanning the windblown contours of the country, finding your dog buried on coalhot point amongst rifflin clumps of bunch grass and the rattling leaves of dry balsamroot, please inform me of its whereabouts.

My Llewellin setter, Zeke, gave me just such a point yesterday. I say “gave” not because he owes me a penny, but because if I were to look under the Christmas tree tomorrow and unwrap a box somehow containing that likeness—black mask unflinching, frame as tight as a drawn bowstring—I would not need or want another present. He was low and he was staunch. He’d been there for a while, at least a couple of minutes. I could tell by the direction of his gaze that the birds were in front

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of him, down the south-facing hill from us. I took a the way I fell for French wines—not because I was few steps past him and, watching him steady in the supposed to, but because they are superior in nucorner of my eye, did something I rarely do before ance and challenge. In his sixth season, Zeke has pointed birds flush: clicked the Browning’s safety off. appeared to relish the change in terrain dictated by On my next footfall, 15 Hungarian partridge our new quarry, the parceled ag-acreages frequented flushed downhill and I picked one from the left side by pheasants replaced with the seemingly interof the winged chaos and dropped it, then tried for minable, nonlinear grasslands where Huns thrive. a late right-swinging double and missed. As Zeke If his GPS tracker is accurate, Zeke routinely logs brought the dead bird back to me, I praised him upwards of 35 miles per hunt, most covered at a for his brilliance. I drew the warm creature from loping gait, while wearing a gluttonous grin, until his jaws, smelled its mottled cape the unassailable scent of a hardin feral ritual, and silently pledged won covey seizes him, and his brow It struck me that to extend its life in a savored meal. furrows with focus. swapping targets— Then I sighed deeply and considAs Zeke’s understanding of the fleet, cocky, stop-and-go species has evolved, I have, I beered my good fortune to be alive pheasants that will run lieve, evolved as a trainer. In both and afield at all.

My hunting partner Mahoney, until pinned for eggshell- child-rearing and dog-handling, fragile coveys of Huns the Third Newtonian Principle of his 10-month-old Llewellin fethat will hold tight for male, Olive, and our old friend Motion applies; genetic predisposiBeaver Shocker strode over the days unless bumped— tions aside, most of Zeke’s “less than hill to see how I’d done. We’d desirable” habits and tendencies can was a lot to ask of an brought along Shocker not for experienced, damned- likely be attributed to my early flailhis nickname—earned, I assure ing as a dog dad and shotgunner. good rooster dog. you, during his days as a fisheries To wit, I have tried to focus on his tech with Montana Fish, Wildlife reactions to his environment and & Parks—but for his reliable gunning, so that we to understand his decisions as a part of his growing could, while Shocker walked up the coveys, capture comprehension, rather than the mere lead-up to my more photos than our nerves would normally allow shooting opportunities. On our best hunts, I have for. While I relish solo hunts, company can aid high spewed fewer directions and commands than in the country Hun pursuit: another pair of legs to push past—though we did engage in one very frank disyou up the ridge spine, another conscience to recussion several weeks ago, on which more soon. mind you that limit chasing likely limits next year’s The vital exchanges, of course, have taken place yield, another student of maps occasionally inclined between dog and bird, Zeke’s 220 million scent reto share a very birdy tract of land he’s found. ceptors conversing with the birds’ nuanced redolence Discovered by Mahoney late last season, the and tendencies; his pursuit genes talking with their roughly 4,000-acre mid-elevation grassland bowl de rigueur caginess; his instincts squaring off in dewe plied yesterday consists of three unforested bate against theirs. While we experienced successmountainsides; each features numerous knobs of ful outings for Huns last year, because he efficiently sand-colored cheatgrass and long, gently sloped located many coveys and adrenaline compromises saddles. Flanking the hills, perfect harsh-weather observation, I had failed to grasp that the slow-stridhabitat for birds, three creek drainages stitched with ing “pheasant creep” he often employs successfully on hawthorns and rose hips fall into a sage-choked bacagy roosters forced some coveys to wild flush. sin. Though we have found only grasshoppers and When Zeke exhibited such behavior recently, green sprouted cheat in the crops of birds harvestthough, I noticed right away. ed here, winter forage of snow- and grouseberries By the last few inches of his white tail, I had loabounds in the gullies, as do the tracks of mule deer, cated him in a robust expanse of sage and walked a elk, coyote, black bear, and wolf. hundred paces to his staunch, lip-quivering lockdown.

But when I reached him and the covey scurried visibly through dry understory, he reset with panic, abandonfter a decade of dedicated pheasant hunting point too quickly and too wildly to be whoaed. ing, I fell hard for Huns in a recent autumn, much The birds flushed—a huge covey swirling like a

A

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colony of bees—but I didn’t mount my gun. thirteen more coveys, only three of which were “reImmediately, I called him in from a quasi–victofinds.” Still in her first season, the lanky, blue-eyed ry lap and said: “No way. No way, that is not going Olive had a breakout day, sticking six coveys solo, to work for us.” He sat beside me, panting, improbretrieving birds to hand, and backing on sight. ably long tongue dangling from his mouth, looking With high, thorough nose, Zeke quartered wide, preoccupied if a tad bit annoyed, ready to cut the approached coveys deftly, and stood them for long next scent. In the past, I might have barked somespans of time. To speak it plainly, the more ground thing else in frustration, but I had a hunch that he we covered, the more birds we found, our Hun required a longer leash to learn this new bird on equation solved—per the Kierkegaard adage, solvitur his own. So I got down on both knees, pulled his ambulando—by walking. face to mine, and in the manner of We didn’t have to walk far, a desperate supplicant, pleaded. though, on the third mountain, “Your body,” a wise friend before Zeke downshifted, picked “You have to understand, you recently told me, “is how up his nose, and yard-by-yard diskeep making that move, these birds will bust every time. Every time. the land thinks itself into appeared over a rise. Shocker and you and vice versa.” As I followed and a few minutes later, You will never get a mouthful of Zeke began to stir, feathers.” after crossing a cattle-hammered I comprehended It struck me that swapping sage plain, found him sky-lined, something new: When leaning into a point. I turned on targets—fleet, cocky, stop-and-go pheasants that will run until pinned the phone’s video recorder and the land isn’t thinking for eggshell-fragile coveys of Huns itself into me, I’m thinking pushed Shocker forward into my that will hold tight for days unless view screen. Zeke tiptoed two myself into me—an bumped—was a lot to ask of an steps; I whoaed him softly. Then abysmal trade. experienced, damned-good rooster Shocker stepped past the point, dog. I picked a handful of sage from crossed an invisible threshold, and a branch and, crumbling the leaves in my gloved hand, flushed the covey, firing his old wood-stocked .870 began to ponder our situation. Awakened by the scent, once when the covey reached its apex. The bird I reasoned that the only way to help Zeke with the over his right shoulder flipped and tumbled hard. transition was to spend far more time in Hun country.

I marked it through the view screen, but when I Twist my shooting arm, it was a sacrifice I’d have to walked to where the bird had fallen found only make. So we committed to our course of study and, Shocker’s shotshell wad. except for a few moments of backsliding, Zeke has Like a couple of forensics investigators, we reseemed to comprehend my monologue verbatim. traced our steps and tried to locate the downed bird in slow-motion video replay, while Zeke repeatedly attempted to cast downhill, each time ceding to my f I ever cease to marvel at how a domesticalls of “Here, hunt dead.” Shocker seemed to want cated canine with a nose the size of a cracker can to concede—it didn’t help that Mahoney and Olive manage to scent, amidst a square-mile plain of had, from the sounds of things, found a covey and grasses, a dozen wild game birds that huddled tosome shooting—but I’d watched the bird plummet gether would barely cover a serving plate, I hope too heavy to abandon the chase. After another seva hunting partner has the good sense to confiscate eral minutes, Shocker even asked, innocently enough, my shotgun from me for a week in mid-November. whether we would be better served with a Lab that After the dogs nailed the second covey, we praised was good on cripples. Fearing I’d jinx our search but their feat effusively, watered them, and gradually bedesperately needing to defend my dog’s honor, I told gan to talk strategy, soon deducing that we’d found him that, though it seemed unlikely given the circumboth groups of birds at similar elevation. Mahoney stances, Zeke hadn’t lost a bird all year. I knocked on hedged that our most productive method of chase my gunstock for luck. Shortly thereafter, in the swale might simply be to sidehill around the vast parcel he’d wanted to search before I called him to obey my of public land, to cut a line around the inside of the inclination, Zeke went on lose point—tail parallel to bowl rather than over its lip. Following this directhe ground, rear haunches loose—with the yet live tional aim, the dogs over the next four hours located Continued on page 93

I

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YETI Ambassador Flip Pallot using his LoadOutâ„¢ GoBox to protect his archery supplies.

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Driven Photography by Dušan Smetana

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You’ll greet the sunrise in Kincardine, which is, in the world of Scottish castles, only a pup. Tradition, however, holds deep here—from the bagpipes, tartan, and tweed to the beaters, fine double guns, and birds nattering on the hillsides.

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Also relatively new to the landscape, red-legged partridge, which were introduced to Great Britain from France in the 18th century. They are bred for the shooting in great profusion, and they mingle with wild populations that flourish and hold tight in the heather—until forced to flush by the beaters. Then it’s all eyes to the sky.

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Back at the castle, the sun will set on a glorious day while you eat a fine meal, enjoy a bird of a different feather, and make toasts to tradition, the shoot, the partridge—and to friends old and new.

For more information, see page 120.

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GROUSE Dinner A SERIES of FORTUNATE ACCIDENTS.

by RICHARD YATZECK

DIANE —

whose maiden name was KesslerTinker—should really have married a handier man. Leaving to pick up her mother at a distant airport, she asked me to replace the cracked pane in the back hall window and to put the chicken in the oven in time for an eight o’clock dinner. Even before the dust had settled in the driveway, I decided to leave the window till later because I planned to shoot ruffed grouse for dinner. Added to the single, small bird in the freezer, the two birds I planned to shoot would make a regal game meal. Diane’s mom, June, loves game. I was, then, avoiding the window job for June’s sake. What I lack in handyman skills, I make up for with my powers of rationalizing.

DRUMMER BOY, BY COLE JOHNSON

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I put the freezer grouse—sole fruit of October’s have come to rest. To find it would be the sheerest, hunting—in the oven to thaw. Pyos’s nose was fine merest luck. I do not happily leave a hit bird undisMy shooting, though, had left us mostly gamecovered, but lacking any hint of direction, I moved less save that one bird. Still, hope eternal and the on southward with Pyos through the still promising late October sights and smells of autumn assured edge. I meant to circumnavigate that 20 acres. me that I was doing the right thing. So, Pyos the Circumnavigate is on purpose. The south fence capable springer and I crossed Blueberry Road to of Sullivan’s woods stretches across low, rolling ridge try Sullivan’s woods. Pyos cantered, as if through land. You approach these ridges, though, through a well-known filing cabinet, west into the wind ankle-to-hip-deep water, because the intervening on the wood’s edge. Red willow, seedling Damson land is the beginning of the blueberry marsh that plum, prickly ash, and late raspberry bordering the gives our road its name. Even at the end of Ocmature interior black ash and maple, most of the tober, I hunt here in hippers. Those ridges on the leaves still hanging, made a fine larder for browssouth, across the water, are lined with oaks and ing birds. Pyos ranged into the woods, too, checkbeeches, another nice grouse pantry. But today, as ing elm deadfalls where morels sprout in April. No frequently, Byron Dalrymple was right—ruffed grouse. Not even in the cedar copse that forms the grouse seldom feed on acorns and beechnuts when northwest corner. Nothing but there is still a plethora of soft a single, skittering cottontail, fruits. I found raspberries passed up so that the partridge and seedling plums in this I PROBABLY would not be alarmed. They case, though the plums were may not be so attentive to stray getting a bit old. This south SHOULD HAVE JUST shots or slammed car doors as line then with the breeze at pheasants are, but then again, our backs provided only, near they may. the marshy edge, one bright FIXED THE BACK We turned southward then brown woodcock flight A into larger cedar, tag alder, maflight a shot, but no woodture white spruce, and tangles cock. Pyos may have sneered.

WINDOW, ROASTED of wild cucumber and fallen I was planning—an activelm. Since it seems to me that ity in which Diane finds me, THE CHICKEN. ruffed grouse move into the correctly, deficient—to go wind and follow the sun across north now, through the cattails a day, I had hopes for this westand bluestem that border the ern edge too. Pyos, returning from a foray into the woods on the east, and then head into the wind, mature woods, slowed, eyed me, and approached a through the relatively open middle of the 20 acres, medium-sized white spruce on the balls of his feet. the mature woods that had shaded out real grouse A partridge, seeming as big as a great horned owl, cover. I hoped that Pyos would wind and find that slid down and away south. The hardest, for me, the towered bird. But I knew that I needed two birds, most hopeless of shots: down, out of a tree. I fi ed and the miss on the woodcock hadn’t built confiwithout thinking lead, without thinking at all, and dence. This “relatively open” area is strewn, howthe bird made a 45-degree turn straight up. Head ever, with dead elm blowdowns mixed with large shot, it “towered.” It blasted right through the inand standing swamp maples, soft semi-marshy terwoven higher boughs of black ash and maple stretches, and here and there, gaping holes in black and was gone from sight. A single gold maple leaf muck where tamaracks, pitched right over because drifted back from its flight Pyos and I gaped. of their shallow root systems, used to stand. These We hadn’t a clue where to begin to look for that holes, lovely if they’d been parts of trout streams, are grouse. After the sudden ascent we froze, listened booby traps here. Unfallen leaf cover darkens and for the smashing fall, a thump, the fevered buzzwild cucumber and prickly ash screen these natural ing of wings that often betrays a dying grouse. We mantraps. I moved with some care then but had beheard exactly nothing at all. Somewhere within that gun to worry a bit about time. The nearing arrival 20-acre wood lot, the towering bird would fina ly of Diane and June, the eight o’clock dinner hour, 28 · Gray’s Sporting Journal · www.grayssportingjournal.com

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made the acquisition of two grouse a sensitive issue.

I probably should have just fixed the back window, roasted the chicken.

We moved westward, into the wind, without mishap. Even got to admire the Uzi-like rat-tattat of a pileated woodpecker. Not a sniff of grouse, though. A return swing a hundred yards farther north was fruitful of spooked late-season frogs, even the wheep of a belated teal, the flash of a blue admiral butterfly, but nothing at all for the table.

One final swing, then, west again, 15 minutes before closing time, nearer that pre-ridge water. We struck toward a last, looming swamp maple with its ragged spread of snakey branches, low to the marshy ground. Whoosh as I lifted a particularly spiny bough of prickly ash. Ka-boom! as I tried, onehanded, from the bent knee, as this bird, at least the size of a lesser auk (but nowhere near extinction), departed around the fat maple. The knee I tried from sank out of sight over the edge of an unsuspected muck hole. The other leg tried to compensate, the recoil—I had pulled both triggers of the 12 gauge—added its bit, and I pitched over sideways where a tamarack used to be. An involuntary thrash kept gun and head up a bit. Then I subsided, as into an abandoned Jacuzzi— the double underwater in my lap, my neck propped against the roots of the prickly ash, my hippers and back pockets bubbling beneath me. Pyos, startled, sprang up against the trunk of the maple and appeared to hold it up. Was the damned maple falling too?

“Hell and spite!” As there was, clearly, no evading the wet, I just lay there. I did boost the gun up against the prickly ash to drain but didn’t dream of getting up. “Do your worst,” I snarled.

Diane wanted that window replaced. I, stupidly, went hunting instead, with a fixed bag in mind, and now the woods had taught me who was master.

Grouse hunting is, and ought to be, the pure opposite of a trip to the supermarket. I deserved pneumonia.

After a while, since the muck hole was about my size, I began to warm the late October water.

I looked vainly for blue sky above the dark tent of 30 · Gray’s Sporting Journal · www.grayssportingjournal.com

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leaves. I wondered idly why Pyos, still nailed to the maple, didn’t let the bugger fall on me. Twenty-five yards away he was straining, snorting, wagging, looking up at—a stiffly spread ruffed grouse tail, wedged in the crotch of a tree, eight feet up. I rose, slid, splashed toward Pyos and his tree. Broke off a serious prickly ash branch. Scratched at that tail until I hooked the whole bird down. Gray variant, not the red one I’d just missed. Bloody spot behind the left eye. The bird that had towered.

The fine feeling of a lost bird found, humancaused waste averted, sweetened the nasty job of stripping, wringing out clothes, dressing again in sticky rubber and canvas against naked flesh. The socks and skivvies went into the empty game pocket.

Then, although it had become a soft autumn evening, it was time to go home, closing time.

The road and the white clapboard house with its cracked back window was at a northeasterly angle from us.

Pyos found and flushed three slow, oddly dithering grouse out of raspberry and seedling plum thickets before we made the road. I filled a pocket with some of the wrinkled, vaguely winey plums as we went on.

But, maybe because of the miraculously found bird that I plucked as we went along, I was not even slightly tempted to violate closing time, not even for June’s (or my own) sake. The woods had spoken. Immersion, then discovery. Enough. We’d make the two birds, thawed and towered, stretch.

There remained an hour and a half to prepare dinner. The frozen bird was thawed, the prodigal returned was plucked. Enough, if I could get the rice on and the jug Chablis wasn’t too vinegary. I hugged Pyos once more, fed him, and dashed for the cellar to drop my muddy rags, towel off, eviscerate the bird before a quick shower, and then steady, knowledgeable cheffery. I dropped my muddy rags at the top of the cellar steps, and then dash off to— Clank-tinkle!

I thought, The cracked back window must have fallen in. I was wrong. It was blasted in.

At the foot of the cellar steps as I approached, a Continued on page 102 GROUSE (DETAIL), BY COLE JOHNSON

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LOST The

CHUKAR History led you to this—a walk you had to make in a dry riverbed.

by Ehor Boyanowsky

“LET’S STOP HERE, GIRLS.” The pickup lurches onto the

shoulder through a plowed furrow of glacial silt on the old wagon road that leads from our ranch, Nighthawk, to Spences Bridge, which spans the Thompson River some 40 miles farther south. Getting out of the cab, punctuated by a series of grunts and the protests of old basketball knees, takes forever.

Nicola de Beauvoir, the needle-nosed, coyote-thin mom, her sloe eyes two blazing lumps of coal set in a black narrow head my wife, Cristina, characterized as “Darth Vader–like” awaits the signal to vacate the truck.

Her daughter, the much sturdier and with classic setter looks, Josie Bonaparte, wolf eyes staring into the distance, stands behind her throbbing like T. S. Eliot’s waiting taxi. We are on a mesa high above the river with the late afternoon October sun bathing the butte on the other bank in a wash of honey-hued light.

SPRING BREAK, BY LOU PASQUA

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A favorite spot: lots of feed, rabbitbrush, sagebrush, speargrass on the mesa with a talus slope for roosting to the east and an arroyo with a cliff to fl off in a quick getaway to the west. There are always chukar here. Unless there aren’t.

“Okay, girls, let’s go.” Josie starts a zigzag course toward the talus, but Nicola, who is usually wont to roam in huge circles, almost instantly hits the brakes in midstride right on the edge of the arroyo. Josie notices from across the track, turns in a doughnut move, then freezes, backing Nicola. I snap shut the Ithaca over-and-under and walk toward her. One, two, three chukar burst from sagebrush on the rim and dip down toward the river some 300 feet below.

Gone, no chance, but a fourth erupts closer, just high enough for a silhouette against the sky. I fi e; the partridge crumples, plummeting into the ravine.

“Damn!” I make a dead reckoning of its crash site but almost instantly regret my shot. The bottom of the arroyo is more than 100 feet down, and unless it is still alive, these girls aren’t always keen on retrieving. “Josie! Nicola! Go down!” More mountain goat than dog, they plunge down the near-vertical walls, one side grass and rubble, the other overhanging glacial till.

“Find the bird, come on.” They work diligently up and down the grade of the arroyo, checking every willow, juniper, fallen ponderosa. Nicola looks up quizzically. No cigar.

There is less than an hour’s daylight left. There are birds around on the mesa. Those four were part of a covey. So chances are another four to eight are still hunkered down in the sage or hoofing it toward the talus. I do need another couple of birds for a dinner we are hosting. Does it make sense for me to work my way down the grassy side to find that bird?

What if I break a leg? I have no cell signal here and am at least 10 miles from any ranch house.

I decide I can’t leave that bird without looking for it. I chose to shoot, so I must try to find it “We’re going down, come on.” I put the gun in the cab and walk over to the grassy side of the crevice. Not good. Although it looked solid, the stones among the desert grass tumble as I slide down. How the hell am I going to get up? I reach the bottom of the arroyo. The girls are with me but look skeptical.

Nothing. The sun has sunk behind the mountaintop, so I call off the search. It is only a bird, I reassure myself, but I feel a pang of sorrow, of abject failure. There’s history there. I try to pull myself up

the grassy bank. Not a chance. The surface is too loose, more unstable than I had judged it to be.

Now what? Quick. Think. The light is fading fast.

I walk up the bottom of the arroyo and pray that it narrows to nothing at the top and that the cutbank on the side I slid down is low enough for me to hoist myself up onto level ground. If that doesn’t work . . . I prefer not to think about the consequences.

I trudge up, grabbing stems of splintering sagebrush to avoid backsliding on the rubble. How did I get here?

Depends how far back you start.

I

was raised in Northern Ontario in the goldmining town of Red Lake, the last in a series of towns we moved to each time Dad got fi ed for approaching management with grievances regarding working conditions. In those days, if a cave-in occurred and rescue seemed “hopeless,” management would order, “Pull the chutes,” and hundreds of tons of rocks would tumble down the shaft where the miners lay.

Early on, I decided mining wasn’t for me, and smitten by the milk-wagon horses that appeared at our doorstep in Toronto, I wanted to be a cowboy almost from birth. And by the time we settled in Red Lake, a Red Ryder BB carbine was the object of my desire. But we had no money to spare, using every last penny to finish the rather elaborate house my dad built from lumber salvaged from abandoned mine buildings and purchased for a song.

Dad made it my job to pull out and straighten the nails, but I needed money. So I made a plan. I set up a stand right where shift work miners came off the bus and sold comics, discarded from a newsstand, at fi e cents each. After three days, I had the $30 needed to purchase the Red Ryder from the Sears catalog.

When it arrived, I unwrapped it gingerly, saving the brown cardboard box with its bronze staples for a scabbard. I loved the shiny, gunmetal blue of the barrel, the gun-oil smell, the smooth wooden stock, and the leather lanyard connected to the ring attached to the receiver. I placed it under my bed and fell asleep holding it by the barrel.

I slept well, dreamlessly, and awoke the next morning with the sun streaming in the window, and a cacophony of crows and songbirds belting out their mixed choruses. I checked under the bed— the gun was still there. The world was unfolding as it should. It was Saturday, and Dad was already up

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6/17/19 4:31 PM

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nailing redbrick asphalt siding to the walls of the house when Mum called him in for breakfast: ham, eggs, johnnycake, and heavy rye toast.

Having promised to help Dad, I ate but gazed wistfully at my rifle leaning against the closet door.

Dad caught my sidelong glance and said: “Well, I guess, since you made the money yourself, you get a holiday today. I can go it alone. Go and learn how to use your gun.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. I wolfed down my meal, grabbed my rifl , kissed Mum on the cheek and Dad on his thinning pate, and swept out the door and past the big band saw in the backyard Dad had built for bucking up cordwood. I ran up the hill into the woods, to my fort—a group of big boulders topped with scraps of two-by-fours left over from the construction of our house.

I set up a bunch of cans and fi led the magazine.

I stepped back about 20 yards and working the lever action, emptied the gun one shot at time. Not one ping. Then I steadied myself on a big rock and fi ed again and again. Finally one BB clattered off the can.

I was crestfallen—100 BBs, 1 hit. I talked to my dad at dinner. He took a break, and we went outside. He set up a backstop and a sawhorse for a rest. He showed me how to take a breath, releasing half and then squeezing—not pulling—the trigger while keeping both eyes open as I lined up the sights. Complicated, but now I could hit the occasional bull’s-eye.

Within a few weeks, I could hit a bull’s-eye at 20 yards nearly every time, two out of three at 25, half at 30. And once, as I walked back to the house, with Caesar, my American water spaniel, he suddenly went on point, quivering. I squinted to see what he had spotted among the sun-dappled shadows.

It was a ruffed grouse—strutting in a herky-jerky manner among the trees.

As I stalked toward that grouse, I remembered that Dad had brought one home the previous fall.

It must have been winged because it was still alive.

My father had held it tenderly curled up in his big, callused hands, head down, feathers fluf ed. I was thrilled, awed to see a real live partridge, and I stroked it. He then disappeared outside and came back in moments with fi e cleaned grouse. One was still warm.

With a belief I could bring home grouse for dinner, I fi ed, setting off an explosion of wings and speed that I didn’t anticipate. I jumped a foot off the ground as the grouse roared away unscathed. I

wanted to prove myself worthy of being a hunter to my dad. But how?

As we entered the backyard, Caesar suddenly went on point again. A grouse, my grouse, right here behind the house? No, he was pointing a dickey bird, a robin in our vegetable garden. I sighted in on it.

I remember its eyeing me with one eye and then I squeezed. To my amazement, the bird fell on the spot. I ran over and picked it up. I was elated. Finally I was a real hunter. I picked it up warm to my hand as a trickle of blood ran into my palm and marched over to where my dad stood on a ladder, nailing on siding.

“Dad, Dad, come see what I got!”

“What? Tell me. Can’t you see I’m right in the middle of finishing this piece of siding?

“No, I can’t. I’ve got to show you. Please come down.” I was practically twirling with anticipation.

He chuckled, hooked his hammer on his belt, and descended. “What is it?”

“I’ve become a hunter. Look what I shot!” I held out the bird to him.

As his feet hit the ground and he saw the bird, his quiet smile vanished and his mouth went slack, then assumed that harsh set it does just before he cleared phlegm from his throat in the morning. I waited. Dread rose within me. Why, I didn’t know.

“Well, what do you think? Good shot, huh? I’m a hunter just like you, right, Dad. With my own gun?”

“You know,” he sighed, “we have so few birds around here, and you have to kill even them.”

“But you kill birds!” I felt blindsided, as though I had been hit by a truck. I was devastated as the meaning sank in. It had never occurred to me.

“A bird like that stands beside me when I dig in the garden. Robins are songbirds, not game birds.

She catches worms and is probably the one who flies over to the nest in that old poplar hanging over the well to feed her babies.”

I was so angry, humiliated. My eyes burned with tears.

“What nest?”

“The one on the second-lowest branch, just a silhouette right now. It probably has eggs or young ones in it. Why don’t you find out. See what damage you’ve done.”

I practically sprang up the tree, and as I reached the second-lowest bough, sure enough, there was the nest. To my extreme relief, I saw the nest was empty. At least I did not have that burden to bear.

Continued on page 99

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RACES

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DESERT living is a hard go. There’s predators aplenty, and conditions are Spartan. When drivers are pushing birds, you’ll see Gambel’s quail do what they do best: run.

From one sparse patch of vegetation to another. If push comes to shove, they take to the skies in quick bursts that can surprise you, make you question yourself—you may have to hotfoot it to catch up.

Gambel’s quail are some tough little birds.

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FORTUNATELY, unlike many upland birds, Gambel’s quail populations are stable, and you’ll get chances aplenty. Eventually, you do what’s necessary: adjust. Increase your lead, exercise patience. Soon, you begin filling your game pouch.

When it’s time to go, you head out, even though there are more birds out there running around. But you leave them be for the next time, the next year, the next generation.

For more information, see page 120.

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THE

Last Time A FAMILIAR STORY OF A LOVE LOST SUDDENLY AND FAR TOO EARLY.

BY MITCHELL LEE

SOUTHERN STYLE, BY ROBERT ABBETT (1926–2015)

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HE

would not have gone except he knew how much Sue would enjoy it. She had never been penned up except during heat and was very active for an old dog, but at age 12, the English setter was showing her years. Her eyes, which once looked like the tannin-stained waters of the Lynches River, now more resembled cream tea, and her muzzle flecked with gray. She would be the last in a succession of bird dogs, and as with the last of anything, she occupied a place of inexpressible value.

She had been the young dog he and his only son had hunted over before he went away to college. They had been hunting every fall since, too, but it just wasn’t the same. Before he went away to school, hunting had been an unspoken matter of getting up from a breakfast of hot biscuits with fig preserves and coffee and reaching behind the closet door for their guns and vests already weighty with shells, the dog dancing and barking in the yard. Or it might be an afternoon hunt after a meal of butter beans out the freezer and rice with a

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slice of smoked ham. It was simply what they did.

The rounds were familiar. The covey behind the house could always be found near the power line cut across the branch. Another convened not 300 yards away along the fencerow between his farm and his brother’s. There was the one on the draw between the Williamses’ peanut and cotton fields and another in the thick briar patch near the farm pond.

A ditch leading to the pond on another neighbor’s farm always held a covey. They might drive two miles to a farm they rented, where a field grown up in young, waist-high longleaf pines and broomstraw held a covey, and a mile of Deep Hole Swamp held multiple coveys of fast, darting birds that flew like corkscrews through the vines and trees. Another farm held coveys in pine thickets along the edge of soybean fields. Each held special memories, peculiar to time and place—where the covey got up that one time, where two coveys got up within 50 yards of each other. There was the little corner of the field where he had taken his first shot with his new 1100 and had tripled in a single shot. On the tractor road through the Little Mill place, walking back to the truck at dusk—the dog tired and a little muddy, the tip of her tail bloodied from briars, their vests warm with birds, an intoxicating stew of autumn smells—he had said to his son to keep an eye out for ducks and, just then, two came right up the road at full tilt, headed to the millpond. A quick

LATE AUTUMN BOBS, BY ROBERT ABBETT (1926–2015) COURTESY OF RUSSELL FINK GALLERY, LORTON, VA

6/18/19 9:48 AM

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squat, a moment’s collection of thought, and then a smooth swing, the muzzle fire lighting the sky and their faces, then in unbroken rhythm another blast from the boy’s Remington. Two wood ducks.

When one had fallen, the other had circled and fell at the second shot.

But when the boy went away to college, not really far, just under three hours, but farther than anyone in his family’s memory had ever gone before, bird hunting changed from something they did to something they planned. Anticipation filled the hours before, robbing the native sweetness with burdens of expectations. An attractive girl turning unexpectedly, for no apparent reason, and heartily kissing a boy into a dizziness of excitement, confusion, and wonder—that is an unplanned hunt— natural, visceral and immediate, undiminished by plan or anticipation. In place of those countless spontaneous hunts—probably not nearly so many as they each thought there had been but each one etched indelibly in two minds yet blurring into a single metaphor of hunting—came weekend hunts.

Those became fewer too.

Early on, it had been too hard for the boy to come home in the fall, knowing returning to school would be difficult. There were the breaks at Thanksgiving and Christmas, and with the season running into middle March, there were plenty of weekends, but with Sundays off-limits through a compelling

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constellation of old game laws not necessarily still on the books, family custom, habitual churchgoing, and Sunday afternoon visits, only Saturdays were really available for hunting. Weather could spoil that all too easily. They hunted less and less, and the times they went were disappointing.

There would be birds, and the dog would find them, but their shooting might be off. Sue was not a good retriever, though she would hunt dead in tight spots and bring them. The bird population was dwindling, familiar places themselves either missing or abandoned by birds. They blamed hawks, possums, insecticide, foxes, owls, fire ants, and everything else for their misfortune. The growers renting the farms began ripping out fencerows, planting right up to the trees, bushhogging the ditch banks clean, and keeping all the weeds out of the ends of the fields. Everything looked neat and prosperous, but behind the facade was a barrenness unimaginable. Years passed and hunts became fewer and less productive.

At Vic’s BP station in Timmonsville, old men gathered to hear fish stories, get in on fishing trips, tell about what used to be, and what ought to be.

Not a well-kept place, Vic’s was a place stained of various histories: tobacco juice, transmission fluid, gasoline, engine oil, coolant, phlegm, fish slime, and soft drinks. Dressed in his uniform—well-worn green Dickies shirt and pants—presiding over this

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6/18/19 9:48 AM

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general assembly, Vic presented a similar palette.

Behind thick old-fashioned glasses, his dark right eye and his poorly functioning left eye squeezed nearly shut would sparkle through a tale full of swearing that might involve so much as drawing a detailed map later to be proved pure ficti n. A cigar permanently fi ed in the left side of his mouth, the bill on his green cap cocked mischievously to the right, and his pants hoisted up on the left and sagging on the right—he was a study in organic symmetry in the fantastic form of a modernist painting.

In good weather a ledge out front augmented with a few crates, known to all as the dead pecker bench, was occupied by a judicial crew capable of both generating and dispelling bull in all its fanciful forms.

Over little Coca-Colas, cap-covered, gray, and balding heads laughed and shook off fishing tales that could not possibly be true and speculated on advertisements and politicians promising euphoric results, dismissing them both as rackets. Follies of mullethaired youth speeding by in loud GTOs were acknowledged with a mixture of disdain, respect, envy, and recognition, and the shapeliness of a 40-year-old divorcée duly appreciated. In this rarefied world, the world could be perceived with clarity and charity.

One day in October, Edison Brooks stopped in. He drove a new metallic green GMC pickup with power windows, cassette player, and automatic transmission. He lived in the big house in Lynch-

Frost came, rain, warm spells, wind, more cold, and the leaves fell, leaving the woods open except for the tall pines and mistletoe in the oaks. He had been fidgety all day. The morning had been wasted watching game shows. After a quiet meal he announced he was going hunting.

burg. He had been from Cartersville. At one time, both places had been bigger than Timmonsville, boasting a hotel and spa where dignitaries came to rest and take the healing artesian waters secretly laced with Epsom salts. He was not a regular at Vic’s but familiar enough. Gregory’s warehouse where he and all the gathered farmers sold their bright-leaf tobacco was just down the street a few hundred yards, so he would stop in during the market. Vic’s was also one of the few remaining fullservice gas stations.

Somehow in the conversation, bird hunting came up. No doubt there was a lot of head shaking and the usual talk about how things weren’t like they used to be. At some point Edison, whom he had always liked, turned to him and quietly said, “If you want to go bird hunting, just go over to the old place in Cartersville anytime you want. Park at the cemetery and hunt the edge of the cotton field along the river swamp. There’s a big covey or maybe two or three right there. Go anytime you want.” He told Edison he appreciated it but didn’t hunt much anymore.

F

all came in, slowly as it does in Carolina, with leaves reluctantly changing and easing off sometime in November. When he was younger, and when his boy was with him, Thanksgiving meant bird hunting; otherwise, it was a quiet day. They didn’t follow football or dwell on parades except to catch a few pretty girls waving vacantly. In the morning, they would get together with his brother and walk the fields and woods. They would run two or three dogs. Sometimes they would go across the river to his father-in-law’s farm and hunt with his brotherin-law, but usually, they would stay home and hunt their own farms as they had done since they were young boys. Now things were different. His brother had always hunted with his own dog and had given it up after Rover died. Now his boy had gone off to graduate school, even farther away from home and planned to spend Thanksgiving with his girlfriend.

Frost came, rain, warm spells, wind, more cold, and the leaves fell, leaving the woods open except for the tall pines and mistletoe in the oaks. He had been fidge y all day. The morning had been wasted watching game shows. After a quiet meal he announced he was going hunting. He brought out his shotgun and the well-worn brown vest, patched on the shoulder Continued on page 96

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LUC

Feeling

I

N THE EARLY 1990S, Mary Chapin Carpenter had a hit with “I Feel Lucky.” Now, I don’t know what she does when she feels lucky, but on the occasions I feel lucky, and if the season is right, I go bird hunting.

As much as I like to believe my woodsy skills and my dog’s chokebore nose often bend circumstances to my favor, I know from experience that plain old luck—good and bad—also plays a hand. There are days when things just go wrong, and you think you might as well give it up for golf. You can’t hit a bird, or worse yet, you knock one down and lose it. Or for reasons unknown, your usually dead-on dog seems to have lost its sense of smell. Or it tangles with a skunk or porcupine. Or you get that perfect point and miss the safety when the bird flushes. I’ve had all those things happen—and more.

On occasion, things just go right.

by Dave Books

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UCKY GROUSE ON GRAVEL, BY JOSH DESMIT

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I can, however, recall times when things totally went my way. Take the day a couple of years ago when a friend and I were working our dogs across a conservation-reserve field The season had grown long in the tooth, and the pheasants had been pressured hard. The few we had found ran like thieves and escaped unscathed. We were pushing through tall grass and were about 80 yards from an open fiel when my buddy jumped a whitetail buck that headed along a fence in my direction. The buck crossed in front of me and nearly stepped on a rooster pheasant. The rooster jumped six feet straight up, cackling, and dropped back into the grass. I hurried over to where I’d seen the bird sit down, and my Brittany, Ollie, tracked it to a rock pile at the edge of the field and locked up on point. With nowhere to go except the plowed field the bird had to fl , and I dropped it with a load of No. 6 high brass.

Thank you, Mr. Whitetail.

Earlier that fall, during a late afternoon, Ollie and I had been hunting sharp-tailed grouse in a hilly stretch of Eastern Montana prairie carpeted with bunchgrass and dotted with snowberry and wild rose. Ollie went on point at the edge of a chokecherry thicket, and when I walked up, a covey of sharptails flushed from the far side. Screened by the

brush, I couldn’t get a clear shot until a bird veered to one side and flashed into view. It was a long poke, but it doesn’t take much to knock down a sharptail.

In addition, I was shooting my 12-gauge Browning Superposed with copper-plated shot. I thought I’d been on target, but the bird kept fl ing and showed no sign of being hit.

Sharptails often fly long distances, but they occasionally sit down again after a flight of a few hundred yards, especially early in the season. I hadn’t seen them land but decided I might as well go in the direction they had fl wn. Fifteen minutes later Ollie drew to a stop at the top of a grassy dune in a nonchalant way he sometimes does when pointing skittish prairie birds—nonchalant as if he can trick the birds into thinking he’s just a deer or an antelope. He could have just been admiring the view, but I know his tricks and got ready for a bird to fl . When the single sharptail flushed rattling its trademark cuk-cuk-cuk alarm call, I had a clear shot and this time I made it count.

Ollie raced to the fallen bird but instead of picking it up just stood there looking at me. I called “Fetch!” but he didn’t move, so I started toward him.

It had been a long afternoon and I knew he was hot and tired, so I didn’t press the matter. When I got close, I could see the dead sharptail on the ground and knelt down to pick it up. While I admired the bird and smoothed its feathers, Ollie moved a few yards to a clump of snowberry, where he appeared to be on point again. This didn’t add up. I figu ed the old rascal was messing with me, but I put the grouse in my vest and got my gun ready just in case. When I walked to him I could see another dead sharptail a few yards in front of his nose—obviously the bird I had shot at earlier and OLD FIELDS, BY BRETT JAMES SMITH

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FLUSH WITH SUCCESS.

Bird’n Lite Upland Vests

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thought I’d missed. The two birds, shot 20 minutes and several hundred yards apart, had managed to wind up stone dead within 10 yards of each other.

With the sinking sun now an orange streak in the west, I gave Ollie a long drink from my water bottle and headed for the truck. On the way out, I remembered that Mary Chapin Carpenter song, and thought, I know how she feels.

Sometimes what we think of as luck is actually the skill or instinct of a good dog. This past fall while hunting sharptails in the foothills along the Rocky Mountain Front, my two-year-old Brittany, Tess, struck a scent near a patch of stunted aspens, moved ahead a few yards, and lifted a front paw. It was a tableau right out of an Eldridge Hardie or Brett James Smith painting, with blue sky arching over golden prairie to the east and snow-dusted ramparts rising to the west. I hurried toward my patient little dog, but the nervous grouse flushed before I could close the distance. I snapped off a long shot but figu ed I had missed since the grouse didn’t flin h, shed a feather, or drop a leg.

I’m in the habit of watching escaping birds until they’re out of sight, because every now and then one will bleed out from a pellet or two in its vitals and drop from the sky. But in this case my attention was diverted by a second flushing sharptail, a bird that angled in my direction and offered a crossing shot. The bird tumbled into a patch of willows, and I marked it well because Tess was nowhere in sight. Trying to call in the prodigal pup, I admit to getting red-faced and apoplectic while tooting on my whistle. When she reappeared, weaving her way toward me through yellow-leaved aspen whips, she had something in her mouth, which turned out to be the grouse I thought I’d missed. Mea culpa, my sweet Tess.

Speaking of grouse, there was that long-ago partridge (that’s what we called them when I was a boy) in the Wisconsin woods where I cut my wingshooting teeth with a hand-me-down 16-gauge Ithaca Featherlight. I could play that pump gun like a trombone virtuoso, but mostly I just made noise and it was a rare day when I cut a feather.

This time, though, I managed to put a pellet in an unlucky ruffed grouse, causing it to ascend to treetop height and careen in a wide circle, eventually passing back within gun range. I popped off a few more shots, and it tumbled down through the leafless branches to the ground, leaving my dad and me awestruck at my good fortune. I never knew if I hit him with a second or third shot or if he just decided to surrender.

Many years later my black Lab flushed a rooster pheasant from the brush along Box Elder Creek, a muddy, meandering stream that fl ws intermittently through the Eastern Montana prairie. The bird flin hed when I emptied both barrels but continued fl ing up the creek and out of sight. I resumed walking along the creek and a short time later happened to glance over the bank, where I saw the rooster bobbing toward me in the current.

My Lab looked a little confused but happily jumped in to make the retrieve.

A few years ago one of my hunting partners, Buck the Whiner, rocked a pheasant that fl w across the partly frozen Judith River and lumbered along for several hundred yards toward a high, grassy bench. While Buck sputtered and cussed his bad luck, I watched the bird until it was just a speck in the distance. I had a pretty good line on it but had no idea how far it might have fl wn once it topped the rise and disappeared from view. We were headed that way, so we found a place to cross the river on the ice, climbed the distant bench, and made a sweep along the top with our dogs. By then I was no longer sure of the line and had given up on finding the bird—until I saw something sticking up from a bare spot in the grass, demanding closer inspection. I was pleasantly surprised when it turned out to be the tail of Buck’s dead rooster.

Buck was out of sight at the time, and I toyed with the idea of fi ing a shot in the air and claiming the Continued on page 92

Sometimes what we think of as luck is actually the skill or instinct of a good dog.

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God’s Countr y Photography by Russell Graves

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If you pass through Hondo, Texas, you won’t ever forget it. The welcome sign reads, “This is God’s Country. Please don’t drive through it like Hell.” And if you like to shoot doves, Hondo really is pretty close to heaven. It’s is blessed with vast acres of agricultural fields and is on the migration routes of white-winged and mourning doves that perch by the dozens on the irrigation systems that span the fields or even singly on the sunflower stalks themselves.

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For more information, see page 120.

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And come opening day, this town of less than 10,000 is bustling with hunters from all over the state—some who stay in high-end lodges and others who simply buy a stand for a day of shooting. It’s a tradition now, and hunters come here for the doves, the socializing, and the fresh meat. Just take it easy on your way out of town—chances are good you’ll find yourself back in Hondo next season.

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TRADITIONS

BEFORE THE PLOW, BY BOB KUHN (1920–2007), COURTESY OF REMINGTON ARMS.

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The

EDITED BY WILL RYAN

Chicken Hunting of Old Bill Higgs On the importance of good ground, good dogs, and a steady horse.

by Charles H. Morton

(From The Outing Magazine, October 1908)

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B

ill Higgs lived in one of the little prairie towns which western Kansas sprinkles sparingly over her great wheat belt. Flat fertile stubble lands press in from the horizon to the very doorsteps; there is a main street whose livery, hardware, real estate, and other mercantile establishments lend a spurious dignity to the unvarying conditions of restful, brooding idleness. A hotel, and a diminutive depot filled with loud Morse clatter, sit beside two lines of far-stretching steel whose vanishing points touch the skyline, under the clear atmosphere, without a curve; a few windmills, lazily creaking, stand top-heavily far and near; dusty roads wind away through fenceless leagues of kneedeep wheat-stubble, dotted with fat straw stacks, bathed in brilliant sun-light and winnowed by bracing prairie breezes.

Old Bill owned “considerable few” of these wheat-filled acres, and the money he derived therefrom would have driven anyone but William back to the wilder social life of the East—but Bill valued more his homely associations where, as he said: “You can live as you please, dress as you please, and go as you please.”

Every one called him “Old Bill,” although his years were but two score and five, with a couple of moons thrown in for good measure. It was a token of affectionate friendliness, of familiar comradeship, and no one remembered when he had not been so termed.

His was that kindly spirit characteristic of certain leisurely, easy-faring fellows possessed of a fondness for dogs and children, and a Rip Van Winkle–leaning toward old clothes and fishing tackle. Bill was careless in dress and deportment; he often might fail of an important engagement, but the opportunity to drop all work and go hunting was never over-looked. Fond of the sport, he boasted of acquisitions three: his dog, his horse, and his method of chicken shooting. Old Rock—old in wisdom, not years—a great heavy-shouldered, raw-boned pointpoint er, showed the results of careful training, for he cercer tainly was the most dependable of dogs, and knew the chicken business thoroughly. Staunch on point, cool-headed to a degree, he persisted in following up his own inherited plans and ideas when afield; this, perhaps, was why Old Bill placed about threefourths of his dependence on Rock’s maneuvers

and relied for the rest in the sagacity of Old Jim, his white horse. Old Jim—old after the manner of Bill and Rock—was a fat and pampered nag of the “family” type, with a certain duty to perform when Old Bill went after chickens.

Hitched to a muddy-wheeled rattlebox of a rig he patiently endeavored to follow Rock over the stubble fields, but the pointer had theories of his own and hunted on a strictly business basis, with an energy that sent the grass gliding beneath his busy feet. He was not a dog to go dancing in and out, here and yon, over dusty stubble on a hot day, wasting time and strength—not Rock. He forged ahead always on a tireless lope, and found chickens by good nose work, by instinct, by some inflexible rule of his own.

At any rate he found them—and finding, would freeze to a point which nothing short of a prairie fire could disturb.

Old Jim, meanwhile, rattled along in Old Rock’s persistent wake, and Old Bill sitting with ready gun would urge Jim onward right into the bunch of chicken, at whose booming exit Bill, dropping the lines on the dashboard, would blaze away right and left, Jim standing like a graven image the while, undisturbed by roaring wings or exploding gunpowder. Rock, noble animal, would seek out the dead birds—his master seldom scored goose-eggs—and gravely bring them to the wagon, rising on hind feet to his full height to hand them to Bill, receiving a commendatory pat and the verbal assurance that he was a good old boy—and then he was off, taking the direction of the scattered flock to pin singles for his lazy master.

Of the three it was difficult to tell which most enjoyed the sport. To Bill’s indolent nature it was a charming way of gunning; not that he despised to tramp after game, for even the laziest of us hunters do that, but a certain poignant interest lay in the working together of the three factors: dog, horse and gun—and the gun so utterly dependent upon the other two. Bill bragged of them unstintingly, and delighted to take his friends—and especially newcomers—afield to see his pets perform. The praise they earned and the tributes showered upon them were as meat and drink to William.

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that go too often to the well, and the tragic episode of Old Bill’s last outing still furnishes a topic of interest in the little town. No one could have foreseen the catastrophe, nor intervened.

The county court was in session. In the stuffy little court room Old Bill and eleven other picked men occupied the jury box, trying to look the part of disinterested freeholders sworn well and truly to consider the evidence and weigh the meager grains of fact wrested from badgered witnesses. The case being one of the usual sort concerning a threshing machine, however, the jury was comfortable in its unbiased mind, feeling no necessity to fret over rebuttals or pay more than polite attention to the cross-examinations of the “company lawyer.” This latter astute person, alive to the hostile pulse of his agricultural audience, was doing his legal best to defend his client’s interests, but his opponent, in the opening statement had referred to him as “our learned friend, the emissary of a grasping Trust”— and “our learned friend” knew it was all off.

So he grinned and bore it, putting the abiding faith of experience in his “exceptions” which would take the case to a higher court, away from short-grass juries. So cheerfully did he accept defeat at the hands of Bill and the eleven exponents of agrarian rights that Bill warmed to him and invited him to stay over a day and partake of the joys of a chicken-shoot; and the lawyer, loving dogs and guns, saw in Bill a comrade in the making and thankfully accepted.

Old Bill forbade to tell his legal friend about his working-mates, Jim and Rock. Beyond alluding to Rock as a “purty good sort of a dog,” he carefully kept in the background that canine’s virtues, for it was Bill’s way to spread the accomplishments of Jim and Rock unawares before the casual visitor and then bask in the wondering praise their team work always called forth.

Scotland’s poet sang truly when he chanted of the disarranged intentions of mice and men. During those few warm court-room days, while Bill listened disinterestedly to arguments of “learned counsel” and tried to fix his wandering thoughts upon contracts, Fate was moving swiftly about her duties. It seems that a neighbor of Bill’s, one Overbrook, an irascible and generally disagreeable party, had vainly

importuned Bill to fix the fence between their holdings. It was a forlorn, tired fence, with sagging wires that drooped and dangled from post to post in a feeble attempt to keep up appearances. No fence, however upright and steadfast, is stronger than its weakest panels, and Bill’s nag, Old Jim, the unscrupulous, in his wisdom knew just where to climb through the careless fence in his frequent larcenous visits to sundry tempting oat stacks. Bill’s neighbor had driven Jim away time after time, until his small stock of patience was absorbed by his greater supply of temper.

“If Bill Higgs won’t keep that dang horse to home, I’ll fix him so he won’t want to look an oat in the face,” said he, and set about to make the next oat-stack visit an object lesson of value to the persisting Jim. This was successfully accomplished by means of a muzzle-loading shotgun charged with a double handful of coarse salt. Such muzzle-loading demonstrations at close range are discouraging even to a thick-skinned horse, and Jim went home hastily, fi led with astonishment and stinging salt.

Fate, having thus sufficient y tampered with Bill’s destinies, moved on, and Bill and his lawyer friend started on their chicken-shooting errand innocent and careless of the future.

It was a perfect October morning. The fresh, cool breath of the night wind still drifted in from the hazy distances, while, abroad after chickens in the cool of the morning, Bill and his friend were clattering along behind Old Jim. Away in advance Rock slashed quartering through the headed stubble, hunting out the acres at race-horse speed.

“That dog”—Bill was saying, as they drove along—“that dog of mine is pretty well up on chickens; he knows ’em from stubble to cornfield Any time of the day he knows where to find ’em.

Old Rock was hurling himself over the fields running easily as drifts the cloud—shadows that skim the ground on warm and breezy June days, his grand nose eagerly testing every breath of wind for slightest hint of chicken taint.

“Now, that dog,” Bill’s one-sided conversation went on, “he knows all about it; I never trained him—he got that in the East. Just coaxed him into minding me ’round home—and he minds. Don’t have to tell him twice to charge, or seek dead or

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fetch; he won’t drop a dead bird in the high grass and go scampering after another you’ve just shot— not him. Brings the first bird clear in, by gosh! one eye on the second dead one—then goes and gets him; you can kill chicken all ’round him—don’t rattle Old Rock none; can’t rattle him. Same with Old Jim here—mighty good, level-headed old hoss, Jim is.

“Feller came here two years ago from the East, huntin’; leather gun case, two sets of bar’els, pretty little liver an’ white pointer, young, rangy rascal, light weight, and nervous. Feller said he was a fieldtrial winner, gilt edge, blue blood, pedigree—looked like a mighty good little dog, to me. Run across ’em in the stubble, huntin’—little dog nigh tuckered out, worrying ’bout water and all het up. Feller kept hollerin at him. I hate a feller that hollers at his dog—he’s the kind that’s too ready with the whip; poor dog was doing his best but the hot stubble had ’bout wore him out—too tender for rough going. I drove up and said ‘howdy.’ He was cross and cussin’—dog wouldn’t hunt dead birds. He yelled again, and the dog come sneakin’ in, cringin’ and crawlin’ and shiverin’, scared to death ’cause he knew he would get a kick and afraid to stay away because he’d been trained to mind. Nothing sets a dog daffy like this here stubble-hunting in hot weather.

“Feller give the dog a kick and said something about filling his worthless hide full of shot, and the poor brute yelped and ran a little ways and lay down, panting. “‘Mister, he wants water bad,’ says I. “‘Well,’ says he, ‘there isn’t any water on these dry plains, is there?’ “‘My dog,’ says I, ‘isn’t much account, but he gets a drink every little while.’ I pulled out a five-gallon jug and filled a pan and marched over to that poor thirsty pup.

“He drank it all and begged for more, and got it. I never see anybody look more grateful than that dog. Feller held out a flask. ‘Don’t use it,’ said I, ‘water’s good enough for me.’” “‘You don’t,’ says he. ‘This hunting is enough to drive a man to drink. I’m going back home.’”

“His dog kinder braced up with the good water and the rest, and chased around a little, and directly he come in with a dead chicken and directly he handed it to me in the buggy, timidly, as though he suspicioned he wasn’t doing it right. It tickled me to

see that feller get mad; he simply roared and swore.

I petted that dog and he got as pleased about bring that chicken—he knew it was the right thing to do, but the other feller and the heat had knocked the wits out of him. “‘Mister,’ says I. ‘What’ll ye take for the pup?’

“He quit cussin’ long enough to say: ‘I’d like to kill the mangy brute, but if you’ll take him off my hands it will save me a cartridge.’

“Well, I drove him to the depot, gave him a big mess of chickens to take home and lie about, and he gave me his worthless dog.”

Bill ruminated for awhile, watching Old Rock’s sinewy shape flash over the wide wastes of weedgrown stubble.

“That’s him,” he resumed, “that’s the worthless rascal that wouldn’t hunt for the city feller who paid a hundred for his training; all he wanted was a good master to praise him for his hard work, ’stead of beating him when he was soft, sick and dizzy with the heat.

“Man that’ll beat a dog,” mused Bill, “is a skunk.”

“Indeed he is, and worse,” said the lawyer; “a good dog . . . enjoys a hunt as much as you, and works his hardest for your pleasure, like that grand rascal out yonder.”

“That’s a genuine four-cylinder, high-pressure, water-cooled, anti-friction dog,” chuckled Bill; “he’s everything that artomobeel agent mentioned ’bout the machine he tried to sell me—except the machine wouldn’t hunt chickens. I’d a-bought it, but we took a trial trip over the fields and she set the prairie afire. Been a kinder low-down play on Jim here, to have swapped him for a snortin’, bumpy steam-engine thing like that.”

The learned counsel cuddled a shotgun between his knees and gazed over the flat, clean country.

He drew a deep breath of the riotous, tonic air that was like a sigh and then catching sight of Rock exclaimed: “See yonder! Your dog has found chickens near those straw stacks, or I’m greatly mistaken.”

“You’re right,” said Bill; “Now we’ll drive up to ’em—no, don’t get out, just set still and get your gun ready—whoa, there, Jim! Mighty touchy this morning, somehow. No, sir, he’s trained like Rock, yonder, holding those birds for us. Jim has his part to play now, and it surely will surprise you to see how he Continued on page 102

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GRAY’S GEAR & LIFESTYLE

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hat constitutes the ideal upland boot is always a matter of personal preference. Some may prioritize a more lightweight design for long-distance jaunts often associated with pheasant hunts, while others may prefer additional ankle support for traversing hillsides in search of ruffed grouse. And if you’re hunting the rocky, cactus-strewn quail country of Texas and Arizona, then nothing is more important than sole durability. With its rugged, multifunction Z-8S GTX ($340), Lowa has created a boot that should make everyone happy. The Z-8S GTX combines the walking comfort and toughness of a hiking boot with ankle support and side protection, priorities most often seen in heavy-duty backpacking footwear—a combination that delivers on all fronts, no matter your location and quarry. Waterproof, breathable, and its proprietary DuraPU injected midsoles provide added comfort. www.lowa.com

W

hether you’re a backyard amateur looking to up your game at weekend gatherings or a highly seasoned professional chef with more serious goals in mind, you’re sure to fall in love with the Kudu Grill. Founder Stebin Horne set out three years ago to bring South African– style open-fire cooking—braai, in Afrikaans—to his native America, where he knew its ease of use and unique design would be well received by anyone who enjoys the social aspects of cooking as much as the food itself. Constructed from heavy-gauge steel but light enough for easy transport, the Kudu grate system is anchored by elevation bars that allow you to raise and lower multiple cooking surfaces and to regulate heat levels and intensity. The base package ($499) includes a grill grate and cast-iron pan, which combine to give you ample space to explore multiple cooking techniques simultaneously. A growing line of add-ons and accessories makes the Kudu perfect for deer camp, tailgates, and anywhere you’d like to rally around an open flame to cook and eat with friends. www.kudugrills.com

BRYANT RHYNE

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f you count yourself among the many wing shooters who really do it for the love of dogs rather than the rise of birds, then the Affinity 3 Companion Series ($1,599) from Franchi was created with you in mind. This limited-edition line of beautiful, high-performance shotguns features artful engravings of your favorite sporting breeds, beginning with the Labrador retriever, and future offerings, updated annually, will include GSPs, English setters, American pointers, and Brittany spaniels—and more breeds will be unveiled at a later date. The engraving is complemented by an elegant, AA-grade satin walnut stock, gold trigger, large bolt controls, and a wide loading port for easy operation. Available in both 12 and 20 gauge, the Affinity 3 carries well, is a joy to shoot, and celebrates the immeasurable bond between hunter and gun dog. www.franchiusa.com

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WILLIAM HEREFORD

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om Beckbe set a high bar when it created the Tensaw Jacket back in 2015, and it quickly became a signature piece in the company’s line of ruggedly stylish sporting garments. Now there are two more options sure to scale equal heights with men and women alike. The Tensaw ES and Lady’s Tensaw (both $495) share the same features that make the original Tensaw so in demand, but with lighter 6¼-ounce waxed shelter cloth—making it 25 percent lighter and perfect for warmer climates. All other features remain, including a waxed cotton shell, pocket liners inspired by the Alabama-based company’s red clay of home, a biswing back, gusseted underarms, stand-up collar, and three great colors: tobacco, hardwood, or rye brown. Perfect for days afield, or anyone looking for a true three-season jacket, both the Tensaw ES and Lady’s Tensaw are first-rate additions to an already stellar collection. www.tombecke.com

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f you’ve attended a tailgate party in the Grove, then nobody needs to tell you the folks in Oxford, Mississippi, have few rivals when it comes to rising to the occasion of dressing well.

From these roots springs forth the timeless design and sporting elegance of GenTeal, a men’s apparel company that recognizes the importance of looking good both afield and about town. Its line of performance sports shirts ($115) and polos ($85) delivers excellent options for both the sporting clays course and dinner afterwards. The sports shirt boasts a four-way stretch fabric, hidden button-down collar, a rear collar button, and a generous cut across the shoulders that lets you swing a shotgun unencumbered. Meanwhile, the polo is lightweight and breathable, with moisture-wicking fabric that keeps you cool for both the range and subsequent cocktails on the back porch. It also features an innovative sewn-in collar to keep the curl away. All adorned with a snazzy signature logo featuring a blue-winged teal. www.gentealapparel.com

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he Pathfinder Mini from Dogtra is 22 percent smaller than the original Pathfinder GPS collar, making it perfect for compact hunting partners such as English cockers, Boykins, and Brittanys. The Mini ($400) shares features with the popular larger model: It can locate and track up to 21 dogs simultaneously, is equipped with a fourmile range, and handlers can feel confident monitoring locations by using the multiple Google Maps views. Great for rural areas where cell signals can lapse, the Mini pairs with your smartphone via Bluetooth without the use of cellular data. It features a ¾-inch-wide strap, which proves a better fit for small-breed dogs, allowing them to work harder without distraction from the added bulk of traditional e-collars.

Along with the advanced e-collar functions, which include a variety of stimulation indicators and an Audible Tone and Bark Indicator, the Pathfinder Mini also comes with a new Beacon & Locate LED Light which allows dogs to be easily seen in the dark. www.dogtra.com August / September 2019 · 71

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Ruffed untameable grouse and the ties of friendship.

TERRY WIELAND

by Terry Wieland

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Fine shotguns, good books, and grouse feathers— three of Nick Sisley’s favorite things.

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unting game birds with dogs and shotguns in the fall of the year is the closest we come to natural tragedy. It has it all: life and death; virtue and vice; friendship, love, and loss. It’s all there, following along in the wake of a couple of dogs as they cast left and right, noses quivering.

Fly fishin , rightly or wrongly, has laid claim to the introspection crown; some would call it navelgazing, but we’ll be polite. Big game, whether a sixpoint elk or an 800-pound swordfish is all adrenalin. I couldn’t tell you about catfish on a clutch of worms, but I’m sure catfish obsessives, barefoot in the Missouri River, could explain it.

Every upland hunter has his favorite game bird, and every bird in the world, it seems, has been hailed by someone as the ultimate—in intellect, speed, elusiveness, or shooting difficul y. It seems to me that a hunter’s choice of game bird says a lot about his personality, with one condition: Generally speaking, if you grew up hunting bobwhite quail, then quail will get your vote the rest of your days. Similarly with red grouse in Scotland or doves in Louisiana.

In my case, the ultimate game bird is the ruffed grouse. I saw my first one at the age of ten (my father identified it as a partridge—a common misnomer in the Northeast) and I have been fascinated by them ever since. I pursued them first with a Daisy Red Ryder BB gun, with predictable results, but to this day, the sound of a grouse flush leaves me breathless. Ruffed grouse, to me, are the rustle of dead leaves in a chill breeze, black waves on the lake, and the silent stealth of winter.

Nick Sisley felt the same way about ruffed grouse, and that was what initially drew us together. I have been reading Nick’s stuff since the 1960s, when he got his start writing about guns, hunting, and shooting. As a Pennsylvania boy, Nick grew up with grouse and white-tailed deer, as I did in Ontario, and those were naturally what he started writing about.

Gradually, he came to specialize in shotguns.

Nick Sisley held various skeet championships over the years, and was a shooting instructor, and a good one. Lord knows, he picked out enough of my faults over the years, and even managed to correct some of them, if only temporarily. My shooting faults are

like daffodils in spring: They always come back.

Nick Sisley was one of that extremely small coterie of shotgun writers who were also great shooters, and you can count those on very few fingers Bob Brister was one. When he was shooting editor of Field & Stream, he was, at various times, a world champion trap and live-pigeon shooter. Brister’s book, Shotgunning, The Art and the Science, should be on everyone’s shelf.

It’s one thing to love and admire fine shotguns; it’s quite another to handle them with assurance and aplomb, bringing down fast birds at difficul angles. Michael McIntosh, who was the guru of double guns in America through their renaissance beginning in the 1980s, was frankly dismissive of his own shooting skills. He was, at best, average.

When it came to finge tips on a keyboard, however, Michael was in a class by himself. His stuff read, to quote Robert Ruark, “like cream,” and it still does.

Ruark himself was as good a hunting writer as we have ever seen and, according to reports, was a dab hand with a shotgun as well. I can attest to the former, if not the latter. In the last years of his life, Ruark promoted the African sand grouse as the fi est of game birds, but in his early years he was a bobwhite quail man. I don’t recall ever reading of his hunting ruffed grouse, but from what I know of him, I rather doubt that the solitary nature of grouse hunting, the long walks and the rough country, would have attracted him. Ruark’s idea of the best wingshooting, late in life, involved a chair in the shade and a cooler of beer, with the birds coming to him.

The ruffed grouse is an untameable bird found in untamed country. Unlike the bobwhite quail, the ring-necked pheasant, or the chukar, ruffed grouse cannot be raised in captivity and then released to provide comfortable shooting.

This is a trait that ruffed grouse share with Scotland’s red grouse. It’s this quality as much as anything that makes the red grouse the monarch of game birds in the British Isles, where wingshooting is not only art and science but religion as well.

Ruffed-grouse hunters are, by nature and necessity, walkers. Ruffed grouse never come to you; you have to go to them. Typically, a ruffed grouse hunter counts success, not by shooting a limit, but by hearing a grouse, seeing one flush or simply getting

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a shot. For some, it hardly matters whether the shot even hits the bird. Ruffed grouse are not the ideal quarry for the obsessively competitive. If I may be forgiven a somewhat far-fetched analogy, the ruffed grouse is to upland shooting what the marathon is to running. It invariably becomes a solitary activity.

You may all start out together, but pretty soon each hunter is alone in the woods with just his thoughts and reflecti ns, and his attention is usually wandering just when a bird goes up from under his feet with that heart-stopping whirr-rr-rr-rr!

To bring down a ruffed grouse on the wing is, to me, the ultimate test of the shotgunner, and not just of shooting skill. It is a mental thing as well.

A good day for a ruffed grouse hunter is coming back with one bird to be lovingly breasted out, then gently poached in butter while a fi e crackles in the woodstove and the wind whips the trees.

One of my favorite ruffed grouse stories is about a guy I knew who used to hunt from his cabin on the lake, a mile or so down from us. It was one of those wild November days, after deer season closed,

MY SHOOTING FAULTS ARE LIKE DAFFODILS IN SPRING: THEY ALWAYS COME BACK. when only the diehards were out. The leaves were off the trees, and the blowing snow was so fine you could not see it but only feel it on your face. He arrived back at his cabin as darkness fell, having heard but not seen a grouse, and figu ing to open a can of something for dinner.

Instead, lying on the floor of the cabin, was a ruffed grouse that had fl wn through his window and was now lying dead in a scattering of broken glass. He closed the shutters, stoked the fi e, opened a beer, and enjoyed a very thoughtful meal, reflecting n the whims of fate.

I told Nick Sisley that story one time, and he told me a few grouse stories of his own. Nick fl w

his own plane, and I wondered at spending money on an airplane instead of a sidelever Grant. He explained that he took it up initially so he could get a glimpse of the world the way a grouse sees it. He later found fl ing immensely useful to get from his home to good ruffed-grouse country. When grouse numbers were low in his neighborhood, he could climb in his plane and go off and hunt for a day or two elsewhere. I knew there had to be a grouserelated reason.

Nick identified with grouse hunting so completely that he would send Christmas cards to his friends, each containing a single grouse tail-feather, taken from birds of that season. He seemed to feel that any of us that had not gotten out that year would be comforted by it, and he was right. I’ve used one as a bookmark for years.

On February 6, 2019, Nick Sisley died, reportedly of cancer, at the age of 81. A month or two earlier, he had written to ask for some information for a reader, related to an old English shotgun, and to report on his hunting last fall. Hadn’t gotten out much, he said; the feral pigeons were not terrorizing the local silos like they had in past years. Otherwise, all was well, and he hoped I could say the same. No mention of the Big C, and I had no idea it was stalking him.

Typically, his last words were about the ruffedgrouse population. It appeared that West Nile virus was reducing them around his place, same as it was the feral pigeons. Or so the experts said.

“But they’ll bounce back,” he said. “They always do.” Ruffed grouse, he added, always confound the experts.

When I heard the news of Nick’s death, I went looking through back issues of Gun Digest and found a piece he wrote in 1975, expounding the virtues of short barrels on grouse guns. There were a couple of photos of Nick, out in the snow chasing grouse and looking impossibly young. Last time I saw him, his predilection for short-barreled guns had been modified But the passion for ruffed grouse? It was with him to the very end. n Wieland was always grateful for that tail feather in the Christmas mail. Most years, it was as close to a real ruffed grouse as he was likely to get. Still, all that walking is good exercise.

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WESTERN GLOW, BY ADRIANO MANOCCHIA

aming ames The nuances of writing about rivers while preserving self-interest.

by Scott Sadil

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I call the town I live in Albion.

The pretty steelhead river that runs through town, and the valley above, I named the Beulah.

Good, figu ative, allegorical names.

It’s not exactly Yoknapatawpha County.

But you get the idea.

For years I wrote features and a fly tying column for a California fly fishing magazine, even though I haven’t lived in the state for more than a quarter of a century. Trying to remain relevant or authentic to readers on my native turf, I settled for phrases like just across the border, north of the state line, east of the mountains, or that grand catchall, the West.

Or, for somewhat different reasons, and in different venues, I might just make up a name—a form of lying I squared with a practice that seemed widespread and socially acceptable considering what was at stake. Until the day I left California, I was a serious surfer, where for decades tribal localism in the form of broken windshields, slashed tires, and fisticuf s was real. You looked at a photo of some guy tucked into a gnarly barrel that you would give an eyetooth to surf, a spot identified in the magazine as Acidolphilus Acres, and you knew exactly what was going on.

I run into guys all the time who tease me about the Wolf River. A weird and remote desert tailwater, with big brown trout that always look up, even when they’re snooty as stuffed figs the Wolf has been hammered and written about for at least two decades now. It’s nobody’s secret. But I still can’t bring myself to spell out its real name—an act, in this case, I equate with scratching a phone number inside a bathroom stall, after beginning with something like for a good time, call . . .

Not that I can legitimately claim any moral high ground. Self-interest colors the finest lines. If I get far enough from home, I don’t seem to worry so much about stating a name. In some backhanded way, it’s like those guides who will never take you to the best water if they know you live within easy striking distance. Or you have your own boat. Decades ago in New Zealand I was shocked a guide and I could hold a stretch of public water for ourselves simply by showing up the day before at a nearby hospital and signing our names on a list of a half-dozen or so mile-long beats. Of course, I

eventually realized the guide showed me this system only because I was leaving the country soon, not returning to a house in Auckland.

And staying tight-lipped, for whatever reason I might have, doesn’t always help. Once I spent an entire short story, events and characters pure ficti n, trying to bring to life my favorite steelhead river without actually naming it. This was back when I had stumbled upon a series of wee muddlers that rose so many fish over the next few years that I look back now and wonder if it was all a dream.

Nothing much to my credit; I just happened to be at the right spot before the crowds showed up. But when the story was published, the title I had given the piece had been changed to include the actual name of the river—right there in bold letters on a two-page color spread. Or maybe that’s just how it’s etched into my memory. This same editor, I should add, previously had demanded I delete a passing reference to another river we both fished made by a character in an earlier piece of ficti n.

“If I printed that name,” he explained, “my buddies would kill me.”

It gets complicated. Most anglers I meet are actually happy to share inside dope on favorite waters; they just don’t want me to run home and post the whereabouts information—along with photos of me drooling over mouthwatering fish— n social media. The picture’s not the real problem. You add the name of a place, however, and that thing between our ears clicks, wheels start turning, and the search engines and Google Earth light up.

And there’s this: Is there anything more delicious in this sport than walking blindly into a feast you never anticipated or even heard of? Discovery remains a profound pleasure at the heart of the sport. A couple of summers ago Joe Kelly and I backpacked into a wilderness drainage that really is out in the eastern part of the state. A fishe ies biologist and high school science teacher, Joe claims now he knew we had a chance for bull trout. I’d been down into the canyon twice before, on the other hand, and what I understood we’d be up to was fooling wild and rarely disturbed rainbows with size 10 Humpies, a style of unsophisticated trouting I’d be happy to indulge in long after I can no longer shoulder a pack.

We went in light. For the first time in my life, I

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After 33 years as a premier shooting preserve,

RIVER BEND could now be yours.

In the 1980s, Ralph Brendle set out to create a sportsman’s lodge for upland bird hunters and sporting clays shooters in the beautiful foothills of South Carolina. Today, it’s still going full-blast! Just minutes from I-85 and I-26, and equidistant between Charlotte, Greenville and Asheville, River Bend is only 15 minutes from the new Tryon International Equestrian Center.

The 524-acre sportsman’s resort features duck, quail, pheasant and chukar hunting. Deer and turkey are plentiful as well. The lodge itself is one of the finest examples of classic rustic luxury in the Carolinas. The 6,000 square-foot building has a gorgeous stone fireplace along with two dining rooms, a commercial-sized kitchen, locker rooms and a steam room.

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hiked, while backpacking, in sneakers; I’ve reached an age when every inch of my body can prove suspect if I fail to warm up for three and a half days.

Still, I’d had to convince Joe that we carry our boots and waders; wet-wading was out of the question in these cold, crystalline waters, the sort of habitat that could have tipped me off about the bull trout—if only I’d seen them there before.

It was afternoon by the time we unstrapped packs in what looked like an old abandoned elk camp. Bramble threatened to reclaim the clearing; the fi e pit had the aspect of something you’d see in a pioneer cemetery. But all around us was the sweet cinnamon scent of ponderosa pine forest, enriched down here in the riparian flats where the heaviest, straightest trees stand, their bark the color of pumpkins and dark yams.

We stood on the bank and inspected the water.

There were no secrets where the trout would be.

We waded across and headed upstream; I peeled off and pushed through a thicket of wild roses and pitched my red Humpy into a seam. A few casts later, tight to a small fish I glanced around to see where Joe was. When I looked again for my little trout, a shadowy beast rose into view from the bottom of the stream, right beneath the spike of my tippet, only to vanish—as if an owl at twilight passing through your headlights.

Right then Joe hollered.

I don’t know what surprised me more—the fis he hooked or the fact that he had tied on, unbeknownst to me, a big black Dalhberg Diver.

“I could see it swimming on the surface even as it entered those shadows,” said Joe, pointing across the water, not much more than a wide stream spilling into a trough under a dense stand of oaks and alders. “Then this head came up and all I saw was a white background behind the fl .”

It got kind of silly for a couple of days. We hiked into a section of river that was entirely freestone, wide banks of round rocks, soccer balls to soft balls, grading all the way down to perfect spawning gravel. Both salmon and steelhead use the river; the bull trout, explained Joe, descend from their high country spawning tributaries and feast on fry, smolts, and anything else that swims. This is what can happen when you protect an entire watershed. Joe swung big black ugly things; I had a stash of Vanilla

Buggers. It was like steelheading with 5-weights.

Fortunately, we had only two and a half days of food. Otherwise, they might still be looking for us down there.

The way I see it, I’m paid to watch what I say.

Not everyone agrees on what that means. This past summer a friend of mine, another writer, posted a story, including pictures, on his blog site—a report from a river, just across the border, that Joe and I had been lucky enough to suss out the summer before. When I saw the name, used in the title and throughout the piece, I cringed. I know there are no secrets anymore; I just don’t believe we should make it too easy. When I was young, I’d study the pictures in the surfing magazines, ready to run off like a kid joining the circus. It fina ly happened: when the first guys from Newport and Laguna Beach ventured south into deep Mexico and Central America and sold their stories—and photos—to the magazines, I was in the first wa e that followed.

When I saw my friend’s blog, with photos of these absolutely juicy trout, wild as the river you can still have to yourself, all I could think of was other places in the Lower 48 where fish like these simply don’t exist. I imagined anglers, young and old, seeing those trout, and the name of the river, and packing up trucks and heading this way like characters in a Steinbeck novel aimed for California.

I confronted my friend. He got defensive—just as I would if he tried to tell me what I should or shouldn’t do with my work. In the end, however, he came around. I’d quote his concession here, what he wrote in an email by way of fina ly agreeing to delete the story from his site. But I erased the entire exchange, the whole thing troubled me that much.

All part of the job? Later this past year, while poking around islands aboard Madrina, my little beach yawl, I ran into a bunch of roosterfish along a beach where I’m inclined to think nobody had cast flies for them before. When I returned to shore, I shared pictures with friends, who never quite know where I am once I set sail.

“Pacific oosters,” I wrote—and left it at that. n Scott Sadil, Gray’s Sporting Journal’s new Angling Editor, lives and writes in the real town of Hood River, Oregon.

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OTT JONES SCULPTURE 101 Wildlife Trail, Bozeman, MT 59718 (406) 585-9495 • (406) 580-5182 ottjonesbronze@gmail.com www.ottjones.com

Top Of The Morning

Point Of The Matter

Bobwhite Burst

Bobwhite Bookends

Treasures In The Pines

Claim To Fame

Valley Dwellers

Grand Companion

Mallard Creek

Charlie’s Grouse

Golden Times

Timberdoodle

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Brett James Smith A REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST.

by Brooke Chilvers

STEADY

THE UPSWEEPING WHISTLE OF A

bobwhite quail only rarely punctuates spring porchsitting nowadays; their numbers have declined 75 percent since 1980. Luckily for New Orleans native Brett Smith (b. 1958), his youth was still graced by pristine wing-shooting trips to East Texas with his father’s dad, traveling as far as Oklahoma for doves.

Carrying a Savage single-shot 20-gauge, they pushed up quail by walking through the bluestemgrass underbrush of the piney barrens. Longleaf pines, trees that can reach 125 feet tall and live for 500 years, once covered 90 million acres of America—from the southeastern corner of Virginia, south to Florida, and west to Texas. Only 3 percent of these forests remain.

Which is why Brett Smith’s paintings, such as Oak Hill Covey and Ahead of the Front, are important—because those days are gone—and he revives them with the experiences and memories archived in his art. With a carefully managed quail population on a Georgia plantation costing the hunter upwards of $500 per bird, his pictorial testimonies recall a lifestyle slipping through our hands, where a cell phone ring has replaced the trill of a Bachmann’s sparrow. Whether canoes or campfires, Brett paints what most folks are missing.

In works such as Back Barn Covey and White Water Rise, Brett’s sportsmen have never visited Walmart or ordered a tactical turkey vest online. Instead, they sport the crushed fedoras and trilbies of outdoorsmen of another time—there’s not a baseball cap or logo in sight. His shotguns are equally anonymous but timelessly vintage. Brett—who favors an L.C. Smith 12-gauge for upland grouse and woodcock and whose “go to” for waterfowl is the Browning A-5 20-gauge he’s had for ages—seeks inspiration in the past, especially the 1930s and ’40s. It’s no coincidence that this was also the golden age for American illustrators, where Brett’s dreams were born.

Brett Smith likely became Brett Smith because he was born into the right family. Although his heart lies in the culture and cooking of Cajuns (talk to him about gar balls) who “turn Friday’s gumbo into Saturday’s jambalaya,” his father was a Tulane graduate in fine arts with a successful career in advertising; the packaging of McIlhenny Tabasco was his baby, along with three sons and two daughters. On the side, he painted covers for Western and August / September 2019 · 85

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outdoors magazines, and illustrated publications such as the Reader’s Digest–like Ford Times that died in 1993.

Brett was just plain good at art for as long as he can remember. He spent two years studying fine art at Southeastern Louisiana University, where they taught everything except the way to the careers of the commercial artists he’d set himself to emulate. These included Howard Pyle (1853–1911), America’s “Father of Illustration,” whose Romantic Realism emphasized the significance of “experience of place,” feeling “the wind and rain on your skin when you paint it.”

Brett was also influenced by Phillip Goodwin (1881–1935), whose covers for Outdoor Life and Rod & Gun, and posters for Remington, Winchester, and Marlin firearms companies bedecked workshops and hardware stores everywhere. And of course, Pleissner, Ripley, and especially Frank Benson inspired him, and their spirits are reflected in Brett’s etchings Marsh Gunner and Ducks at Dawn.

He was fascinated, too, by the illustrator Bob Peak (1927–1992), whose graphically complex narrative style defines his iconic movie posters for West Side Story, My Fair Lady, and Apocalypse Now. “Peak was, at that time, what I wanted to be. He had the WHITE WATER RISE

ability to paint for print media, movie posters, and fine art. He projected a confidence in his work that eclipsed any of his contemporaries,” says Brett.

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ooking back at his two years at university, he comments, “I had the talent, but didn’t feel like I was learning. I thought I needed experience more than a degree—and left,” a decision he has never regretted. For the next seven years, he lived in Louisiana but earned his living as a New York City commercial artist, getting print jobs in the days before overnight mail delivery and long predating the internet, through two illustration agents who encouraged him to develop a style outside their existing stable of artists.

Meanwhile, he enrolled in the correspondence course for design and illustration at the Famous Artists School, founded in Connecticut in 1948 by a dozen members, including Norman Rockwell, of the New York Society of Illustrators. Its mission— to teach “advanced techniques in composition, creating mood, line drawing . . . and instruction on the principles of design and how to apply them in many contexts”—suited Brett’s goals perfectly.

By the late 1980s, understanding that he couldn’t “do my own thing” under the thumb of art directors, Brett began weaning himself from commercial art, turning full-time to “easel art” around 1990.

The subject of sport came naturally, and he began traveling all over the country and Canada to build an encyclopedia of ideas and references. Authenticity is important. On field trips, “I know what I am looking for,” says Brett, who carries a camera to capture shapes and textures, and regrets it when he doesn’t. He also photographs landscapes—“But you would never recognize them. I prefer to use my God-given imagination in my paintings.”

Brett considers himself, above all, a figure painter, whose reason to get up every day and paint has mostly been sport, although American Indian subjects are forming a new chapter in his work.

Once he feels a spark and the need to paint it, he takes tracing vellum to make a small sketch, which determines the work’s size and shape. Preferring the surface texture of linen canvas to anything too smooth or “industrial,” he first lays a tonal wash to establish the painting’s mood. Using the same flatbristle brush for his darker values, he works from the background forward, subtly illuminating the human figures that are central to the unfolding narrative.

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OAK HILL COVEY

Brett’s palette never changes: burnt umber, French ultramarine, titanium white, cerulean, cadmium red, cadmium yellow, Windsor green, and violet. He uses white, but never black. “I’m not sure why they make so many colors.”

Learning from old mistakes frees Brett from spending time correcting them. He works quickly and in sessions, so that he can rest his mind—and back. “The most important thing for me is to keep the painting fluid and wet—I always work wet-on-wet paint,” he explains, rewetting between sessions if necessary. “I like that with oils I can obliterate something and start again.”

Brett likes the feel of the paint, of creating texture.

His oils are heavy: “They look like paintings and feel like paintings, if you ran your fingers over them.”

H

is transparent watercolors are another story. “You have to know how to control all that white paper,” he says. The medium requires that 85 percent of his mental energy “goes into planning, which is as important as the artist’s physical technique.” Although he can rely on both “muscle memory” and eye and hand coordination, “I wouldn’t put a brush to paper without studying and understanding exactly what I want to do.” Because

watercolors are unforgiving and nearly impossible to correct, Brett first completely draws out an idea in pencil, then analyzes the order in which to lay the pigments. Watercolors, he says, look pretty messy until the last 25 percent is complete. “That’s when everything comes together.”

Although he considers watercolors the truest test of an artist’s skills, “they just don’t carry the ‘aura of professionalism’ that oils do.” To compensate their difficulty to market, Brett blesses them with favorite topics; the fishermen in Summer Sun are captured from a refreshingly different angle that frames their lazy, bathed-in-sunlight camaraderie.

Steady confirms Brett’s skill in painting dogs, but he does not want to be mistaken for a dog painter—or a wildlife artist, for that matter. “Those are things I’ve never aspired to.” Robert “Bob” Abbett (1926-2015) warned him once how easy it is to get pigeonholed as an artist, and that dog portraits were as sensitive and personal to clients as their children’s: “It can be twenty-four hours a day for the rest of your career to meet buyers’ demands,” Bob told him.

Brett designs his canvases to harmoniously unite the visual elements that stir the heart and soul. He is inspired by place, but rarely paints reality, because no Continued on page 92

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Italian Marinades

U

BEYOND SALAD DRESSING. by Martin Mallet

pland birds, while unquestionably more flavo ful than their domestic counterparts, have a tendency toward toughness and dryness. It’s a catch-22: the very thing that gives wild birds their unique flavors namely age, exercise, and diet, are the same factors that make them more difficul to cook. Compounding the problem is that upland birds are not usually eaten rare, though waterfowl or big game often are. A good marinade can help by improving both tenderness and juiciness, while also introducing complementary flavors Marinades are an essential component of game cookery, and it’s helpful to understand how they function. While a salt brine helps muscle to retain moisture when cooked, it doesn’t tenderize meat per se, having little impact on tough connective tissues.

This is where marinades are useful. By introducing acidity or enzymes, which break down proteins, relax muscle fibers and act on connective tissue,

THE EDGE OF THE FIELD, BY ARTHUR SHILSTONE

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marinades improve tenderness. For a marinade to be effective, however, it needs to penetrate the meat fully and be given time to act. A 30-minute marinade does nothing for tenderness, unless you have access to specialized equipment, such as a vacuum tumbler. Certain marinades can be sped up by injection, but for most it’s simply a matter of time.

Perhaps no marinade is more familiar to hunters than the trusty bottle of Zesty Italian dressing.

Either alone or mixed in equal parts with barbecue sauce, it is the not-so-secret marinade of choice for hunters of all stripes. And, truth be told, it is very effective. However, an oil-based marinade is best suited for the grill, where it adds a protective element and helps develop nice browning on the flame For braised dishes, you are far more likely to find a recipe that calls for marination in wine than in salad dressing.

Wine has a lot going for it as a medium for marination. Both the acidity and alcohol contribute to tenderizing meat, though the acidity does most of August / September 2019 · 89

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the work. In addition, wines also have a flavor profile that complements many game species. Many aromatic compounds are more readily dissolved in alcohol than in water, which also helps the flavor in the marinade to more fully penetrate, especially those from herbs and spices. In braises, a winebased marinade can also be added to the cooking liquid, giving additional depth of flavor to the dish.

It’s no coincidence that many Italian game dishes start with an overnight soak in a bottle of wine.

PHEASANT WITH MASCARPONE AND PORT Port wine has an alcohol content of about 20 percent, which is on the high side of what you would want to use for a marinade. At high concentrations, alcohol actually draws moisture out, making the meat drier. So instead, wine is used for the marinade, and the port is used strictly to add flavor to the sauce.

Mascarpone, an Italian cream cheese most famously associated with rich desserts such as tiramisu, is actually quite versatile. The combination of the mascarpone and port is quite decadent, and you could gild the lily with the addition of dried morels or truffles Serves 4 2 fresh bay leaves 2 pheasants, whole 1 bottle dry white wine, such as pinot grigrio 1 teaspoon black peppercorns salt ¼ cup olive oil 1 medium onion, fine y diced 2 pheasant livers 2 cup tawny port 2 cups chicken or game broth ¾ cup mascarpone Place a fresh bay leaf in each pheasant’s cavity.

Place the pheasants in a container just large enough to hold both tightly, breast side down. Add the wine to cover, add the peppercorns, and let marinate in the refrigerator overnight. The following day, drain the birds and pat dry. Salt them lightly inside and out, and truss the pheasants to maintain their shape while cooking.

In a pot large enough to hold both birds, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring frequently until the onion begins to brown. Add the pheasants, turning them so that they brown on all sides. Add the livers, mashing to break them up; then deglaze with the port. Let the liquid reduce by half; then add the broth. Lower the heat, and stir the mascarpone into the sauce. Cover the pot tightly and let simmer gently, for about an hour, basting the pheasants occasionally with the sauce.

To serve, untruss the pheasants and remove the bay leaves from their cavities. Blend the cooking liquid to make a sauce and serve it naped over the birds.

PHEASANT WITH ALBANA WINE This preparation is from the Northern Apennines, a region of Italy known for its wild pheasant population and Albana wine, a storied grape from Emilia-Romagna, which has been grown there since Roman times.

Serves 4 2 pheasants, each jointed into 4 pieces 2 celery stalks, fine y diced 2 medium carrots, peeled and fine y diced 1 medium onion, fine y diced 1 sprig thyme 1 bottle Albana di Romagna secco 1 /3 cup butter 3 cups stock 2 pheasant livers 1 tablespoon flou salt pepper Place the pheasant pieces in a container so that they fit snugly with the celery, carrots, onion, and thyme.

Cover with the wine, and marinate overnight in the refrigerator. The following day, remove the pheasant from the marinade, reserving the marinade, and pat dry.

In a medium pan, melt the butter over mediumhigh heat and brown the pheasant pieces on all sides. Set the meat aside. Deglaze with the marinade, and reduce by half. Return the pheasant pieces to the pan; then add the broth and bring to a simmer. Take the pheasant livers, and mash them

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with about ¼ cup of the cooking liquid. Pass the liver paste through a fine sieve; then combine it with the flou . Add the slurry to the pot; then simmer gently for about an hour, until the pheasant is tender. Salt and pepper to taste.

PHEASANT CACCIATORE Cacciatore is a classic way to serve pheasant.

This version is adapted from Hank Shaw’s latest cookbook, Pheasant, Quail, Cottontail. Cacciatore means “hunter” in Italian, and the cacciatore treatment is incredibly versatile: it can be applied to almost any species.

Serves 4 2 pheasants, each cut into 4 pieces 2 cups white wine 2 tablespoons chopped sage 1 tablespoon fresh rosemary 1 teaspoon crushed juniper berries 2 fresh bay leaves ½ ounce dried wild mushrooms 4 tablespoons olive oil ¼ pound pancetta, cut into ¼-inch lardons 1 carrot, diced medium 1 celery stalk, diced medium 1 onion, thinly sliced ½ pound cremini or button mushrooms 5 cloves garlic, minced 1 quart crushed tomatoes ¼ cup minced parsley salt and pepper, to taste Combine the pheasant pieces with the wine,

sage, rosemary, juniper berries, bay leaves, and dried mushrooms, and season with a light sprinkling of salt.

Marinate overnight in the refrigerator. When you are ready to continue the recipe, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Remove the pheasant from the marinade, reserving the marinade, and pat the pieces dry. In a Dutch oven over medium-high heat, heat two tablespoons of the olive oil over medium heat and cook the pancetta until it is crisp and has rendered most of its fat. Remove and reserve the pancetta.

Add the pheasant pieces to the pan, a few at a time, and brown well all over. Remove and reserve as the pieces are ready. Add the carrot, celery, onion, and fresh mushrooms to the pan. Sauté until the onion begins to brown. Add more olive oil if the pan becomes too dry. When the onion begins to brown, add the garlic and cook for another minute, stirring occasionally. Add the marinade, and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the liquid by half; then add the tomatoes, cooked pancetta, and the pheasant pieces, skin side up. The pieces do not need to be submerged in liquid, just nestled in the sauce.

Cover the pan and place it in the oven. The cooking time will depend on the bird, but should take 1 to 2 hours. When the meat is tender, remove the cover and continue to cook until the skin crisps, about 30 to 45 additional minutes.

Transfer the pheasant pieces to a plate. Add the parsley to the pan, and mix to combine. To serve, ladle out some of the sauce and top with a few pieces of pheasant. Serve with polenta or bread. n Martin Mallet isn’t opposed to salad dressing as a marinade but prefers one that serves the cook as well as the meat.

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Art Continued from page 88 place is as perfect as a perfect painting requires. In Ahead of the Front, he sets the backlit blind in the mud flats, and structures the weaving, light-catching waterway to lead the viewer’s eye just where he wants it, to the hunters standing out against the lighted background.

“A very simple background is harder to paint than a man’s fingers,” he says.

The red in the lower left corner of the canvas probably doesn’t exist in nature, “but it balances the picture of a time of day so familiar to duck hunters.” In the low light, the ducks’ silhouettes require few details—just enough to identify them as pintails.

Brett pays tribute to Goodwin in his group of elegant, posterlike paintings whose roots are in illustration. They are not so much about accuracy as exploring the limits of design in fine art. In White Water Rise, the vegetation is simplified and the shadows are strong. Blocks of explicit color are laid in diagonals that are repeated in the steep slopes, the slanting

rock, the fisherman’s stance, and his rod.

Edge of Heaven, of a fisherman alone at the approach of evening on a Montana river, is more traditional. The light coming from the right throws the fields into dramatic shadows and makes the sky glow. The massive cottonwood recalls Jacob van Ruisdael’s venerable trees.

Not liking the “boring” flat landscapes that normally describe the flame-colored Nebraska–South Dakota upland milieu in Bird Flush, Brett fills the scene with familiar, even comforting elements—the farmhouse and fence, the solid mountains in the distance. In contrast to the hunter silhouetted in the shadow, the light falls upon the bird-shooter’s right shoulder as it sweeps into action, left to right, from the dogs, through the shotgun, to the pheasants taking flight.

Brett Smith’s oeuvre is a reminder of all we have lost. n Brooke was saddened to learn from Brett that, like so much else, her fishing haunts from the 1970s on Bay Joe Wise in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, are mostly gone.

Feeling Lucky Continued from page 56 bird as my own. After all, Buck already had two birds while I had only one, and I had diligently studied the bird’s line of flight while he’d been snorting around like a wounded Cape buffalo. But I relented and gave him the bird when our paths converged later. I was lucky to have found the bird, but on top of that, Buck bought the drinks that night at dinner.

Passing waterfowl have always been my nemesis, so I was dumbfounded on the magical, late-October day when, over a span of about an hour, I clipped six streaking wigeon in succession from a leaden sky with just six shots.

My hunting partner, who had seen me shoot ducks before, was equally astonished. He had witnessed the unlikely spectacle from his vantage point in the cattails at the water’s edge eighty yards away. The oxbow river channel we were hunting had begun making ice and I have a lasting memory of my young Labrador churning through the skim to fetch the birds. If the truth be told, the last hurtling wigeon that fell to my gun was actually two birds behind the one I had aimed at, a fact I failed to mention to my friend when he later clapped me on the back and said, “Good shooting!”

“Just feelin’ lucky,” I replied. n Dave Books, editor of Montana Outdoors magazine from 1978 to 2002, is author of Wingbeats and Heartbeats: Essays on Game Birds, Gun Dogs, and Days Afield, published by the University of Wisconsin Press.

”Pointing Red Grouse”

Oil

20” x 30”

Charleston, SC

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Christmas Eve Continued from page 16 bird directly under his nose. The essence of steppe-reared grit, the umbercrowned bird was dispatched fi ty yards downhill from where it had first fa len.

By the time we reached Mahoney in the next basin north, we all carried sohere’s-the-story smiles, but before we could swap tales, Zeke and a backing Olive tightened into points up the slope from us. On camera duty, I was stupidly talking loudly—ushering Jeff toward the shot, assuring him that I wanted to film—and thus the covey of 20 flushe at the edge of range. Nonetheless Mahoney dumped a late-rising single; Zeke trailed its descent but Olive came in hot, 35 pounds of tricolored blur, and the gentleman swung off. I marked the covey’s disappearance over a steep rise to the east, and we banked west to give the birds time to settle and throw scent.

Almost too quickly the dogs were slowed by another scent cone, with age backing youth this time. Again we

fumbled with our roles on the large covey rise, dropping phones to shoulder guns, and fanned—three up, three down—but marked the well-lit birds up the canyon, in the vicinity of the aforementioned group. More giddy than chagrinned, liberally approximating the numbers now collected in the draw, we worked our way toward a pinch of cliffs that seemed to harbor, the way an attic would, a palpable level of hiddenness.

Lost in modest reverie, I reckoned that no two-legged traveler had traversed the location for quite a while and, reaching the rim, followed Zeke downhill, to my right, despite having seen both groups of birds banking unmistakably left.

I chalked up the acquiescence to “trusting my dog” and looked toward Mahoney.

He was already shooting me a glance, a silent query: Want us to wait?

I shrugged an indecisive, equally silent response and strode toward my dog.

You should call Zeke and work up the drainage with them, a voice in my head soon told me. Zeke had crested the next

hill, though, and I didn’t want to call him off a would-be scent. A few minutes later shotgun reports caromed off the rock wall—two shots from two distinct guns and not long after, two more—and a recognizable voice intoned: I told you so. I could see the truck in the distance on the valley floo , and let gravity have its way with my spent frame. After a while, still a good ways from the two-track, I sat down and called Zeke to my side to water him. He drank sloppily from his Tupperware dish and then slumped down, a puppet abandoned by its master’s hands, head in my lap.

“What a good boy you are,” I said while scratching him behind the ears.

Near his tired wagging tail, atop a slab of ocher fieldst ne specked with ancient lichen, lay the caterpillar-curled, whitetipped dropping of a Hun. “You have been absolutely killing it on these Huns.

Are you having fun with them? Are you?

Thank you, buddy.”

N

ot long after the novelist David Foster Wallace took his own life, Jim

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Harrison, who corresponded with Wallace and endured many of his own battles with depression, lamented in an interview for Outside magazine: “Of the twelve or thirteen suicides I’ve known, none of them had any interest in nature. They couldn’t make that jump out of themselves.” Not condescending, not casting a single iota of blame but rather speaking from the primacy of immediate experience, Harrison speculated that Wallace might have fared better had he spent more time with dogs.

“You know, [Wallace] loved his dogs for that last year, but he should have been having dogs for thirty years. I absolutely depend on them.”

If only because the hackneyed image of the emotionally impenetrable Great White Hunter is as useful as the Marlboro Man’s left lung, I’ll come forward with this confession: psychologically, emotionally, I barely survived last winter.

Perhaps while logging 10-hour days at the desk, delving old traumas in a new manuscript, I wrote my way into the deep depression that overtook me midJanuary. I certainly didn’t drink myself

there, as I’d given up my nightly twoglass dose of wine early in the flu season in hopes of bolstering my immune system. Serious illness gripped our community—the mother of a student at our daughters’ school, where Mary teaches, died of the flu—and our family’s proximity to the lethal virus fed my anxiety.

Unlike past plunges into what Kierkegaard rightly called “the netherworld,” this mental disequilibrium didn’t appear to be seasonally or circumstantially induced; I had regular doses of fresh air, some money in the bank, and meaningful work to go to each day.

But daily I failed to find footing in the ill-lit warrens of my mind.

One afternoon, I found myself sitting alone in a back pew at Saint Francis Xavier, a place I visit often when it’s vacant so that I can admire the elaborate frescoes painted in the late 1800s by a Jesuit kitchen worker, an Italian transplant to Montana. Threadbare, all but undone, I scanned the Stations and the well-known Gospel scenes until an image of Francis himself—robed, lightly

haloed, reclining with eyes closed, perhaps napping, a tamed wolf lying in the dirt at his side—focalized my gaze. The room was still, save a single fli kering votive near the entryway, and I recalled a candle that Joyce Bahle, Harrison’s longtrusted assistant, had lit here while Jim’s health was failing. “Do you know of any quiet chapels in town?” she’d asked without pretext, almost frantically, during our somber lunch at a Missoula café. “I have this urge to light a candle. I haven’t been in a church since childhood.”

Thinking of the mysterious urgency of Joyce’s gesture in the same alcove, I remembered a line of Jim’s—“We are here to be curious not consoled”—from a poem he once described as “a record of deliverance, which is always near but often quite invisible.” The words hit me like a load of bismuth number 5s. “Invisible” implied existent, within the realm of possibility, which at the moment seemed irreconcilably far-fetched. I was pouring every ounce of energy and positivity that I could muster into transcending my moment-tomoment disrepair, to pitiful results.

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B

ack on the mountain with Zeke yesterday, I felt enough distance from last winter’s mental anguish to look it in the eye and hold point. As ever, I was superstitious, knocking on my gunstock again.

I didn’t want to outrun my nose, per se, but wondered why, given last winter’s emotional stranglehold, the coming winter months weren’t a constant source of preoccupation. Perhaps because my dog— behind his nose and hunches and indefatigable drive—had led me into so many luminous moments. I felt as if I carried by shoulder strap a cache of twilit white tails on point, light enough to see me through the dark—and it struck me, with my hand in his coat, that I was thanking Zeke for far more than finding bi ds.

“To feel most beautifully alive,” Gaston Bachelard said, “means to be reading something beautiful.”

All autumn I had been immersed in it—the first and most vital text, this terrestrial earth and its creatures—with Zeke as my primary translator. I had made countless entries and notations in the fiel

journal of the mind and possessed because of Zeke sufficient glow by which to read them. It’s an old story. The season nears its brutal close and the hunter reaches back into his game pouch for something more than bird. “Your body,” a wise friend recently told me, “is how the land thinks itself into you and vice versa.” As Zeke began to stir, I comprehended something new: when the land isn’t thinking itself into me, I’m thinking myself into me—an abysmal trade.

Without warning then a thermal slid down the mountain and Zeke picked up his nose from my lap. The wind had changed and he rose and cast elastically, with extreme caution, into a small bowl on the south-facing slope and gradually, not more than a couple hundred yards from where we’d been loafin , fell into a stymied sort of point. He was steady but facing downhill toward ground he’d just covered. I puzzled over his stance but stood and loaded two shells and closed the over-under. Very slowly then, like the minute hand of the clock I tracked in elementary school before each bell,

his nose dialed around to the north and his tail rose with assurance.

There were birds not far off his nose, a tight braid of at least 15 that flushe down-light, and I felled one from the back of the group and aged it over a few days in the cool garage and cooked it simply in salt and pepper, and olive oil, with a glaze of homemade chutney, and served it centerpiece atop a bed of sautéed kale, mushrooms, and cayenne beet slices, and washed it all down with a barnyardy red blend from the Catalans.

But for now, gentle reader, I prefer to leave Zeke where he was, lordly, motionless as a fold in the landscape, at the precise moment of the covey rise, when the hunter’s heart tries to leap from its cage.

And the hunter leaps out of himself, as his dog taught him to. n Chris Dombrowski is the author of the memoir Body of Water, a Bloomberg News Book of the Year, as well as three collections of poetry, most recently Ragged Anthem. He lives with his family in Missoula, Montana, and directs the Beargrass Writing Workshops.

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The Last Time Continued from page 50 with some heavy-duty tape, and heaving with high-brass number 9s. The weather was brisk and clear, with a little breeze, but no need for a jacket.

I

n the yard, Sue expressed her joy by turning ecstatic pirouettes and trying to talk. She jumped into the cab of the old white Ford pickup. She always rode in the front. She whined all the three miles to Cartersville. As they passed through the remains of the crossroad town toward the river, they turned left onto a well-kept dirt road leading to the Cartersville Cemetery, which was a couple of fenced-in acres in the middle of a bushhogged cotton field He parked at the cemetery.

At first Sue ran wildly around the cemetery and up the field and down, getting her bearings, peeing every 20 yards or so. She had never hunted here. When they began in earnest, she stopped to do

business in a cotton row, looking back for confi mation that they were, indeed, hunting. “Careful now, Sue, birds in here” was all the command she would receive or take.

Almost immediately, she set. The twitch of her tail indicated it was a covey. Sue’s formal training had been limited to letting her point a bird wing tied on a fishing pole line a few times when she was a puppy. Everything else was instinct and love. Used to hunting alone, she worked with the gun to maximize the opportunity. As he approached the patch of broomstraw and knee-high gum trees, she deftly swung around clockwise, encircling the covey at a safe distance but giving a clear indication of exactly where they were. The old man’s mind and heart raced.

He recalled the excitement of being a boy at age 12 with his single shot with the hammer action. He had asked his sister-in-law, who had also been his schoolteacher, to help him order it from the Roebuck catalog. He had made enough money from picking up

the scraps in the tobacco barn and bundling them neatly, saving them in a pile and selling it at the market. He had also been able to buy a box of shells at the hardware store, and it would last him until Christmas when he would get another box as his present. Every shot had to count. He remembered his first bird dog; he remembered all his dogs and how they looked with a covey of birds set or with a single in front their noses, the taut rapture, the quivering tail with its feathering like an Indian spear, the raised front paw, the sharp eyes, the intense expressions, the cocks of the heads. He remembered great shots, heartbreaking misses, amazingly deft reloads. He remembered rattlesnakes in January, cornered bobcats challenging dogs, bucks swimming cold rivers, hawks grabbing rabbits. He remembered everyone he had hunted with.

He remembered ducking to avoid being shot by a reckless brother-in-law, he remembered friends who were dead long ago and birds they had killed. He remembered his son’s first hunt and

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first bird. He thought of Christmas oranges, special little ones from Spain, blood smeared and so good on a long hunt. He recalled the towering flight of birds he thought he had missed but had hit with a single pellet in the head.

He remembered his cousin diving into the river in January to retrieve his shotgun. An old white enameled dishpan on the back porch of the old house, fi led with birds just killed, waiting for his mother to clean and cook and serve with fresh hot biscuits was there. All in a flash all at once, as if his life had been only a single hunt and had passed by at miraculous speed.

He kicked the grass to ignite an explosion of life, punching the afternoon air with the violent drumbeat of wings.

Expert fliers they headed toward the woods. There were at least 25. Five blasts from his gun brought fi e birds to the ground. He could hardly believe it. He tried to remember where they each fell, but it was hard to concentrate. To his further amazement, Sue began not only finding the birds but also bringing them

to him. He squatted down to receive each prize. Every time she would bring one, she’d go back and get the next. It took about 10 minutes, but she brought each one to hand, something she rarely did, and all without a word or gesture other than, “That’s a good girl” and a pat on the head. The birds were big and felt good in his vest, warm against his back, a few still quivering.

The rest of the covey had gone into the woods and would be scattered about.

With renewed energy, he pursued them.

In the old days, you’d shoot at a covey, look for the singles, and stumble on another covey. Within a few hundred yards, Sue set again along the edge of the trees. This time a single. One shot, a dead bird, and a perfect retrieve. Within minutes the scene repeated itself. He could hardly believe it. He had been a good shot, but not perfect, and why was Sue retrieving so well? Sue found another covey, this time in the corner of the cotton field in a weedy patch. With precision they worked the covey. Three birds fell with four shots, and three came

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back, warm in the hand and moist from Sue’s gentle mouth.

He was in a magical time. This was hunting as he remembered it. If only Monroe or Robert or E.J. or Roy, or his boy, could be here. With determination, he pursued the singles.

As the sun reached the trees along the hill of the swamp, the air chilled.

He began to head back to the truck soon. He noticed a green pickup coming up the road. It could be the game warden. Two men got out of the truck and started toward him. He started toward them too. As they came into focus, he could see that one of them was Edison, the younger one was a nephew or young cousin.

“How’re you all?”

“What are you doing here?” the younger one asked.

“I’m just doing a little bird hunting.”

“Who told you you could do that?”

“Edison said I could hunt here anytime I wanted to.”

“Have you got that in writing?”

“No.” He had never heard of such a

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thing. Hunting permission in writing sounded like something lawyers or doctors might come up with.

“Well, you can’t hunt here, and if I fin you here again, I’ll call the law on you.”

It took all his strength not to strike the young man in the face. At 80, he was not to be lectured and threatened by a stranger and a smart-ass. Instead, he stared at him powerfully, directly, expressionless. When the message that he would not be intimidated had sunk in, he turned to Edison, who would not look at him directly but seemed fascinated by cotton stubble and fina ly turned toward the green truck; he never said a word.

They sat in the truck, watching with the engine running and the heat on while the old man unloaded his gun, took off his vest, and put away his shells.

He called Sue to the truck. She stood before the open door, reluctant to go and too tired to jump in. In his arms, he gathered her, panting and a little muddy, and put her in the seat. He checked her belly and feet and pulled out three cockleburs.

He took his time. He walked over to the truck.

“Would you all want these birds?”

“No, we don’t have any use for them.

Take ’em and don’t come back.”

When he got home, it was nearly sunset. His wife had been worried about him out in the field alone. They ate grits and sausage in silence.

“Did you see any birds?”

“Yeah, saw plenty. They’re hanging in my vest outside.”

“What we going to do with all those birds?”

“I don’t care. Put them in the freezer.

He’ll eat them when he comes home.”

He put up his gun and hung his vest in the closet along with the shells he had left, and went into the den and got into his La-Z-Boy. Soon he was asleep, dreaming of hunting and fis ing, planting and plowing. The scenes played over and over in his mind.

Then his happy dream turned dark.

His boy was not with him. His friends and brothers were either dead or not interested, and somehow what had

been a bond of neighborly friendship had become trespassing. Nothing seemed to matter.

In a few years under new management, there would be no birds. They’d get rid of the weeds and broomstraw and bottomland briar patches, and the bugs would disappear and the birds with them. The fencerows that used to stitch little farms together into a patchwork landscape would be all gone. Raptors would scour the fields for any bird that tried to feed or cross. Fire ants that had ridden the interstate up from Florida and Texas would swarm over virtually every nest. There would be no tobacco markets or greasy, twinklyeyed men to pump your gas or tune your carburetor or tell fish tales. Quail would be rare, indeed. n Mitch Lee’s bird hunting began in South Carolina but has since moved to Missouri and now to Idaho, where he resides. When not hunting or writing, he manages a notfor-profit dedicated to providing meals for needy children.

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The Lost Chukar Continued from page 36 “There aren’t any here.”

“You got off easy. Do you understand now?”

I nodded. I felt the flush of shame pass over me. That’s all Dad ever said on the matter.

O

ne Saturday night in late September, I sat in the living room listening to a Maple Leafs game on the radio. I was working on a Curtiss P-40 Warhawk balsa-wood model. Dad came and sat beside me, a Scotch in one hand, a Frank Yerby novel in the other.

“Nice plane. Did I tell you I built de Havilland Mosquito fighter-b mbers during the war?”

“No! Tell me.” I was all ears. My dad worked on fighter planes “Yep, fastest plane in World War Two and all made of plywood. Göring was sick with envy over it.”

I had never heard of it, but my dad

wouldn’t lie. “Is that why you weren’t in the war?”

“Partly, and because I had a lung condition from working underground.

“And by the way, I’m taking a young fellow, new in the shop, out partridge hunting. Want to come?”

Those were the words I had been waiting to hear, feared I would never hear since I had killed that poor robin.

“I would love to come, Dad. Shall I bring my BB gun?”

“No. We will share my rifle.

I knew the gun well, as we had taken it apart and cleaned it many times.

It was a tiny, perfect carbine, a Winchester 1903 .22 automatic that fi ed nine times from the magazine plus one cartridge in the chamber.

The next day, I was in heaven as I was allowed to load and set the safety and then carry the gun as I strode with my dad and a handsome young man named Freddy Alder. The air was crisp, the sky gunmetal gray, and the logging road littered with birch and poplar leaves as we crunched along. Freddy,

however, spoke of his life in Germany as a Hitler Youth, a sea cadet, a submariner who was involved in sinking several Allied ships; my reverie was shattered: Freddy was a Nazi! We hate Nazis. Dad and Mom had left the Ukraine before the war, but several of their relatives had been killed by the invading Germans.

What were we doing going hunting with a Nazi? By the time my dad said: “Look, there is a flo k of partridges, have a shot,” I was so agitated that I emptied the magazine without hitting a single bird as they strutted around obliviously feeding on late-season berries.

“I wonder what the problem is as I saw him hit ten targets in a row with a much less accurate gun?”

“I saw championship marksmen in the navy do the same thing the firs time they had a living man within their sights,” offered Freddy.

Dad took the .22, calmly reloaded, and he and Freddy proceeded to shoot a brace each.

That evening, as we stood at the kitchen sink immersed in the pungent

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smell of dead bird offal while Dad showed me how to breast them, I couldn’t contain myself any longer.

“Dad, Freddy is a Nazi, and you hate Nazis. What were we doing going hunting with a Nazi? Didn’t they kill some of your family?”

Dad said nothing as he threw the offal into the woodstove, and Mum placed the seasoned breasts with garlic, dill, salt, paprika, pepper, and oil in an iron skillet; surrounded them with

nugget potatoes and Brussels sprouts; and set the pan in the oven. Soon delectable aromas wafted about the green linoleum and white oilcloth-swathed room. For once I said nothing more. I watched him in silence, waiting. I knew he wasn’t ignoring me.

“You know, Sonoco, Freddy was a young man, a teenager, and a patriotic German, so he served his country, millions did. He wasn’t old enough then to question, just old enough to obey, to be

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a good soldier for a bad system: the Nazi system. We must make sure our system is good, for there are many evil systems, not many evil people. As a young man, Freddy was swept along in a tidal wave of Nazism, but in his heart, never became one and after the war came to Canada, looking for a better life in a better country, and we must welcome him and others for whom immigrating here is an act of contrition. He has said as much.”

Youngsters want their dads to be strong in their perspectives and opinions, but I said nothing. My father believed more strongly in redemption, second chances, and forgiveness, and even though I never stopped enjoying the freedom of the woods, trying to improve as a hunter, and learning the life cycles and habitats of the birds I hunted, he had condemned me to become a student of human behavior, an observer of men, and life as a criminal psychologist trying to make sense of evil. As Dostoyevsky said: “Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer, nothing is more difficult than to understand him.”

I ended up in graduate school in Madison, Wisconsin. Ken Clark, a friend from Omaha, had a lovely 20-gauge Westley Richards that he would lend me on Sunday afternoons. I would haunt the farms and woodlands surrounding Madison without a soul around. (Thank God for the Green Bay Packers.) A walk among the maples and oaks of southern Wisconsin under the slanting rays of the autumn sun restored my soul, and, most important, my brain.

After grad school, I was offered a job at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. One of the Maritime Provinces, Nova Scotia was founded at Port Royal in 1604. Within a year, I had bought an old farmhouse on the southern shore of St. Margarets Bay at French Village Bay. I discovered that our two acres backed onto public woods with countless old logging roads and meadows harboring woodcock, ruffed grouse, and the occasional pheasant. A neighbor sold me an ancient Fox sideby-side with double triggers.

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I needed a bird dog and after researching breeds, I settled upon English setters. Not the fastest, but good hunters, not good retrievers but great pointers, and most of all, never of bad disposition. Bolts of lightning in the field rugs in the house, and calm, the opposite of Weimaraners. On days when I wasn’t lecturing, after a morning spent writing, I would take Tess out back after lunch into the mixed woods and meadows where the maple and birch branches were rattling with scarlet and gold doubloons that crunched underfoot as she coursed back and forth, very close to me.

On one of our first excursions, she did a double take on a willow thicket and wouldn’t move. “Come on, Tess, get in there,” I urged, not knowing I was doing everything wrong. She wouldn’t budge, so in frustration, I strode forward ahead of her and a grouse burst from the bush and weaved among the maples. I fi ed without thinking, the second good thing I did in ignorance, and the bird tumbled. I remember my hand trembling, sweat on my brow as I picked up the beautiful “pahtridge,” as the locals called it. Tess took one look and went back to searching. And I fell in love all over again.

Later, my wife at that time, also a psychologist, and I were invited to teach at the University of British Columbia. Driving a suburban cliché, an old loden green Volvo station wagon, with Tess and our two daughters in tow, we passed through the high desert valley of the Thompson River: wind, dust, trains, and a fearsome river, a moving raging sea. We held our collective breath, anxiously waiting to see the greening of the Pacific as in that first passing, found nothing appealing in the treeless landscape, which looked like a gritty locale for a spaghetti Western. It was not a place I would return to willingly.

Little did I know. We ended up moving to British Columbia as my father had predicted, but he never lived to see us there. He had a heart attack as he returned from a trout fishing trip to our special trout lake—two months from his retirement. Too unfair, he had never been unkind to anyone and fina ly

had a little money.

But we moved, and I discovered extraordinary steelhead and elusive, heart-stopping chukar partridge. I was hooked. Why would I want to live anywhere else?

With chukar, luck did not come easy. No luck at all many times until, one day, a covey rose and one tumbled to earth before my Fox’s spray of 7½ shot. Chukar became my bird of choice, and through the years, I shot my share.

B

ut not only chukar. I found blue grouse on the mountaintops, ruffed grouse on the lower slopes, geese passing overhead at Nighthawk Ranch, a wildlife paradise on the Thompson that I share with Cristina Martini, my wife of the last 10 years. A veritable cornucopia of game birds. I reminisce, happily, as I dragged myself the last 50 yards up the arroyo in the gloom, desperately grabbing at rabbitbrush and juniper bushes, trying not to think of the rattlesnake that might be lurking

at their base.

Thank God. I have reached the apex of the arroyo, where its height has dropped to four feet on each side.

I dig my elbows in and hoist my carcass onto the mesa. It is very dark as I plod toward my truck, calling Nicola.

Then I spot her: Nicola sitting by the truck. And what is that not too far from her? A chukar, legs in the air. The little wretch (or should I say, princess) has actually retrieved the dead chukar. She sits in extreme ennui, awaiting my return. The look on her face says, Where the hell you been?

“Good girl.” I stroke her head. “Let’s get going. Cristina’s going to be wondering where we are.” n Ehor Boyanowsky lives in British Columbia with his wife, Cristina Martini, and four English setters. He is the author of Savage Gods, Silver Ghosts: In the Wild with Ted Hughes. His latest book, Crime and Criminality, will be available in September from University of Toronto Press.

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Grouse Dinner

Traditions

Continued from page 30 feathered, plump, buzzing, red-phase ruffed grouse was ending its days. I picked it up, wrung its neck, opened its crop. Yep. The aroma of natural alcohol. Dalrymple was right again.

Not “wild” flight but drunken flight The careening bird must have been absolutely hammered on plum brandy when it mistook the window for a forest opening.

With preternatural quickness, never a Slav’s strong suit, I plucked and voided this third grouse, fi led all three with wrinkled plums, blanketed them in bacon tacked with toothpicks, and ovened them. I started the rice, picked the remaining shards out of the empty window frame, and still had time to shower and dress before Diane’s racing rust bucket rolled up to the garage. I was sliding the quick-chilled Chablis out of the freezer as they came up the stairs from the back hall.

“Grouse!” June beamed over dinner.

“But why didn’t you finish the window?” Diane asked, though not at all sharply.

“The spare pane turned out to be cracked, so I went for partridge,” I said brightly. “The truck’s dead, and you had the car.”

Dinner was superb.

Ruffed grouse follow woodcock in the turning year. Unlike woodcock, grouse—which we tend to call partridges here—are born with their brains right side up, like us. Maybe that’s why they insist upon turning themselves upside down with the aid of natural alcohol. The cause of the “towering,” the flight straight up, remains, as far as I can tell, undiscovered.

It may be, though, that a head shot that damages their sight compels the stricken bird to choose a direction with no obstructions. n

Continued from page 68 behaves with chickens buzzing round him, and guns goin’ off in his ears.”

They reached the motionless Rock, upon whom was laid the severe penalty of a brief inaction—the climax toward which his fl ing feet had hurried. Now, outlined sharply against the stubble, he poised transformed to a statue by the Red God’s magic. Somewhere ahead, in the high grasses, with wings paralyzed and escape denied, crouched the hiding prairie fowl obeying the same mysterious command.

The lawyer, appreciating to the full Rock’s performance, yet eager for the next step, was surprised to see Bill calmly drop the lines on the dashboard, and gun in hand, rise to his feet.

“No, don’t touch the lines,” the latter admonished, “this here is part of the performance—just let ’em lie while I show you how Bill and Jim and Rock hunts chickens.”

The hammers clicked; the fat horse, rather anxiously it appeared, swung his short neck and sidled sideways. Thus had his oat-stealing been interrupted—first by sharp clicks, and then by a roar that startled and stung. The oat stacks and the stinging were still heavy upon his conscience.

“Whoa there, Jim, you fool,” breathed Bill, “what’s the matter now—you hain’t somehow acted just right all morning. Cl’k, cl’k, there; geddup with you. Now watch us!”

Jim moved nervously forward a few steps; there flashed up from his intruding forefeet a dozen or more great brown fowl with rushing wings that smote the tense stillness into raveled rags, and then in the swift passing of the fl ing moment and the following confusion the lawyer obtained but a dim vista of events.

To him it was as if a dozen guns discharged together their contents; the billows of headed wheat, stormtossed, seemed rushing past him; a vague remembrance haunted him of Bill leaving the buggy as dives a harlequin backwards through a trapdoor.

Richard Yatzeck’s stories have appeared in Gray’s many times. He taught Russian literature for 48 years at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin.

He passed away March 7, earlier this year.

He was 89.

In the vortex of earthquake shocks and clashing planets he was sure of but one thing—rocking from side to side in the crazy buggy, deserted by Bill, he was going wheresoever fared the plunging Jim with the reins under his pounding feet.

Fortunately Jim was heading homeward, his equine soul fi led with a horror of shotguns, vaguely associating their presence with oat stacks and a hideful of fi e; never again would he risk the chance of getting peppered, and henceforth would he keep away from the dangerous oat stack.

Home, with the rickety vehicle intact and upright. Jim, sweating in his stall, and the lawyer easing his shaken nerves with soothing nicotine, awaited Bill’s return. He came, abashed, disheveled, garments torn, and face scratched.

“Really, Mr. Higgs,” said the lawyer, “it has been a wonderful day. Both of us are still alive, which of itself is a remarkable coincidence; I witnessed with these eyes your wonderful feat of wingshooting while turning a back handspring. Then this wise horse, fearing you might be hurt, went at his best gait to fetch the doctor. Does he always do that? Was there . . .”

Bill interrupted the lawyer’s pleasantries: “By gum, it was too bad!

Jim’s plumb gun-shy now. I was sure the most astonished man in the county when he jumped and landed me on the back of my neck in the stubble.

Both barrels at once, and Jim—they turned me clean end over end. I landed on Rock, partly, and that hurt his feelings. Falling out didn’t scour me up this way—Neighbor Overbrook did that. Met me coming up the road wondering what the Sam Hill ailed the old horse, and getting madder about it all the time—and had the nerve to tell me ’bout his breakin’ Jim of stealin’ oats with a couple of loads of salt. We had a hot political meeting right there, and Overbrook looks worse’n me. I bet he won’t break no more horses of oat-stealin’—he broke Jim, all right, and he just naturally broke him of chicken-shootin’ at the same time.” n

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T

he humorous tone of this story belies the fact it appeared on the downside of the prairie chicken’s abundance when, like other fur and feathered game, Tympanuchus cupido hurtled toward oblivion.

The late 19th century brought a signifi ant rise in both commercial and recreational hunting pressure. The Chicago Tribune, for example, announced the opening of the season with headlines such as the war on prairie chicks begins, time to kill the prairie fowl, and get out the breechloaders!”

The seasons began in August, as younger birds were more toothsome and easier to find flush and kill. Gradually, restrictions came, with some states taking an initial step in that direction by delaying the market-hunting opener. “Prairie chickens are in season,” one article noted, “but if you wish a brace for your dinner you must shoot them yourself for your market man cannot sell them to you until October 1.” The phrasing “your market man” seems worth noting: Conservationists had

a hard time passing protective legislation to restrict the kill of game, in no small part due to the complicity of the larger culture.

A loss of habitat proved even more vexing than the rise in hunting pressure, which at least could be tempered through education and legislation. The chicken is a bird of native grasslands and tends to do best when the cover has no more than 20 to 30 percent cropland. At first the chicken populations moved north and west as cropland (corn in particular) advanced, but eventually their overall continental numbers declined as industrial-strength agriculture turned over the continental sod. By the time this article appeared in 1908, many in the Midwest were calling for closed seasons.

But the story of Old Bill reveals little about these concerns. Set in Kansas (where the season began on October 1 and where prairie chicken habitat held out longer than in Illinois and other eastern parts of the Midwest), the chickens still seemed a metaphor for the richness and openness of the prairie. Old Bill, for his part, embodies the slow pace of the dispirited prairie

town of legend and lore. Harry Truman’s mother might have been speaking for all Midwestern mothers when she said of her son, “It was on the farm that Harry got his common sense. He didn’t get it in town.”

Not that Old Bill plans on heading to Washington anytime soon. He stands in opposition to “the wilder social life of the East.” As he explains, “water’s good enough for me.” In fact, he likes his life because he doesn’t exactly have a job. He apparently owns some farmland, though he doesn’t seem too worried about making a living from it or even keeping the fences mended.

His resistance to change or initiative could in itself be seen as rebellious, I suppose (an old trope—consider Washington Irving, as noted in the story, or even Bartleby the Scrivener, in his encounter with the early corporate world). But Old Bill is also a transitional character, part of the school in American literature called the “local color movement,” which pushed back against dashing men and urbanism, in general, and celebrated rural life and championed children, women, animals, and old men.

The age of Roosevelt put more spring in

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the step of the male characters everywhere, however, and Bill may be old and living the dream, but he also doesn’t shy from a fistfigh when protecting what is his. So he’s called Old, but I’d wouldn’t push it.

Old Bill’s only vice seems to be bragging on his hunting system and how his animals keep it running. In keeping with “local color” inclinations, he doesn’t much go for scientific approaches, doesn’t train his animals, so much as he treats them kindly, and defends them against poor treatment. Jim and Rock are also “Old,” but, as with Bill, the designation seems mostly designed to underscore just how predictably they can find prairie chickens.

After all, there was a lot of open prairie and the success of the whole operation depended on them. As Emerson Hough wrote in a turn-of-the century article in the Chicago Tribune, “In all probability there were 10,000 chicken dogs, or alleged chicken dogs, that went out on the first day of the shooting season in the broad fields of the state of Illinois, but if there were twodozen really first- lass dogs among them the average is better than usual. The old

chicken dog is a lost chord, or a lost art, or whatever sort of thing it is good to have in the family but is always missing when wanted.” He should check out Old Rock.

In many ways, the honorific “Old” mostly celebrates what it is not: cities, the East, lawyers, bankers, and the rest of modernity. In this respect, “The Chicken Hunting of Old Bill Higgs,” like any birdhunting story, regardless of species, decade, or location, assumes a certain nostalgia.

Eastern hunts for grouse or quail, for example, always seem to remind us that it is the land that’s old—generally deserted farmland. In the continent’s center, the nostalgia takes the form of natural abundance and open spaces—as it was before “the march of civilization,” as TR reminded us in his highly romanticized, hugely popular four-volume The Winning of the West. The audience for The Outing Magazine remained a largely elite group of easterners. For those folks this piece was a nod to an imagined past that still existed.

No surprise then that Old Bill liked to let “his pets perform,” a local version, perhaps, of the very popular Wild West shows

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of another “Bill”; that is, Buffalo Bill Cody. To the easterners of this generation, the plains held a real romance, only a quarter century removed from Little Bighorn and the world of the Native Americans, the great thundering herds of buffalo, and smack in the midst of the Roosevelt commemoration of the heartland as just that.

The unending vistas held a great fascination for eastern bird hunters, particularly with native grouse and quail populations not what they had been. In spite of the decline of the prairie chicken in parts of its former range, this was, ironically enough, bird hunting’s new frontier.

The story’s humor blends nicely with the wistfulness of such nostalgia. As birdhunting tales tend to go, this one has a country humor with the hunter getting “too big”; after all, the community is pretty small and ordinary, as are the quarry, at least when compared the big game. And again, as bird-hunting stories often go, the partner, neighbor, birds, dog, (and horse!) combine—however coincidentally—to do everyone a favor by bringing Bill back down to earth, so to speak. Memories of

bird hunting should bring a smile: There’s nothing funny about missing a 10-point buck, but there surely is in missing a prairie chicken you nearly stepped on as you got down from the wagon.

As Wilmot Townsend wrote in George Bird Grinnell’s American Game-Bird Shooting (1910) “[Hunting prairie chickens] presents a striking contrast to the sorrows of the eastern gunner of old times, who spent his shooting days in wallowing through swamps, squeezing among alders, and trying to break down cat-briars and grapevines. . . . Prairie chicken shooting is, par excellence, the sport of the lazy man. It is the easiest of all land shooting. First, because the field is always open, and if one is too lazy to walk he can shoot from a horse or wagon. . . .” Hardly the epitome of the sporting male in the age of Roosevelt. It had better be a joke.

The nostalgia, the grandness, the humor of the prairie chicken hunt enjoyed a regional embrace that today seems almost hard to imagine. As a Chicago Tribune piece of the time opined, “A good chicken hunt may be possible this fall. It may

cost you 300, whereas once upon a time it might have cost you a pound of shot. But don’t you care. It is worth it, if you once get among the birds with a decent dog, and do not get too much rattled when big birds begin to rear up around. They look as big as meeting-houses, but the new man on chickens is apt to find that he can miss them.” The “Old” man can apparently miss them, too, particularly if the rest of his team cooperates.

Will Ryan teaches expository writing at Hampshire College. He spent many happy years missing all kinds of birds in the upland covers of New York and New England. His most recent book is Gray’s Sporting Journal’s Noble Birds and Wily Trout: Creating America’s Hunting and Fishing Traditions, published by Lyons Press.

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CRIPPLE CREEK REPAIRS FOR THE BIRDS, BUT DON’T TELL THE COWS. BY KRIS MILLGATE

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Unimpressed.

That’s what I’m thinking as I take

wide, sweeping curves two-lane style as if I were the only truck on this back road. Wait. I am the only truck on this back road. Traffic doesn’t have a reason to use this route. It goes nowhere in no hurry. The blacktop, a long lace of licorice stringing through honeycolored crops, is empty of all but me.

It’s pleasant enough, but fil worthy?

Doubtful. This is sagebrush country.

Razed, grazed, eroded, and emaciated. Surely it’s empty.

But it isn’t.

As I roll past the classic chocolate-brown and banana-yellow U.S. Forest Service sign—wooden but whitewashed with bird poop—I see a nest. It’s road right of the entrance to Curlew National Grassland. The nest’s host is a dead juniper naked of evergreen but bearing

rough bark sturdy enough to hold young. Three chicks, their heads the fuzzy texture of dandelions ready for seed dispersal, are in the nest.

I’ve heard raptors prey on this place as though it were the hot spot other birds of the non-prey variety don’t know about. Confi mation comes with an adult hawk hanging over my truck as I park on the shoulder and get out.

The hawk talons a tree limb near the nest and screams at me. I get it. I scream at strangers when they sidle up on my kids too. Message received: Don’t take another step closer. The adult switches from the stay away warning for me to a stay down screech for the chicks.

I lens the scene from afar for photo and video, then go on my way.

The nest is a surprising discovery in this dry place, but I have more

U.S. Forest Service hydrologist Louis Wasniewski surveys the severe fissu e in Curlew National Grassland known as Deep Creek. (Below) Barbwire fencing within the grassland is tagged with reflecti e plastic that allows sage grouse to see the fence before they fly into it

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Yellow balsamroot fl wers bloom for miles in May. (Below) Homesteads from the early 1900s dot the landscape.

Some are privately owned, but most were abandoned after the Dust Bowl era made the area too hard to farm for most settlers.

barren, boring desert to explore.

But it’s not.

Sagebrush dominates the landscape as expected, but it doesn’t have the stage solo. Purples and pinks of post-Easter pastel cover soft, stepped slopes. I’m here in May, and winter’s moisture hasn’t totally abandoned the basin yet. The vibrance is shocking amid the nothingness of wide open.

The Curlew is one of 20 national grasslands managed by the U.S. Forest Service. It’s the only such grassland in Idaho, just a few dozen miles north of the Utah border.

I’m seeing the Curlew for the first time. I mean really seeing it.

My job as an outdoor journalist requires more than a drive-by glance for scenery’s sake. I must learn this place and make it matter. Somehow.

Contact helps with connection. I need to touch something other than

my cameras while I’m here. I choose grass. Curlew’s grass is knee-high. Its welcoming wave in the wind makes me want to run my fingers through its light green blades, so I do.

More birds. Bigger birds. Greater sandhill cranes. Four of them lift as I roam where anglers doze in summer and hunters wander in fall. Upland harvest offerings in the Curlew valley include sharp-tailed grouse. In 2017, 380 hunters took 740 sharpies. About twice that many birds were harvested in 2001. More acreage rolling from conservation to crop could be why harvest numbers decreased in recent years.

I walk the thin divide between man-made growth and Mother Nature’s way. My hand stretching wide, finge tips kissing licks of grass on my right, grain on my left.

Overhead, the prehistoric ruckus of

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cranes guides me. I follow the fligh pattern, expecting to find wate .

But there isn’t any.

Curlew’s creeks are crippled. Severely. Decades of erosion cutting banks 20 feet deep. More decades of cow leave the water vault empty of meander and full of muck. The Curlew is a working landscape. Scratch that. An overworking landscape. Its time card ripped. No more punches.

Past overtime and labored into a dust bowl grave. Like the old graves Aaron Hill keeps track of. He’s the area’s local historian. His teeth are missing, but his memory has bite.

He knows the homesteaders’ plight.

The struggle started with sage.

“Sagebrush isn’t worth having,” Hill says. “It’s a waste.”

Homesteaders demolished acres of sagebrush with any implement they could invent in the early 1900s. They

chopped it, piled it, and burned it.

They had to. Survival is a no-timeto-mess-around motivator.

But forcing flaccid ground into fertility proved futile, and many moved on. The few landowners left have no interest in seeing sagebrush spread. Cows don’t eat it. Crops don’t grow in it. Nothing lives around it.

But it does.

Sage grouse need sagebrush. They need it year-round and through all stages of life. If the brush goes away, the bird goes away. So does the hunt. Many units in Idaho are reduced from a three-bird bag limit to one. In the Curlew, a sage grouse hunt doesn’t happen at all. It closed in 2014. The sage grouse population dwindles as the short, desert canopy disappears with development in some places, wildfi e in others.

I know there’s a sage grouse lek

Relics of homesteaders’ efforts to survive in the desert are still present on the landscape. (Below) Eliminating cut banks by lifting the riverbed increases the water’s reach for wildlife and agriculture.

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Managing livestock and wildlife on a multi-use landscape continues to be a challenging juggling act.

nearby because I see tags. They’re reflecti e kind the Forest Service snaps on barbwire fences. Fences consciously strung to keep cows in place, but more often than not keeping wildlife out of place.

A lek is an open area where grouse meet to mate. Grouse fly low, about sagebrush height. If they fl into unseen fence, they break wings, legs, sometimes necks. One thousand tags make a mile of fence seen.

“That’s a fair amount of work, and money, to put into this particular species,” says Chris Colt, a U.S. Forest Service wildlife biologist. “Is it worth it? Absolutely.”

I clearly see tagged fence, but I don’t know if the birds do. That’s the last thing on their mind when they’re looking for a date. I’ve documented many mornings lekside. Breath and batteries cold. Hills rolling hues

from frosted blue to melted orange.

Lens pointed out a camo-canvased bird blind recording the wild’s way of making babies.

With sage grouse, think sensual.

That sliding sound, like legs wrapping in satin sheets, is a male sage grouse inflating its air bags. Putting out the vibe for female feathers. And that pop of a champagne cork, like something served while wrapped in satin? That’s the deflate of a passedover male refi ling air bags for another advance.

No doubt, watching grouse get lucky is worth losing sleep over. If they don’t score, it’s all of us who lose with an Endangered Species listing. Ranching in Idaho. Drilling in Wyoming. Recreation across the West. Losing an indicator species like sage grouse is a done deal.

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At least not at Deep Creek. It’s one of the few places within the Curlew providing hydration for grouse and for grazers. You can’t see the crippled waterway from afar, the earth’s fissu e so deep it’s hidden until you’re standing over it.

You can hear it, though. Barely.

Its pathetic trickle just enough mumbling to make you wonder what it used to sound like. It babbled like life, and that life is coming back. I hear it in the construction-zone, backup beep of man trying to right his abusive relationship with Mother Nature.

“We don’t want to ruin our land.

We want to take care of it,” says Renelle Skidmore, a rancher. “We want to take good care of it because if we didn’t, we wouldn’t be able to have a living.”

The dozer positions, the source of the beep. Tara Hicks, construction worker turned river queen, is at the

controls. With a fi m yet careful crush of bank, she’s reconnecting floodplain rearranging willows, and recurving straights we once thought were the most efficient shape for water deli ery.

“Thirty years ago, or more than that, they were straightening the rivers,” says Hicks, Rockin’ T Construction vice president. “I can’t dig a straight line, so I do pretty well in a river system. I like the sinuosity for sure.”

Louis Wasniewksi, in waders and hard hat, is in the creek, directing Tara’s earth-shattering approach. He’s officia ly a hydrologist, but I call him Water Wizard Wasniewski. He’s the guy ranchers relying on Curlew public lands for cattle grazing call crazy.

He doesn’t care so long as they keep their cows out of the creeks.

“We did this to the landscape.

We impacted,” says Wasniewski, a U.S. Forest Service hydrologist.

Birds of prey are known to flo k to Curlew National Grassland like this hawk nesting with chicks in a dead juniper.

(Below) Wildlife biologist Chris Colt, with help from field technician Drew Retherford, scans the sagebrush for sage grouse wearing tiny radio collars.

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That was the year William James Lindskov purchased his first quarter of land. Eighty-three years later, things are a little different—or at least the scope of them is. You see, Bill’s son, Les, had a vision: to share with the world the beauty and splendor of the immense Lindskov Family Ranch through a lodge called Firesteel Creek.

In 1999, the world was supposed to end, but Les, his wife, Marcia, and their four sons, Monte, Bryce, Mark, and Todd, had other plans.

While the world worried about Y2K, the Lindskov Family lodge rose on the banks of Firesteel Creek, in Isabel, South Dakota. A decade later, they added Timber Lake Lodge, with its herds of American bison, Rocky Mountain elk, and whitetail deer. A legacy was born.

Today, the birds fly wild and strong. Pheasants, sharptails and Huns bursting from cover. The deer and antelope really do look through the kitchen window, yet it never ceases to amaze how well they can hide when they want to.

As I gaze off into the vastness that is western South Dakota, I sometimes wonder what draws hunters to Firesteel Creek and Timber Lake from all over the world. Surely there are a host of destinations to choose from, yet we have been fortunate that so many have returned to our lodges time and again. Is it the scope of infinite acres spotted with grainfields or one of Dad’s famous cocktails—“a glass of pop with a stick in it”—personally delivered in the lounge?

‘Life is worth enjoying; come visit us.’

Perhaps it is our talented hunting guides and their canine companions—each tuned so flawlessly it’s like watching an orchestra play. To them it’s not a job as much as a passion—the ability to come home each evening and say “That was a great day.”

But the biggest reason people return must be Mom. Perhaps it’s her chicken-fried steak or fried chicken, or maybe it’s her buttermilk pheasant or famous roast beef. Then again, it could be her moon pies, chocolate cakes, or fantastic apple crisps—made from apples picked in her front yard. I may be biased, of course, but I think many would agree: Mom’s cooking is where it’s at. Mom is also a true role model— one who can fry three dozen eggs, make biscuit gravy, greet a stream of guests and not miss a chance to see what her grandchildren are up to that day.

So there may be many reasons sportsmen keep returning to our ranches. And we hope that one of them is because they love it here— just like we do. We love that there are no roads or people. We love that we can walk out on the porch and hear nothing apart from nature.

We love it this way, because life is simpler and moral out here. We hope you, too, can experience the way we are blessed to live every day.

Life is worth enjoying; come visit us. —Mark L. Like his brothers, Monte, Bryce and Todd, Mark Lindskov is a thirdgeneration guardian who manages the Lindskov Family’s Lodges.

P O B OX 17 ISA BE L , S OU T H DA KO TA 576 33 L OD G E 6 0 5 -4 6 6 -2 4 52 / M A R K 6 0 5 -8 5 0 -3 8 9 9 F I R E S T E E L C R E E K L OD G E .C OM T I M BE R L A K E L OD G E .C OM

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People, Places & Equipment Driven (Page 18) Dušan Smetana hunted partridge west of Aberdeen, Scotland, on the River Dee and stayed at Kincardine Castle (kincardinecastle.com). He made travel arrangements through Cabela’s Signature Outdoors (cabelas.com/soa). See more of Dušan’s fine work at dusan. photoshelter.com.

Baja Races (Page 38) Brian Grossenbacher hunted pheasant with Artuto V. Malo’s Baja Hunting (bajahunting. com), which is near Mexicali, Mexico, and only 120 miles from San Diego. Malo offers a variety of upland birds as well as deer and other hunts. More of Brian’s great photography can be seen at grossenbacherphoto. com.

“We’re raising cows and raising grain and everything else. We’re hard on the landscape.”

Louis is okay with having his sanity questioned as he salvages junipers for new banks and piles rock for future riverbed. The cowboys can have their cattle. Louis wants the creeks.

And he’s getting them while also benefitting everything downstream.

Cows, cranes, grain, grouse. So on.

He knows running water will keep the Curlew, and all its resource demands, alive. He’s relentless in his pursuit of righting our wrongs, and I’m relentless in finding what matters.

And there it is.

The dynamic displayed across our public lands like a buffet spoiled well past edible hour. The uncomfortable contrast between what we did and what we do. The boundary between fence and freedom.

The war we wage with the wild, on purpose or by accident, exposed as a searing rope burn across our weathered hands already oozes with blisters of expired labor.

It’s painful to feel and to follow.

Bandages delay the sight but don’t dull the sting. Another rub and the wound reopens.

This is the kind of injury that leaves a scar no amount of rehab can erase. But with scarce solace, found only in a river’s resurrection, the land may find the will to work again. n Outdoor journalist Kris Millgate is based in Idaho, where she runs trail and chases trout, even catching a few when she doesn’t have a camera or a kid on her back. Her first book, My Place Among Men, will be published in August.

See more of her work at www.tight linemedia.com.

God’s Country (Page 58) Russell Graves hunted whitewinged doves in the agricultural fields outside Hondo, Texas.

The season opens in early September each year and attracts hunters from around the state and beyond. He found lodging through Paloma Pachanga (venaturaexcursions.com/palo ma-pachanga). See more of Russell’s hunting, angling, and Texas images at russellgraves. com.

Gordon Allen An artist from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Gordon has been contributing to Gray’s for years. His line art is scattered throughout this issue. You can see more of Gordon’s work at www.gordonallenart.com.

Local historian Aaron Hill keeps track of homesteader graves in Curlew National Grassland. There are a handful of tombstones inside this fenced-off area.

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IF YOU GO

The Curlew National Grassland covers 47,000 acres and is part of the Caribou-Targhee National Forest, which comprises 2.63 million acres. Most of the forest is part of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.

Consider Curlew National Grassland remote with rough touches of rural in the middle of nowhere. It requires two to four hours of drive time from the nearest major airports, which are located in Idaho Falls, Boise, and Salt Lake City. The grassland’s primary road is paved, and side roads are gravel or dirt. Trails aren’t maintained well, but they’re passable by bike or offhighway vehicle and on foot.

Public land within the grassland boundary is vast, but there’s a patchwork of private land mixed in. Please refer to U.S. Forest Service maps

for identification of private parcels, which are usually old homesteads still owned by ranchers today.

The sagebrush-steppe landscape in south-central Idaho is a dry, windy environment with mild winters and baking summers. It hosts wild sharptailed grouse, sage grouse, deer, elk, and a variety of raptors.

Two small campgrounds and one reservoir, designed for irrigation with recreation on the side, lure campers into the undeveloped space that sprawls between Snowville, Utah, and Rockland, Idaho. In Idaho, lodging can be found in the small towns of Pocatello, Malad, and American Falls.

Hunting is allowed in certain areas of the forest and grassland, but please consult the website (fs.usda. gov/ctnf ) and consult local forest rangers for more details.

Sagebrush is quick to burn and slow to grow. Its short canopy is shrinking across the West, and with it shrinks the sage grouse population.

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Alaska Alaska Sportsman’s Lodge PO Box 231985, Anchorage, AK 99523 (888)826-7376 E-Mail: bkraft@alaskasportsmanslodge.com Strategically located on the Kvichak River in the heart of the Bristol Bay fishing paradise.

This river is the only connection between Lake Iliamna and the ocean. Each year, millions of salmon use the Kvichak to travel to their spawning grounds. This provides an enormous food source for the native rainbow trout, which grow in excess of 20 lbs. Because of our location, we don’t need to spend countless hours flying to the fishing spots. www.fishasl.com Alaska Wilderness Outfitting Company PO Box 1516, Soldotna, AK 99574 (907)424-5552 Experience incredible fishing, remote wilderness, and some of Alaska’s most spectacular beauty. Guided and self-guided trips to the pristine waters of Prince William Sound,

the wild lakes and rivers of the Wrangell Mountains and the untamed wilderness of the North Gulf Coast. All trips are remote fly-in destinations that include fully outfitted self-guided trips in our one-of-akind outpost cabins and floating cabins as well as a full-service lodge on the Tsiu River. We accommodate groups of any size and offer discounts for large groups. www.alaskawilderness.com

We offer two different fly fishing adventure trips located in remote areas of the Alaska Peninsula. On the Pacific side is a sophisticated camp that offers extreme isolation, a unique coastal fishery, breathtaking scenery, day hike options, and helicopter fly-outs.

On the Bristol Bay side is a no-frills camp offering an affordable option for die-hard fishermen after BIG fish in a small stream. www.epicaaa.com

Angler’s Paradise Lodge 4125 Aircraft Drive, Anchorage, AK 99502 (907)243-5448 E-mail: pete@katmailand.com Since 1950, we have offered the world’s finest freshwater sport fishing. All lodges have superb fishing within walking distance and are in close proximity to the finest salmon, rainbow, char, and grayling rivers in Alaska. www.katmailand.com

Great Alaska Adventure Lodge Kenai Peninsula, HC01 Box 218 Sterling, AK 99672 (800)544-2261 E-mail: greatalaska@greatalaska.com Visit our world-class resort, featuring record-size Chinook, halibut, and rainbow trout. Deluxe lodge, fly outs, wilderness bear viewing, and fly fishing camps. We also offer fly fishing for IGFA record salmon (specifications upon request). Contact Laurence or Kent John. www.greatalaska.com

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Stoney River Lodge PO Box 62, Sleetmute, AK 99668 (907)526-5211 E-mail: Stoneyriverlodge22@gmail.com Owned and operated by Curly and Betty Warren, Alaska Master Guide License #111. Built in 1984 as a prime base of operation for guided top quality hunting adventures. Grizzly, moose, sheep, caribou and black bear, as well as daily fly-out sport fishing adventures. Lodge offers custom designed trips. We cater to people that wish to enjoy rugged Alaska outdoor activities incorporated with a well-appointed full service lodge operated by 30 year plus Master Guide and experienced staff. www.stoneyriverlodge.com Tikchik Narrows Lodge (907)243-8450 E-mail: info@tikchik.com World-class fly-in/fly-out sport fishing lodge hidden amid spectacular 1.5 millionacre wilderness park in pristine western Bristol Bay. Daily fly-out fishing for salmon, trout, char, grayling, and pike. Extraordinary service, accommodations, gourmet meals, and experienced guides. Owned and operated for nearly 30 years by Bud Hodson. www.tikchiklodge.com

Unalakleet River Lodge (800)995-1978 E-mail: appel@unalakleet.com Unalakleet River Lodge is a remote luxury fishing destination in the northwestern bush of Alaska. We have been sharing the natural beauty of the Unalakleet River and the surrounding Nulato Hills with our guests since 1998. We offer our clients Salmon fishing in the wilderness of Alaska with all the amenities and comforts of a full resort.The Unalakleet is recognized as a National Wild and Scenic River and is home to large runs of King Salmon, Chum Salmon, Pink Salmon, Silver or Coho Salmon, Dolly Varden, Arctic Char, and a native population of Arctic Grayling. The Unalakleet River offers 140 miles of prime Salmon fishing isolated from the pressures of road systems and fly out operations. www.unalakleet.com

A rge ntina Argentina’s Best Hunting (225)754-4368 E-mail: contact@argentinasbesthunting.com The perfect blend between hunting, fishing, gourmet dining, and luxury accommodations. Look no further if your goal is to experience the best that Argentina has to offer, as we have a wide variety of species, lodges, and

regions at our fingertips. To learn more, visit www.argentinasbesthunting.com South Parana Outfitters (804)693-3774 E-mail: wingsargentina@gmail.com World class wingshooting in a classic Argentine setting! Argentina, in comparison to other countries, has the advantage of having no restrictions when it comes to the hunting of doves, due to the threat that they represent to agriculture. However, Entre Rios is known for its prolific fauna, its great care for the environment, and its deep respect for the law.

We can proudly say that conservation is at the foundation of our company. All of our guides are bilingual and it is their job to accompany you during the hunt and they will take into account your personalized tastes and interests.

Duck hunting season goes from May through August. Dove is available for hunting all year long. Combination shoots and customized package shoots are available. www.southparanaoutfitters.com

Be lize Belize River Lodge (888)275-4843 E-mail: info@belizeriverlodge.com Belize River Lodge rests quietly on the lush,

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green banks of the Belize Olde River, only 3.5 miles from the mouth of the river—the entrance into the Caribbean Sea and classic Flats fishing, where anglers will pursue bonefish, tarpon, permit, and snook. This beautiful historic mahogany lodge is situated amidst an abundant tropical setting.

Balmy breezes rich with the sound of bird song drift among the private cottages creating a naturalist’s paradise. Relax and delight in our Belizean hospitality and our delicious combination of fine Belizean-Creole cuisine. www.belizeriverlodge.com

B r i t is h C o l u m b i a

C alifornia Wing & Barrel Ranch (707)721-8845 E-mail: info@wingandbarrelranch.com.

Escape to Sonoma, CA and enjoy a private hunting club just minutes from the Golden Gate Bridge. Wing & Barrel Ranch brings together the best of the shooting, food, wine, and wine country lifestyle in an elegant setting. Here, legendary memories are made with menus inspired by the surrounding countryside, world-class wines, exceptional shooting opportunities, and incomparable hospitality. www.wingandbarrelranch.com.

Legacy Lodge (877)347-4534 C olorado E-mail: info@legacylodge.com Wonderfully remote yet easily accessible, GR Bar Ranch Legacy Lodge offers a premier sport fishing (800)523-6832 experience found nowhere else in the world.

E-mail: info@grbarranch.com In harmony with the natural environment Nestled along the Grand Mesas, just nine and in a world all its own, here on the promiles outside the town of Paonia, CO, this tected waters of Rivers Inlet, surrounded by working cattle ranch has thousands of backthe panoramic beauty of British Columbia, country acres, trout lakes, miles of trails, and all the elements converge for epic battles endless fishing and hunting opportunities on with world class salmon and halibut. For our private paradise. A vacation at our ranch is couples and families, parties of friends to the trip of a lifetime. www.grbarranch.com corporate groups, Legacy Lodge was made for those who yearn for the perfect fishing Kessler Canyon vacation.KULIK_GRAYS_8TH_2019.pdf www.legacylodge.com 4410 CR 209, De Beque, CO 81630 1 1/22/19 9:56 AM

(970)283-1145 Combine 23,000 acres of pristine wilderness located on the western slope of the Colorado Rockies with one of the most magnificent hunting lodges in the country. Team that with the most elite hunting guides and dogs in the state pushing up pheasants, chukars, and Gambel’s quail in perfectly maintained bird cover—you could only find yourself at Kessler Canyon. Arguably the finest sportsman’s lodge and resort in Colorado, Kessler Canyon awaits the discerning sportsman who wants to experience the best of the best. www.kesslercanyon.com

Ge orgia Pine Hill Plantation 2537 Spring Creek Road Donalsonville, GA 39845 (229)758-2464 E-mail: dougcoe@pinehillplantation.com An Orvis-endorsed wingshooting lodge, we provide private plantation amenities and hunt quality to discriminating upland bird hunters who appreciate finer traditions of plantation-style quail hunting. Experience the best Georgia has to offer from horseback and mule-drawn wagon. Pine Hill’s lodges are arguably as nice as any private quail hunting plantation…you can trust Orvis on that! www.pinehillplantation.com

HUNT NORTHERN ONTARIO’S BEST KEPT SECRET—RUFFED GROUSE

KULIK LOD G E

Over one million bagged yearly. Millions of acres of prime habitat with huge grouse populations.

Ducks and geese available. Enjoy your stay in beautiful lakeside cabins in the grandeur of the northern bush country with an ultimate ruffed grouse hunting experience. Two hunter minimum.

Six-day hunt packages.

Write or call: Call of the North-1 Box 697 Hwy. 11 Geraldton, Ontario POT 1 MO (807) 854-1371 Toll Free (800) 801-4080 www.callofthenorth.com

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Harry Murray’s Fly Fishing Schools

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www.bristoladventures.com/grays

KULIK LODGE

1 - the Daystream Smallmouth Schools from June “On schools”Bass for smallmouth bass on the to August ($196 per person).

1/2 - Day Fly Fishing Shenandoah River (2 days-$295) Lessons from June to September ($98 per person).

Mountain Trout Schools in the Shenandoah National Park Mountain(2Trout Schools in the days-$295) Shenandoah National Park (1 day @ $196).

All tackle provided free • Twenty separate schools All tackle provided free. Twenty separate schools.

Free catalog for schools and fly shop

More information at www.murraysflyshop.com.

P.O. Box 156 • 121 Main St. P.O. Box 156 • 121 Main St. Edinburg, VA 22824 Edinburg, VA 22824 Phone: phone:540-984-4212 540-984-4212 • e-mail: info@murraysflyshop.com e-mail: info@murraysflyshop.com www.murraysflyshop.com www.murraysflyshop.com

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Spring Bank Plantation at Barnsley Resort 597 Barnsley Gardens Road, Adairsville, GA 30103 (770)773-7480 Spring Bank Plantation keeps alive a long Southern tradition of managing and preserving our game and lands. We offer upland game hunting and one of the Southeast’s most extensive shooting clays facilities— over water, in open field and in the woods.

Shooting guides ensure that all hunters— beginners and experts—fully enjoy their outing. Ladies and teens are particularly invited to experience our Southern shoot tradition at our luxury North Georgia quail hunting plantation, just an hour north of Atlanta. www.springbankplantation.com Wynfield Plantation 5030 Leary Road, Albany, GA, 31721 (229)889-0193 E-Mail: Annick@wynfieldplantation.com Orvis Wing Shooting Lodge of the Year in 2005 and has also been named among Garden & Gun magazine’s “Top Fifty People, Places, and Things in the South.”

With private cabins, southern cuisine, and a sporting clays course, Wynfield’s accommodations have a unique charm. Located in the heart of quail country, Wynfield represents bobwhite hunting at its finest.

Few things in life are more exciting than your dog locked down on a covey that flushes high and fast when the time is right!

Book your quail hunting experience of a lifetime at Wynfield Plantation. www.wynfieldplantation.com.

Idaho Flying B Ranch 2900 Lawyer Creek Road, Kamiah, ID 83536 (800)472-1945 E-mail: info@flyingbranch.com Located in beautiful north-central Idaho, we are an Orvis-endorsed wing shooting and fly fishing destination with a complete big-game program. Flying B Ranch offers adventures that bring back guests again and again. Open year-round with a full-time staff, the Flying B Ranch delivers consistent quality. Enjoy no-limit wingshooting from our spacious western log lodge, pack into the backcountry for a big-game hunt, or fish for everything from wild westslope cutthroat trout to giant B-run steelhead. It’s all here for you, your family, and friends. www.flyingbranch.com

Kans as Ravenwood Lodge (800)656-2454

E-mail: ravenhpsc@aol.com Contact Kenneth Corbet for reservations.

Ravenwood is a place where hunters can have it all. Located on the eastern edge of Kansas Flint Hills, Ravenwood offers great hunting grounds and a spectacular mix of hard-fl ing European driven pheasants, private guided field hunts, or plantation hunts for wily bobwhites, big cock roosters, prairie chicken, turkey, deer, or sporting clays. Open year-round, reservations required, established 1985. www.ravenwoodlodge.com

M aine Libby Camps PO Box 810, Ashland, ME 04732 (207)435-8274 E-mail: matt@libbycamps.com Orvis-endorsed wing shooting and fishing lodge. Lakeside log cabins, home cooked meals, master guides, and sea planes to access the four million acre private timberlands of the North Maine Woods. Daily fly-outs for trophy native brook trout and land-locked salmon (May-Sept) and for wingshooting in October. Hunting for grouse, woodcock, moose, deer, and bear in the “big woods.”

Fifth-generation owners, since 1890. Orvis Fishing Lodge of the Year 2006-07. www.libbycamps.com

A and inspiring adventure awaits youyou A luxurious and inspiring adventure awaits you A luxurious luxurious and inspiring adventure awaits Discover the pinnacle of sport

• Largest salmon run in the world

salmon run inrun theinworld • Largest salmon the world Discover the pinnacle of sport Discover the pinnacle of sport • Largest • Alaska’s designated trophy fishing in the heart of Alaska’s • Alaska’s designated trophy • Alaska’s designated trophy fishing in theinheart of Alaska’s fishing the heart of Alaska’s Rainbow Trout area world-renowned Bristol Bay area, Trout Trout area area Rainbow world-renowned Bristol Bay area, world-renowned Bristol Bay area, Rainbow • Fly outs throughout the pristine with unparalleled remote lodge • Fly outs throughout the pristine • Fly outs throughout the pristine wilderness withcomfort, unparalleled remote lodgelodge with unparalleled remote a dedicated wilderness wilderness • Katmai National Park comfort, a dedicated comfort, a dedicated professional staff, and a • Katmai National Parkbath • Katmai Park • Cabins withNational private professional staff,to and aand a professional staff, commitment providing • Cabins with private bath • Cabins with private • A staff dedicated towardsbath commitment toAlaska providing commitment to providing spectacular experiences perfection • A staff towards • Adedicated staff dedicated towards spectacular experiences spectacular experiences each day.Alaska YouAlaska will fish clear perfection perfection eachstreams day. day.

You will clear each Youfish will fish clear teeming with large rainbow Trout and massive streams teeming with largelarge streams teeming with salmon runs measured in rainbow Trout and massive rainbow Trout and massive visit www.fishasl.com the millions. salmon runs runs measured in in salmon measured or call us toll free at 888.826.7376 visit www.fishasl.com visit www.fishasl.com the millions. the millions. or callorus tollusfree 888.826.7376 call tollat free at 888.826.7376 August / September 2019 · 127

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Montana Al Gadoury’s 6X Outfitters Bozeman and Lewiston, MT (406)600-1835 E-Mail: al@6xoutfitters.com Since 1979, guided walk trips on private spring creeks, Yellowstone River floats, and private lakes. Upland bird hunts are based in Lewiston. All wild birds—sage and sharptail grouse, Hungarian partridge, pheasant, and turkey. www.6xoutfitters.com Gallatin River Lodge 9105 Thorpe Rd, Bozeman, MT 59718 (406)388-0148 Our resort is located on a quiet ranch on the Gallatin River west of Bozeman. We offer fly fishing guide service on the Madison, Yellowstone, and Missouri Rivers, plus many famous spring creeks nearby. Superb accommodations, exceptional dining, and conference facilities are available year-round. www.grlodge.com

Ne w M e x i c o Land of Enchantment Guides (505)629-5688 or (505)927-5356 E-mail: trout@loeflyfishing.com Offering single-day guided fly fishing trips and all inclusive, multi-day packages on

the best rivers, streams, lakes, and private ranches in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado. Excellent year-round fishing.

Experienced guides welcome beginners and experts alike. Orvis-endorsed. www.loeflyfishing.com

Ne w Z e aland High Peak (643)318-6575 E-Mail: Simon@highpeak.co.nz Where great hunting stories begin. Exclusive New Zealand hunting experiences for discerning clientele seeking that rare combination of fine trophy, authentic stalk, and a personal approach. Set among the central South Island’s Southern Alps, the Guild family takes pride in hosting their clients individually on their private station in pursuit of famous Red Stag, Thar, Chamois, and Fallow Buck. www.highpeak.co.nz

North Dakota Dakota Hills Hunting Lodge HC56, Box 90, Oral, SD 57766 (605)424-2500 or (800)622-3603 E-mail: dakhills@gwtc.net Contact Tom Lauing. We offer some of the finest world-class wingshooting available, with an abundance of pheasant, Hungar-

ian partridge, chukar partridge, sharptail grouse, snipe, dove, and bobwhite quail. Allinclusive package includes first- lass lodging along the Cheyenne River, all beverages, three Western-cuisine meals per day, open bar, ammunition, clays, license, 21-bird limit, processing, and airport pickup. www.dakhills.gwtc.net

S pain Hunt Trip Spain 011-34-931162001 E-mail: contact@hunttripspain.com A professional hunting company established

by Francisco Rosich in 1986. Its exclusive purpose is hunting game trophies throughout Spain. Hunt Trip Spain has hunting concessions all over the country for the broad range of magnificent game animals available in Spain: 4 subspecies of Spanish Ibex (Beceite, Gredos, Southeastern & Ronda), Spanish Red Stag, Moufl n Sheep, Fallow Deer, Pyrenean and Cantabrian Chamois, Feral Goat, Wild Boar, Roe Deer and Barbary Sheep. Outstanding hunts for Red-Legged Partridges, driven or upland hunts are also available. HUNT TRIP SPAIN has served International hunters for more than 20 years.

Come, let us transform your visit to Spain into an unforgettable adventure. www.hunttripspain.com

COLORADO ROCKIES

TROPHY ELK-DEER-BEAR Archery, Rifle, Muzzleloader Hunt thousands of acres from secluded cabins on our private hi-country ranch, directly bordering the Grand Mesa National Forest. Summer vacation: explore ranch & wilderness by horse and 4 wheel. Fish 7 trout-stocked lakes. Breathtaking scenery.

GR BAR RANCH, Paonia, CO www.grbarranch.com 800-523-6832

Al Gadoury’s 6X Outfitters 406-600-1835

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Utah Falcon’s Ledge (435)454-3737 E-mail: info@falconsledge.com One of the great western fly-fishin and wingshooting lodges. Cast to trophy trout on clear tail-waters, mountain freestone streams, private stillwaters, and enjoy a day floating the famous Green or Provo Rivers.

Secure, pristine, and unpressured. Non-fis ing spouses stay free! Honored as the 2012 Orvis Endorsed Fly Fishing Lodge of the Year! www.falconsledge.com

Virginia Chincoteague Hunting & Fishing Center (888)231-4868 Virginia’s Eastern Shore has one of the largest, most diverse populations of waterfowl in North America. Hunt puddlers, divers, sea ducks, mergansers, Atlantic brant, Canada, and snow geese all in the same day with over a 30-bird limit. We also offer rail hunting in September and October. www.duckguide.com Murray’s Fly Shop PO Box 156, 121 Main Streeet Edinburg, VA 22824

(540)984-4212 E-mail: info@murrayflyship.com Located in the Shenandoah Valley, 90 miles west of Washington, DC. Over 300 rods by Scott, Winston, Orvis, and St. Croix. More than 50,000 flies in stock. Harry Murray conducts 20 fly fishing schools for trout and bass. Complete guide services. Free mailorder catalog. www.murraysflyshop.com Primland 2000 Busted Rock Road Meadows of Dan, VA 24120 (866)960-7746 Join us for a rare opportunity to visit Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains and experience driven pheasant shoots comparable to the best in the U.K. From pegs in a deep valley you’ll aim your double gun at the wild flur y of game birds as they appear from the towering ridges above. Upland birds is also a signature activity with spacious grounds and hard-flushing birds. Primland is the ultimate retreat for world-class golf, refined dining and outdoor activities in an environment of rare natural beauty. www.primland.com

Y ukon T e rritory Tincup Wilderness Lodge (604)484- 4418 or +41 43 455 0101 E-Mail: info@tincup-lodge.com

Situated on the shores of Tincup Lake close to the Kluane National Park in Canada’s Yukon Territory, surrounded by mile up upon mile of unspoiled natural landscape, Tincup Wilderness Lodge enjoys a truly unique location. The surrounding Ruby Range provides views of breathtaking beauty from dawn to dusk. The Lodge can be reached only by floatplane. In order to ensure our undisturbed privacy in a family environment, we limit bookings to a maximum of 8-10 guests per week. This level of occupancy also enables us to welcome groups, giving all members plenty of scope to pursue their various interests and activities. www.tincup-lodge.com

NOTICE The outfitters, guides, lodges and plantations listed here are advertisers in Gray’s. The copy is provided by the advertiser, and Gray’s makes no claim as to the value of the services provided by any advertiser. When hiring an outfitter or guide, shop with care, and check references before making a financial commitment.

“Your Gateway to the North Maine Woods”

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BOOKS

Bird Hunting, Then and Now

by Christopher Camuto

R

ichard Rankin’s life and family history are deeply rooted in the traditions of southern quail hunting. His While There Were Still Wild Birds: A Personal History of Southern Quail Hunting (Mercer University Press, hardbound, 222 pages, $28) offers a lively history of three South Carolina hunting clubs as well as accounts of Rankin’s hunting, as boy and man, in the 1970s and 1980s during the changes in southern landscapes that led to the decline of wild bobwhite populations. Although the author is realistic about the current state of wild birds, this book is more homage than lament, steeped as it is in rich memories of family and friends reaching back to the 1930s, of keen dogs and guides wise with years of hunting, and of hunting seasons that passed for decades within the autumnal rustle of a beloved tradition.

“The heyday of bobwhite quail hunting in the Carolinas and across the American South,” Rankin reminds us, “was from the end of the Civil War until the 1940s. Quail were still plentiful in many places even up into the early 1980s. . . . Small farms covered the landscape with a patchwork of irregular fields and scattered woods were cluttered with bushes and briars protecting small game from predators.”

Rankin’s father was a founding member of the Quail Roost Hunt Club, which offered traditions and enviable hunts the author grew up observing. This was one of several locally prized and nationally known preserves in Clarendon County. “If you were a serious quail hunter living anywhere in the eastern United States, you had heard about Clarendon County and recognized it as a leading destination for bird hunting.”

This book nicely balances personal reminiscence

T

here was something profound the way bird hunting transformed ordinary places into hallowed grounds rich with experiences and full of meaning and memories.

with social history and gives us fine detail on the practices of southern quail hunting, especially the ways hunting was part of the fabric of southern life. In these pages, you can get a —Richard Rankin, While feel for southern landThere Were Still Wild Birds scapes—like the Pocotaligo River Swamp—now much altered from what they were. Rankin stoically recounts how changed agricultural and forestry practices doomed the old ways—not just the hunting and quail population but also the friendships and camaraderie, the joy and passion of the way rural hunting once was, a theme that goes back to William Faulkner in Go Down, Moses. “When the wild birds vanished in Clarendon County, they left behind a legion of passionate bird hunters with nothing more to hunt.”

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or Keith Crowley, the ring-necked pheasant is the “great equalizer for man and dog, a noisy import that can give both fits . . . No other bird will try the patience of hunter and bird dog like a cackling, cowering, sprinting, spooky old rooster who has seen a hunting season or two.” In Pheasant Dogs (Wild River Press, hardbound, 355 pages, $59.95), Crowley interviews and photographs two dozen die-hard, dog-loving bird hunters about their love of pheasant hunting and their attachment to the breeds they favor.

Subtitled Stories from the Field—Hunters, Trainers and Trialers, this book continues Wild River Press’s recent

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format of spontaneous, wide-ranging interviews that allow hunters to speak for themselves. The ensuing symposium gets us well beyond the typical “pointing dog versus flushing dog” discussion. Nuances matter—in relationships with dogs and in their hunting talents. The generous conversations recorded in these pages reveal acres of information gleaned from hundreds of hours afield giving us fresh takes on a wide variety of familiar breeds: setters, pointers, retrievers, short-hairs, springers, and Brittanys. Beyond the usual choices, we find Rachel Hoveland’s DeutschDrahthaar, Chris Kalis’s pudelpointer, Kevin Orthman’s Braque français, and Lee Peterson’s red setters.

Hunters, dogs, and game are brought vividly to life in Crowley’s accompanying photography, which makes clear that this book is anchored in love of dogs. The author knows how to find the joyous essence of bird hunting with a lens. This tribute to the dogs that find pheasants for us is simultaneously intense and relaxed, as conversations about hunting tend to be, the opinions passed along invaluable, especially for anyone trying to make a decision on a gundog. They embody considerable experience living with dogs, training them and being trained by them, and then getting afield after pheasants, still an important part of rural life in so many places.

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en Franklin, among others, might object to the notion that the imported ring-necked pheasant is American’s bird. But Steve Smith, who is neck deep in bird-hunting credentials, makes a good case for the bird’s status in the rural American heartland.

The Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, and Iowa—the heart of this tough bird’s naturalized homeland—see a lot of attention in ringneck season from locals and visiting hunters. As Smith notes, pheasant hunters, similar to deer hunters, are dedicated to their game, and their numbers are an important part of the national hunting economy. Smith hunted through the boom in pheasant hunting caused, as Larry Brown notes in the foreword, by the federal Conservation Reserve Program policy of converting cropland to grassland, and he has hunted through the decline in pheasant populations since the mid-1980s, as those policies changed. In America’s Bird: The Many Faces of Pheasant Hunting (Wilderness Adventures Press, softbound, 142 pages, $24.95), Smith distills

a lifetime of hunting pheasants in good times and bad.

Tersely written in a style that slaps you hard on the shoulder, this book offers well-weathered opinions on every aspect of pheasant hunting. There is a short, no-nonsense chapter on dogs, in which the author explains his preference for a closer-working retriever—“steady to wing but not to shot and fall”—over a wide-ranging pointer. Smith parses gun choices as succinctly as he does dogs, coming down in favor of doubles over autos and pumps. He spills valuable advice on tactics in the field strategies in varieties of cover with small- and large-group parties.

And he offers practical advice on planning early- and late-season hunts, the nuances of partnering up, and the deal with shooting preserves and pheasant lodges. Finally, like many of the contributors to Pheasant Dogs, he makes a strong endorsement of Pheasants Forever, “even more important than it ever has been.

Their entire being is based upon creating and maintaining habitat for this great bird.”

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reeder and trainer Bob Farris has published Breeding & Training Versatile Hunting Dogs for Hunting & Hunt Tests (softbound, 205 pages, $24.95). This book is a strong representation of the so-called versatile hunting dog movement represented by the North American Versatile Hunting Dog Association. Labrador retriever lovers may bristle at the group’s negative view of the pointing Lab, but Farris makes his case for the utility of versatile breeds—pointers, setters, spaniels, Vizlas, Braques, and Brittanys among them. For Farris, “the versatile dog is the type of dog one wants in the foxhole with him when the conditions are at their worst.” Farris eventually settled on the pudelpointer as the most useful bird and game dog, and for 25 years he has focused his Cedarwood Kennels on breeding and training them. He has extensive experience in the nuances of breeding, a strong program of training for hunt trialing and, of course, hunting itself. It’s impossible to evaluate dog training practices on the page, but Farris brings a lifetime of successful experience and a wellthought-out philosophy to his methods. n Chris thinks that the common white-throated sparrow is America’s bird, but what does he know? He makes a go at writing and life in central Pennsylvania.

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POEM

The Road Hunter

by Mark Clemens

Your boot, taut and scoured brown through mud-caked laces, eased down among the tawny clumps of grass and thistles in the snow as you began swinging into the next step, pulling through the thorns and burrs that clung to you shin and thigh, and then looked up to where the road and high-banked ditch and fence line all converged far away through the cutting air.

Your weight was suspended perfectly between heel and ball when the ditch exploded between your legs and something furious rushed up in front of you, through you, slapping you breathless as it hurtled by your face—

beaded eye tongue beak— beating up and out, wings a rotor-whirring humming blur straining straight up, trailing iridescent tail feathers in a spiral wash of wind as you stood, mouth open in lofted breath, left hand high on the grip of the .20 gauge, finger igid on the safety and watched the pheasant helicopter into the sky and hang there, tilting turntable on one wing and canting on a low curve over the fence into the open field the wheeling cock dipping regal and untouched clean out of sight.

Even then recalling, you turned back to the ditch, the road and fence line, eyes watering in the wind as you punched the safety off.

Having completed Infinite Tenderness, a novel set on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, post-Katrina, Mark Clemens is working on a screenplay, Gazette Girls, based on two young sisters’ adventures running a weekly newspaper in Northern Missouri during the Depression. Clemens lives hard by the Salish Sea. 132 · Gray’s Sporting Journal · www.grayssportingjournal.com

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Pheasant Hunters, original watercolor, 16 x 22 inches, by Francis Golden (1916-2008).

Courtesy of The Sportsman’s Gallery, Ltd., Charleston, SC.

Back Cover: Morning’s First Point, original acrylic on board, 24 x 32 inches, by Lou Pasqua.

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