“Dada… um… did you shoot a elk yet?” I always get a little edgy as the big game season nears its close. Maybe it’s my hyperactive sense of responsibility reacting to an empty freezer. Maybe it’s the knowledge that I’ll soon be consigned to the audience of life’s great drama. In any case, having, Read More
At 60 power, it felt like the deer were in my lap, like the scope was transporting me across the ravine and into the herd.
Dad chose his words wisely, as dad’s are prone to doing: “Nope…it’s my job to carry the spotting scope” “I’ll hike and find someone who can jump our truck…why don’t you go ahead and hunt” “Here’s another scotch” This year I was lucky and drew one of the most coveted Wyoming deer tags. My, Read More
Chef’s are underrated. The products of a gifted Chef de Cuisine should, by my estimation, rate right alongside those of lauded musicians, painters, dancers and poets. Maybe they get short shrift because of the transitory nature of their art – it will all eventually, literally, become crap. That seems unfair to me. But maybe, Read More
Upon discovering my hunting pack, loaded and stashed for the morning, my 3 year old ignored the knife, the saw, the lighter, the rope, the Snickers, the Fritos, the laser range finder, the flagging tape, the camelback, the .30-06 cartridges and other tempting tools of mess and mayhem. He went instead, straight for, Read More
“Can I use those?” I was looking for deer. Everett, my three year old, was looking to score my binoculars… again. I usually have a cheap compact pair on hand for him to use, but we’d accidentally left them at home, along with any chance of peace and quiet. What I’d hoped would be, Read More
Over the years I’ve done a handful of european mounts myself. It’s always tedious and doesn’t turn out as well as it would if done by a professional. But I like the process and often don’t want to throw down the money to have a taxidermist do the job. This year I had decent, Read More
You left the house at 4 a.m. By 5 you were hiking through the frozen darkness. 6 found you prepared, your body and your gear positioned just so. The blackness is absolute, the limestone at your back cold and sharp. A favorable wind brings imagined smells to your nose, half-heard noises to your ears, Read More
My attention ebbs and flows. A month ago I had almost no interest in hunting, I was immersed in fishing. There were years where my focus was waterfowl, then it switched to upland birds for the last couple. While introduced early, passions for fishing and bird hunting came later to me. Big game hunting, Read More
If I’d had a pipe and an Irish setter, we could have been in a Norman Rockwell painting. Puffy white clouds floated in a bluebird sky above vibrant green sage and the rolling red-dirt prairie. A man, at ease with the world and confident in his forthcoming conquest, strides forth, a shotgun cradled across, Read More