Pop, pop, pop. “Dada, what’s that noise?” asked Everett, excited. “That would be hunters shooting at birds.“ I explained. “Why don’t you shoot at birds?” he whined. “We have to find them first son. But we’re trying” I answered, the picture of paternal patience. We were hunting pheasants near home with a few stolen, Read More
Someone once described my brother Ryan as a combination of Greg Brady and Davy Crockett. An odd pairing, yes, but in some ways it made a lot of sense. At age 12, Ryan was on the Pro Staff for Matthews bows and one of the best under-18 archers in the country. As a chubby-cheeked, Read More
It’s Black Friday, the national holiday of acquisition and consumption. I bet attendees of the original Thanksgiving set about finding and collecting assorted provisions after their feast too. It was called hunting back then. Team STS may find time for some old-school shopping this afternoon, but first we need to finish counting our blessings., Read More
“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
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
“Ok” challenged my brother “Where are you going with this?” A few days, and more than a few rum and tonics into vacation, our evening card game had morphed into a heated discussion of such light fare as original sin, man’s inhumanity to man, and our collective ability to affect positive change. I’d made, 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
Balance. Lift. Swing. Extend. Accelerate. Thwack. Repeat. The bounty of autumn is a backhanded blessing. There’s so much to do… but there’s so much to do. And winter is coming. The satisfying soreness that follows a day in the hills after elk, deer, antelope or chukar; the easy fit of old waders as water, Read More
My son was so excited for the first day of hunting season, and the morning was such a blooper reel of false starts, forgotten gear and last minute errands, that I nearly failed to calibrate expectations. We’d left the highway, the state roads, and the graded gravel behind before I thought to check in, Read More