Articles

Rising Out of the Ashes

Herbert Stoddard, author of The Bobwhite Quail: its Habits, Preservation, and Increase, wrote in the 1950s: “The bobwhite might probably be called the Fire Bird.” If ever there was a…

Live Wires

Trying to describe the wirehaired pointing griffon (ususally shortened to simply “griffon”) is a flirtation with paradox. The words “soft, cute, calm” come out in the same breath as “desire…

Prairie Boomers

Again I travel east, over a blue highway passing through big, open grasslands that stretch for miles. To my left, the mixed grass prairie extends north through much of the…

The Best Bird Hunt

The best bird hunt I can remember…? How could I pick one day above all the rest? It would be like saying one covey rise was the best one, better…

Chukar at Crazy Man Rock

Up on top, in the saddle between the buttes, a 500-foot climb from the rocky two-track below, sits a rock. Plunked there by a volcano, created first in a cauldron…

Let Us Now Praise GSPs

Picture this: You’re working the edge of a hay field turned brown, cut months before in late summer. A lanky young German shorthaired pointer plunges in and out of the…

The English Cocker

English cocker spaniels hold a special place in my heart. Watching these handsome dogs hunt a field, quartering in their distinctive figure-eight pattern, is almost hypnotic. Like when you gaze…

Remote Ruffed Grouse

To me, “remote” was an abstraction, a vague idea of distance and expanse and low probability. Until I found it on a map. Remote, Oregon, doesn’t pass for much of…

Final Flights

At this time of year, I always wonder when I’ll get my last woodcock point of the year. Which dog will be the one to lock up on the point…

Fencerow Hunting

It was a long way to the end of the fencerow, and plantar fasciitis was killing me. Each step felt like a spear was being jammed into the bottom of…

Gambel's Quail

I’ve always been reluctant to take a partner along when I hunt the singing windmill arroyo, whose loveliness and loneliness seem to demand solitude. Still, sometimes I relent and feel…

Three- Toes on a Two- Track

Cle-cle-cle. The sound was unmistakable—mountain quail. I hadn’t guessed I could find them this close to home. We saw their three-toed tracks in new-fallen snow. When we bounced a covey…

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