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Gray’s Best Angling & Hunting Gear 2022

Gray’s Best awards are anticipated by long-time readers of Gray’s Sporting Journal and coveted by…
A proper reading chair, with good light, in the hours before dawn. The cushion in the window is for the cat, who declined to be photographed.

Mind Travels

Please forgive me for invoking Ernest Hemingway (yet) again, but whenever I start to write…
A Jagdstutzen built on one of the small Werndl actions, probably in the 1880s. The only name on it is Jos. Heinige of Vienna, most likely a high-end gun dealer.

Puzzles Upon Puzzles

It was the name “Werndl” that first grabbed my attention, attached to a very pretty…
Joe-Mama’s Hilltop Tavern, Grubville, Missouri. R.I.P.

One Day … Or, Here at Joe-Mama’s

Every single life-long hunter of my acquaintance is afflicted with one hopeless trait: A nagging…
Robert Ruark’s own best works, although some of his finest short articles, like “Leopard in the Rain,” are included only in hard-to-find posthumous anthologies. Hunters and anglers are used to seeking the unfindable, however, so this is just one more grail.

A Periodic Reminder

Every so often it occurs to me to remind readers that if they haven’t read…
DUELLING PISTOL
…and a John Fox Twigg duelling pistol, circa 1775. He finds it very restful.

Trade Show Blues

Had everything gone according to plan, I would be writing this from the annual Dallas…
Not a still-life watercolor, but close enough. A little reading material and all, in its own subterranean way, interconnected.

Words About Words About Words

If that seems like a fatuous truism, then I congratulate you not only on your…
The food’s good and the waitresses are good looking. No wonder it’s always crowded.

Breakfast at Hickman’s

Hickman’s Cafe, Aspermont, Texas, Saturday morning. All the booths are occupied, and most of the…
Proboscis Monkey
Proboscis monkey (Nasalis larvatus), by Joe Sartore

All I Want (to give) for Christmas

When I remarked to my adult niece that the proboscis monkey (Nasalis larvatus) in the…
Going fishing.

Chilean Time

I’m a little wobbly of leg when I dismount from my sure-footed mare high up…

The Art of Stillness

Lessons from the hunt on living and dying. [by Nels Christensen]
bobwhite quail
Late Autumn Bobs (detail), by Robert Abbett (1926–2015)

American Quail

The pursuit of quail has long been a favourite pastime of American hunters, from the…