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Patterns in the Cloud

For more than a century, the ability to see a shot pattern in the air…
frank stick

Tracking Down Frank Stick on the Outer Banks

If, in 1977, I was the leader of our first quest together – sighting red-cockaded…
rifle
Mannlicher-Schönauer Model 1956, in .257 Roberts, outfitted for accuracy with set triggers and a Schmidt & Bender scope.

SET … MATCH

Anyone who has done any precision shooting at all, from a 1,000-yard rifle match to…
tuska elephant statue
Tuska weighs seven tons and stands 19 feet tall.

Terry Mathews’s Elephant – a Football Icon

by Brooke Chilvers You haven’t lived if you haven’t been to a Durty Nelly’s Irish…
shooting
Rarer than hen’s teeth, boxes of factory .256 Winchester Magnum ammunition are collectors’ items. Neat little cartridge, though, huh?

Yet Another Boyhood Dream

Every time I write about finally acquiring something I first desired a half-century ago, I…
fishing chile

Reopening

Yesterday, Monday, November 1, fly fishers far and wide shared a cheer, if not also…
tiger painting
Stubbs painted only a single tiger, but in three versions.

Tracking Tigers in Life and in Art

The first tiger in my life was Shere Khan, the “chief among tigers” in Rudyard…
steelhead fly
Nineteenth-century Atlantic salmon fly

The Last Best Fly?

With Northwest steelhead runs falling to record lows this year, and rivers now closed to…
There are few better books for travelling than Gene Hill. Wieland has forgiven him for having his James Woodward fitted with choke tubes. The gun is a Purdey, circa 1880.

Road Lit

Wingshooters are truly blessed in that we have at our fingertips a wealth of literature.…
Calm on the East African Plains (1918) by John G. Millais

What’s in a Name?

I miss bookstores. Not mall bookstores with 50 shades of the same thing, but independent…
"Still Life with Pheasants and Plovers" by Claude Monet

Janis Gave Me a Pheasant

I opt to make a version called Braised Pheasant with Sauerkraut Alsatian Style. Our county…
rifle
A top-quality rook rifle from Joseph Harkom, one of Edinburgh’s finest makers (later absorbed by Dickson’s). In all likelihood, it was made by W&C Scott to a design by Holland & Holland and (perhaps) finished at Harkom’s shop at 30 George Street. It’s chambered for the .300 Rook.

Rooked

A “rook,” as in “rook & rabbit” rifle, is a black bird, found in England,…