Field guide
39 published stories
Hunting
Honest hunting stories and practical lessons on preparation, ethics, habitat, public land, shooting, and the mistakes that shape better hunters.
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Hunting
The Two-Year Drought Ends Because of a Squirrel
The First Empty October I did not know a man could go two years without seeing a shooter and still call himself a hunter.…
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Hunting
I Bought a Pretty Rifle and a “Modern” Bullet, and They Made Me Lose a Buck for Four Hours
I bought the .357 lever gun because it made me feel like something out of…
Hunting
I Spent Fifteen Years Hunting With a Secret Handshake Instead of a Rifle
For fifteen years I believed the rifle you carried said something about the kind of…
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Hunting
I Tried to Solve the Wind for Two Seasons Before It Taught Me to Just Hunt It
For two years I treated the wind like a math problem with a clean answer. There had to be a…
Hunting
I Could Not Send the Arrow This Season, and the Deer Came Back Anyway
I have hunted deer since I was eight years old, which means I have hunted through every kind of season…
Hunting
I Let a Trail Cam Buck Own Me for a Whole Season, and I Ate Tag Soup for Thanksgiving
His name was Ghost, and for three months last fall, he owned me. It started in late August with a…
Hunting
The Gut Shot That Taught Patience, and Then Taught Shame
The buck wasn’t a monster, but he was handsome. A solid eight-pointer, the kind of deer that makes you stop…
Hunting
The One Time Grandpa Didn’t Ask, the Rifle Stayed on the Kitchen Table
For fifteen years, every single time the door was headed out for a hunt, the same question came from the…
Hunting
The Buck Fever That Turned My Brain to Mush and My Arrow Sideways
I had him. After three months of watching this ten-point ghost my trail cameras, after two weeks of hunting the…
Hunting
I Fell Asleep in the Stand and Woke Up to the Biggest Buck of My Life Under My Tree
The first thing I remember is the taste of the inside of my own mouth, dry and sour, and the…
Hunting
A Buck That Dropped Like a Stone and Then Ran Off With a Second Chance
The buck dropped like somebody cut his legs out from under him. One shot from the .30-06, a sound like…
Hunting
The First Buck I Ever Killed Was Small, and That Was Exactly the Point
I did not grow up hunting. That is the first honest thing I ever said about the subject, and it…