Rio Flufferbunny
It was fall when she came to us on a plane from New Mexico, all legs and ears and sharp puppy teeth. She pointed…
Escape Velocity
I’ve been feeling uneasy. It’s been this way, more or less, for over a year. I went into last upland season feeling rushed and…
Good Deeds in Badlands
I’m at camp making a final assessment of gear and doing one last pack as final preparation to embark on an overland bike bird…
The Last Bird: Living in the Upland Death Spiral
Most of the upland birds around here vanished during the Storm of the Century that dumped 30 inches of snow atop a base of…
The Journey
I learned to bird hunt with friends — we weren’t reading about it or seeing it online or in social posts because there wasn’t…
The Fountain of Youth
The old boy doesn’t leap into the truck like he once could, but he still manages to lurch up the running boards and cross…
Unspoken Alliances
A number of years ago I was riding shotgun pre-dawn on opening day in Kansas. My buddy was behind the wheel as we chugged…
Two Mountains Offer Different Views
Sitting here in camp staring at these two peaks in Arapaho National Forest. In the last week the dogs and I have visited both….
Finding Answers
Spike camp was two miles from base — as the raven flies not really that far in this expansive National Forest. But as flatlanders…
End of Season Omens
Rio the setter suddenly hits the brakes, sliding to a stop on a steep grade beside an old logging road being reclaimed by the…
Inroads
We’ve been coming to this area of the grain belt for over 20 years. It took the locals at least seven of those to…
To the Edge with Friends and Dogs
We all have limits. But that edge is never static. It’s a river that rages perilously close or meanders docile and aimless in the…
Believers
I can feel him in the distance looking down on us. The Deacon of this mountain is unimpressed with our pace and route….
There Are No Indifferent Snowcock Hunters
Between the years of 1963 to 1979 Himalayan Snowcock imported from Pakistan and Afghanistan were released in the Ruby Mountains of Nevada. Today it’s…
White-tailed Demons
Something is wrong with me. Any other sane bird hunter would have packed up and moved to the interior where the bird numbers and…