As spring approaches another kind of map draws my attention: the U.S. Department of Agriculture Snow Water Equivalent maps of Montana river basins

During this present Spring of Deception, it is warm enough on the Great Plains that I’ve resumed my afternoon jogs. I run on a trail near the river where the migrating birds are staging before they push on for the Northwest Territories.

I’m hopeful second winter will be but an instant allowing the spring of deception to reign until summer.

A powerful minority has seen the freedom Montana’s public land, easy access and plentiful native wildlife incubate, and decided they’d rather have Texas.

The access fight at Mitchell Slough was about more than just limiting public access on Montana rivers

My sense of the West was formed watching at a distance the previous decades of conflict shaped by environmental laws passed in the 1970s

While the fate of Montana or any state’s wildlife doesn’t rest on semantics, every time we talk about hunting in a public space we are engaged in public relations

Soon computer-generated imagery will cure Hollywood’s firearm negligence. There’s no longer reason for firearms on set in inexperienced hands when realism can be created with pixels.

Long ago I used to describe the whirl of flushing quail as that of miniature helicopters

Winter has arrived and even as the days grow slightly longer with each sunset, the next two months will test my pup’s patience, as my own

Here’s a tip for winter reading: have your employer schedule a remodeling project just as the reading season begins

While the dismal weather the week before Christmas took some of the shine off the holidays, hopefully it foretells a winter of deep snow slowly melting into fabulous trout streams this summer

Climate change, extreme fire and non-native blister rust have ravaged whitebark pine, which last week was listed as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act

The most important reward we give our bird dogs is opening the door and setting them loose at the start of the hunt

Unfortunately, the increasingly lax regulations adopted by Montana and Idaho, as well as those which always existed in Wyoming, means my ideal of ethical hunting will be further tarnished by gratuitous slaughter