The key is to find a nice bird and shoot it, but not too hard. Headshots are best for holiday birds, but if you’re a killer like me, any shot that manages to put a bird on the ground is a minor miracle

Jade bolted after the pheasant for a moment — a trait that will serve us well with wounded birds — then came back for a scratch behind the ears while I purred, “Good girl. What a good girl.”

There have been some signs that my 12-year-old English setter is losing the drive that produced five or six seasons of near-flawless fieldwork

I love all bird dogs but English setters are my hunting partner of choice. Setters are quirky and stylish, and no breed hunts with more grace.

Soon, fortunately, as the candy frenzy ritual is set aside, my work of hunting will commence. There’s no better holiday season.

If you’re looking for me I’ll be easy to spot. That’s the beauty of orange.

Sadly, it’s hard to get a pro angler to understand fishing ethics when making their next boat payment depends on them not understanding

The scenes from Florida are apocalyptic. City blocks were destroyed in Fort Myers and much of the surrounding landscape was flooded, first by the storm surge, later by rivers swollen from rainfall as Ian tracked inland.

So far the alchemy of bobwhite recovery has eluded wildlife managers. It’s not so simple as it is with desert quail in the Southwest, where a wet winter or two can make wildlife managers look like geniuses.

While debate rages as to how bright a life it was, we can all agree on its duration

Colorado has surprisingly regressive stream access laws

The FWP rationale is that these stocked pheasants will be easier for newbies, and that will mean better recruitment and retention in the ranks of hunters. That’s a load of hooey. The real rationale is that stocked birds are easy. Habitat and access protection are not.

Hunting is richly fulfilling, both for the nutritious, ecologically sustainable protein, as well as the soul-cleansing excuse it offers for wandering about in bird country

I love fly fishing for trout, but I needed something different. Carp were just that.

There’s not much of an off-season from fly fishing in Montana these days