The dog I own is a certified, bird-obsessed, bad-to-the-bone English springer spaniel. Both parents are field-trial champions. She is gaunt and intense, and an absolute killer when it comes to pheasants. Drive is not an issue. Last year, on opening day, she jumped out of...
At 4 a.m., the first alarm sounds — not your typical electronic buzz or ringtone, but the vigorous shaking of collars belonging to two pointing dogs. Within seconds, there’s a cold muzzle nudging me to leave my warm bed to get dressed. This is really...
Oh, how the waters curve and jump — fringed with willows, flickery with trout — between a big wilderness and a small town. That’s the creek, the place where I spend much of my free time. I suppose you could refer to it as a...
In memory of Rick Nyhart (1949 – 2024) Sometimes we go back and see ourselves at a different time and place. We go back and look at where we started. Like the earth we inhabit, we evolve, age, live out our stories, fall into the arrangement...
Tom Rosenbauer can get any uncle excited about a small stream. Alvin Dedeaux can teach you how to almost look cool when you’re chasing bass. Kelly Galloup can demonstrate knocking out a 10-inch trout with a 12-inch streamer. But to my knowledge, no fly-fishing personality...
At the end of last winter, with the final days of the ski season fast approaching, there was a mad dash for tram rides at Big Sky Resort in Montana. The ski area’s iconic lift — installed at the top of 11,166-foot Lone Peak in...
I’ve killed many deer, and I’ve eaten them all, including one I accidentally killed with my car. It was February 2018, nearly midnight in Montana, a few miles west of the Continental Divide. The muley appeared as I curled around a bend where U.S. Highway...
To the west, above Sheep Mountain, silver-lined clouds disappear into the alpenglow of the setting sun. Bands of pink settle on the ridgetop across the valley as the summer light slowly fades through the lens of an old jackleg fence on the rise. I watch...
On a late summer morning in southern Idaho, our campground neighbors hang a “Happy Birthday” banner from the awning of their trailer. They are the kind of empty nesters I aspire to be; tanned and fit, they began the day kayaking in the lake and...
Madison bluebirds and other miracles Listen to the river sing sweet songs, To rock my soul. — Grateful Dead The ranger at the northeast entrance to Yellowstone National Park had been adamant: “Do NOT engage in any recreational activities.” Thus advised, my friend Jerry and I set off toward...