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The Acreage Trap
Bird Hunters May Find Far Less Huntable Ground This Fall On paper, it can look like a great year to hunt birds in the West. The maps are full of public access. Walk-in programs advertise hundreds of thousands — in some states, millions — of acres of private land open to hunters. CRP still covers…
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Life Lists
Jon and I have been here before—heavy legs and burning lungs. We’ve circled this peak, crossing boulder field after boulder field. It’s taken nearly four hours to complete the circuit around this 12,000-foot Uinta peak. I’m drained. Ida’s standard Lab trot has surrendered to a nearby amble. But then I see it—for most, it would…
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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 from the womb — butterflies, song birds, turtles, tufts of grass stirred by a breeze — nothing was safe from…
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Depths of Cold
There seems no bottom to the depths of cold. It’s one of the few solace for hunting in frigid condition: could be colder, windier, at least it’s not…more miserable. I’m assured by medical science that freezing does have a lower limit in terms of the human body. Paradoxical undressing: the point at which humans experiencing…
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Make Bird Hunting an Adventure
A lot of bird hunters have gotten in a rut and don’t even realize it. They hunt the same places for the same birds with the same dogs week after week, season over season. Though there’s nothing wrong with this, I think it slowly saps some of the charge out of the upland pursuit. Anything…
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Hunting the Polar Vortex
The first half of the 2014 Upland Season is over and it’s been a whirlwind of travel all across the country. But this last trip to South Dakota hunting in brutally cold conditions was a great reminder that some of the best memories afield come from facing adversity and overcoming.
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Way Upland Season II Episode 9
The bike is repaired and the heat breaks so we head back on trail to continue our trip across the North Dakota badlands. On this day we ride through Teddy Roosevelt’s old stomping grounds, Elkhorn Ranch. You can certainly see why he was so captivated by this place. It’s days like this that make the…
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Making Kansas Memories
Opening day in Kansas occupies a sacred place for me since this is the territory where my upland obsession really took hold years ago. The bulk of the state has a dismal bird forecast like much of the rest of the Midwest this year. There are some bright spots which have been deemed the north…
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Way Upland Season II Episode 5
After adjusting caches and modifying the plan, the support team is headed for home ( Alex from APT Outdoors) leaving us alone on the trail to cover as much ground as we can. North from Medora, North Dakota – the old stomping grounds of Theodore Roosevelt – we ride across the badlands chasing birds. There’s not…
