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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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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 underprepared. It didn’t really pan out that way; things went fine. But in my head I always felt a half-click off. I’ve been battling, trying to get through it, pin point…
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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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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 the center console. Instead of stowing him in the back for this road trip, I break the rules and let him ride shotgun. He acknowledges the exemption and quickly curls into…
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The Hunting Singularity
The Singularity is a hypothetical future point where self-aware machines run improvement cycles resulting in super-intelligence that is uncontrollable. Basically, humans create machines that make human ideas and intelligence obsolete and irrelevant. In ways it sounds like a far off time somewhere in outer space. But dig into interviews with some of today’s tech gurus…
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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 forest. We’ve spent a couple days wandering the hills of West Virginia searching for late-season Ruffed Grouse with no luck. I can tell by her stance, even on this awkward angle,…
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Bird Hunting Karma Exists
The idea that what goes around comes around can be captured in the simple word Karma. Go ahead and scoff if that hocus pocus doesn’t sit well with you, but Karma isn’t magic and bird hunting karma is definitely real. I believe that in the field, if you opt for what is right, even though…
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Way Upland Season II Episode 2
We pack up camp and head back on the trail, but water is starting to become an issue. Even though we are running dehydrated we manage to close in on some birds and Alex from APT Outdoors gets his first look at Hungarian Partridge. The Maah Daah Hey is kicking our butts — all our…
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The Cure for the Ailing Birdhunt
It took a decade of brush busting, sprinting after wingless phantom pheasants, whiffing on bunny shots, losing keys and warping dogs — but a buddy and I finally discovered the remedy for the bird hunt that has jumped the tracks. Spiced ham. That gelatinous, pulverized, sodium infused and form fitted rectagonal mass packaged in the convenient…
