It's raining out there this morning. I'm supposed to meet Mike at his house to go bird hunting, but I really don't want to. It's a funny thing about rain; in the spring, I enjoy it, admiring how overnight even a brief thunderstorm will green things up and jump-start my garden. I love to hike in a spring or summer rain, but come fall, a cold rain just makes me long for a grilled cheese sandwich, a bowl of hot tomato soup and a nap. It's cold out there today, and the two inches of early snow that made tracking a pheasant fun a week ago has melted, and crossing plowed fields adds an extra five pounds of mud to each boot.
If I really needed to be as miserable as today promises, I'd forgo the long drive and go hiking barefoot in my friend's walk-in freezer. No, I don't want to go hunting at all today. I'll call Mike and tell him so.
I wonder if Mike, and another friend, Jerry, have ever considered just not going hunting when the weather is rainy. Probably not. Mike and Jerry have not been retired as long as I have. They're still making up for all those wasted years of employment. They're trying to do all the things now they could once do only every other weekend. I'm an old hand at being retired, though ― have been practicing for 25 years and have become very good at it.
This story is from the Autumn 2024 edition of The Upland Almanac.
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This story is from the Autumn 2024 edition of The Upland Almanac.
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Tail feathers - STANDARDS AND PRACTICES
\"An armed society is a polite society,\" the NRA says in one of its dicta, cribbed from Robert A. Heinlein, a 20th-century American science fiction writer.
Day's End - IN PRAISE OF FENCEROWS
Driving north along the Hudson River, I gazed at a pastoral autumn scene: sere fields of faded yellow harvested corn, stubbly and broken amongst the clods of black earth, almost smooth from my vantage point. Spiky brown veins of wild growth marked barriers between plots. Occasionally, the gray bones of a mature oak rose among the brown shrubs to stand over the yellow fields. A sentry, keeping silent watch as white frost crystals slowly melted into invisibility.
That Time of Year Again
Without doubt. The most idyllic form of hunting in Ohio is seeking the woodcock. - Merrill Gilfallan, Moods of the Ohio Moons: An Outdoorsman's Almanac (1991)
I Don't Wanna'!
I'm an old hand at being retired, though - have been practicing for 25 years.
Hunting the Huns: Alberta's Big Sky Country
The prairies of southern Alberta are vast, beautiful and full of prime bird habitat. Crop fields are interspersed with abandoned farms, rolling hills are intersected by coulees and creek beds, and Hungarian partridge and sharptailed grouse occupy some of the best and most picturesque habitat on the continent.
Side Dish - End of Season
Sporting trips are not only about sport, as many other experiences are discovered alongside. And my trip to Lakewood Camps in Maine was certainly just that.
AN EXTENDED STAY
There is no reason to leave Michigan in the fall unless the opportunity of a cast and blast adventure at a historic sporting lodge in Maine comes calling.
KEEP IT HANDY
If you think shooting a ruffed grouse on the wing with a shotgun is tough, try shooting one in flight with a still camera.
A Longtime Love Affair
It's possible to hunt your favorite birds in a lot of different places, I suppose, but I don't do that.
Profile of an Artist: Harley Bartlett
Harley Bartlett was born in 1959 near Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. However, having lived in Rhode Island for most of his life he considers himself a Rhode Islander.
