Our good friend Ron passed away the very first day of this year, and I suppose it’s taken me a month or so to wrap my mind around it. For one, Ron has been a fixture in my life for as long as I care to remember things. Second, Ron was always “old” but he […]
The Why: Sick Kid Cuddles
As it goes, and it must go this way, my wonderful child got wonderfully sick the morning my wonderful wife was scheduled to depart for her first trip away from the kiddo in 13 months – 23 if you count time in utero. Sigh….
A Wounded Veteran’s First Precision Rifle Match
As these things do, my trip to Alabama on behalf of Veteran Outdoors started innocently enough. A friend in the Atlanta, GA area texted me to ask if we’d ever get to shoot a rifle match together. I sent a message to one of the owners of Accurate Ordnance, my riflesmith of choice, to see […]
Opening Morning Bucks Make for Thanksgiving Consommé
Not satisfied to just make more jerky and ground venison year after year, I decided last year to do a little more with my deer. This included new cooking methods, dishes, and a further expansion of my definition of ‘edible’. For years, like thousands of other hunters, I threw away my deer bones. Rather, my processor […]
Walnut Stocks, Classic Cars, and Deer Hide Gloves
As a fan of the fiberglass fantastics that McMillan stocks puts out, I’m no stranger to the allure of today’s space age wunder guns. Hell, my first rifle was a walnut stocked 10/22 that I promptly hacked, chopped, and rebarreled into a fearsome Rifleman patch-earning Appleseed killer. There isn’t a bit of organic material left […]
Hunting on Opening Morning
Up until this year, I’d never considered my gig writing for TTAG a luxury. That is until I tried to remember the last time I’d actually killed a deer. Luckily for me, everything I’ve ever written is archived here and after a short spell, I’d found the pictures and dates to help me recall that […]
Pecos Run ‘N Gun 2016: Silt Kills All
I just returned from my third outing to Pecos, Texas for the annual Pecos Run n Gun. While newer, shinier, longer, and “harder” biathlons have come online in the last few years, I consider the Pecos event the original and therefore the best. In years past, the weather has dictated that the majority of my […]
Hunting/Defensive Gun Use: Commie Rifle Slays Texas Serpent
Much ink, both real and digital, has been spilled by automotive writers on the topic of cars, freedom, and youth. Specifically, the first car as a means to embrace and enjoy freedom with just a touch of responsibility. My first car was an Isuzu Trooper born roughly the same year as me. I grew up […]
Remembering the Man who Taught My Teacher How to Hunt
The image of a deer, still alive in the moment before I broke the shot, is only seared into my memory from two occasions. One of those events being the first deer I ever killed. Until the day that I pass, I will never forget that old eight point, the way he stood perfectly broadside, right out in […]
Hunting the Sunny Pearl Harbor Day Rut
His third year in the blind with me, his AR sporting a new AAC 762-SDN6 on the muzzle, my (now former) coworker and friend, Dave (not his real name) slowly spun himself around on the bright orange bucket. On the side, upside down, was a cartoonish handyman named Homer extolling the virtues of a Home […]