Why You Keep Missing Doves and Ducks

Early-season wingshooting humbles experienced hunters as much as newcomers. Birds slip through untouched, the shells pile up, and frustration builds. The culprit is rarely bad luck. Most misses trace back to a handful of repeatable mistakes, and each one has a fix you can work on before you ever ...

By James Chen •

Kentucky Couple’s 164-Inch Velvet Buck Sparks a Standoff

Logan and Kaylin Beach of Bowling Green, Kentucky, set up on the same ridge in separate trees only 16 yards apart on September 6, the second day of the state’s archery season. Kaylin was carrying a recurve, Logan a Prime Divide 31 compound. A nomadic buck neither of them was hunting stepped...

By James Chen •

How a Homebound Buck Betrayed a 287-Pound South Carolina Giant

The lesson in this story concerns deer behavior, and it is one you can put to work on your own ground. Archibald Rutledge held that an old buck keeps a home range he loves, and that even after being run out, shot at, or wounded, he returns to that home within a week or ten […] The post How ...

By James Chen •

The Dueling Roots of the Old West Gunfighter

The lone gunman squaring off in a dusty street, hand hovering over a low-slung holster, is one of the most durable images in American gear culture. Its origin lies not on the frontier but in the East, in a formal ritual imported from Europe and practiced for decades by prominent men in the young ...

By James Chen •
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