- Category: Wingshooting
- Created: 19 June 2013
- Written by: Kevin Reese
While more than 100 acres of winter wheat blanketed the spring soil not ten yards forward of our position we felt strangely closed in, but it was nice, even intimate. Nothing means more to a young son sitting in the darkness than knowing he’s next to his dad; I can say the same for sitting next to him. We sat, whispered and giggled for nearly an hour before I noticed a silver hue raining down through the treetops over our shoulders. It was just enough to expose the haunting glow of layered fog as it began to roll back its stranglehold on dew-laden wheat. As minutes ticked away so did darkness. The silver hues succumbed to radiant shades of amber and gold as frigid temperatures dropped several more degrees. My son Jacob said I looked like a bull with “smoke” surging from my nostrils.
- Category: Destinations
- Created: 16 April 2013
- Written by: Irwin Greenstein
At an elevation approaching 3,000 feet, the high-desert terrain cut a razor-sharp horizon across Highland Hills Ranch. A chukar flushes, you wheel around, experience the rush of a game bird escaping against the silk-blue sky and when the stock of the 20 gauge touches your cheek a single detonation punctuates an indelible instant high on the threshold of eternity.
- Category: Guns
- Created: 01 August 2012
- Written by: Michael G. Sabbeth
Fate! Mark Reynolds saw the gun’s potential immediately, an impulse founded on years of experience as much as upon carefully reasoned thought. Ambling about at the 2009 Shooting Hunting Outdoor Trade (SHOT) Show, Mr. Reynolds met Iñigo Lopez, director of the prestigious Spanish sporting arms maker, Aguirre y Aranzabal (AyA), at its exhibition booth.
- Category: Tom Roster
- Created: 01 June 2013
- Written by: Tom Roster
Most shooters recognize sooner or later that recoil is the biggest single negative to their shotgun shooting success. The smart ones recognize this sooner; the recoil-challenged usually later.
- Category: Guns
- Created: 02 December 2012
- Written by: Irwin Greenstein
If you’re a fan of disco, the shuttle ride from the airport in Seville, Spain to the historic Hotel Alfonso XIII in the heart of the city got an upbeat start as the gray-haired bus driver played the Pointer Sisters’ “I’m so Excited” on the radio.
- Category: Destinations
- Created: 02 May 2012
- Written by: Chris Batha
Wingshooting has been my lifelong passion and the motivation that has resulted in my occupation which runs the whole gambit of wingshooting worldwide. I have worked for several of the top gunmakers in England and Europe as shooting instructor, gun fitter, gunmaker and sporting agent (outfitter).
- Category: Guns
- Created: 15 January 2013
- Written by: Phil Yearout
They looked out of place in the rack – that pair of side-by-side shotgun barrels there amidst those belonging to single-barreled pumps and autoloaders, a bolt-action rifle or two, and a few “black guns” that I couldn’t identify.
- Category: Clay Sports
- Created: 12 July 2012
- Written by: Deborah K. McKown
When it comes to shooting clays, muscle memory is one of those things that can be either a blessing or a curse.
- Category: Wingshooting
- Created: 29 October 2012
- Written by: Nick Sisley
One of shotgunning’s most underutilized live resources is the pest pigeon population. Generally pest pigeon shooting here in the USA has little resemblance to the woodpigeon shooting that is so popular in the British Isles. In England woodpigeons are usually decoyed, and you hire a guide who has the birds scouted, the land owner’s permission to hunt, and all the equipment so that clients can enjoy great sport.
- Category: Women Shooters
- Created: 17 October 2011
- Written by: Barbara Baird
We showed up on time. Oh dark-30. Parked our car on a pull-off area on a mountain road in Kebler Pass, located in the Crested Butte area. The twins stepped out of their vehicle next to us – dressed in camo, do-rags and running shoes. The reflective tape on their shoes gleamed in the pre-dawn and I thought, “I’m in trouble here.” My hunting boots already felt heavy.
- Category: Wingshooting
- Created: 06 March 2013
- Written by: Dez Young
When I developed the “Hunting With Hank” television series starring my Llewellin Setter Hank, for what was then The Outdoor Life Network, I had confidence that the series would find an audience. But, the amazing success of Hank’s show actually caught me off guard. Along with its popularity, came requests from viewers all across the country to explain how I trained Hank for the work they saw him performing on our upland bird hunts that spanned the country.
- Category: Guns
- Created: 07 April 2011
- Written by: Irwin Greenstein
In his long and remarkable career, writer Michael McIntosh eloquently captured the body and soul of the world’s finest shotguns. Yet when it came to his personal choice, he didn’t turn to an English best shotgun but rather to a bespoke Spanish beauty made by Aguirre y Aranzabal. Expressed in his own words…
- Category: Destinations
- Created: 25 February 2013
- Written by: Irwin Greenstein
You recognize the spectacular beauty of Honey Lake Planation upon opening the door into the Pansy Poe Cottage and after those tentative steps into the softly lit passageway that whispers Southern secrets from the Gilded Age you happen to look toward the glow at the far end of the white bead-board living room, through the picture windows, surprised to see the pristine surface of Honey Lake shimmer in the Florida daylight.
- Category: Destinations
- Created: 16 January 2011
- Written by: Mike Dickerson
My wife has long maintained that my approach to vacation planning always revolves around an ulterior motive. I can’t imagine why she feels that way.
- Category: Clay Sports
- Created: 01 April 2013
- Written by: Michael G. Sabbeth
Here in Colorado Springs, a bright and unseasonably warm February afternoon boasted clear skies and no wind — perfect for a clays-shooting session with USA Shooting team members, skeet whiz Amber English and her trap colleagues Dakotah Richardson and Collin Wietfeldt. We also caught up with team trap shooter Kelsey Zauhar.
- Category: Women Shooters
- Created: 25 March 2013
- Written by: Irwin Greenstein
The GRITS (Girls Really Into Shooting) is the easiest group to find on the sporting clays course or the upland fields of bird hunting. That’s because their raucous exuberance of hooting, hollering and laughing has earned them a reputation as hardcore enthusiasts fearless in their solidarity of female empowerment through the shotgun sports.
- Category: Clay Sports
- Created: 13 May 2013
- Written by: Mike McGuire
"Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door" is attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson. "Necessity is the mother of invention" is a phrase that was to become a metaphor about the power of innovation.
- Category: Destinations
- Created: 18 March 2013
- Written by: Nick Sisley
While the Cordoba region of Argentina has long been recognized as the high-volume dove-shooting hotspot, Cordoba isn’t the only area of South America that is plagued with a massive dove population. In the late 1990s Uruguay became a much sought after dove-gunning goal for many. After the turn of this century Bolivia became yet another dove shooting paradise – though most of the USA’s shotgunners have not heard much about the Bolivian shooting yet.
- Category: Guns
- Created: 24 April 2013
- Written by: Nick Sisley
There’s nothing like a little controversy to stir things up – reading here about opinions on Winchester’s vaunted Model 21 side by side – along with opinions about a possible up-and-comer in the used gun realm – Browning’s BSS (acronym for Browning Side by Side). The Winchester Model 21 has a long standing favorable reputation among many shotgunners, but especially among those who favor Winchesters of all types, maybe even more especially among Winchester collectors.
- Category: Destinations
- Created: 06 February 2013
- Written by: Irwin Greenstein | Photos by Ric Dentinger
On a brilliant autumn afternoon, a helicopter packed with oil men from Texas and Mexico touched down on a grassy field at Joshua Creek Ranch. With rotors revolving overhead, they filed out toward an idling SUV and three minutes later the contingent occupied a table on the limestone patio in the shade of a magnificent 400-year-old oak tree, the rush of the Guadalupe River rising from below, enjoying a hearty lunch and talking business.
- Category: Clay Sports
- Created: 09 June 2013
- Written by: Irwin Greenstein
You’d think that Jack Bart is merely standing on Post 1 of a trap field, high-rib shotgun mounted, ready to call pull. In some circles, though, the 30-year veteran, clays-shooting instructor is straddling a so-called “chasm” that separates early adopters of new technology from a more pragmatic community of “wait-and-see” skeptics.
