Features
Less is More
The 28-gauge: Wingshooting's best-kept secret
By: Silvio Calabi
Ptarmigan Above Timberline
[Photoessay] Somewhere along the spine of the Rockies. North of 13,000 feet. A world of wind and cold and rock-too harsh for even trees to put down roots. It's hard to believe anything could survive up here... until the dog goes on point. You walk in boldly, searching the rocks and short grass. WherePhotography by: Gary Hubbell
The Guided Duck Hunter
Waterfowl guides. Who needs 'em, anyway?
By: Bob McDill
An American Engraver in Italy
Visiting with the engravers of the Val Trompia
By: Barry Lee Hands
Ithaca's Economy Doubles
The Lefever Nitro Special & Western Long Range
By: Larry Brown
Call of the Prairie
Saskatchewan waterfowling with High Prairie Outfitters
By: Clair Kofoed
Crazy for Grouse
Still nuts for ruffs after all these years
By: Tom Davis
'Fowling's Top Spots
Highlighting North America's best destinations
By: Gary Kramer
Waterfowl Wear
Great new garments for goose or duck hunting
By: Tom Huggler
Departments
From the Editor
Thinking back on it, my first duck hunt really wasn't much of a hunt. It was late October in the Catskills, and my uncle and I had succumbed to rumors that mallards were using the swamp on the west side of our club's property. In those days we didn't see a lot of ducks, so the lure of something "different"
By: Ralph P. Stuart
Letters
Orin's Influence Just read "Old School," by Tom Davis (Sept/Oct). Well done. When I was a kid in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, my Dad and I went to many Milwaukee Sentinel Sports Shows. It was our first exposure to trained retrievers, thanks to Orin Benson. We never met Orin, but we sure felt like we knew him.
Guest Gun: An Opening Day Reverie
It was a sunny, breezy, beautiful September day, and I was sitting on a five-gallon bucket in a sunflower field in West Tennessee next to my husband and our two Boykin spaniels. All the time I'd spent training my dog and learning to shoot was about to come together in that quintessential rite of fall:
By: Anne Livingston
Avian Flu Update
There's been a lot of ink spilled warning the world of the dangers posed by new strains of avian flu, and it seems likely the alarm will sound again sometime soon. A lot of birds have been examined in extensive and ongoing testing in the interim, and so far the emerging understanding is that the highly
By: Ed Carroll
Kalispel Case Line Importing Italian Doubles
When Field Gear Editor Tom Huggler reviewed Kalispel Case Line's Ultimate Working Dog Crate (May/June), he got it right: "I discovered what may be the best portable dog kennel ever made." Not surprisingly, the design, materials and construction that go into creating "the best" of
By: Ed Carroll
Collection of Italian Bests Comes to America
When the topic of "best gunmaker" is tossed out to a group relaxing after a shoot or surfing an online chat room, the houses of F.lli Rizzini and Ivo Fabbri along with a few others inevitably rise to the top. The two Italian firms not only make some of the finest guns available today but also
By: Clair Kofoed
The Devil's in the Details
When it comes to London gunmakers, we can be forgiven for seeing them as prisoners of a kind of purgatory: If they innovate, they're in danger of losing traditional clients; if they don't, they're unlikely to find new ones. So it's damned if they do and damned if they don't. The firm of Charles Hellis,
By: Douglas Tate
Real Purdey?
The rumors had been circulating for months. Had that been Nigel Beaumont, deputy chairman of James Purdey & Sons, who had been spotted in the streets of Brescia, Italy? Had the gunmaker of kings been contemplating an Italian job? Then Britain's oldest shooting publication, The Field, reported in early
By: Douglas Tate
Two Good Gun Books
Gun books can be transient, obscurely published or under-marketed, although still worthy of a place in your library. Knowing the broad interests of Shooting Sportsman readers, I believe that there will be some interest in acquiring the following two books for your collection. Both authors are friends
By: Steven Dodd Hughes
RIP: Asprey Guns
On September 29 Asprey's gunroom manager, Tony Pritchard, was to hand over any remaining guns-the few that might not have been sold-as well as the company's firearms register and warrants to the London Metropolitan Police at Kensington Station. And then he himself would depart Asprey's. Pritchard, 56,
By: Silvio Calabi
Shooting
Letting It Shine
By: Michael McIntosh
Fine Gunmaking
Signed in Gold
By: Steven Dodd Hughes
Sporting Clays
'Tis the Season
By: Barry G. Davis
Shot Talk
Short 12s & Reloading Questions
By: Tom Roster
Hunting Dogs
Being Fair
By: George Hickox
Field Gear
Duck & Goose 'Stuff'
By: Tom Huggler
Gun Review
Zoli Z Expedition
By: Bruce Buck
Book Review
Short Reports
By: Charles Fergus
Snapshots
This fall the Ruffed Grouse Society will partner with Waterfowler.com and apply the innovative technology behind the latter's online migration mapping project to offer daily updates on the progress of the woodcock migration. As with the Waterfowler.com migration map, field reports from RGS members and
By: Ed Carroll
Going Places
El Albercial
By: Bruce Buck
The Major
Quack, Quack, Quack
By: Galen Winter
Conservation
The Purdey Awards USA
By: Vic Venters
Guns of the Concours
An American Drilling for a Statesman
By: Roger Sanger
and Steve Helsley
