The Upland Almanac Spring 2021

As I write this, just past mid-November 2020, a few things are on my mind. First, I hope that with the autumn upsurge of Covid-19, all of our readers were able to fashion some kind of an enjoyable and fulfilling holiday season between Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations. It’s been a tough year as far as being together with family and friends go, and not being able to see them at the holidays would have made it worse for some of us. But here’s hoping that you realized it was for everybody’s health and you made it through OK. ...Read More >

You are our number one priority here at The Upland Almanac, and we want to know what you think. Drop us a line at the address listed here and tell us what you would like to see more of - or less of - in your favorite upland hunting magazine. We’re ready to listen. ...Read More >

Owner: Joseph Gamble, Cape May, New Jersey Dog: Copper, American Brittany ...Read More >

Ernie Foster, longtime “Classic Upland Guns” columnist for The Upland Almanac, scored a special bird during last autumn’s hunting season: a banded woodcock fitted with a GPS transmitter. ...Read More >

The Plantation model has a true, case-hardened sideplate action with an abundance of configuration options for stocks and barrels. ...Read More >

National Bobwhite Conservation Initiative New Director Announced ...Read More >

Recently a hunting buddy wrote with a question whose answer you might find helpful. “Hi Hank, “What is a good thing to give an older dog after a hunt to ease fatigue, pain, etc.? A single baby aspirin? Meadow is 12 now and still hunts hard, but I would like to be able to give her some sort of med aid after the hunt. Recommendations appreciated.” ...Read More >

Laying a great foundation for a flushing dog is so important, especially at a very young age. Rewards-based training can be both productive and beneficial in this respect. ...Read More >

Grandpa never said much about the guns he used in the uplands or duck blinds, so I never knew anything about them other than that when he went afield, he often brought home food for the table. I did know that Grandma was not big on guns being in the house, so they were always stored out of sight in the gun closet. ...Read More >

The crisp air is invigorating for both you and your pup as you ease along the final 20 yards of the tall grass prairie field before it ends at a two-track farm road. Your pup is birdy as hell, and you can easily hear her inhaling gulps of hot pheasant scent. One more step and the flushes begin! Two hens rocket out and peel back around you in an attempt to return to the CRP. One more step and a beautiful, mature cock bird launches at a rising, slight right to left, quartering away angle. The perfect shot, you instinctively surmise. You lift your favorite 12-bore to your face, swing through the bird and shoot your first barrel – nothing. Then you keep swinging and reach for the back trigger – Bang! – again nothing. The rooster cackles in laughter as he flies away, headed for a cattail slough a quarter mile away. ...Read More >

A friend recently sent me two sharp-tailed grouse breasts. On my only time hunting them in Montana behind two golden retrievers, my shots were long and well off the mark. Thus, I had never before cooked sharpies. ...Read More >

Over the past few months, reading has provided me with both comfort and distraction from the chaos of 2020. I began rereading books from my boyhood, books that were primarily compilations of magazine articles from writers such as Corey Ford, Gene Hill and Ed Zern. I didn’t read them cover-to-cover but scanned their tables of contents for a tale that might lift my spirits or induce a chuckle. Sitting in my chair, sequestered, I didn’t want an adventure. I was hunting humor. What I found was a deeper appreciation of these authors’ talents. ...Read More >

From the Foreword … If you have youngsters coming on, let them read these tales. I’ll feel more than satisfied if I can persuade a few members of the coming generations to have a hankering for the scatter-gun and all that goes with it: the never-forgotten thrill, after an icy vigil in the duck blind, when a bunch of “canvas” hovers over your decoys, the goose flesh that travels up and down your spine when your maiden efforts on a yelper elicit a response from some bearded gobbler, the rapture of listening to a “sight cry” as the pack hustles a buck in your direction, and above all the sense of pride in a job well done, when the bird dog that you have broken yourself, flashes into his first picture point. There’s nothing quite like it, and the more shotgun fans we can produce, the better we can be assured that our heritage of American game bird shooting will endure. It doesn’t take long to realize that you can’t “eat your cake and have it, too,” which insures game conservation, propagation and management. ...Read More >

We gave Filson’s Sportsman Utility Bag an extended workout last fall and can report it performs admirably in any role assigned to it. Filson mentions it can be used as a blind bag, field bag, shooting bag, camera bag or travel bag. Its uses are limited only by your imagination. ...Read More >

So I met an older gentleman, Buddy, at the gun range many years ago, and we talked about bird hunting after a while. Eventually, I invited him to go quail hunting with me; he said he had hunted before and that he used to have a bird dog, so what the heck. ...Read More >

About 31 years ago, I learned that the classic Barbour jacket my lovely bride Maureen had bought me just wouldn’t work out for me in the grouse woods of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. ...Read More >

The birds came in a rush, like a scatterbrained phalanx of fighter jets on low-elevation maneuvers. A dozen blue-gray bodies hurtled toward the neatly crafted blind behind which I crouched on a folding stool. When the birds approached within 40 yards, I arose. They veered as if possessed with some sixth sense that enabled them to detect fully hidden hunters. I discharged both barrels of a 12-gauge over-and-under, shot scattering harmlessly into the dusty field ahead of the blind and behind the birds as it had done on several previous encounters. My host had billed this as “some of the most challenging shooting in the world”; not a whiff of exaggeration sullied his proclamation. ...Read More >

The yowling dogs experiencing the “chain gang” for the first time force trainer Ronnie Smith to raise his voice above his normal, subdued and polite level. ...Read More >

The devil is in the details” is an axiom for a reason: It’s easy to say. It’s infinitely harder to actually do. ...Read More >

Tbegan hunting pheasants during Washington State’s five-day, age 65 and over season in September, the one often referred to as “the Old Farts Hunt.” I’m not quite sure when I became an “Old Fart,” but at age 75, I’ve been participating in the early hunt since I qualified 10 years ago — when I was a slightly more flattering “Senior Citizen.” ...Read More >

Smarter persons would have stayed home in harsh conditions, but among the fanatic grousers I partnered with, no one had the temerity to stay indoors when Saturdays or Sundays were the only times many of us could head out to the woods after a week of work. Ohio’s ruffed grouse season was five months long and allowed a three-bird-per day limit, so hunting the shortened days of January and February in the teeth of winter could be punishing. And yet, heading out into the worst weather seemed preferable to sitting idle on the couch watching a sports event on television. ...Read More >