Field Journal

n 2019 I had a Unit 10 archery elk tag. It is one of the top 5 archery elk tags in Arizona. I waited 13 years to draw it. I did not fill the tag. I passed bulls I should have killed. I missed bulls I ranged wrong. I blew stalk after stalk after stalk. I picked up broken antler

n 2017 you could get a sheep hunt for under $20,000. Mine cost $18k. I didn’t pay full price. I got a discount and paid $13,000. Talking about that price is like reminiscing about the days a gallon of gasoline cost only $.98. You can’t hunt sheep for $18k anymore. Definitely not $13k. Those days are long gone. An Alaska

hopscotching down a steep sandy hill trying to stay on the broken slabs of sandstone. Deep sand captures a large puddle of blood like kitty litter clumping spilled motor oil. The bull I’m following is bleeding out both sides of his chest making it easy to follow the puddles. We edge around a rock bluff gaining a vantage of the

he herd of elk stopped feeding peacefully and started running across the cholla filled desert flat. I wondered what spooked them. Chase and I had been watching them feeding safely half a mile beyond the private land fence. Now, suddenly, they were running toward a lone island of state land—the nearest cover of junipers. Could I be that lucky? From

aime and I are working up a steep ridge to get closer to a bull tahr Jaime found a few minutes earlier. I look up the ridge and plot a route up what looks to be a reasonable line. “We can make that.” I say. “Right behind you” Jaime replies. Halfway up we stop on a flat section that’s flanked

One of my favorite movies of all time is Collateral. It stars Jaime Foxx and Tom Cruise. Foxx is Max, a mild-mannered cab driver in Los Angeles. Tom Cruise is Vincent, a professional hitman at the top of his game. Fate brings the two together when Vincent hails Max’s cab at LAX and hires him to drive from hit to

This is the incredible story about how two enormous rocks colliding some 4.5 billion years ago created the moon, the tides, and the timing of the breeding season for the animals we love to hunt. Not long after (not long in geologic time, that is) the Earth coalesced in its orbit around the sun, it was hit by another orbiting

I’m sitting at a desk in my home office. My fingers tap a keyboard as I write this. My home is in a sprawling city of some six million people. When I step outside, I hear the constant noise of the cars and low-profile mud tires on the jacked up Ford Super Duties with 22″ wheels speeding down the freeway

I‘m sitting above a deep canyon with my eyes buried in glass. I’m panning left and right, while Josh and Ricky are panning right and left. We’re looking for fuzzy antlered mule deer. Josh has a tag and his bow. The three of us have been in this exact spot doing this exact thing at this exact time of year