The Upland Almanac
The Check Cord
Going Pro: Preparing Your Pup and Yourself for Expert Trainers
3 min |
Summer 2025
The Upland Almanac
Classic Upland Guns
Lefever Arms Company, Part II
5 min |
Summer 2025
The Upland Almanac
SURVIVAL SENSE for UPLAND HUNTERS
Mention the word survival and many who engage in outdoor activities may conjure up images of a Rambo-type character wielding a machete-sized Bowie knife as he digs grubs out of a rotted log or a flock of reality TV contestants competing au naturel on a tropical island.
8 min |
Summer 2025
The Upland Almanac
Be There And Take Along a Fly Rod
The number of fly fishing destinations across the United States covers a broad array of water.
7 min |
Summer 2025
The Upland Almanac
Landings : BEEF AND BIRDS
Four months ago, the pup and I could stand in this pasture and hear prairie chickens on the distant horizon booming from every direction.
5 min |
Summer 2025
The Upland Almanac
My Small World
The older I get, the smaller my world becomes.” My father used to say that, and though I thought I understood what he was saying, I was never positive until just recently; my world, too, has become smaller.
3 min |
Summer 2025
The Upland Almanac
Taking Chances Finding the Good in "Meh
Leaping from bed, running out the motel door and racing the crack of dawn, you rocket toward the storied covert recently profiled in a magazine story, only to find six other trucks parked, idling, awaiting the arrival of shooting hour.
8 min |
Summer 2025
The Upland Almanac
Profile of an Artist: MATT DOYLE
Throughout Matt's life, there has always been an active passion for the great outdoors. As a young Pennsylvanian boy, his dad and grandfathers would take him out fishing and later hunting to share their deep-rooted respect and enjoyment for God's country. It became very clear that their passion for the outdoors would soon develop his passion for it as well.
1 min |
Winter 2025
The Upland Almanac
RED CAR WHITE DOG:
A Riff on Sporting Vehicles and Other Matters
9 min |
Winter 2025
The Upland Almanac
THE BIG HURTS
my Uncle Pat once told me that both pain and disappointment were good:“The more of those you have experienced,” he explained, “the longer you have lived; suffer but a little, and you’re in an early grave.
4 min |
Winter 2025
The Upland Almanac
DESERT CATHARSIS
Miles of sagebrush and grasslands slipped past during the 10-hour drive between Bozeman and Denver.
7 min |
Winter 2025
The Upland Almanac
ON POINT: Finding My Way with the Help of an English Setter
Becky came into my life in a rather unusual way. My friend Tom McGuane had just bought a home on Mobile Bay as a place to retreat from the cold winters of his Montana ranch.
5 min |
Winter 2025
The Upland Almanac
Hunting Dog Hypoglycemia
The first time I ever saw a dog have a seizure from hunting dog hypoglycemia was 25 years ago while hunting pheasants in western Kansas.
3 min |
Winter 2025
The Upland Almanac
Charles Helles & Sons, London
“Some enchanted evening ... you may see a stranger across a crowded” – gunroom.
2 min |
Winter 2025
The Upland Almanac
Day's End
NEAR MISSES
5 min |
Winter 2025
The Upland Almanac
UENATOR CAUE (HUNTER BEWARE) A FIELD GUIDE +O HUNTING LODGES
From ice bars to plywood shacks, in-room hot tubs to a kitchen staff uprising, the hunting lodge experience can be fascinating and frustrating.
8 min |
Winter 2025
The Upland Almanac
Profile of an Artist: Harley Bartlett
Harley Bartlett was born in 1959 near Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. However, having lived in Rhode Island for most of his life he considers himself a Rhode Islander.
3 min |
Autumn 2024
The Upland Almanac
KEEP IT HANDY
If you think shooting a ruffed grouse on the wing with a shotgun is tough, try shooting one in flight with a still camera.
6 min |
Autumn 2024
The Upland Almanac
The Check Cord - Look Beyond the Ribbons and Trophies
The ability to cooperate with training is, in fact, an inherited trait and one that is tragically missing from a great many breeding programs.
3 min |
Autumn 2024
The Upland Almanac
Bird Dogs - Health Matters - Canine Heat Stroke
A large, raw-boned, muscular pointer was cruising across a sea of sage in search of the scent of the greater sage grouse with a spectacular view of the Sawtooth Mountains of southern Idaho in the backdrop. The sun was mid-sky, and the dew was dissipating as the pointer cast farther and faster across the landscape.
3 min |
Autumn 2024
The Upland Almanac
Tail feathers - STANDARDS AND PRACTICES
\"An armed society is a polite society,\" the NRA says in one of its dicta, cribbed from Robert A. Heinlein, a 20th-century American science fiction writer.
4 min |
Autumn 2024
The Upland Almanac
Day's End - IN PRAISE OF FENCEROWS
Driving north along the Hudson River, I gazed at a pastoral autumn scene: sere fields of faded yellow harvested corn, stubbly and broken amongst the clods of black earth, almost smooth from my vantage point. Spiky brown veins of wild growth marked barriers between plots. Occasionally, the gray bones of a mature oak rose among the brown shrubs to stand over the yellow fields. A sentry, keeping silent watch as white frost crystals slowly melted into invisibility.
2 min |
Autumn 2024
The Upland Almanac
Hunting the Huns: Alberta's Big Sky Country
The prairies of southern Alberta are vast, beautiful and full of prime bird habitat. Crop fields are interspersed with abandoned farms, rolling hills are intersected by coulees and creek beds, and Hungarian partridge and sharptailed grouse occupy some of the best and most picturesque habitat on the continent.
6 min |
Autumn 2024
The Upland Almanac
Side Dish - End of Season
Sporting trips are not only about sport, as many other experiences are discovered alongside. And my trip to Lakewood Camps in Maine was certainly just that.
4 min |
Autumn 2024
The Upland Almanac
That Time of Year Again
Without doubt. The most idyllic form of hunting in Ohio is seeking the woodcock. - Merrill Gilfallan, Moods of the Ohio Moons: An Outdoorsman's Almanac (1991)
6 min |
Autumn 2024
The Upland Almanac
Pages Past - An Outdoor Journal
In a world of the non-stop barrage of political sound bites, the modern news cycle that used to be days in length now seems to be updated every few minutes whether we need it or not. I am old enough to remember when our country's leaders were not media celebrities but statesmen that our nation held in esteem, even if we disagreed with their point of view. Recently, while allowing my dogs to stretch their legs on a warm evening, dusk brewing on the horizon, my mind retreated to a similar evening in my boyhood, July 15, 1979.
4 min |
Autumn 2024
The Upland Almanac
I Don't Wanna'!
I'm an old hand at being retired, though - have been practicing for 25 years.
4 min |
Autumn 2024
The Upland Almanac
Section 799.2 - EVERYTHING IN THE WOODS WANTS TO EAT A QUAIL (Including Me)
IT IS VERY QUIET HERE on Springhill Plantation, the piece of South Georgia where I have found sanctuary these last few years.
8 min |
Autumn 2024
The Upland Almanac
A Longtime Love Affair
It's possible to hunt your favorite birds in a lot of different places, I suppose, but I don't do that.
1 min |
Autumn 2024
The Upland Almanac
Upland Chef - You Shot Some Birds-Now What?
After knocking down a bird or two but before heading into the kitchen, hunters need to answer a question: How do we best prep a bird for cooking? Essentially, there are three approaches, and learning to process and prepare birds for cooking is an art in itself. Each technique informs what cooking method to use.
5 min |