The Best Hunting Stories Ever Told

786 Pages·2010·22.99 MB·English

by  Jay Cassell

The Best Hunting Stories Ever
Told
Jay Cassell
Thomas McIntyre
Copyright © 2010 by Jay Cassell
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner
without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief
excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to
Skyhorse Publishing, 555 Eighth Avenue, Suite 903, New York, NY 10018.
Skyhorse Publishing books may be purchased in bulk at special discounts for
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www.skyhorsepublishing.com
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Illustrations © John Rice: Pages 11; 23; 43; 70; 115; 130; 144; 158; 168; 176;
188; 194; 202; 229; 234; 240; 249; 252; 255; 270; 281; 313; 320; 336; 341; 350;
356; 362; 476; 495; 498; 513; 522; 526; 532; 561 Photo courtesy of the
Theodore Roosevelt Collection, Har vard College Library: Page 2
All stories are reprinted by permission of the author unless otherwise indicated.
The authors and texts included in this book represent more than a century of
literature. The integrity of their individual styles, including spelling, punctuation,
and grammar, has been respected. The stories reflect the attitudes of their times,
and do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of Skyhorse Publishing,
Inc.
This book is a condensation of the previously published volume The Gigantic
Book of Hunting Stories.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.
9781616080570
Printed in the United States of America
This book is dedicated to my wife of 28 years, Lorraine, who has put up with my
many days away from home, hunting various game animals around the globe;
and to my son, James, and daughter, Katherine, who have somehow come to
understand why their Dad absolutely has to have a new rifle, or binoculars, or
knife, because his upcoming hunt can’t possibly succeed without it.
—Jay Cassell, Katonah, New York, June 9, 2010.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Introduction
PART I - Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt: America’s Greatest Hunter/Conservationist
A Man-Killing Bear
Old Ephraim
The Game of the High Peaks: The White Goat
The Ranchman’s Rifle on Crag and Prairie
The Wapiti, or Round-Horned Elk
Elephant Hunting on Mount Kenia
PART II - The Olden Days
Phineas Finn
The Duke’s Children—Killancodlem
Red Letter Days in British Columbia
The Hunt for the Man-Eaters of Tsavo
Tige’s Lion
De Shootinest Gent’man
Thinking Like a Mountain
PART III - Big Game
Luck of the Draw
A Day Out
Wolf Hunters
Night of the Brown Bear
Two Bulls
In the Heat of the Rut
PART IV - Small Game
Going After the Varying Hare in Vermont’s Snow Woods
Squirrel Hunting: The Making of Young Hunters
Daybreak
New Wilderness
The Rabbit Runners
PART V - Upland Birds
The Sundown Covey
Bobwhites in the Shinnery
Showing the Way
Quail in the Thorned Land
In Fields Near Home
Intelligence
Autumn Quarter
First Grouse
Spiller Country
Targeting the Thunder-Maker
No Woodcock—but Nothing to Grouse About, Either
Convert
Green Eyes
What’s Worth Saving
PART VI - Waterfowl
The Old Brown Mackinaw
“Pothole Guys, Friz Out”
The Wings of Dawn
Hunting from an Unusual Blind
PART VII - Turkey Hunting
That Twenty-Five-Pound Gobbler
The Central Character
The Turkey Cure
A Successful Fall Hunt
Turkey Hunters
PART VIII - Deer Hunting
Trail’s End
Three Men and a Buck
The First Snow of Autumn
Hunting with Lady Luck
A Flintlock in the Rain
Mobley Pond
As Near to Perfect
The Third Deer
The Rack
On Stand
PART IX - Africa and Asia
Karamojo
The Thak Man-Eater
Second-Best Buffalo
Among the San
Vengeance
The Classic Fall-on-Your-Arse Double
Everything Your Heart Desires
Shadows in the Bush (Part I)
Shadows in the Bush (Part II)
The Wire
PART X - Reflections on Our Sport
To Hunt: The Question of Killing
The Wealth of Age
A Hunting Memory
River Notes: Three Days of the Savage Life
Forty Crook Branch
Acolytes
A Sudden Silence
Magic
Struggle and Chance: Why We Do It
Choices
The Measure of a Hunter
Integrity
Mercy on Beeson’s Partridge
Three Days to Thanksgiving
Why
Hunter’s Moon
Log Fires
A Christmas Wish
Just a Dog
The Road to Tinkhamtown
The Heart of the Game
Lost
Finding Your Way in the Woods
Acknowledgments
Introduction
THOMAS MCINTYRE
“Why should I not be serious? I am speaking of hunting.”
—General Zaroff, The Most Dangerous Game, Richard Connell
This will be a brief introduction because I don’t want to delay you from making
your way into the storytelling—storytelling being, of course, the earliest form of
art and the one emerging directly from the hunt. The tales in this exceptional
compendium reflect the wide diversity of the hunting experience. Yet while each
is unique, they all follow a similar set of tracks, deriving from the identical coil
of racing heart and illuminating soul, the spark of which is traced to the first of
our ancient hunting fathers. Not only the original storyteller, this hunter was
also, perforce, the original reader—of spoor, light, wind, and more. He was the
earth’s initial interpreter of abstract signs, precursors to the black letters and
words marked, like hoof-and pawprints, across the pages you now hold in your
hands. So the reading of this book is also, like the hunt, being on the trail, giving
chase to an object of pursuit.
It would seem right, then, to wish the reader “good hunting.” The old
cacciatori of Italy ’s Piedmont, though, accounted it the very worst of luck to
express such a sentiment. Instead they made another petition, to camouflage
their true intentions: In bocca al lupo, “Fall into the jaws of the wolf!” May you,
as well, and with great pleasure.