Shooting Sportsman, November/December 2006

Less is More

The 28-gauge: Wingshooting’s best-kept secret

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. Where

The Guided Duck Hunter

Waterfowl guides. Who needs ’em, anyway?

An American Engraver in Italy

Visiting with the engravers of the Val Trompia

Ithaca’s Economy Doubles

The Lefever Nitro Special & Western Long Range

Call of the Prairie

Saskatchewan waterfowling with High Prairie Outfitters

Crazy for Grouse

Still nuts for ruffs after all these years

‘Fowling’s Top Spots

Highlighting North America’s best destinations

Waterfowl Wear

Great new garments for goose or duck hunting

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”

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:

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

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

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

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,

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

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

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,

Shooting

Letting It Shine

Fine Gunmaking

Signed in Gold

Sporting Clays

‘Tis the Season

Shot Talk

Short 12s & Reloading Questions

Hunting Dogs

Being Fair

Field Gear

Duck & Goose ‘Stuff’

Gun Review

Zoli Z Expedition

Book Review

Short Reports

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

Going Places

El Albercial

The Major

Quack, Quack, Quack

Conservation

The Purdey Awards USA

Guns of the Concours

An American Drilling for a Statesman