Life in the big city doesn’t have to mean boredom for sportsmen. Too many desk jockeys think the price they pay for a career is to be on the other side of the concrete wall from the woods, waters and solitude they crave. That’s a rather depressing outlook , considering that many eastern cities offer urban anglers excellent fishing opportunities within a two-hour drive.
Catching cuttthroats on the bank where Doe Holiday once walked.
Quail aficionados are well acquainted with the historic plantation life that rooted in the rolling hills, lakes, rivers, and red clay of the Red Hills region. For over a century, shooters have traveled to the area that encompasses 515 square miles of land in the surrounding Thomasville, Ga., thorugh Tallahassee, Fla., area. A relative newcomer that adds to the region’s already fine patina is North Florida’s Honey Lake Plantation…
Located in the triangle created by Boston, Providence, Rhode island and Hartford, Conn., is Addieville East Farm. The Mapleville, R.I., farm has been a fixture on the sporting scene since it was founded as a private, 460-acre hunt club by Morris Gaebe in the mid-19702. Starting in 1979, his son Geoff applied his watchful eye, expanding the club to 900+ acres and creating an industry-best sporting clays course that plays host to all of the major shooting tournament sin New England. Since Geoff’s death in 2010, his wife Paula has continued his legacy and continues to offer one of the best shooting venues in the United States.
I have an unparalleled view from my captain’s chair high up on the quail buggy, but I am captivated by the long skeins of Spanish moss draping from a century-old live oak. The combination of a delicate, flowering plant and strapping tree is profound, and when a gust of warm, humid wind blows I’m reminded of a weeping willow in my yard back home.
In the past, Spanish moss was used for insulation, mattress stuffing and voodoo dolls, but now the Tennessee walking horses nick their heads and graze on it as if they were thoroughbreds nibbling bluegrass in Kentucky. Here, however, their worn McClellan-style saddles carry bird hunters instead of jockeys…
A FEW YEARS AGO, MY WIFE surprised me with a copy of Partridge Shortenin’, by Gorham “Grampa Grouse” Cross. In 1949, Grampa Grouse printed
only 100 copies for his friends, thereby making an original copy about as scarce as hen’s teeth. Two subsequent printings have added 600 additional copies to the
sporting world for a grand tally of 700 editions. Thanks to my wife, I have one of them in my collection.
I was in awe of the outstanding shooting chronicled in the chapter “All Full at Noon,” which tells the story of three men shooting a limit of four grouse each by noon. Cross estimates that about 10 percent of flushed birds are killed, so at that rate it means for every bird killed he saw ten more, for every limit reached he saw 40 birds, and for a three-man limit their shooting party caught at least
a fleeting glimpse 120. Today, any grouse hunter who sees 20 birds in a day has hit a magical benchmark. The same is true of bobwhite quail down South, trout in the Rockies, waterfowl in the Central Flyway, and so on. These days, it seems that finding game takes far more time than actually hunting it.
The lack of quality hunting or fishing opportunities is a leading factor in why die-hard sportsmen take matters into their own hands. Whether purchasing a 25-acre farm or a 250,000-acre ranch, the ultimate goal is to capture their own little slice of heaven-and perhaps re-create an experience that resembles Gorham Cross’s.
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