Recommendations for you who like to drink deeply of good books

I have read all the above books, some multiple times. I recommend them all, even though they are all different. If you have any questions please let me know. Most of these books can be had on the cheap buying online. If I'm missing a book you've really enjoyed, please reply with the title.
 
Bob Peters said:
I have read all the above books, some multiple times. I recommend them all, even though they are all different. If you have any questions please let me know. Most of these books can be had on the cheap buying online. If I'm missing a book you've really enjoyed, please reply with the title.
Click to expand...
Great collection. I'd add anything by Gene Hill. Almost anything by Aldo Leopold, but at least "A Sand County Almanac", "Death in the Long Grass" by Peter Hathaway Capstick, & this other one I think was called something like "On Killing" & I can't recall the author for the life of me. Nor can I find it with Google, but trust me, it's really good. 🙄
 
I'm gonna have to look around for a few of these in ebook form. I hate that I love them so much, but it sure is nice to always have one with you, and being able to read at night without a flashlight is cool too lol!
 
A5 Sweet 16 said:
Great collection. I'd add anything by Gene Hill. Almost anything by Aldo Leopold, but at least "A Sand County Almanac", "Death in the Long Grass" by Peter Hathaway Capstick, & this other one I think was called something like "On Killing" & I can't recall the author for the life of me. Nor can I find it with Google, but trust me, it's really good. 🙄
Click to expand...
I've got one collection by Gene Hill, Fireside Stories it might be called? I also want to get a copy of "A Shotgunner's Notebook" by Hill. I have read "Sand County Almanac" and it was excellent. Death in the long grass I will have to order, thanks for the mention, can never have too many good books:):)
 
I like Jim Fergus's writing. It's hard not to like Gene Hill, a man of letters (Harvard grad) who enjoyed a good chaw of Red Man when afield. Years ago Tom Huggler made and was in a good pheasant hunting tactics video shot in KS.
 
Last edited:
RUN RAINEY, RUN by Mel Ellis, one time editor of Sports Afield and Field Sports editor of the Milwaukee Journal.

My favorite dog-themed book, and all stories are true, but written as a story, more than a field report. It got me through years of dog-lessness until I moved to rural Wisconsin.

Can be gotten from out-of-print booksellers.
 
I have a couple not yet mentioned. I've read most of the books previously noted. One of my very favorite reads is not from a book, but a magazine: Gray's Sporting Journal, the Upland Birds edition, Volume 2, Issue 4, 1977. When I got married and got a decent job, this magazine became a favorite. Two stories from the above mentioned issue still stand out--"Prairie Queen" by Jack Curtis, in my opinion one of the finest short stories I've ever read; and the other very close second in that issue, "There's Always Tomorrow" by John Hewitt. I reread these 2 stories prior to every pheasant opening day.
Another fine book is "The Best of Nash Buckingham" by the noted outdoor writer George Bird Evans. This work is an anthology of Nash's decades of shooting in the Deep South. Nash concentrated mostly on waterfowl and quail, and he shot a helluva lot of birds. On ducks he used a 12 gauge overbored Fox HE side by side, choked "full and fuller"--he was an excellent wingshot.

For you grouse hunters out there, George Evans also wrote the excellent "An Affair With Grouse". He shot a Purdey 12 gauge and raised a noted line of English Setters.
An author you don't hear much about today but who was popular in the mid-20th century--Archibald Rutledge, a college professor who owned a plantation in the Santee Delta in South Carolina. He hunted quail, grouse, turkeys, waterfowl and other game in what was then something of a wilderness wetland. One of my favorites is his "Hunting & Home in the Southern Heartland". A favorite story in that book is "A Great Serpent."

And, for you Upper Midwest hunters, who can forget "The Gordon MacQuarrie Sporting Treasury"? One of my favorites from that work is "Ducks? You Bat You!"
I can suggest more literature but this is a good start.....
 
Wolfchief said:
I have a couple not yet mentioned. I've read most of the books previously noted. One of my very favorite reads is not from a book, but a magazine: Gray's Sporting Journal, the Upland Birds edition, Volume 2, Issue 4, 1977. When I got married and got a decent job, this magazine became a favorite. Two stories from the above mentioned issue still stand out--"Prairie Queen" by Jack Curtis, in my opinion one of the finest short stories I've ever read; and the other very close second in that issue, "There's Always Tomorrow" by John Hewitt. I reread these 2 stories prior to every pheasant opening day.
Another fine book is "The Best of Nash Buckingham" by the noted outdoor writer George Bird Evans. This work is an anthology of Nash's decades of shooting in the Deep South. Nash concentrated mostly on waterfowl and quail, and he shot a helluva lot of birds. On ducks he used a 12 gauge overbored Fox HE side by side, choked "full and fuller"--he was an excellent wingshot.

For you grouse hunters out there, George Evans also wrote the excellent "An Affair With Grouse". He shot a Purdey 12 gauge and raised a noted line of English Setters.
An author you don't hear much about today but who was popular in the mid-20th century--Archibald Rutledge, a college professor who owned a plantation in the Santee Delta in South Carolina. He hunted quail, grouse, turkeys, waterfowl and other game in what was then something of a wilderness wetland. One of my favorites is his "Hunting & Home in the Southern Heartland". A favorite story in that book is "A Great Serpent."

And, for you Upper Midwest hunters, who can forget "The Gordon MacQuarrie Sporting Treasury"? One of my favorites from that work is "Ducks? You Bat You!"
I can suggest more literature but this is a good start.....
Click to expand...
I had to search most of the interwebs to find a copy of that magazine but I got one coming. I'm looking forward to it! Thank you for sharing!
 
I am bias but this one was written about the Rufus who was the great grandfather of my Britts. It will make you laugh and cry. CW and I became friends after his Bear was smitten by my girls Ellie Mae. They made awesome pups! That is Ellie and Rufus Bear in 2017. Damn I miss them dogs! Three dogs eatin snow.jpg
1658779400649.png
 
A little off subject of the thread as it's not about training or pheasant hunting, more about a boy that finds a lost dog and recognizes its a bird dog.

"Goodbye My Lady" was written by James Street in 1954 and set in 1940s South Mississippi. Young boy finds a lost dog in the swamp and discovers the dog has an exceptional nose and starts the dog on quail.

The book became a movie in1956, starring Walter Brennan, Phil Harris, Sidney Poitier and produced by John Wayne.

The movie was my first introduction to bird dogs.

Oh, and the breed of the dog was Basenji.
 
More good bird hunting reading !!

"Mr. Buck: The Autobiography of Nash Buckingham"--1990, published by Countrysport Press, this is an excellent insight into the life of one of the most prolific bird hunters and outdoor writers of the early to mid-20th Century.

"Hunting the Long-Tailed Bird"-- by Bob Bell---interesting and entrtaining read on pheasant hunting

"Drummer in the Woods"--by Burton Spiller--one of the early very favorite grouse hunting reads.

THE FOLLOWING 2 AUTHORS HAVE BEEN MENTIONED PREVIOUSLY BUT THEY ARE SO GOOD I AM EMPHASIZING THEM AGAIN :

"Modern Pheasant Hunting"--by Steve Grooms--a great how-to book by an ardent pheasant hunter
"Pheasant Hunter's Harvest"--also by Grooms, a thoughtful and insightful look into not only hunting pheasants but some philosophy on it too.

"A Pheasant Hunter's Notebook"-by Larry Brown, possibly the most readable and practical book on pheasant hunting I've read. If you're a die hard rooster hunter and you haven't read this one, you need to!

Finally, a wistful, thoughtful treatise on hunting in general by a fellow who lived for a while in Iowa. This isn't a book, but a story written by Vance Bourjaily, the father of shotgun shooter Phil Bourjaily of present-day Field & Stream--titled "Don't Get Out Much Anymore" (harder to find)
 
Last edited:
American Buffalo - Steven Rinella
Great read. -- More Modern author.

Hunting and Trading on the Great Plains -- JR Mead
Amazing read - JR Mead was one of the founders of Wichita -- deals a lot with trading on the KS Plains.

(This book was MUCH cheaper a few years ago -- I think people have been collecting copies -- may have to search to find a lesser cost one - but honestly at $40 it's worth the price of admission if you have spent time in KS and are a student of the mid 1800s and what the great plains would have been like)

Empire of the Summer Moon -- SC Gwynne
Talks about settling the great plains and why it took so long compared to the E/West Coast -- Talks about the commanche and various other plains tribes and specifically Quannah Parker -- Pretty damn good book -


The Worst Hard Time -- Timoth Egan
Talks about the dust bowl, living through it -- focuses a lot on OK (no mans land) - SW KS, SE Colorado, and TX. Well written.

All of the above I read mostly in 2-3 sittings with the bulk of them read in one sitting - - a book holds my attention I'll stay up all night reading it - I almost have an addiction to a well written book and then it screws up my sleep for several days -- It keeps me from reading more than I should - ha - so a double edged sword.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top