“You’re invited back to the ranch, you in?” My best friend Andy texted. I hesitated.

Most hunters wouldn’t think twice before saying yes. Hunting Texas quail and predators on a 180,000 acre private cattle ranch is a once-in-a-lifetime experience for most. It’s a place where they filmed “No Country for Old Men”, near the border of Mexico. You just drive 10 hours southwest of Dallas, Texas to the middle of nowhere, take a left on an unmarked gravel road and then go an hour further.

Follow Anthony Ferro's firsts in Upland hunting.

Every year around early August the instinctive desire to head to the woods for another Upland Season begins to beckon my wild heart. This is the time of the year where the culmination of all my summer conditioning and training are called to question.  If you’re anything like me; September 1st as a pointing dog handler is better than Christmas for a young boy. For most, September 1st is opening day of dove season, and who doesn’t love sitting down and shooting 100 shells to harvest 15 dove? But for a select few states, the first of September is opening day of grouse and prairie chickens. 

Eric Jacobs reflects on the season of archery elk hunting in Montana.

Waiting. Listening. Trying to control the shivering. Two days of near-relentless rain had given way to snow and wind, and moisture seemed to have permeated everything. Dense clouds had us socked in high on the mountainside, rendering binoculars and rangefinders useless.  Unable to glass any of the open parks or timberlines that surrounded me, I simply sat, tucked back into a stand of cedars a short way below the ridge, and waited for the elk to meander their way out of their bedding grounds and announce their presence.  

Fred Bohm takes the high road in Western Colorado.

“Uhhh… there’s a what?” I stammer out in stupefied confusion. “Yea, right behind you. Comes all the way to the top.” Our newfound friend eagerly feeds us the locals’ inside information. “All the way from the bottom? All the way to the top?” Bryce points off the cliff that our camp is so precariously perched on. “Like a road you can drive on, with a car?”