I like a little fruit for breakfast – blueberries, strawberries, bananas and especially cantaloupes. But I haven’t had even a decent cantaloupe all year long. I’ll see them in the produce department - $3.99 with card – and the cards taste better. They are tasteless and basically inedible. Grocery stores wouldn’t sell you a steak that was inedible, or a half-gallon of milk or a … [Read more...]

My hunting pants had met their match in a spirited contest with a blackberry thicket on the last day of rabbit season. There was big tear across the right front leg and a 12-inch rip in the back seat. Unfortunately, the rip in the seat had nothing to do with the blackberry thicket, but more to do with too many blackberry pie servings throughout the year. I not only tore my hunting pants, but I … [Read more...]

Outdoorsmen are not known as natty dressers. You hardly ever see any of us in GQ magazine, or any other magazine for that matter – except maybe Field & Stream and Outdoor Life. When camouflage is your favorite color, you are not runway material for Fifth Avenue fashion shows. An outdoorsman is more of a practical dresser than a fashion buff. An old flannel shirt with most of the front … [Read more...]

Faithful CvilleBuzz reader, Bob Huff, noted that his wife, Doris, thought the Betty Crocker mix for sugar cookies was better than Krusteaze – which I think are among the best sugar cookies I’ve ever put in my mouth. I was skeptical, but suggested that Bob arrange a bake-off to determine which indeed was the best sugar cookie mix – Betty Crocker or the Vanilla Butter Sugar Cookie mix from … [Read more...]

There are lots of things that are best done at night. Going to a drive-in movie is one. Frog gigging is another. And who wants to park on lover’s lane in broad daylight? Well, maybe when it’s cloudy, but definitely not in broad daylight. One thing that is best done when you can see what you’re doing is fishing. In fact, nighttime fishing is clearly advised against by the American Medical … [Read more...]

On a December morning many years ago – I suppose it was around the time Richard Nixon was suggesting that 18 or 20 minutes be erased from his Presidential tapes - a half dozen of us rose before dawn to drive and meet a charter captain at Callao for a fishing trip on the Chesapeake Bay. As I recall, we had our first Bloody Mary before we got to Richmond and had deplenished our entire bottle of … [Read more...]

I once went bird hunting in the median strip on US Route 29. It was one of many amazing adventures in my career as an outdoorsman. Here’s how it happened. It was the mid-1970’s. Elvis was still alive and there were lots of quail in Virginia. Since I was a kid, bird hunting was my passion. At the time I had a young setter named Hunter - the best dog I’ve ever had. Hunter never, ever busted a … [Read more...]

I grew up in West Virginia, so I know a few things about life that outsiders may not. For one thing, just because a morning starts out grey and cloudy (like every morning in West Virginia) it doesn’t necessarily mean rain. The fog and clouds are just the Mountain State’s way of sleeping in a little. Also, when you come to a top of the hill on a one-lane road, pull over to the right a little or an … [Read more...]

Macon was a beautiful animal, a graceful English setter with feathery white fur and only a hint of orange. He was a big male in keeping with a long line of registered English Setters I have owned out of Grouse Ridge Will. I had a friend with a female setter, which happened to be coming in heat. To the best of our knowledge, neither of these dogs had ever been with another dog, if you know what … [Read more...]