“Tag: Kyle Wintersteen”

One evening many years ago a wise old man was sharing the secrets of life with me over cold drinks. "Tell me, Frank," I said, "What's been the key to your long and healthy marriage?" "Oh, that's easy," he replied, a twinkle in his eye. "If I give up, my wife wins."

The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) owes everything, from its occasional victories to its very existence, to lying. Consider the following: It has built up a huge war chest to push anti-hunting legislation and lawsuits by convincing donors it's affiliated with similarly named animal shelters (in reality HSUS donates just 1 percent of its budget to shelters). It led Michigan voters to confuse mourning doves with white doves. It has fought to ban the breeding of hunting dogs by lumping reputable kennels in with puppy mills.

Summer doldrums got you down? It's time to cheer up and get off the couch. Here are five great off-season hunts that you may have overlooked.

For some reason professional chefs seem to really underestimate my ineptitude in their cooking instruction. They include ingredients I've never heard of or can't find at my local grocer. They use fancy equipment that I don't own and don't care to own. And they employ such fancy techniques and swiftness with their knives that my feeble brain can't keep up.

California Waterfowl board member and long-time volunteer Jay Goble shot this tremendous video of wood ducklings (or is it wood duck ducklings?) plopping from their nest for the first time. I don't normally use the word "cute," but friends, this is one cute video.

Federal duck stamps go on sale today and, while competition for the winning artwork is always fierce, I think Joe Hautman's woodie drake is as pretty as they come. Therefore there's no better year than this to join a growing waterfowl conservation tradition: buying not just one, but two duck stamps. I like to frame one stamp, and tuck my signed stamp (the one I hunted with) inside my duck journal as a memento.

We duck hunters are prone to irrational optimism. How else do you explain a group of people who can spend an entire day freezing our butts off in windy, pounding surf for just a duck or two (if we're lucky), only to go home, convince ourselves tomorrow will be better, and do it all over again? All we need is the slightest indication the duck hunting may improve.

The injury was horrific—when the mallard was rescued by a local New Zealand SPCA, the lower half of its bill was completely torn off and broken, leaving its tongue dangling through a hole under its chin.

After Lyme disease reared its ugly head in 1975 and subsequently spread throughout much of the country, it changed how we care for our gundogs.