Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/528216
S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S 1 4 0 N estled in the bluffs just a few miles east of the Mississippi River, on the edge of the Midwest's pheasant belt, are 355 acres of upland-bird heaven. Rolling slopes covered in lush grass—big and little bluestem, switchgrass and indiangrass, clover and brassica, all edged with evergreens and hardwoods—provide ideal roosting, nesting, and feeding cover for wildlife. Here, pheasants, Hungarian partridge, and bobwhite quail live the life of Riley, except for the occasional hawk, coyote, or shotgun-toting human. Hilltop Meadows Hunt Club is just three hours west of Chicago, near the little bump in the road called Fulton, Illinois. The only thing Fulton has in common with Chicago, at least when we were there, was the wind. My son Sam and I drove the 900 miles from South Carolina to enjoy a few days of upland bird hunting, bow-hunting for whitetails, and some rare days together. He's 29 and I'm, well, a lot older than that. I was happy that my best hunting buddy from 20 years ago would still agree to join me. As we traveled through small towns and past huge farm fields, we talked about everything under the sun, from women to cars to work to the latest Netflix programs. But mostly we talked hunting—about past memories and memories to come. When we arrived at the lodge Saturday afternoon, Mike Jacobsen was outside tending to one of a thousand things that always seem to need attention on a working farm. Mike was younger and bigger than I'd pictured from our phone conversations. Not big as in chubby, but big as in tall and solid, with dust and farm-grade diesel running through his veins. And polite—the sort of gentle manner you'd expect from someone living in such a picturesque setting. It was chilly on that mid-November day, around 30 degrees, without the wind. And according to the forecast, the mercury was going drop like a stone. By the time Sam and I left western Illinois the following Friday, the area had experienced record-breaking cold for mid-November. It was the fourth coldest November in Illinois history—23 degrees below both the normal 47-degree high and 30-degree low. We spent that first afternoon unloading gear—layer