Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/590511
S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S 3 9 "TO EVERY THING THERE IS A SEASON" T he words are from an old song recorded by The Byrds. I knew it well when I was a young man. Many artists have recorded it since. Before that, it was Biblical, coming from the book of Ecclesiastes, Chapter 3. The words still resonate on many levels. In the wider sense, we've entered a season of change. The promise of spring and the largess of summer have passed. The chill breath of the current season has swept over us and the pace of things has slowed. The manic, verdant green fertility of summer has been replaced by tones of red and gold and yellow, of brown and tan and dun. The rush and bustle, the frenetic compulsion of every thing to live and multiply has subsided and life, in all its manifestations, has slowed. Nature, by whatever name you call her, compels us to prepare for a time of rest and renewal. It compels us to take our place in the endless cycle. For those of us who were born to the gun, autumn is a special season. Short and sweet, it comes between the swelter of summer and the icy barrenness of winter. It's a season of celebration and and sky-high ridgetops where you can see beyond forever and in your own way, whatever it is, speak firsthand to the creator. Where you can, within the confines of your own heart, revive old times and old friends whose physical presence has passed but whose essence still lives. B eing one of the lucky few, this year will be much like its predecessors for me. By the time you read this I'll have engaged in a fracas or two with swirling clouds of doves that can be found in parts of south and middle Georgia. I plan to follow up with a Western tour to bird- hunt my way across the country. I'm hoping to visit with Pete Rogers in Montana before making my way on to Idaho to hunt birds near Kamiah. After that, I'll take to horseback and wind my way up into the Selway Botterroot. I'll have licenses for both mule deer and elk, and hopefully the latter will still be bugling. For sheer thrills, there is very little that equals the squeal of a lovelorn bull elk as it echoes from canyon wall to canyon wall in the chill of a misty autumn morning. With those preliminaries out of the way, I'll head home and after a few days to catch my breath, I'll have For those of us who were born to the gun, autumn is a special season. winchester "Good Boy" – courtesy winfield Galleries, winfieldGalleries.com joy and gratitude. It's the time of the hunter's moon and the introspection— the searching of souls that comes with it. It's the time of guns and dogs and birds and clear, bright mornings. It's the time of sunrises and sunsets and horses and worn leather saddles and duck boats and mountains and rivers, of tidal flats Robert Matthews h o t g u n s S