bernie kuntz

My partner, Randy and I, spot the white pickup from afar while we are hunting pronghorn antelope in western New Mexico in August, and later in the day we happen upon the truck parked on a road, the driver glassing pronghorns in the distance. In the back seats of the crew-cab pickup...

If there is a game bird species representative of the wide open spaces of the Dakota prairie, it is the native sharp-tailed grouse, a bird dear to my heart and one I have chased for more than 50 years. When I was a youngster, sharptail hunting was a late September ritual that my...

September always makes me think of mountain sheep hunting, because this is the time of the year when the high country is at its finest — insects are remnants of what they were six weeks ago, autumn snows have not arrived in any amount, and the arctic willow is a splendor of colors...

“He didn’t want much to see them, with years in their faces and aches in their bones and the past in their heads so that all they could talk about, while whisky stirred dead fires, was this and that of long ago.” — The Way West, A. B. Guthrie And so it has been one of the...

Having long fit the description of “old geezer” and “curmudgeon,” I have made certain observations over the decades that relate to the out-of-doors. Following are some “Kuntzisms” that you may or may not agree with. *Shotguns with longer barrels do not “shoot harder.”...

“You boneheads don’t know it but you are on a collision course with ‘the dreaded bath.’” I am speaking to Labradors Lucy and Oscar, who are sitting, listening to me as if they understand, and waiting for the words, “treat,” “supper,” “goodies,” “dog-dogs”...

When I was a teenager I knew of an old fellow who carried onto a boat a rectangular wash tub where he would toss northern pike that he and his family caught. The fish were a sight to see when he arrived in camp in late afternoon. Sitting in the sun all day, the fish had a brown,...

During the boat run to Warehouse Bay I think back on the trip so far. Memorable stuff, like when we reached the border and Canadian customs asked Laurie and Katrina where they were going. Ben piped and said enthusiastically, “Canada!” The guard chuckled and said, “Canada’s...

(First of two parts) “Each of us has an ‘Up North.’ It’s a time and a place far from the here and now. It’s a map on the wall, a dream in the making, a tugging at one’s soul. For those who feel the tug, who make the dream happen, who put the map in the packsack and go,...

Fifty years ago The Wilderness Act was signed into law, establishing wilderness areas in a number of states, particularly in the West, creating a uniquely American concept. That is wild lands preserved in their original state, yet open to hiking, backpacking, horse-riding, hunting,...

“I grew up in paradise and didn’t know it,” Katrina says wistfully as she watches the trees and sky from our patio in Bozeman, Montana. “Just listen to the wind through the trees, the leaves rustling … in Texas and Oklahoma all we had was wind.” She thinks a moment and...

One of the most ingenious stories of breaking a fishing rod is a tale I read not long ago about a fellow fishing for smallmouth bass out of a kayak (why in the hell would anyone fish out of a kayak?) According to this guy’s account, he landed a smallmouth caught on a jig, but while...

Gray’s Sporting Journal published a piece I wrote entitled “Absaroka Rams” in its fall 1979 issue, and I have been a subscriber ever since, exposing me to the tales of John Hewitt, who wrote regularly for Gray’s over several decades until he suffered a stroke seven years ago...