Africa

They call alfalfa the ‘Queen of Forage.’ It is a legume that originated in Iran and today is planted all over the world. High in minerals, vitamins and protein, alfalfa has the highest feed value of all common hay crops. It’s low in fiber and high in energy. Just ask a Belding’s ground squirrel –…

Orchard grass or alfalfa. As goes the price of feed, so goes the price of beef and lamb and the cost to keep of course, a horse. According to Rick Byrd, of La Pine Feed, orchard grass is going for $10 an 85-pound bale these days. Alfalfa is running $18 for a 160-pound bale. Each…

For big game practice on a small scale, head east of the Cascades and hunt rockchucks, also called yellow-bellied marmots, in and around agricultural land. Rockchucks populations, without grain and grass irrigated and cultivated by humans, do not grow out of balance. They live in small groups and are kept in check by hawks, coyotes,…

Oxford American defines it to throw carelessly or casually, to give up, to resign, to touch playfully under the chin, to throw away. Both noun and verb, ‘chuck’ is also slang for food. Directly beneath chuck are chuckhole, chuckle, chug, chukka and chukker. In case you have not cracked a dictionary lately, chukka is a…

A rockchuck sunned himself on a boulder, two hundred yards away. With a strong wind blowing from the south, it would have been a difficult shot with a centerfire rifle. The rimfire .22 I usually used was locked away at home. I would have to get within twenty yards to make a good shot with…

The Belding’s ground squirrel has his faults. He likes it where the living is easy. Put an alfalfa field in his neighborhood and a young ground squirrel moves down out of the hills to live in the big green commune. Here, he finds everything he wants: a place to live; free food – cultivated by…

Jennifer was so far ahead with her studies I calculated she could take two days off from her school books to go on a ground squirrel shoot. At least that’s what I told her. What I didn’t tell her was that she was going to get lessons in economics, multiplication, addition and agriculture with American…

This time of year when snows are receding and spring is on the doorstep, the thoughts of thousands of Oregon sportsmen turn to the same thing. Golf! They’ll don a polo shirt, funny pants, a driving glove and shiny white shoes, then head to the links. The green of the grass, the puffy clouds against…

We stood on the crest of a dune as the sun slipped toward the horizon. An evening wind blew spirals of sand off the tops of the ridge and beat a rhythm in the tops of the canvas tents. For the past week, we’d hunted kudu, mountain zebra, red hartebeest, and warthog in the highlands…

South Africa has more big game and antelope species than perhaps anywhere else on earth. That’s what has made it a must-see for hunters from all over the world. But an increasing number of people take a shotgun instead of a rifle when they book a trip to this country, whether they’re headed to the…