McGuane

"The Longest Silence, A Life in Fishing," was composed by Thomas McGuane some twenty-plus years ago. His essays of both salt and freshwater angling span the globe, as McGuane pursues gamefish that most of us only dream to oneday have on the end of our outfit. Anyone that has spent any time on the water will appreciate how McGuane puts you in the moment; whether it be poling the flats of Key West in search of tarpon, permit or bonefish, or presenting a dry to a fat cutty on a gin-clear Montana stream, it's as if you're there with him, wind at your back, hauling line, presenting, and anticipating the strike. I found this book hard to put down. A great book for the spring season, when most of us are looking for a spot to wet a fly, trying to get our birddogs in order, and anticipating the upcoming fall....

McGuane goes bird hunting

I can't seem to get enough of Tom McGuane. His writing, anyway. His pithy, pointed and pungent phrasing - please note the alliteration here - always seems to be on target. In this short, self deprecating essay Tom is going pheasant hunting with his pointer, Molly…

    ...As I get ready Molly stays close to me, prancing like a cheerleader. A small cloud of butterflies dances across the tractor ruts and Molly makes after them like a rocking horse but returns to my side when I whistle.
   All right, ready to go. "find some birds," I tell her. She gives me one last look, as though from the cockpit of a fighter plane, and pours it on. I don't believe this. My heart begins to sink as she ticks off the first 880 and I realize nothing has changed. 
   I walk gloomily along a shelter belt of Lombardy poplars with only the vaguest reference to the to the shrinking liver-and-white form in the distance. At the far end of the field, I see her stop, lock up on point, then selfishly pounce into the middle of the birds. Gloom. Gloom. Pheasants scatter. But wait -- my God! They're flying this way.
   Like the lowest kind of dry-gulch artist, I crouch in the hedgerow. The pheasants keep coming, Molly yelping along behind. At fifty yards I rise to the balls of my feet. At twenty I stand up out of the brambles and… shoot a double! Two cock pheasants tumble. I scramble around to gather them up before my dog can rend and eat them. 
   I hang the handsome birds from my belt. Their rich, satisfying odor keeps man's best friend trot ting along at my side. Now and again I hear her teeth click lightly. There is a spring I know near the thorn grove where I can gather some wild, peppery watercress for our game dinner.
   At last that perfect symbiosis between man and his dog! I finally feel Molly is as good a hunter as I am. 
   We approach the Land Rover. The cloud of butterflies blows across the tractor ruts again, and I check myself from pursuit.

MOLLY from An Outside Chance by Thomas McGuane