Just FYI, Ruark's classic is also a recorded book, so you can listen in the car while driving to and from hunting.

Best naps I've ever taken were in a tree stand. :)

We have an Archibald Rutledge book of his favorite Christmas hunting stories. Most years while he was teaching at Mercersburg Academy (PA) he would head back to his family plantation for the Christmas break and they would hunt. Sometimes deer, sometimes they'd get into boar, but always a good tale. That's my favorite "Christmas hunting story".

There was the time Harry and I went duck hunting on Currituck Sound right after Christmas. That was my favorite

CHRISTmas Day, 1964, I was 13 yrs. old and had never owned a .22 rifle, though I had hunted with my Grandaddy's Remington Model 33 single shot for a long time. The day before CHRISTmas Eve I had crashed a buddy's Honda motorcycle and had broken my left wrist. I was in a cast on CHRISTmas morn, but hurriedly opened my packages. What to my wondering eyes should appear, but a Nylon 11. The Nylon 11 was a bolt action counterpart to the Nylon 66, which got all the glory. It was clip fed and, If I remember correctly, the clip held 5 cartridges.

With my left arm in a cast, I went squirrel hunting. The rest is anti-climactic. That rifle was ugly as death eating a cracker by today's standards, but beautiful to me that day, and many days thereafter. Thanks, Dad.

Then of course there's the incomparable Gene Hill; his "A Christmas Story" and "A Christmas Wish," both from the collection A Hunter's Fireside Book.

Best part of Gene's stories are they are short. The worst part about them is they're short. One of my favorite writers for his genuine messages.

At the risk of being too "dark", The Ledge by Lawrence Sargent Hall is as powerful as it gets.

I read that a couple of years ago... a terribly tragic tale.


"The Ledge is a story about a fisherman who takes his son and nephew out to go duck hunting on Christmas. ... When the story ends rescue people take the body of the fisherman home in his little boat with just the boot of his son frozen stuck under his arm."





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Yipes! I think I want something a little more uplifting in a Christmas tale! :eek: