Anyone care to share their favorite Christmas hunting story?
 

Not YOUR story, I'm talking about published works about hunting around Christmas time..etc. At this time of year reading stuff like that in front of a fire with a dog on your lap can be a great gift. If you have any stories from books, or magazines, please share what you like. Years ago I read a wonderful story in Grays about a Christmas goose but have been unable to find it. Not sure where to post this as it doesn't have to be about Parkers, or birds. Deer hunting is fine. I'm even open to stories revolving around Christmas cooking with wild game.

Or, if there's nothing, give me a Christmas wild game recipe : )

Andy: Two birds with one...one of my favorites, Bill Headrick's story, "The Gift", in DGJ, Vol. 3 Issue 4, and a recipe for roast goose follows!

what a grand idea....charlie

Ok I gotta get that. Thank you now we’re talking!!

There was the year Harry and I left Christmas morning to head up to Currituck Sound to hunt ducks . . .

Nothing special , but I always liked to be sitting in a treestand Xmas morning watching the sunrise . And a few times I had a deer or two hanging then back in the house before the others were awake .

Craig sounds odd but I bet most of us feel closer to our creator in a tree stand. Others just won’t get it.

Glad you asked. Robert Ruark's Somebody else's turkey tastes better found in The old man and the boy. I just re-read it and it always brings back great memories of past Christmases. I can smell the food ,feel the cold and all in all it is the best i have read.

Yeah Daniel thank you!

Lord knows I’ve had plenty good moments perched high in a tree and also gotten some deep deep sleep while perched high in a tree .

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:

Excuse me while I go suck on a gas pipe... :shock:

And I thought us watching the movie about Nakatomi Plaza was bad

"not a creature was stirring, not even a grouse"........

Ding ding ding we have a winner!

Andy, I recall reading an article that was probably the one you mentoned in the beginning of this thread. Only I thought it was closer to 40 years ago in either Field and Stream, Sports Afield, or Outdoor Life. It might have been more recently in Grey's though. As I recalled it the young boy's father had died and wasn't there to shoot the traditional Christmas goose that the family had each year. Times were hard and the family didn't have much for Christmas and no bird for dinner. The boy woke up early and took his father's SxS from the closet and went hunting without permission from his mother. It was near hopeless as no birds should have still been around. It seemed a Christmas miracle when he shot a goose. His mother came out looking for him and they walked home together. Does that sound like the one you were thinking of? It was extremely well written and I've thought about it often since I read it. It reminded me of all I had to be thankful for. I'm sure I have the story wrong. I tried finding the story and came across this.
https://www.saltwire.com/newfoundlan...istmas-172030/
Scroll down to "A Goose for Christmas". It's another person's memory of the story I recall. If it's yours too we're not alone in our appreciation. I wish I knew the author's name.

Hi Bob, great reference to that article but I don't think it's the one. You're correct in that time fades a memory, it may not have been Grays Sporting. But I distinctly know it wasn't that type of story with a mother coming to meet a boy. It ended with him walking to a warmly lit home alone through deep snow carrying a Christmas goose and my recollection is that it was an adult or older man symbolically returning home. It ended there.