Fool Hen Blues: Retrievers & Shotguns, and the Birds of the American West

Bozeman, Montana: Wilderness Adventures Press, 1995. BA3 - A first printing hardcover book SIGNED and dated by author on the page after the front free endpaper in very good condition in very good dust jacket that is mylar protected. Dust jacket has some wrinkling on the edges and corners, scattered light scratches and rubbing, light tanning and shelf wear. Book has some bumped corners, wrinkling on the spine edges, some light discoloration and shelf waer. Illustrated by Christopher Smith. 9.25"x6.25", 185 pages. Satisfaction Guaranteed. In Fool Hen Blues, Don Thomas turns the sharp wit and keen insight that readers enjoyed in Whitefish Can't Jump and Longbows in the Far North on the art of wingshooting. His stories takes us from the Kenai Peninsula of Alaska to the high plains of central Montana. Join Don as he hunts ducks on a spring creek in the dead of winter, chases blues in the fall, and stalks a sharptail lek with a camera in the spring. Throughout, Don's passion for Labs is apparent as he makes his argument for using them as versatile retrievers. He admits they're not as classy as pointers, but says, "When you have watched your dog outwit a particularly wily rooster in a way made possible only by years of teamwork in the field, the retrieve and the weight of the bird in your hand and the taste of the pheasant dinner that follows can become their own measures of style." Fool Hen Blues is much more than a collection of outdoor stories. Don Thomas uses his hunting experiences as points of reference for the passage of time in his life. "The Last September" is a coming of age story about his final hunt with a friend who is destined to die in Vietnam. In "Early Birds," a father enjoys an opening day sharptail hunt with his adolescent son, who will grow up soon: "I can number the opening days that remain before Nick goes off to college on the fingers of one hand, and we will not have to shoot boxes of shells or limits of birds in order to make each one count." "Asking a Friend" is a story about passion - the kind of passion that drives a Lab to cross a lake on thin ice to retrieve a winged goose because he was asked, and because it is what he was born to do. In these stories, hunting and the land comprise the framework for the larger picture of life's experiences. "That may finally be what the best of the outdoors has to offer us - a means of reckoning with the rest.". Signed by Author. First Printing. Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall.