To see an English Pointer at work, quartering a grain field and slamming into scent, is to see a pointing dog defined. In that frozen moment, it all becomes clear: movement suspended in a still life of absolute anticipation. There may be more beautiful things in this world than a block-headed bird dog with its chest on the ground, but I have yet to encounter one.

Theophilus Nash Buckingham was, to use a once popular term, a gunnerman for the ages. Virtually all his long life was devoted to wingshooting and bird dogs, and the hallmark of his efforts as a writer was an uncanny knack of transporting his reader to golden field of broom sedge bustling with bobwhites, to views of stylish pointers etched against a mid-South sunset, or to firesides where, in his words, “supper was a delicious memory.”

I had heard rumors of an exceptional wing-shooting destination, a quail lodge offering sport that was second to none……Tradition pervades every aspect of Pine Hill life. Each hunt is conducted from horseback and mule-drawn wagon with the huntmaster following the dogs and leading the hunt party. As we pack our guns into leather saddle scabbards and wagon gun boxes, I am reminded that Southern quail hunting is steeped in tradition.