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The Best of Nash Buckingham
Nash Buckingham was a shooting man's man, and bird hunter. These are his stories.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1973
About the author
Nash Buckingham
19 books1 followerTheophilus Nash Buckingham (May 31, 1880 – March 10, 1971), commonly referred to as Nash Buckingham, was an American author and conservationist from Tennessee. He wrote a collection of short stories entitled De Shootinest Gent'man
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August 26, 2026
My thoughts are short but will provide quotes to do the talking for me. I think to really appreciate the book you need to be a hunter which I am not. I read hunting books for the hunting dogs and there was not as much of that as I would have liked. As in a quote I will provide, too often great dogs are mentioned but little if any details provided on what made them great.
Other than dogs, it great to read of times way before television and cell phones. Nash lived from 1880 to 1971. One aspect was the great number of wildfowl that was available during his early days and sadly, the great amount of slaughter of them by sportsman and marketeers that took advantage to that bounty. This led him to be a conservationist later in his life. Five-star book for those looking to follow along with his hunting trips but I am going to give it four stars as I wanted more dogs.
I also want to note that because of the times he lived in, the speech relayed of blacks is heavily accented to the point of being seen as a caricature, while the accent in the speech of Southern white gentlemen is not nearly as prominent.
Here is required the dog who must go to and even beyond extreme course limits and yet maintain between itself and handler that contact which inspires perfect confidence in gun contacts. Here is call, above all else, for a well-broken animal, bold and animated, with running carriage, tail action, pace, and searching directness attractive to the gunner’s eye: a dog really and truly out scouring birdy places, the likeliness of which it proves itself in diagnosing. And yet, when found, handling its game with a nose surety and fire amounting almost to abandon.
As with humanity, dogs seem imbued with ambition and a credo of winning, which, at times, challenges credulity. Who recalls the inspired runoff between those two magnificent bitches, Homewood Flirtatious and Sulu, in the National’s second series of their year, to reach such heights? Or the fine, upstanding thrust of gallant Sports Peerless Pride in his second series against the threat of streamlined Norias Aeroflow? And again, of stouthearted Norias Annie, keeping always to the fore and fighting her way to the cup against the well-nigh invincible Dr. Blue Willing? Then Sulu’s outstanding win, and great Air Pilot’s Sam’s hairline win over another great second series dog, Highland Bimpkins. “In all my years of judging this stake,” remarked Mr. Hobart Ames, while we pondered the verdict, “this is the toughest decision to announce.” Another worthwhile memory is the race of a comparatively unknown derby dog from Texas, young Wayside Pat M. His strong and finely handled three hours under Jett Crawford brought him back into a runoff against Lester’s Enjoy Wahoo, titlist of that year.
What constitutes the spirit of American field trials? It is an incredible and intangible longing! Something sprung through the ages from savage man’s partnership of the cave with his even more savage but loyal dog. This companionship and intuitive common interest in flesh for existence has wielded ’twixt master and beast something utterly unbreakable.
In my mind, it rests somewhere between the spirit hovering over that peaceful animal cemetery on the Ames plantation, and the words of Gaston de Foix. It lies wherever some beloved gun-dog comrade sleeps away eternity in our hearts. .., “For a hound is the most reasonable and best knowing beast that ever God made... of good love... and true to his Master,”
Yonder he is!” shouted Hal. “I see him swimming—away down yonder-he’s cut back out of the current into the back eddy—he’s got the duck, too—Great Kingdom—he’s nearly half a mile from here.” Dropping the binoculars on their cord he began yelling, “Here we are, Pat, here we are, old fellow, come on—man.” By then, Horace and I had picked up the tiny speck, swimming strongly through and around channels studded with obstructions. We just stood there lost in wide-eyed, grateful admiration.
Pat’s paws struck wading water and he stalked ashore, the mallard firmly in tender jaws. What a sight he made, shaking his burly form until the sunlit drops of muddy water turned to flecked gold and coppery mist. Hal waved his gun, dropped it, ran to the dog and threw an arm about his neck. Something whispered to me—‘‘What more complete mission in life? His not to reason why, Pat has challenged the treacherous might of one of the most powerful rivers on earth. He’s battled its fury, and beaten down every obstacle its restless cunning could devise. Yep, he’s licked Ole Miss at her own game, with no odds or quarter asked or given.”
So there, fellow wildfowlers, let me leave you Pat and your own memories of gun dogs with brains and courage. Pat, with his powerful chest heaving and sturdy, wide-bowed legs stuck deeply into dripping, chocolate mud. Pat, with kindly eyes staring up into the all but tearful and thankful ones of his comrades, the last of God’s sunshine for that rare day pouring warmth and glory upon his gallant soul.
Beyond a dog’s deliberately flushing or chewing up birds, I find no faut when a staunch, hard-working animal drops, trails, roads, low-heads, or even barks on point. When really out hunting I enjoy watching them all work out their immediate problems in their own ways and to the best of their respective abilities. With shells in my tubes, I am neither purist nor carping critic. When a brave and companionable bird dog does the best it knows how, to afford me pleasure, who am I not to accept its offerings other than with sincere appreciation? So try, next time you're afield, to see what really happens.
His crowning feat, however, came on our last day afield. Driving along that afternoon after a grand day’s sport, we flushed a magnificent covey of Huns from the roadside. They settled around a clump of sparse buffalo willows in a deeply grassed pasture. ’Nuck and I left Bob Stoner and the dogs in the station wagon and tramped after the birds. They couldn't have risen better for the guns. Two to the left were downed, and another pair, escaping to the right, fell to my gun. I heard ’Nuck shoot twice, and he reported bowling over two with one shot. That made six Huns scattered over a space covering seventy-five yards of deep, dense cover.
We searched for fully five minutes without success. Bob Stoner, sensing our trouble, brought old Dan over on leash, and the fellow went to it. Starting at or near the point where my two birds fell, Dan crisscrossed the nearly waist-high grass with a probing nose. Down the line he went until five birbs were sacked. But the sixth gave him a bit of trouble. Finally, he darted off into the meadow, whipped into a classic point and then dived headlong as a crippled Hun attempted to take off. Dan presented that bird to Bob With a look on his face which said as plainly as words, . What do you know about that guy’s trying to put one over on the old boy?
I have in an old diary a record of a Christmas-week hunt at Wapanoca in 1898. the daily bag limit imposed by the club was fifty ducks and as many geese as one could lower. That day at Wapanoca there were twenty-two guns: sixteen members and six sons home from college. Everyone bagged his limit of ducks, and thirty-eight Canada geese were killed. Today on Wapanoca—now a federal wildlife refuge—you would be lucky to bag a federal limit of four ducks.
I have another record of Wapanoca, on Washington’s Birthday in 1901. Judge Gilham and I bagged an even hundred pintail, mostly drakes, before ten a.m. Not like the ducks in today’s skies.
It didn’t take long for wildfowl marketeers and sportsmen to realize that they could sack more ducks, geese, and birds per day—and faster—with the comparatively light-weight, six-shot repeaters than with the ponderous, heavy-recoiling, near-cannons they had been using. Muzzleloaders gave way to 8 and 10 gauge doubles, hammerless weapons, pump guns, and auto loaders.
DISCUSSING SHOTGUN PROBLEMS around our duck club’s fire one night, I was asked “In one word, what is your recipe for hitting bobwhites?” I don’t claim to know it all, by any manner of means, because I still miss ‘em. But if seventy years actual cap-bustin’ an’ running with th’ dawgs counts for anything I can “argufy an’ sputify.” So, right or wrong, and with the qualification of good eyesight, I had a one-word answer: “Repression.”
It covers the case completely and controls all the patents of bobwhiting,. And for such matter, it'll carry over into gun contacts with flushed game from pheasants to snipe. It means, to you and me, “Steady, you—count one —two—while they're clearing cover and you are picking out one certain bird—got it? Okay—now mount your gun, keeping both eyes glued meanwhile to that bob you've spotted—trust everything to that left hand—let it bring the gun's tubes in from behind, pass the flyer—think hard with every faculty and both eyes, of a moving spot two bird-lengths ahead of the bob (if it’s an angling shot)—now then—keep swinging and pull a shade ahead of that moving spot.” Your gun shouldn’t have stopped.
I end this review with this passage from the editor on Nash:
I have my own concept of immortality that a man lives for as long and as frequently as he is remembered. Writers, especially, achieve a continuing existence through their books, far better than an extended identity via a tombstone. Nash’s immortality lies between the blue or red bindings of the Derrydales, the Putnam editions’ familiar jackets. The thirty stories and pieces in this last collection breathe and taste and feel those things Nash lived. If each time we remember a person who is gone, that person lives again—seeing a fiery sunrise over marshland, a string of geese against dawn, watching mallards cup wings and slant toward decoys, thinking that this was how Nash saw them feeling the same sweet thrill—then Nash Buckingham will not be dead. The old hero will be reincarnated with the smell of powder yet unburned when these Stories of bobwhites and ducks and doves are read by someone very young who has never heard the name Nash Buckingham. Nor will he be dead for as long as one yellowed letter written by a reader in the early part of this century lies folded among brittle photographs—a letter that tells, “I have just read, and re-read to my wife one of your stories...”
Other than dogs, it great to read of times way before television and cell phones. Nash lived from 1880 to 1971. One aspect was the great number of wildfowl that was available during his early days and sadly, the great amount of slaughter of them by sportsman and marketeers that took advantage to that bounty. This led him to be a conservationist later in his life. Five-star book for those looking to follow along with his hunting trips but I am going to give it four stars as I wanted more dogs.
I also want to note that because of the times he lived in, the speech relayed of blacks is heavily accented to the point of being seen as a caricature, while the accent in the speech of Southern white gentlemen is not nearly as prominent.
Here is required the dog who must go to and even beyond extreme course limits and yet maintain between itself and handler that contact which inspires perfect confidence in gun contacts. Here is call, above all else, for a well-broken animal, bold and animated, with running carriage, tail action, pace, and searching directness attractive to the gunner’s eye: a dog really and truly out scouring birdy places, the likeliness of which it proves itself in diagnosing. And yet, when found, handling its game with a nose surety and fire amounting almost to abandon.
As with humanity, dogs seem imbued with ambition and a credo of winning, which, at times, challenges credulity. Who recalls the inspired runoff between those two magnificent bitches, Homewood Flirtatious and Sulu, in the National’s second series of their year, to reach such heights? Or the fine, upstanding thrust of gallant Sports Peerless Pride in his second series against the threat of streamlined Norias Aeroflow? And again, of stouthearted Norias Annie, keeping always to the fore and fighting her way to the cup against the well-nigh invincible Dr. Blue Willing? Then Sulu’s outstanding win, and great Air Pilot’s Sam’s hairline win over another great second series dog, Highland Bimpkins. “In all my years of judging this stake,” remarked Mr. Hobart Ames, while we pondered the verdict, “this is the toughest decision to announce.” Another worthwhile memory is the race of a comparatively unknown derby dog from Texas, young Wayside Pat M. His strong and finely handled three hours under Jett Crawford brought him back into a runoff against Lester’s Enjoy Wahoo, titlist of that year.
What constitutes the spirit of American field trials? It is an incredible and intangible longing! Something sprung through the ages from savage man’s partnership of the cave with his even more savage but loyal dog. This companionship and intuitive common interest in flesh for existence has wielded ’twixt master and beast something utterly unbreakable.
In my mind, it rests somewhere between the spirit hovering over that peaceful animal cemetery on the Ames plantation, and the words of Gaston de Foix. It lies wherever some beloved gun-dog comrade sleeps away eternity in our hearts. .., “For a hound is the most reasonable and best knowing beast that ever God made... of good love... and true to his Master,”
Yonder he is!” shouted Hal. “I see him swimming—away down yonder-he’s cut back out of the current into the back eddy—he’s got the duck, too—Great Kingdom—he’s nearly half a mile from here.” Dropping the binoculars on their cord he began yelling, “Here we are, Pat, here we are, old fellow, come on—man.” By then, Horace and I had picked up the tiny speck, swimming strongly through and around channels studded with obstructions. We just stood there lost in wide-eyed, grateful admiration.
Pat’s paws struck wading water and he stalked ashore, the mallard firmly in tender jaws. What a sight he made, shaking his burly form until the sunlit drops of muddy water turned to flecked gold and coppery mist. Hal waved his gun, dropped it, ran to the dog and threw an arm about his neck. Something whispered to me—‘‘What more complete mission in life? His not to reason why, Pat has challenged the treacherous might of one of the most powerful rivers on earth. He’s battled its fury, and beaten down every obstacle its restless cunning could devise. Yep, he’s licked Ole Miss at her own game, with no odds or quarter asked or given.”
So there, fellow wildfowlers, let me leave you Pat and your own memories of gun dogs with brains and courage. Pat, with his powerful chest heaving and sturdy, wide-bowed legs stuck deeply into dripping, chocolate mud. Pat, with kindly eyes staring up into the all but tearful and thankful ones of his comrades, the last of God’s sunshine for that rare day pouring warmth and glory upon his gallant soul.
Beyond a dog’s deliberately flushing or chewing up birds, I find no faut when a staunch, hard-working animal drops, trails, roads, low-heads, or even barks on point. When really out hunting I enjoy watching them all work out their immediate problems in their own ways and to the best of their respective abilities. With shells in my tubes, I am neither purist nor carping critic. When a brave and companionable bird dog does the best it knows how, to afford me pleasure, who am I not to accept its offerings other than with sincere appreciation? So try, next time you're afield, to see what really happens.
His crowning feat, however, came on our last day afield. Driving along that afternoon after a grand day’s sport, we flushed a magnificent covey of Huns from the roadside. They settled around a clump of sparse buffalo willows in a deeply grassed pasture. ’Nuck and I left Bob Stoner and the dogs in the station wagon and tramped after the birds. They couldn't have risen better for the guns. Two to the left were downed, and another pair, escaping to the right, fell to my gun. I heard ’Nuck shoot twice, and he reported bowling over two with one shot. That made six Huns scattered over a space covering seventy-five yards of deep, dense cover.
We searched for fully five minutes without success. Bob Stoner, sensing our trouble, brought old Dan over on leash, and the fellow went to it. Starting at or near the point where my two birds fell, Dan crisscrossed the nearly waist-high grass with a probing nose. Down the line he went until five birbs were sacked. But the sixth gave him a bit of trouble. Finally, he darted off into the meadow, whipped into a classic point and then dived headlong as a crippled Hun attempted to take off. Dan presented that bird to Bob With a look on his face which said as plainly as words, . What do you know about that guy’s trying to put one over on the old boy?
I have in an old diary a record of a Christmas-week hunt at Wapanoca in 1898. the daily bag limit imposed by the club was fifty ducks and as many geese as one could lower. That day at Wapanoca there were twenty-two guns: sixteen members and six sons home from college. Everyone bagged his limit of ducks, and thirty-eight Canada geese were killed. Today on Wapanoca—now a federal wildlife refuge—you would be lucky to bag a federal limit of four ducks.
I have another record of Wapanoca, on Washington’s Birthday in 1901. Judge Gilham and I bagged an even hundred pintail, mostly drakes, before ten a.m. Not like the ducks in today’s skies.
It didn’t take long for wildfowl marketeers and sportsmen to realize that they could sack more ducks, geese, and birds per day—and faster—with the comparatively light-weight, six-shot repeaters than with the ponderous, heavy-recoiling, near-cannons they had been using. Muzzleloaders gave way to 8 and 10 gauge doubles, hammerless weapons, pump guns, and auto loaders.
DISCUSSING SHOTGUN PROBLEMS around our duck club’s fire one night, I was asked “In one word, what is your recipe for hitting bobwhites?” I don’t claim to know it all, by any manner of means, because I still miss ‘em. But if seventy years actual cap-bustin’ an’ running with th’ dawgs counts for anything I can “argufy an’ sputify.” So, right or wrong, and with the qualification of good eyesight, I had a one-word answer: “Repression.”
It covers the case completely and controls all the patents of bobwhiting,. And for such matter, it'll carry over into gun contacts with flushed game from pheasants to snipe. It means, to you and me, “Steady, you—count one —two—while they're clearing cover and you are picking out one certain bird—got it? Okay—now mount your gun, keeping both eyes glued meanwhile to that bob you've spotted—trust everything to that left hand—let it bring the gun's tubes in from behind, pass the flyer—think hard with every faculty and both eyes, of a moving spot two bird-lengths ahead of the bob (if it’s an angling shot)—now then—keep swinging and pull a shade ahead of that moving spot.” Your gun shouldn’t have stopped.
I end this review with this passage from the editor on Nash:
I have my own concept of immortality that a man lives for as long and as frequently as he is remembered. Writers, especially, achieve a continuing existence through their books, far better than an extended identity via a tombstone. Nash’s immortality lies between the blue or red bindings of the Derrydales, the Putnam editions’ familiar jackets. The thirty stories and pieces in this last collection breathe and taste and feel those things Nash lived. If each time we remember a person who is gone, that person lives again—seeing a fiery sunrise over marshland, a string of geese against dawn, watching mallards cup wings and slant toward decoys, thinking that this was how Nash saw them feeling the same sweet thrill—then Nash Buckingham will not be dead. The old hero will be reincarnated with the smell of powder yet unburned when these Stories of bobwhites and ducks and doves are read by someone very young who has never heard the name Nash Buckingham. Nor will he be dead for as long as one yellowed letter written by a reader in the early part of this century lies folded among brittle photographs—a letter that tells, “I have just read, and re-read to my wife one of your stories...”
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