With a flintlock in hand and his sense of humor intact, Leonard Pritikin heads into Wyoming’s wide-open country for mule deer and pronghorn—and gets an unexpected encounter with a magnificent bull elk.

On Montana’s Rocky Mountain Front, a father and son share an unforgettable bighorn hunt with a traditional muzzleloader. For the father, the reward is more than the ram—it’s having his son beside him.

From a muzzleloader built by his father to a modern inline on the plains of Nebraska, Jason Day shares a lifelong love of the hunt—and the practice, persistence, and passion behind it.

At daybreak on a North Carolina farm, W.N. Nixon calls two wary gobblers into view. With a pre–Civil War percussion shotgun in hand, he waits for one to close the distance—twenty-one paces.