On Your Own Hook

A Short History of Combat Tracking

March 18, 2013

There’s an excellent article entitled “A Short History of Combat Tracking” over at sofrep.com. Discussion of the early frontier, the Apache scouts and Frederick Russell Burnham. Author John Hurth is retired Special Forces and wrote “Combat Tracking Guide.” Tracking is a great way to connect to the outdoors, whether you’re doing it for another purpose [...]

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Happy Thanksgiving!

November 21, 2012
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  Wishing you a bountiful day of feasting and fellowship.

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Daniel Boone’s Combat Shotgun

September 3, 2012
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Reading the description of the Blue Licks battle in Robert Morgan’s biography of Daniel Boone, I came across a note on armament I hadn’t seen before. Morgan says Boone went into the battle armed with a fowling piece stoked with a stout powder charge and a mixed load of shot and roundball (what they called [...]

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Self-reliance

July 31, 2012

I don’t read a lot of contemporary thrillers, but when I do, Barry Eisler is at the top of my list. I also enjoy his Web site, which has insights about politics, self-defense, the writing game and more. A recent blog entry on his participation in a course taught by survival educator Cody Lundin is [...]

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Happy New Year!

January 2, 2012
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Hope everyone got a rousing start to 2012.   I was determined to start it off in proper Frontier Partisans style, so I took up my dog and gun and hit the woods. Lovely day — a light skiff of snow; 36 degrees; a mix of sunshine and cloud that cast everything under a strange [...]

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Going Heeled — Musings on Concealed Carry

November 5, 2011
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  Author’s note: In any of my forays into fitness, martial arts and survival, please bear in mind that I consider myself a student, not an expert. If your knowledge, experience and training lead you to conclusions that differ from mine, by all means, say your piece. (Hell, that goes for the history, too…) Dialogue [...]

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Frontier Partisan Fitness — Part II

June 11, 2011
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There isn’t much evidence that the frontier partisans “worked out.” They clearly trained in the important skills. As Joseph Doddridge notes in “Notes on the Settlement and Indian Wars of the Western Parts of Virginia”:   Many of the sports of the early settler of this country were imitative of the exercises and stratagems of [...]

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Frontier Partisan Fitness — Part I

June 8, 2011
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The popular image of the frontiersman is a tall, broad-shouldered man, fit to whip his weight in wildcats. Some lived up to the image. Kentucky frontiersman Simon Kenton was a big, powerful man; Pennsylvania Ranger Sam Brady was a superior athlete; the young Buffalo Bill Cody was a fine figure of a man, able to [...]

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