Celebrating the Sacred Moments Found Outdoors
To those who enjoy spending time out of doors, there’s an insatiable tug to get in nature when you’re not there. Whether at work, in traffic, or doing chores at home, the urge to get outside never fades. It’s the inescapable call to make more memories afield as soon as possible, and that call has been happening to people for generations.
Uncle Mallard’s is about heeding that call. It’s about honoring the memories, stories, and nostalgia of a simpler time in the outdoors. A time when hunting and fishing were necessities. A time when people knew the land — not for sport, but for survival. Knowing your surrounding woods and waters was as routine as your daily commute to work. For many, the outdoors was more than a pastime — it defined a way of life.
A Name With Roots
The name comes from a family connection to artist, outdoorsman, naturalist, and UM owner Jon Coxwell. Since he was a boy, it was the name of a tract of woods on hunting land in southern Alabama. His relatives have hunted the area since the 1960s. But before that, it was the homeplace of his great-grandmother’s uncle Mallard Pugh — the original “Uncle Mallard.”
At the end of the day, we strive to make Uncle Mallard’s mean more than just the name of an ancestor, homestead, plot of land, or a distant memory of a cabin where only old glass jars and briars remain – but for it to embody the rich history of living an outdoor life in America and the spiritual experiences one receives when living a simple, yet meaningful life close to the earth. The essence of Uncle Mallard’s is found in the whistle of the wings, the abrupt halt of the pointer, that first gobble of the year in the spring woods, the violent topwater strike on glassy water as the sun rises, the glint of sunlight on antlers through the trees – it’s the places you long to be when you aren’t afield, and it’s the welcome you feel from the wild when your boots eagerly hit the ground once again. It’s for those few who honor the wild areas that sustain us, live as stewards of the land, and for those when amongst the trees can truly feel them whisper, “Welcome home.”
We’ll see y’all out there.