Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2015 - January 2016 i Outdoor Life

Out in Africa, contracting the condition known as “bush happiness” is always a dangerous possibility. Reveling in the continent’s wild and remote places for a month or so quickly leads to this affliction, which makes a person do incredibly stupid things. Four of us college students were camped in a grove of giant camelthorn trees in a remote area of northern Botswana. It was spartan, but our camp still had basic comforts—all carted there by a knackered old Land Rover. The full moon shone so brightly we had no need for a lantern, and it was too hot for a campfire. To the detriment of our studies, we had been in that environment long enough to become bush happy. I recognized this instantly when Simon suddenly asked, “How much will…

Who says you can’t call in gobblers in the wintertime? During the long, liberal winter season in the Plains states, hunters with a variety of simple calls can take multiple gobblers in a single calling session. It helps to also have a high tolerance for cold. TIP Winter gobbler groups will oft en respond to large decoy spreads. Stake out a half dozen jake decoys and then call sparingly. The otherwise peaceful winter morning was disrupted by two dozen strutters and subordinate toms aggressively gobbling, challenge-purring, and posturing as they made their way to my tail fan. I tried to sort out the best beards in this approaching wave, but it didn’t matter. These were all adult gobblers, and at least 50 more longbeards were coming behind the first gang.…

While hipsters would like us to believe that they invented the demand for organic, free-range, locally sourced meat, hunters know better. The best source of natural protein doesn’t come from a store, and meat doesn’t need to be pumped full of antibiotics and hormones to be delicious or affordable. This year, make a resolution to augment your food supply with more venison and wildfowl. You can even go beyond the standard hunter’s fare if you dare. There’s a wide range of delicious wild game available for hunter-gatherer types, especially if you’re willing to turn to somewhat unconventional sources of protein. That may mean you obtain your dinner by taking down an iguana with a pellet rifle, staking out a grain bin for some feral pigeons, eating what appears to be…

THE FUTURE OF HUNTING DEPENDS ON OUR ADVOCACY OF WILD PROTEIN WHEN YOU SHARE MEAT FROM A DEER, or a duck, or a fish you have killed, you are participating in an essential human sacrament. It was wild meat that made us who we are. And it was hunters who supplied the meat that led to the many profound physical changes that would ultimately determine our survival and success as a species. Highly nutritious and easy to digest, meat enabled us to modify and shorten our digestive systems and to more efficiently fuel our expanding brains. As our mental capacity increased, so did our capacity for reasoning, communication, and tool production. While these proved essential talents for effective hunting, they also represent some of the most defining characteristics of our…

THE GOLD-STANDARD shotgun loading drill for 3-Gun is the Load 12 drill, which was made YouTube famous by professional shooter Keith Garcia in 2012. (Garcia can complete this drill in under 10 seconds.) It doesn’t matter which loading technique you use, as long as you’re pushing yourself to go as fast as you can. You can do the quad load or the load-two techniques, from either the strong or weak side. All are viable options. Here’s how the drill works. Set up six targets at a comfortable distance—about 10 yards or so. Start with two shells in the gun. You must hit all six targets. 1. clock starts. fire one shot on target 1. 2. load four shells. 3. place a shot on targets 2 and 3. 4. load four…

TIP Don’t hunt with a trigger set to less than 3 pounds in cold conditions. Numb fingers and light triggers are a recipe for a negligent discharge. I Small game can give you challenges and memories as special as any giant buck. But the variety of guns to choose from is even more extensive than the animals there are to hunt. AIM SMALL, MISS SMALL It’s a given that with small game, you’ll have a small target. You won’t have much room for error if you’re looking to salvage meat, so head shots are your best bet. Practice shooting, but forget the bench. Work on offhand and kneeling shots, and using improvised rests such as trees or fence posts. Fundamentals are key, and the more you practice repeating a good…

I shoot shotguns and you shoot shotguns, but none of us shoots shotguns like David Miller. Miller is a master-class sporting clays competitor from Grain Valley, Missouri, and the shotgun product manager and exhibition shooter for CZ-USA. He is absolutely rabid about shotguns and shooting. If Miller were a bird dog, you’d want one of his pups. A little over one year ago, Miller was watching TV with his girlfriend, Kelley Lindley, and her son, Will, and daughter, Sydney . It was a program about people trying to set new world records. Will told Miller that he should att empt some world record with a shotgun. Miller came up with the idea to break more clays in the span of an hour than anyone had previously done. Soon, he was…

Have you ever seen The Phantom of the Opera? (I know what you’re thinking: This is a crappie story—what the hell does a Broadway play have to do with catching panfish? And I also know there are a couple of you thinking that you could see the connection if the name of the fish were spelled “crappy.” Bear with me.) In the musical, there is a scene in which a giant chandelier comes crashing down on a ballroom full of people, creating the most epic scene of the show. Jerry Thompson (ltdguideservice.com), a veteran guide on Toledo Bend Reservoir, may well have had that in mind when he modified a traditional freshwater umbrella rig to drop a school of live minnows on the heads of unsuspecting crappies for the most…

SPEAK UP! ▶ Really? So it costs $1,400 to mount a shotgun suppressor that resembles a car muffler, plus another $200 for a tax stamp? [“Shushing Your Shotgun,” Shooting, October 2015] I wonder how that configuration fits in a gun case. Color me baffled. Don’t they sell ear plugs and earmuffs in your neck of the marsh? We “skinflints” know dumb tech when we see it. Dr. T. C. Jennings Sanford, MI SHOOTING EDITOR JOHN B. SNOW REPLIES: ▶ I know plenty of skinflints who hunt, and most of them cup their ears when you call their name (aka the NRA salute) and shout, “Huh?” SLIP UP ▶ I just want to make sure that someone does not try to use a slip cork as described in “Popping the Cork”…

My favorite everyday carry knife is a Ka-Bar Lightweight Folder. And any job that lock-back, drop-point folder can’t handle, my replaceable-blade Havalon Piranta can. Both are constant companions in my pocket or my hunting pack. Both cost under $50. Which made me wonder: What other hardworking knives can be had for a song? Turns out, there are plenty of options. But just as the world of affordable hunting blades is full of great deals, it’s also littered with junk. I spent a season with the crop of knives you see here, field dressing, skinning, and butchering deer and game birds. This roster is not intended to be comprehensive, but rather representative of the sort of blades available at this price point. W.R. CASE CAMO CALIBER RIDGEBACK $44; wrcase.com It’s a…

By now, the ducks and geese in your neighborhood have Ph.D.’s in survival. They’ve figured out bogus decoy spreads and sour calls, suspicious landing zones, and the dangers that accompany Shadow Grass camouflage. But these educated birds have a chink in their experiential armor: They must fly daily from water to food and back again. And anytime they take wing, they are vulnerable to hunters gunning for them from below. These are the pass-shooters, those skybusting knuckle-draggers that decoyers everywhere love to curse the way dry-fly anglers curse bait fishermen. That antipathy is sharpened every time a duck or goose is wounded and not recovered by a gunner who shoots at a bird low enough to pepper it with pellets but too high to bring it down. But here’s the…

My favorite artist is Charlie Russell, and my favorite of his paintings of frontier Montana shows a sheep hunter peering perplexedly down from the rim of a canyon. Balanced on a rock shelf below is the ram the hunter has just killed with his lever gun. It’s clearly going to take some doing to retrieve that bighorn. The painting’s title says what must be on that hunter’s mind: “Meat’s Not Meat Till It’s in the Pan.” That title has become a sort of motto of my hunting seasons, spoken with special emphasis when an animal’s recovery is particularly difficult. But it captures the main reason I hunt: to make meat. Like most of you, I hunt for a lot of other reasons: to be challenged in a way I’m not…

SUNDAY BLUE LAWS / AUGUST 1929 This editorial cartoon accompanied a hilariously scathing editorial by Harry McGuire, OL’s then secretary. It was sparked by a news article about a 17-yearold Pennsylvania boy who was sentenced to 25 days in jail for fishing on a Sunday. “‘I hadn’t even had a bite yet,’ the lad lamented as he was led away to jail.” “Most sportsmen are individualists,” writes McGuire. “If they didn’t love freedom—if they weren’t more than ordinarily independent and fair-minded— they wouldn’t be American sportsmen… Do they think the commandment ‘Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy’ means healthy, clean recreations like hunting and fishing are outlawed by God, in order to make Sunday safe for tea-drinking gossips and their holier-than-thou pleasures? By what law of reason is…

BEHIND A WALL OF HEADLESS, UPSIDE-DOWN HANGING ELK CARCASSES, BUZZ JONES STANDS ON A STEPLADDER TRIMMING AROUND EACH ANIMAL’S HOCK BEFORE HE HOOKS THE LOOSE FLAP OF SKIN TO A MOTORIZED HIDE PULLER. WITHIN SECONDS, THE ELK IS SKINNED, LEFT WEARING NOTHING BUT SOME FAT, A WHOLE LOT OF MEAT, AND A BLOODY MANILA TAG WITH THE HUNTER’S NAME. Fourteen years ago, Buzz paid me $7.50 an hour to stand at a cutting table for 10 hours a day with a meat hook in one hand and a knife in the other. Now, on a chilly weekend in early November , I’m back at Yellowstone Processing to see how this family business has thrived over the years, and to get a hands-on reminder of exactly what it takes to turn…

TIP To prevent ice from building up in your jigging rod guides, spray some silicone on a clean cloth and pull it through each eye. Peacock bass in the Amazon, giant largemouths from Mexico’s bass factories, massive pike wrested from the icy waters of Canada’s northernmost reaches—I’ve enjoyed plenty of angling adventures. None, though, have intrigued me more than pulling panfish through a hole in the ice. Go figure. I’m amazed myself. Recent winter forays to Minnesota’s Leech Lake and other Ice Belt “hot” spots have captivated my analytical mind like little else. The ultradetailed strategies and technological advancements that drive today’s icefishing scene have turned what was once an excuse to have a wintertime beer-and-brat cookout with a bunch of fishing buddies into a serious cold-weather pursuit. To frame…

Even the most die-hard outdoorsmen rarely list midnight in the dead of winter as the best time to sit on a frozen sheet of ice. It’s dark, cold, and oft en windy. But maybe those who discount it haven’t dunked glowing jigs into frigid waters and felt the slam of a bite from a slimy monster known as a burbot . “You can go out and catch a lot of fish at a time when you’re not really taking advantage of anything else,” says Ryan Mosley, an avid icefisherman and Flaming Gorge project leader for Utah Division of Wildlife Resources. Plus, they’re big, they taste good, and they fight, says Rick Runquist, a 40-year veteran fishing guide out of Walker, Minnesota. Burbot—also called eelpout, freshwater ling, lawyers, and poorman’s lobster—are…