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45 Articles

PHILIPSBURG, PENNSYLVANIA/12:32 p.m.

letters@outdoorlife.com Beagles don’t retrieve rabbits. They eat them. Or at least, most beagles do. Duke (above) resists the temptation and fetches dead bunnies for his owner instead. He’s selective, though: Duke won’t bring rabbits to any other hunter. “His retrieving is more of a bond to me than it is an expression of his retriever sensibilites,” says Bob Ford, who currently owns six beagles—all of whom live indoors instead of in a kennel (see p. 108). In Ford’s house, Duke becomes “almost an annoying cuddler”; in the field, he’s a focused veteran. If a bunny tries something tricky, Duke is the one to pick up the trail. And if another dog reaches a dead rabbit first, Duke will enter the fray and exit victorious. —N.K.…

PHILIPSBURG, PENNSYLVANIA/12:32 p.m.

Bear Buzz It’s a shame hunters and biologists are hamstrung by environmental meddlers and antis, but the progress on the grizzly hunt is very good news (“To Hunt a Grizzly,” Summer 2018). I wish them luck as they weave through the pretzel-logic rules and regs. IllinoisRick, via outdoorlife.com I personally have no interest in killing a grizzly just to know I can kill one. But if the population needs to be kept in balance with the other animals, then let the hunt begin. jhjimbo, via outdoorlife.com We hunters need to be more careful about the videos we post on YouTube and social media. There are some YouTube hunting videos that I find repulsive. Such videos hurt our reputation as a community. This is especially true for brown bear hunting, because most people perceive it as…

TECHNOLOGY IN THE FIELD

Long-range shooting is a hot trend in hunting, driven by improvements in rifles, optics, and ammo. I’m a poor long-range shot. I don’t practice at those distances and so have no business shooting game at extended ranges (to say nothing about what can go wrong at such distances with even the most proficient shooter). But there are more fundamental reasons why I try to get as close as possible when I’m hunting. In our annual optics test (p. 34), you’ll see that there is an arms race among companies to build riflescopes that use rangefinding technology, Bluetooth, smart reticles, and phone apps to make it possible for hunters to shoot accurately at ranges that would’ve astounded our fathers and grandfathers. Equipment that aids in making a clean, quick kill—the primary goal of…

TECHNOLOGY IN THE FIELD

LAUGHING AT: Overheard at Deer Camp Hunters say the darndest things: Some quips are wise, some are funny, and some are dumber than a buck during the rut. Here are a few memorable one-liners that made us grin last season. “My wife bought me new pajamas this season. Look at these bad boys.”“It won’t take 30 seconds to walk here from the cabin. We should call this the Hangover Blind.”“We only have one rule: No yelling at anyone.” “Dammit, Craig!”“I’ll cook the tenderloins. Confidence is the best seasoning…right?” READING I’ve been on a Cormac McCarthy kick for a year now. This is both because he’s prolific and because his books can get awfully dense or awfully dark—and usually both—thus mandating breaks for sunnier stuff. Not much beats the Border Trilogy for swinging into the…

BASE CAMP AND BEYOND

One of Outdoor Life’s central missions has always been comprehensive coverage of outdoor gear, then letting you know what works, what doesn’t, and how products can be improved. We give that same honest feedback directly to manufacturers. We’re now using that expertise to develop our own gear under the name OL Guide Life. We’re not just putting our name on existing products. OL’s experts are involved in the entire process, from concept to design to product testing. The product line starts where many adventures begin: base camp. Whether you’re hunting, or at a lakeside fish camp, or at a campground for the weekend with the family, having a home base that is comfortable and inviting makes every activity more enjoyable. All of the products in the OL Guide Life line are designed to…

BASE CAMP AND BEYOND

hunting@outdoorlife.com Some say that, compared to whitetails, mule deer are dummies. You could have fooled me. I thought of that myth as I lay on my belly and peeked at a giant muley buck bedded 35 yards away. I had crawled across an open yellow-grass plateau for more than two hours, and now I was pinned after the massive 8x9 stood, strolled 10 yards, and bedded again on an elevated hump of dirt. One wrong move and I’d be busted. I have had the good fortune of shooting more than 50 mule deer with a bow, 32 of which made the Pope and Young record book. Four scored above 200 points. In my experience, muley bucks of 5½ years or older can be considered a separate category of this animal. Young mule deer…

An average mature mule deer measures 22 to 24 inches between alert, forward-cupping ear tips. If the rack spreads beyond the ears, he has big-buck potential. But more important to mega-buck status than the spread are tine length and mass. A true giant has four typical points per side that average more than 8 inches above each fork. Main beams are usually 20 to 25 inches long. For reference, the distance between the middle of a broadside mule deer’s eye and the tip of his nose is about 8 inches. The forehead of a buck facing you is almost exactly 4 inches wide between the inside edges of his eyes. Each ear measures about 9 inches from base to tip. Many deer have uneven tines. But if a trophy buck has short…

IT WAS PAST MIDNIGHT—twilight in June in Alaska—when the bear approached. My heart was racing; he’d already come through twice without offering a shot. As he closed the last few yards to the bait, it was clear he was on edge. He took one more step, and I drew my longbow. At the twang, my bright-green feathers disappeared into the pitch black behind the bear’s shoulder. He scrambled out of sight but quickly piled up dead just 60 yards away. It was the biggest black bear I’ve ever taken with a bow, and coolest of all, I’d killed him with a wooden arrow and knapped stone broadhead. This reinforced what I’ve come to learn about arrow penetration on big animals. The key to pass-throughs with a stickbow is in the…

HIGH AND MIGHTY

IN THE RIGHT area, nothing beats a climbing stand for mobile bow-hunting. You can be settled in and hunting in a third of the time—and with less noise—than it takes to hang a lock-on. Though they’re considered whitetail tools, climbers work over elk wallows and bear baits too. But they come with their own set of challenges—the biggest being that they won’t work in every tree. Here’s how to make your climber setup perfectly efficient. 1. PICK A TRUNK You need a tall, straight tree with enough girth to support you. The standard advice is a shoulder-width trunk. Rough-barked trees—pignut, maple, pine, oak—provide the most secure bite. Avoid smooth, slick species like beech and sycamore. 2. COVER UP I like the lower platform of my stand to be 18 feet high, minimum. I love…

HIGH AND MIGHTY

MORE BOWHUNTERS than ever are shooting hybrid broadheads, and for good reason. They combine the “it will always cut” reliability of a fixed-blade with the massive cutting diameter of a mechanical. In putting these five hybrids to the test, some of which are brand-new, we found a suite of broadheads that fly great and cut huge holes in stuff—but with enough differences among them to make things interesting. 1. BLOODSPORT GRAVEDIGGER $40 for 3 bloodsportarchery.com The Gravedigger flew well and the blades were sharp. Consistency between each head was excellent. The fixed blades have a 1-inch diameter, and the mechanical blades open to 2 inches. The retention system was mildly concerning. Instead of relying on O-rings or bands, users “tune” deployment by adjusting a tiny hex screw. 2. MUZZY HB-TI $50 for 3 feradyne.com/muzzy-broadheads This head…

Our testing protocol took full advantage of the backyard bow-shop mentality, employing readily available items to evaluate key categories under real-world conditions. For accuracy, 3-shot groups with each broadhead from a tuned bow were compared to field-point groups from the same bow at distances of 25 and 40 yards. Sharpness was evaluated with a trio of slicing challenges: taut rubber bands, arm hair, and paper. The bleed-out test paired water-filled milk jugs with a stopwatch. Each broadhead had to hit its respective jug in the same place for the results to count. Consistency in weight between heads was measured using a precision scale, and cutting potential was determined by adding together every possible1 ⁄8 inch of cutting surface on each head. A steel-belted radial tire was used for penetration testing. Value is…

THE 2018 OPTICS TEST

shooting@outdoorlife.com This year’s Outdoor Life optics test included spotting scopes with binocular eyepieces, binoculars with lightning-fast rangefinders, and several new brands elbowing into this crowded category of gear. There are only so many ways to tweak a binocular or a spotting scope. But this year’s field of riflescopes indicates there are at least a dozen ways to modify a magnified rifle sight, including adding sophisticated electronics, inserting light-activated reticles, beefing up turrets, and even pairing your riflescope with your phone through Bluetooth. In terms of innovation and accuracy-enhancing technology, riflescope design is in hyperdrive, with product introductions this year that will help you shoot better, whether your target is a big-game animal or a distant steel gong. Nearly half the scopes in this year’s test are built for long-range target work. These…

THE 2018 OPTICS TEST

THE STATE OF OPTICS

You could look at the lineup of riflescopes in this year’s test and draw two conclusions. First, there’s little for the average deer hunter who won’t shoot much beyond 100 yards. Second, the optics industry is promoting unethical hunting behavior by peddling scopes—some with electronic brains—that facilitate shooting out to 1,000 yards and beyond. But here’s another way to look at this year’s crop of new optics: All the technology inside these scopes can make you a better shot and a more ethical hunter at any range, as long as you know and obey the limitations of your gear and recognize when it gives you an unfair advantage over the animals you pursue. Put another way, it’s the brain behind the scope—not the one inside it—that controls and limits its use. Consider the…

THE STATE OF OPTICS

We rated optics on their ability to serve a hunter or shooter, which meant putting an emphasis on their durability, versatility, and field worthiness. Since optics are designed to help us see, we also scored image sharpness and cleanness on a standard resolution chart, and then tested their low-light visibility in the evenings. But the balance of the test was in the field. We spent weeks with the binoculars, using them the way you do: by strapping them to our chests and hiking all sorts of terrain. We mounted spotting scopes on tripods and used them to spot game and score hits at the rifle range. We mounted all riflescopes on guns and rated their ability to make precise aiming adjustments and return to zero, time after time. We also assessed…

WILD VS. PRESERVE BIRDS

shooting@outdoorlife.com SOME WINGSHOOTERS ARE WILD-BIRD SNOBS. I get the appeal, since I’m lucky enough to live in a place with an abundance of sword-tailed roosters that grow armorlike feathers late in the season, skittish Huns that are prone to flushing wild in the wheat stubble, and grouse that dust on old logging roads in the steepest elk country you’ll ever see. But I’ll never look down my nose at a well-run outfit with planted birds. They are great places to work young dogs and hunt with older companions who can’t hike the uplands the way they used to. And they provide bird-shooting opportunities to thousands of sportsmen who otherwise cannot access wild birds. Plenty of hunters get to experience a bit of each. And though both types of hunts involve feathers, dogs, and…

WILD VS. PRESERVE BIRDS

BENELLI ETHOS 28

There are some hunting operations where the line between wild and stocked birds isn’t very clear. These premium lodges usually put out large quantities of birds early in the season, and by the time your dog points them, they fly and act much like wild birds. I joined some friends at one such place a couple of seasons back: Pheasant Bonanza in Tekamah, Nebraska (pheasantbonanza.com). I used this hunt as an excuse to see whether Benelli’s then-new Ethos 28 ($1,999; benelliusa.com) with its larger 3-inch chamber could hold its own against such roosters. I was fairly skeptical that an extended-length 28-gauge could offer much more ballistically than the traditional 3⁄4-ounce payload. As it turned out, the nimble Italian-made semi-auto had no difficulty knocking birds out of the sky. Even when shooting 1-ounce loads, the…

BENELLI ETHOS 28

FOR ANY SHOOTER WHO HAS MESSED with traditional chronographs, the promise of the LabRadar is easy to see. It has no sunscreens to fool with, no wires to untangle, and no tripods to deploy, and there’s no need to cross the firing line to set it up. (To say nothing of the fact that you’d have to be a next-level knucklehead to accidentally shoot it.) The LabRadar consists of two pieces: a main radar unit and a mounting plate ($540 and $60, respectively; mylabradar.com). Attach the two, aim it at the target you’ll be shooting, hit the power button, and you’re in business. Well, almost. There’s some fiddling required to operate the unit smoothly, but before we get into that, let’s answer a basic question: How does it work? Doppler radar bounces…

MANY HUNTERS BRAG ABOUT how accurately their rifles fire 5-shot groups. However, the true worth of a hunting rifle is how precisely it places its first bullet. Several factors can determine if that initial bullet will follow your aim, but bore condition is perhaps most important because cleaning solvent, oil, or fouling in a bore can act as a slight obstruction and cause a bullet to fly somewhere other than where it was aimed. To test this assertion, I ran some of my rifles through a series of 5-shot drills, each time making note of where the first shot landed in relation to the others. The first group was through a cleaned and oiled barrel. The next group was shot a couple of hours later through the fouled bore after it had…

BIG HORN ARMORY MODEL 89

IF YOU WANT TO experience a bit of ballistic magic, take any large handgun cartridges—the magnums in particular—and run them through a carbine-length rifle barrel. As impressive as they might be in a revolver or large-framed semi-auto, these bullets shift into beast mode with a longer barrel to charge down. That’s what makes the Model 89 lever-action from Big Horn Armory an effective thumper for thick cover and close quarters. Chambered in 500 S&W, which is hardly a slouch in Smith & Wesson’s X-Frames, the M89 elevates the capability of what is already our most potent handgun cartridge. The M89 I tested, also called the Spikedriver, has an 18-inch barrel and, compared to the 101 ∕2-inch tube on my Smith & Wesson Performance Center revolver, jacks up the muzzle velocities of the…

BIG HORN ARMORY MODEL 89

Knowledge and effort. That’s what it takes to successfully hunt public land. You need skills and a good game plan to outwit critters that have adapted specifically to avoid hunting pressure. But know-how gets you only so far. On the level playing field of America’s public lands, a little extra sweat often makes the difference between punched tags and empty game bags. So we’ve put together a mountain of tactics from expert public-land hunters, plus a collection of stories that capture the essence of hunting public ground. We hope the tactics give you an edge this fall and the stories keep the fire burning hot all season long.…

Squirrels rustle leaves. Bucks snap twigs. Bull elk crack branches. And on a still mountain morning, that crack is a turbo charger that floods your bloodstream with adrenaline. That crack might mean you’re busted and the herd is about to unleash pandemonium across the hillside. Or it might mean the bull you’ve been tracking has stood in its bed to offer a shot before bolting. Three decades ago, on my 16th birthday, the crack meant the herd bull was approaching. My father and I had hiked 3 miles into the Idaho backcountry to hear a bugle at daybreak. Over the next six hours we stalked closer, with Dad drawing in the bull with bugles from a homemade call constructed out of PVC pipe. At noon, we heard the crack. We were huddled…

Stalk Bulls in Dark Timber

Today’s hard-hunted elk herds aren’t the same plains game as their ancestors. They’ve learned to take cover in the dark timber, and if there’s adequate browse and water, elk are quite happy to never leave their stand of lodgepole pines during daylight hours. Your best option for hunting pressured elk on public land is to get in the woods with them. Pick the Top Timber First, read the landscape through an elk’s point of view. Warm weather pushes them to high, shadowy, north-facing cirques. If it’s bitter cold, they’ll be on sunny, southfacing slopes. Elk will feed in timber where enough light filters through the trees to support grass and shrubs. Bulls like to bed on flat benches with quick access to dense woods on a steep slope. Move quickly through forests where there’s…

Stalk Bulls in Dark Timber

SLEEP WITH THE GIANTS

Big muley bucks fed in the valley below, darkness shrouding them from danger. Far from any road and safe from the average hunter, they would likely feed past my ridgetop position in the morning. I snuggled deeper into my sleeping bag, took one last look at the stars, and fell asleep. Tomorrow would be opening day, and I was right on top of the biggest, hardest-to-access bucks in the territory. In today’s era of dwindling mule deer numbers, burgeoning habitat loss, and restricted access, a mature public-land mule deer buck is one of the hardest-won big-game trophies in North America. Bivy hunting is my ace-in-the-hole technique for pursuing old mule deer bucks before the rut gets cranking and bucks become unpredictable. Simply put, I sleep on the mountain with the deer, camping…

SLEEP WITH THE GIANTS

Go All-In for Roosters

Shooting a limit of roosters on public land is a lot harder than it used to be. Bird numbers are down across most of pheasant country, and hunters who use public ground have taken the hit the hardest. To be successful, you’ve got to switch up conventional tactics. So forget easy fencerow pushes and big drives across grass fields. If you want to kill roosters, focus on large stretches of heavy cover, and that means cattail sloughs, says Anthony Hauck, director of public relations for Pheasants Forever, who spends about 50 days each season chasing public birds with his two cocker spaniels. Think Big Hauck looks for a string of public lands that run together for at least a half section, but a full section is even better. The bigger the piece, the…

Go All-In for Roosters

Ambush Antelope on the Edge

Alfalfa, wheat, and other crop fields on private land might hold herds of pronghorns for days at a time. But eventually pronghorn bucks cross back onto public land, giving the rest of us a chance. Here’s how to be ready when they do. Find the Crossing Scout early, even if that means burning vacation days before the season opens. What you learn could put you in perfect position to intercept the area’s biggest buck the minute the hunt opens. Pronghorns mingle, chase, and eventually cross fences onto public land. Identify their favorite crossings and note what time of day the antelope hit them. They usually use a low spot for crawling under fences (they don’t jump over fences like deer do). Consider that few private lands go unhunted. Where will ranch hunters approach…

Ambush Antelope on the Edge

A WALK IN THE BIG WOODS

I was halfway up the ridge before dawn revealed the hot track I had stumbled upon. I was hunting a designated wilderness area in New York’s Adirondacks, and while I didn’t have the snow that big-woods hunters dream about, days of heavy rain created unique conditions that made tracks jump out of the saturated duff of the forest floor. The trail was headed vaguely toward my destination—up—so I followed it. It led me to a high saddle, where I noticed a freshly broken branch lying across the tracks, which caused me to take a closer look. A buck’s rack had caught on a piece of deadfall, snapped it, and dropped it across the trail. Game on. The track took me over the saddle into a basin filled with beaver dams, a cedar…

A WALK IN THE BIG WOODS

Roll Canadas on the River

The most tedious part of hunting Canada geese is driving long miles to scout and asking for permission to hunt private ag fields. But when the first blast of winter hits and freezes marshes and ponds, geese flock to rivers to roost and loaf, opening miles and miles of opportunity to the public-water hunter. This is Cabela’s pro staffer and waterfowl nut Jonathan Lewis’ favorite time to chase honkers on his home turf in New York and Pennsylvania. A quick side note: Check local water-access laws (they can be complicated) because many states allow you to hunt from a boat if it can be concealed by vegetation, or from shore if you stay below the normal water-level line. Hit the Bars Lewis keys in on island gravel bars or points that create a pool…

Roll Canadas on the River

It’s opening day of duck season in Wisconsin, and somewhere at a public boat ramp right now, there are two grown men arguing. Camo waders buckled down, faces painted, headlamp beams turned on high, neck veins bulging. Their disagreement might go a few different ways (“I was here first,” “You’re going to be too close to our blind,” “I scouted this last week”), but it’s always the same problem: Each guy wants to claim a little piece of marsh that we all own. But that’s not happening here. The pre-dawn hours of my opening day are pitch-dark and dead quiet. Dad and I take a beat-up johnboat that’s older than I am out to a sliver of peat bog that connects two little lakes. There’s plenty of duckweed in these twin…

Find a Flooded-Timber Hotspot

Calling down migrating mallards into Arkansas’ legendary flooded green timber is a bucket-list hunt for any serious waterfowler. And you don’t need an expensive duck lease or a membership to a fancy club to get in on the action. Arkansas is home to thousands of acres that are open to public duck hunting. Places like Bayou Meto Wildlife Management Area (33,832 acres), Cache River National Wildlife Refuge (68,993 acres), and Black River WMA (25,000 acres) have storied pasts and continue to provide excellent duck hunting today. But you’ve got to put the work in first. Log In Digital maps and GPS will show you property lines, topography, and, most important, holes in the timber. Your goal in these online scouting sessions is to find openings in the flooded timber where ducks are…

Find a Flooded-Timber Hotspot

Sure, everybody and their cousin knows about the local WMA—it’s crowded with hunters and light on game. But how about the Walk-in-Access area just a few miles down the road, or the university land in the next town over? Some of the best hunting opportunities take a little extra research to uncover, so we’ve compiled data that offers a glimpse into how much access is really out there. But there are also significant threats, like plans to transfer federal land to the states. Those issues deserve a look, too. Hunting on Public and Private Lands (2016) Here’s where hunters nationwide head afield. The relationship between federal land ownership (below) and private land hunting in the East and West (right) isn’t a coincidence. Federal Land Ownership, by Region (2015) The 11 Western states are Arizona,…

This Land Is Loaded

HUNTING IN WILD-LIFE REFUGES USFWS is opening 380,000 acres across 40 National Wildlife Refuges to new hunting opportunity, including: • Des Lacs National Wildlife Refuge North Dakota • Sequoyah National Wildlife Refuge Oklahoma • Baskett Slough National Wildlife Refuge Oregon SLEEPER SPOTS Here are just five types of underrated hunting grounds 1. Aquatic Management Areas Minnesota, for example, has 198 that cover about 6,000 acres. 2. University Lands Clemson University (17,500 acres), Cornell University (5,300 acres), Purdue University (1,600 acres), and a handful of other schools allow hunting on their property. 3. Indian Reservations Rosebud in South Dakota, Crow in Montana, and Winnebago in Nebraska offer great bird-hunting opportunities to nonmembers. Buy licenses through tribal fish and game departments. 4. Army Corps of Engineers Lands In Texas alone, 188,000 acres of land is open for hunting around 23 reservoir lakes and their floodplains. About…

This Land Is Loaded

Leaves are already falling when I arrive in Minnesota, but the popple forest still smells alive. There’s only a whiff of decay, and the forest floor is quiet underfoot. It’s easy to see why grouse thrive here: For every ruff bagged over the next few days, we will flush five more, heard but unseen—or just plain missed—in the dense undergrowth. My buddy Andrew Howard drove 14 hours from Missouri for this hunt. He makes this trip nearly every year. We pull up to a gate in the Beltrami Island State Forest and unload, dogs and all. Annie, a ladylike Llewellin setter, rests her chin on Andrew’s shoulder as he buckles her vest. Meanwhile, Boscoe races around the truck. He’s a low-slung English cocker spaniel named for the cheesy breadsticks sold hot…

A Bighorn in Broken Country

Justin was gone. A moment ago he’d been right behind his dad, sidehilling the ridge to get in position above the bachelor herd. But sometime in the last five minutes the teenager had slipped away into the scrub. Ted Sheedy thought of their emergency radios, switched off for the stalk. Baffled, he backtracked to see where the hell his son had got to.¶ He found trampled sagebrush where Justin had settled prone behind his rifle, but no Justin. Meanwhile, the rams were feeding out of sight into a side draw. The only thing to do was wait. ¶ It was still shooting light when the sheep came pouring back out of the draw. Ted hadn’t heard a shot, but here they were, running right past, eight or nine dust-colored rams,…

A Bighorn in Broken Country

THE LOST ART OF SHOOTING RUNNING GAME

WE GATHERED AROUND a square of turf in the dark with a cold firepit in the center and small open-faced huts on two sides, their openings facing the middle. The other side of the square was a patch of dirt. This was where the trucks and vans that had ferried us to this spot in the Polish countryside were parked. The large field surrounding us had trees along its edge that showed ink-black against the outline of the still-dark sky. The hint of dawn in the east was muted by clouds. We were a polyglot band of hunters. English was the language most of us had in common, though it was delivered in thick accents that originated in Italy, France, Poland, Norway, Germany, Ireland, New York, and Texas. As far as I could…

THE LOST ART OF SHOOTING RUNNING GAME

RUNNING-GAME RIGS

Most lightweight mountain rifles feel whippy and have stiff actions that make them awkward to run from the shoulder, but not this Weatherby. This compact Mark V action has 6-lugs and a short (54 degree) bolt throw that cycles in a flash, and the rifle’s inate good balance keeps it tracking smoothly on moving targets. Chambered in 6.5 Creedmoor, it has plenty of power to bring down large animals, but you won’t be fighting excessive recoil to reaquire the sight picture. The Leupold VX-6HD 1–6x24 has everything you need for shots on game up close, on the run, or standing at a distance. (weatherby.com) The Blaser R8 is the go-to rifle for European driven-game hunts. The straight-pull action is wicked fast to operate, and should the situation call for it, you…

RUNNING-GAME RIGS

▪ You’d almost forgotten last deer season, hadn’t you? Then a few weeks ago, your buddy got his shoulder mount back from the taxidermist and was texting you trail camera photos of all the good bucks under his stands. Looks like he’s in for another awesome year. But all of his bragging reopened the old wounds from last November. Now you have flashbacks of bucks snorting in the distance and dreams of arrows stuck in trees. Those haunting words from your cousin—“I don’t see no blood”—are stuck in your head like the lyrics to a bad pop country tune. Spend more than a weekend in the deer woods and you’re bound to screw up a few opportunities. You can make excuses and then repeat the mistakes this year. Or you can learn…

As I slide Pastor Bob Ford a fresh PBR, I notice that his hands look like he’d just wrestled a meat g rinder. The day before, Ford had shredded his hands on cactus and barbwire while chasing mountain cottontails. “I hope they heal by Sunday,” Ford says. “My parishioners don’t like taking communion from bloody hands.” Methodist pastor Bob Ford, nicknamed the Beagle Bard for his fondness for writing about the hounds, is from State College, Pennsylvania. He’s hard to miss even among the grizzled journalists at the writer’s event where I met him in Montana. With a stature reminiscent of his days as a tight-end playing college football and a beard suggestive of ZZ Top, Ford’s passion is rabbit hunting. I’d first heard of mountain cottontails only a few days earlier.…

THE LONGEST WALK

MIXING PAIN AND PLEASURE is the recipe behind so many of our most satisfying pastimes. Countless activities are built around a period of suffering followed by a payoff of smug satisfaction that you made it through the self-imposed ordeal: running a marathon, a morning at the gym, temporarily abstaining from coffee, booze, or whatever your vice. But packing a big-game animal out of the woods or mountains stands alone. You’ve already worked and struggled and been rewarded with the terrific payoff of a successful hunt. And then, well before that glow can fade, the real suffering begins. First, let’s be clear about what constitutes a pack out. It’s not dragging the critter 100 yards or so to a spot you can get to with the truck or ATV. If you can do…

THE LONGEST WALK

THE FINAL SEASON

Outside in the dark, the wind whistles around the cabins of Charlie Lake Camp, insolently flapping a piece of loose tin on the cookhouse roof. To me, it is the doleful pulse of desolation. But to Peter Wellman, the host of this huddle of metal-sided cabins plopped down on the northern Quebec tundra, the wind carries notes of promise and redemption. “Sometimes the wind gets ’em moving, trailing down from the north,” Wellman pronounces to no one in particular but to every one of us eight caribou hunters sitting around wooden tables in the lantern-lit kitchen. We are drinking—beer for some, whiskey for others—and grumbling about the absence of animals over the course of the last four days. The camp has seen only a single caribou so far, and I’d killed…

THE FINAL SEASON

WHAT HAPPENED TO QUEBEC'S CARIBOU?

CARIBOU ARE AMONG NORTH America’s most cyclical biggame species. Using tree-scar evidence, researchers say that populations of Quebec caribou have yo-yoed widely over the last 200 years, responding to weather and predator numbers. That caribou are fickle creatures is about all that stakeholders can agree on. The engines of population dynamics? Depends on who you ask. And I asked a dozen people, including ministers with Quebec’s Ministry of Forestry, Wildlife, and Parks, who declined to comment. In general, government officials attribute the decline to a bit of everything, including hunting, changes in vegetation, and climate change, which has likely limited the habitat on the tip of the Ungava Peninsula where caribou go to calve. Traditionally, this area has been devoid of blackflies and wolves during calving season. But changes in climate patterns…

WHAT HAPPENED TO QUEBEC'S CARIBOU?

fishing@outdoorlife.com Fish are busy in fall. They’ve got things to do, baitfish to eat, and more comfortable living quarters to find before winter. It’s a time of year when everything is on the move; ’tis the season of migration. That journey might be local, simply transplanting fish from one part of the lake to another. Or it might push fish along hundreds of miles of coastline, ending a fierce bite in one state and kicking it off in another. But the odometer reading for any journey is irrelevant. What matters to anglers is that at some point in autumn, Mother Nature will flip the switch, and those crappies, trout, redfish, or pike will no longer be found at whichever summer haunt had been treating you so well. This shift can make…

A COW STRIPED bass is like an aging heavyweight fighter. It lacks the speed and showboating of bluefish or false albacore, so it relies on experience and raw power to drop surf fishermen to their knees. In addition to the haymakers delivered by the striper’s savage head shakes, a bass will lean on its rocky, current-swept environment to stack the deck even further. To KO a giant striped bass, every aspect of your tackle has to be as tough as your quarry, including your lures. While few lures are truly big-bass-proof right out of the package, clever surf casters have found ways to modify top producers to handle a heavy bass. Here are three easy tweaks to proven cow catchers, born from the ingenuity of anglers who spent a lot…

THE BRONZE ATLAS

PAUL MUELLER MAY have caught the biggest fivebass limit in Bassmaster Classic history in 2014—more than 32 pounds of Alabama largemouths—but smallmouths are his obsession, and this Connecticut pro has chased brown bass throughout the country. Many anglers have a love-hate relationship with smallmouths, he says, because they roam relentlessly on many bodies of water, so if you locate the mother lode one day, they can be gone the next. This frustrating habit becomes even more exaggerated in fall, when dropping water temperatures keep forage like alewives, perch, and smelt on the move. Mueller says that no matter where you live, the commonality is that smallmouths are voracious at this time of year, and that where the bait goes, so go the bronzebacks. Finding them is tricky, but what he’s…

THE BRONZE ATLAS

FOR SOME PEOPLE, leaves falling from trees are nothing more than a signal that it’s time to watch football. For the hardcore walleye angler, this has a lot more significance. As the temperature drops, walleyes get on the move. While migration times and patterns can differ by region and even lake to lake, you can rest assured that they’re headed to one of three primary locations: reefs, river mouths, or basins and bays. The common denominator in these areas is food, and because walleyes never stray far from the grocery store, if you find the bait in fall, you’ll find action. Of course, pinpointing the exact location of the walleyes on your home water can take some searching. On large bodies of water like the Great Lakes, these migrations can…

NAMES THAT STICK

“Little Mary” is neither little nor Mary. He’s Doug, the son of a construction company owner. Doug was helping on job sites when the movie The Culpepper Cattle Company came out. The movie had a character assigned as the cattle-drive cook’s helper, whom the cowboys called Little Mary. Doug was smaller then, and the youngest on the crew, so the guys tagged him with the nickname. Even now, decades later, he’s Little Mary, or just Mary. Strangers within earshot probably wonder why a full-grown man is called Mary. Nicknames can come on like that. They happen in an instant but sometimes stick forever. Your nickname can define you, but it can’t be forced, and those that truly last must occur spontaneously. Picking your own nickname won’t work. You can call yourself whatever…

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