Indholdsfortegnelse for Spring 2020 i Outdoor Life

TOM LOY OF TALLGRASS GORDON SETTERS sits by the whelping box, where a litter of 3-day-old setter puppies navigate their tiny universe from behind closed eyes. One by one, Loy lifts the puppies from the box and runs them through a series of brief exercises. When he is finished, the puppies go back into the box and crawl close to their mother. Those lessons continue for the next 13 days, and while the exercises have nothing to do with bird hunting— at least, not directly—they effectively teach Loy’s setter puppies how to manage stress. Years later, this early training results in dogs that are less timid, more social, and better equipped to handle the stressful situations that any working dog encounters in the field. SUPER PUPPIES The program Loy uses…

WHEN A GOOD FRIEND of mine drew a once-in-a-generation Oregon elk tag, he wanted to hunt with the rifle his father gave him when he was in his early teens. The only problem, which is quite common with rifles that were built 20-something years back, is that the old.270 didn’t shoot worth a damn. By my friend’s own admission, the rifle had never been very accurate. Although it performed fine for midrange deer hunting, its ability to handle the longer shots his upcoming hunt might require was in doubt. His rifle is a Remington Model 700 BDL Mountain Rifle in.270 Winchester with a pencil-thin barrel, a low-density walnut stock, and rotary dovetail scope mounts. Basically, it’s a common big-game rig from the era before synthetic stocks and heavy target barrels.…

The fact that I was even on this trip at all was pure luck. I stumbled into the invite—a float-hunt for caribou through a remote corner of Alaska’s Brooks Range—because another hunter had dropped out. Hard hiking, rafting down fast-flowing rivers, and enduring cold, wet weather would all be part of the deal. I felt like I had been preparing for this trip my entire life. I was born in Broad Ripple, Indiana, a neighborhood in northern Indianapolis that sits on the banks of the White River. I was drawn to the water as a kid. My dad would ferry us out into the river in our rowboat, and we’d fish and explore the ever-changing sand islands of our backyard. Even then, I understood the river could deliver adventure, and…

Seven years ago, Aaron Warbritton borrowed his landlord’s fiberglass canoe to access a piece of hunting ground in Iowa. Along with a hunting buddy, he paddled a mile upstream to a prime riverbottom, and then paddled a mile back with a dead whitetail buck in his boat. These days Warbritton, a host of the popular YouTube series and podcast The Hunting Public, travels state to state, chasing bucks on public land, and taking viewers and listeners along for the ride. Warbritton and the other Hunting Public guys usually go in cold, speed-scout when they get there, then jump into a hunt. They use a variety of tools to fit their run-and-gun style—ghillie suits, tree saddles, and especially canoes and kayaks. Launch a Surprise Attack “You’re usually extremely quiet when approaching…

PHIL GONZALEZ LUCKED INTO HIS FIRST FISHING ROD. HE GREW UP NEAR A BIG BEND IN THE YELLOWSTONE RIVER IN HUNTLEY, MONTANA, ABOUT 15 MILES EAST OF BILLINGS. TO KEEP THE RIVER FROM WASHING OVER ITS BANKS AND FLOODING THE TOWN, WORKERS FOR THE RURAL ELECTRIFICATION ADMINISTRATION WOULD USE THEIR BOOM TRUCKS TO STACK OLD CARS, PULL-BEHIND COMBINES, TRACTORS, AND OTHER DEFUNCT FARM EQUIPMENT AS RIPRAP ALONG THE BEND. Gonzalez was 9 years old, and the stockpiled machinery was his playground. One day, the workers dropped off a vintage Buick sedan with portholes along the front fenders. He loved to ransack the discarded cars and trucks, looking for treasure before they went into the river. The trunk on the Buick was locked, and Gonzalez wasn’t able to get into it…

gear@outdoorlife.com Honesty is the best policy. When I ask someone what they think about a rod or reel, I want the good and the bad. A true answer comes with time. In a perfect world, you’d fish a piece of gear for an entire season before judging it, but sometimes you don’t have the luxury. That’s why when we test tackle, we strategically design a crash course that does the best possible job of telling us how every rod and reel will hold up in the long run, and how it will perform when it’s fished hard and rough, because that’s how we use our gear all season long. This year, we’ve expanded our test categories beyond bass tackle to include light trout and panfish spinning tackle, as well as…

The only thing protecting my secret turkey-hunting spot is a few hundred yards of marsh and one ferocious little creek. On one side of the creek is a parking area and the edge of a subdivision—I’ve learned to keep my headlamp off for the first 200 yards so the dog at the corner house doesn’t start barking. On the other side of the creek sits a horde of eager toms, waiting for daybreak to gobble their heads off and run amok along a wide oak ridge. On the first day of the season, the marsh will still be half-frozen. Sometimes there are even a few inches of crusty snow on the ground. But the spring runoff makes the creek rise too high to cross, even in waders. The only way…

EAU CLAIRE COUNTY, WI WRITE US! IF WE USE YOUR STORY, YOU’LL GET THIS BOOK! “This Happened to Me” has been a fixture of OL since 1940. We’ve compiled our readers’ most hair-raising misadventures in a single volume. You can pore over the 183 pages of this action-packed book knowing you’re in good company. Copies are also available for purchase at outdoorlife.com/THTMBook. » We publish true adventures. Send yours to THTM@OutdoorLife.com. Only those used will be acknowledged.…

BASED ON MY first few attempts, I assumed that suffering was essential to catching steelhead on Great Lakes tributaries. Those early trips, made between December and March, left me with numb extremities, ice-clogged guides, and few, if any, fish. That’s why, during the first week of May a few years back, I almost felt guilty wearing short sleeves while fighting my umpteenth steelhead. A few months prior, during a frustrating midwinter trip to the Salmon River in New York, the clerk at Whitaker’s Sport Store took pity on me and said, “If you really want to catch them good, come back in the spring for the dropbacks.” He was referring to the post-spawn steelhead in the process of returning—or dropping back—to Lake Ontario. After a winter of limited feeding opportunities,…

RIVERS NEVER STOP. For the poor guy who drops a rod into one, this is bad news because if the flows are up, nothing falls straight down. Currents can carry lost items for miles, and subsequently, it takes only one flood or a week of high water to move a treasure that’s been at rest for years—or centuries—to a new location. Sometimes, if we’re lucky, we’re the one who finds it, and sometimes what a river gives you is more special than an old lure or a vintage Coke bottle. I reached out to a bunch of fishing buddies to find out the most interesting artifacts a river has ever given them. Here are the three coolest answers, plus two of my most memorable finds. 1.SMITH & WESSON REVOLVER As…

YOU COULD START A FIGHT in most taverns by naming the nation’s single-best deer unit. But throw out the same hyperbole about black bear destinations, and you probably won’t get much of an argument. In part, that’s because bear hunters are a reticent bunch. They’re not out to publicize or defend prime spots, largely because they don’t want other hunters knowing about them. Sure, some die-hards will claim North Carolina or even New Jersey has bigger bears, and Alaska may have more. But for sheer numbers, liberal hunting regulations, and public land to spare, I maintain that nowhere beats Idaho’s Selway Zone. Consider the real estate. The Selway has 1.6 million acres of it, nearly all public, with abundant access. You have the option to bait bears with whatever putrid…

THIS NEW RIMFIRE lever action is the perfect gun for pests. I’m thinking not only of the type that raids your vegetable garden or slithers out from under the porch, but also that more persistent, pernicious, and annoying variety—namely, the youngster who keeps begging for their first real gun. I know this species of irritant all too well, for I was that very kid, pleading with my parents to upgrade my Crossman 760 BB gun, which lacked the stopping power I required while stalking the wilds of my suburban backyard and surrounding woods. Eventually, I did purchase a Marlin Model 60 with my own money. I don’t recall when I first dropped a rimfire shotshell down the tubular magazine of that rifle, but I vividly remember the effect that swarm…

I once heard a bit of advice from an old Sourdough on how to prepare for a backcountry float-hunt here in Alaska. It went something like this: First, put on all your clothes, boots, and rain gear, and dump a little sand down your pants. Second, fill your tub with icewater and leave the showerhead running on cold. Sit down in the water and lift a 45-pound weight up and down in front of you for a few hours. Repeat every day for a week or so, and you’ll get the idea. A slight exaggeration? Maybe. But I’ve been on a few grueling river hunts myself, and the old man was on to something. Alaska has some truly incredible opportunities for the aspiring river hunter, but these trips are also…

Willow Creek is nowhere. It’s one of countless unremarkable prairie streams too small and intermittent to float a boat but too deep and changeable to cross easily. Even during dry seasons, getting across it requires finding a place where the sheer banks have sloughed away between pools of stagnant, fish-stranding water. Mule deer and cows cross here, and so do I, when I want to hunt the grassy coulees and crumbling badlands on the other side. Willow Creek is everywhere. In Montana alone, dozens of Willow Creeks drain mountains and scour prairies. Most got their name because Beaver Creek was already taken, and also from the narrow-leafed shrub that holds their banks in thickets and tangles. Old-timers call it “coyote willow,” maybe because wherever it grows, its banks are tacky…

WEARING I’ve been packing an EverTherm jacket from Eddie Bauer because it’s perfect for late-winter and early-spring days, when temps could fall into the low 30s or jump to the 60s. The jacket compresses to the size of a softball, and the down inside is bonded together instead of sewn into baffles to cut bulk. When it’s warm, I hardly notice it’s in my pack, but if the temp drops, I’m happy it’s there. —Matthew Every, associate online editor USING Some say the latest innovations in fishing electronics are too good. Not me. I fish a wide, slow-moving river near home, and those fish could be anywhere. I want to see the structure on the banks and in the river channel. The Ray marine Element 7HV (from $550) lets me…

fishing@outdoorlife.com It had a lot to do with the water being milky. I was certain of that. I wouldn’t have called it dirty, but I’m also certain there was just enough stain from recent rains to make this fish feel comfortable in the open instead of being tucked in some impenetrable root snarl or the deep recesses of an undercut bank. In two years of fishing this small, overlooked stream in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania, the biggest perk was not seeing another angler. The trout were just plentiful enough to keep it interesting, but a 12-incher was an extreme score. Imagine, then, the surprise of 19-year-old me when I scooped a 21-inch brown with my Hare’s Ear neatly in the corner of its jaw out of that murky pool.…

BOWFINS ARE CONTROVERSIAL. The very mention of these “trash fish” on social media can incite warfare in the comments. They have been here since the Jurassic Period, but I first found them 20 years ago along the tailwaters of Lake Columbia in Arkansas. I was 12 years old, fishing the muddy banks of a spillway. Battling with a bowfin was so violent compared to the bream and bass I was used to—I became obsessed. Everything I learned in those early days came from having boots on the ground. Information about catching bowfins was scarce, and it’s still scarce today. Much of what I figured out while chasing these underdogs across seven states came from my ability to read water. Bowfins thrive in river and tidal systems, but ironically, they don’t…

SOME TURKEYS ARE JUST TOUGHER to kill, and for those stubborn (read: Eastern) toms, the right gear does make a difference. It can be frustrating and downright draining to pursue an old longbeard that knows the game too well. So, here’s the good stuff that just might give you an edge on those ground-draggers this season. 1. LACROSSE ALPHA AGILITY The high-performance foam in the sole of this boot gives the Alpha an athletic fit, and the cushion is one of the softest I’ve ever stepped on. Insulated versions of the boot weigh 4 pounds per pair, but the relatively light weight of the uninsulated boot is important if you cover a lot of ground for gobblers. The boot is designed to lock your heel in place, so your foot…

AS WE BEGIN A NEW DECADE, handgunners are realizing a new normal: Miniature red-dot sights are quickly becoming the primary sighting system on virtually all pistols, whether for hunting, sport shooting, concealed carry, or service. Don’t be left behind. Getting up to speed with the latest technology always comes with a learning curve, but these tips and drills will smooth your journey to red-dot mastery and improve your handgunning skills. BENEFITS A red-dot sight increases accuracy at all ranges but is especially effective beyond 10 yards. This tech also makes shooting on the move and shooting at moving targets significantly easier. The RDS is also a blessing for shooters with aging eyes who have trouble keeping the front sight sharply in focus. Beyond target shooting, the RDS-equipped pistol enhances situational…

Rivers were the original highways and backroads that allowed hunters and trappers to crisscross this country. But somewhere between horse-drawn buggies and four-wheel drive with GPS navigation, we forgot about traveling waterways to find uncharted hunting areas and unpressured game. Well, not all of us. The hunters in the following stories still embrace the idea of loading up the boat with hunting gear, and maybe a tent, and then floating, paddling, or motoring their way into game-rich territory. Sure, it takes a little extra effort and know-how to successfully hunt a river, but the payoff is huge—utilizing public waters to capitalize on the best public-land hunting. These are the stories, gear, and tactics that will get you ready for your own float-hunt adventure.…

When he gobbled, the morning was as black as the inside of a crow. He was across the river from the boat ramp where my hunting partner Jill and I had just launched. We were hunting new ground, public land surrounding a picturesque river in Missouri that I’ll never name. We had been waiting for enough light to run downstream, but this tom’s early gobble changed our plan. We let the current carry us downstream as he gobbled five more times. When we were within 150 yards, we quietly paddled to his side of the river. By now we had enough light to navigate without a flashlight, but we knew we couldn’t get much closer to him. And we didn’t need to. We set up shoulder to shoulder 50 yards…

THE NEW RIVER IS MANY THINGS—gorgeous, deserted, dangerous—but new isn’t one of them. It was named unwittingly, so the story goes, after traders labeled each landmark “new lake,” “new stream,” and so on. The description stuck. Yet at 360 million years old, it’s one of the oldest rivers on the planet. The New existed before tectonic forces shoved the Appalachians up around it and the current carved out what’s now the New River Gorge—the longest and deepest gorge in Appalachia. It’s also one of the best fishing destinations east of the Mississippi. As we load boats at the put-in, I survey our crew. My buddy Zach Simon guides whitewater here and in Colorado, and his Lab, Otter, has spent more time on the water than most humans. Nate “Archy” Archambault…