Indholdsfortegnelse for June/July 2023 i Petersen's Hunting

OVER THE COURSE of the last 50 years, Petersen's HUNTING has printed thousands of articles, galleries of photos and tons of tips and hints on how to get the most enjoyment from the outdoors.We've given a voice to the most talented writers in hunting and told adventurous tales from around the globe. The many editors, art directors, photographers and supporting staff have worked late hours to get all the pieces put together into a magazine and sent to the printer. All so you could enjoy our humble efforts to bring you the best damn hunting magazine in the world. But, we couldn't have done it alone. While we have the skills to deliver on that promise, we still need partners to help support our mission. Lucky for us, we have…

In the 50 years of Petersen’s HUNTING, ten people have led the ship as editor. The first three, Ken Elliott, Gary Sitton and Basil Bradbury, are gone. I won’t speak for them, but I’m pretty sure the rest of us would describe it as the best job we ever had. An average tenure of just five years—some of us more, some less—doesn’t seem long for a dream job, does it? Today, people tend to change jobs more frequently than in my generation. Editor of this magazine is not a job easily upgraded, but there are other factors. Petersen Publishing was founded in Los Angeles, and all the magazines remained headquartered there through the end of the century. Much of that time was pre-Internet, pre-cell phone. Our two most recent editors,…

DAWN BLOODIED the east when Welford, sore but ready to go, joined me in biltong, saltines, and tea while checking over our rifles. We decided to stick with the doubles today because of their combination of stopping power in a charge and their greater range over the shotguns. It was cold as a crypt in the early light, dressed as we were for stalking: shorts with no underwear to chafe when it got hotter and sweatier, sockless sneakers so sharp grass seeds would not stick, and sleeveless bush jackets to avoid as much as possible the scrape of cloth and foliage. Silent and Karinga were shivering in their thin shirts at the place we picked up the blood trail where I had hit the big lioness the night before. We…

The lever-action rifle is an enduring symbol of American history and Winchester has always led that pack. For this, the 50th anniversary of HUNTING magazine, we wanted to highlight another important monument in firearms history. This year also marks the 150th Anniversary of the Winchester Model 1873—the gun that “won the West.” This groundbreaking lever-action rifle traded the brass alloy receiver for one made of iron, adding significant strength and effectively creating the modern centerfire rifle era. The '73 was accurate, reliable and could be fired faster than nearly any shoulder-fired rifle of its era. It’s hard to picture a lever gun as state-of-the-art, but in its day that’s exactly what the Model 1873 was. Its success was instant and enduring. Over 720,000 Model 1873s were reportedly produced over the…

White-tailed deer have been the backbone of our hunting culture for more than the last 50 years. I shot my first whitetail, a yearling doe, almost 30 years ago. It was easier to find a place to hunt back then, but I can’t wax poetic on much else. There weren’t as many deer as there are now, hunters weren’t as educated and they definitely didn’t kill as many mature bucks. The mark of a good buck was simply one “wide as his ears with 8 points or better.” Nobody cared how old they were. Things have sure changed. The North American whitetail population is estimated to be 30 million strong, and in some regions, like the Southeast, most bucks shot by hunters today are at least 3 ½ years old.…

ONE AFTERNOON in the late fall many years ago, another sheep hunter and I, along with our outfitter, a guide, our cook, and our horse wrangler, were pushing our little pack outfit down a snowy trail along the side of a big canyon in the Canadian Rockies. That day we had fought our way through deep windblown drifts over the last high pass that separated us from lower country, from a good trail, and eventually the railroad. All of us had been walking and leading our horses since morning, fighting cold and snow and fatigue. We were all desperately weary and light headed from hunger. But we were over the hump now, through the drifts. Below us we could see the heavy dark spruce of a river valley, the winding…

THE VULTURES were gliding in low, lazy circles; some had their feet dangling down, like miniature hang-glider pilots. They were settling on the bare branches of acacia trees near the dead buffalo. Some were on the ground, close enough to the buffalo to warrant the lion's attention if he was still nearby. Moving only my eyes, I peered through scant cover, trying to determine whether the vultures were being shy because of us or the lion. One bold bird broke from the group on the ground, hobbling forward like a hunchback on crutches. Slowly it moved toward the carcass, stopping and looking nervously in all directions. Several more followed in newfound bravery as the first one locked onto a bit of meat and began tugging at the dead animal. It…

THE SHORT, bearded man in fringed buckskins eased into the split-log seat of the shooting bench, nestled into the buttstock of the muzzleloader and squinted down the barrel. "You want me t'catch you?" I offered. "Uhh, naaww," he shrugged into a slightly different position. "Jest let me fall." The muzzle blast was shattering when he touched off the 33-pound, three-gauge musket, sending a six-ounce lead ball thundering into the butt of a log down on the beach. Recoil rocked Bill back and lifted the barrel well clear of the bench. When the smoke cleared, he peered at the target and asked, "You wanna shoot it?" "I don't think so," I said. "You wanna shoot it again?" "Nope." It's been my good fortune to poke around much of this country and…

You never get a second chance to make a first impression, so a lot of thought and creativity goes into selecting the cover of each issue of Petersen's HUNTING. Back in 1973, there was a lot riding on that very first issue. With no subscribers yet, that magazine had to sell well on America's newsstands to be considered successful. That meant capturing the attention of readers with bold graphics and creative cover blurbs, including my personal all-time favorite: "I Organized the Anti-Hunting Freaks!" Front-cover strategies have evolved over time, but the mission is still the same—get would-be readers to pick up a copy. It's a dark art, and we're often su-prised by what works and what doesn't. Our favorite covers don't always resonate with readers, and some we're unsure about…

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” The words of Charles Dickens, written about the French Revolution, are uncomfortably apropos to current affairs in the West. Why? Hunting the West’s wide-open country now is a far cry from what it was just 50 years ago, let alone a century ago. Gear is better; access is harder. There are more hunters and fewer tags. Smart tech helps us scout remotely and shoot far. Concurrently, social media shapes trends and, at its worst, threatens our traditions. When examining how a primal outdoor sport has changed, it’s necessary to try and achieve a 30-thousand-foot perspective, which can be a challenge. Particularly if much of that change has had a personal effect. I’ve lived in the Rockies and hunted…

FOR MILLENNIA, hunting evolved at a snail’s pace, moving from rocks to spears to bows and guns. But since the turn of the 20th century, the rate at which technology develops is, quite literally, at warp speed. While we don’t shoot lasers just yet, hunters do use them to range a target down to the yard (or less), and that same handheld device also tells us exactly how far our arrow or bullet will drop and shows us exactly where to hold our reticle. Everything, from the firearms we carry to the clothing on our backs, is constantly evolving, often thanks to actual space-age materials. We may have some small idea of what the future holds, but if the last 50 years are any indication, our traditional pastime of going…

I KNOW HOW it feels to be the target of automatic weapons fire in infantry combat. I have seen the eyes of a drunken man, armed with a machete, bent on taking my life. I've looked a wounded Cape buffalo bull in the teeth at just 15 yards. I've endured the stunning silence after a light airplane's one engine quit without warning. I once had the reserve air valve of a scuba tank jam and leave me literally breathless 85 feet below the surface of the Caribbean. Altogether, I can recall a lot of times when the seconds seemed to drag by like a convict's weeks but the longest ten minutes I've ever lived through were in a blind in an African dusk, listening to a leopard feeding just 45…

THIS STORY was a long time coming, 10 years altogether. It has a happy ending, but it is about as tough to tell as Coues deer are to hunt. And the difficulty of the hunting is not the only trouble met along the way. About the time I thought the tale was finished, it started all over again; sometimes I'm not entirely sure it belongs to me. Any story about Coues deer—the tough little whitetails of Arizona, New Mexico and Sonora—calls up the shade of Jack O'Connor. He more or less bought the franchise on the animal in the 1930s and 1940s. And a gun writer who lives in southern Arizona runs into his memory on a regular basis anyway. A lot of the old hunters in this part of…

IN 1972, Jack O’Connor retired from his job as shooting editor for Outdoor Life magazine. I was crestfallen, as were countless other readers. O’Connor, considered the Dean of American Shooting Writers, had a huge following. I was among them. Not long after, in 1973, I saw a new magazine on the stands. It was called Petersen’s HUNTING, and the cover announced that Jack would be the editor, with a story featured in every issue. To say I was overjoyed would be a huge understatement. Very quickly, Petersen’s HUNTING became a heavyweight among outdoor magazines. Top-notch writers filled the pages with superb articles. Craig Boddington was a favorite. He’s a master hunter, winner of the legendary Weatherby Award and many other accolades. I’ve had the opportunity to hunt with Craig several…