Indholdsfortegnelse for December 2017/January 2018 i Outdoor Life

BONHAM, TX / December 24 / 9:34 a.m. On Christmas Eve morning, 7-year-old Ryan Graves went on his first duck hunt. It was the first time he wore waders, the first time he put out decoys, and the first time he failed to call in birds. Photographer Russell Graves says his son “sounded like a monotone duck that might be tone deaf,” but that Ryan wanted to try calling like his dad and uncle. That’s also how he ended up with the whiskers—both men have beards and wear face paint, so Ryan chose to follow suit.…

I hunt wild turkeys because my eighth-grade art teacher, Jim Dover, came to school with magnetizing stories of his morning hunts. I like lever-actions because my dad’s favorite rifle was a Winchester 1894 in .25/20. I shoot a .270 because Jack O’Connor did. I’m a jumble of inconsistencies— a flyfisher who loves Mepps’ Aglia spinners, a bowhunter who won’t hesitate to reach for a rifle, and a Merle Haggard fan who blasts smash-mouth punk when nobody else is in the pickup. Each affinity traces from some person. Flyfishing? That’s from Bud Barron, who showed me how to tie Woolly Buggers and strip them for big Missouri River rainbows. Mepps’ spinners? Again, my dad. Bowhunting? Fred Bear. My love of old-school country music (and morel mushrooms) came from my surrogate grandfather,…

IT DOESN’T MATTER if you hunt, fish, or stockpile supplies like a doomsday prepper—few pieces of gear are as critical as a reliable, hands-free light. Fortunately the market is flush with choices, from straightforward units to feature- packed pods. This test includes hybrid batteries, waterproof units, and prices ranging from $20 to $105. We were pleased to see mostly accurate battery runtime claims from manufacturers; some have historically overstated performance. With that in mind, we aimed to provide data from real-world tasks. And while quantitative performance is useful, personal preferences and needs play a large role, too. Anglers will appreciate waterproof models; hunters require red LEDs for pre-dawn slogs to the stand and bright beams for blood tracking. Read our take on the best and brightest here, and then go…

Migrating geese don’t read plat maps. They go where they find easy food, which is usually on private land. Because honkers can change their preferences based on wind direction and temperature, it’s hard for hunters to predict which field the geese will use from day to day. The best tool in these moments is a detailed satellite map from OnX Maps (onxmaps.com), which you can pull up on your phone and provides the names of landowners. Find the geese, then find the name of the farmer who owns the field they’re using, make a call, and ask permission to hunt. The map certainly doesn’t guarantee access, but I’ve gotten permission from a number of landowners who didn’t mind if I hunted, as long as I didn’t drive in their fields.…

√ PLAN AHEAD/PACK AHEAD. Make as many decisions as you can before you venture afield. Know where you are going, where you will meet your partner, even what you will have for breakfast. Have gear packed and at the door before you go to bed. √ KEEP IT SIMPLE. Don’t get bogged down in gadgets. Know your gear and don’t tinker with it. Yeah, that scope has a turret, but that doesn’t mean you have to constantly fiddle with it. √ EAT WELL. Staying fed and hydrated keeps your muscles and mind firing on all cylinders. Healthy snacks keep your mental energy strong. Sugar binges lead to intellectual (and physical) crashing and burning. √ KNOW YOUR FIREARM AND BOW. Practice shooting until your body takes over with muscle memory. This…

R oughly half the people who know about Doyle Moss want to stop him. The other half? They want to be him. Moss is possibly the most highprofile hunting guide in the West. He guided Denny Austad, who killed the world-record elk, Utah’s “Spider Bull,” in 2008. He guided Sue Ann Kinney to a 441-inch Nevada bull, the largest elk ever killed in that state. Moss, founder and owner of MossBack Outfitting and Production Company in Utah, is the guy who’s just over the shoulder of the high-networthers posing with animals killed on governor’s tags or high-dollar auction tags. And he’s an unapologetic trophy hunter. “You get the taste for killing giant animals.... These are smarter, wiser animals that have eluded everybody else. Killing them definitely is a motivation for…

Unless you’re an animalrights activist, the name Walter Palmer probably doesn’t ring a bell. The name Cecil the Lion, on the other hand, probably sounds like a foghorn. In July 2015, Palmer, a dentist from Minnesota, hunted and killed a lion in Zimbabwe for a trophy fee of about $50,000. Erroneous reporting— that Palmer and his professional hunting guide illegally lured the GPS-collared lion out of Hwange National Park—sparked a brutal social media backlash that continues to shape trophy-hunting regulations and perceptions. Although Palmer ultimately suffered no known legal consequences for the hunt, the fallout resulted in vilification that ranged from vandalism of his dentistry practice to PETA calling for him to be extradited and hanged. Meanwhile, hunting of lions, leopards, and elephants, along with all bowhunting, was temporarily suspended…

Dude Perfect is a group of five “bros” who made a basketball trick-shot video that went viral. Now they have the largest social media audience in the sports world. Think of Dude Perfect as a mashup of Annie Oakley and the Harlem Globetrotters. The buddies from Texas, who met in college, have amassed 23 million YouTube subscribers and 18 million Facebook fans. Since that first viral YouTube video, they’ve been making highly produced trick-shot videos that include everything from the world’s longest archery shot to throwing a football through a basketball hoop from the top of the 32-story Bass Pro pyramid in Memphis. The majority of Dude Perfect content revolves around mainstream sports like basketball, football, and golf. But over the past few years, they’ve created at least a dozen…

To the anti-gun crowd, he is the devil incarnate. To the Second Amendment faithful, he is a staunch and unyielding advocate for gun rights. And to the majority of Americans—at least those who tune in to cable TV news—he is the longtime face of the NRA, where he has served as executive vice president since 1991. But Wayne LaPierre is much more than a talking head. Working closely over the decades with the NRA’s advertising and public relations firm Ackerman McQueen, LaPierre has been a key figure in shaping the landscape of the gun debate. The hard-nosed, street-brawler mentality employed by LaPierre has been part of a methodical strategy to keep the NRA’s supporters motivated, especially during Democratic presidential administrations, in order to prevent anti-gun legislation from gaining traction. This…

The average high temperature in Minneapolis, Minn., in December is 23.7 degrees. Yes, that’s the high. Average lows are around 7.5. To most anglers in the U.S., this sounds like a special form of hell. This is when you wrap your hands around a hot toddy and organize tackle, biding time in a warm garage until more habitable temperatures arrive. Ask Ross Grothe, though, and the 49-year-old Minnesota resident and 26-year National Walleye Tour pro will tell you to put on your big-boy pants if you want to experience some of the best walleye fishing of the year. “At first ice in early winter, fish will be feeding aggressively, getting ready for the really cold stuff,” Grothe says. “And when the really cold weather hits, you can find such incredible…

ZEN-CREDULOUS Your article discussing the technique of tenkara fishing (“The Tie That Binds,” Fishing, October 2017) had me spitting out my sandwich. I had no idea there was a name for this type of fishing until I looked up the websites listed at the end of the article, and I can’t believe you would print a story on it. I know fishermen will bite at anything thrown to them, but this whole article is about taking a straight pole, attaching a string and a fly to it, and throwing it into the water. If this is a spiritual or Zen experience, then thousands of little boys over the past few hundred years have become enlightened masters. To say that a person needs to spend $230 to get started is fleecing…

DISPATCHES FROM THE FIELD FOLLOW US ON INSTAGRAM We know, we know—you read print magazines for a reason, and social media is for millennials. But take a peek at our Instagram feed anyway. Our posts have everything you love about the print issue, including compelling images and stories. You can follow along with our editors during deer season, go behind the scenes of print features, or see exactly how we do our gear tests. If you tune in to our Instagram Stories, you’ll be able to watch our real-time feed of hunting season, and preview the newest gear and guns at industry trade shows before anyone else. Follow us at @outdoor_life, or see what the fuss is all about at instagram.com/outdoor_life PANICKING AND PROCRASTINATING? THE ULTIMATE OUTDOOR GIFT GUIDE Don’t…

YOU DON’T CHARGE your phone with alkaline batteries, so why should you use them in your headlamp? It’s a fair question. Lithium-ion batteries last longer, and will theoretically save you money over time since you can recharge instead of replace them (although lithium battery life shortens with repeated charge cycles). Fortunately, you don’t have to commit to rechargable batteries when you buy a headlamp. The Browning, Coast, and Petzl lamps operate with USB-compatible lithiumion batteries and alkaline batteries. That way you can choose to recharge when you’re near civilization, and throw spare, cheaper alkaline batteries in your pack for sustained off-the-grid adventures. IF YOU’RE LOOKING for extended reviews, more data charts, and answers to questions like, “What’s the difference between lux and lumens?” you can find them at outdoorlife.com/headlamps…

Recognizing the growing popularity of long-range shooting and tactical matches, ammo makers have stepped up their game with various loads designed to center-punch targets at way-out-there distances. Here are three new offerings to check out. FEDERAL GOLD METAL BERGER THIS .308 WIN. FIRES a 185- grain Berger Juggernaut at 2,600 fps. This bullet has a published G1 B.C. of .555 and a G7 value of .284. The Juggernaut really shines when shot at distances where the bullet is approaching transonic speeds. So if you want to push the .308 Win. to the limit, this is a good choice. ($27; midwayusa.com) NOSLER 6.5 CREEDMOOR RDF THESE SLEEK BULLETS were designed with longer boattails and very consistent meplats—which is a fancy word for the open tip on the nose of the bullet—to…

If you don’t want to invest in specialized swan decoys, you can oft en get tundra swans to take a look at the next best thing: inflated white garbage bags that are anchored with enough weight to keep them in place but allows them to bob on the water. These DIY decoys rarely get swans to come all the way in to the spread, but they oft en attract the attention of a passing flock, getting them to circle for a second look and bringing them nearer to the deck for a closer pass shot. You don’t need many bags. A half dozen scattered on the outside edge of a dozen mallard decoys is a reliable ruse for unpressured swans. Dabbling ducks are typically found with swans, because as the…

KENETREK MOUNTAIN EXTREME 400 My go-to boots from late October through February, these are lightweight, plenty rigid, offer great ankle support, and include 400 grams of Thinsulate. They’re warm enough to wear when waiting on a Thanksgiving whitetail, yet light enough to be comfortable above the timberline when tracking a muley buck. ($475; kenetrek.com) We hunters have skewed priorities. We spend countless hours and disposable income fretting over our rifles. We measure in grains and micrometers to get MOA groups or a few hundred more feet per second. Yet for every hunt ruined by a poor choice regarding firearms or ammunition, hundreds more are ruined because a hunter made a bad choice of footwear. I enjoy toying with my rifle and loads, but I have a single gun for everything…

outdoor life DECEMBER/JANUARY 2O18 EVERYONE HAS A LESSON to learn, but also to teach— and some are better than others at making curriculum stick. That’s the idea behind this roster of “teachers,” who are shaping how we think about our world. Their subjects are wide-ranging, and include the tackle we fish, the ammo we shoot, and how and where we hunt. There are also a few bigger takeaways beyond these visible (and fleeting) trends of style and consumption. One is that the mechanism of influence has changed as our means of communication have evolved. Modern influencers are capably leveraging the audience- amplification capabilities of social media, which creates both a community and a soapbox for many of the folks profiled here. This is not a comprehensive list, since it would…

Aformer Marine Corps Scout Sniper, Frank Galli is a pioneer in the world of long-range rifle instruction. He’s the founder of Sniper’s Hide (snipershide.com), one of the leading online communities for avid riflemen from all walks of life, including top military, civilian, law enforcement, and professional competition shooters. Galli’s most notable contribution is his use of video instruction to help students who don’t have direct access to his rifle classes. In 2008, Galli was one of the first rifle instructors to adopt a videobased model of personalized instruction. He not only creates videos covering general rifle skills, he also makes videos addressing specific questions and problems that his students have. His inspiration came from an unlikely source. “Photoshop,” Galli says. “I saw these online video tutorials for hundreds of dollars…

JEREMY DERSHAM’S Ridge and River Running Outfitting (FACEBOOK.COM/RIDGE-AND-RIVER-RUNNINGOUTFITTERS-139929086059914/) is one of only five commercial operations on Pool 9 of the upper Mississippi River. Late-season waterfowl hunts can bring some of the best waterfowl flights of the season, but the cold weather also comes with unique challenges. Here are three things Dersham says are essential for all lateseason hunters. SAND: Several hundred pounds of sand (and salt) stored in the pickup bed helps provide stability on snow-covered or icy roads, but even more important, on boat ramps. Check the ramp carefully before backing down, and sand when needed. Your duck boat may stop your slide into the lake or river, but not before you jackknife. The deck of the ramp closest to the water will be the iciest. AN AX, AND…

When you’re slinging $20 deep-diving crankbaits amid the drowned timber of El Salto, the simple annoyance of a lost bait begins to take on economic consequences. Enter Lachos, one of Anglers Inn’s most experienced guides, who has jury-rigged one of the simplest, yet most brilliant, lure retrievers ever made (above). “It’s basically a big, old Master Lock,” explained Doug Saunders, who fished with Lachos for two straight days. “He then just twisted, looped, and soldered barbed wire to the lock and tied some rope to the lock. When my crankbait got hung up, he’d slide the lock down the line, pull on the rope, and the lure was free. Ingenious stuff.“ Rodriguez’s creativity, however, takes things to the next level. Forgot your bottle opener at home? The lip on your…

Twas the day before Christmas—literally. We had to break though skim ice to get out of our slip in Jamaica Bay, N.Y., but we were determined to get one more crack at stripers before pulling the boat for the season. We were less than 2 miles offshore before we saw it. For a good 30 seconds, it appeared as if it was raining anvils. It took me almost that long to comprehend what was happening—big tuna crushing bait, a few coming completely out of the water. Way under-gunned, we chased them around for two hours before one exploded on a topwater bait. It took that long again to land it— and that was one of the smaller fish. We were ecstatic. That was well over a decade ago. What was…

Great Salt Lake waterfowl guide Chad Yamane has a single, simple imperative for his clients as tundra swans commit to his decoy spread, set their wide wings, and begin their long, graceful descent. “When I give the word, I want you to shoot them in the yellow patch on their beak.” But a few times every season, some hunter shoots the tail feathers off an incoming swan, and the bird either flies away or the hunter must make a quick adjustment and extend his lead for a follow-up shot. “I can’t blame them,” Yamane says of whiffing swan hunters. “They see this 6-foot wingspan and 20-pound body coming at them, and they just aim for the chest. What they don’t realize is that the bird is much larger and flying…

For a 13-year-old girl, my daughter, Iris, has a fair amount of hunting experience. She’s killed both mule deer and whitetail deer, as well as pronghorns, near our home in Montana. So when I asked if she’d be interested in joining me on a deer hunt in Hawaii, she jumped at the chance to take her hunting skills and interest on the road. But her initial questions weren’t about the species of deer we’d be pursuing, or the type of terrain we’d be hunting. It was about Hawaii’s more typical attractions. “Can we snorkel? Can we visit the beach? Can I wear my two-piece swimsuit?” The hunting would be cool, she said. But if she missed a week of school to visit Hawaii and didn’t go swimming, there was no…

Running a goose call without understanding its inner workings is akin to playing an instrument without knowing whether you’re blowing into a trumpet or a saxophone. So we had John Taylor, call craftsman and goose-calling champion (baycountry calls.com), and Anthony Foster, product engineer at Primos Hunting (primos.com), cut their calls in half, explain the operations inside, and describe how to play each one. SHORT-REED AND LONG-REED CALLS How they work: “There are three main components to any goose call,” says Taylor. “The barrel, the insert, and the gut assembly.” The insert holds the gut assembly, which includes the tone board, a mylar reed, and the wedge. “Like a car’s engine,” he says, “a call’s gut assembly is what makes it go.” Air pushing the mylar reed against the tone board…

Ken Goddard began his career in wildlife forensics quite literally by accident. In 1968, Goddard, then a biochemistry student at the University of California, Riverside, injured himself during judo practice. En route to the hospital, his judo instructor—a San Bernardino law enforcement officer— encouraged Goddard to consider a career in the developing field of crime scene investigation. That prompted Goddard to become a CSI, and in 1979, he traveled to Washington, D.C., to lobby for the world’s first animal forensics center. Eight years later, construction on the National Fish & Wildlife Forensics Laboratory began in Ashland, Ore., and Goddard has served as lab director ever since. Until the center opened in Oregon, the tactics and methods for policing wildlife crimes were similar to those for processing human crimes, and therefore…

The most revolutionary softplastic bait in the history of bass fishing was developed almost by mistake. Gary Yamamoto was simply trying to improve an existing soft jerkbait when he designed the Senko to mimic the shape of a Bic pen. His goal was to create a bait you could quickly twitch for a reaction or feeding bite. But what he ended up with changed the face, and the catch rates, of bass fishing. “I originally wanted to make the bait like a Slug-Go,” Yamamoto admits, “but after the initial phase of testing, it turned out that the Senko was better as a finesse bait. When I saw it sink in the water, I knew it was special.” So special, in fact, that the shape has been duplicated by no fewer…

The protagonists of Horatio Alger’s stories were impoverished young men who rose from humble beginnings to lives of monetary security through hard work, determination, and honesty. Plainly, none of Alger’s characters ever made Forbes magazine’s billionaires list, let alone ranked as No. 172 on its list of the richest people in the U.S. But had he been born a century earlier, Bass Pro Shops founder Johnny Morris could have served as inspiration for the writer. Though lionized by Forbes for his entrepreneurial accomplishments, the unassuming Morris prefers to ruminate on his humble upbringing and the company’s multi-faceted conservation efforts. “My parents were both born in 1911,” he says. “My mom was one of 10 kids in a two-bedroom house with no running water, no electricity. But one thing they did…

DEER TRACKERS have long been known for packing light and taking along only essential gear. Here are three things Joe DeNitto is never caught without in the woods. TANK-TOP UNDERSHIRT: “I realize that with all the new underlayers on the market these days, this sounds weird,” says DeNitto. “But tank tops keep my arms and shoulders free, which is critically important for me. Since I’m moving all the time, I don’t get too cold either.” INSULATED FLANNEL SHIRT: “These are great, but I wear them inside out,” says DeNitto. “It helps cut down on my sweat, but still keeps me warm when needed.” BOBBED BOOT SOLES: “Air bob boot soles—various manufacturers refer to them differently— may be my most important must-have,” says DeNitto. “I’ve worn boots with different soles, but…

I was sitting at my computer writing when my friend Priscilla came into my office and set this revolver on my desk with a solid thunk. Its splotchy, worn finish showed decades of hard use. “What do you think it’s worth?” she asked. That’s always a tricky question, value being such a subjective thing. But I knew what she meant: Was the revolver extraordinary or rare, potentially a high-dollar treasure? I recognized it instantly as a Lemon Squeezer, an iconic revolver made by Smith & Wesson in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with a hammerless design and a grip safety that one needed to squeeze in order pull the trigger and fire the gun— hence the nickname. I opened the top latch, tipped the barrel forward, checked the…

R iflescopes can be divided into three basic categories, which cover virtually every hunting and shooting situation on earth. Low-magnification scopes are more versatile than most hunters imagine. Mid-range scopes are what sportsmen traditionally gravitate toward when pursuing big game. And high-mag precision scopes have gained in popularity for long-range shots. Match a scope to the appropriate rifle, learn all the controls and dials, train extensively, and you’ll be ready to hunt everything, every time. POWER RANGE 1X TO 6X PURPOSE CLOSE RANGE, FAST ACTION, DANGEROUS GAME COPE NIKON MONARCH 3 1–4X20 ($280) Hunters who anticipate encountering large animals at close range, sometimes charging, need a scope with a wide field of view. This prevents the dreaded “nothing but hair” sight picture. Common magnifications run from 1X (no magnification) to…