Indholdsfortegnelse for Summer 2018 i Outdoor Life

▶ WATCHING There are precious few great movies about hunting and hunters, but Wind River is one of them. —John B. Snow ▶ CARRYING IN THE FIELD I hunted turkeys with one of my oldest guns this spring. It’s a Mossberg 835, a 3 ½-inch 12-gauge pump with a really bad, splotchy, non-proprietary camo paint job. I bought it at a pawn shop in Helena, Mont. It’s heavy as hell, and its ported barrel—which sends muzzle blast sideways—makes it impossible to hunt in a duck blind or anywhere my partners might be within 20 yards. But it’s killed something like 45 gobblers, all with the same factory choke that it came with. —Andrew McKean ▶ LISTENING TO: BHA Podcast & Blast Conservation journalist Hal Herring interviews outdoor players and…

36 vs. 1,666 Number of photos an old-school trail camera could hold on a single roll of film, compared to what an 8GB SD card can hold today. 30 Percentage of hunters involved in land management. They spend 81% of their efforts working on food plots. $6,820 Per-acre price increase of farmland—and prime deer ground—in Iowa from 1994 to 2017. On average, just 24 Boone and Crockett whitetails were taken per year from 1830 to 1993. Since 1994, the yearly average has been 276. Score of the latest largest hunter-taken non-typical, shot in Tennessee— a state historically in the bottom third of B&C entries. Antler Point Restrictions Twenty-three states now have them. Dooley County, Ga., was the first to implement an APR—a 15-inch outside minimum spread limit—in 1993.…

STEVE SCOTT IS the vice president and co-owner of the Whitetail Institute, the first commercially successful food-plot company. It was started by his father (and founder of BASS), Ray Scott. Steve has seen big changes in deer hunting in the past 30 years, and he believes most of them—but not all—have been good. But he also thinks the best days are still to come. What was the first food plot you ever saw? When I was a kid in southern Alabama, we had green fields—wheat and rye—and then there was a guy at the co-op who threw some clover seed in the truck and told my dad to try it. Dad began noticing that deer would walk past the other stuff to get to the clover, and he wanted to…

IT’S MORBIDLY SATISFYING to watch silver carp being fed to a band saw. Especially the sound. The same bug-eyed fish known for jumping into boats and ruining riverine ecosystems are loaded onto a conveyor belt, where the high-speed blade slices them in two behind the gill plate. The body flops onto the next belt, while the head drops into a bin below. Both parts of the fish are marketable. In fact, save for the blood and slime, there’s not much waste at Two Rivers Fisheries in Kentucky. My station is the first spot on the line immediately following the saw. I’m wearing an ankle-length apron, rubber gloves, plastic sleeves, a hairnet, and a mask. Jim Burns is on my right; he’s the process foreman, and in the 10 minutes I’ve…

For the objective tests, we partnered with Stress Engineering Services (stress.com), a consulting firm that tests everything from rifles to treestands at its Ohio-based outdoor division, for the second year. Bows were set to IBO specs and verified by the staff of Broken Rack Archery (brokenrackarchery.com) in Batavia, Ohio. We then shot them through a Hooter Shooter inside a semi-anechoic (echo-free) chamber. We calculated speed using a chronograph, a fletchless 350-grain arrow, and a capture-style rest. Draw cycle is an evaluation of a compound’s overall feel throughout the draw curve. (Stress also measured draw-force curves to confirm tester impressions.) Multiple microphones recorded noise, and Stress filtered the data to account for how we perceive sound. Stress measured vibration with a micro-accelerometer and applied a hand-arm perception filter. Our test team—hunting…

Our interest in these rifles and shotguns boils down to a question of practicality. How useful do we deem a firearm to be in light of its intended purpose and its potential applicability for other uses? Our test is structured to get to that answer. With the rifles, we spend most of the first couple of days of our weeklong evaluation shooting them off the bench. This helps us gather baseline data on accuracy and allows us to make note of any significant issues with basic functions, like loading, feeding, action smoothness, extraction, ejection, and trigger pull. Our standard of multiple 5-shot groups in succession stresses the rifles and reveals which rifles can, literally, take the heat. Our accuracy scores are based on the average of the 10 best 5-shot…

Spring Slam I have to say that when I read the Editor’s Journal, I was skeptical. The news that I would not be receiving OL as frequently was disappointing, as I am always pleased when I open my mailbox to find the latest copy. I must say, however, that I don’t remember an issue I enjoyed more or read faster. I’m more of an armchair adventurer than anything else, and the number and variety of lengthier stories in the Spring issue made it most enjoyable for me. If you guys keep putting out magazines like that last one, I think I can learn to live with four a year! Nathaniel Proto Wallingford, CT I’ve been a subscriber for decades, and recently it seems I’ve seen the same stories and articles…

TEXAS BASS PRO Zell Rowland fished his first BASS tournament at the age of 13. In every tournament since, regardless of where in the country he was fishing, there has been a topwater lure rigged and ready on the deck of his boat. Now on the other side of 60, Rowland still lives his life according to one basic truth: “If I can get one to bite on top, I’m happier.” His dedication to this truth has earned him the nickname “Topwater Technician.” Every style of classic topwater has its strengths and weaknesses, and over the years, Rowland has developed systems for maximizing success and minimizing heartbreak with each one. Follow these simple rules and you’ll be boating more trophies up high. 1 POPPERS Zell’s Choice: Rebel Pop-R ▶ Problem:…

EDITED BY JOHN B. SNOW shooting@outdoorlife.com The popularity of long-range competitive sh ooting has grown at warp speed, and matches have become increasingly fierce. Often it is practice time that separates shooters. Scott Satterlee, a top-level PRS shooter, said to me: “Most everyone wants to know what caliber, bullet, powder, and so on that I’m shooting. But when someone asks me for my practice routine, I keep an eye on him.” Malcolm Gladwell wrote that it takes 10,000 hours of “deliberate practice” to become “world-class.” Most of us would be happy with “very good.” So, how many hours is that? And what qualifies as “deliberate practice” for our needs? Both are good questions for Mr. Gladwell. But most of us can’t commit thousands of hours to range time. Somehow, I…

A GIANT BUCK, A BOTCHED SHOT, AND A TINY MIDWEST TOWN WHERE THE GOOD OLD DAYS OF DEER HUNTING STILL ENDURE The buck we were waiting for showed up just before last shooting light. He materialized out of head-high Johnson grass just 50 yards away from the blind. I slid off the safety on my crossbow and tracked the buck as he angled toward us and into the open, then stopped broadside. I floated the 40- yard dot just at the top of the buck’s vitals and squeezed. There was the thwap of the crossbow string, a hollow thud of the arrow hitting home, and then the fading rustle of the buck running off through the grass. My buddy Matt Arkins, who was in the blind with me filming, clapped…

THE SELF-CONTAINED METALLIC CARTRIDGE IS ONE THE MOST SIGNIFICANT INNOVATIONS IN THE HISTORY OF FIREARMS. It consists of four items—brass, bullet, powder, and primer. Any recent graduate of a hunter-ed program should be able to rattle off this information because illustrations showing the component pieces of cartridges have been a part of the curriculum for decades. What our bright-eyed new hunter might not know is that all four have a profound effect on cartridge performance, whether we’re talking about accuracy, reliability, or lethality. And not to pick on the poor kid, but he or she probably doesn’t have the slightest clue as to what a primer actually does. In this, our young hunter isn’t alone. Of the four building blocks of a cartridge, the primer is the least understood by…

EDITOR’S CHOICE 1. TENPOINT STEALTH NXT • Price: $1,550 TenPoint produces some of the best crossbows on the market, and the Stealth NXT is its most impressive yet. It finished at or near the top in our three double-weighted categories: handling and balance, speed and power, and accuracy. The Stealth is just 6 inches wide when cocked and weighs 7.3 pounds without accessories. It shoulders and handles nicely. Moreover, with the supplied 449-grain finished bolts, we got 392 fps out of it and averaged 1.06-inch groups at 30 yards. “This crossbow is an investment, but a good one,” says senior editor Natalie Krebs. “It’s easy to cock, shoots tight groups at hunting ranges, and handles well.” Our only complaint: Its trigger, while light enough at 3 pounds 15 ounces, was…

• Lately a cottage industry has sprung up around the idea that happiness comes from purging objects from our lives. “Clutter consultants” and other gurus urge us to turn our homes into spare spaces that look like something from a design catalog, not a place where actual people live. This is a hard sell for a guy like me. The mantel over my woodstove is covered in feathers and antlers, drawings from friends, battered flies—stuff that may look like clutter to some but means something to me. Then there is the gear I’ve gathered over the years to support my love of hunting, fishing, and camping. It’s all stuff that I use, or at least thought I’d use. But this is one area where I think the idea of simplicity…

WHEN BIG TUNA are in town, most captains break out big 50-wide conventional reels on broomstick rods and start trolling. Not me. I’m one of the dedicated tuna captains in the Northeast who lives for the adrenaline blast of casting surface lures to these speed-demon masses of pure muscle. If you are a true topwater addict, you haven’t lived until you’ve seen a 150-pound bluefin detonate on a popper and rip 150 yards of line off a spinning reel in under 20 seconds. Truth be told, this style of fishing is not for the faint of heart. Your mind, body, and gear had better be up to the task. Here are the five most-stressed points during a spinning-gear tuna fight and how to counteract them to achieve topwater tuna glory.…

EDITED BY WILL BRANTLEY hunting@outdoorlife.com Thirty years ago, a biologist from South Carolina brought together a group of volunteers who wanted to improve the deer hunting in the Lowcountry region. That same year, an Alabama man with a cowboy hat and a background in tournament bass fishing capitalized on a discovery: Whitetails love giant ladino clover, and growing a field full of it is relatively easy. Joe Hamilton would call his group the Quality Deer Management Association, and Ray Scott’s clover fields were dubbed food plots and marketed under the brand Whitetail Institute of North America. At the time, deer dogging and double-digit buck limits were common in the South. Trail cameras and outdoor television shows didn’t exist, and more than a few hunters believed that anyone who’d shoot a…

1 Start with a warm-up of 10 perfect trigger pulls (not timed) from prone, both left- and right-handed. Then do the same thing but with a time limit of 45 seconds, starting from a standing position before going prone. 2 Next, shoot some mock stages. Use the random-number generator app to generate four random numbers. Each of those represents the four positions for your stage. This will keep you from unconsciously practicing the positions you like, and it will force you into uncomfortable and random positions and transitions. Use the countdown timer to set your stage time. Start with 180 seconds and progress to 90 seconds per stage. The countdown timer will create stress and help you develop an internal clock. Start with your gear in hand, just like in…

DURING DREARY MONTANA WINTERS, as the temperature approaches zero, so does my enthusiasm to get out and break clays. I always pay for it come spring with a shotgun mount that feels slightly rusty. But this past winter was different. I got my hands on what’s being billed as the Ultimate Practice Shooting System from Robert Louis Co. This training unit has a couple of different components. There’s a LaserPro box that projects a red laser dot onto a wall—that’s your target. Knobs control the direction, speed, and distance traveled by the dot, and there’s a switch to have the unit “throw” two dots that trail each other to mimic a pair. The box can be mounted on an oscillating base to add arc to the targets as well. The…

1805 Forsyth Compound To eliminate the waterfowl-flaring flash of his flintlock, Scottish hunter Rev. Alexander Forsyth developed percussion ignition using mercury fulminate. 1814 Metal Cap Joseph Shaw put the Forsyth compound into a metal cap, inventing the capnipple system. The latter was later replaced with an anvil as part of either the case or the primer. 1848 Mercury Fulminate The percussion cap had transitioned completely to a mercury fulminate base, allowing for the use of any oxidizer in the compound. 1898 H-48 This potassium-chlorate-based priming compound was the first successful nonmercuric primer to be adopted by the U.S. military. 1911 FA-70 A mix of potassium chlorate and lead thiocyanate, FA-70 was reliable and accurate but corrosive. It was used in .45 ACP and .30/06 in WWI and WWII. 1914 Lead…

EDITED BY WILL BRANTLEY gear@outdoorlife.com THE COMPOUND BOW TEST This is the new archer’s paradox: Bows are getting so good that selecting the best one is difficult. Well, maybe that’s just the bow tester’s paradox—but it’s true. This year’s crop of flagship compounds overall is excellent. They’re (mostly) fast, (mostly) quiet, and (mostly) free of vibration. All of them are capable of nockbusting groups, and the gap between the best and worst is smaller than it’s ever been. But after four days of intense testing, we learned that a gap remains all the same. EDITOR’S CHOICS 1. MATHEWS TRIAX • Price: $1,099 Remember when short-axle-to-axle bows were as hot as the ghost pepper challenge? Those days seem to have passed. In recent years, manufacturers have been building longer bows because…

The crossbow test panel included hunting editor Will Brantley, senior editor Natalie Krebs, executive editor Alex Robinson, and archery tech Danny Hinton. We evaluated each bow for accuracy, speed and energy, handling and balance, fit and finish, trigger pull, cocking effort, safety, and value. Speed was checked with a chronograph with factory-provided bolts and field points, which were also weighed so we could calculate kinetic energy. Accuracy was measured by averaging three 3-shot groups from each tester, taken at 30 yards from a Lead Sled. Cocking effort was subjective but easy—is the bow a pain to cock or not? Triggers were weighed on a Lyman trigger scale and subjectively judged for creep and travel. For safety evaluations, we considered such things as whether the bow’s safety mechanism automatically engages when…

The accuracy of our rifles and our expectations for the performance of new guns seem to increase every year. Gun builders have improved their game to the point that legitimately sub-MOA rifles, which used to be as common as unicorns, are now the norm. Any rifle that can’t hold 5 shots within an inch circle at 100 yards with at least one type of ammo, to say nothing of the infinitely less stringent 3-shot standard, won’t generate much enthusiasm. The unsung heroes in this golden age of accuracy are the ammo makers. We are spoiled by the availability of quality ammunition that would have left previous generations of hunters and shooters with their mouths agape. This is a key reason this year’s field of rifles was the most accurate we’ve…

The biggest news in shotguns this year is the arrival of pump-actions from Remington and Mossberg that are fed by detachable magazines. The systems certainly herald a significant change for this style of shotgun and have generated a lot of interest among the tactical and personal-protection crowds. Quickly reloading a shotgun with a tubular magazine is a difficult skill to master, so the promise of magazine-fed shotguns that operate reliably has been on many shooters’ wish lists. Because these shotguns aren’t meant for wingshooting, we didn’t include them with the rest of the field. For hunters, a box magazine has some definite advantages. It allows for easy control over ammo, which is extra helpful when taking young or less-experienced hunters afield. It makes verifying that a shotgun is unloaded a…