Innehållsförteckning för April/May 2018 från Field & Stream

From the cover to The Wild Chef (p. 24) to the cover story (p. 34), contributing photographer Travis Rathbone shot the hell out of this issue. CK: You’ve photographed a ton of stuff for F&S—deer mounts, live trout, lures, food knives. Do any stand out? TR: Shooting for FIELD & STREAM has always been an adventure, but my first shoot with you might be the most memorable. We shot a bow-hunter in full draw. Not your average day for a still-life photographer, but I loved it. CK: Of the knives you shot for this issue, which was your favorite? TR: The custom knife was stunning and definitely my favorite. I wouldn’t mind trying my hand at the throwing knives either. CK: You also shot the trout au bleurecipe for…

THE G.O.A.T. WITH A BASS BOAT Michael Jordan is the Bill Dance of basketball (“The Wise Guys,” Feb.– Mar. 2018). ADeaver, via fieldandstream.com BEST BUDS One of the joys I have always had in hunting is the companionship that develops with a hunting or fishing partner (“Tough Love,” Total Outdoorsman). They become kindred spirits who will go through whatever conditions— rain, sleet, cold, more cold, and wind. Maybe griping and fussing, but never quitting. In some ways, they get to know you better than your wife does. They know your moods, your concerns, and your habits. They are people you have come to trust, and who trust you. Good story. It brought back some fond memories. FSU70, via fieldandstream.com MADE TO LAST I was pleased to see the Savage…

I AM YOUR DENSITY. I mean, your destiny,” said George McFly in Back to the Future. When it comes to shotgun pellets, density is destiny. The denser the shot, the better it retains velocity, the harder it hits, the smaller the shot size you can use, the tighter it patterns— and the better it drops turkeys. Tungsten Super Shot (TSS), now available in commercial loadings, is the densest projectile available outside the military, and it could mean more tagged toms in your future. If you want to send 800 to 900 hard-hitting pellets at a turkey’s warty head from 60 or even 70 yards, TSS is the stuff to have. If you want to turkey hunt with a 28-gauge or a.410 and still take ethical shots to 35 and…

CARVE FATWOOD INTO FOOLPROOF FIRE STARTERS • Pine fatwood is famed as a fire starter, but it takes a flame to get the stuff burning. A single stick of fatwood, however, can be processed into resin-rich fatwood dust, fatwood shavings, and fatwood kindling. Just add sparks and you’ll have an inferno going in no time. The best knife to use for this is a bushcraft-type blade with a 90-degree squared spine that will file dust and shavings from a fatwood stick, but a sharp knife edge will work too. Start with a foot-long piece of fatwood, about 1-by-1-inch-thick, with squared corners, then get to carving. Dust: Hold the fatwood against a firm surface. Place the knife spine or edge along a corner of the stick, at an angle so…

Everything about modern flyfishing is fast. We’ve got fast rods, fast-shooting heads, fast-drying UV resin, and even premade wings, legs, and tails that let you whip up flies faster than ever. This might be why spun-hair bass bugs aren’t commonplace in fly boxes today. Everything about them is slow. They need to be fished with patience, you can’t knock them out at the vise, and their air-resistant bodies made Granddad’s slow, noodly fiberglass rod the perfect hair-bug delivery tool. Thing is, spun-hair bugs haven’t lost an ounce of potency since Granddad’s day. And while it’s true that a well-made hair bug isn’t cheap, if you know what to do with one, it’ll repay you with more giant fish.…

Pat Cohen of Super Fly (rusuperfly.com) is the modern-day hair master. So exceptional is his work that many of his fans consider his flies more art than tackle. It’s no secret that making quality hair bugs is meticulous work that takes plenty of practice to perfect, but if you’re thinking about giving it a shot, Cohen says understanding these three hair-spinning rules is critical before you get started. Belly Up “I think a lot of people mistake bass bugs as being made of bucktail,” Cohen says. “Bucktail doesn’t flare properly. I also see a lot of folks trying to use deer body hair, but it’s soft and absorbs a lot of water. The flies don’t always float correctly and often flip over on their backs. To make a good…

Decoy companies have been making “breeding pairs” for some 20 years. After all, if a jake decoy just standing there upsets old gob, then the sight of one on top of his girlfriend should really create issues. Problem is, those decoys have historically looked so fake that I doubt some manufacturers have ever witnessed a real round of turkey coitus. Today’s top makers must be more voyeuristic because they are now making highly realistic breeder-hen decoys that can be used with or without a jake. Late in the season, I leave the jake home and add a breeder to several feeding and alert hen dekes. I position the breeder for my best shot. The other decoys help draw gobblers in from a distance, and when they finally spot that…

Scepaniak uses a number of commercially made spinnerbaits at this time of year, but every one of them, including his favorite Rad Dog, gets one mandatory alteration. “I switch out every blade on every spinnerbait to a No. 8 Colorado,” he says. “The immense vibration of that big round blade is essential to catching big pike.” Most pike and muskie spinnerbaits have a small split ring where the blade is attached, making it easy to change them out. “All it takes is some spare No. 8 Colorados and some split-ring pliers to get more vibration—and catch more fish.”…

For over-the-counter spinner rigs, Robertson likes the Silver Streak Crawler Harness, but for optimum success, he suggests that you take the time to make your own. “I start out with 20-pound Sunline fluorocarbon because it’s durable and stiff, which means fewer tangles, and because it runs better at slower speeds.” The most important element of the rig is a supersharp hook, he says. “I go with a No. 2 Gamakatsu octopus for the front hook and a No. 8 round-bend Gamakatsu treble hook as the trailer.” For the hardware components, Robertson prefers Dutch Fork quick-change clevises and No. 5 Spro power swivels. “Finally, I get plenty of No. 5 and No. 6 Colorado blades and No. 8 Indiana blades in a large variety of colors and finishes so I’ve…

A WHILE BACK, I was the guest of an Arkansas deer club whose members were still reeling from the suicide of one of their own two years earlier. Barry’s death had exploded the lives of everyone who loved him. Time had blunted their grief but hadn’t brought understanding. His best friend, Mike, found the body on the floor of the box blind and gave the dead man CPR until an EMT physically pulled him off. Mike was still haunted by Barry’s last words, the ones they always said before a hunt. “Good luck out there today. I love you.” Mike couldn’t make it compute. How does a man erase himself and abandon his friends forever as casually as if stepping outside for a smoke? I didn’t feel like it…

CUTTING-EDGE STRATEGY FOR THE FISHING FANATIC Look in any bass angler’s tackle bag and you’re bound to find a healthy dose of spinnerbaits. They have, after all, proven themselves time after time after time. Some guys only throw white. Others swear by big Colorado blades over faster willow blades. Of course, some anglers simply tie on the first one their fingers touch and let it rip. There aren’t many tweaks to be made to the cast-and-retrieve spinnerbait presentation, but simple modifications to the lure itself can seriously up your catch rates with these classics. The following three hacks will not only make your spinnerbaits downright deadly, they’ll also prolong the life of your arsenal. SNIP AND DIP Nebraska bass guide Steve Lytle likes to trim his spinnerbait skirts into…

OF THE STORIES I hear from readers, my favorites—and the most frequently told—are about how, growing up, copies of FIELD & STREAM occupied a permanent place in their home—splayed on coffee tables, archived on bookshelves, or stacked on toilets. (Side note: Whenever I visit a hunting camp or lodge where F&S is the designated Book of John, I can’t help but feel proud.) When the magazine arrived at their home, it was a big deal—an occasion—and after the issue had been read, it wasn’t pitched or recycled. It was saved, collected. That idea, of producing a magazine worth collecting, is something we’re getting back to at FIELD & STREAM. One way we’re going to do that is by including more of what magazines do best in every issue. That…

When Ernest Hemingway dreamed of trout, he dreamed of it this way: cooked “au bleu,” as he first encountered it in Switzerland, which “preserves the trout flavor better than almost any way of cooking.” It’s rarely encountered that way, nowadays, for one chief reason: In order for the trout to turn blue, the fish must be killed almost immediately before cooking. (The color change derives from a chemical reaction between vinegar’s acid and the trout’s slime coating.) For anglers willing to keep their trout alive (or as fresh as possible), this isn’t an obstacle. If you’d like to prepare this as a Hemingway-esque streamside lunch, try skipping the salad. Make the court bouillon ahead of time, and transport it in a clean jug. Bring it to a boil in…

IT’S NOT particularly hard to grow something green that deer will eat. It just may not do squat to help your hunting. This is the time of year when people are clearing ground and planning new food plots for the coming season. Whether that forage will pay off big in October comes down to a lot of small decisions. Here’s how to make the right ones. WHAT NOT TO DO DON’T SKIMP ON SIZE In the real world, most hunters don’t have the acreage to plant small “kill plots” and big “destination plots.” A 1½-to 2-acre plot is often feasible, though, and will reliably produce more forage—and attract more deer—than several ¼-acre plots. DON’T WALK If you have to walk through a food plot to access your treestand,…

1. Spyderco Salt 2 It’s not just the rustproof nitrogen-infused H-1 steel that keeps this marine-worthy blade shining. All of the metal hardware is built of nonrusting alloys, and the bidirectional grip pattern stays sure when slimed with fish guts. spyderco.com 2. Gränsfors Bruk Hunter’s Axe With an 18.5-inch handle, this is really a large hatchet made for whacking through not only wood but meat, and with a flat poll so you can use it to flay the hide from large game animals. gransforsbruk.com 3. Ka-Bar Cutlass Machete This pint-size machete works as hard as any full-size blade, thanks to its thoughtful design and build. The weight-forward cutlass-style blade helps you swing with authority, and the SK5 steel—a Japanese variant of 1080 tool steel—is juiced with vanadium for toughness.…

THE EXPERT Mike Hulbert, muskie guide HOME BASE Lake St. Clair, Roseville, Mich. CONTACT mikehulbert.com GO-TO LURE Joe Bucher 700 Series Bucktail Running bucktails for muskies often involves huge, double No. 10 Colorado blades. But not at this time of year, says Mike “MJ” Hulbert, who’s known for boating trophy muskies. “In spring, I throw small, weighted bucktails at stupid warp speed to get reaction strikes from fish that aren’t yet fired up,” he says. Regardless of where you are, muskies will spawn in the weeks after ice-out in back bays and shallow flats—and that’s where they’ll stay for a while, recuperating in a lethargic post-spawn phase. “I try to pick them off before they head back out to open water,” Hulbert says. “I focus on rocks, rip riprap,…

STEEL Foster forges a laminated steel of an inner layer of high-carbon 52100 steel sandwiched between two layers of 410 stainless steel. TANG It’s not visible in this photograph, but a full-tapered tang is a critical design feature that adds balance and elegance. Foster doesn’t grind the tang to the finished thickness, but forges it so all three layers of steel remain in proportion. HANDLE Foster salvages wood from an ancient maple tree on the site of the oldest Roman Catholic church in the Bristol, Va., area. The black vermi-culations are decayed wood called spalting. Punky and fragile in its original form, it’s stabilized with injected acrylics. INTANGIBLES A Burt Foster knife is paired with a beautifully crafted leather sheath, and comes boxed with the reputation of one of…

1 The Popper Back in the day, spinning hair to create a popper was practical; in today’s world of myriad prefab foam-popper heads, it may seem outdated. The reality is that in many cases, a hair popper gives you an edge. The difference lies in the sound it makes in the water, which is a much deeper, more “gurgly” one than your average foam popper. Add in hair’s ability to move more water, and you’ve got a hog caller. 2 The Frog Much like a hollow-body plastic frog, there aren’t many places a spun-hair frog with a weedguard can’t go. You can find hair frogs with popping bodies and diving bodies, but those with more streamlined slider-style bodies are some of the most versatile. They’ll glide over the tops…

Yes, carrying a .410 to the turkey woods is now a thing. Guys do it to prove they’re good, and the successful ones can teach you a thing or two about getting super-close to gobblers. Even with quality loads, a .410 shotgun forces you to get pretty tight to a tom. But a couple of springs ago, Realtree’s Phillip Culpepper took the small-bore trend to the extreme and set the online turkey crowd abuzz when he killed an Osceola longbeard on camera with a Taurus Judge .410 revolver. “Shooting at a pie plate, the pattern started getting sketchy at seven steps,” he says. “So I knew I’d have to get close.” For that, he used a specialized reaping tactic. All the usual open-field safety rules apply. BEAT IT Culpepper…

• “A serious flyfisherman doesn’t want to buy flies at Walmart. He wants to fool a trout with a fly he tied himself,” says Tennessee turkey nut Kerry B. Wix, who’s been pressing his own diaphragm calls for the past five seasons. Wix says the first yelper he ever made sounded awful. But the learning process has paid off. Virtually all mouth calls consist of just an aluminum frame, latex reeds, and tape. “The big differences in sound come from the call’s side and back tension, layering, and reed cuts,” Wix says. “Increasing side tension by a ten-thousandth of an inch can completely change the sound. Everyone blows a call a little differently, so finding your perfect combination of reed cut and stretch off the shelf is random. But…

THE EXPERT Steve Scepaniak, pike and muskie guide HOME BASE Lake Mille Lacs, Wahkon, Minn. CONTACT predatorguideservice.com GO-TO LURE Ruff Tackle Rad Dog Spinnerbait Lake Mille Lacs is renowned for its toothy predators, and while longtime area guide Steve Scepaniak focuses mainly on the lake’s muskies in summer and fall, he turns his full attention to huge pike early in the season. “There’s no better time to score a giant than in the spring,” he says. And there’s no better lure to catch them with than a big spinnerbait. “Of the 700 or 800 pike over 40 inches I’ve had in my boat, I’d say three-quarters of them have come on spinnerbaits.” For every one of those spring spinnerbait fish, the lure was allowed to sink in the water…

Lefebre makes his blade baits even more effective on spring bass by making a pair of tweaks. First, he likes to introduce a little extra flash. “Models like the Steel Shad are available in a ton of different colors, but adding a bit of reflective tape is quick and easy—and it can make a huge difference,” he says. His second tweak is to remove the front hook. “This is the one that snags most frequently. For covering a lot of water around docks, logs, and vegetation, having only a back hook makes life easier, and it doesn’t seem to affect my hookup ratio.”…

• BUYER’S GUIDE BEAVER CREEK RUBBER NECKER $50 •beavercreekgamecalls.com The latest from custom call maker Patrick Urckfitz was my favorite new box call. I love its classic, natural sound. Purpleheart over walnut, the Rubber Necker is loud enough when it needs to be, but mellow and convincing for close-in work. Because it’s a one-sider, it’s hard to make a bad yelp on the Rubber Necker. It’s also hard to beat this price for a custom box. —W.B. PRIMOS DOUBLE BULL SURROUNDVIEW 360 $499 •primos.com The SurroundView 360 is fully wrapped with a panel of one-way see-through material. That means you can see out, but turkeys cannot see in. It’s a big deal. Not only are there no blind spots with this blind, but whereas most pop-ups shutter you from…