Innehållsförteckning för August 2015 från Field & Stream

+ LOCATION: ROCKY MOUNTAINS, ALBERTA ×Late last September in Alberta’s Rocky Mountains, photographer Mark Raycroft had followed this 8x8 bull elk for several days, listening for bugles at dawn to try to get ahead of the herd at peak rut. “He and his harem would move a couple of miles a day,” says Raycroft. “That morning all the elements fell into place: the ghostly dead spruces, the new growth in the burnt forest, the fog, the mountains in the backdrop, and the harem being pushed through by the bull, which seemed at the pinnacle of life, with very dark, very thick antlers. It was exhila rating.” The herd—about a dozen cows and young combined, typical for the region’s population density—was roughly 40 yards away when he took this photograph at…

KIRK MCINNIS died too early and too hard. Scott Wood and I cut cattail stalks for his casket spray, swatting mosquitoes in the late-summer heat, and couldn’t believe he was gone—Kirk with his Sure-Shot Yentzen call, his wire rimmed glasses, his old-school gruff ways that never quite hid a gentle inner spirit. It was nine years later when another in our little circle of swamp duckers stopped by the house. Tom Valone rang the doorbell, and I could see through the wooden shutters that he was holding something. I waved him in. Tom was uncharacteristically solemn. As he unzipped an old camouflage gun case, he said: “Let me tell you a story.” YOUNG GUNS In 1965, when Kirk turned 12, Tom began, his uncle gave him a shotgun. The…

Big bass love to chill in the shade below docks during the dog days. In other words, it’s time to work on your skip cast. The trick is to cast sidearm with a low angle and enough speed that the lure bounces off the surface instead of smacking into it and sinking. If you already have the basics down, these three pro tips will take your dock work to the next level. 1 | GO SHORT Pro Casey Ashley Home Water Lake Hartwell, South Carolina Ashley, the 2015 Bassmaster Classic winner, says the first key is using the right rod. “It’s got to have a light, sensitive tip that allows your bait to load the rod in a fluid motion instead of your having to force it to load,” he…

EVERY WHERE YOU LOOKED, THE LAND WAS BURNED. THE BASALT CLIFFS WERE CHIPPED and scarred by the fire. The gnarled arms of the sage, the red splashes the sumacs had made on the walls of the canyon, all were gone. Even the surface of the earth had burned off. Of the country I remembered, the fires had left not a trace. Only the river was the same—the roaring rope that invites you to drown but you fish anyway, because the steelhead run to 30 pounds and they are born in America, and I didn’t have the money to drive into British Columbia to find a canyon as grand or fish so frightening. The trail was 20-odd miles of stony path that deteriorated in two ways: the farther you went and…

Modern compound-bow shooters are forever talking about good form. But they didn’t start the conversation. Because shooting a stickbow is exponentially more difficult than shooting a compound—precisely why more and more hunters are finding it so rewarding— proper form is even more important with a longbow or recurve. But the fine points are a little different. Here, Terry Van Arkel, a traditional bowhunter of nearly 50 years who makes and hunts with his own stickbows, breaks it down: 1 STANCE “Stand with your feet about shoulder-width apart and your shoulders angled only slightly away from the target so you don’t draw the string across your chest. Bend at the knees slightly in order to maintain your balance.” 2 GRIP “This one is the same as with a compound,” Van Arkel…

ARCHERYPAL $5; sites.google.com/site/archerypal A ballistics calculator for your bow, ArcheryPal calculates arrow speed, kinetic energy, and trajectory. It will map your shots over time, giving you information that can help correct your form or tweak your bow sight. Packaged with archery tips and a no-frills GPS navigator, it’s worth the five-spot. BALLISTIC $13–$20; ballisticapp.com Here’s a good ballistics calculator for your deer gun, with info on more than 4,800 projectiles and factory loads. You can change variables for drag, atmospheric conditions, and sight picture. The $20 Advanced Edition includes a display for real-time use: Select your preprogrammed load, quick-scroll the distance, automatically factor weather conditions, and then…fire. FIELD & STREAM RUT REPORTERS free; fieldandstream.com/mobileapps Of course we have to tell you about Rut Reporters, the social-media super app that tracks…

LIKE MOST ANGLERS, if I can catch it on top, I’m a happy man. Give me a Jitterbug on a muggy night at the largemouth pond, or a Spook clacking away at sunset on a smallmouth river. From pike to bluefish, salmon to snook, I’ve watched many species smash my lure on the surface, but while all those takes are memorable, some will always stand out more than others. Of all the fish I’ve hooked in a hail of whitewater, here are the three that left me shaking harder than the rest. And if you find yourself in a position to put your own popper in the face of one of these beasts, what I learned will help you survive the detonations. PEACOCK BASS: THE BONE CRUSHERS I didn’t…

BACK IN THE early 1960s when I got seriously interested in automobiles, the fastest street-legal cars would go from zero to 60 mph in 5.5 seconds, and had top speeds of 160 mph. This was blindingly quick, as the zero to 60 for most sports cars was around 10 seconds. In 2015, the fastest street-legal cars need only around 2.5 seconds to reach 60 mph, and can top 250 mph or more. This means they’re roughly twice as fast as what you could buy 55 years ago, and are far beyond the limit of what the average human being can make any practical use of. And now we may be very close to this in rifle accuracy. Bullet velocity has not changed much in the last 50 years. But accuracy?…

Trolling has dominated walleye tournaments for decades and put up the biggest stringers for recreational anglers, too. But lately, instead of covering miles of water with six lines in tow, savvy pros are winning major tournaments by targeting small areas and casting with spinning gear, in an approach similar to largemouth fishing. Here’s how it works, and why it’ll score more monster ’eyes. FIND THE BAIT Wind and current push schools of bait into points, breaks, and shoals. It doesn’t take long for walleyes to find them. When you’re trolling, multiple rods may go down when lines cross these small areas, but it can be several miles before you hit another, and running back and resetting takes time. By casting, you can post up in the sweet spots and work…

The first time I saw a GoPro for sale in a tackle shop, I knew it wouldn’t be long before these tiny video cameras became nearly standard tools in the modern angler’s arsenal. Spend a few minutes on YouTube, and you’ll see I was right. But the average fisherman just straps one to his head and calls it a day. These three easy tricks will bring your videos up a level. NET WORTH Everyone wants to nail that dealclosing shot. The problem is, most people put a GoPro on the landing net’s handle. Most of the time, it never makes it underwater where the action is happening, because the majority of fish are netted off the surface or just below. To make sure I get the right view, I mount…

You’d think the world’s top shooter would have a battery of practice drills. “Actually, I rely mostly on just two.” Just Aim Pull your bow back, put your finger or thumb on the trigger, and apply a little pressure—but don’t fire the bow. Just aim and aim until you have to let down. Do this three to five times, take a break, and do it again, several times a day. “Make it a difficult target,” Morgan says. “I use a small dot at 50 yards.” Do it for a whole week if you can. Never fire an arrow. This drill builds up your ability to hold the pin on target longer. And it teaches you to focus solely on aiming—and to separate that from pulling the trigger. “It’s a great…

WHERE ARE THEY? • Most major rivers south of the Great Lakes in the Midwest or South have Asian carp, and tailraces concentrate the fish. Many of the dams on these flows are managed by the Tennessee Valley Authority or U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. If Asian carp are in the area, their local staff will know. If not, call back in a couple of years. —W.B. LAST night, raccoons pulled moribund carp from the water’s edge and up onto the walkways below the dam. They ate pieces of them, and today’s hot sun and flies will devour the remaining juicy bits. Some of the fish heads and skeletons will be here all summer though, festering as they turn a dull yellow. The bank fishermen have learned to step around…

You’ve waited for months. Prepared for weeks. Practiced for hours. You don’t want to have gone through all that only to blow your shot in the final five seconds because you rushed it, couldn’t stop staring at the antlers, or just had a good old case of buck fever. But it happens to bowhunters all the time. Bring your racing heart and shaky hands under control with the following five simple tips. 1 RECITE A simple mantra will help you remember your shot sequence. Some guys use “Anchor, aim, squeeze.” For me it’s “Focus on form, focus on form, focus on form.” 2 PICK A SPOT We all know we should do this, but it’s easy to forget. Pick a tiny spot—a single hair follicle if you can—and concentrate on…

NEWS AND STORIES FROM THE EXPERTS Game, Set, Match Trent Marr and his English setter, Trigger, hunt Florida quail. BY MIDMORNING, THE high plains of central Montana shimmered with heat. I had to wipe my forehead every few minutes to keep the sweat out of my eyes—and dreamed about a certain ice cold beverage in my future. But Tina, my orange-speckled English setter, was unfazed by the conditions. She couldn’t find birds fast enough. Refreshed by an occasional squirt of water, she energetically quartered the grassy flats, probed the brushy coulees, and inspected the sidehill plum thickets as if she were playing connect-the-dots. Her tenacity paid off, too, with bang-up points on a tightly wadded covey of Huns and a scattered flock of sharptails. Pulling birds out of his vest…

Elvis shot a TV. What’s the most unusual/interesting/spectacular inanimate object you’ve shot? —J.B. ACKERMAN, GREENSBORO, N.C. A: In college, I used to shoot textbooks that irritated me (12-gauge No. 4 buckshot does well). Years ago, I shot a computer with, I believe, a .416 Rigby. Not much happened; a little silver dust drifted from the monitor, but it was nonetheless immensely satisfying, and I’d like to do more. Q:If you could have any artist past or present render your portrait, who would it be, and what rifle would you pose with? —ANTHONY PEDRO, PORTLAND, ORE. A: With all due respect to Jack Unruh, who is a caricaturist, I would opt for Hans Holbein the Younger (1497–1543), arguably the greatest portrait painter of the 16th century. It is said of…

Watching a pond while the late summer sun turns your pop-up blind into an EZ-Bake oven isn’t cozy, but it is the best way to kill a pronghorn buck with a bow. Late August and early September is the time to try it, too. Antelope country is typically dry at that time, concentrating the animals around whatever water is available. Flambeau pro staffer Ron Gehrke has shot scores of antelope this way during D.I.Y. bowhunts on Wyoming public land— and he usually pulls it off within five days. Here’s his strategy. TIPS, TRICKS, AND ADVICE PRAIRIE PACK LIST Gear you need for the water’s-edge wait [1] PRIMOS DOUBLE BULL DOUBLE WIDE You’re going to want to stand up and stretch before the day ends, and this blind is big enough…

A skeet field offers almost every shot you’ll encounter in a dove field. In most places, $50 will get you four boxes of shells and four rounds of skeet. Here’s how to get the most bang for your buck: 1 Use your dove gun with a Skeet or Improved Cylinder choke. Also use your regular dove loads, but remember that most clubs don’t allow shot larger than steel 7 or lead 7 1⁄2. 2 Do two rounds of skeet on two visits rather than all four at once. Go with friends and get a field to yourselves so that you can customize your practice. Skeet has four doubles (at Stations 1, 2, 6, and 7) that bear no resemblance to a pair of real doves in the field. For better…

BOW-METHOD BREAKTHROUGH Levi Morgan can’t repress a grin when I meet him near his southwestern Pennsylvania home—as if he’s got an inside joke. Is something funny? “Honestly, dude, I’ve been smiling like this since last summer,” he says. In Aug. 2014, Morgan claimed his eighth straight ASA Shooter of the Year title, passing 3D legend Jeff Hopkins’s record of seven, an achievement archers likened to Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak. Back in 2007, when Morgan was 20, he faced Hopkins in a head-to-head shootout. “He stared me in the eye and said, ‘No one will ever touch my record, kid.’ “All my life, if someone tells me I can’t do something, it just makes me nuts,” Morgan says, and laughs. “That clinching event last summer was the most pressure I’ve…