Innehållsförteckning för Winter 2019 från Outdoor Life

ICE FISHING IS WORK. Just to get a line wet, you’ve got to drill and scoop. Just to keep a line wet, you’ve got to clear ice from the guides. There are a ton of little things that can make a hard-water outing much more challenging than fishing on a sunny summer afternoon, so it should be no surprise that smart ice anglers have come up with a pile of gear hacks to make any day on a frozen lake a little easier, more comfortable, and a lot fishier. You could fill a book with these tricks, but here are four that every serious ice fisherman should know. They all require a few inexpensive items you probably have lying around at home. HOCKEY TAPE Hockey tape was made for the…

THE FIRST MOUNTAINS I ever saw were the misty peaks of the Pacific Northwest. My great-grandfather on my mother’s side, an Italian peasant from Calabria, homesteaded south of Seattle in the early 1900s. Modesto Palermo came to America to work on the railroads, and our family took root in those damp, mossy environs with the Cascades to the east and the Olympics to the west, and, looming above all when the clouds parted, the magnificent snow-cloaked Mount Rainier. When I was younger, I hunted those cedar-covered mountains, wearing a thick green wool cruiser that doubled its weight in the ceaseless rain, and carrying a walnut-stocked .30/06 while chasing deer and Roosevelt elk. That was a long time ago. Back then, I never thought about what the ideal rifle would be…

The brakes locked up and we swerved hard. Deep in my gut, the sausage McMuffin and coffee I ingested somewhere in Maryland sloshed in a wave of grease and dairy, worsening an already urgent unanswered call of nature. Chris McIntee’s ’07 Honda CRV thumped over a low curb and came to an abrupt stop on the triangular sliver of dirt and crash barricades separating Interstate 395 from the offramp leading toward Capitol Hill. On both sides of us, cars whizzed by in an unbroken stream of Monday morning commuter hell. McIntee put his flashers on and started playing with his phone. THE ROD BUCKED TWICE AND THEN SLOWLY BEGAN BENDING TOWARD THE RIVER WITHOUT STOPPING. “I told you that as soon as we got into D.C. Google Maps would get…

WHEN BRUCE HOSECK HAD THE OPPORTUNITY TO BUY A PAIR OF CAPTIVE WHITETAILS—A BUCK AND A YOUNG DOE—SOME 20 YEARS AGO, HE DIDN’T HESITATE TO STROKE A CHECK. Hoseck already had a taxidermy studio at his Winona County farm in rural southeastern Minnesota, and the way he figured it, the pen-raised deer added a bit of whimsy to his operation. He kept the pair in a 2-acre pen, but soon the little herd grew, and Hoseck expanded his fence, using quarter-sawn telephone poles as posts to enclose 14 acres. He did a modest business charging people to come in and shoot the older bucks that he fed a diet of commercial deer pellets. “I never grew any monsters,” Hoseck says, “but I’d be happy if someone wanted to pay $1,500…

On April 18, 1942, Lt. Col. James Doolittle led a squadron of 16 heavily modified B-25 Mitchell bombers off the deck of the USS Hornet to conduct a strike on the Japanese mainland. The Doolittle Raid was an audacious long-range attack that gave a tremendous psychological boost to the U.S. war effort and put the Imperial Japanese forces on notice that we could reach out and hit them from a distance that was previously unimaginable. It is in the spirit of that accomplishment that I designed this rifle, whose large 225-grain .30-caliber bullets impact like miniature bombs on steel. Beneath its World War II aircraft–themed paint job—which includes, of course, a flirty pinup girl—the rifle incorporates some of the best new technology for shooting at extreme ranges. As Doolittle did…

EDITOR’S CHOICE A. BENCHMADE GRIZZLY RIDGE • Price: $145 • Steel: CPM S30V • Blade length: 3.5 in. There’s no doubt that the designers made this knife specifically for the big-game hunter. The 3.5-inch blade and round blade shape make it a great tool for quartering an elk or skinning a whitetail. It’s also sturdy enough for most cutting jobs around camp. Fit and finish were nearly perfect. The knife opened smoothly and locked solidly. Stainless-steel liners support the hunter-orange polymer handles. The over-molded material around the handles is great for a secure grip, but it did make the knife a bit more difficult to pull from a pocket. On the upside, you’d have to go out of your way to lose this knife while you’re hunting. It was one…

A. CRKT PACK AXE • Price: $90 • Steel: 1060 carbon steel • Blade length: 2.93 in. Even if you don’t use a pack axe for breaking down a big-game animal, you’ll need one in camp for driving tent stakes, splitting kindling, clearing shooting lanes, and fighting off charging bears. The CRKT Pack Axe is a classically styled embodiment of what the packable axe should be. It sports a relatively long handle, so it will offer a decent swing radius, but it’s still portable. The head is well designed, with a straight top, a cutting edge that curves in toward the bottom, and a wide flat back for hammering. The cutting edge wasn’t sharp enough to use for skinning, but you could get it there with some time at the…

This issue is full of stories that by any definition qualify as adventures: Hunting mountain goats in the crags of Kodiak Island. A DIY road trip through North Dakota that demands flexibility to get into ducks. Ice fishing in the frigid wilderness of the Boundary Waters. Slogging through the Canadian bush to call in big moose. Chasing Coues deer in Mexico’s Sonoran desert. But “adventure” means different things to different people. For the truly hardcore outdoorsman, it’s not an adventure unless there is a high level of suffering and danger. For others, just chasing animals on their own turf is enough to get their blood pumping in a way other activities can’t, even if it’s just on the family farm. And that’s how it should be. Adventure is a very…

You’d be surprised what a problem it is, backing a pickup truck down an icy ramp to launch a boat that’s frozen to the trailer. The treachery of a 45-degree slab of concrete that’s skating-rink slick and ending in a flowing river aside, the ice makes the boat stick to the trailer bunks. The procedure goes: One man stays in the truck to keep the wheels straight, ready to feather the accelerator when (it’s definitely “when” and not “if”) the truck slides. Hitting the brakes basically creates a sled. Two other men, wearing chest waders, stand in hip-deep water and rock the bow of the boat until it busts loose and floats away from the trailer. That they’ll be the first thing the truck runs over, should it slide out…

SPOILER ALERT. There is no piece of magic gear, secret e-caller sound, or decoy hack to trick snow geese into gun range. Your best chance for a barrel-burning, birds-in-your-face shoot is smart preparation. You have to find the right flocks and choose the best days to hunt them. Just ask Jordan Garber, a spring snow goose guide for Habitat Flats (habitatflats.com). He’s created a basic checklist to up the odds on light goose hunts, and it works. Here’s the scoop. ACT JUVENILE “Finding the right birds is the most important thing,” Garber says. If multiple groups are in the vicinity, he’ll glass each of them and dial into the mass with the biggest number of young birds. Snow goose hunters call them juvies, and those smaller, grayish geese are easier…

IN THE LAST 10 YEARS we have seen a number of cartridges introduced that all have similar design characteristics. They have a relatively short, minimum-taper cartridge case with sharper shoulder angles, moderate capacity, fast twist rates, what would seem to be heavy bullets for the case size, and chamber throat designs that are long and tight. A few examples of these cartridges are the .300 WSM, 6.5mm Creedmoor, 6mm Creedmoor, and most recently the .224 Valkyrie. All of them deliver downrange performance and accuracy beyond anything that would be expected from a cartridge of their size. So what exactly is behind this shift from traditional cartridge designs with a big case pushing a projectile at high velocity? TRADITIONAL CARTRIDGES Let’s start by looking at the design characteristics of several long-standing…

Our morning hunt rests entirely on this farmer’s answer. He’s standing in his doorway wearing red flannel and a skeptical look. I worry for a second that Brantley’s Kentucky accent has jeopardized this whole thing, but before we even really get around to asking, the old farmer tells us to “go right ahead, just don’t shoot near the house.” We shake his hand and hop back in the truck, giddy with the promise that the morning now holds. Just 10 minutes into legal shooting light on the next morning, we've killed four ducks over our pothole spread. As Otis is shaking off her fourth retrieve, I hear Brantley mutter to no one in particular: “Holy crap, here they come.” There’s a flock of 20 gadwalls locked up, dropping through the…

They say the most dangerous thing to a moose is a second cup of coffee.” Marty Clark tightens the lid on his travel cup, takes a deep drink, and pulls the outboard motor to life. Our inflatable boat lurches forward, and we’re off again, trolling either our tenth or hundredth round of Toa Lake in British Columbia. I’ve lost count of our circuits over the days as we’ve puttered from one end of this lake to the other in search of big bull moose. But Marty, regular as a metronome, is eternally optimistic that, despite all the evidence to the contrary, we’ll see a moose at any moment. He’s been that way all week, certain that a charcoal-black bull is just a minute, or another cup of coffee, in our…

PREDATOR HUNTING GEAR has become more specialized—and better—than ever. We tested all the items on this list, and you can’t go wrong with any of them. 1. SPARTAN PRECISION EQUIPMENT SENTINEL TRIPOD $568 / javelinbipod.com It can set up as a sitting-height bipod, monopod, or standing-height tripod—and it can be adapted for spotting scopes and cameras too. The price is steep, but it is truly a top-of-the-line piece of equipment. —T.F. 2. SAVAGE B22 MAGNUM F $299 / savagearms.com Sometimes the best predator rifle is the one you have with you. In that vein, I don’t know that a finer truck gun exists. It’s inexpensive and the most accurate .22 WMR I’ve ever used. I was head-shooting squirrels at 70 yards with it. That’s more than good enough for farm-country…

Fishing guide Ernie Calandrelli looked like a crewman on a Russian coast guard vessel. His blaze-orange survival suit was shocking against the dull gray surroundings. His furlined hat appeared to have reweaving quired two whole coyote pelts to craft. I watched him chop away at the ice that had locked in the boat ramp on the Niagara River in Lewiston, New York, wondering what possessed me to chase steelhead here in February. The day’s high would be only 16 degrees, but the wind chill made it feel well below zero. After finally getting Calandrelli’s outboard to turn over in the bitter cold, we set off, between giant chunks of ice that were slowly swirling downstream. It didn’t seem possible we’d be able to fish, but Calandrelli insisted that if we…

IN THE MIND of many West Coast flyfishermen, you can’t call a steelhead a steelhead unless it’s had saltwater running over its gills. By the book, that’s accurate. Make this quip to one of the thousands of fly guys who live for the cold chill of the Great Lakes steelhead season, and most will tell you where you can stuff that book. Implanted or not, the chromers that run the Great Lakes tributaries from Minnesota to New York peel as much line and jump as high as their Pacific kin. For many flyfishermen, the ultimate thrill is getting one to hit a streamer on the swing. The reality is that from the beginning of the run, all winter long, and even when “drop-back” steel return to the lake in spring,…

A gua Prieta. In English that means “dark water,” an ominous name for a town. It sits on the border between Mexico and the U.S., a region that’s had more than its share of darkness in recent years. This is drug-cartel country. I look up and see Mexican tricolor flags snapping in the dry, dusty, cool Sonoran breeze. A few years earlier, banners with the name “El Cadete” painted on them hung along the streets here. That was the nickname for the cartel boss who controlled the region, and the banners were his way of taking credit for the murders and other drug-fueled violence in Agua Prieta. Of course, A.P., as the locals call it, is hardly the only place in Mexico that’s suffered during the carnage that’s claimed an…

WE CRAWLED ON ALL FOURS UP A STEEP, GRASSY KNOB—A TINY ISLAND IN A SEA OF ALDERS CLINGING TO THE MOUNTAINSIDE. THE CROWN OF THIS KNOB WAS THE ONLY PLACE WE’D BE ABLE TO SHOOT FROM ON THE ENTIRE SLOPE. A FEW HOURS BEFORE, WE HAD SPOTTED A GROUP OF MOUNTAIN GOATS JUST UNDER THE RIMROCK, SOME 1,500 FEET ABOVE THE OCEAN SHORELINE. Any stalk on mountain game requires a healthy dose of hope. You use the terrain to block your approach so the animal can’t see you, which means that most of the time, you won’t be able see it either. So, while you hike and climb and crawl, you also hope—that the critter stays put until you sneak into rifle range, or that he moves into the path…

THERE’S 2 FEET OF ICE BENEATH MY BOOTS, BUT I’M SWEATING INSIDE MY JACKET. I UNZIP IT, THEN REMOVE MY BEANIE AND SHOVE IT DOWN THE FRONT OF MY ICE-FISHING BIBS. I take a drink from my CamelBak, sucking down the cold water, then puffing it back up the tube and into the reservoir so it doesn’t freeze. The rest of the crew has stripped away their jackets to reveal a collection of wool sweaters and base layers. Lukas Leaf is reapplying sunblock, smearing the stuff across his cheeks and ears, and doing his best to avoid his beard. The sun has turned the snowy lake where we’ve stopped into one of those ridiculous tanning mirrors, bouncing rays from below into our eyes without relief. A native Minnesotan with a…

GREAT BUY A. GERBER GATOR DROP POINT • Price: $58 • Steel: 420HC • Blade length: 4 in. The Gator was designed to be an affordable hunting knife. The inner core of the handle is glass-filled nylon with Santoprene elastomer molded over it. This creates a rubberlike grip over a rigid handle with less flex or give than a rubber-only handle. Cutting performance and utility were great from the steel drop-point blade, and ergonomics were superb. The sheath scored a combination of hits and misses. We liked the plastic safety insert and the way the belt loop can be undone to slip over a strap. But the sheath is a little too large for the size of the insert, and the snaps are too easy to pop loose. But for…