Innehållsförteckning för Winter 2020 från Outdoor Life

CARRYING My old EDC needed to be retired: The handle dug into my leg, it was heavy, and it was a bit boring. Gerber’s Kettlebell is compact, making it all but disappear in my pocket. It locks into place with a solid click, the dual finger choil fits perfectly in hand, and the bellied blade slices easily through EDC tasks. This affordable knife ($31) has plenty of work to do. —Ben Duchesney, SEO editor WATCHING I just saw They Shall Not Grow Old, a WWI documentary from 2018, and I wish I’d seen it in a theater. It must have been incredible on the big screen. Director Peter Jackson and his team slowed original footage to a more lifelike pace and painstakingly colorized it. The result is a relatable portrait…

We hunted with Frank Feldmann, whose outfit specializes in both musk oxen and caribou (greenlandoutfitters.com). While the weather on our hunt was mostly good—warmer on the Greenland coast while we were there than it was back at my home in Montana—conditions can turn cold, wet, and miserable overnight, then sock in for the next week or longer. We opted for double-tough rifles and optics built for mountain hunting and the longish shots that are sometimes required for open-country animals such as caribou and musk ox. We shot Browning’s X-Bolt Pro Tungsten rifles, chambered in .300 WSM. Weighing just under 6 1⁄2 pounds, the short-action rifle has a carbon-fiber stock built around rigid vibration-dampening foam. A Cerakote finish protects the stainless-steel action from the elements, and the threaded muzzle brake reduces…

“Mister, if you aren’t in shape to dog a mountain buck and follow him for 15 miles, then walk out of the woods and be ready to do it the next day, and maybe the day after, and maybe for a week, then just be an armchair buck hunter. Don’t go out in the woods and kill yourself.”—Larry Benoit How to Bag the Biggest Buck of Your Life, by Larry Benoit, was a seminal tome for a generation of deer hunters. Originally published in 1974, the book chronicled the hunting strategies and tactics of a hardcore North Woods deer tracker. And just like its title, the contents are splendid in their simplicity. Benoit, who passed away in 2013, gained notoriety for his ability to snow-track huge Maine bucks. “He was…

I am 29 years old and have built my life around hunting bighorn sheep. This journey started when I was 17. I had gone to a wilderness guide school in Montana and decided it was far too cold there. So I returned to Southern California and called someone I thought was the only outfitter in this part of the state. That person was Terry Anderson, a legendary sheep guide. I worked under him for seven years before striking out on my own. This year marked my 100th successful bighorn hunt. Here’s some of what I’ve experienced and learned along the way. No. 100: The Hunt That Almost Killed Me This was it, my 100th ram. It was the night before the opener and, with expectations of triumph and glory, I…

gear@outdoorlife.com “Don’t run to your death” is a well-known Navy SEAL saying that was meant for the battlefield, but it works pretty well in the backcountry too. The idea here, of course, is that taking things slowly and methodically will keep you out of trouble—and keep you alive. It’s true: Most bad situations in the wilderness can be resolved with no tool other than common sense. But some dangers can’t be avoided, no matter how much logic and caution we apply. Bears charge. Mountain storms brew in an instant. Hunting buddies get turned around. Accidents happen. And when they do, this is the gear that you’re going to want stashed in your backpack, buckled to your hip, or strapped to your chest. BUSHCRAFT KNIVES BY TIM MACWELCH Tops Fieldcraft 3.5…

WAYNE LEONARD THOMASVILLE, AL WRITE US! IF WE USE YOUR STORY, YOU’LL GET THIS BOOK! “This Happened to Me” has been a fixture of OL since 1940. We’ve compiled our readers’ most hair-raising misadventures in a single volume. You can pore over the 183 pages of this action-packed book knowing you’re in good company. Copies are also available for purchase at outdoorlife.com/THTMBook. » We publish true adventures. Send yours to THTM@OutdoorLife.com. Only those used will be acknowledged.…

NORTH AMERICA’S ANNUAL waterfowl migration is one of the greatest natural spectacles on Earth. But over the past decade, biologists and hunters have noticed a shift in migration timing and patterns. Birds are arriving at their wintering grounds later and frequenting areas outside traditional stopover locations. This puzzling behavior has drawn the attention of state agencies and nonprofits such as Ducks Unlimited, but there is no consensus to explain the change in waterfowl migrations. “We’ve seen major shifts north and south,” says Dr. Frank Rowher, president and chief scientist at Delta Waterfowl. Rowher says that mallards in the Central Flyway, for example, are still migrating to the Gulf of Mexico, but they’re arriving later. Theories abound to explain the changes: urban sprawl, a warming climate, hunting pressure. Satellite tracking has…

fishing@outdoorlife.com Oil refineries. Highways. Traffic. Ask an outsider what comes to mind when they think of New Jersey, and there’s a strong chance one of those three things pops into their brain. We certainly have them all in my home state. What those not born and raised in “Dirty Jersey” often don’t know, however, is that those ugly attributes largely exist only in a diagonal line between New York City and Philadelphia. Travel outside that corridor, and you’d be shocked by how quiet and rural New Jersey can be. In the southeast corner of the state, I could convince you that you were so help lessly lost in the wilderness, you might never see civilization again. Here, in the 1.1 million acres of scrub forest that make up the Jersey…

Caliber: 9mm Capacity:15+1 Weight: 1 lb. 12 oz. Trigger Pull: 5 lb. 12 oz. Barrel Length: 4 in. Overall Length: 7 ¾ in. Price: $892 Web: archonfirearms.us The company that makes this pistol takes its name from the rulers of ancient Greece—the chief magistrates of Athens and other city-states were known as Archons. That name strikes a romantic chord, though the effect is somewhat dulled by the pedestrian moniker Type B. Instead, this pistol should have been called the Phoenix. This would have been in keeping with both Greek history and mythology, as well as an apt description of this 9mm’s history. The origins of the Type B go back to 2012, when Russian armed forces announced they were adopting a new pistol called the Strizh, which was being built…

“TUNA!” LANCE CLINTON’S ROD IS DOUBLED OVER AND HE’S SHOUTING TO ME ACROSS THE MOUTH OF CULEBRA BAY IN COSTA RICA. AFTER TWO DAYS OF FISHING HIS HOME WATERS SOUTHWEST OF SAN JOSE, WE TOOK A ROAD TRIP OVER MOUNTAINS, THROUGH THE JUNGLE, TO THIS SHELTERED STRETCH OF THE PACIFIC. THE SUN HAS BEEN UP 30 MINUTES, AND IT’S ALREADY BEEN WORTH THE DRIVE. The rip of his drag sounds like a kicked hornets’ nest as I pedal my kayak toward him. The sun breaks over the cloud-ringed mountains and casts a sapphire light across the bay—an Instagram sunrise, for sure. And in the center of it all is Clinton, an American expat and recovering drug addict, on his dirty 12-foot kayak, rod bent in half, a boss yellowfin taking…

Weather happens fast on New England’s coast in winter. What starts as a subtle shift in wind direction, a gathering chop on the vast Atlantic Ocean, can soon build into a raging nor’easter. It can happen in a matter of hours. Running the surf in these conditions is out of the question, and even hopping across protected bays, can get dangerous. Sea duck hunters live in a world of wind, waves, and rocks, and they know they’re at the mercy of the ocean. That’s why they obsessively check tide tables, sea height, wind direction, and wind speed. They design their hunts to make sure they can safely boat to the spot where they glassed birds the night before, and return home when the hunt is over. Here, the ocean dictates…

I WOULDN’T HAVE MET Lee Livingston, or have gotten to count him as a lifelong friend, if I hadn’t hired him to guide me to a Wyoming bighorn sheep. On the other hand, I could have killed that ram without Lee, a registered outfitter based in Cody. Maybe it would have taken me longer. Maybe I would have settled for a smaller specimen. But as an accomplished big-game hunter, I could have found a way. Only Wyoming wouldn’t let me. As long as there’s been federally managed wilderness in Wyoming, the state has required nonresidents to hire a licensed guide or be accompanied by a resident in order to hunt big-game species in designated wilderness areas. It’s not a small amount of space. Wyoming boasts 14 wilderness areas totaling more…

WHEN I LOOKED DOWN the hole, I was shocked. There was the gravelly bottom of Lake Granby barely 3 feet below the bottom edge of the ice. As if I wasn’t skeptical enough about targeting lake trout in such shallow water, veteran Colorado guide Bernie Keefe didn’t make me feel any more confident when he tied on a 10-inch Hogy soft-plastic finesse bait. It was a popular lure for bluefin tuna on the East Coast, where I live, and something I never thought I’d see in the Rockies. But in less than five minutes of jigging, I was kneeling at the hole watching line drain off the spool. Keefe had said we weren’t going to catch numbers that day but that we’d catch big fish—and he’d made good on his…

THE MUSK OX LOOKS LIKE HE MIGHT HAVE BEEN CHIS-ELED OUT OF THE VEINED ROCK OF THIS FJORD. THE ONLY MOVEMENT IS HIS COAT, A TANGLE OF TAWNY DREADLOCKS THAT ripples and waves in the stiff wind. Then his head slowly pans, following the passage of our little boat through the electric-blue water. We’ve apparently gotten too close for his comfort, because as we motor within rifle range of the bull, he breaks his gaze and trots parallel to the shore, a goofy hoof-flailing canter as he gathers the cows around him in a defensive circle. They all stand, rumps together and a dozen shaggy heads forming a perimeter of hooking horns and watchful bovine eyes. Frank Feldmann cuts the boat’s throttle and peers through his binocular. “He’s a young…

It doesn’t take much to get Mark Hieronymus worked up. We’re walking down an old logging road next to a creek outside of Juneau, and the guide is going back and forth on the two hottest topics in Alaska: fishing and logging. “We’re going to fish that sexy little beast on the way back,” he says as we pass a deep pool. “Always Dollys in there.” If you were to imagine an Alaska flyfishing guide, you’d conjure up something close to Hieronymus: flat-brim hat pulled down over dark shades, bushy beard, gravelly voice, and descended from a line of Pacific Northwest fishermen. He grew up fighting steelhead on the rivers of Puget Sound and then chased better fishing and job opportunities to Alaska in 1988. Like most people who spend…