Innehållsförteckning för Nr. 4 - 2020 från Outdoor Life

EVEN THOUGH THE NEZ PERCÉ are an ancient people, tribal ethnographer Josiah Pinkham has spent much of his career focusing on the present and future. The 42-year-old might study the fossil record and visit archaeological sites across the Pacific Northwest, but his primary job is to immerse himself in the current customs, habits, and traditions of his tribe—then document it all. He calls it the scientific method of creating stories. Here’s how he thinks about hunting, storytelling, and passing on traditions and history. What is your job, and how does hunting fit in? I study all aspects of our culture. There’s some archival research, but I spend a lot of time talking to tribal members, learning stuff that’s important, like fishing areas, old hunting areas, places where people were buried,…

IT’S NOVEMBER, opening morning of firearms deer season in Wisconsin. I’m in my treestand just inside the woods, above a well-worn escape route from open land I can’t hunt that’s used by the year-round-resident whitetails. I see six does with a 10-point buck in the open land. As they move farther away, I am curious: What would they do if I shot into the ground? My gunshot echoes in the narrow valley, making it difficult to pinpoint the source of the noise. After the sound settles, does burst through a gap in the woods and disappear into the brush below my stand. I hold my breath as the buck quarters toward me in a clearing only 25 yards away. I take the shot. I feel lucky but also regretful that…

DUCKS BECOME CALL-SHY and pheasants grow wary as fall inches toward winter. These are the doldrums of bird season, when there are fewer shots to be made on educated greenheads and roosters. You aren’t killing as many birds, and shotgun accuracy begins to suffer. You shot clays and practiced shotgun drills all summer, but once opening day arrives you only care about wild birds. That’s a mistake. You need to keep your edge through continued clays shooting during the fall. These drills will help you break out of that midseason slump. FIND YOUR FOCUS Caitlin Connor is one of the best skeet shooters in the United States. She is also a duck hunter. One of the things she hears in the blind most often when guys whiff on a bird…

The boom comes from the southeast, and it’s loud enough to startle me in my treestand. On opening day of deer season in northern Wisconsin, the woods come alive with gunfire: soft pops in the distance, sharp cracks from the neighbors’ properties, and hurried four- or five-shot strings from someone hammering away with a lever gun at deer bounding across a cornfield. But a bang loud enough to reverberate off the tree I’m sitting in? That has to be Grampa’s .300 Win. Mag. This is my twentieth season hunting our family land—a few hundred acres of mixed timber where we pack in four or five Robinsons each fall weekend to hunt deer. Because there’s limited room to roam, we all have designated stands that change only occasionally from year to…

MICHAEL EUGENE STOCK SR. IS MEMORIALIZED BY A GRANITE HEADSTONE IN A MIDWESTERN CEMETERY AND THE NAME HE PASSED DOWN TO HIS SON, ALONG WITH HIS LOVE OF DEER HUNTING. MICHAEL ELLIS MCKEAN SHARES THAT VERY SAME LEGACY, HANDING DOWN A MIDDLE NAME AND A LOVE OF HUNTING TO HIS ELDEST SON. The two men, products of America’s Corn Belt, never met, and while they are commemorated by a lot more than tombstones, they shared a dream of hunting the West. They also passed on that itch to their sons, who had the good fortune of meeting and becoming friends at about the time that their respective fathers were passing on. One characteristic of a good idea, just like a good joke, is that nobody can remember who came up…

AS SOON AS HASHBROWN LAUNCHES FROM HIS ARM, TYLER SLADEN STARTS RUNNING. I follow, sprinting through the soft New Mexican sand, dodging cholla cactus and piles of trash, and trying not to lose sight of hawk or hunter. I can mostly keep up with Sladen, a 27-year-old Army veteran accustomed to running at high altitude. But Hashbrown is a different beast. In the time it takes the juvenile northern goshawk to soar half a mile across the hills, we’ve barely covered 80 yards. In the distance, Sladen’s buddy Kevin Jackson works their combined pack of setters, still combing the brush for quail. We’re hunting a chunk of public land on the outskirts of Albuquerque. It’s an off-roading hotspot and a dumping ground for everything from one-eyed dolls to toilet seats.…

Only a few years ago, it was easy to pick the top riflescope brands on the market. Leupold, Bushnell, and Nikon dominated, and the category leader changed according to which of the three brands had the sexiest new flagship scope and the most aggressive marketing campaign in any given year. That’s mostly changed. Earlier this year, Nikon announced it was exiting the riflescope category. Bushnell has abandoned its higher-end product lines, and a mass of ambitious brands are scrambling to take market share in what’s become one of the most competitive product categories in all of shooting and hunting. To get some clarity, we asked Southwick & Associates, a leading market-research group, to share with us the top-selling optics brands, based on their extensive surveying of shooters and hunters. Over…

If, as they say, people select their dogs based on shared qualities, then I apparently imagine myself a puckish orphan with appalling food habits and a love of the putrid combined with an overdeveloped sense of both entitlement and guilt. Nellie is a yellow Lab who turns 4 years old next spring, and to be fair, she also has some appealing traits, which I may or may not share. She has a surprisingly soft mouth and can scent a rooster from the next township, is as athletic as a lynx, and simply won’t give up on a retrieve, even at the risk of her health. She’s obnoxiously playful. But it’s also fair to say that Nellie’s boardinghouse manners obscure her finer points, and if you doubt that, then you’ve never…

When most of us think about our hunting heritage, we flash back to the folks who taught us how to hunt in the first place—the close friends or relatives who helped us learn the skills and customs required to be accepted among the tribe of hunters. For me, that was my dad, uncle, and grandpa, who are all dyed-in-the-wool Wisconsin deer hunters. As a kid, I wanted nothing more than to join their deer camp. I had to wait until I was 11, when, finally, I would get to leave our Thanksgiving dinner party early with the other Robinson hunters (p. 64) and spend the rest of the weekend at camp. Forget the second helping of pumpkin pie, Mom—the wilderness is calling. That three-hour drive north felt like a rite…

FIGHTING A BIG CATFISH on a rod and reel is pretty dang fun. But if you’re looking for more efficient means to a fish fry, you’d better learn these methods of trapping cats (just check your local regs before hitting the water). JUG FISHING Old-timers used to call it blocking because wooden blocks were once used as floats. Now folks use milk or soda jugs. Tie several feet of stout line to each handle or neck, add a circle hook, bell sinker, and bait (night crawlers, hot dogs, and shad chunks work well), and you’re ready for action. Release the jugs several feet apart and let them drift. Each jug functions like a big bobber. When a catfish bites, the jug stops and bobs. When the bait is swallowed, the…

KEEPING AN EMERGENCY CACHE and bugout bag at home is always a good idea, but what if disaster strikes while you’re out and about? Predicated on addressing the survival hierarchy of Security, Medical, Shelter, Water, Fire, Food, Light, and Communication, this expert-vetted gear gives you the means to get back to your safe space when disaster strikes—in a kit designed for fast and light movement. 1. BAG Instead of a military-style pack that screams “I have a gun,” opt for the low-profile Umlindi from Hill People Gear ($220; hillpeoplegear.com). Rated to carry up to 120 pounds, with modular accessories available to add volume and functionality, the 33-liter Umlindi weighs a reasonable 2 pounds 13 ounces. Although larger than needed for our loadout, thoughtfully placed compression straps allow it to be…

It’s a fair question. For many folks, even many hunters, hunting grizzly bears is fraught with ethical dilemmas. Here in Alaska, grizzlies have never been a threatened species. They are a part of the landscape and play their role as one of the top predators and scavengers—no more or less important than any other native animal. Well-regulated grizzly hunting has proven to be good for both ungulate populations and for the bears themselves. Fairly selective harvest of mature boars (which are highly effective moose hunters) allows more calves to survive their perilous first few weeks of life, after which they have a substantially higher rate of survival. Since mature boars also regularly kill bear cubs, this also allows for a higher cub survival rate. I’ve seen the results firsthand in…

The amazingly symmetrical 10-pointer was a true tank, the likes of which I thought unimaginable in a country full of spikes and forkhorns. Had a trail camera picked him up in Illinois, Kansas, Iowa, or Wisconsin, he would have been designated a “target” buck. But this was New England, where target bucks don’t much exist. Low-170 bucks are outliers in a land of meat hunters. Yet there he was on the trail camera virtually every night for weeks in a row. Although mostly nocturnal, he spent considerable time munching on the clover, beets, radishes, and brassicas in my little food plot. I was stunned by his existence. I should not have been. I had been told that this exact thing would happen more than 20 years ago. “These little seeds…

Deer ammunition can be almost evenly divided into the classics, those brands and loads that American hunters have been shooting for generations, and new bullet designs with specific attributes to penetrate deeper, or retain weight, or maintain accuracy over long distances. I went for the classic in my .30/06, shooting Winchester’s 180-grain Power-Point. It’s been a staple of Winchester’s lineup for 60 years, and features a hard-lead core and heavy jacket. “It’s the old trusty,” says Stock. “It’s going to do its job without gimmicks. It’s a jacket and a core that’s designed to penetrate and expand, but it’s also Winchester’s second-most-accurate bullet.” Stock shot Winchester’s relatively new Deer Season XP in his .270 Win. “It’s a bullet with a large frontal area and a polymer tip. The tip helps…

gear@outdoorlife.com We queried the leading outdoor manufacturers and had them send us their top-selling affordable big-game rifles, scopes, and ammunition and put them to the test. The goal was to showcase the best bargains for cost-conscious deer hunters and to give a real-world account of how these rigs perform. The final results were telling. All are capable whitetail rifles. What separated them wasn’t so much their accuracy—all shot pretty well—but rather their handling and ergonomics. We gave extra weight to rifles that came with extras, like scope bases (and in two cases, scopes), threaded barrels, and other money-saving features. This is a down-to-earth, honest evaluation of the rifles that make up the majority of new guns that hunters take afield each year. Browning AB3 Composite Stalker Weight: 6 lb. 10…

In the spirit of this evaluation, most of the ammo we put downrange was bread-and-butter deer loads. For each rifle, we recorded data that consisted of multiple 5-shot groups of the following: Federal Non-Typical 140-grain soft point, Hornady American Whitetail 129-grain Interlock, Winchester 125-grain Deer Season, Nosler 120-grain Ballistic Tip, and Browning 129-grain BXS, which was the only nonlead, copper-alloy round in the test. In addition to these basic offerings, we shot select groups of premium hunting and match ammo through the rifles. All the rifles were chambered in 6.5mm Creedmoor. When gathering the rifles for the test, I asked the manufacturers to send me their best-selling (by volume) affordable big-game rifle in the most popular chambering they produce. It just so happened that every one was in 6.5mm Creed,…

SLEEPING IN I’ve been using a Tiger Wall 2 Platinum three-season tent from Big Agnes’ Crazylight line during recent backcountry hunts. It’s superbly constructed using space-age materials and is crazy light, weighing in right around 2 pounds. It’s simple to set up, sturdy, and easy to carry. It can be combined with the optional footprint or pitched with poles and fly for an even lighter shelter. —Aram von Benedikt, contributor CARRYING Siembida’s Meadowlark is about as good as it gets for backcountry hunters. I use this strong, full-tang fixed-blade knife to skin, field-dress, and quarter out wild game. It’s small and light, and the AEB-L stainless-steel blade holds a sharp edge. The handle and 3-inch blade (the knife is 6 inches long) are designed perfectly to provide excellent control for…

“PUT THAT DAMNED THING AWAY!” Evan Stabolitis hisses in the dark. He’s sitting on a lawn chair to my left in the portable blind he and his half dozen guides constructed on the edge of a picked Oklahoma cotton field. Then, for emphasis, “You wanna get us all busted?” He sounds like the commander of a submarine, imploring an oblivious sailor not to drop the wrench that will reveal their location to enemy destroyers and lead to depth-charging. “You wanna get us all killed?” is what I heard, though Stabolitis actually said, “You all wanna kill limits, right?” I tuck my notebook in my blind bag. Sandhill cranes are approaching in the breaking November dawn. We can hear their hoarse bugling as they rise from the distant Red River, and…

YOU KNOW YOU HIT THAT BUCK. You found blood and hair. You just can’t find the deer. You recall somebody—somewhere—said with absolute confidence what wounded deer do. Was it Uncle Bill at deer camp or the farmer who gave you permission? Regardless, they said they knew exactly how deer behave after being hit by a bullet or an arrow. Their advice is echoing in your head, but daylight’s slipping away, panic is setting in, and you have no earthly idea where that wounded buck has run off to, or even how badly it’s injured. It’s impossible to predict with absolute confidence what an injured animal does after being shot. Nobody knows that better than members of United Blood Trackers, a coalition of dog owners who use their specially trained dogs…

SETTING THE HOOK on a big muskie is thrilling. Coming tight on a bull redfish is a rush. But sinking a treble hook into a 15-foot, 1,000-pound prehistoric reptile? That’s a different experience altogether. There are a lot of ways to skin a gator hunt in the Southeast. But any hunt requires careful preparation, expertise, and specialized equipment. If you’ve never been on a gator hunt, it’s smart to go with a guide (hunts start at around $700) or an experienced hunter, but you can also go on your own as a nonresident in some states (see sidebar). There are many regulations to navigate, and it’s also dangerous for newbies. “Here in Florida, you can only hunt gators at night, so you’re contending with the darkness, driving the airboat over…

TO THE UNINITIATED, bowfishing may seem like the latest gear-intensive fad. Its popularity has surged in recent years thanks to TV shows, social media, and the rise of its most popular target: carp. But at its core, bowfishing is a minimalist pursuit that’s been around for millennia You don’t need an expensive bow or a platform decked out with stadium-bright lights, or even a boat. You just need a recurve or compound with a reel, a barbed arrow, a little stealth—and to put your catch-and-release principles on the back burner. FINDING FISH After checking your local regs, you have a few options for finding fish. Beka Garris, a diehard bowfisher from Ohio, recommends referencing your state’s freshwater lists to quickly determine which bodies of water hold carp and other rough…

THERE’S A LOT OF GROUND to cover with this rifle, so I’m going to skip the introductory chitchat and get right to it. At $2,499 the Nucleus Gen2 is priced to qualify for the Precision Rifle Series production class. As is typical of rifles of this type, it comes stripped down, meaning that it doesn’t ship with a magazine, a muzzle device, or other accessories so that the manufacturer can put as much as possible into the rifle itself while staying under the $2,500 threshold. I shot the rifle with a muzzle brake attached since production-class rules allow for that addition and 99 percent of shooters will screw on either a brake or a suppressor for matches. THE ACTION This rifle is built around the second generation of the American…

I WAS SWEATING IN MY WADERS IN THE JUNE MIDDAY HEAT, MY BLOODSHOT EYES STRAINING TO FIND EVEN THE SMALLEST DROP OF BLOOD AS I SEARCHED ON HANDS AND KNEES. FINALLY I HAD TO ACCEPT WHAT I HAD KNOWN WITHIN 15 MINUTES OF TAKING UP THIS TRAIL NEARLY 14 HOURS EARLIER: THIS GRIZZLY WASN’T DEAD, AND LIKELY WASN’T GOING TO DIE. COMPLETELY EXHAUSTED, I WALKED A MILE BACK TO MY TREESTAND TO COLLECT MY GEAR AND REPLAY THE HUNT IN MY HEAD JUST ONE MORE TIME. At about 11:00 that night (there’s still daylight here in Alaska in late spring), the crack of a stick shook me out of semi consciousness. It came from a stand of dark timber maybe 100 yards away, across a small creek from my bait…

“I’m turning around.” Shaking her head, Kali Parmley eases her 4Runner into reverse. The wheels just locked up on the icy U.S. Forest Service road, skidding us toward its edge and the steep mountainside beyond. I open the passenger door and climb out to direct her, nearly slipping myself. “There are no birds up here anyway,” she adds, talking through the open window. We didn’t plan on snow at this elevation—or ice. “You’re right,” I say, thinking of the two does we bumped on the drive up. “But there are deer here.” In the time it takes to get the car turned around, I convince Parmley to leave me behind. She lends me a walkie-talkie and her pair of traction cleats to stretch over my worn leather boots, but I…

THIS IS THE STRANGEST HUNTING TACTIC I’VE EVER SEEN. It’s the first day of archery season, and professional ultrarun-ner and lifelong hunter Mike Wolfe is racing through a vast stretch of Montana prairie, hopping cactuses and weaving around prairie dog holes. He’s running toward a herd of about 30 pronghorn. In his right hand is a longbow with the word “Persistence” burned into the riser. The fletchings of three arrows stick out from his makeshift quiver, which also holds water, electrolyte tablets, and his antelope tag. Heat waves wind around his 6-foot, 160-pound frame and distort the herd of antelope beyond him. It’s 80 degrees and getting hotter by the moment. Wolfe could be at this for hours, half a day even, or so he hopes. He’s trying to run…