Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2015 i Field & Stream

If your lake holds any type of brown trout—wild, holdover, or stocked—these fish will be on the move this month, looking for the perfect spawning habitat. They’re after a creek to run up, but even if none exists, they’ll still cruise near the shore, feeding heavily as they search. Most of this activity takes place in the dead of night, but if you’re willing to play in the dark, a well- presented stickbait can land you the monster brown you’ve been dreaming about. Here’s the routine. CRASH THE CREEK Searching browns gravitate to mud bottoms and shoreline cover, but they really concentrate on where creeks enter a lake. Visit these areas after a rain, which increases the flow, and you’ll be casting to more fish. WAKE THEM UP Nothing gets…

We’d all like battalions of trail cameras at our disposal, just as much as we’d like thousands of dollars in extra cash to buy them. The truth is, a decent camera is expensive, so most hunters own just one or two. You can still pinpoint an early-season buck with a single camera, but you have to be smarter about using it. Follow this five-step strategy. [ 1 ] BUY RIGHT Get a camera that offers as many of these features as possible: hybrid mode (time lapse plus motion detection), video mode, infrared or black flash, panoramic capability, and a fast trigger speed. I personally like the Moultrie Panoramic 150 for all of the above ($240; moultriefeeders.com). [ 2 ] TAKE INVENTORY Key food sources like cropfields attract numbers of deer,…

With a push of water and a drop in air temperature, Great Lakes tributaries from Wisconsin to New York turn from quiet trout streams to salmon-choked highways every fall. The spawn is on, and anglers come from far and wide to take their shots at the hard-fighting king salmon coursing up the riffly flows. In fact, so many fishermen are driven by the drag-peeling runs of a king that tribs become crowded war zones, lined shoulderto-shoulder with hopefuls looking to fish the juiciest holes. Of all the tributaries, New York’s Salmon River sees some of the heaviest droves, and veteran guide Scott Glazier has made a career out of keeping his clients on the fish and out of the fray. His tips will help you beat the masses, beat up…

Bad broadhead flight is usually a bow-tuning issue—but not always. Last fall, for example, I opened a package of broadheads and had to peel shards of metal out of the ferrules. Sometimes, accuracy problems can be traced to the broadhead itself, says Danny Hinton, owner of Hinton Archery (hintonarchery.com) in Murray, Ky. Here are five things he does before hunting with any heads. 1 WEIGH THEM “We had a guy who was having problems tuning 100-grain broadheads, and when we put them on a scale, we found out why,” says Hinton. “The lightest one weighed 83 grains and the heaviest was 103—all from the same pack. A difference of 2 or 3 grains per head won’t cause any problems, but much more than that will.” 2 SPIN THEM “You don’t…

It’s nice to hunt the X, that magical spot where the geese have been going day in and day out—if, that is, you can find the spot, get permission to hunt it, and set up properly. It’s great when it works, but it can be a crapshoot, especially in September, when Canadas and routine patterns don’t often go together. More often, goose hunters find themselves running traffic, which means setting a spread somewhere along the birds’ flight path and attempting to intercept them along the way. SCOUTING “We never hunt the X in September,” says eastern Iowa’s Travis Mueller, national sales manager for Avery Outdoors. “The birds here, and in a lot of places across the country, are getting bumped off the roost early now, so patterns are often tough,…

Duck decoys weren’t staying put last season? Goose silhouettes not as attractive as they once were? Anchor cords tangled or fraying? And is that a spark plug at the end of that drake mallard? A couple of hours of prep work prior to opening day will ensure everything in your spread will be in working order. 1 Inspect each decoy and set aside any that are cracked, chipped, or otherwise in poor repair for patching and mending later. Look carefully at stress points such as keel attachments, anchor-line points, necks, feet, and bases. 2 Check all anchor cords for fraying, paying special attention to any connections, i.e., knots, swivels, and clips. Replace any that show signs of wear with new line or hardware. Lead weights can crack and break from…

1 You’ve seen some good bucks in a field late in the day, but they come in from several trails too far apart to cover with your bow. You should: A Hunt a field with fewer approach routes B Lay a trail of doe-inestrus scent toward the bucks’ bedding cover C Block the other approach routes D Set out a buck and doe decoy 2 You want to drive a big-buck bedding area once, then leave it alone so you don’t push the bucks out for good. What should you not do? A Have flankers drop out partway through B Move fast so you get out without lasting impact C Have drivers pause upwind before starting D Post a stander at the start of the drive 3 You want to…

APERFECT STORM for September teal needn’t be much of a storm at all. This one simply brought an inch of needed rain and a taste of fall when it dropped daytime highs from near 90 degrees into the 70s. I went scouting the next day, a week before the teal opener, and I saw the first flock before I even stopped the truck. They’re mostly brown this time of year, save for the chalk-blue speculums that always betray. The flock alit with what must’ve been a thousand more ducks standing on the mudflat. It was a veritable bluewing buffet. As a river-fed reservoir recedes after a long, dry summer, mud shorelines are exposed, and they’re teeming with vegetation, seeds, and invertebrates. The mud is sticky and pungent; a rich blend…

Q:What are your expert thoughts about reloading double-bullet rounds for stopping power? —CHRISTOPHER K. JOHNSON, BOISE, IDAHO A: As far as I know, the double- bullet idea has never worked well enough to be used commercially. The Army tried and abandoned it in the ’80s. I wouldn’t attempt to load two bullets into a cartridge unless I had put my affairs in order and gotten right with God first. Q:What is wrong with deer hunters these days? —WILSON BEGLEY JR., MANCHESTER, N.H. A: That is a very general question and assumes that there is something wrong with them. What I notice is that they don’t seem to have as much fun as they used to. The whole business has grown so packed with technology, so sedentary, so laden with gadgets…

When earlyfall water temperatures drop into the mid 50s, crappies go on a feeding tear, gorging to put on weight for winter. “There’s no better time of year to hammer trophy-size slabs,” says Scott Smith of Crappie Xtreme guide service in Illinois. To capitalize on their ultraaggressive feeding behavior, Smith hits crappies with a one-two punch of spider rigging and vertical jigging. But which tactic scores the knockout depends on where you find the fish. LOAD UP ON SUSPENDERS Fall crappies often suspend in open water, chasing schools of baitfish. To target them, Smith uses a spider rig, which gets its name from the eight rods extending off the front of the boat—in Smith’s case from a pair of Driftmaster rod holders that accept four rigs each. He deploys 10-foot…

Crunchy leaves provide the ultimate intruder alarm, and it’s very difficult for a hunter to get into and out of dry hardwoods areas without alerting deer. But that’s not the case for whitetail hunter Ron Bice. He credits all the Pope and Young trophies hanging on his walls to his ability to remain undetected by a deer’s keen ears as he travels to and from his stands. Here’s how he does it. Several months in advance, to let the deer get used to the change in their environment, rake away dry leaves and dead branches from trails on which you’ll be traveling. Cut down brambles and other tall plants to dirt level. Trim any hanging branches from all the trees or shrubs in your path. Use a chain saw to…

Some still-hunters like ridges; others, stream bottoms. You’ll find more mature bucks, though, if you hunt the in-between zone, where hollows break out of valleys and rise up toward ridges. These midlevel draws connecting ridges and bottoms are prime travel corridors and bedding areas for big bucks. Hunting them properly demands that you move quickly between the spurs and hollows, covering lots of ground until you locate one that holds a good buck. Here’s how. BEST HOLLOWS Vary the time you spend hunting each hollow according to how promising it looks. The best ones have some security cover such as deadfalls, brush, saplings, and shrubs as well as secondary food sources like greenbrier, raspberry, honeysuckle, laurel, plum, and olive. Deep hollows that cut sharply into the mountain face are also…

+ LOCATION: WESTERN MONTANA × Photographer Don Jones was 20 yards away from a herd of about 40 bighorn sheep on an October morning during the rut in western Montana when these two 170-class rams bowled over a ewe. “She was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” says Jones. “They are oblivious to everything else—I have to be careful not to get run over myself. They’re very dramatic, with eyes bulging and constant posturing around the ewes, lots of grunting and growling. They’ll be pushing at each other, then nothing happens for a while. They start to feed, but all of a sudden stand up and bang heads. A ewe, or a lamb, might get in the way. And they play dirty. When a ram mounts a female,…

AREGULAR FULL-CHOKE SHOTGUN packing your typical game load can break a belly-on clay bird even if it’s so far away it looks like a speck arcing across the vast blue Texas sky. If I could learn to hit targets at 100 yards, I could teach you to hit more birds at 35. That was my story, anyway, and I stuck to it as I backed farther and farther away from the tallest tower at the 74 Ranch near San Antonio, where I’d met OSP School instructor Gil Ash for an Advanced Sporting Clays clinic. When I finally pulled the trigger from a football field away, I had a long time to wonder if the shot would connect as I waited for the pellets to reach the target. Four of the…

You’ve made 9,999 casts, and on lucky No. 10,000, the muskie of a lifetime shoots out from behind a submerged tree and hammers your fly. Now is not the time to panic (even though your heart will be thumping out of your chest). If you can remember these rules, you’ll put your trophy in the net. 1 STRIKE LOW… The biggest mistake anglers make when a muskie hits is lifting the rod to set the hook. Nine times out of 10, this will fail to drive the point into the fish’s bony jaw, and you’ll watch it swim off after spitting your fly. Strip set, strip set, strip set! A low strike angle helps drive hooks home. 2 …AND REPEAT You remembered to strip set and now the fish is…

REMINGTON ULTIMATE MUZZLELOADER $949–$999 •remington.com The first production muzzleloader capable of 200-grain loads (four pellets) uses an ingenious ignition system of primed centerfire brass (with a 91⁄2 large magnum primer) that closes snugly into the breech with the bolt action. It’s a total package of power, range, and aesthetics. The Model 700 receiver is machined from solid-steel bar stock; the Bell & Carlson stock (in which four primed cases can be stored) adds to this rifle’s overall versatility. —Brad Fenson ROCKY ATHLETIC MOBILITY FLEECE JACKET $109 •rockyboots.com For bowhunters, mid October can be the best time to be on stand— and the hardest to dress for, as temperatures can swing quickly from near freezing to sweltering. Though this soft shell is built with 380-gram fleece in the torso, it feels…

From a high ridge we scanned the Wyoming plains for black horns. Patches of quartz flashed white under the morning sun, mimicking pronghorn rumps at a glance, and gusts shook our maxed-out views in the spotting scope. Distractions and conditions aside, my buddy Steven Brutger and I had little trouble locating game. A mile and a half north, a buck and a few does grazed a meadow. Stalking the herd would’ve been easy: A cluster of aspens quaked between us, and if we could sneak through the trees we’d have a clear shot. The buck’s rack looked decent in the scope—not a trophy, but respectable. We kept an eye on him while we glassed for something else. Two miles east, another buck busied himself with nine does. I struggled to…

1 Place an unusual, but unthreatening, item in your shooting lane, such as a bucket or some marking flags. Make sure the item has no human scent. 2 Spray doe urine on the fletching of an arrow, screw in a field tip, and shoot it into the ground where you want the deer to walk. 3 If your state regulations allow, take an apple to your stand, enjoy a couple of bites, and then toss the core into an open area. 4 Attach a string to a tail from one of last season’s whitetails and hang it from a branch so that it dangles about 4 feet from the ground.…

Even a dozen brand-new, high-end, correctly spined arrows won’t all hit the same spot out of the box. “Typically, you’ll have four or five that are way off,” says Kris Christensen of Spot Hogg, which makes bow sights and other accessories. The way to fix that is by nock tuning. The most precise method is to use a Hooter Shooter, which some pro shops have. Here’s how he does it (typically taking all shots at 20 yards). STEP 1: Shoot All Arrows Shoot all of your arrows through the machine to see which group together best. Then take any one of those and shoot it several times to make sure it hits in the exact same hole each time. Assuming that it does, mark it as No. 1. STEP 2:…

Even big flocks of teal have a magical ability to sneak up on you. One afternoon last September I turned my head to watch a small flock of ducks in the distance, then looked back at my spread to see 200 teal backpedaling over the decoys. I recovered in time to drop exactly one of them. Unlike big ducks that circle and give you time to get ready, teal surprise you, coming in low to plop into the decoys without hesitation. Of course, sometimes teal will flash into your spread, dip as if they’re about to land, then pull up and go. That unpredictability and their zigzag flight make teal a tough shooting challenge. Early teal seasons add one more degree of difficulty: Only teal are legal, so you have…