Field & Stream February/March 2017

SOME OF THE BEST moments from hunting and fishing trips of mine have happened around fires. On a pronghorn hunt in Wyoming, my buddy and I had a fire burning every evening at camp, but on the last night, after we’d both tagged out, we built our biggest. We stayed up late, joking and drinking whisky around the flames. That fire was a celebration. In Saskatchewan one November, the night before many of the deer hunters were due to depart, most of us at the lodge hung out with the guides in the work shed. The woodstove was blazing, and while that’s not the same as an outdoor fire, its effect on us was the same: We gathered around its warmth, sharing stories. I’d only known those other hunters for…

Editor-at-large T. Edward Nickens has sparked wild infernos (so to speak) all over North America, making him the perfect expert for this issue’s cover story, “Wild Fires” (p. 44). CK: What’s your most memorable fire in the outdoors? TEN: On the last night of a weeklong Alaska seakayak camping trip, we were pinned down in a small cove by sheets of rain. It took all our time and energy to nurse a driftwood fire big enough to cook dinner. That fire wasn’t for comfort or tales. It was for food—as elemental as it gets. CK: Best meal cooked over a fire? TEN: No question: Duck on a stick over a trashbarrel fire in Alberta. When I say trash barrel, I mean, practically a garbage pit. But what a duck. CK:…

LOCATION: FALL RIVER, CENTRAL OREGON ➞ “A crazy cold front had come in from Alaska the day before, but we were bored, so we decided to go fishing,” says photographer Arian Stevens about this frigid morning with his buddy Jake Dodd on the Fall River. This tiny spring-fed arm of the Deschutes was the only fishable local water. “It was minus 5, minus 10 degrees. I’ve gone out when you could make 10 casts before everything freezes, but every cast, Jake had to peel the ice off his fly line. Our flies were crystallizing the second we got them out of the water.” Dodd— who surveyed the creek in hopes of finding a spot to sight-fish, only to discover floating chunks of ice—says, “We were gung ho at first. We’d…

HIGH MARKS “Forged Accuracy” (Total Outdoorsman, Nov. 2016) is a spot-on description of how iron sights taught me good marksmanship. Tim Gilbert, via Facebook WHOOP, WHOOP! A job well done, Will Brantley, on “Bo Whoop Comes Home.” I tore out the story and brought it with me to read in the blind this season. If you’re a duck hunter and haven’t shared this story with your hunting buddies, then you’re doing them a serious disservice. Bill Paty, West Palm Beach, Fla. I loved “Bo Whoop Comes Home.” What a beautiful gun. I would love just to hold it, but to shoot it on Beaver Dam Lake would really be a dream come true. Nathaniel Welch’s great photos only added to the story; I especially liked the one with smoke pouring…

• THE SEASON • FISHING • ASK PETZAL • THE WILD CHEF • SPORTSMAN’S NOTEBOOK • RIFLES • SHOTGUNS • HUNTING • THE TOTAL OUTDOORSMAN • CONSERVATION LATE IN THE MORNING, the dogs freeze at the top of a draw. “Phil,” whispers Chad Smith, my host. I look over for direction, expecting a hand signal. Instead, Smith waves expansively and says, “Take it all in.” Looking up, I can see clear to Mexico, miles of hills cut with steep valleys covered with tan nutgrass and scrubby oaks. Taller peaks form the background against a clear blue sky. Closer, I see the brace of white dogs, tails straight up like arrows shot into the ground, the setter locked on a covey of birds, the pointer backing. It’s February, zero degrees back…

DOGFISH. GRINNEL. Mudfish. None of the regional names for bowfins are particularly flattering. That’s not surprising. With that mouth full of teeth, snakelike body, and viciously cold stare, a bowfin sighting conjures an icky reaction for many anglers. Bowfins thrive in anything from mucky swamplands to pristine lakes and rivers, and when one mangles a perfectly good spinnerbait, cuss words fly among bass anglers. The funny thing is that in a fishing culture so worried about invasive species and preserving native fish, the bowfin is often falsely touted as a bad guy. The truth is that they were around millions of years before every gamefish we love. They have remained largely unchanged since the time of the dinosaurs, and I only had to catch one to decide I’d take…