Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2016 - January 2017 i Field & Stream

IN A MAD RACE against shooting light, Travis Mueller picked me up from the airport already dressed in camo. “Let’s go,” he told me. “The geese are moving.” He strangled the steering wheel. When his eyes weren’t on the road, they peered through the peak of the windshield, monitoring the gray sky for black, honking lines. We drove to my motel, where I made a Clark Kent–fast costume change into my own camo, then I was back in the truck with Mueller, my guide, fighting traffic in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on our way to the blinds. “We’re gonna kill three limits,” he said. “I know it.” Mueller had set decoys in a cut cornfield just off the town’s main drag, and Cale Cannoy, a buddy of his, was already…

WHEN I WAS a kid, my favorite place to be in winter was on the hardwood ridges behind my neighbor Ronnie’s house, with my .22 rifle in hand. Ronnie loved fried squirrel, and filling his skillet was my fee for accessing the choice woods via his yard. But he was picky. He wouldn’t take old squirrels, and he didn’t put up with sloppy marksmanship. One morning I knocked on his door and proudly showed off a limit of grays—all hit through the body. He turned them down flat. “Head shots only,” he said. I quickly learned that the winter woods, when squirrels are in a frenzy over making more squirrels, would provide plenty of opportunities for head shots if I was patient. A few mornings later, I knocked on Ronnie’s…

Virginia blue-cat guide Chris Eberwien (catfishing va.com) knows how to hook huge James River fish on the fairest summer days. Ask him when he most loves being on the river, however, and he’ll tell you from Christmas week to mid January. This time of year, the gizzard shad in many rivers have fled to smaller tributaries and warm water discharges, leaving a dearth of food for the main-river catfish. Because of this, Eberwien says, the blues are easy to find and bites come faster than ever. Here’s his strategy. GET FRESH Gizzard shad that don’t find warm water will die off in winter, providing catfish with a snack as they tumble downriver. Although you can fish whole shad to mimic this, Eberwien prefers to quarter his baits, which he…

LIGHTNING cracked the sky, washing the world white, and Raymond Jacik knew that his fishing buddy was dead. Through rain and hail, Jacik couldn’t see Michael Watkins, but the bolt had struck down right where he was stranded on a gas well, in Galveston Bay, 4 miles offshore. “Mike!” Jacik screamed. But in the winds and thundering waves, his cry was pointless. Jacik had no time to mourn. Waves kept knocking him off the gas pipe where he stood, a few hundred yards away from Watkins. The rusted pipe gashed his bare feet, but it was the only thing keeping him out of the water. For hours, 6-foot waves slammed into him again and again, hurtling him into the booming sea. Once in the water, he’d flail wildly in the…

When the handler unchained the pit bulls, he unleashed chaos. The Kevlar- vested dogs bulldozed through the brush, lending their roars to the nightmare chorus of howling curs and the desperate squeals of a bayed hog with nowhere else to run. Cold rain drizzled from the tarnished November clouds. Others in our hunting party had already joined the chase and yelled for me to hurry. I reached down and patted the sheath at my hip for assurance that what I would soon need was still there. I approached the brush where the dogs had gone. My hammering heart deafened me to the noise; my mind, knowing what I was about to do, blurred with doubt and second-guessing. As I entered the brush, barks and screams— the chaos—grew louder and more…

LOCATION: BEARTOOTH MOUNTAINS, WYOMING ➞ “Ninety percent of wildlife photography is being in the right place, at the right time, with the right equipment,” says Keith Crowley, who captured this brief stalemate between three bighorn ewes and four coyotes last January in the Beartooth Mountains. Coming around a hill, he saw the predators running up a slope to the top of the 150-foot bluff and grabbed his camera. “They disappeared over the top, and right away the sheep came flying onto the cliff face,” he says. He’d never seen four coyotes working as a team before; they typically hunt alone or in pairs. “The coyotes split up. Two came back down to see if they could get at the sheep from below, two stayed up top. But coyotes are smart…

STARTING TO HUFF AND SWEAT, I was ready for my first break of the climb when we saw a tremendous stag effortlessly gliding up the ridge high above us. We only had a brief look, but it was enough. My hunting partner Brett Flaugher, guide Marcus Eccles, and I quickly bailed around the edge of the ridge and rushed for the valley on the other side to try and cut the stag off. When we got there, the stag wasn’t in any of the open areas of ferns and tussocks, so keeping the wind in our favor, we poked into the gullies and ravines lining the drainage, glassing into the many fingers of timber and head-high brush. After about an hour of slow and methodical hunting, we decided to climb…

DURING THE HARD-WATER SEASON, everyone loves to wake up to an unseasonably warm air mass, near normal barometer, light wind, and bearable precipitation. Too bad that combination of conditions comes around so rarely. When Mother Nature throws a curveball on the day you plan to fish, you have to make the call between toughing it out or sitting at home. If you’re an icefishing guide, choosing the latter means no pay. I talked with four of the best guides in the country to find out how they keep the rods bent during the toughest conditions on the ice. Their tips and tricks can help you turn what would have been a couch trip into the icefishing trip you’ll never forget. ROUGH CONDITION BLIZZARD PRO DOUG KLOET H OME WATER Fox…

THE GATOR GUY GUIDE TOM WALKER BIG-GAMEGIG SOUTH FLORIDA ALLIGATOR AND BOAR GUIDE, SURVIVOR For Walker, every hunt is its own adventure, but last fall he experienced his most dangerous night on the job ever: The wounded gator was under the boat, his head afloat and right next to us. My buddy Andy turned on his light and said, “Don’t move.” A second alligator, a 12-footer, was a few yards from the boat. Andy then slowly turned to face me. “S - - t, seriously, don’t move.” I could see the hole in the first alligator’s neck from the .243. I eased the big treble hook into the water and set into him hard. That was a mistake. I forgot that I’d tightened the drag down on the reel, and…

• It was dark, but right when I spotted the alligator, I knew it was the biggest one I’d seen in my three years of hunting them. My husband and four friends were with me on the boat, and as we inched within casting range, the gator dove under and vanished. Our group had already killed a big gator that season, but I had a tag I really wanted to fill, so we didn’t give up looking for it. Thirty minutes later, it resurfaced—right in front of us. My husband snagged it, and we got a few more lines on it before it took off. It ran us from bank to bank, pulling hard. Every time it neared the river’s edge, I feared it might break us off…

answers your questions about guns, shooting, hunting, and life Q: What do you think of a Remington 760 in .30/06 for elk? What scope would you put on it? —RALPH GARDNER IV, N.J. A: The Model 760 is a hugely underrated rifle that’s often very accurate and always highly reliable. The .30/06 is just about ideal; I’d look for ammo with strong 165- or 180-grain bullets. As for a scope, I assume you’re not going to be taking shots at 2,000 yards, so I’ll nominate my old favorite, the Leupold Vari-X III 2.5X–8X with the Duplex reticle. Q: I recently came across a couple of boxes of .219 Zipper and wondered why something with such a cool name isn’t used anymore. What happened to it? —JOHN NIH, VIA E-MAIL A:…

Y OU SIT DOWN at the vise on a cold winter night with the best intentions: After a few hours—and perhaps a few beers—you’ll have easily knocked out two dozen Buggers, Adamses, or Copper Johns. By spring, your fly boxes will be teeming. Then comes reality. Between distractions from the kids, restarts on a couple of flies, and spending 10 minutes looking for that hook you dropped, you are lucky to have three bugs completed in one sitting. It’s happened to me countless times, but for production fly-tiers Mike Schmidt and Aaron Letera, the shortcomings of hobbyists are not an option. Combined, these two burn through nearly 30,000 hooks a year to fulfill their orders. For Schmidt and Letera flies are money, and to produce that kind of volume, you…

They’re still out there—huge bucks lurking in your woods rightnow. They’re the diehards. They’ve survived this long because they’re the toughest deer to kill. But that’s not the only reason. A lot of guys packed it in weeks ago, because their woodstoves are so nice and warm. Or because their couches swallowed them up. Mostly, though, because tagging one of these winter trophies takes more gumption than some folks had when the season began. But that’s not you. You, too, are one of the diehards. You’re going to keep at it until your last tag is filled or the season’s last day closes with you picking icicles from your mustache. And to help you get it done, we asked seven of the whitetail world’s most successful big-buck experts to share…

I WAS SURPRISED to see another hunter had beaten me to the boat ramp. Waves from a hard north wind were lapping against the bank when the graying man walked up to me and asked if I was hunting alone. I’d planned on it, yes. He had the same plan. “Let’s say a prayer, then,” he said. By the light of a headlamp the stranger asked for our safety on the big lake—a place where, the season before, three young hunters had lost their lives when their boat capsized. With an “Amen,” he unlatched the bow strap to his boat and smiled. “This should be a great morning.” It was. I shot my limit early, and as I was picking up, I could hear the pops of one gun on…

HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE 2016 Forty presents that any sportsman would love to unwrap SPORTSMEN, DESPITE THEIR many benevolent (and totally gift-deserving) qualities, make Christmas shopping a major chore. They’re picky, opinionated, and often already well supplied. Rather than spoil your yuletide goodwill trying to find them the perfect present, defer to this foolproof grab bag of gear. And if you’re feeling extra generous, we’ve included 13 items we consider to be the Best of the Best. SIMMS RIPRAP $90 • simmsfishing.com Wet wading in old sneakers is a slippery experience, but wearing wading boots without waders often equals ankle pain and rocks in your toes. Here’s the happy medium. As comfortable as sneakers, Ripraps have rubberized outsoles capable of receiving studs, and felt pads down the center of the sole…