Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2021 i Game & Fish West

I was about halfway up the tree in my climber when I heard sticks breaking in the cedar thicket to my left. Light was a good 45 minutes away, so all I could do was pause my ascent and listen. A few more sharp cracks were followed by a series of hollow thumps. It was the first week of November, and it sure sounded like a buck was chasing a doe over there in those cedars. The noise continued during the next half-hour as I finished the climb, pulled my flintlock into the stand and settled in. Then the woods went quiet, and there was no more cracking or thumping or rustling. As soon as legal shooting time arrived, I checked to be sure I could see the muzzleloader’s sights,…

If I believed in genies, I know what one of my three wishes would be. I’d wish that November was the month that lasted the span of six. I wouldn’t be too greedy. I’d want to keep April and May for turkeys, June, July and August for smallmouth fishing, and December for holidays. The rest, November. There is, without exception, no month finer than that one when it comes to hunting whitetails. Sure, the end of the month can get a bit slow and bowhunters have to work their way around some orange from time to time, but those are small concessions to make for such a grand experience. I love hunting in November, but I hate how fast the month seems to fly by. Take advantage of every single…

Western waterfowl hunters truly have some mouthwatering hunting opportunities available to them. This is the case whether you knock on doors for access, frequent the many state and federal public shooting refuges available or hunt on private clubs. In my hunting life, I’ve been fortunate enough to do all three. Wherever you hunt, one critical key to success is putting out a decoy spread that causes ducks to commit to you, which is not always as easy as it sounds. Your spread’s ability to fool ducks depends largely on the realism of its composition and arrangement. Not all mallards, pintails, teal, widgeons or gadwalls arrive at the same time in the same place—different species migrate at various times of the season. Realistic decoy spreads should reflect this for top gunning…

My buddy whispered to me as he studied the 6x6 high in the Rocky Mountains. “I hate to say it, but I think you should take this bull,” he said. “It’s up to you, but given this is the only one we’ve seen all week, and with no storms coming, this might be all you get. Unless you want to come back in a couple weeks.” I thought hard about doing the latter but opted for the former. We commenced a stalk, I connected on the shot and soon we were filling saddle bags and heading off the dry mountain. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t ultimately regret my decision. A week later my friend sent a photo of an incredible 392-inch bull his daughter shot in the…

Plopper-style baits really took off in the bass market with the introduction of River2Sea’s Whopper Plopper in 2010. Since then, it seems that every bass angler has thrown a plopper of some kind, and there are several on the market, including Josh Bertrand’s favorite: the Berkley Choppo. Although it’s been wildly successful and often imitated, the plopper is not a new bait style. The CC Roberts Bait Company of Mosinee, Wisc., began making the first plopper-style lure in 1918, and it’s still being made today. They call it the Mud Puppy, and it was invented by Constance C. Roberts (1888-1955). He received a patent on his design in 1929. The Mud Puppy has been a popular musky lure for more than a century, but it took the Whopper Plopper to…

As Steve Jones’ 1985 Dodge Power Ram began to backslide down a cattle trail faintly etched into the side of a steep bluff, I immediately started thinking about which way I was going to bail. I was sitting atop an elevated bench in the bed of the truck, far better off than my cohorts trapped within the cab, who would have to fumble with 35-year-old door handles and clamber over one another to avoid plummeting to their deaths. Fortunately, our skid ended a few feet short of the switchback, and Steve gunned the engine to deliver us from near-certain peril. He would later tell me it was a “controlled slide” to better position the truck for the run up the incline. Whatever it was, I was now fully awake. As…

CRASH THE RUT November is prime time for deer hunters, and our “Crash Course” videos will help you rule the rut. Get quick lessons on calling, decoys, stand placement and more. Scan the code at the right to start watching. PACK IT RIGHT There are essential items every hunter needs in the woods. Use this checklist, “10 Things to Keep in Your Deer Pack at All Times,” to make sure you’re set. BRISK BASS Bass are still biting, and our how-to articles explain ways to catch ’em as temps drop. Pull down to “Bass” under “Fishing” on our homepage for tips. HUNTER-FRIENDLY FEATURES Catch all 12 episodes of our “Beyond the Rifle” series, where Editorial Director Adam Heggenstaller takes an in-depth look at the Benelli Lupo’s innovations. BEST DEER RIFLES…

The prairie grass bristled as an angry wind whistled through it. In the darkness I could barely make out the hill I was climbing. It wasn’t particularly steep, but the icy incline offered no firm footing. At its peak, a ground blind was perched overlooking the ravine below, ratcheted with cables to ensure it remained anchored in the gale-force winds. It was my first morning hunt in Oklahoma, and it was inhospitably cold and dreadfully nasty. A 100-year storm had transformed the landscape into a fragile crystal, enshrining it in ice. With a flashlight clenched in my teeth and thickly gloved hands, I chipped away at the accumulation on the blind’s door with my pocketknife. Once it was freed, I shuffled inside, leaning my muzzleloader against the far wall. Settling…

My 12-year-old son Kazden, who seconds earlier had pulled the trigger on a nice 3-point blacktail we’d called in, excitedly tapped me on the shoulder. “Dad, look at that huge buck!” he said. I looked up and saw one of the biggest blacktails I’d ever seen, standing in the exact spot where Kazden’s buck had been. I was speechless. That buck lived to see another day, as Kazden had made a perfect shot on his buck and I held only an archery tag. But its presence in that place at that time served as a reminder that when rattling migratory blacktails, anything can happen. ON THE MOVE We were hunting public land in the foothills of the Cascades at about 3,500 feet. When rattling migratory bucks, I like covering ground,…

If you are sitting on a mule deer tag in November, consider yourself lucky. These are special hunts. The hard-to-get controlled tags. The seasons you remember when you’re older and your hair has long since gone gray. It’s a truly storied time to be hunting muleys. As I look back on my mule deer hunting career, one moment that stands out was in Idaho. The rut was on, and the weather was so cold a four-letter word would shatter and fall to the ground before it could reach my horse’s ear. Bitter cold. We all went home with bull elk and average bucks, except for the cook, who I guided to a 27-inch 4x4 he shot with his .270 Winchester off the tent stake. I spotted the buck when I…

Since its introduction in 2015, Mossberg’s Patriot line of bolt-action rifles has grown to include predator, youth and tactical models. For 2021, the company introduced a long-range hunting iteration called, fittingly, the LR Hunter. The Mossberg Patriot LR Hunter carries forth several standard features found on the original Patriot—a polymer drop-box magazine, a spiral-fluted bolt, an oversized bolt handle, a user-adjustable (2 to 7 pounds) Lightning Bolt Action trigger—and it also has a number of attributes that tailor it to long-range shooting and hunting. Perhaps most noticeable is the polymer-coated Monte Carlo stock with its raised comb and flat-bottom, benchrest-style fore-end. These design characteristics are meant to maximize comfort and stability when bearing down on a distant target. The fore-end, too, has dual swivel studs for a sling and a…

Lever-action rifles are steeped in tradition and soaked with nostalgia, but that doesn’t mean a lever gun isn’t just as useful now as it was at the turn of the 19th century. Henry Repeating Arms is one manufacturer that recognizes there is a lot of life left in lever guns. They are by far the company’s primary focus, and with manufacturing facilities in Rice Lake, Wis., and Bayonne, N.J., Henry is among the top five long-gun makers in the U.S. Although part of the company’s mission is to embody the history and heritage of lever guns—it takes its name from Benjamin Tyler Henry, the inventor of the first lever-action repeating rifle patented in 1860—it also strives to update its firearms’ features to address the current needs of hunters and shooters.…

Some years ago I participated in a cull hunt for whitetail deer on a large property in Texas. The other hunters and I were shooting Remington R-25 rifles chambered in .308 Win., and we were provided with 168-grain Barnes VOR-TX ammunition. This was more than enough gun for 70- to 170-pound deer, but the first day of shooting was disastrous. Most of the deer were hit well but ran 100-plus yards into thick brush that was polluted with rattlesnakes. One hunter suggested the Barnes bullets were not expanding, but I knew that was not the case. Mono-metal bullets like those loaded in the VOR-TX ammo expand after passing though only a couple inches of ballistic gelatin. We needed to make a change, and fortunately one hunter had a case of…

Fiocchi may be best known for its shotshells and rimfire ammunition, but the company recently spent considerable time reengineering and reimagining every aspect of its centerfire rifle cartridge lineup. The Fiocchi team devoted millions of developmental dollars, as well as countless research hours, in labs and on the range, to perfecting its centerfire offerings. This effort has led to the new Hyperformance Hunting centerfire line. Fiocchi’s R&D team forged advances in propellent formulations to offer increased performance across all centerfire cartridges in the line. Manufacturing processes were also perfected, specifically for Fiocchi’s new Polymer-Tipped Copper Solid bullets. These are CNC-machined with longitudinal skives, or cuts, to produce dramatic petaling upon impact. The skives offer repeatable expansion to predictably increase both the bullet’s frontal diameter and the diameter of the wound…

If you were an alien trying to catch a human being at mealtime, you might cast your bait near a pizza shop. If you’re a bass fisherman, you should do the same thing when targeting fall bass. No, don’t fish near pizza shops—not exactly. What you should be doing, though, is something similar. The best bass anglers follow the forage for their fall bass, and there’s no better time to key on bass food sources and emulate that prey than the fall. It’ll get you more bites, and it might just be the most enjoyable bass fishing action you have all year. TAKE ’EM ON TOP Major League Fishing pro Josh Bertrand calls Arizona home and loves fall’s top-water action in Western reservoirs. “The bass are super shallow in the…

There are two main things hunters pay for when they buy a pack: capacity and technology. Capacity’s influence on price is pretty straightforward; the larger the pack, the more material required to make it and therefore the higher the price. Technology is a more complicated subject and covers pack features from the design of the frame to the materials used in construction and the type of waterproofing applied to the fabric. To get the best pack for your needs without overpaying, analyze how you’re going to use it. For example, it makes no sense to pay for a lightweight pack that can hold a few days’ worth of gear if most of your hunts are three-hour sits that require a 15-minute walk to the stand. In that case, the number…