Innholdsfortegnelse for February/March 2018 i Outdoor Life

We’ve warned our readers about the end of hunting (see “The License Cliff,” p. 42) a hundred times in the past 120 years. But we weren’t just crying wolf: Hunting has faced many legitimate threats over the decades, which have ranged from tooliberal regulations and poor resource management to habitat loss and antihunting activism. But we reported on those issues to help raise awareness and troubleshoot our thorniest problems— like advocating for a reduction in daily duck bag limits in the ’20s and ’30s. And in most cases, the outcome wasn’t so grim after all. Here’s a look back at some of the gravest pronouncements from the pages of Outdoor Life. JANUARY 1921 “THE FUTURE OF AMERICAN GAME” The decline in the amount of game in America gives us a…

Part of the joy of finding shed antlers is their unexpectedness. When you find only a handful over the course of a season, each one counts as a welcome surprise. The joy of discovery might be diluted for those who find dozens or even hundreds of cast antlers every winter, but the shed hunters we interviewed say that developing a pattern that pays off with a truck bed of sheds has other rewards— including discovering core deer areas. We asked shed-hunting experts from across the country for their take on the top weeks of the year, the best sorts of habitat, and other hacks for finding armloads of deer sheds. SPECIES Whitetails LOCALE Southwestern Wisconsin SOURCE: Paul Annear, freelance writer and pro-staff member for Ani-Logics Outdoors ▸ I like to…

What would spring be without gobbles rolling from ridgetops at daylight? Well, about as much fun as a turkey hunt without a solid stable of fakes. Today’s turkey decoys are far more realistic, durable, and, yes, costly than those of seasons past. We found some great bargains, as well as some premium, uber-realistic decoys that, while a significant investment, can add a new level of excitement to your encounters with longbeards this spring. We put 14 decoys— including hens, jakes, and strutters—through a gauntlet of tests to help you figure out which to add to your arsenal this spring. FLEXTONE THUNDER CHICK A BASIC, NO-FRILLS hen decoy, the Thunder Chick offers solid realism, a handy stake system, and a welcome price tag. The rotomolded decoy slips into a turkey vest…

S hould you cast your own bullets? Well, sure—but then again, maybe not. Handloaders of an experimental mind who shoot a variety of rifle and handgun cartridges should definitely cast their own bullets, and casting may be the only source of bullets for obsolete cartridges. And there is no sense in shooting expensive jacketed bullets at the relatively slow velocities reached by handgun cartridges and some rifle cartridges, such as the.45/70. But casting bullets is probably not a cost-efficient proposition for reloaders who shoot just a few boxes of cartridges a year. Money they would spend for casting equipment would be better put toward buying cast bullets from one of the dozens of small companies that sell them. Equipment essential for basic bullet casting is simple. I started casting bullets…

The Game Changer doesn’t look all that different from other rifle-rest sandbags. It has a flat base, two pointed ears, a carry handle on each end, and four plastic attachments to thread nylon straps through. It isn’t filled to capacity and slouches when you set it down, kind of like a surly teenager who doesn’t want to talk about why his homework isn’t getting done But, as is oft en the case, first impressions aren’t everything. There’s a lot going on with this unassuming little bag, which has become a very popular accessory with competitive shooters in the Precision Rifle Series. The bag’s shape along with the type and volume of fill were well thought out by Clifon Reasor, who created it. When Tom Fuller, a competitive shooter who owns…

HE KNEW SOMETHING WAS WRONG, but aches and pains and the occasional cold just come with the job. This time, though, Matt Morrett’s symptoms kept getting worse. This was no ordinary cold. “I couldn’t stay awake. My ankles swelled, my whole body ached,” recalls the 47-year-old Marysville, Penn., resident. “I’d never felt like that before.” An assistant producer for AvianX-TV, Morrett was filming a hunt in Kansas when he started feeling sick. He was aware of Lyme disease and various other tick-borne illnesses, so Morrett went straight to his doctor when he got home and asked to be tested. It came back negative. Despite a precautionary dose of antibiotics, the symptoms didn’t go away. after fighting through headaches, fatigue, and soreness for two more months, Morrett located a specialist who…

IT WAS A LONG, SILENT DRIVE BACK FROM THEIR FIRST COYOT E HUNT TOGETHER. GARV I N YOUNG DIDN’T SAY A WORD ON THE 1½-HOUR DRIVE. AL MORRIS WAS UNCHARACTERISTICALLY QUIET AS WELL. THEY WERE PART ICI PATING IN THE UTAH STATE COYOTE-HUNTING CONTEST IN PREPARATION FOR THE 1997 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP COYOTE CALLING CONTEST (WCCCC) TWO WEEKS LATER. THEY’D HUNTED ALL DAY AND KILLED EXACTLY ZERO COYOTES. IT HAD BEEN NEARLY DARK, AND MORRIS WAS ON THE VERGE OF DOZING OFF WHEN HE HEARD YOUNG LIPSQUEAK, THE PREARRANGED SIGNAL THAT HE’D SPOTTED A COYOTE. A PAIR WAS COMING IN. MORRIS SETTLED BEHIND HIS RIFLE, AIMED, SQUEEZED THE TRIGGER, AND…CLICK. NO CARTRIDGE IN THE CHAMBER. THE COYOTES GOT AWAY. “THAT WAS THE FIRST TIME WE’D EVER HUNTED TOGETHER,” MORRIS SAYS. “…

PINE DINING ▸ Thanks for bringing back old memories with “OL Family Recipes” (From the Archives, The Life, November). I come from a family of seven kids, and there wasn’t always a lot to eat. Fish, wild game, and the garden provided much of our food in the ’50s and ’60s. I guess the only thing I didn’t really appreciate was porcupine. I thought the “pine” referred to the taste of the meat. I also enjoyed “Lost & Found.” The Christmas flood of 1964 on the Rogue River here in Grants Pass brought many folks to the riverbank to watch (if they could find a safe place to stand). I watched with my brothers as trees and whole houses floated by, still decorated for Christmas. Those homes that didn’t survive…

WE INVITED decoy manufacturers to send us models of their choice in any or all of our categories: hen, jake, and strutter. Weight was measured with a postal scale. Durability considered puncture resistance, general abrasion resistance, and finish. Realism was evaluated at distances of 25 and 75 yards. To test portability, each decoy was placed in a Tenzing turkey vest. Some decoys came with their own bag for transportation. In those instances, the bag was judged as an alternate method of toting the decoy. Ease of deployment was evaluated by timing each decoy’s setup time from vest (or storage bag) to huntready position. A standard floor fan and a gaspowered leaf blower were employed to analyze wind resistance. Each decoy was hit with bursts of air for 10 seconds at…

You probably rejoice when you spend an entire day afield without bumping into another hunter. Encountering strangers—especially when they’ve stumbled across your secret spot—spoils the solitude we seek in the outdoors. So you’d be hard-pressed to find any sportsman or -woman who wants more competition in the woods. Yet, more hunters is precisely what we need right now. Here’s why: Baby boomers make up our nation’s largest cohort of hunters, and they’ve already begun to age out of the sport. Within 15 years, most will stop buying licenses entirely. And when they do, our ranks could plunge by 30 percent—along with critical funding for wildlife management, advocacy for hunting, and a tradition that’s probably pretty important to you. In other words, the clock is ticking. And unless we act now,…

I f you’re a believer in urban legends, you may have already heard the one about how Hurricane Andrew’s widespread destruction in southern Florida in 1992 resulted in the invasion of Burmese pythons, iguanas, and a rogue’s gallery of other voracious reptiles and fish. Whether that’s fact, fiction, or something in between, what is undeniable is that a population of non-native fish species boomed, and has morphed from incidentally caught oddities into targeted trophies—at least among a slightly offbeat crowd. Although peacock bass were intentionally stocked by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, it’s unclear if the snakeheads, clown knifefish, and Mayan cichlids were merely flushed down someone’s toilet and flourished in Florida’s tropical waters, or if they arrived on the crest of hurricane-altered ocean currents, but they’re darn…

I cannot imagine a world without hunters. I can’t bear to think of life without the thrill of the chase, our deep communion with wild animals, and the selfimposed difficulty that defines a hard hunt. And I certainly don’t want to live in a world without backstraps. But we are closer to a world without hunters than we’ve been since World War II, and it’s not just because anti-hunters have passed restrictive legislation, or because we’ve lost habitat for wildlife. It’s because we are old, and getting older. And because we’ve done a lousy job of finding people to replace us. That’s the context for this issue’s cover stories, which are indispensable reading if you care about perpetuating our hunting traditions. “The Boomer Bomb” (p. 42) defines the problem, but…

It seems like almost every game animal or bird has its own advocacy organization. Examples include Ducks Unlimited, National Wild Turkey Federation, Pheasants Forever, and Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. Hunters tend to take deer for granted. after all, deer are doing pretty well, especially whitetails. Sure, there are focused groups such as Quality Deer Management Association (QDMA), Mule Deer Foundation (MDF), and Whitetails Unlimited (WTU). But until a few years ago, there hasn’t been a unified voice for all deer hunters. “There are more than 11 million deer hunters nationwide,” says Nick Pinizzotto, president and CEO of the National Deer Alliance (NDA), which was formed in 2015. “But less than one percent of them participate in an organized group dedicated to protecting the interest of all deer hunters. “NDA’s mission…

These two graphs reflect the change in hunting license holders over time (left) and those same trends compared to the change in national population trends. The upswing in license holders in the 2000s is attributed to a change in data collection methods. AGE OF U.S. HUNTERS This graph demonstrates the rising age of hunters. The proportion of hunters age 45 and up has increased from 29 to 55 percent since the early ’90s (combined green segments). The ratio of hunters age 16 to 44 has shrunk from 71 to 45 percent (yellow segments). The age data from 2016 USFWS surveys was not available. THE LICENSE AGE CLIFF This data is specific to Arizona, but it’s a good representation of the national trend: Dr. Loren Chase compiled data in more than…

1. Use Permethrin: A number of permethrinbased products, like Sawyer Insect Repellent, will keep ticks offyou. Apply it to your clothing and let it dry. It’s EPA-approved and lasts up to six weeks, even if your outerwear gets wet. Many tick researchers use it. ($10; sawyer.com) 2. Check Yourself :Check every inch of your body after you spend time outdoors, no matter how many other precautions you take. If you feel an itch, it might be a tiny tick embedded in your skin. 3. Turn Up the Heat: after the hunt, toss your clothing into a dryer and run it for 10 minutes on high heat to kill any ticks on your clothing. 4. Pull It: The sooner you pull an attached tick, the less likely you are to get…

NOTABLE NON-NATIVES OF FLORIDA CANALS SPECIES: Peacock bass REPUTATION: Known for dogged fights that mimic saltwater grouper, peacock bass were introduced from South America to reduce the population of spotted tilapia. Peacocks of most any size will wallop a bait hard and provide a wristwrenching battle that tests gear. SIZE: Peacocks in Florida weigh 2 to 3 pounds but can go to 5-plus. BEST BAITS: Live shiners BEST TECHNIQUE: Live-lining bait under a slip bobber, or small crankbaits or soft-plastics. SPECIES: Clown knifefish REPUTATION: Knifefish are wary predators. With their highflying, tarpon-like jumps, these oddities are powerful, with the body structure of a moray eel. They are capable of quickly wrapping your terminal tackle around any piling, bridge abutment, or submerged structure. SIZE: Up to 10 pounds in the canals…

What do my personal-best brook trout, smallmouth bass, and northern pike have in common? They ate a Murdich Minnow. What fly do I throw at trout in the sky-blue lakes of Chile with just as much confidence as I do in the small, tannin-stained rivers of Wisconsin? A Murdich Minnow. Simple to tie and easy to customize, this baitfish imitation was originally developed as a striper fly, but today it catches any fish that enjoys a meal of fish flesh. The best news for the angler? It’s almost as easy to tie as it is to cast. STEP 1 SELECT A CLUMP of relatively straight deer-hair fibers from the top half of a bucktail. This clump should be a little less than the width of a pencil. Lash the hair…