Innholdsfortegnelse for February - March 2016 i Outdoor Life

I own a $500 electronic predator call. It’s a perfect blend of portable form and solid-state function: electronics sealed in a winterized case, hundreds of high-definition wildlife shrieks and bawls amplified by a weatherproof speaker. If it has a problem, it’s that it sits silent on a shelf for about 51 weeks of the year. Between various distractions, I don’t find as much time as I would like to hunt coyotes. It’s a shame I don’t get more use out of such an expensive, purpose-built piece of gear. It’s for occasional predator hunters like me that the game-call industry is marketing entrylevel electronic calls with a handful of digital sound clips for a fraction of the price of the higher-end units. Are these weekend-warrior e-callers up to snuff? I tested…

Even for people who know little or nothing about firearms, the outline of an AR-15 is widely recognizable. More than that, it is a shape that has meaning. While terms like M16, M4, and AR-15 might be greeted with a blank stare, the iconic silhouette of an AR carries with it a host of associations, both good and bad, depending on the viewer’s perspective. It evokes images of the military, given that the M16 and its descendants have been the main battle rifle of the United States for more than half a century. We’ve seen it wielded by Marines in Hue City, carried by soldiers across the sands of Iraq, and thrust bayonet first into the ground, adorned with helmet, boots, and dog tags, to form a Battlefield Cross commemorating…

A fundamental assumption in fisheries management is that catch rate, whether measured by biologists during population assessment or by anglers, is related to fish abundance— when abundance increases, the catch rate goes up. While this has been found to be the case for walleye fisheries in Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin, there are exceptions, and New York’s Oneida Lake is one of them. What Cornell University researchers have learned may help you keep your walleye catch rates high wherever you fish. But be forewarned— you may have to move around. Oneida Lake, a 51,000-acre lake in central New York, supports one of the state’s most valuable walleye fisheries. In 1956, Cornell University, in partnership with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, established a field station on Oneida to help…

OUTDOOR LIFE: Why crows? TODD GIFFORD: When I was a kid, crow season started on July 1. So my friends and I figured out that if we started hunting crows like we hunted waterfowl, we’d be really sharp by the duck opener. We formed this club of five dudes, and we’d scout and crow hunt for fun. We had a big boombox and we’d always blast the same calls on tape: Johnny Stewart’s #205 Fighting Crows. OL: Crow hunting is like hunting mallards? TG: Yeah. I’d say they’re more like pintails, even. They can be tough. If anything’s wrong with your spread or your hide, they won’t give you the time of day. I use fully flocked decoys. You have to be exactly on the X—that’s the only way to…

Besides the central focus knob and the diopter (that little dial that focuses the right barrel), the only adjustable features on a binocular are the eyecups. But many hunters don’t seem to know how to adjust them so that they perform the job for which they are designed. Many of my hunting buddies twist their binocular’s cups all the way out, so that they are fully extended, and they keep them there no matter the conditions. That’s great for blocking peripheral light just after sunup or just before sunset, but the fully extended cups are probably limiting their field of view and may also be promoting fogged lenses. Here are the pros and cons of each of the three standard eyecup positions. FULLY RETRACTED .In this position, in which the…

As the old aluminum boat slid through the shallows of a marshy lagoon near North Topsail Beach, N.C., Capt. Alan Jernigan didn’t see the fish at first. Sure, it was black dark, but it still seemed odd to see a flounder that was almost as big around as the generator on the floor of his boat that was pumping power to the underwater lights. The eyes gave it away. When Jernigan saw those bulging peepers, he backed up on the beast and thrust downward with his gig. The water erupted. He’d never seen a flounder this big or had anything this powerful on the end of his trident. He was so nervous about losing the fish, he jumped into the water and held it pinned to the bottom for 10…

IS IT TIME TO RETHINK HUNTING’S PLAYBOOK? “There’s only two places on the earth where wildlife at a large scale has actually increased in the 20th century, and those are North America and southern Africa. Both of those models of conservation were built around hunting.”—DR. ROSIE COONEY, INTERNATIONAL UNION FOR CONSERVATION OF NATURE Mostly lost in the shrieking hysteria of last summer’s Cecilgate were the quiet voices of moderation. One of those voices belonged to Dr. Rosie Cooney. The Australian zoologist chairs the Sustainable Use and Livelihoods group of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, a world body that strives to balance wildlife and human needs around the globe. In August, as the First World raged over the killing of a named lion in Zimbabwe, Cooney tried to reason…

The lone coyote works its way down the draw, the towering Bitterroot Mountains glittering with snow behind and above it. An inexperienced observer might think the wild canine is randomly cruising down the drainage, but I know better. It is deliberately and cautiously sniffing its way upwind toward a glob of gland lure I smeared over the branches of a bush yesterday. That coyote could walk anywhere in the million acres of land surrounding my set, but it doesn’t. It steps squarely on the 2-inch pan of the Number 3 coil-spring trap hidden under the scent branch. After dispatching the coyote, I admire its fur. My job tonight will be to skin the plush pelt, and then I’ll stretch and dry it on a forming board in my garage. I’ll…

STAYIN’ ALIVE YOU CAN’T SUBMIT YOUR OWN NARROW ESCAPE TO “THIS HAPPENED TO ME” IF YOU DON’T LIVE TO TELL THE TALE. MAKE SURE YOU’RE READY FOR WHATEVER THE WILD THROWS YOUR WAY BY READING OUR ALL-NEW BOOK, HOW TO SURVIVE ANYTHING, BY OL’S TRUSTY SURVIVAL EXPERT, TIM MacWELCH. THIS LIFESAVING GUIDE IS AVAILABLE NOW AT OUTDOORLIFE.COM/SURVIVEANYTHING. STORYTIME We pay cash for all true adventures published. Only those used will be acknowledged. Send to Outdoor Life, THTM, 2 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10016; or THTM@OutdoorLife.com. Please include a daytime phone number.…

By the time winter comes around, I have so many knives in such dire need of sharpening that I have to put aside a big block of time to work on them. I generally use a series of honing stones of decreasing grit size for this. Once I restore (or, in some cases, build) the blade bevel, I use a sharpening rod coated with industrial diamonds to touch up the blades as I use them through the rest of the year. I have discovered a product that may make my old sharpening stones obsolete. Called the Guided Sharpening System, from the Oregon company Work Sharp, it uses a pivoting sharpening plate to follow the blade’s contour, simplifying the process of building a consistent bevel on just about any type of…

It’s cold for a mid-December Tuesday in Kentucky. The day dawned near freezing but has warmed under a sparkling sun. Shadows from the flanking timber cover the one-lane wooden bridge that spans the Middle Fork of the Red River. I peer into the water, searching for fish, as I’ve done thousands of times from countless bridges. Trout holding in clear water over a gravel stream bed possess an almost translucent quality. These are stocked fish, but they’ve gained a wariness about them. A movement. A flash. It’s all you get. Then a fish turns and shows a glimpse of silvertinged crimson. They’re here. I retrieve a 3-weight from the truck and scoot down the steep clay bank. If Kerry Caraghar were here, he would string up with an 8-or 9-foot…

Built on many small rivers as flood-control structures back in the 1940s and ’50s, low-head dams become catfish magnets in late winter and into the spring, and you can count North Dakota catfish guide Brad Durrick as a huge fan. Like most experienced anglers, Durrick has developed a strategy that centers on specific locations. But his rather unusual approach involves adapting his where-to to the mood of the fish. Durrick has discovered that certain targets yield more fish when the fish are actively feeding, while other targets hold more channel cats when they are in a neutral or even sluggish state. The good news is that most low-head dams are similar, and Durrick’s knowledge is easily applied. Here’s a crash course in how he gets into the heads of his…

FOX HOUND • BIG-GAME HOUND • BEAGLE • COONHOUND White early man was in his hunting-andgathering stage, some 25,000 to 40,000 years ago, domestic canines diverged from their wolf-like brethren. A relationship between two of the world’s most advanced predators formed because the very first domestic dogs and our own forebears shared a single goal—finding food. Humans and dogs have been hunting as a team since woolly mammoths roamed the earth. There is no current family of dog breeds that better typifies team hunting than the hounds. With a sense of smell that is 100,000 times more sensitive than our own and an innate prey drive, hounds are invaluable tools in our pursuit of game. But viewing our dogs as tools diminishes the true nature of our bond. Over tens…

STATS Gauge: 12 Capacity: 3+1 Weight: 6 lb. 14 oz. Trigger Pull: 5 lb. 8 oz. Barrel Length: 28 in. Overall Length: 48 . in. Price: $1,695 Contact:fabarmusa.com While we’re bird hunting, we spend a lot more time carrying our shotguns than shooting them. This fact has done more to shape the look and design of bird guns than perhaps anything else. As a practical matter, a good bird gun must be easy to haul around. It can’t be too heavy and it should balance with whatever carry technique is used. A cumbersome shotgun can turn an otherwise fine day of hunting in the uplands into a slog. Aesthetically, it should be pleasing to look at. Life is too short to hunt with ugly guns, and given the state of…