Outdoor Life - March 2017 PDF

february
march 2017
CONTENTS
Hornadys new
6mm 108-gr. ELD
Match bullet is
making waves in
long-range
competition. p. 41
vol. 224 no. 2
DEPARTMENTS
THE LIFE
7
8
11
12
13
Waypoint: A Manitoba sh-head

Letters, plus reader deer snapshots
Editors Journal
Old-school tech, from the archives
This Happened to Me: I was
swept out to sea!
GEAR
15
20
Apps that turn smartphones into

required hunting gear
Turkey choke shoot-out
FISHING
25
28
30
32
The hottest billsh bite of the

season is on
Tactics for wintertime browns
Load the boat with open-water
walleyes
How to catch sh on lake points
HUNTING
73
76
78
80
A primer for hunting Floridas wild

Osceola turkeys
First questions for an outtter
Rate coyote setup spots
How to nd more shed antlers
SHOOTING
83
86
88
Melvin Forbes ultralight NULA

ries still set the standard
DIY custom turkey gun project
Gun test: Kimber Hunter 6.5 CM
OFFHAND SHOTS
98
A favorite knife, recovered
34
NEXT TECH
A look at whats coming up in

shooting, shing, and wildlife
management.
FEATURES
THE GOBFATHER
James Dickson, signicant to

the wild turkeys successful
past, peers into the challenges
of its future. by jim casada
4 february/march 2017 outdoor life
58
JUNGLE LORE REDUX
Jim Corbetts famous Rigby

rie, killer of man-eating leopards and tigers, returns to
India. by andrew mckean
67
THE UNKNOWNS
Fifty years after it was discovered, chronic wasting disease

still baes experts and hinders
hunters. by tony hansen
COVER PHOTOGRAPH BY
JEFF WILSON
BILL BUCKLEY
52
THE ONLY BOOK THE MODERN HOMESTEADER NEEDS TO
Available wherever ne books are sold
Pine Falls, Manitoba / Feb. 14 / 11:01 a.m.

Octogenarian Harry DeWille has always been
a bit of a practical joker, and he didnt miss an
opportunity to kid around when a pair of guests
dropped in on his icy Valentines Day. Photographer Tom Fowlks says his uncle, a local who
was showing him around the area, walked up
to DeWilles shing hole andbefore he got
a good look at the pike on the iceasked the
man, What are you catching today? Without
missing a beat, DeWille shot back, Mermaids.
WAYPOINT
section edited by natalie krebs photograph by tom fowlks
outdoor life february/march 2017 7
whitetails (including a 13-point 5 -yearold buck this season).

Kudos to you also for writing about
tracking and taking northwoods bucks in
the snow [Fresh Tracks in the Big Woods].
Those guys are true outdoorsmen.
John Stanard
Poplar Bluff, MO
L E TTE R S
THE BALL DROPS HERE

GOLD STANDARD
Ive been reading Outdoor Life for 66
years, and the December/January 2017
double issue was one of the best. I commend you for the excellent article and
photos on Southern rabbit hunting [A
Vanishing Legacy]. That article brings
back great memories in a day when kids
cut their hunting teeth on deer, and when
deer dominate outdoor media. Old geezers
like me learned to hunt by chasing cottontails and swampers with beagles, and
still-hunting squirrels on foot and by canoe
in Swampeast Missouri.
I was grown before our deer herd recovered enough to sustain good hunting.
Since then, Ive taken several dozen Ozarks
I read your article in the Dec/Jan issue

professing that airguns are legitimate
tools for big-game hunting [Air Strike,
Hunting]. Am I to assume OL readers will
soon be reading articles that say bowling
balls dropped from treestands are an effective tool for dispatching big game? The use
of airguns and bowling balls both fall into
the same realm of the absurd.
Stan Kemmerer
Spring Creek, NV
JINXED
I really enjoyed The Ones That Got
Away [November 2016]. Coincidentally,
that issue arrived the day before my own
story unfolded. I had not yet seen a deer
from a stand this past season, so I set
up another one in what I believed to be
a promising spot. The next morning, I

arrived well before daylight and slipped
in as quietly as possible. At 7:40 a.m., I
saw a huge rack coming through the tall
grass. The words Oh my God escaped my
mouth, and I got ready with my .308. The
deer stopped, broadside, 30 yards in front
of me, focused on something I couldnt see.
I thought, This is too easy. In my mind, I had
already field-dressed him, called my buddies, and taken pictures. I took careful aim
and squeezed the trigger.
Click. I chambered another round and...
click. I chambered the third round: click.
I usually carry my .357 revolver with me,
but I had left it in the Jeep that morning.
It would have been an easy pistol shot.
After what seemed like an eternity, the
buck walked off, never knowing what had
just transpired. After I got over my mental
breakdown, I went home and disassembled
my rifle. I discovered a piece of pine bark
on the bolt face. It must have gotten lodged
in there while I was climbing a pine the day
before. Lesson learned: Keep the empty
chamber closed when climbing a tree, and
always take my trusty .357 as backup.
George Reid
via email
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THELETTERS
LIFE
ALL IN THE FAMILY
NOT FOR SALE
I loved the article Family Ties [Editors

Journal, November]. I, too, have twin
teenage sons, and everything in that article resonates with me. I always worry that
Im not making our outdoor excursions
enjoyable, with my stern directives and
constant reminders of gun safety, land
management, etc. And as my boys grow
older, they are becoming more and more
involved with school, sports, and friends.
But in spite of it all, they are still excited to
go hunting with me. This column reminds
me that the time I have with my boys is
only getting shorter. I am going make a
concerted effort this year to relish every
moment we share outdoors.
Russell Camp
Amarillo, TX
I read An Open Letter to Our Next

President [Dec/Jan]. I, like many who
hunt and fish, rely on public lands and do
not want even one acre of these lands sold
for any reason. In fact, I would suggest
that we not only be permitted to access
a river or stream, but also a landlocked
piece of public land. It does no good for us
to retain our Second Amendment rights
if the only place we have to use them is
at a private shooting range or a hunting
property we can only access by paying a
millionaires fee.
Bob Coet
Pueblo, CO
BLACK IS BACK
Thanks for a great November issue. But
I read your muzzleloader test [Reality
Check, Gear] and was left wondering:
What is the point? After I saw the movie
Jeremiah Johnson, I got a CVA kit and built
a rifle that I used to kill deer before a special season was even thought up. When
you remove the challenge of the hunt and
the skill to use a weapon, what have you
got left to be proud of?
Roy Thompson
Buffalo, ND
BATTLEFIELD TO BACKWOODS
When I started deer hunting in 1979,
rifles were as you listed in State of the
Deer Rifle [Shooting, November]. I was
11 and had just passed the newly instated
Hunter Safety program. During the six
preceding months, my dad had me practicing with his military rifle from the
Civilian Marksmanship Program: a
.30-caliber M1 carbine. The only thing
my dad and I saw that season were does,
which were off-limits then. The next year
I killed the biggest buck our neighbors
had seen in years: a 7-point, with a spread
smaller than a basketball.
I used that M1 carbine for years until I
complained to my dad. I wanted a larger
caliber with more knockdown power.
What came next? Another CMP military
rifle: the Springfield 1903/A3 in .30/06.
Two seasons later, in 1986, I again tagged
a new local record. This time he was a
10-point that could have fit two basketballs inside its spread. We had local traffic
coming to see the buck for days.
Hail the military rifle for hunting.
Shoot what you have, and learn to shoot
it well.
Bryan Cirar
Owensville, MO
MAXIMIZE
YOUR
POTENTIAL
ALSO NOT FOR SALE

Joe Arterburns article The Value of a
Gun [Offhand Shots, October 2016] was
maybe the best Ive ever read on the subject of guns and their worth. We need
more like it. Boomers (pardon the pun)
like myself can relate. Arterburns gun
was a Fox side-by-side; mine was an old
Model 37 Winchester single-shot that my
dad gave me. Like any kid, I immediately
carved my initials into the stock.
That was 52 years ago. While riding
in our UTV one day this past summer,
my grandson Cash noticed the old
Winchester hanging, unloaded, in its gun
rack. I told him the story of the old gun
and said I may give it to him one day.
Arterburns column brought to mind all
the great times I had with that gun. And
the way he ended the article reflected my
thoughts exactly. Keep up the good work.
Mike Barnhill
Lawley, AL
SINGULARLY SILLY
I read with interest and some amusement your test on binoculars [Gear,
October]. The interesting part is your
attempt to correct the publics grammar
without really stating it, as other writers
have done. Although the author did not
specifically say the plural term of binoculars is incorrect, he did repeatedly refer to
the optics in a singular term: binocular.
But hells bellstheyve been referred
to as binoculars since day one. Are we
now going to also change pants, trousers,
glasses, goggles, scissors, pliers, tweezers,
shears, and so on? All of these items are
really singular, but are referred to as plural
objects.
Leave it alone. Well never change.
Ed Huck
Franklinville, NJ
P.S.: By the same token: Why is a bikini

singular when there are two parts, hmm?
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THE
LIFE
READER SPOTLIGHT
THE TAG TEAM
DEER SEASON MAY BE IN THE REARVIEW MIRROR, BUT ITS NEVER TOO LATE
TO CELEBRATE. HERE ARE A FEW HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE 20162017 SEASON.
WANT TO SEE YOUR OWN PICTURE IN OL? START BY SHARING YOUR STORY
WITH US AT OUTDOORLIFE.COM/DEEROFTHEYEAR
MAUREEN PHILHOWER, 52
CALYN YOUNG, 25
Lafayette, NJ
Despite getting my ACL replaced one week
earlier, I had to hunt the rut. My husband helped
me to the blind, and at 8 a.m. I shot this buck with
my crossbow. By the time I crutched to where the
deer had fallen, I was exhausted. And it shows: My
husband took this photo without my knowing.
New Cordell, OK
I took my bow and got settled on the ground
hours before legal light on the morning of the rie
opener. At dawn, I saw the neighbors heading to
their stands without care for the wind, and I knew
they would be pushing deer my way. I tweaked my
setup and grunted this buck in to 55 yards.
RJ SCHUPLER, 14
DALTON SPENCER, 15
Long Island, NY
After more than a year of practicing with my bow
in the backyard, I got a chance to take my rst
deer with a compound on the north shore of Long
Island. I drew on this button buck at 7 a.m. during
the rut, skinned it myself, and cooked baconwrapped venison for our family dinner that night.
Adna, WA
The same day I found out I needed knee surgery,
my dad and I went out to hunt near the river. He
spotted this buck, and in the span of half a second,
I somehow managed to breathe, pray, wet my
pants a little, and pull the trigger while aiming at
the biggest blacktail I had ever seen in real life.
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THE LIFE
EDITORS JOURNAL
Andrew McKean Editor-in-Chief

Sean Johnston Design Director
EDITORIAL
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ART
Art Director Brian Struble
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PHOTOGRAPHY
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PRODUCTION
Production Manager Judith Weber
DEPARTMENTS
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WEB
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Cutting
Edges
OUR FIELD SPORTS HAVE ALWAYS HAD AN
UNEASY RELATIONSHIP WITH TECHNOLOGY
he rst thing I noticed

about Jim Corbetts
tiger-killing rie, when
I nally got to hold it,
is how light and lithe it
is. Chambered in .275 (the imperial
equivalent of 7x57), the most famous
dangerous-game gun in history is
basically a bolt-action deer rie.
The caliber and configuration make sense when you see the
rugged landscape Corbett hunted
early in the last century, the terrain
I toured with the Rigby rifle last
spring and write about beginning
on p. 58. Indias big cats lived (and
still live) in tangly jungle and steep
mountains. A heavy double-gun
would have been unwieldy.
Corbetts rifle looks old-fashioned
now, but at the time it was presented
to him in 1907 (for killing a tiger
responsible for 436 deaths), the rifle
represented cutting-edge technology: a hot new caliber capable of
delivering modern bullets that were

plenty lethal for tigers weighing 500
pounds, a fast action for quick followup shots, and a magazine that
held four shells.
A century later, technology looks
different. Today, when game wardens in India are called to hunt
down man-killing cats, they deploy
military-grade weapons: nightvision goggles and automatic rifles.
But the purpose of this gear is the
same as it was in Corbetts time:
to kill a predatory cat and restore
public safety, not to give the wild
animal a sporting chance.
Theres a fine line between those
goals, and its one I kept seeing as we
developed the cover feature (p. 34)
on technology that is changing how
we hunt and fish. Our field sports
are characterized by restraint. As
much as we want to bag more game
and land more fish, we deliberately
limit our effectiveness. We dont use
night-vision goggles to hunt game,
or use explosives to kill fish.
We are selective in our use of
technology. We think nothing of
using satellite signals to find property boundaries or sophisticated
sonar to find fish, even though we
may challenge ourselves by using a
recurve bow or a barbless hook.
Is there a limit to technology in
the field? You bet. When we use
drones or thermal imagers to find
game, we are crossing that fine
line. But when we use technology
to become more accurate shooters
and more capable anglers, we are
tapping into the same instinct that
Jim Corbett did to become a more
lethal hunter.
ANDREW MCKEAN, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

andrew.mckean@outdoorlife.com
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Vice President, Integrated Sales John Graney
Vice President, Consumer Marketing John Reese
SIMON BARR/TWEED MEDIA
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General Counsel Jeremy Thompson
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THE
LIFE
FROM THE ARCHIVES
TECH THROWBACK
TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATIONS MAY SEEM OUT OF PLACE IN THE GREAT

OUTDOORS, BUT THIS TREND IS REALLY NOTHING NEW BY NATALIE KREBS
epending on your relationship with technology, this issue

of Outdoor Life will either delight or dismay. There are
more than a few sportsmen and -women out there who
pooh-pooh the latest gadgets designed to solve the problems
hunters, shooters, and anglers like to gripe about. But for those
who think the latest wave of outdoor tech has nally gone too far,
just remember that the following three xtures of the modern outdoor world were once considered groundbreaking. They ultimately
became the norm for many hunters everywhere, which raises the
question we try to answer starting on p. 34: Whats next?
CAMOUFLAGE
OL introduces its readers to the
concept of camo in a May 1919

column titled Natures Camouage.
The author denes camouage as
a new French word that means to
deceive the eye, an optical delusion.
In a 1941 column, What Sportsmen
Can Learn from the Army, we admit
hunters could theoretically disguise
their clothing and smear their faces
with mud to better blend in, but we
advise against it since a fellow hunter
might mistake the camouaged
hunter for game. Instead, we
recommend avoiding all abrupt
movements (as we still do). In 1947, a
lineup of suggested clothing shows
six hunters in six dierent hunting
getups (left). Not one person wears
camo. In the early 60s, OL begins
depicting hunters in crude patterns
of mottled camo. We also publish a
discussion of clothing and camo tips
for bowhunters hoping to get closer
to their quarry.
TRAIL CAMERAS
OPTICS
When hunter George Shiras grew
Our 1929 article Considering the Hunting
restless in the o season, he channeled his frustrations into chasing

wild game with a camera instead of
a gun. He started taking photos in
1889, and ultimately devised what
was likely the rst rudimentary
trail camera: He used trip wires to
remotely trigger bulky cameras in
Michigans Upper Peninsula. The
results were stunning for the time,
and OL devoted columns in multiple
issues to Shiras contraptions and
the remarkable photographs they
captured. But it wasnt until 2003
that the rst roundup of commercially available trail cameras
appeared in the pages of OL.
Scope calls the riescope the greatest piece of

conservation equipment ever invented. Author
Col. Townsend Whelen declares the new optic here
to stay for its role in achieving greater accuracy
for more humane kills. Using a scope would also,
he speculates, eliminate mistaken target identity,
thereby protecting o-limits species and fellow
hunters. In 1901, we write of binoculars: Splendid
instruments for sportsmenselling in large
numbers for both sporting and military purposes.
Though only introduced about a year ago, over
2,000 of them have already been sold.
to read these stories and many more, sign up for a free trial
of our digital archives at c2c.outdoorlife.com.
THE LIFE
THIS HAPPENED TO ME
ANDRE TRUDEL, WOLFVILLE, NOVA SCOTIA

i set up far from
shore during low
tide, and used a
fallen tree trunk
for cover.
i was hunting ducks

on the mud flats of
the bay of fundy.
the birds were

plentiful, and
i had a fine day
dropping ducks. i
was having such
a great time, i
didn't notice the
incoming tide
until it was too
late.
I had been hunting

a high spot on the
flats, so now i found
myself on a shrinking
island. The water
was too deep to walk
back. I decided to sit
on the tree and float
to shore. Instead, the
rising tide swept me
out to open water!
Twelve hours later, the trunk beached

itself in the early dawn. my waders saved
me from hypothermia: my legs had been
submerged overnight, but i stayed dry.
STORYTIME
IF WE USE YOUR STORY, WELL SEND YOU THIS BOOK!

THIS HAPPENED TO ME HAS BEEN A FIXTURE OF OUTDOOR LIFE SINCE IT
FIRST APPEARED IN 1940. WEVE SINCE COMPILED SOME OF THE MOST HARROWING, HAIR-RAISING MISADVENTURES READERS HAVE EVER EXPERIENCED IN A SINGLE VOLUME. IF WE RUN YOUR STORY, YOU CAN PORE OVER THE 183
PAGES OF THIS ACTION-PACKED BOOK KNOWING YOURE IN GOOD COMPANY. WANT
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illustration by tony shasteen
We publish true adventures.

Only those used will be acknowledged. Send to THTM@
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or Outdoor Life, THTM, 2 Park
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Include a daytime phone number.
APPS FOR HUNTERS TURKEY CHOKES
A smartphone
loaded with
hunter-focused
apps ready for
eld use.
FIELD TEST
CREATIVE MARKET (PHONES)
GAME
FINDERS
SIX TOP IN-FIELD APPS DESIGNED TO TURN

YOUR SMARTPHONE INTO A MUST-HAVE
HUNTING TOOL BY TONY HANSEN
section edited by tony hansen
GEAR
APPS FOR HUNTERS
The smartphone has become

as vital a piece of gear for
most hunters as our guns and
bows. These little devices
are good for texting buddies from the stand, playing
games to stave off boredom,
taking those annoying camocentric selfies, andyes
actually helping us to kill
more critters.
As cell service has become
more reliable and devices
more sophisticated, the
phones we carry in our pockets can do far more than
make calls and snap photos.
Most feature built-in GPS
and available satellite imagery, and mapping detail is
better than ever.
Battery life continues
to improve, and portable
chargers make it possible
to employ a smartphone for
hours on end while afield. The
missing link has been applications made to harness all
that technology.
The world of huntingfocused apps is growing, and
there are some top-notch offerings to be had. In this test,
we take a look at six apps
focused on helping you find
your way in the woods and
making the most of your time
once you get there.
terrastride inc.
HUNTSTAND
huntstands robust and useful
feature set alone could have put it in
a serious battle with onXmaps Hunt
for the title of Editors Choice, but
the fact that it includes free parcel
boundaries gave it the decisive edge.
Lets start with the mapping.
HuntStands system allows you to
choose an array of map views, ranging from satellite aerial imagery to
topographic to standard views with
road names. The maps function as
expected, and image quality is excellent (so long as you have an adequate
cellular signal). The parcel boundaries can be turned on or off, and they
provide property lines. You will encounter some areas that do not offer parcel details (of the 14 Michigan
counties I tested, two did not), and
the boundary lines are all you get. No
landowner information is provided
on the app, though the desktop version does include those details, and
you cant tell which property is public
versus privately owned, which is definitely a disappointment. Still, its the

only app Ive found that offers parcel
boundaries at no charge.
Unfortunately, a recent update
to the app limits the number of parcels you can tap for details to 10 per
month, and it appears HuntStand
may soon charge for additional parcel details.
Still, in-field applications are
many. You can record sightings of
game and create map boundaries.
The weather feature is handy, if a bit
clumsy.
The overall user interface is intuitive and easy to master. It has a useful measuring tool for determining
distance between points, and you
can calculate acreage. One beef: The
ads are annoying. But thats to be expected of a free app.
The desktop version has even
more features, and you can sync data
from the field to the desktop.
overall score: 84 huntstand.com
GEAR
APPS FOR HUNTERS
HOW WE TEST
onxmaps
huntlogix, llc
HUNT
SCOUTLOOK HUNTING
the hunt app from onXmaps has

been the standard by which other
apps are measured when it comes
to in-field navigation and data
management.
Prior to the creation of HuntStand , onXmaps was the only
app available that allowed you to
quickly view property boundaries in real time while afield. The
app itself is free, but the property
boundaries and parcel information
layers require a subscription, with
packages starting at $15 a month.
The information is excellent, providing landowner information and
acreage details, and it clearly differentiates between public and private lands.
The app does gobble a fair bit
of data. HuntStands maps and layers opened more quickly than other
apps testedparticularly in areas
with marginal cell service. To save on
data charges and for operating in areas where cell service is unreliable,
you can download the maps to the
app via wifi and open them at any
time, regardless of cell coverage.
overall score: 78
onxmaps.com
scoutlook made its mark among

hunting apps with the release of
its weather-focused app and its
ScentCone system. This feature indicates not only from which direction the wind is blowing, but it illustrates how the wind may spread
your scent in the area.
ScoutLook Huntings mapping
system is similar to most navigational apps, offering satellite imagery and using the phones GPS signal to mark your location.
What stands out in ScoutLook
are the weather options.
You can choose to view cloud
cover and radar views, and cater
the results to the type of game
youre hunting.
The forecast is detailed and includes everything hunters need
wind direction, barometric pressure, moon phase, and so on.
ScentCone and the apps topnotch forecasting, plus its goodenough mapping system, creates
a top-end free weather app. But it
falls short on other hunter-focused
features by comparison.
overall score: 76
scoutlookweather.com
The same procedure was

used to test all apps. Each
one was downloaded to an
iPhone 6 Plus running the
latest OS.
For apps requiring a paid
service, I used either a free
trial period or purchased
a basic subscription (for
onXmaps, a Michigan subscription was used).
The apps were then used
in the field in locations
with known boundary lines
to evaluate mapping location accuracy.
For features that measured distance and/or
acreage, I used a handheld rangefinder to verify
accuracy.
The apps were tested in
areas of excellent LTE coverage, areas with marginal
3G coverage, and areas
where cell service is not
available.
Loading times for map
overlays and location services were measured using
a stopwatch app.
In-field use was evaluated while hunting. I
recorded sightings of deer,
treestand locations, and
other points of interest.
For apps offering the
option to sync with a
desktop version, I used
a MacBook Pro from my
home office to determine
the accuracy of in-field
recordings along with overall ease of use and utility.
To assess the accuracy
of the apps weather data,
I compared it to data from
Weather Undergrounds
mobile app. This included
in-field readings of wind
direction, wind speed, temperature, and precipitation
forecasts.
Solunar information,
including sunrise and
sunset times, were also
checked for accuracy
against data from Weather
Undergrounds mobile
apps.
GEAR
APPS FOR HUNTERS
quiver app co
powderhook inc.
antler insanity
QUIVER
POWDERHOOK
ANTLER INSANITY
comparing this app to the others

in the test is a bit difficult, given
that its core functionality isnt focused on mapping or navigation.
But it is very much an app aimed at
hunters, and thus worth including.
The launch page features a useful weather forecast. Nothing special here, really. Once you start
hunting, however, the app comes
into play and is pretty cool.
To begin, you simply tap Start
Hunt, and the app will locate where
you are, allow you to name the outing, and update the weather.
From there, you can record any
activity you want, including deer
sightings, and add notes, images,
etc. Each time you record an event,
the weather, time, and moon phase
are captured. Over the course of
the season, you should begin to see
data trends.
Unfortunately, you need to do
this deduction on your own. The
app doesnt offer any sort of analysis over time. This free app would
be a lot more valuable if it had that
functionality.
overall score: 75
quiverapp.co
powderhooks concept is simple: You need a place to hunt and

fish; the app helps you find one.
At its core, PowderHook is a mapping app that includes public land
boundaries. Its a simple function,
and one that the app does well.
You can choose typical map
overlay styles, including satellite
imagery. Add public land boundaries and you can see at a glance
where the nearest public ground is
in relation to your location. Tap on
any piece of public land and youll
learn the name of the area and the
available acreage, and you'll be offered a link to the areas online information. Thats essentially the
extent of the apps functionality as
it relates to in-the-field mapping
and data management.
The app does offer a social media component that allows users to
connect and share information and
content in a Facebook-like fashion.
Overall, its a solid app for locating public land, but it offers little
else in terms of mapping features
or in-field applications.
overall score: 67
powderhook.com
this free app has been available in

the App Store since 2012, and has
seen significant updates and revisions since then. But, it still hasnt
gotten things quite right. The user
interface is somewhat clunky, and
the graphics package cant compete with others tested.
One feature that is useful in
the field, particularly when youre
hanging a new treestand or hunting
a new area, is the ability to mark
your location in the field for later
navigational use. But Antler Insanitys roundabout interface makes it
a frustrating process.
Marking property boundaries
in the field is another feature that
should see plenty of use. The trouble? It doesnt seem to work. I tried
several times to mark the boundary of a food plot but I couldnt get
the map to move over far enough
to mark each corner.
The sunrise/sunset feature is
solid and even provides civil twilight times. But that single benefit
isnt enough to overcome the other
shortcomings of the app.
overall score: 64
antlerinsanity.com
GEAR
APPS FOR HUNTERS
HEL
AND SP FILES
ERVIC
E
T O TA L
SCOR
E
BAT
USAGTERY
E
free/
10
84
ONYXMAPS
HUNT
$15/
7
78
SCOUTLOOK
HUNTING
free/
8
76
free/
8
75
free/
8
67
free/
5
64
AT A GLANCE
HUNTSTAND
QUIVER
POWDERHOOK
ANTLER
INSANITY
PRICE
APP S
PEED
/VALU
OVE
FUNCRTALL
IONAL
ITY
USER
INTER
FACE
FEATU
RE SE
T
MA
ACCUPRPING
ACY
INUTILIFTIELD
Y
OFF
USABLINE
ILITY
HUNTING APPS
TEST RESULTS
EDITORS
CHOICE
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GEAR
TURKEY CHOKES
CHOKE
JOB
AFTERMARKET SCREW-IN CHOKE

TUBES CONTINUE TO CHANGE THE
FACE OF TURKEY HUNTING
BY GERRY BETHGE
INDIAN CREEK
BLACK DIAMOND STRIKE
price: $55
price: $75
Hoping to capitalize on the

craze of the Winchester Longbeard XR, Carlsons touts its
Longbeard XR choke as shooting best when used with the
popular Winchester loads. The
choke features Triple Shot
Technology, which is said to
reduce pellet deformation,
shorten shot strings, and result in fewer flyers. The choke
is also ported to reduce felt
recoil from heavy lead and
Hevi-Shot loads. Though we
werent able to achieve similar
results with nickel-plated lead,
the Carlsons attained the best
pellet-count score (227) at
prime turkey range30 yards.
Indian Creek began racking

up the rave reviews a decade
ago after multiple wins in the
National Wild Turkey Federations World Still Target Championships. The brand remains
popular among not only turkey
hunters, but waterfowl and
predator hunters as well.
The most expensive choke
in our testfire, the Strike did
not pattern especially well out
of our test gun, underperforming at both 20 and 30 yards. Its
available for all popular turkey
guns in 10-, 12- and 20-gauge
and will accommodate all lead
and hybrid heavy loads from
No. 4 to No. 9.
choketube.com
HOW
WE
TEST
AN INSIDE LOOK
AT HOW WE
PERFORMED THE
CHOKE TUBE TEST
indiancreekss.com
ur test was designed to compare ve turkeyhunting-specific shotgun chokes. With our

12-gauge Mossberg 935, we fired three No, 6
1= oz. Spectra Shot White Lightning loads
through each choke at measured distances of 20, 30,
and 40 yards. Using standard-issue turkey targets, we
counted the pellet hits in the 10-inch centering circles for
each choke at the specific ranges to calculate an average.
It bears noting that 3-inch No. 6 White Lightning loads
contain an average of 352 nickel-plated lead pellets per
round, as compared to, for example, 3-inch No. 6 Winchester Long Beard XR loads, which average 425 pellets.
Patterns out of your turkey gun may vary.
JUSTIN APPENZELLER (CHOKES)
Though famed 19th-century

trap shooter Fred Kimble is often cited as one of the earliest
developers of shotgun bore
constriction, no one knows for
certain who was rst to discover that a slight reduction
in the bore diameter of a shotgun barrel at its muzzle would
increase its eective range.
Winchester rst introduced screw-in interchangeable chokes in 1961. Initially,
the WinChoke system was
greeted with a collective yawn.
But the successful reintroduction of the wild turkey and
the hunters goal of slinging a
large number of pellets downrange in an eort to take down
a tough target changed the
concepts trajectory forever.
Today, a dizzying number of
aftermarket screw-in turkey
chokes are available. Is there
such a thing as the best? We
wanted to try to nd out for
ourselves, so we went to the
patterning board with ve othe-shelf choke tubes.
CARLSONS
LONGBEARD XR
THE PERF
FEC
CT COMBINATIONS
SA
AVAGE TROPHY HUNTER
NIKON 3-9X40 BDC SCOPE
SA
AVAGE AXI
X S II
WEAVER KASPA 3-9X40 SCOPE
SAVAGE AXIS
BUSHNE
N LL SPORTSMAN 3-9X40
0 SCOP
O E
MOUN
U TED, BORE-SIGH
HTED
D AN
A D READY TO SHO
HOOT.
O
Geet out of the store and
n into thhe wo
w odss fast
s er with our scoped-rie packa
k ges that are mounted,
boree-ssight
h edd and reeady
d to si
s ght.
ghh The
h se are the most accurate ri
i es paired with thee most trusted
edd
optics. No swa
w pping ou
o t,, no en
e dl
dlesss titnker
e ing
g ju
j st
s the perfect com
mbos for reeal hunters
r.
GEAR
TURKEY CHOKES
MOSSBERG
ULTI-FULL
PRIMOS
JELLY HEAD MAXIMUM
REDHEAD
BLACKOUT
price: included with gun
price: $60
price: $40
In an age of specialized
Its pretty difficult to make a

turkey choke look cool, but the
zombie-green O-rings on the
Jelly Head Maximum certainly
doif youre into that sort of
thing. The extended tapered
and fluted ports of the Primos
choke are designed to tighten
patterns up to 20 percent and
reduce recoil, while the proprietary Black-T coating helps
prevent rust and corrosion.
The Jelly Head Maximum is
available in 12- and 20-gauge
in various constrictions, and it
outshot the field at 20 yards
with a whopping 302 pellets
(86 percent) in the 10-inch circle at 20 yards.
Designed by Scott Carlson

of Carlsons Choke Tubes, the
BlackOut is constructed of 17-4
heat-treated stainless steel
finished in corrosion-resistant
black oxide. It features 18 linear
ports to help reduce recoil and
increase pattern density, and
it is rated for all types of loads,
including lead, copper-plated
lead, and Hevi-Shot.
The BlackOut is available in
various choke constrictions,
from .575 in 20-gauge to .660,
.675, and .680 in 12-gauge, and
for all popular turkey gun models. It was a solid performer at
all tested ranges, and comes at
a discount price.
choke tubes with multiple

ports and space-age coatings, can there really be
room for a plain-Jane, manufacturer-provided choke in
a choke tube test? Indeed,
there is. The Mossberg UltiFull choke that came with our
Mossberg 935 test gun is certainly nothing fancy. It was
the only non-ported choke in
the field and does not come
with a lot of hype, but we felt
compelled to include it in our
shoot-off. The listed bore
constriction is .695the
largest in our test group, but
it scored best at 40 yards.
mossberg.com
primos.com
basspro.com
RESULTS WITH 1 OZ. SPECTRA SHOT WHITE LIGHTNING

TEST SPECS
THE GUN: Mossberg 935 Combo
Turkey/Deer gun; 24-inch barrel
THE SIGHT: Burris FastFire 3
THE AMMO: Spectra Shot White
Lightning; 3 inch; 1 oz. No. 6;
approx. 352 pellets per shell
THE RANGE: 20, 30, and 40 yards
THE WEATHER: 50 degrees, no wind
choke
constriction
pellets
@20 yd.
pellets
@30 yd.
pellets
@40 yd.
CARLSONS
.683
285
81%
227
64%
113
32%
INDIAN
CREEK
.695
257
73%
164
47%
110
31%
MOSSBERG
.695
277
79%
211
60%
122
35%
PRIMOS
.690
302
86%
195
55%
93
26%
REDHEAD
.680
281
80%
218
62%
108
31%
turkey chokes supplied by basspro.com
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A portion of the proceeds from the sale of this product

will be donated to the National Wild Turkey Federation.
federalpremium.com
TROUT WALLEYES TACTICS
A sardine-caught
sailsh, ready to
be leadered.
SCOTT KERRIGAN
SALTWATER
THE
SAILFISH
COAST
The late-winter end of sailfish season in southeastern Florida had long since passed as billfish tournament veteran Grayson Kyte and I ventured through St. Lucie Inlet in Stuart, Florida, in my 23-foot
Bay Rangerhardly the type of boat that conjures images of extraordinary offshore action. Near the
beach, I threw a 12-foot cast net over a school of threadfin herring and filled the livewells. Shortly thereafter, 5 miles offshore, in about 70 feet of water, we hastily rigged and pitched four baitsrealizing
instantly that we had dropped into a sailfish feeding frenzy. By days end, wed released six sailfish in all
two of which we first spotted lazing on the surfaceand put a couple of mahi in the box for dinner. It was
an extraordinary day by any anglers standards. BY TERRY GIBSON
section edited by gerry bethge fishing@outdoorlife.com
FISHING
SALTWATER
A Florida sailsh tracks a

nose-rigged sardine in nearshore waters of the Keys.
SOUTHEASTERN FLORIDA AND THE

FLORIDA KEYS
PRIME TIME: NOVEMBER THROUGH
MARCH
Along the southeastern coast of
the Florida Peninsula, and in the
Keys, sailfish are a celebrated bluewater fish. In the northern end of
the region, fish are found from the
beach to 15 miles offshore. Anglers
mostly trollwith light tackleto
cover water quickly.
From Jupiter southward, the fish
line up along reefs and rips, and the
art of kite fishing is king.

Fishing is best from Fort Pierce
to Key West from late November
through March on days during and
after cold fronts push through.
Anglers can catch fish from kayaks
and even from piers off Southeast
Florida and in the Gulf of Mexico, in
Floridas Panhandle.
NORTHEAST FLORIDA
PRIME TIME: APRIL THROUGH OCTOBER
North of Cape Canaveral, sailfish
arent necessarily a target species, but they are caught in the
spring and fall by anglers trolling
for marlin, tuna, wahoo, and mahi,
which are found far offshore along
the edge of the continental shelf.
St. Augustine offers the closest
access to the fishy offshore waters
known simply as the ledge. Often,
in the early fall, during the baitfish
migrations, a few local captains
who really have local conditions
dialed in target sailfish in pretty
shallow nearshore water30 to
40 feet. Warm eddies break off
the Gulf Stream in September
and early October, putting the bait
squarely within the sailfish comfort zone.
SOUTH CAROLINA AND GEORGIA

PRIME TIME: APRIL THROUGH OCTOBER
Here, billfish typically migrate
through the blue water toward
the end of spring and early fall.
When anglers make the 40-plusmile runs, theyre also typically
trolling for marlin, as well as tuna,
mahi, and wahoo. Sailfish are often
encountered, but captains mostly

consider them a bonus.
NORTH CAROLINA AND POINTS NORTH

PRIME TIME: MAY THROUGH SEPTEMBER
Off the coast of the Carolinas
and farther north, sails are again
considered to be a bonus species, especially when the goal is a
billfish slam. Peak fishing is late
spring to early fall. Primary targets
include blue and white marlin, so if
you want to add three of the billfish species found in the western
Atlantic to your bucket list, including a sailfish, the waters off North
Carolina are a great bet.
Sailfish are usually a little shallower than marlin, says Captain

Shep Dreyry, who fishes the
waters of the Outer Banks in North
Carolina. We often run into wolf
packs of sailfish when we troll a
little shallowersay, 70 to 80 fathomswhich we do when were
going for a slam.
Deep water is a 25- to 40-mile
run out of most North Carolina
ports. Those often-rough waters
call for larger sportfishing vessels,
and the primary target species call
for heavier trolling tackle than is
truly sporty for sailfish. If youre
looking for a blue-water adventure
in pursuit of various billfish species,
its hard to beat the Outer Banks.
B I L L F I S H T I M E TA B L E
CLEAR SAILING Generally, these are the best times to fish

for spindlebeaks along the southeast coast.
nc
maysept.
sc
apriloct.
ga
apriloct.
fl
nov. march
CAPTAIN TIM SIMOS
ifteen or more years ago,

such days were unheard
of. No one targeted sails
out of such small boats
using such rudimentary tactics,
and certainly no one consistently
caught sailfish off Florida in the
summer.
Whether El Nio or global warming has influenced the sailfish
migration is not clear. What is known
is that a new ICCAT (International
Commission for the Conservation of
Atlantic Tunas) sailfish assessment
supports the claims of abundance
echoed by veteran captains along
the southeastern coast. Fisheries
biologists have also learned that
sailfish arent nearly the longitudinal migrators they were once
thought to betheir south-to-north
travel patterns seem to fluctuate.
Wherever they roam, from Key West
to canyons off New Jersey, they
seek out a narrow range of food-rich
warm water, between about 73 and
82 degrees. Heres a general guide
for when, where, and how you can
find themin their new hotspots.
FISHING
TROUT
BROWN UNIVERSITY
he day late-winter brown trout

shing rst made sense to me, I was
shing a tough beat of technical
water on Michigans Manistee River
with little expectation of success. With snow
piled high on the banks and the river shallow
and low, I aimed for one of the few available
sanctuariesan undercut bank. I overcast my
target and landed my y in the snow, and when
I pulled it into the water, there came a splashy
rise that I took for an optical illusion. No way
a wild freestone brown in 32.8-degree water
would whack a streamer on touch down. On
the next cast I dropped my streamer on slack
line right at the head of the cutbank, gave it a
single twitch, and whamthe years rst good
hit. Since then Ive become a devotee of winter
brown trout shing.
THE RIGHT BITE

Late-winter water conditions put the angler at
a great advantage. Pre-runoff rivers are typically clear and low, which can make locating
trout as predictable as during that other clearand-low time of year, late summer. And with
less river, your fly on any given cast covers that
much more of it: advantage angler. None of this
would matter, of course, if fish werent on the
feed. But March brown trout certainly are: The
lengthening days and bump in temperatures
that usually come in March send a message of
metabolic urgency to the fish after months of
relative dormancy.
That all said, when it comes to fishing March
brown trout, there are two fundamentally
The magic time for late-winter browns

is mid to late afternoon, after the sun
has warmed pre-runo rivers.
different approaches: running-and-gunning

from a moving drift boat or fishing slowly and
thoughtfully on foot. Both have their advantages and pleasures. But the skill setand
mindseteach approach requires is different.
Covering a ton of water with a big fly from a
drift boat can be either an ber-efficient way
to fish or a big, cold waste of time. Pounding
water from a moving boat is all about playing
percentages, and those percentages depend
on making consistent and quality presentations throughout the day. Make each cast
count by vetting your cast locations. Got a
deep, slow, outside bend where you cant
see the bottom? Dont waste casts there.
Instead, direct your efforts to where you can
see bottom, if only barely. This ensures that
any fish that does see your fly doesnt have to
move too terribly far to whack it.
Late-winter streamers generally come in
two flavors: flies that jig (Circus Peanuts,
Sex Dungeons) and flies that swerve (Double
Ds, Flash Monkeys). Having one of each in an
understated natural color as well as a flashy
attractor pattern is really all you need to show
fish a few different looks throughout the day.
And the less you have to think about your flies,
the more you can think about your cast. All
other things being equal, choose the fly that

you feel good about, the idea being that a confidence fly helps you keep your edge, and edge
is what allows you to hunt effectively over the
course of 10 to 12 miles of river.
WALK WAYS
In contrast to the swing-for-the-fences
approach of the boat game, the wading
anglers approach is just to make contact.
Subtle, precise presentations become paramount, so a 6-weight rod that allows you to
deliver softly and strategically wins out over a
broomstick. Lines are different, too. Most fishermen prefer presentation lines for the wading
streamer gamethat is, lines with a rear taper
that allow for easier aerial and on-the-water
mending. A 9-foot tapered leader with a stout
butt section connects you to your fly. When
you wade, youre not jarring a few mean-feeling
fish into reacting so much as you are enticing every single trout into eating. Fly-wise,
this means its time to downsize and de-flash.
Opt for more imitative patterns like leeches
and sculpins made with natural materials for
plenty of passive action.
Because fishing on foot really gives you
the ability to soak a spot, make it a point to
be on the best water during the chow-down
hours of the day, which in late winter means 1
to 3 pm. Work the top spots with a variety of
presentationsswinging, dredging, and stripping. And dont give up before that midday
window. Be there and youll see firsthand just
how great the end of the winter season can be.
DAVE KARCZYNSKI (2)
WHY WAIT FOR SPRING? LATE-WINTER TROUT ARE HUNGRY AND ACTIVE RIGHT NOW BY DAVE KARCZYNSKI
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FOR YOUR EYES ONLY

DITCH THE AUGER AND HITCH UP THE BOAT. OPENWATER WALLEYES ARE AVAILABLE ALL WINTER LONG
BY BRIAN RUZZO
Minnesota guide Denver

McKinnon with a hefty
tailwater walleye.
snow starts to melt in March.

Most tailwaters also feature
nearby boat access sites. This,
along with the combination of
open water, concentrated walleyes, and boat access, makes
these fisheries hard to ignore.
But to take full advantage of
tailwater fisheries, you have to
pinpoint the fish and employ
effective coldwater presentations. Heres a close look at
McKinnons tailwater strategies
for winter walleyes.
TOP TARGETS
While each tailwater is unique,
anglers can expect to find concentrations of fish anywhere
from a few hundred yards to a
mile downstream of the dam. At
this time of year the flow is generally low, but boaters should
BRIAN RUZZO
e respond to
snow, ice, and
wind like clockwork. Winterize
the boat, break out the ice gear,
and sh the hardwater. While
iceshermen will claim their
share of walleyes, there are still
open-water sheries available
at this time of year. You just
need to know where to look.
Excluding periods of
extended below-zero conditions,
most riversespecially the tailwater stretches below locks and
damswill remain open, and
thats where walleyes will congregate for the next couple of
months. According to Minnesota
guide Denver McKinnon, walleye
fishing remains excellent in the
tailwater stretches beginning
in January and lasting until the
FISHING
WALLEYES
PETE SUCHESKI (ILLUSTRATION)
still exercise caution when fishing near dams. Always maintain

a safe distance and obey warning signs.
When searching tailwaters
for specific targets, focus on
depth and current breaks. For
example, natural holes or the
waters just upstream or immediately downstream of a hump
are excellent targets. Both of
these locations are attractive
to winter walleyes because
of depth changes. McKinnon
also recommends sandbars,
which are very similar to humps.
Current seams, whether created
by natural points or man-made
structures, such as wing dams,
are equally productive. Finally,
McKinnon looks for clam beds.
Baitfish are drawn to them, and
baitfish attract walleyes.
DRIFTING THREE-WAY
RIGS AND TEARDROP JIGS
McKinnon recommends a
three-way rig for probing tailwaters for two reasons. First,
this rig allows for a natural, but

subtle, presentation, which
is critical at this time of year.
Coldwater walleyes are lethargic, so they are not going to
chase fast, erratic presentations.
Second, the three-way rig
allows you to easily reach
deeper fish. McKinnon points
out that during the winter
months, most rivers will feature
low-flow conditions. Low flow
usually means clear water, which
will drive the light-sensitive
walleyes to deeper water.
McKinnons three-way rig
(see illustration) utilizes a
No. 2 Aberdeen hook baited
with a fathead minnow and is
most effective when fished
slowly with a controlled drift.
McKinnon faces the bow of his
boat downstream and drifts .1
to .2 mph faster than the current. If the current is more
than 1.5 mph, this presentation
will not work well. The bait will
simply move too fast through
the strike zone for winter fish.
3-WAY RIG
THE BIG MAC

Denver McKinnons
rig: (1) 8 lb. main
line, (2) 36- to 48-in.
leader, and (3) 10- to
12-in. dropper.
With his lines trailing from

the back of the boat, McKinnon
drifts across promising targets.
This controlled drift allows him
to entice strikes as he methodically presents the baits coming
directly downstream to walleyes facing upstream.
The reason I drag slightly
faster than the current is to
keep the split shot from getting
snagged, explains McKinnon.
The rig will glide just above the
bottom. When I first see or feel
a fish bite, I take my rod to 45
1
2
degrees and then I set the hook.

The delay gives the fish time to
suck the rest of the bait in.
Often coldwater walleyes
just grab the tail and then
take the rest of the bait with a
second effort. Because of these
soft bites, McKinnon also favors
medium-light rods with soft
tips. These allow the fish to take
the bait slowly and prevent the
walleyes from feeling too much
resistance and spitting the
baitespecially heartbreaking
in the dead of winter.
FISHING
TACTICS
GET TO THE POINT
AN ILLUSTRATED GUIDE TO READING HIDDEN STRIKE ZONES BY MATT VINCENT
he most reliable and

potentially productive
structure in every reservoir is the pointan
irregular ridge that originates far
above the waterline and runs down
into the depths of a shery.
Not all points are created equal,
however. A variety of factors, ranging from configuration to location
and depth, make some points far
better than others. Additionally,
external and ever-changing influences like temperature, wind, and
sunlight will also affect strike
potential. But there are some
ingredients that can tip the scales
in your favor. The quickest way to
catch more fish on your next trip
is to forget the monotony of the
bank. Get to the point and stay on
it, because a little knowledge will
go a long way when youre targeting fish.
1. EDGES
The most productive targets
inside a fishery are the edges

variations or anomalies in depth,
structure, current, or temperature.
Where edges converge is where
reliable strike zones form. And the
more edges that come together,
the more consistent a pattern or
strike zone can be. Examples of
multiple edges on a point can be
topographical irregularities in the
point itself, like a sharp drop-off
above a rubble pile or an isolated
laydown at the end of a bed of
aquatic vegetation. Look for such
combinations.
2. GRAVEL SLIDES
Gravel slides often form adjacent

to submerged points. They represent overlooked but extremely
productive habitat. Gravel slides
typically form along the sides of
points due to shoreline runoff or
wave action. Below the surface, the
gravel contrasts sharply with the
static mud bank, in effect becoming a subtle edge and a potential
strike zone. While they might start
off shallow, some gravel slides continue down on steep points. Clean
gravel draws forage such as crayfish, a favored prey item for apex
predators like black bass and other

predatory species.
3. ROCK PILES
Boulders and rock piles create

potential hotspots on every point.
In addition to providing predators with a place to hide, these
rocky areas offer countless crevices and nursery areas for forage
species, which again will automatically attract nearby predators.
Because the above-water terrain
often mirrors what lies beneath
the surface, experienced anglers
carefully analyze the ridgeline
above, looking for anything different in its formation like outcrops,
rock piles, or trees. Another worthwhile approach is to work a point
all the way out to the end, and then
work it back shallow. Some anglers
will target a single point for hours,
knowing it harbors fish, but switch
lures on each pass to hopefully
figure out where they are.
4. CURRENT
Water movement will pinpoint
the location of actively feeding

fish. Like an inland tide, especially
inside power-generating impoundments, current activates feeding
behavior in many fish species and
will position predators to precise
locations along a point. Generally,
they move to the downcurrent side
of the structure or cover, assuming an ambush position. Knowing
that predatory fish like black bass,
crappies, and striped bass face
into the oncoming current, waiting
for feeding opportunities, experienced anglers have learned that lure
retrieve should mimic bait in the current. Presentations at slight angles
to the current also produce reliable
strikes atop points.
5. WIND
Surface wind generates current
as well, and can be a major factor

on points. The proverbial rule of
thumb has always been to target
windblown points on exposed banks
rather than points in protected
water, and this makes perfect sense.
Wind generates current and water
movement, which in turn pushes a
critical link in the food chain, called

phytoplankton, toward the windblown shorenot immediately but
certainly several hours after a sustained wind. A strike zone can form
where wind and current intersect
with cover on a submerged point.
6. TEMPERATURE
Without delving into the technical aspects of thermocline and

temperature stratification, suffice
it to say that water is never uniform inside an impoundment. And
because oxygen content is part
of the underlying equation from
the surface down to the bottom
year-round, its safe to simply say
that aquatic life inside a fishery
tends to gravitate toward comfort
zones, or primary activity layers
determined by temperature, water
depth, and seasonal fluctuations.
The thermocline is clearly visible with electronic equipment by
increasing gain on a good depthfinder or simply by looking at
baitfish activity. If you find baitfish
and predators at 25 feet on one
point, you can run a 25-foot pattern
on every other point in the vicinity.
7. COVER
By definition, cover is anything

that provides fish with a place
of refuge or point of orientation.
In the broadest sense, that can
vary from brush piles to laydowns
to aquatic vegetation. The most
common types of cover found on
points are stumps and standing
timber that were left in place prior
to impoundment. In many Southern
fisheries, the dominant form of
cover is aquatic vegetation. Strike
zones develop where cover and
structure intersect; therefore, a
viable fishing strategy is to simply
focus on the intersection of cover
and structure. Above-average
strike zones will also develop
where different types of cover
intersect on the same point. A
good example of this would be isolated timber or submerged stumps
on a windblown point where current is present. Chances are good
youre going to get bit in a place
like that.
illustration by kevin hand
7
1
2
7
3
2
1
7
7
7
.46
3O
.47
.27
2O
5O
O3
1.9
2O
.54
.47
THE 6
CREED
Page 36
THERMAL
IMAGERS
Page 42
FISH
BYTES
Page 44
2.8
OO
SUPER
SONAR
Page 46
NEXT
IN LINE
Page 47
BIONIC
BINOCULARS
Page 48
GAME
GAINS
Page 50
As much as sportsmen grumble about technology and change, the fact is we

love both. Even the most diehard recurve-wielding bowhunter thinks nothing of scouring Google Maps for new spots and then heading into the woods with
Gore-Tex on his back and a rangender in his pocket. Our attraction to technology
is linked to our desire for self-improvement. We all strive to become better shots.
New, ecient bullets are more accurate than ever, and Hornadys just-released ballistic engine gives us a level of precision for calculating trajectories that had been
unavailable to the general public. Some of the tech here is truly disruptive as well.
The look, feel, and performance of our optics are poised to undergo the most radical
change in decades, as nano lenses move from the realm of science ction into reality.
Whether we admit it or not, most of us are going to enjoy this ride.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY BILL BUCKLEY ILLUSTRATIONS BY CLINT FORD RETOUCHING BY ERIC HEINTZ

ordered a Surefire muzzle brake and

sound suppressor. Warne built a custom
one-piece 20-MOA Picatinny rail for
the dovetails on the Sako receiver, and
I topped it with a Leupold M5 scope.
Once George finished the rifle, I sent it
to Jeremy Holmes, a talented artist who
adorned it with Mongolian nomads on
horseback using eagles to hunt wolves
(see rifle #3, opposite page).
The 6 Creeds performance was as
dazzling as the rifles paint job. Using
105-grain A-Max bullets behind 43.2
grains of H4831SC, it had no difficulty
ringing steel at 1,000 yards and beyond.
Mission accomplished. We did this work
in 2009, and the story appeared in the
August 2010 issue of Outdoor Life,
after which George and I didnt give
much thought to the little wildcat and
moved on to other projects.
Little did we realize, however, we had
planted a seed that was poised to blossom. It just needed the right environment
in which to flourish. That came along a
couple of years later, with the rise of
Precision Rifle Series (PRS) competition.
HOW OLS
WILDCAT CAME
TO DOMINATE
LONG-RANGE
PRECISION-RIFLE
SHOOTING
BY JOHN B. SNOW
IT STARTED AS the mere spark of

an idea back in 2007. I wanted to write
an article about how one goes about
developing a wildcat cartridge. As a fan
of long-range shooting, and in order
to give the story an editorial hook
with some sex appeal, I decided a cartridge capable of accurate 1,000-yard
shots that had moderate recoil was the
way to go. My ambitions for this wildcat extended no further than getting
a good feature out of it, and using it to
hunt coyotes and deer.
The 6.5 Creedmoor had been introduced earlier that year and it seemed
like a good candidate for a parent
cartridge. I spoke with my friends at
Hornady and they agreed to help out.
Necking the 6.5 down for 6mm bullets
was simple and straightforward, and
the round seemed like it would meet my
criteria.
Thus the 6mm Creedmoor was born.
But heres a bit of trivia you wont read
anywhere else: Its original name was
the 6mm HOLE, for HornadyOutdoor
Life Express, a clever moniker I was
fond of but that was soon rejected by
my pals at Hornady as too cute. It pains
me to admit it, but they were right.
THE FIRST 6 CREED
A cartridge is only as good as the rifle

that sends it downrange, so I needed to
find someone to build a gun that would
do it justice. I knew George Gardner,
owner of GA Precision, by reputation,
but I had never spoken with him before.
Friends of mine who own GA rifles
boasted about their ruggedness and
accuracy. (GA stands for Gnats Ass, a
reference to the tight groups his rifles
make.) I called George up and explained
the project. After quizzing me about
the details, he agreed to pitch in.
I sent him a Sako 85 action and
a McMillan stock. Hornady helped
George procure a reamer and made
custom reloading dies for the two of
us. I got a barrel from Bartlein, and I
TASTE OF VICTORY
1
A GA Precision
in 6 Creedmoor
configured for
hunting. It is
outstanding on
deer-sized game
and predators.
2
The authors
6 Creed GA
Precision,
which he uses
in long-range
competition.
3
The very first
6 Creedmoor.
George Gardner
built it for the
authors wildcat
feature.
In the PRS, shooters race against the

clock to hit steel targets that are worth
different point values, depending on
their difficulty. Every shooter strives
for first-round hits, which are typically
worth more points, but the ability to
spot misses and make quick corrections with follow-up shots is one skill
that separates top competitors from
the rest of the pack.
Depending on the time allotted, it
can be a sprint to engage all the targets
in a stage, which can be anywhere from
10 to 1,300 yards downrange, so quick
shooting is a must.
A good PRS cartridge must shoot
flat, not beat up the shooter with recoil,
use bullets with high BCs that buck the
wind, and not have a muzzle velocity in
excess of 3,200 fps so as not to damage
the targets. The 6 Creedmoor fit the bill
perfectly.
When the PRS started, semi-autos
seemed like the way to go, Gardner
says. You had high round-count stages
and quick target transitions. Id been
shooting the .243 for years, but when
you load target bullets to full length
in the .243, they wont fit in an AR-10
magazine.
I was scratching my head and
thought the 6 Creedmoor might work.
Id left the reamer in a toolbox and the
dies were sitting on a shelf in my house,
literally gathering dust, he says.
To test his theory, Gardner chambered an AR-10 barrel in 6 Creed, loaded
some rounds, and in a few days was

shooting. He liked how it ran and made
a second AR-10 barrel for Jeff Bradley,
who is on Georges official shooting
team. A few weeks later, the two of them
used their 6 Creeds in a local Missouri
PRS match. Bradley took third place, and
other shooters took notice.
The following season, in 2013, the
other members of Georges team
wanted to shoot 6 Creedmoors, but in
bolt guns. George built the rifles and
the shooters did very well, with five of
them finishing in the top 10 in the PRS
finale.
PRS shooters upgrade gear quickly if
they feel it will give them an edge, and
based on how well the 6 Creedmoor did,
demand started to grow. Both Gardner
and other custom rifle makers turned
out 6 Creed rifles at a steady rate. I certainly wasnt going to be left in the dust,
so I had George build me a 6 Creedmoor
for PRS competition too.
From the start, ammo was an issue.
Taking 6.5 Creedmoor brass and necking it down isnt difficult, but it is time
consuming, and the handful of boutique
companies that made 6 Creedmoor
loads couldnt meet the demand.
At the next SHOT Show, I talked
with Hornady and they told me they
would make 6 Creedmoor brass, properly sized and headstamped, but that
the minimum run was 100,000 pieces,
Gardner says.
He took a leap of faith and placed
the order. The brass sold out in about
a month.
RACE TO THE TOP
This was the first real indication that

the round was generating momentum
beyond the community of 6 Creed PRS
shooters, who numbered perhaps a few
dozen. Nobody knew the exact number
of 6 Creedmoor rifles that were being
used in matches or slung over shoulders during deer season, but reports
started to trickle in from hunters and
long-range enthusiasts who had converted. Since that initial order, Gardner
has sold more than 1 million pieces of 6
Creedmoor brass.
Of course, the 6 Creedmoor faced
competition from other rounds. The
6XC cartridge that David Tubb initially
developed for High Power had been
around for a couple of years before the
6 Creed appeared, but it was costly to
reload and doesnt offer quite as much
speed.
Other 6mm cartridges cropped up
too. The 6x47 Lapua, 6mm Dasher, and
6mm Super LR have made their mark,
and every now and then someone still
steps up to the line with a .243 Win.

These are all viable cartridges, but the
6 Creed is the king of the pack, used by
more of the top 50 PRS shooters than
any other.
What about the 6.5mm cartridges
like the 6.5 Creedmoor, .260 Rem., and
6.5x47 Lapua that had also been highly
touted? They still have their fans and
still rack up wins, but the migration to
6mm cartridges is undeniable.
The excellent precisionrifleblog.com,
run by Cal Zant, is a wealth of information about long-range shooting, and
his data show that whereas the split
among the top shooters using 6mm vs.
6.5mm cartridges was roughly equal
in 2012 and 2013, with 6mms holding a
slight edge, in 2014 the gap started to
widen in favor of the 6mms.
Now that Hornady is offering the 6
Creedmoor as a factory load with its
new 108-grain ELD Match bullet this
year, you can bet more shooters will
take to the round and that it will gain a
firmer hold with long-range marksmen.
Rifle makers have noticed as well.
Montana Rifle Company, Savage, Ruger,
and Browning all have factory 6mm
Creedmoor guns in the works, most of
which are geared toward hunters.
These developmentsHornady
offering it as a standard load, and several major firearms companies building
riflesmean the 6mm Creedmoors
long-term success is assured.
THE RIGHT STUFF
I frequently get asked what makes the

6mm Creedmoor better than other cartridges, especially those like the .243
Win., which seem so similar on paper. I
The 6mm
Creedmoors
growth has
been driven by
demand from
shooters in the
field and not by
marketing
efforts from
large gun
and ammo
companies.
usually say, It wins. That answer is a

bit glib, but theres truth to it as well.
Dissecting the pros and cons of specific cartridges is difficult, but there
are a couple of features about the 6mm
Creedmoor, which happen to be shared
by many of the other cartridges listed
above as well, that shed some light on
the matter.
The 30-degree slope of the shoulder is one advantage. This not only
promotes better brass life than the
shallower shoulders on the .243 Win.
and .308 Win. for example, but weve
come to learn that cartridges with this
shape are very efficient, meaning we
can achieve velocities equivalent to
other cartridges that are able to hold
more powder.
The long neck on the 6mm
Creedmoor provides a lot of surface
area to grip the bullets, providing good,
consistent neck tension, aiding accuracy. And weve already touched on the
fact that we can load long bullets in the
case to full length, allowing them to
cycle through magazine-fed standardlength actions without difficulty.
The velocities attained by the
cartridge hit a sweet spot as well.
Depending on the powder, bullet
weight, and barrel length, the 6
Creedmoor has muzzle velocities from
just below 3,000 fps up to 3,150 fps or
so. At these speeds, you get excellent
downrange performance while having
good barrel life as well. And the longer
a barrel remains a shooter, the more
opportunity there is for the person
behind the trigger to master the rifle
and cartridge before rebarreling.
One also cannot ignore the financial
side of the equation either. When the

6.5 Creedmoor was developed, one of
its explicit goals was to be easy and
economical to reload. Those characteristics were passed down to the 6
Creedmoor. The brass is reasonably
priced, and the powder and other
components are readily available.
Prior to the introduction of the
new 6mm bullets (see p. 41), the
go-to load for the 6 Creed was 42.2
grains of H4350 driving 105 gr. Berger
Hybrids.
This is still a formidable load
and will continue to be competitive
despite the arrival of the newcomers
nipping at its heels.
LESS IS MORE
This notion of the modern, moderate cartridge is only going to become

more popular as time goes on.
Rounds like the 6.5 Creedmoor, the
.260 Remington, the .338 Federal,
and, of course, the 6 Creed are all
good examples of this design philosophy. There are still plenty of
shooters obsessed with speedjust
take a look at the 6.5-300 Weatherby
and the 26 Noslerbut with todays
modern hunting bullets, we are able
to take larger game more easily and
ethically than ever with the aforementioned softer-shooting rounds.
If you put two shooters behind similar hunting rifles, one chambered in
.300 Win. Mag. and the other in 6mm
Creedmoor, I can guarantee you that
the person using the 6 Creed will
shoot more often, be more accurate,
and, ultimately, be more deadly than
the guy trying to master the .300 Win.
Mag.at any range.

Ive been competing with the 6
Creedmoor for years, but I only started
hunting big game with it more seriously
two seasons back. During the fall of
2015, between my son and my friends
and me, we tagged eight animals with my
two GA Precisions, including four antelope, three whitetails, and a mule deer.
Our shots ranged from 20 feeta
whitetail buck that walked within arms
reach of my sonto 468 yardshis
first mule deer. The rest of the animals
were taken between 380 and 450 yards.
All were rock-solid one-shot kills.
Credit has to go to the pinpoint accuracy Gardners rifles achieve in the 6
Creedmoor. Bullet placement is the
most important factor when it comes
to making a clean kill, and having a rifle
and cartridge that are able to place
shot after shot into the mouth of a
coffee can at 500 yards makes the task
much easier.
Im not alone in my enthusiasm for
the 6 Creedmoor on game. Many predator hunters, including one federal
trapper whose main job is predator
control, consider the 6 Creedmoor the
ultimate coyote round.
All this success is just a taste of
whats to come for the 6 Creedmoor.
This year a lot more hunters and shooters are going to have a chance to
experience what all the fuss is about.
Based on how the 6 Creed has excelled
in competition and in the field to date,
Im guessing they are going to be happy
with what they see.
Not bad for a cartridge that was just
meant to be a one-off for a story in a
magazine.
ABOUT THE COVER RIFLE AND RIFLESCOPE

MONTANA RIFLE COMPANY is one of the first major gun companies
to roll out a production rifle in 6mm Creedmoor. Called the Mountain
Snow Rifle, it is based on the M1999 action, a two-lug bolt-action that
is an appealing hybrid of a Mauser-action and a Model 70, with a fulllength claw extractor, a three-position safety, and a fixed-blade ejector.
Ive hunted with and shot more MRC rifles over the last decade than
I can recall, using them on everything from prairie dogs and antelope
to deer and elk. Ive even shouldered them in big-bore competitions,
shooting their dangerous-game model in .416 Rigby.
The talented craftsmen at MRC put a lot of handwork into every
rifle, individually hand-lapping actions and barrels, and tuning the triggers, among a dozen other things that go into making a firearm that is a
cut above standard mass-produced fare.
For the new 6 Creedmoor model, the company has gone with a
24-inch stainless barrel with a muzzle brake. The synthetic stock is
done in the eye-catching Kryptek Pontus pattern.
The stock has a single standard swivel stud on the forend for a
bipod, and has flush-mounted QD cups fore and aft for slings and
accessories.
I asked for cups mounted at 3, 6, and 9 oclock for maximum flexibility in terms of sling positions. Taking a cue from my experience as
a competitive shooter, I now carry an ultra-light (3.6 oz.) rear bag from
Wiebad when I hunt that clips into a QD cup on the buttstock.
Another advantage to the QD cups is that they allow for 360 degrees
of rotation for the sling attachments, meaning youll never end up with
a loose swivel stud or a stripped swivel stud screw again.
The rifle is topped with a 525x52 Sig Sauer Whiskey5 riflescope.
The 30mm scope, which will be introduced this year, features Sigs
LevelPlex digital anti-cant system, a Hellfire illuminated reticle, and a
custom turret system to tune the second-plane reticle to your loads
ballistics. ($1,690; montanarifleco.com; $1,320; sigsauer.com) J.B.S.
which BCs are approximations.

What ends up happening is that
shooters need to fudge the values
for the BCs of their bullets at different distances in order to get them to
line up with their real-world results.
Frustrating is the most family-friendly
term I can use to describe this process.
Heres what Hornady says: The inaccuracies seen when using BC, even G7,
are due to the mismatch between the
actual drag of the projectile being fired
and the drag of the standard projectile
being used to model it.
I know what youre thinking: What if,
instead, we could create actual profiles
of bullets in flight and use that data as
the basis for our ballistic calculations
and be rid of BC altogether?
Well, cowboy, this is your lucky day.
The new Hornady 4DOF ballistic calculator does just that.
Using Doppler radar, Hornady was
able to physically model the projectiles
MEET THE
TECH THAT
MAKES BALLISTIC
COEFFICIENTS
OBSOLETE
BY JOHN B. SNOW
BALLISTIC COEFFICIENTS and the

ballistic calculators that rely on them to
compute bullet trajectories have been
a mainstay for shooters for years. But
as anyone whos dealt much with BCs
knows, they are messy things.
First off, BCswhich, roughly speaking, measure how well a projectile
handles air resistancearent constants. The actual value of the BC of
a bullet in flight changes depending
on how fast the bullet is traveling. Put
another way, BC varies with distance
from the shooter. So when you see a
published BC, you have to wonder at
what distance, and under what environmental conditions, it was calculated.
Secondly, BCs are grouped based
on projectile shape, the most common
categories being G1, for typical pointed
hunting bullets, and G7, for sleek VLD
(very low drag) bullets. So every G1
value you see for a bullet is in relation to the standard G1 bullet shape.
The same goes for the G7 values. What
makes this problematic is that real bullets dont match up exactly with those
standard shapes. This is another way in
in their 4DOF library. Now, 4DOF

stands for 4 degrees of freedom,
which sounds like an alt-rock group
but is actually scientific terminology.
Standard ballistic programs account
for 3 degrees of freedomthe bullets
elevation, windage, and distance traveled. The fourth DOF is the projectiles
movement (yaw and angle of attack) in
relation to its line of flight.
Additionally, the 4DOF engine
uses a drag coefficient (CD) value,
which is specific to the bullet and not
the BC, which as weve noted is an
approximation.
As a result, the 4DOF program is the
first publicly available ballistic engine
that accurately accounts for subtle
but important effects on bullet flight
like aerodynamic jump, which is the
vertical shift a bullet experiences in a
crosswind.
For serious long-range shooters, this
is a godsend.
FOUR DEGREES OF FREEDOM

The 4DOF ballistic engine takes
into account the
attitude of the
projectile relative to its line of
flight, which is
one reason for
the softwares
superior trajectory calculations.
ANGLE OF
ATTACK
WINDAGE
RANGE
ELEVATION
THREE NEW,
AND ACCURATE,
.243-CALIBER
BULLETS THAT
WILL DUKE IT OUT
IN COMPETITION
THIS YEAR
BY JOHN B. SNOW
HORNADY 108-GRAIN
ELD MATCH
BC G1: .536
BC G7: .270
Price: $45 PER 100
Contact: HORNADY.COM
One of the newest additions to

Hornadys ELD (Extremely Low
Drag) series, this bullet effectively
replaces the older 105-grain A-Max,
which has been a mainstay of the
Hornady line for decades. Expect to
see real-world pricing of about $33
per 100.
WHY ITS HOT
The big news with this bullet is the

tip. Hornady calls the polymer tip
a heat shield that it says will not
melt or deform in flight. During
Hornadys development of the ELD
series they discovered erratic flight
characteristics with many standard
polymer-tipped bullets with high
BCs (.500 and up) because the tips
would begin to melt.
Hornady also says the polymer
tips give the projectile a consistent
meplat, meaning less variation in BC
from shot to shot.
As a hunting bullet, the ELD
Match is best for varmints and
small predatorsnot big game. You
can expect the bullet to fragment
violently when it encounters any
serious resistancenot what you
want should it strike the shoulder
of a deer.
BEHIND THE BC
The BC values provided by Hornady

were established by Doppler radar
and have been corrected to standard atmospheric conditions.
DTAC 115-GRAIN
RBT CLOSED NOSE
NOSLER
105-GRAIN RDF
BC G1: .620
BC G1: .571
BC G7: N/A
BC G7: .280
Price: $145 PER 500
Price: $26 PER 100
Contact: DAVIDTUBB.COM
Contact: NOSLER.COM
These bullets from David Tubb

were introduced last year and
became the instant must-have projectile for long-range 6mm shooters.
Sierra Bullets makes them for Tubb,
and however many he managed to
get his hands on and sell through
his website were snapped up in an
instant, and they have been in a near
permanent state of backorder ever
since. Tubb is the only source for the
DTACs.
Nosler has just come out with

a new line of bullets for the longrange market. While the company
has had match offerings in its catalogue before, the RDF series is
Noslers most serious effort yet to
court the growing number of precision shooters. The initials stand
for Reduced Drag Factor, in reference to the projectiles high BCs.
Nosler doesnt publish MSRPs for
bullets. The price listed above is
per midwayusa.com.
WHY ITS HOT
Tubb says the bullets have a similar

form to other DTAC bullets, but with
one exception. These have a rebated
boattail (hence the RBT in the
name), which improves barrel life.
How so? According to Tubb, a
rebated boattail bullet obturates
[conforms] faster and more efficiently to the rifle bore. This results
in quicker sealing and less gas
blowby.
The RBT design also slows down
barrel throat erosion. This erosion
results from the flame-cutting
effect of burning propellant gases,
which is intensified by a conventional boattail design, Tubb says.
BEHIND THE BC
The bullets BC was measured on

an Oehler 88 chronograph, and the
.620 G1 value is based on its performance at 1,000 yards. Right out of
the muzzle, Tubb says, the G1 value
is .590. The company hasnt calculated a G7 value yet.
In the 6XC cartridge, which was
created by Tubb, the bullet will surpass 3,000 fps.
WHY ITS HOT
Nosler designed these bullets with

a compound ogive and a long boattail in order to optimize their flight
characteristics. The company has
also gone to pains to make the hollowpoint on the bullet as small as
possible in order to further reduce
drag and to give the bullets a consistent meplat. Because there is so
little variation in the quality of the
points, Nosler says, there is no need
to trim meplats or otherwise point
up the bullets, saving on prep time.
As an added bonus, Noslers
engineers say that the compound
ogive on the RDF bullets makes
them much less sensitive to seating depth. In theory, this means that
handloaders who are cranking out
hundreds of rounds to prepare for
a match dont need to worry about
accuracy degradation due to slight
variations in seating depth.
BEHIND THE BC
Nosler sent bullets out to a number

of shooters around the country who
independently verified the BCs by
shooting them over chronographs at
varying distances. Nosler corrected
the BCs for standard atmospheric
conditions and says the values
listed are conservative.
being that they are illegal for civilians to own. Or they think theyre too
expensive to attain. Neither is the case,
though the issue of their expense has
some merit. Even just a few years ago, a
quality thermal imager would cost more
than $10,000, placing it out of reach for
all but the well-heeled.
Its a different world today.
Companies like FLIR, Leupold, L-3, and
Sig Sauer have all rolled out thermal
products with price tags comparable
to higher-end scopes and binoculars,
costing roughly between a few hundred
to two thousand dollars. Of course,
you can still write a bigger check for a
top-end thermal unit, but the prices on
those are dropping as well.
THERMAL
IMAGERS HAVE
BECOME BETTER
AND CHEAPER.
HERES WHY
BY JOHN B. SNOW
THE HUMAN EYE is a wondrous

instrument, but its observational
powers are limited to the narrow band
of radiation that, not surprisingly, we
call visible light. This represents just
a fraction of the bandwidth of electromagnetic energy that exists in our
universe. And our inability to peer into
this vast space with the unaided eye
leaves us, both literally and metaphorically, in the dark.
At one end of the visible spectrum
is blue and violet. At the other end is
orange and red. Once we move beyond
red light, were in the realm of infrared
radiation, which is invisible to our eyes
but which we still can detect through
the sensation of heat on our skin.
It is this energy that thermal imagers
pick up and then translate into visible light for us. When you look through
a thermal imager, youre not actually
seeing the object as you would with
a regular optic. Rather, youre viewing
a small screen, like a mini TV, that projects a digital image for your eye based
on an interpretation of the thermal
energy in the environment.
Many people believe that thermal
imagers are restricted for military or
law enforcement use, the perception
IR WAVES
GERMANIUM
LENS
Thermals come at
different prices
and for different
purposes.
1. Leupold LTO
Tracker ($874;
leupold.com) 2.
FLIR Scout III 640
($3,499; flir.com)
3. Flir Scout TK
($599; flir.com)
4. LWTS Light
Weapon Thermal
Sight ($13,499;
eotechinc.com)
5. Armasight
Apollo 640
30Hz ($5,795;
armasight.com)
6. Sig Sauer
Echo 1 ($3,124;
sigsauer.com)
7. Insight MTM-PI
($10,000; insight
technology.com)
Basic thermal units are used for observation. This gives sportsmen the ability
to retrieve downed game, find a lost
bird dog, or just figure out what is
crashing around outside the tent at
night. Weapon sights are more expensive$2,000 and upand can be used
for the nighttime hunting of feral pigs,
predators, and other non-game animals.
In terms of legality, we have a patchwork of laws and regulations, along
with some gray areas, that govern
how (or if) thermal devices can be
used afield. Youll need to check
and perhaps double checkwith the
authorities where you live to see whats
allowed.
One thing to be aware of is that
thermal units do not project any type
of artificial light. Many states have
regulations that ban the use of any illumination source, including spotlights
and IR lights, for hunting. Standard,
green nightvision often projects light,
but thermal is a passive technology.
The key to thermal technology is the

lens at the front of the unit. It is made
from an element called germanium,
which is similar to silicon. One property
of germanium is that it is transparent in infrared wavelengths. It is also
expensive.
The cost of germanium is kind of
like [that of] a diamond. As the lens
gets bigger, the cost goes up exponentially, says Angelo Brewer, national
sales manager at FLIR. And the size of
the lens corresponds to the amount of
thermal energy the unit captures.
What the lens does is focus heat the
way a regular glass lens focuses visible
light, Brewer adds.
This focused thermal energy then
hits a sensor called a focal-plane array
(FPA). The FPA uses what amounts to
a series of resistors that respond to
this energy by generating electrical
impulses. These impulses are translated into video pixels on the display
that your eye sees, giving you a picture of the thermal environment. The
greater the resolution of an FPA, the
more detail you get.
Heres another catch with thermal
imagers, though. Making FPAs is tricky.
Theres a fairly high rejection rate. The
problem is the manufacturer doesnt
know if a particular FPA is going to
work well until it has already been built.
This adds to the cost too.
But manufacturing efficiencies and
the growing use of thermal technology
in the automotive, outdoors, and other
consumer markets is making thermal
imagery cheaper and more accessible.
The question isnt whether hunters are
going to start using thermal, but rather
what kinds of uses the broader sporting
community will deem acceptable.
VIDEO
OUTPUT
SIGNAL
PROCESSOR
CONCENTRATED
INFRARED LIGHT
USES IN THE FIELD
HOW IT WORKS
OCULAR
LENS
ELECTRONIC
SIGNALS
HOW THERMAL WORKS
SPACE-AGE
LURES THAT LOOK,
SOUND, ACT
AND EVEN SMELL
LIKE LIVE BAIT
BY JAMES BRANDT
ANGLERS DONT SPEAK in terms

of how many megabytes they used to
catch a fish, but they could. Technology
has deeply penetrated the venerable
sport of fishing. Luckily, lure manufacturers are operating with an unlimited
data plan and are willing to use the collective science developed in aerospace
design, the food industry, and Silicon
Valley to enhance the traditionally
primitive art of tricking a fish into biting
an artificial bait. Long gone are the
days of whittling wooden crankbaits
and carving worm shapes into wax for
molding. The lure matrix is now computerized, and each byte used toward the
goal of artificial bait production results
in more bites for anglers.
1
THE ROBOBAIT
The technology that goes into

Livingston Lures is cutting edge, says
Erick Arnoldson, national sales director for the company. But our concept
is simple. We are using advanced digital
circuitry to produce a lure that mimics
real forage species not only in the way
1. Livingston
Lures feature
internal circuitry
that produces the
sounds of baitfish. Smartphone
programming
will allow you to
not only change
the baits sound,
but accurately
mark where it
gets bit. 2. Live
Target Lures
gained notoriety
for ultra-realistic
paint schemes,
but its their
analysis of live
bait hydrodynamics that
helps the lures
act realistically.
that it swims and looks, but in the way

that it sounds as well.
According to Arnoldson, this is no
easy feat. Most hard-bait manufacturers have about four steps they use to
produce a bait. We have about 35.
First, tiny circuit boards are programmed and the sound of distressed
baitfisha soft drumming noise made
as gill plate muscles beat against the
swim bladderare downloaded onto
microchips. Next, the battery, speaker
system, and LEDs (if applicable) are
welded into the lure body in a specific
fashion in precise locations to ensure
the proper balance.
Unlike any traditional lure manufacturer, we have a clean room for
assembly. This is a dust-free environment, and it is climate-controlled. .
We have developed software to
improve battery life to two years. Water
completes the circuit, so when our bait
is out of the water, it turns off. With the
new software, our baits also detect
movement. Now, even when submerged,
if there is a long period without movement, the bait goes into a deep sleep,
Arnoldson says. Lures cost about $15.
WHATS NEXT : Be on the lookout for
our Smart Aquatic Marine Instrument
(SAMI) app, Arnoldson says. It will
allow you to program your Livingston
Lure with your smartphone. You will
be able to select up to 30 different
sounds. And when you catch a fish, the
GPS data and environmental conditions
will all be stored automatically.
2
VIRTUAL DESIGN
The process at Live Target Lures

starts in the world of virtual reality,
much like cars do in the automotive
industry, explains Vic Cook, who leads
the companys product development
team. A software program allows us
to understand the hydrodynamics and
swimming characteristics of a lure long
before it is produced.
And that is important to Live Target.
The goal of this company is to create
lures so lifelike, youand the fish
cannot tell them from real forage species.
Once a bait has passed our virtual
reality tests, we send the file to a 3-D
printer in one of our three research
labs. The particular printer we use can
utilize a wide variety of materials. So,
we can print a soft-plastic swimbait
and it will be supple, or we can print a
hard-plastic crankbait with the exact

hardness required for the final product.
This allows us to modify quickly and
perfect every aspect of a lure before
going into production, Cook says.
Our paint schemes are incredibly
intricate as well. We use a computer
program to build the paint model, and
then it separates into a bunch of singlecolor layers. These become multiple
templates that are then given to our
team for hand painting.
WHATS NEXT: Its hard to imagine how
material developed for space travel

might help a guy catch fish, says Cook,
but when you mess technology with
fishing imagination, crazy things can
happenand thats what were working
on. These proprietary highly advanced
plastics and metals the fishing industry
has never before seen will be implemented in our manufacturing.
3
FUTURISTIC PLASTIC
A plastic worm is a plastic worm, right?

Well, it was until the aerospace industry
developed super-polymers. The result
is ElaZtech, a superplastic that has
made Z-Man a staple for anglers.
Our parent company is deep into the
cutting edge of polymer science. Once
we became aware of some of these
superplastics, it took a couple of years,
a ton of research, and countless modifications to plastic recipes to create
a blend that would work for fishing
applications. ElaZtech was eventually
perfected and introduced to the fishing
world in 2006, says Daniel Nussbaum,
president of Z-Man.
It is unlike any other plastic bait
youve used. We market it as being 10
times tougher than standard plastic,
but thats a very conservative estimate.
Weve caught 250 fish on one bait. You
can stretch this material to 5 times its
original size before it will break. Its like
this material is from another planet
and its 100 percent nontoxic.
We actually had to borrow some
technology from the food industry to
compound, create, and color our material. All of our equipment is specialized
because nobody else handles or creates
with this type of plastic, says Nussbaum.
FUTURE ADVANCEMENTS: As materials continue to evolve, well hopefully
create a bait thats 20 times stronger
than standard plastic.
AN ASSORTMENT
OF Z-MANS
ELAZTECH
CREATURE BAITS.
NEXT-GEN
FISH FINDERS:
ENHANCED CHIRP
AND BEYOND
B Y C A P T. J O H N R A G U S O
THE FISH FINDER is arguably an

anglers most important piece of marine
electronics when it comes to ensuring
rod-bending action. The dizzying technology has certainly come a long way
since Daryl Lowrances original portable little green box Fish Lo-K-Tor 12V
flasher of the early 1960s. But its whats
ahead that both excites and intrigues.
BACK TO THE FUTURE
Although CHIRP (compressed highintensity radar pulse) sounders have

been all the rage the past few seasons,
according to Dean Kurutz, Furunos
vice president of sales, marketing, and
product planning, CHIRP was actually
something old that became something
new, and will soon come packed with
enhanced fish-finding features for recreational anglers.
Originally developed by the U.S. Navy
back in the 1950s, in their effort to have
sonar penetrate deeper into the water
column to better map the ocean floor
(and locate enemy submarines), CHIRP
generated cleaner and more detailed
screen images than any of its antiquated
forerunners. CHIRP sounders have been
in use in commercial fishing boats for
decades, but the recent technological
explosion in microprocessors and color
screen displays is what has helped manufacturers downsize CHIRP sounders
both in footprint and price.
Eric Kunz, Furunos light marine
product manager, says the companys
future products will enhance CHIRPs
capabilities by introducing a number
of fresh technologies to recreational
anglers, including habitat mapping,
which is currently found on some of
the more expensive$50,000 to
$100,000commercial sounders. Get
ready for WASSP, which stands for wide
area sub-surface profiling.

WASSP allows you to see things as
theyre happening in real time, versus the
traditional limited historical perspective
told by classic 2D echo sounders, says
Kunz. Once we know the consistency of
the ocean floor, along with some other
key variables such as seasonality and
sea surface temperatures, you can predict with more accuracy what fish will be
in certain areas. Its a form of personal
bathymetric generation, which can then
be enhanced further via social networks.
One of the keys to making a relatively expensive system like WASSP
work is to employ a tube that extends
through the bottom of the boat, incorporating a very expensive transducer
array that can be steered in multiple
directions to provide a real-time view
in a 360-degree circle to ascertain the
whereabouts of structure and fish. Once
you find them, you can track them and
stay on them longer to improve your
catch ratios. Within the next two to three
years, we expect to bring much of this
commercial technology into the realm of
the recreational angler who has minimal
room on the dash to mount the fishfinder display and isnt thrilled about
cutting a hole in his boats hull for a large
transducer array. We also need to collect

and manage this large amount of information with the appropriate software
and internal hardware, process it quickly,
and display it accurately to recreational
fishermen so they can understand it and
act on it in real time with a user-friendly,
intuitive operating system.
3D SONAR
Garmins
Panoptix allseeing sonar
(illustration
above) provides
anglers with a
3D view around
the boat in real
time. Its RealVu
Historical feature is capable
of showing a
detailed look at
the entire water
column. ($1,000
to $5,000 for
transducers;
$1,500 to $4,500
for processors;
garmin.com)
Garmins Panoptix system is evolving

similarly. Generating real-time sonar
images is going to be one of the primary
focuses of their future recreational
echo sounder development, according
to product line manager Greg Groener.
In his eyes, classic 2D sonar is history,
both literally and figuratively.
Panoptix live sonar incorporates
multi-beam, phased-array transducer
technology, transmitting more than
30 times per second over 100 different crystal elements to send electronic
pulses in a 360-degree arc around your
boat. Two transducers can do it all,
including forward views and down/side
views.
Heres how it works: An angler
steers a Panoptix Forward transducer mounted to a trolling motor and
sweeps the area looking for any fish
lurking in the shadows. If targets are

present, he casts his lure toward the
area and sees if the fish respond. If they
are unresponsive, he can then change
lures until he finds something they
like. Coastal striper fishermen working a rock pile or inlet area, or offshore
anglers working around surface structure like weed lines, oil rigs, or lobster
pots can employ similar methods to
maximize their rod-bend moments out
on the water.
According to Groener, as processing power and the software programs
required to gather and sift through massive quantities of data evolve, this will
allow anglers with smaller and more
affordable machines to enjoy this highend level of fish-finding capability,
making the displays and transducers
easier to fit on a smaller lake and coastal
fishing craft.
FISH-FINDINGS
CENTRAL COMMAND
As mobile technology constantly

evolves with bigger, faster, and more
affordable boards and chip sets, some
of this is bound to work its way down
into the enhancing capabilities of
present-day echo sounders and multifunction displays (MFD). Qualcomm, TI,
and Intel are some of the key players,
and the development of low-energy,
high-processing power is the key to
making it all work. Furuno, for example,
can now present the data in ways never
before imagined by recreational boaters. The challenge is to manage this
wealth of data with operating systems
that require minimal learning curves.
MFD will be the heart of the system,
and will also be a master controller,
capable of performing most onboard
boat functions, including switching your
other systemslights, bilge pumps,
washdown pump, anchor windlass,
engineon and off.
The central processing display
unit will also be controlled from your
smartphone or tablet, but with a fringe
benefit. Manufacturers will be able to
monitor your onboard systems via the
Cloud and let you know ahead of time
what parts need changing before they go
bad. In the brave new world of fish finders, big brother will be watching.
ADVANCES IN
FISHING LINE THAT
WILL CHANGE THE
WAY WE FISH
BY TODD KUHN
MODERN-DAY FISHING LINE
may seem like a marvel of material

science, but the category actually
remains in its infancy developmentally. There are many mind-boggling
advances on the horizon.
BRAIDED LINE
As the head of research and development for Spider Wire and Power
Pro, Konrad Krauland pioneered
the superline revolution. According
to Krauland, Todays braided lines,
which are fundamentally made of
polyethylene (PE), have yet to reach
their maximum strength.
Power Pros new Maxcuatro line,
made with Spectra HT, for example,
is currently the strongest braid on
the market. Yet its strength is still
only at 50 percent of theoretical
maximum.
Further advancements in the
manufacturing of PE will allow us to
create a clear, woven superline that
will also be transparent to fish, says
Krauland. Great promise lies in a

new material being researched
by the U.S. Army for use in bulletresistant clothing. By genetically
modifying silkworms with spider
DNA, they have produced a superfiber that may have applications in
the fishing world.
This Dragon Silk will allow us
to weave an even stronger and even
thinner braided line, Krauland says.
MONOFILAMENT
The age of the biodegradable monofilament fishing line has dawned,

according to Cally Norris, senior
product manager for Berkley.
Manufacturers have developed
biodegradable monofilament line in
the past, says Norris. But because
they degraded and lost strength,
there was little consumer acceptance. We will soon see line that
starts to biodegrade by itself, but
eliminates compromised on-thewater performance.
FLUOROCARBON
The future of fluorocarbon fishing

lines rests in technique and speciesspecific lines, says Gerry Benedicto,
general manager at Kureha, Seaguar
Division. Youll see line designed
specifically for flipping, jigging,
jerkbait, and crankbait fishinga
fast-sinking, nearly invisible line with
the abrasion resistance of braid and
the advantages of fluoro.
OCULAR LENS
FIELD LENSES
HOW NANO LENSES WORK

TYPICAL ALL GLASS TRIPLET
OBJECTIVE LENS ASSEMBLY
SINGLET GRIN
OBJECTIVE LENS
USING
ENGINEERED
PLASTICS INSTEAD
OF GLASS, A NEW
GENERATION OF
SPORTING OPTICS
WILL BE LIGHTER,
CLEARER, AND
STRONGER
BY ANDREW McKEAN
IN THE PAST decades, weve seen

compact roof prisms replace the
bulky porro prisms in our binoculars.
Every year, our riflescopes have grown
heavier, fatter, and more capable of
placing bullets with precision at long
distances. And specialized extra-lowdispersion glass has made sporting
optics in every category brighter and
clearer than their predecessors.
But starting next year, those evolved
optics will seem as primitive as rotary
telephones appear to anyone under the
age of 40. The most disruptive technology in optics in our lifetimethe use
of specially engineered polymers that
will replace glass lenseswill make our
binoculars, spotting scopes, and riflescopes much lighter and more powerful
than ever.
The polymers go by the ungraceful name of gradient refractive index
(GRIN) optics, but most people conversant with the technology used to create
them call these nano-layered lenses.
Layers of specialized polymer film,
only a few molecules thick, are stacked,
shaped, and then baked together to
perform various optical jobs. One of
the most significant traits of these
synthetic compounds is that they can
refract light at multiple indexes, allowing each synthetic lens to do the job of
several glass lenses.
Over the past few years, an arms
race of sorts has been playing out
behind the scenes, with nearly two
dozen companies aiming to produce the
first commercially viable nano optical
lenses made from synthetic materials. The term refers to the thickness
of a single layer of a multi-layer lens
system. A nanometer is one billionth

of a meter, a dimension expressed in
atoms instead of the customary optical
unit of measure, the millimeter.
Out of that scrum of competitors,
a single company, Peak Nanosystems
(peaknano.com), appears to have
emerged as the industry leader. We sat
down with Chad Lewis, the president of
the company, to discuss how the lenses
are made, how they are different from
glass, and how they are being incorporated in sporting optics.
fewer lenses do the work of multiplelens glass systems.

OL: How durable are plastic lenses?
Can they handle recoil in a riflescope or
resist scratches on a binocular?
CL: We developed our first-generation
lenses for use in military applications
they are currently replacing glass in
the eyepiece of the PVS-14 night-vision
unit. And because they were designed
for the extreme environments required
by the military, designing durability into
consumer models is, frankly, a layup.
Most nano-layered lenses will be in
the guts of an optical system, but they
could easily serve as external lenses.
You just add scratch-resistant coatings
to the outside surface.
OL: How are nano lenses
manufactured?
CL: Lets start with an understanding
of how optical glass is made. You start

with a big chunk of grinding glass. The
power and function of the lensits optical prescriptionis determined by the
composition of the glass and the angle
of the grind. Is it convex or concave?
How much magnification do you grind
into it? We start with the raw material, a
polymer, and then extrude it, slice it, and
stack it in as many layers as needed to
achieve the optical prescription required.
If you imagine each layer as being much
thinner than Saran Wrap, then picture
thousands of layers of Saran Wrap, each
with its own optical function. Thats the
idea of nano lenses; they are stacks
of engineered film. Most of our lenses
have between 500,000 and 3.5 million
layers that together have a unique prescription. They are baked together and
then polished to achieve a compound
prescription.
OL: So are multi-layer polymer lenses
basically replacements for glass

lenses?
CL: No. Id say they are more than
replacements; they are improvements.
Because we can engineer multiple
prescriptions into each lens, we can
replace multiple glass lenses with a
single compound polymer lens. Take a
riflescope, for instance. A typical riflescope has six lenses in the barrel and
another six lenses in the eyepiece. Each
has a single role to play in directing and
focusing light entering the optic. We
can go from six to two or three lenses
in each lens system because each of
our lenses performs multiple functions.
So optics made with nano lenses can
be lighter and shorter than traditional
optics made with glass. Depending
on the optic, nano-layered lenses can
reduce lens weight and thickness by 20
to 70 percent, and by combining optical
functions in each element, we can have
OL: Speaking of coatings, are antireflective and other optical coatings

baked into the lens material?
CL: No, they are applied on the lens surfaces, just as they currently are with
glass lenses. The shaping and polishing
of the GRIN lenses is achieved in much
the same way as glass.
1
The eyepiece of
a PVS-14 nightvision unit, made
with traditional
glass lenses.
Weight: 4.4 oz.
2
The eyepiece of
a PVS-14 nightvision unit, made
with polymer
nano lenses.
Weight: 2.9 oz.
3
A selection of
atoms-thick polymer lenses. These
nano lenses will
replace glass in
many optics.
OL: In off-the-record discussions, product manufacturers from a number

of optics companies told me theyre
working hard to bring this technology
to market, and it seems like theres a
horse race to be first. Which types of
products especially lend themselves to
nano lenses?
CL: I think youll see at least a couple of
manufacturers come to market with
a higher-end line of nano optics in the
next two years. Any product north of
$500 is the sweet spot for this technology. Precision riflescopes, for instance,
are particularly suited for this. We
have already observed that consumers are willing to pay a premium for
high-performing riflescopes, and nanoengineered lenses will allow product
managers to design more powerful
scopes with better optical resolution
and wider fields of view that weigh less
than current models on the market.
Heavy, bulky glass spotting scopes are
also a category of optics that might
benefit from nano lenses. We are in
the prototype stage with a number of
manufacturers, and I think youll see
the first consumer models at the 2018
SHOT Show. Shortly after that, I expect
youll see this technology in every binocular and scope that retails for $1,000
or above. Within a couple of years, I
think youll see nano lenses in sporting
optics at every price point.
MINIATURIZED
GPS COLLARS,
SOPHISTICATED
DNA MAPPING,
AND CROWDSOURCED DATA
ARE CHANGING
THE WAY WE
MANAGE OUR
WILDLIFE
B Y D AV I D K R A M E R
THE HABITS AND habitat of wildlife

that help them hide from hunters also
make them hard to study. Thats why
for much of its history, the science of
wildlife management has been based
largely on what could be characterized
as highly educated guesses.
How many deer are in a hunting
unit? Lets count a portion of the herd
and make an estimate about the rest.
How far do geese migrate? Lets band
a few of them and, based on data from
returned bands, extrapolate about the
rest of the flock.
But advancements in technology are
enabling wildlife biologists to replace
estimates and predictions with certainty. Sophisticated and relatively
inexpensive GPS tracking units allow
biologists to track animals with much
more precision and frequency than they
could with radio collars.
The earliest models of these GPS
collars were heavy and cumbersome,
limiting their use to large mammals. But
as batteries become smaller and more
powerful, collars have been reduced
in size and weight. Tracking technology that was previously limited to
elk- and deer-sized animals can be put

on pint-sized critters. The newest GPS
collars are as light as 30 grams (thats
about the weight of a U.S. silver dollar),
allowing them to be worn by rat- and
rabbit-sized animals.
While tracking can provide a wealth
of information about an animals movements and habitat preferences, a
picture helps fill in details that GPSbased maps lack. Researchers have
begun attaching digital still and video
cameras to animals to get a better
idea of their specific behaviors. For
instance, biologists have strapped
camera-equipped collars to black bears
to investigate where and why they
venture in residential neighborhoods.
Other camera collars are showing
researchers the specific plants whitetails target when browsing in a forest.
time-consuming than current sampling

methods, which include netting, trapping, and electro-fishing.
CROWD-SOURCED INSIGHTS
GENETIC SLEUTHING
Other leading-edge work in the wildlifemanagement field is harder to see but

just as revealing. Advanced laboratory
techniques have made it possible to
sequence DNA from microscopic particles of wildlife tissue, helping wildlife
officers gain forensic evidence to bust
poachers.
This DNA analysis is helping game
wardens identify the geographic origin
of a dead animal, the date of the kill,
and even the cause of mortality. These
new methods can help wildlife protectors trace the origin of a horn from an
endangered rhino, for instance, or to
determine when and where a trophy
whitetail was killed.
Advances in DNA sequencing
are not limited to terrestrial animals. Researchers with the Oregon
Department of Fish and Wildlife have
begun using water samples from the
states streams and lakes to synthesize
what is known as Environmental DNA
(eDNA). This eDNA enables researchers
to identify all water-dwelling species
in the sampled body of water by picking up unique biological signatures
found within samples of water from the
area. The use of eDNA to evaluate species distribution is cheaper and less
Environmental
DNA analysis
allows researchers to determine
the specific water
body where fish
and aquatic animals spend most
of their lives.
Wireless data
transfer and
software that
times out satellite acquisition
allow toy-sized
GPS trackers to
run for a year or
even longer.
Finally, one of the most useful advances

in technology over the past decade
is you. Well, you and your phone.
Many wildlife managers are employing citizen science to survey wildlife
populations at large scales and with
minimal cost to the agency. An example
is the iSeeMammals black bear project at Cornell University. The program
encourages people to use a mobile app
(bears.gorgesapps.us/about) to record
black bear sightings anywhere in the
state of New York. Feedback from the
app will be used to estimate the spatial
distribution of the black bear population within the state, which will help
wildlife managers understand population dynamics. While data from the
observations isnt all that different
from the traditional sample-andestimate methodology used to survey
wildlife populations, it is much less
expensive for state agencies to conduct, and it serves the wider purpose of
creating public awareness of and advocacy for the resource.
State agencies have also begun
developing apps to streamline the sale
of hunting and fishing licenses, and to
encourage post-season harvest reporting, which is disappointingly low in
many states using traditional methods.
Some states are developing apps that
sportsmen can use to track their daily
hunting activities and animals spotted,
similar to the iSeeMammals project.
The key difference between the two
is that by collecting hunter effort and
sightings together, agencies will be able
to accurately estimate regional population abundance of focal species.
The cumulative impact of hyperprecise location data provided by GPS
collars, environmental DNA provided by
tissue sampling, and the metadata provided via smartphones will allow fish
and wildlife managers to make faster
and better decisions about harvest
limits and season structures.
HOW E DNA WORKS
AQUATIC INSECTS
A SAMPLE OF WATER
CAN REVEAL THE ORIGIN OF A
WIDE VARIETY OF FISH AND
AQUATIC WILDLIFE.
FRESHWATER FISH
WATERFOWL
AQUATIC MAMMALS
ANADROMOUS FISH
HOW SMALL CAN GPS TRACKERS GO?
MICRO GPS UNITS

STRONGER BATTERIES AND
SCHEDULED TRANSMISSIONS
ENABLE EVEN TINY SATELLITE
TRACKERS TO RUN FOR YEARS.
THE SATELLITE-TRACKING industry is in a race

to miniaturize the units that can be attached to
animals in the wild. Telemetry Solutions (telemetrysolutions.com) has a 20-gram collar that is being
used by bat researchers. Satellite tracking isnt limited to the wild. A number of GPS-based monitors
are being designed for the consumer market. The
smallest unit from Retrievor (retrievor.com) is the
size of a U.S. quarter and can be tracked through a
phone app. LightBugs (thelightbug.com) solar-powered GPS tracker is about the size of a single AA
battery and is designed to be attached to luggage,
pets, or teenagers.
James Dickson
wild-turkey
conservation
visionary.
L
2017
The
GOBFATHER
THE WILD
TURKEYS
FUTURE
MAY JUST
LIE WITH
A MAN WHO
HAS
WITNESSED
ITS PAST
BY JIM CASADA
P H O T O G R A P H S B Y DAY M O N G A R D N E R
OUTDOOR LIFE
C O N S E R VA T I O N
I was born a hunter, Dickson says.

A scholarship at the University of the
South in Sewanee, Tennessee, following a
boyhood spent hunting small game, provided a life-changing epiphany. One of
his duties was to keep Sewanees Forestry
Library open during evenings, and there
he discovered Roger Lathams Complete
Book of the Wild Turkey. He read and reread it, all the while thinking, Wouldnt
it be great to just hear a gobble or, better
still, see a wild turkey?
Dickson, now 73, went on to be not
just a wildlife biologist with a high level
of expertise, but someone who savors
every sunrise of spring turkey season. He
is also a man well worth heeding when it
comes to thoughts on the sports status
today along with what the future holds for
Americas big-game bird. Dickson abetted
their meteoric rise and has remarkable
insight into the current days challenges.
E A R LY G O B B L I N G
A LT H O U G H T H E Q U O T E You cant know where youre going if

you dont know where youve been was not written about the wild turkey,
it could have been. And there is, perhaps, no one more qualified to know
what lies ahead for Americas grandest gamebird than the person who
has devoted his life to ensuring its future.
Both as a hunter and as a wildlife biologist, Dr. James Dickson was well
in the forefront of turkey research during the golden era of restorationthe
1970s to the 1990s. But even before that, he had lost a small piece of his soul
to the American bird.
More than 60 years have passed since

a 1948 agreement between the United
States Forest Service and the South
Carolina Wildlife Resources Department
launched trapping and relocation of wild
turkeys in the Carolina Low Country. And
over the ensuing decades, the program
has successfully helped restore the birds
nationally. The emergence of the National
Wild Turkey Federation (NWTF) in the
early 1970s facilitated and expedited the
process through provision of transport
boxes and the creation of a Technical
Committee, which provided input on
other relocation sites. The end result of
these interacting forces was, early in the
21st century, the completion of one of the
greatest of all wildlife restoration success
stories, putting turkey populations at an
all-time high.
Along with Tom Rodgers, the NWTFs
visionary founder, and Dr. Lovett
Williams, a Florida-based biologist whose
endeavors bridged the yawning divide
between science and the ordinary hunter,
Dickson was on the front line of these
efforts. Now retired, he spent more than
two decades as a research biologist with
the U.S. Forest Service before becoming Louisiana Tech Universitys Merritt
Professor of Forestry. He was always
intimately involved in all things turkey.
That included multiple terms on NWTFs
Clockwise from right: Dickson in his home oce;
some of his many beards and spurs; the seminal
book on wild turkeys, which he edited.
THREATS TO HUNTING WILL

INCREASE AS MORE LAND IS
LOST FOR HUNTING.
OUTDOOR LIFE
C O N S E R VA T I O N
board and writing dozens of research papers on wild turkeys. Dickson was
a primary contributor to the landmark book Wildlife of Southern Forests,
and edited one of the most impressive turkey studies ever, The Wild Turkey:
Biology & Management, published in 1998.
We know what has happened, but lingering questions remain about why
restoration worked so well and where we are headed. Dicksons primary
concern is about declining turkey numbers, notably in the Southeast, over
the last decade or so. Overall, wild-turkey population estimates are between
6 million and 6.2 million birdsdown from a record high of 6.7 million. The
decline in Alabama has been estimated at 20 percent since 2010. In Georgia,
birds are down 25 percent since the 1990s. In South Carolina, the 2015 harvest was down 40 percent since the 2002 record season.
Turning around the population drop, according to Dickson, lies in
research.
CAUSE AND EFFECT
Wildlife populations probably wax and wane much more than we

realize, he says, stressing that turkey population viability focuses on
WILDIFE POPULATIONS PROBABLY

WAX AND WANE MUCH MORE
THAN WE REALIZE.
productivity factors such as hen breeding and nesting success, and poult
survival. It could well be that population declines are merely part of a natural
cycle rather than a result of predation,
disease, or other factors. Often new
populations fare well initially but lose
some viability over a certain period of
time, he says.
While theres no question in Dicksons
mind that habitat loss depresses turkey
population numbers, he notes that in
places like New England, turkeys have
shown remarkable adaptability, even
thriving in the suburbs. Another part
of the habitat conundrum Dickson
describes as an inverse relationship
between land management efficiency
and wildlife habitat. Among the negatives he lists in this regard are farmers
eking out everything possible from their
fields, vast expansion in field size, ruthlessly efficient harvesting techniques,
and widespread herbicide use. Add commercial forests grown on short rotations,
prolonged drought in some regions,
reduction in habitat diversity, and what
COURTESY OF DR. JAMES DICKSON (3)
Clockwise from top left: An approaching gobbler; Dickson with former

NWTF CEO Rob Keck; a mounted trophy; buddies in an Alabama camp.
he interestingly calls a loss of fire, and

the result is forces, both natural and
man-induced, creating vast areas with
little cover for feeding and nesting.
While some critics point to these
dynamics as indication of the ineffectiveness of the NWTF, Dickson draws the
opposite conclusion, saying the conservation group is more vital than ever.
Becky Humphries, the NWTFs chief
conservation operations officer, says,
We need to continue to promote and
protect turkey populations and habitat, says Humphries, and through
the Technical Committee all of us
can join hands for optimum habitat
management.
The NWTF has just completed a strategic vision document that heralds the
wild turkeys comeback even as it calls for
refocusing of the vision going forward.
That will involve ongoing coordination of
research efforts between state and federal
agencies, recognizing and evaluating the
effects of habitat changes, and improving
hunter access, all the while maintaining
respect for the sports heritage.
THE ROAD AHEAD
The goal of the NWTFs 10-year initiative, Save the Habitat. Save the Hunt,
is ambitious, according to CEO George Thornton.
The objective is to conserve or enhance 4 million acres of critical habitat, create 1.5 million hunters, and open hunting access to 500,000 additional
acres, he says, pointing to the alarming figure of 5,300 acres of wildlife habitat being lost in the U.S. every day. Good science is also critical.
Threats to hunting will increase as more land is lost for hunting and as
antis prove effective in capturing public support, says Dickson. But hunters
must bear the burden by focusing more on the resource and less on the hunt.
Some hunters are losing contact with the land and wildlife they hunt, he
says. Technology and gimmicks abound while our relationship with nature
has waned.
There needs to be greater interest and emphasis on science and the work of
biologists, who loomed so large in the wild turkeys comeback in the first place.
I expect most turkey hunters today would not even know who Henry
Mosby and James Lewis were, says Dickson.
TURKEY TRUTHS
Additional challenges such as limited state budgets, federal agencies that concentrate on endangered species, and to some degree a sense that turkeys are
no longer in need of active management have impacted wild-turkey populations, says Dickson.
Without ample game to pursue, says Thornton, hunters lose interest. But
our future has never been brighter. Its great to be a turkey hunter.
JUNGLE
LORE
photographs by simon barr/tweed media
T H E M O S T FA M O U S
BIG-GAME RIFLE
I N H I S T O RY
JIM CORBETTS
RIGBYRETURNS
TO THE JUNGLE
A F U L L C E N T U RY
A F T E R I T TA M E D
INDIAS
M A N - E AT I N G
C AT S
by andrew m c kean
FEBRUARY/MARCH 2017
59
OUTDOOR LIFE
JUNGLE
LORE
REDUX
IN THE FLESH
A Bengal tigress
inside Corbett
National Park.
Right: The author
and a 1953 issue
of Outdoor Life
at Kanda,where
Corbett killed a
man-eating tiger.
from getting out of vehicles, barred from bringing

food into the interior of the park, and warned against
making the sounds of game animals and birds. Buildings for the few concessions inside the park are
ringed with electrified wire to keep the cats from
coming close to humans. No one roams outside the
fences at night.
Corbett hunted the most dangerous cats of all
the cunning, fearless, often wounded (by porcupines,
cattle hooves, or non-lethal gunshots from farmers
and herders) predators that turned from hunting deer

and goats to stalking humans. These predatory cats
earned names associated with the places they terrorized: the Maneating Leopard of Rudraprayag, the
Champawat Man-Eater, The Thak Man-Eater. The 33
cats Corbett killed over a span of 31 years were responsible for more than 1,200 human deaths.
Corbett hunted alone, usually at night and often
within swiping range of a lacerating claw, relying on
his wits, icy nerves, and a deep understanding of wildlife behavior to pattern the predators. He also relied
on a rifle, nearly always trusting his life to his favorite, a Rigby bolt-action chambered in the surprisingly
lightat least for man-eaters.275 Rigby.
LOST AND FOUND
Corbett, born and raised in the jungles of northern
India, moved to Kenya just as the English colonial occupation of India was ending. He died in 1955, but
not before sending his cherished Rigby to his editor at Oxford University Press in England. The rifle
that had been presented to Corbett in 1907 for having
killed the dreaded Man-eater of Champawat, was put
in a closet at the university and forgotten.
A little more than a decade ago, it was rediscovered.
But the university had a problemOxford was in possession of an unregistered firearm. Faced with the
possibility that this piece of history might be confiscated by British authorities, university officials quietly tried to return the rifle to Rigby. Trouble was, the
once mighty gunmaker had fallen on hard
times and was in receivership.
Corbetts rifle might have remained in
oblivion had Marc Newton not come along.
He was instrumental in the renaissance
of Rigby, returning the companys shop to
Londons Vauxhall district and reviving its
reputation as a maker of high-end firearms.
The famous cat-killing rifle was presented
to Newton a couple of years ago, and he began planning a trip that would return, for a
spell, the gun to Corbetts homeland.
I was asked to accompany the rifle last
year on its four-stop, 900-mile tour of India. A lengthy excerpt from one of Corbetts
final books, Jungle Lore, was previewed in
the October 1953 issue of Outdoor Life. Because Newton intended to take the rifle to
the very places where it did its grim work,
he thought it fitting that I come along and
read from the piece, which is considered to
be Corbetts autobiography.
This is why I found myself huddled in
an open-topped Toyota in the Indian state of Uttarakhand, watching a tiger pick her way along the dry riverbed, wondering how a man could deliberately seek
out these powerful, lithe predators, especially those
with a demonstrated taste for the flesh of man.
LIVING HISTORY
What I learned in India is that Jim Corbett was no ordinary man.
Hunting has been banned nationwide here since
60
FEBRUARY/MARCH 2017
OUTDOOR LIFE
PREVIOUS SPREAD: GETTY IMAGES (TIGER)
The tigress pads out of the sandalwood forest and

into a dry stream bed with the cool purpose of an assassin. She glides in and out of the evenings shadows,
probably on her way to hunt sambar deer up the valley. I am relieved she doesnt seem to care about me or
my fellow tourists, crowded in an open-topped safari
Jeep, watching her from across the wash. We are completely hushed, holding our breath for the long minute it takes her to stalk out of sight.
She is the first tiger I have ever seen in the wild, but
my euphoria at the sight is subdued by the knowledge of her lethal capability. As the sun sets, I glance
around for the big apex predators I cannot see, the
ambushing leopards that prowl the thick brush and
shadows of this national park in northern India.
The park is named for hunter and naturalist Jim
Corbett, who lived near here a century ago and
hunted this very jungle for man-eating cats. He wrote
about his adventures in a series of best-selling books.
In the years following World War II, those tales transformed the modest railroad clerk of colonial India into a worldwide celebrity, and they established
his reputation as one of the most famous hunters of
all time. As a kid, I read Corbetts books at night by
flashlight, under the covers of my bed, imagining
the growls of Bengal tigers and yellow-eyed leopards
leaping out of the goatgrass.
Corbett National Park is one of the last few places
on earth where wild tigers roam freely. The big cats
are averse to humans, but still, visitors are forbidden
HOMECOMING
Corbetts rie at the
place where he put
it to good use.
JUNGLE
LORE
REDUX
SIGHTSEEING
The Rigby party
toured the interior of Corbett Park
from seats, called
howdahs, atop
Indian elephants.
the early 1970s. There is little private gun ownership
in the country. So it was especially surprising to find
such a large degree of affection for Jim Corbett, a celebrated hunter and confirmed gun owner. Sixty years
after his death, Corbett is still revered here. When I
told Happy, the man I hired outside the New Delhi
airport, that I wanted him to drive me seven hours
to Corbett Park to meet the rest of the Rigby party,
he was ecstatic, and not only by the prospect of a
full days wage. Ah, Corbett-baba. Very good man,
Happy said, beaming. I learned later that the honorific baba is used to convey deep respect for a revered elder. I also heard Corbett described as sadhu,
which means a holy man.
J. Corbett = Mother Theresa with a rifle, I wrote
in my field notes.
It was gratifying to see Corbetts life and work being celebrated, but I was uneasy about how his rifle would be received by people who had never seen
a gun that wasnt held by a soldier or a police officer. But at every stop on the Rigby tour, the gun was
treated as a celebrity, almost as an extension of Corbett himself. At public rallies, people clamored to
get a look at the gun. At news conferences, reporters wanted to know where the rifle had been for so
long, and if it would remain in India. (No, Newton explainedthe gun would return with him to anchor a
Corbett exhibit in London.) Schoolchildren gawked
at the hundred-year-old bolt-action, and jostled to
take selfies with the rifle.
At one public event in the town of Ramnagar, headquarters for Corbett National Park, a stiff older gentleman, formally dressed in the uniform of the local
military detachment, approached Newton after his
public remarks. The man carried an ancient hammerfired single-shot shotgun. It was, he told us, the regimental gun that he had used to kill more than a dozen
man-eating leopards over the past 50 years in the area
around the park. If we had any doubts about the gentlemans veracity, he pulled up the leg of his trousers.
The mans shins and calves were scarred with the evidence of dreadful woundsdealt by a leopard, he said,
that wasnt deterred by a blast from the 12-gauge. The
man described reloading as the cat pulled him into
the brush, pushing the muzzle of the shotgun against
the leopards head to end the awful mauling.
As we toured the periphery of the park, we heard
stories of recent marauding tigers and leopards. The
big cats had surprised students walking home after
dark or farmers tending livestock near the forest, and
had dragged them away, leaving only a tatter of clothing hanging in a thornbush, or an unanswered cell
phone ringing in a field. Corbetts work, it seems, still
isnt done in India, where man-eaters kill on average
about 30 people each year.
TERROR IN THE NIGHT
As a kid, reading his books, I was impressed by the
humility of Corbett. Here was a man who had faced
down certain death multiple times but had always
come away with victory, represented not only by the
preservation of his own life, but by the liberation of
entire villages. Corbett refused to take payment for
his work, and he largely shunned recognition, returning after each successful hunt to his village, where he
wrote with increasing passion about the need to protect the wild places where tigers and leopards could
live apart from humans. The creation of Corbett National Park in 1936 was largely a result of his advocacy.
But by walking in the footsteps of Corbett, I gained
a deeper appreciation for the magnitude and humanity of his work.
When a man-eater took up residence around a
village, a veil of terror fell, and most outdoor activity stopped, sometimes for years. With humans too
frightened to harvest it, ripening wheat was eaten
by deer. Neglected livestock wandered away, children stopped attending school, cooking fires went
cold with no wood to fuel them. Rural villages terrorized by a man-eater didnt get mail, or visitors, or
When a man-eater took up residence around a village, a veil of

terror fell, sometimes for years. Ripening wheat was eaten by
deer. Neglected livestock wandered. Cooking fires went cold.
62
FEBRUARY/MARCH 2017
OUTDOOR LIFE
THE RETURN OF RIGBY

1
2
3
BRITAINS OLDEST
RIFLE MAKER IS BACK, AND
ONCE AGAIN TURNING OUT
BIG-BORE GUNS BUILT ON
MAUSER ACTIONS
WAYNE VAN ZWOLL (5)
The first John Rigby, born in
1758, was building guns by 1775

in Dublin, but he may have acquired a business begun in 1735,
the year Rigby now claims as
its first.
Together with sons William
and John Jason, Rigby produced
dueling pistols, sporting rifles,
and shotguns. John died in 1818,
John Jason in 1845. William
Rigby lived until 1858, when son
John assumed control of the
business. Eight years later, he
opened a shop in London, selling
the Dublin facility in 1892.
By 1900, when John Rigby &
Co. was incorporated, John had
distinguished himself as a gunmaker and marksman. In 1887,
he was named superintendent
of the Royal Small Arms Factory at Enfield Lock, where he
worked on the .303 SMLE rifle
that would serve British forces
until 1957. Compelled by law to
retire at age 65, he returned to
the shop, where in 1898 he developed the .450 Nitro Express
cartridge. In 1911, five years before his death, he followed with
the rimless .416 Rigby, bringing double-gun stopping power
to bolt-actions. John Rigby
also became a distributor for

Mauser actions from Germany.
This relationship somehow survived the Great War.
Rigby owed much of its success to the exploits of celebrated men prowling game
fields in Africa and India during the height of the ivory trade
and the birth of commercial safaris. Elephant hunter W.D.M.
Bell used a Rigby Mauser in .275
(7x57). So did Jim Corbett, to
kill man-eating tigers. The 1909
Roosevelt safari included a
Rigby big-bore.
A turbulent century later, in
2013, Rigby reestablished itself
in London, with a Big Game series of rifles built on Magnum
Mauser actions. Single-squarebridge versions (a flat-topped
bridge but round front ring) are
designed for iron-sight shooting, with the original flag safety.
The lightweight 24-inch barrel in .416 Rigby weighs 10
pounds. A stepped 22-inch barrel in .416 or .450 Rigby adds 8
ounces. Double-square-bridge
rifles are machined to accept
scopes. In .375 H&H and .416
Rigby, they come only with the
slim barrel and a three-position
wing safety. All Big Game rifles
wear checkered Turkish walnut
stocks. The banded front sight
pairs up with a fixed V and two
folding leaves (inscribed for 65,
150, and 250 yards) on a quarter
rib. Cosmetic touches distinguish PH and Deluxe rifles.

Then theres the Vintage
single-square-bridge .416 with
24-inch barrel. A retractable
cocking-piece aperture complements folding V sights on the
quarter rib. Once common on
fine rifles, the cocking-piece
peep has fallen out of style. Pity.
Its elegant and practical. Close
to your eye for quick aim, it flies
ahead with the striker. The long
sight radius enhances accuracy.
I spent range time recently
with Rigbys new Vintage. No tigers prowl my neighborhood, so
I settled for paper bulls-eyes
at 100 yards. Secured by Mausers massive claw, the cigar-size
hulls of the .416 slid home with
a silky clackety-tunk. Iciclecrisp, the trigger-break loosed
400-grain bullets at 2,400 fps.
They drilled 2-inch deltas
pleasing indeed, given aging
eyes and iron sights on a frisky
rifle.
If you cant soon visit 13-19
Pensbury Place, London, Rigby:
A Grand Tradition should be on
your reading list (Rigby Press,
2012, Dallas, TX). Youll learn
why Corbett and his contemporaries dug deep to buy Britains
best. Wayne van Zwoll
FEBRUARY/MARCH 2017
63
OUTDOOR LIFE
1. Rigbys Big Game Vintage

rifle has a single-square-bridge
Mauser action and comes
chambered only in .416 Rigby.
2. Traditional Magnum Mauser:
straight bolt handle, flag
safety, square bridge, nonrotating extractor.
3. Rigbys cocking-piece aperture sight provides a long sight
radius for accurate shooting.
4. Since its first .416 sold in
1912, Rigbys bolt rifles have
featured Mausers extractorcontrolled feed.
5. Two leaves, filed for 150- and
250-yard shooting, tip up for
aiming with the cocking-piece
peep sight.
REUNITED
Silkworm farmer
Trilok Singh
Negi handles the
Corbett rie. Negis
father was given a
muzzleloader by Jim
Corbett to safeguard
his village from
man-eating cats.
64
FEBRUARY/MARCH 2017
OUTDOOR LIFE
JUNGLE
LORE
REDUX
any outside assistance. But Corbetts reputation after his first couple of successes
in eliminating man-eaters was such that
beleaguered villagers wrote petitions to
the provincial government requesting his
help, sending the letters by couriers brave
enough to risk the killer-cat gauntlet.
In the early days of what would now
joylessly be called a career as an animalcontrol officer, Corbett took time away
from his day jobhe supervised the transfer of freight from railcars to barges used
to cross the wide, roilsome Ganges River
to chase cats. But after some years, he quit
the railroad in order to focus on liberating
villages and writing about his experiences.
Corbetts first book, Man-Eaters of Kumaon, was published in 1944.
THE RUDRAPRAYAG LEOPARD
After visiting Corbett sites around Ramnagarwe
spent one day riding elephants through the jungle,
where my mates and I spotted sambar and chital deer,
hog deer, wild elephants, fish-eating crocodiles, and
all manner of exotic birdswe followed the Hindu
pilgrim route 200 miles north toward the shimmering peaks of the Himalayas. Our destination was Rudraprayag, gateway town to the sacred shrines in the
snowfields along the Nepalese border.
Rudraprayag, in the mountainous district of
Garhwal, is perched on the steep hillsides that fall
sometimes literally, as the area is prone to earthquakes and mudslidesinto the swift Ganges River. It
was here, in 1926, that Corbett killed the Leopard of
Rudraprayag, possibly the most infamous and homicidal of the Indian man-eaters. The leopard claimed
at least 125 human victims, and likely others whose
deaths were never reported or confirmed.
The leopard acquired his taste for human flesh in
1918, probably by feeding on corpses of villagers and
pilgrims who died in the influenza pandemic of that
year. So many people died in Rudraprayag in such
short order that their bodies were thrown into the
Ganges rather than being properly cremated. The
leopard abandoned natural prey and, over the next
eight years, terrorized the district, breaking down
barricaded doors, pulling farmers through the thatch
roofs of their cottages, and dragging pilgrims from
their open-air sleeping platforms.
During those eight years, the busy pilgrim trail
between the shrines of Kedarnath and Badrinath
thinned to a trickle. No one moved at night, and
camps were fortified with spears and timbered walls.
Still, the killings continued.
Soldiers and trappers were called in to dispatch the
serial killer, and the reward for his head grew so large
that bounty hunters from across the subcontinent
flocked to Rudraprayag to kill the cat.
Finally, early in 1926, Corbett was called in. He
would hunt the leopard, he told officials, only if the
bounty was removed and all other hunters were asked
to stand down. He didnt want his efforts to be compromised, and he didnt want to be mistaken for the
FEBRUARY/MARCH 2017
65
OUTDOOR LIFE
man-eater and shot by another hunter.

For 10 weeks, Corbett patterned the leopard.
Finally, in May 1926, Corbett built a machan, or elevated blind, in a mango tree on the edge of town, tied
a bleating goat to the base of the tree, and waited in
ambush with his Rigby. Corbett killed the leopard
and liberated not only the town, but also the pilgrim
route across northern India.
CORBETTS LEGACY
Our destination in Rudraprayag was a monument to
Corbett built at the base of the mango tree, which is
ancient and scarred but still stands on the shoulder of
a highway that has become the modern pilgrims trail.
The local magistrate organized a rollicking festival
to celebrate the guns return. A giant fabric tent was
erected over the memorial. Schools were shut so students could attend. Shops closed for the day. The entire town crowded under the tent. Everyone wanted
a glimpse of the Rigby rifle that had ended the eightyear reign of terror in this very place.
Dignitaries from across the region lined up to give
speeches that were drowned out periodically by the
roar of pilgrim caravanscolorful diesel trucks overloaded with people, luggage, spare tires, and fuel cans
for the rough journey to the mountain shrines.
From my seat at the front, I glanced up at the giant
mango tree and spied a rusty wire that had become ingrown in the trees trunk. An elderly gentleman noticed
my gaze and approached me after the festival. That
is the remnant of Corbetts machan, he told me, and
added that he had grown up just outside Rudraprayag.
His fathers family had been terrorized by the leopard,
and an uncle was one of the man-eaters victims.
Without Corbett-sadhu, I think my father would
not have been born, he said. Without my father, I
would not be here. Without Corbett, I wouldnt be
here talking to you.
As he waited to get his photo taken with Corbetts
Rigby, I wandered down to the Ganges. Everywhere
the brush grew close to the river trail, I thought I
heard sounds. My pace quickened, and I wished I
were carrying Corbetts Rigby in my clammy hands.
NEWSMAKERS
Rigby director
Marc Newton
answers questions
from Indias press
about the Corbett
rie. A colorful bus
transports visitors
from New Delhi to
Corbett National
Park.
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T H E
UNKNOWNS
I S
C H R O N I C
W A S T I N G
D I S E A S E
the scourge that will end deer hunting as we know it, or

a manageable nuisance? Fifty years into the epidemic, we still
know precious little about the fatal, neurological disease
by TONY HANSEN
Photographs by
ST UA RT F I S H E R
G R AY
M AT TE R:
This brain
came from
a CWD-free
whitetail.
CHRONIC
WASTING
DISEASE
IVE DECADES HAVE PASSED SINCE CHRONIC

wasting disease reared its ugly, mysterious head. For
the rst forty years, the disease seemed to be little
more than an oddity, a strange affliction that affected
a handful of mule deer, elk, and whitetails out West.
It was an annoyance, not an epidemic. Then, in 2002,
it was discovered in wild whitetails in Wisconsin,
and things got real. Suddenly, CWD acquired a new
level of focus and potential devastation that has taken
on an outsize role among those who value whitetails.
But should it?
A little more than a decade later, lets consider
what we know: Chronic wasting disease was rst
noted in 1967 by researchers studying a captive mule
deer herd in Colorado. By the end of that decade,
chronic wasting disease (as it came to be known) was
discovered in captive mule deer, blacktail deer, and
elk herds in Colorado and Wyoming.
In 1981, the rst case of CWD in the wild was
documented in an elk in Colorado. By 2000, it had
been discovered in captive herds in Nebraska and
Oklahoma as well as in wild populations in Saskatchewan. It has also spread east of the Mississippi, and
the recent discovery of CWD in wild reindeer in
Norway means its now found on two continents.
We also know that, so far, it has not proven to be
transmissible to humans.
Now, lets get into what we dont know. This will
require far fewer words. And a whole lot of courage.
We dont know where it came from, exactly. We dont
know how to stop it. We dont know how to cure it.
And we dont know what it truly means for the future
of deer hunting in America.
A POLITICAL DISEASE?
The theories behind the origins of CWD are varied
and controversial. And they are just thattheories.
The truth is, we dont know where it came from,
says Dr. James Kroll, a Texas-based researcher who
was hired by the state of Wisconsin to review its deer
management program in the wake of CWD. It may
have been a mutated version of scrapie that crossed
species. It may have occurred spontaneously. It could
have been here all along, and when we started look-
THE
SPREAD
OF CWD
- CWD in captive deer
- CWD in wild deer
1967
Colorado: Deer
begin dying at
Foothills Wildlife
Research Facility
near Fort Collins.
ing for it, we started nding it. We dont knowand

thats a key point to understand. There are a lot of
theories, a lot of nger-pointing, but none of it is
documented fact based in science.
This much we do know: The disease was rst
discovered and documented by researchers from
Colorado State University and Colorados Division
of Wildlife at a captive cervid research facility near
Fort Collins, where studies were done on deer as well
as sheep. A neurological disease, CWD is in the same
family as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease) and Creutzfeldt-Jakob
disease (which affects humans) and scrapie
(which affects sheep).
The fact that deer and sheep were both
present and experimented upon in the Colorado facility and that CWD is a transmissible
prion disease sharing somewhat similar
characteristics to scrapie has led to obvious
questions: Was CWD somehow created by
researchers in that Colorado lab? Or is CWD
the result of a mutated version of scrapie that
passed between deer and sheep in the facility?
Where it truly originated, to be frank, is
likely irrelevant because CWD is an acronym
thats now very much a part of the deer
hunters vocabulary. It was the Wisconsin discovery in 2002 that put it there. Wisconsins
response was as swift as it was unsettling. The state
created an eradication zone of roughly 287 square
miles with a simple, single goal: Kill every deer within
the zone in an effort to contain the disease. And it was,
by all accounts, a spectacular failure.
That was the rst of many knee-jerk reactions
that wasnt based in science, that wasnt really
approached in a manner that made sound management sense, says Kroll. The impact it had on
Wisconsins deer and its deer hunters was enormous.
And it didnt have to happen.
Following the discovery of CWD in Wisconsin, it
was feared that the disease would lead to a decline
in deer numbers and a drop in the number of deer
hunters chasing whitetails in Wisconsin. Both
proved to be true. By 2009, the number of gun hunters had dipped to just under 623,000, compared to
nearly 645,000 in 2005. By 2009, 39 deer were killed
per 100 licensed hunters, compared to 56 deer per

100 hunters in 2005.
But, according to Kroll, it wasnt CWD that caused
the declines. Rather, they were the result of an
unnecessarily aggressive response to CWD.
Currently, Wisconsin has the nations highest
number of conrmed CWD cases in wild deer (more
than 3,000 since 2002). Following Krolls work there,
the state seems to have all but abandoned its aggressive efforts to eliminate the disease and, according to
23
CWD IS NOW
PRESENT IN 23
STATES, TWO
PROVINCES,
AND ON TWO
CONTINENTS.
data from the Wisconsin DNR, CWD infection rates

are climbing. Or are they?
In the spring of 2016, the Wisconsin DNR released
data showing that the overall infection rate of CWD
had climbed to 9.4 percent, the highest since monitoring began. Its a gure that Kroll believes to be
incorrect.
Ive looked at that data and it does not show a
statewide prevalence rate of 9 percent. It does show
how misguided people are with their facts about
CWD, he says.
Kroll released a report outlining how the 9.4 percent prevalence rate being cited is both misleading
and wrong, explaining it is the result of dividing the
number of positive results by the number of deer
tested. The bulk of the deer tested were from the CWD
zone, thus skewing the data and generating a statewide
prevalence rate much higher than is likely real.
1981
1986
1999
2001
2001
2002
Colorado: First
wild elk with
CWD found in
Larimer County.
Wyoming: A wild
elk in southeastern
Wyoming tests
positive for CWD.
Montana: States rst

documented case of
CWD found at game
farm in Philipsburg.
Colorado: 11 game
farms are put under
CWD quarantine, but
not before 450 elk
had been shipped to
facilities in 15 states.
Kansas: First case

of CWD stems from
elk purchased from
quarantined Colorado
game farms.
Wisconsin: CWD
conrmed in three
hunter-taken deer
from 2001 season.
CHRONIC
WASTING
DISEASE
Does anyone really think if we tested 100 deer

across the state, wed nd 9 to have CWD? Thats just
not the case, yet thats whats being reported and its
simply not correct, he says.
THE THREAT IS REAL

While some researchers, like Kroll, believe CWD
is not the catastrophe its been portrayed as being,
others think it truly does have the potential to greatly
impact the future of deer and deer hunting, and
they have urged for stronger regulations against the
relocation of cervids as well as tighter regulation of
game farms.
All you have to do is look at the history. Look at
the path the disease has taken and it seems pretty
clear that captive cervids have likely played a big
role in the spread of this disease, says Russ Mason,
wildlife division chief for the Michigan Department
of Natural Resources. We dont know exactly where
it came from, aside from the fact that it was rst
documented in a captive facility. And we know that
when you have deer and elk being moved across state
lines, youre asking for trouble. Once its found in
captive deer, it seems to show up soon after in wild
populations.
Mason made that statement in an interview in
2014before Michigan had any conrmed cases of
CWD in wild whitetails. Up until that time, the states
only CWD-positive deer dated from 2008, from a captive facility in Kent County. In 2015, a wild deer tested
positive for CWD.
Kroll disagrees with Masons statement.
There is so much misinformation regarding CWD
that its disturbing. Dangerous. CWD did not come
from a game farm. It came out of a research facility
run by a state game agency. That distinction needs
to be made and it never is, says Kroll. The does that
produced the fawns used in the facility were returned
to the wild. Is that where the disease started? That
wasnt a deer breeder. It was a state research facility.
Yet the blame always falls on the privately owned
breeding facilities. That doesnt make any sense to
me, says Kroll, who, it should be noted, has worked
for game breeders in the past. We have CWD in West
Texas. Theres not a breeding facility in that part of the

state. So where did it come from?
Mason, however, isnt buying it.
Look at a map. Youll see a pretty interesting pattern that shows areas with outbreaks of CWD in the
wild and outbreaks in captive facilities, he says. If
we want to stop the spread of CWD, then we need to
think about how we move deer and elk like cattle.
Thats a position shared by Dr. Grant Woods, a
respected biologist based in Missouri.
According to disease scientists, the best method
to limit CWDs spread is to stop transporting the
causative agents, he says. This means we hunters
need to debone meat from deer and elk harvested in
areas where CWD has been found, and only transport
the meat, pelt, and antlers. Do not transport the brain
and major parts of the nervous system, which is where
most prions occur.
We also need to stop transporting live deer and elk
because there is no practical test that can accurately
conrm if they have CWD. Deer or elk with CWD
shed the causative agent in their saliva, feces, urine,
etc., and transporting them could spread CWD to
areas with herds that are currently CWD-free.
When CWD reached high-density deer states like
Illinois and Michigan, it was feared the disease would
spread more quickly there than in low-density areas.
So far, it hasnt.
Through June 2016, Illinois has tested nearly
100,000 whitetails for CWD, with 670 testing positive.
The disease had been conrmed in 16 of 102 counties.
Overall, the prevalence rate in all conrmed areas has
remained stable or increased slightly at just more than
one percent over seven years.
To date, Michigan has tested more than 7,300 deer
and conrmed eight CWD-positive results. Of those,
three came from the immediate area in which the
disease was rst discovered in the state and involved
whitetails that were related.
SOBERING DATA
What will the long-term impacts of CWD be? In
September 2016, the scientic journal PLOS ONE
published research from a study led by recent Uni-
2002
2006
2008
2010
2011
Illinois: Wild whitetail

shot near Wisconsin
border tests positive
for CWD, the states
rst case of the
disease.
Kansas: CWD is
conrmed in the
state when a wild
whitetail tests
positive in Cheyenne
County.
Michigan: The
states rst documented case of CWD
occurs on a Kent
County game farm.
North Dakota:
Wild mule deer
tests positive
for CWD.
Minnesota:
First case of
CWD in wild
deer in the
state is conrmed.
C H EC K P OINT: Mandatory check stations are now standard procedure in areas where CWD has been discovered. In
TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY LLC/ALAMY
Michigan, hunters within the states core CWD area must submit every deer they kill for testing.
versity of Wyoming Ph.D. graduate David Edmunds
and under the direction of associate professor Todd
Cornish. They found that during the study period
(20032010), whitetail populations in areas of Wyoming (where the disease has been present for decades)
with high prevalence rates of CWD declined annually
by 10 percent. If such declines continue, localized
extinction will occur in less than 50 years.
The decline was caused directly by CWD lowering annual survival of female deer, which have
the biggest impact on population growth rates,
Edmunds said in a release from the university. This
was because CWD-positive deer died both directly
from the disease and were more likely to be killed by
hunters than CWD-negative deer.
Prevalence rates in the Wyoming study area were as
high as 30 to 50 percent. Midwest hunters should take
note. In Wisconsin, some townships have reported
prevalence rates higher than 20 percent. If the Wyoming research is any indication, those regions could
see localized extinction of whitetail populations in
areas of the greatest prevalence.
There is some glimmer of positive news, however:

In 2015, a team of researchers at New York University had a measure of success with a vaccine to
prevent CWD in deer and elk, according to a paper
published in the medical journal Vaccine.
So where does that leave us? Right back where we
started some 50 years ago. Chronic wasting disease
is here. We dont know where it came from. We dont
know how to eliminate it. And we dont really know
what the long-term impact will be.
CWD is a very deceptive disease. Most deer
hunters have witnessed an outbreak of epizootic hemorrhagic disease (EHD), which often results in a rapid
and obvious die-off. However, many deer that have
been infected with EHD dont die, and populations
are known to rebound rapidly after an outbreak,
Woods says. CWD is much different. Its 100 percent
fatal. Even worse, once the causative agent is in the
soil, theres currently no way to remove it. Unless
something changes, CWD will likely be a major
factorif not the major factorin deer populations
and deer herd management for decades to come.
2012
2012
2012
2014
2015
2015
Texas: First
case of CWD
discovered in
wild deer in
West Texas.
Pennsylvania:
Captive whitetail
is conrmed to
be CWD-positive.
Missouri:
CWD conrmed in
wild whitetails.
Iowa: First
CWD case
discovered
in a wild whitetail.
Michigan:
Wild whitetail
in Ingham County
tests positive
for CWD.
Arkansas:
First case of
CWD found
when wild elk
tests positive.
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WILD TURKEYS
SWAMP
GOBBLERS
The only place on earth youll find
Osceola turkeys is in the Florida
Peninsula, where the blackfeathered toms are gobbling and
strutting right now.
BY ANDREW McKEAN
TIP
DAVID McCLEAF
It may be frosty where you live, but in Florida,

the mosquitoes are probably out and biting.
Bring a Thermacell or serious bug dope.
section edited by andrew mckean hunting@outdoorlife.com
HUNTING
WILD TURKEYS
While the rest of the country is

frosty and cold, turkey hunters
in Florida are chasing strutters
among the palmettos and Spanish
moss. If a Sunshine State gobbler
is on your bucket list, heres how
to go about checking it o.
he pinnacle experience for thousands
of turkey hunters is the completion of
a Grand Slam, killing at least one each
of the four subspecies of wild turkeys
in the United States. Based on considerations
of distribution and abundanceif not
behaviorthe hardest of the bunch to kill
is the Osceola, found only in the peninsular
portion of Florida.
With its striking black plumage and long legs,
the Osceola is a creature of swamps and dense
pine stands. Its probably the inaccessible,
gator-infested habitat of Florida south of Lake
Kissimmee that allowed the subspecies to
resist human settlement and widespread land
clearing in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
The blackwater swamps and live oak motts and
hammocks south of Orlando remain the best
places in the state to nd Osceola gobblers,
which generally are more comfortable in dense
cover than are their cousins to the north, the
Eastern subspecies.
But Florida turkeys are as adaptable as wild
turkeys elsewhere, and you are as likely to nd
Osceola gobblers strutting the edges of wideopen cattle pastures and picking bugs out of
the grass in orange groves as you are to nd
them in cypress bogs.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation
Commission denes Osceola turkeys as those
distributed south of a line that stretches
roughly from Jacksonville to Gainesville. North
of that line, including the entire Panhandle,
the state denes turkeys as belonging to the
Eastern subspecies. South of the line, they are
Osceolas, though there is some hybridization
of the subspecies along that boundary.
Osceola gobblers are slightly smaller than
Eastern turkeys, but they can seem taller
because their legs are longer, probably an
adaptation for walking through the swamps

of their native habitat. The breast feathers
of Osceola birds are both darker and more
iridescent than those of their Eastern cousins,
and the wings of Osceola gobblers are
dominated by black barring.
EARLY SEASONS
Besides the chance to bag an Osceola gobbler,
hunters are attracted to Florida by its early
season. Osceola hunting generally runs the
month of March, a full month or even two
before turkey seasons open elsewhere in the
TALLAHASSEE
East. The spring weather can be predictably

Floridian, with mild mornings and balmy
afternoons that seem to coax gobbles from
strutters the way juice spurts from a warm
orange. Or maybe it just seems that way to a
turkey hunter who has traveled to sunny Florida
from the frozen North.
These Florida birds, though, are not layups.
I hunted the Sunshine State for three seasons
before I shot my rst Osceola. That bird
which completed not only my Grand Slam but
also my World Slam (made up of the Eastern,
Merriams, and Rio Grande gobblers of the U.S.,
and also the ocellated and Goulds turkeys of
Mexico)hung up out of range for a full hour
before he nally approached my jake decoy.
Previous Osceola hunts had ended the way
so many of my other turkey hunts elsewhere
had endedwith hens that led gobblers away
from my calls, with blown stalks on unresponsive
toms, or with incoming strutters that simply
vanished into the screen of brush.
And, just like spring conditions anywhere,
Floridas weather can turn. The day after I killed
my rst Osceola on a ne March afternoon, I
joined my hunting partner, Linda Powell from
Mossberg Firearms, in a ground blind that
barely kept out sluicing sheets of rain. Despite
the deluge, a soggy gobbler fed out of a line
of trees and Linda killed him. The next day we
went to Disney World.
JACKSONVILLE
GAINESVILLE
Ocala National Forest
ORLANDO
TAMPA
florida
turkey range
Eastern subspecies
Osceola subspecies
Lake Okeechobee
Everglades National Park
MIAMI
IF YOU GO
FLORIDA TURKEY HUNTING

SEASON DATES
South Florida (south of State Highway
70) opens earliest, with a youth weekend
February 2526. The regular season runs
March 4 to April 9. North of Highway 70,
the youth season runs March 1112, and
the regular season March 18 to April 23.
BAG LIMIT
Two bearded gobblers
(Holmes Countys limit is one).
LICENSE COSTS
Turkey licenses cost $10 for residents,
$125 for nonresidents. Turkey hunters
must also hold a hunting license, which
costs $17 for residents, and $151.50
for nonresidents. Alternatively, nonresidents can opt for a 10-day license
that costs $46.50.
PUBLIC LAND
Florida has a surprising amount of
public land, including 1.1 million acres of
state wildlife management areas. Most
of these properties are managed for
high-quality turkey hunting because the
number of hunters is limited through a
lottery system. Application deadlines
for recreational-use licenses that give
turkey hunters special access to these
lands are generally in early January.
Check out the properties and dates
at myfwc.com/license/limited-entryhunts/application-periods/. The state
oers limited numbers of what it calls
Special Opportunity Turkey Hunts. These
are public-land hunts that are managed
for high success rates (by limiting
participants), and drawing one of these
coveted licenses can unlock some of the
best hunting in the state.
Scenes of a Florida turkey season (clockwise from top left): A sinkhole near Lake Okeechobee nearly
swallows a pickup, and the distressed hunters attract a ock of buzzards; a guides license plate; a trip
to nearby Disney World yields a pouch for a slate call; the authors Osceola completed his World Slam.
ANDREW McKEAN (4)
PUBLIC AND PRIVATE OPTIONS

Florida has more than 5 million acres of public
land, most of it administered either by the U.S.
Forest Service or the states Fish and Wildlife
Conservation Commission. Hunting on most
state wildlife management areas is limited by
coveted special permits that are distributed
in a lottery.
Floridas best private land is leased to

outtters, and at least for your rst Osceola
trip, its not a bad idea to book a guided hunt.
Youll pay for the access, but harvest rates
on private land are higher than they are on
public land, and most outtters oer lodging
and additional opportunities for hogs or even
private-land alligator hunting.
GUIDED HUNTS
Because the distribution of the Osceola
turkey is limited to Floridas peninsula,
outtters can charge a premium for
guided hunts. Rates for fully outtted
hunts range between $2,000 and
$3,000; add hogs or gators for a fee.
I hunted with Ted Jaycox of Tall Tine
Outtters (talltine.com), who leases
some 30,000 acres of prime Osceola
land in central Florida.
Successful Wyoming elk hunters

return to camp
behind a guide.
DONT
Over-talk inches of antler: Leading

with questions about trophy
expectations shows where your priorities
lie, says Andy Savage of Heavens Gate
Outtters in Idaho. Even if your goal is to
tag a record-book critter, your biggest-orbust attitude will be oputting.
Brag about your abilities:
Savage says that the hunter who
immediately says he can outwalk anyone in
the outt or make a shot out to 1,000 yards
probably wont make a very good camp

companion. Or, as Lance Kronberger of
Freelance Outdoor Adventures in Alaska
says, I do not brag to the carpenter who
is building my house about how good I am
with a hammer.
Have unreasonable expectations:
Everyone wants to take a good
animal on a guided hunt, but sometimes
that just doesnt happen. Part of that
has to do with understanding your game.
Grizzly bears, for instance, exist in
densities far lower than do elk or deer, so

you cant expect to see as many bears on
a hunt as you would those other species.
Savage winces when a hunter asks him
about success rates and whether he will
guarantee a kill. Hunting free-ranging game
is a challenge, and the real reward is the
experience, he says.
DO
Understand what youre getting

into: Both Savage and Kronberger
say that the best clients will ask questions
that help them better prepare for the
hunt. One of Andys favorites is, Can a guy
my age and with my physical ability do
this hunt? Ask questions about physical
expectations, how far youll need to be able
to shoot, and the type of accommodations
oered, and be honest about your own
limitations.
Ask about the operation: A savvy

client looks for references (10 to
20, says Savage, not 3 or 4), asks what
percentage of hunters are repeat clients,
and wants to know how long the guides
have worked for the outtter. All this
will help you better understand the
qualityand longevityof the outtters
operation.
Have a positive attitude: Hunters
only have a couple of important jobs
on the hunt, says Kronberger. Show up in
the best shape possible, shoot straight,
and have a positive attitude. On most
hunts, you cant be sure of a kill, but you do
have a hand in cultivating a positive and
rewarding experience.
DENVER BRYAN/IMAGES ON THE WILDSIDE; J DAPPER FROM THE NOUN PROJECT (ILLUSTRATIONS)
BOOK
SMARTS
A guided hunt is a team eort.

The client helps nance the
operation, and the guide or
outtter provides logistical support
and an intimate knowledge of the
ASKING AN OUTFITTER THE
game, the area, and any regulations.
RIGHT QUESTIONS UP FRONT
Under the best circumstances, a guided
CAN KEEP YOUR DREAM HUNT
hunt works out well for both parties.
ON TRACK BY BRAD FITZPATRICK
Sometimes the hunt becomes a yearly
event. And in the best cases, that oncein-a-lifetime hunt produces a once-in-a-lifetime animal, and the partnership
turns into lasting friendship.
But not all hunts work out that way. Sometimes its the fault of an outtter
or guide who overpromises and underperforms. Just as often, though, its the
client who ruins the day, with unrealistic expectations of the guide, the game,
and his own abilities, or simple navet about the true nature of the hunt.
Walking along the aisles at hunting trade shows and staring at the photos
and mounts is enough to make anyone a bit impulsive. But slow downtheres
a lot at stake here. Do a little homework and ask the right questions before
you invest in your rstor nextguided hunt. Heres how.
HUNTING
PRO TIP
Ask outtters about getting on their roster of cancellation hunts.
Its a way to bag a premium hunt for a fraction of the list cost.
DESTINATIONS
WHAT IT COSTS
AVERAGE PRICES
FOR SELECTED
BUCKET-LIST HUNTS
$$$$
Alaska Moose
Prices for Alaska-Yukon moose vary
from $16,000 to $24,000, depending
on the remoteness and trophy
reputation of the area. You can
often add a caribou or grizzly hunt
for a few thousand more.
$$$$
Dall Sheep
Sheep hunts are pricy, starting at
around $16,000 and going up to
$25,000. And dont expect luxury
at that price; the high peaks are
unforgiving, and inconsistent
weather is always a challenge.
Alaska bear guide

Lance Kronberger
and a client with a
coastal brown.
in to remote areas, usually on

horseback, and hunting out of a
base camp or spike camps. Expect
to pay anywhere from $5,000 to
$15,000, depending upon the area.
as little as $3,000. Wilderness

hunts in areas that traditionally
produce really big bucks and lots
of opportunities may top $20,000.
$$
Midwest Whitetails
Free-range whitetail hunts go
anywhere from $2,500 to $6,500.
The average is close to $4,000.
$$
$
Pronghorn Antelope
Canada Black Bear
$$$
Wilderness Elk
These hunts involve packing
Hunting black bears in Canada over

bait oers a high success rate, and
in some provinces you can take two
bears. Costs range from $1,500 to
$6,500. Thats in American dollars.
$$$
Western Mule Deer
Ranch hunts, in which you stay in a
lodge and hunt private land, cost
Pronghorn hunts are typically one

of the most cost-eective guided
trips, with fully guided hunts
starting at $1,750. Hunts with the
best trophy potential and exclusive
access might go as high as $5,000.
COURTESY OF LANCE KRONBERGER
HIDDEN COSTS
You will be scrimping and saving for your
dream hunt, and no one wants his budget
to explode with unforeseen costs. Here
are some expenses to consider before
committing to a hunt.
Transportation/Lodging: Will you be on the
hook for charter ights to get you toand
fromyour hunting area? Will you be charged
by the pound for any gear and meat you y in
and out? How about accommodations? Is a
lodge part of the deal, or do you need to nd
your own hotel and meals?
Licenses, Taxes, and Trophy Fees: Not all

outtters itemize their license fees. Get
clarity on whats included in the hunt fee.
Be sure to ask about whether there are
additional trophy fees should you shoot a
bonus animal or one over a certain Boone and
Crockett score.
guides, cooks, horse wranglers, and anyone

else who contributed to the experience.
Gratuities: Tipping of your guide and camp

sta is at your own discretion, but many of
these employees will expect it. Count on a
minimum of 10 percent of the hunt cost in
tips15 to 20 percent is the norm. Tips go to
Taxidermy: Are you going to have your trophy

mounted and, if so, who will do the work?
Thankfully, the bill for taxidermy work usually
comes due several months after the hunt has
ended.
Meat Care: Will you be taking your meat

home? Will you be having it shipped? Who
will process your game? All of these extras
quickly add up.
HUNTING
COYOTES
A Montana
coyote checks his
backtrail before
crossing a ridge.
A SIMPLE SCORING SYSTEM HELPS

YOU QUICKLY ASSESS PRIME COYOTE
SETS BY TOBY WALRATH
abitat will make or break your coyote

hunt. But knowing what coyotes need
to make a living is only part of the
equation. Identifying land features
that optimize your ability to remain hidden
make up the rest. I use a quick scoring method
to rate the sign and landscape, so I know in a
ash whether a place is worth hunting or not.
TRACKS AND SIGN: 0-3 POINTS

No matter how good a location appears, if
youre not seeing coyote tracks around, you are
wasting your time. Good locations have a set of
fresh tracksthat earns a single point. When
you nd a spot that is criss-crossed with coyote
tracks, give it 2 points, then gure out the best
way to approach the location using cover to
reach an elevated vantage point.
Other sign, like a recent deer kill, will add a
point to this category.
ELEVATION: 0-2 POINTS
Award full points (2) for those places that

have enough cover to conceal you, but also
the right mix of brush and terrain that allow a
coyote to approach your location undetected.
A full-points stand location overlooks a
valley bottom thats between 300 and 500
yards wide. The bottom has enough brush to
make a coyote feel that hes concealed, but
enough openings to allow you to detect his
approach and get a clear shot at him.
A spot that elevates your hide above the

surrounding terrain gets a full 2 points in this
category. These locations enable you to see
farther and allow your scent to remain above
an approaching dog. If you suspect there are
coyotes working an area (because the area
scored high in sign points), then sneak in from
above and glass before you do any calling.
If you use an electronic call, set it up below
you in order to draw coyotes in at a lower
elevation, where youll better be able to see
them coming.
APPROACH: 0-3 POINTS

Getting into the calling location undetected
is a hunters biggest challenge and the most
overlooked aspect of coyote hunting. Full
points (3) go to locations that provide the
terrain necessary to hide your vehicle and get
you and your gear in position without being
seen or heard before you start calling. If you can
see the calling area when you park the pickup
truck, the spot gets zero points.
A shiny window, a rattling engine, or a
clanging gun case cant be avoided 100 percent
of the time. But by picking out good approaches
with heavy timber or hills, you will be hidden
from view and most sounds will be mued or
deected. Some of the best locations are just
o main roads where ambient trac noise
dilutes any sounds you might make.
Use any land features to remain hidden
from the time you leave your vehicle until
you are in position to hunt. Add an extra point
for approaches with a sti wind in your face.
PUTTING IT TOGETHER
Whether you plan to sit it out, glass-andstalk, or call, try to get as many of these
arrangements working in your favor as possible.
Approach and signwith a maximum of 3
points apiece on my scaleare the two biggest
factors. But a location should accrue at least 8
total points in order to make it worth your time.
I like to evaluate every situation in the
order presented here. Find tracks and scat
rst, and determine if there is enough cover
for concealment. Next, gure out if you can
approach the location undetected and pick a
route. Once youve got those elements, you just
need to choose a good vantage point, and you
should use any elevation the area provides.
Look critically at what the terrain oers you
and do the math to make accurate assessments
quickly. Eight points is good, but 10 points is
coyote-hunting perfection.
DONALD M. JONES
THE
COYOTE
SCALE
COVER: 0-2 POINTS
For more safety tips visit SmokeyBear.com
HUNTING
SHED ANTLERS
SECRETS
OF THE SHED
MASTERS
TO FIND TROPHY WHITETAIL, ELK, AND MULE

DEER ANTLERS, START WITH OPTICS AND THEN
EMPLOY A GROUND STRATEGY BY TOM CARPENTER
t was a few weeks before spring turkey season, and

my son and I were scouting a known roost area. Eyes
glued to the ground for feathers and droppings, I
was pleased to spy a perfect 5-point whitetail antler in
the rotting snow. No sooner had I suggested Noah keep
an eye out for the companion antler than the boy bent
over and triumphantly picked up what was obviously a
matchwith a bonus point.
An 11-point! Theres nothing wrong with a little luck. But
when youre out chasing sheds on purpose, it pays to rely
on more than just good fortune. Tom Miller, Don Schauer,
and Scott Wait have been hunting sheds for a combined 75
years. Their insights will help you collect more whitetail,
elk, and mule deer shedsand maybe some true trophies.
WHITETAILS
Tom Miller is vice president of the
North American Shed Hunters
Club (shedantlers.org). He lives
and does much of his shed hunting
in whitetail-rich Wisconsin, but he
travels all over after antlers.
Where to Look
Miller uses optics to scout winter
whitetails from a distance, but
he only goes in for sheds when
winter is over and the bucks
have dispersed. Youll nd this
commonality among serious
shed hunters: dont stress winterweakened deer.
Find where the deer are
feeding, he advises. Then, when
youre actually hunting antlers,
head back in along trails to
bedding areas. Look for sheds all
the way from the food to known
bedding areas. I nd 70 percent
of my whitetail sheds on southern
exposures where bedded winter
deer can soak up some sun, says
Miller. Ridgetop pine thickets and
brushy lowlands that are sheltered
from winter winds are great.
How to Search
Its simple but true: You have to
really work to keep looking at
the ground, says Miller. Its so
dierent than hunting the actual
animal, where you should be
looking up.
In an area where you think
there should be sheds, hike the
same ground multiple times from
dierent directions, he adds.
Sometimes a new perspective will
reveal jutting tines or the sweep
of a main beam that you didnt or
couldnt see from another angle.
ELK
Don Schauer owns and
operates Antlers Unlimited
(antlersunlimited.com) and Antler
Designs (antlerdesigns.com) in
Ennis, Mont. He started hunting
sheds more than 40 years ago.
Where to Look
Big bull elk winter in bachelor
groups, says Schauer. A shed
hunt starts with glassing those
small herds over time. Work from a
CREDIT
A Montana
hunter carries
out a publicland elk shed.
DID YOU KNOW

The largest whitetail sheds ever found, in Nebraska in 1958, would
probably score 218, easily exceeding the world-record 213-incher.
Go for a matched set. If you

nd one antler, especially a big
one, there should be another
nearby, explains Schauer. Bulls
just hate the imbalance when
one antler is o. Theyll shake
their head to get rid of the other,
for relief. I once found a perfect
matched set lying in the shape of
a cross.
FROM LEFT: GEORGIA MILLER; DONALD M. JONES
MULE DEER
A freshly dropped
mule deer shed
on a south-facing
slope.
distance, and get to know where

they are hanging out. As the snow
line recedes up the mountain,
theyll go with it.
If a bull group youve been
watching dwindles in size, thats a
good thing: You now know where
the antlers are. As bulls drop their
antlers, they leave the gang. Bulls
compete for pecking order all year
long, and an antlerless bull knows

hes vulnerable.
Scott Wait is a senior biologist

with Colorado Parks and Wildlife.
Hes also a long-time mule deer
chaser and shed hunter.
How to Search
Many areas restrict access until
elk are o their winter range. Once
youre allowed onto the land, get
to where you watched a bull group
shrink, and start looking.
Elk shed hunting itself starts
with glass, too, says Schauer.
Good elk antlers are big, and you
can spot them from a distance.
Save yourself steps.
Where to Look
Mule deer winter in bush-andshrub habitats, says Wait. This
means pion, juniper, mountain
mahogany, bitterbrush, and
sagebrush. Look for gentle slopes
that face south or west.
Most years, big mule deer
are going to drop their antlers
during the last couple weeks of
January. Smaller bucks may hold
theirs longer, into March, he adds.

But you should wait to go shed
hunting. Winter gives mule deer
enough stress the way it is.
How to Search
Like Schauer, Wait endorses a
glass-rst approach. Why put
on the miles? he says. Wait
until winter is over, then get to
sunny exposures in shrub habitat
and glass from high spots. Look
for tines sticking up, the glint of
sunlight o an antler, a V fork, or
the graceful curve of a main beam,
all of which are out of place in the
landscape dominated by spiny
and angular vegetation.
Mule deer country is big. To
avoid re-walking an area, do a
walk-stop-and-circle search
instead: Stop every 50 yards
or so and do a 360-degree look
around, to take advantage of
new viewpoints. When you nd
an antler, imagine four quadrants
around it, and search each area
for a companion antler, which will
often be within 50 to 75 yards.
SHOOTING
SHOTGUNS GUN TEST
MOUNTAIN HUNTER
GOING LIGHT
Melvin Forbes has been
making ultra-light rifles
for decades, and his
NULA bolt-actions still
set the standard for
the entire category.
BY JOHN B. SNOW
section edited by john b. snow shooting@outdoorlife.com photographs by bill buckley
SHOOTING
MOUNTAIN HUNTER
have done all right for a hillbilly from West Virginia, Melvin Forbes told
me recently over the phone. Uh-huh. I wasnt buying it for a minute. I
knew that Melvins aw-shucks persona contains one of the most brilliant minds of modern rearms design, and I wasnt about to let him
sweet-talk his way out of divulging his secrets.
If it sounds like Im being a little harsh on Melvin, I guess Im taking
some liberties because he is sort of like family at Outdoor Life. And you can
say things about your family that strangers cant.
That shared history starts with the rst meeting between my predecessor
as shooting editor, Jim Carmichel, and Melvin at the 1985 SHOT Show, which
was Melvins maiden voyage to the gun industry show. To hear Melvin tell it,
Carmichel wandered up to his booth about 15 minutes after the show opened
and eyed his guns. Jim liked what he saw, and asked Melvin to be in touch and
send him a rie to evaluate.
This was Melvins rst big

break. Carmichel would be the
rst gun writer to try one of his
ries. Right after getting home, he
missed a call from Jim. He was in
his workshop early the next morning, wondering how soon he dared
dial Mr. Carmichels number. At
7a.m. his phone rang.
When were you going to get

around to calling me back? Carmichel barked.
It was the start of a beautiful
friendship that has lasted for
more than three decades. The two
men would go on to spend many
hours togther hunting, shooting,
and discussing rearms. Carmi-
chel recognized the innovation

and craftsmanship in Melvins
work and wrote about his guns on
numerous occasions.
For my part, Ive shot Melvins
guns before, but I never had one
to call my own. At last years NRA
show, I decided to remedy that
and ordered a NULA rie from
The author
tested the rie
with 139-grain
Scenars from
Black Hills.
Melvin. (NULA, for New Ultra

Light Arms, is the name of his
company.) Going with a .260 Rem.
was the natural choice, given Carmichels role in the development
of that cartridge. That mild, accurate, and eective round balances
perfectly with Melvins diminutive
ries.
Holding the rie in my hands
for the rst time when it was
delivered a few months later was
like getting a new puppy. Its rare
that a gun can prompt that kind
of reaction, but theres a magic
to Melvins ries that can only be
appreciated through handling and
shooting them. And Im not alone
in that regard. Everyone who I let
handle the NULA had a similar
response. What is it that makes
them so special?
Start With a Line
This leaf camo pattern, with ferns from Forbes backyard used as
stencils, is one of the signature looks of NULA ries.
The diminutive dimensions of the bolt body and handle are evident
when pictured next to a couple of .260 Remington cartridges.
The Swarovski Z5 3.518x44, with its ballistic turret, oers more

performance for its weight than any hunting scope on the market.
This carbon-ber bipod from Neopod weighs just 3.6 ounces. The
legs adjust for multlple lengths, and the unit is surprisingly strong.
Melvins design philosophy is

simple: Control the center line.
Picture taking a straight line and
building a gun around it. When
the gun is complete, that line will
go perfectly down the middle of
the barrel. It would also go down
the middle of the bolt body and,
in turn, through the middle of the
round receiver. If you were to
take measurements at any spot
along the barrel, every point on
its exterior would be equidistant
from that center line. The same
goes for measurements on the
interior of the barrel and for measurements taken from the bolt
and receiver as well. To make this
happen, Melvin keeps the tolerances tight on all his components
to prevent small inconsistences
from stacking and degrading performance.
The barrel is looking exactly
where the action is looking, Melvin explains. Having everything
lined up lets you control the vibration sequence. Put it in a good
stock and it is going to shoot.
For such a light rie, it is remarkably accurate. With factory
ammo, it has no issue printing
3-round sub-MOA groups. With
5shots, the groups average about
1.25 inches. I found there isnt
much shift in point of impact from
one load to anothera testament
to how that center line philosophy controls vibration.
The NULA action is Melvins
own design, and the names of the
dierent modelsthe 20, 24,
and 28refer to their weight in
ounces.
My short-action .260 is
a Model 20, and with scope
and bipod it weighs just over
6 pounds. I topped it with a
Swarovski Z5 3.518x44, which
is built on a 1-inch tube and has a
ballistic turret that lets me dial
quickly for longer ranges. The bipod is a carbon-ber marvel from
Norway called a Neopod that
weighs just 3.6 ounces. The ries
two-stage Timney trigger is light
and crisp.
Melvin says he created his
action over the course of a single
weekend, machining and assembling the parts. I knew what
I wanted and I could see it in my
head, he says.
Perfecting the stock was another matter.

It took four years to design
the stock. It was a big learning
curve, he says. Refining its geometry so that it doesnt beat
up the shooter was one large
challenge. The angle of the grip
and the slope of the comb both
help prevent the rifle from slapping the shooter in the face. Even
without a muzzle brake, the rifle
is manageable and pleasant to
shoot.
Then there was the matter of
how to produce the carbon-ber
stocks in volume while maintaining their strength and quality. He
gured it out, though, and the end
result is impressive. His stocks
weigh just 17 ouncesand 6 of
those are from the recoil pad. The
texture of the nish provides excellent grip, and the raised cheekpiece on the comb creates a good
anchor for the shooters face.
In the Mountains
I started hunting with the rie
as soon as I got it scoped and
zeroed, and its rst journey was
to Colorado for mule deer. Compared to a standard hunting rig,
it is a delight to haul around. It
carries comfortably in one hand,
and when it was slung over my
shoulder, I nearly forgot that it
was there. Its a perfect rie for
any time youre scrambling up and
down mountains.
Early in the morning on the
last day of Colorados fourth rie
season, a heavy-horned buck
and I surprised each other in the
timber. He turned tail and put
some trees between us. I ran after
him, and by the time I spotted him
again, he was 100 yards away and
about to disappear into the trees.
I brought the rie to my shoulder
and dropped him in his tracks with
a neck shot.
That experience conrmed
my impressions from the shooting rangethe NULA is a fast,
instinctive pointer and is as accurate under dynamic hunting conditions as it is o the bench.
While there are many other
mountain ries on the market,
even after 30 years, Melvins guns
still lead the pack. I guess he was
right. Thats not bad at all for a
hillbilly from West Virginia.
SHOOTING
SHOTGUNS
3
1
Starting with a $269 Remington 870, the

author added $728 in modications to create
his dream gun. This total reects the actual
street prices for the components, versus the
MSRPs listed in the story.
DIY
TURKEY
GUN
TURN YOUR REMINGTON
870 INTO A CUSTOMIZED
GOBBLER STOPPER
BY ALEX ROBINSON
ure, you can kill turkeys all day with any

old shotgun that
will hold a decent
pattern at 30 yards.
But wheres the fun
in that? New loads and chokes
specialized for turkey hunting
have improved gobbler gun performance by leaps and bounds. So as
a winter project, I wanted to take
a bare-bones scattergun and turn
it into a turkey-killing machine. To
start, I went to my local gun store
and bought a used Remington 870.
Heres what I did to modify it.
THE GUN
I chose the 870 Express because its widely

available, super reliable, and, most important,
its very easy to modify. Im no gunsmith, so I
wanted to work on a shotgun that had simple
features and a limited amount of moving parts,
plus one that was easy to disassemble and reassemble. The 870 is exactly that.
1. STOCK
BLACKHAWK KNOXX
SPECOPS GEN III
The rst thing I did was swap out the standard stock for a Knoxx SpecOps Gen III stock by
Blackhawk. The Knoxx SpecOps looks cool, and
the pistol grip provides better maneuverability,
making it easier to keep the gun on target for
extended periods of time. It also has six adjustable length-of-pull positions, from 12.5 to 15.2
inches.
But the main benet of the new stock is
that it eats up felt recoil. Its has two main
featuresa spring system built into the frame
and a thick, cellular butt padthat are designed to work together to absorb the force of
the shotgun as it recoils back into the shooter.
Blackhawk claims it reduces felt recoil by 80
percent. After blowing through a couple of
boxes of turkey loads, both my shoulder and
cheek felt just ne. ($160; blackhawk.com)
THE INSTALL: Installing a new stock on an

870 is very simple. First remove the two Phillips
head screws that hold the butt pad in place.
Take o the butt pad and youll nd a hole
through the center of the stock with a screw
at the bottom that fastens it to the receiver.
With an extra-long-shank screwdriver, undo this
screw and the stock will come o.
The Knoxx SpecOps comes with the required Allen wrenchesall you have to do is
tighten one bolt where you removed the old
screw to fasten the base of the stock to the
receiver. Then slide the rest of the stock onto
the base, tighten one more bolt, and youre o
to the races.
2. TRIGGER
TIMNEY 870 TRIGGER FIX

Most 870s have a trigger pull weight of
somewhere between 4 and 6 pounds. This is
not bad at all for shotgunning. But there was
so much creep in my 870s trigger that I knew I
could do better. So, I picked up Timney Triggers
870 Fix Kit, which comes with three dierent
color-coded sear springs and a sear. The kit isnt
an actual trigger groupits just a package to
improve the existing trigger, which is exactly
what I was looking for. Each spring oers a
dierent pull weight: red/heavy/4 lb., white/
medium/3 lb., and blue/light/2 lb. I opted for the
medium white spring and now have a very crisp
4
5
3-pound trigger. ($98; timneytriggers.com)

THE INSTALL: Installing the new spring and
sear was the most complicated job in this
project. Youve got to remove the trigger group,
which is easy enough. But then you must also
remove the carrier pivot tube, the carrier assembly, and the carrier dog follower from the
trigger group. Then, of course, you must put it
all back together properly with the new spring
and sear. Timney includes a pretty good set of
directions on how to do this, but my advice is to
watch about an hours worth of YouTube tutorials before you even take the trigger group out.
Then, keep the best video running as you get
started.
3. SIGHT
TRIJICON MRO
I love red-dot (or reex) sights on a turkey
gun. Any veteran turkey hunter can tell you that
most misses occur because the shooter pulls
his head o the gun just as hes pulling the trigger. A sight forces you to look through the sight
picture, instead of pulling up early and looking
over the bead. It also allows you to shoot accurately from awkward positions, where you
might not have a perfect gun mount and cheek
weld, like when a gobbler sneaks in from your
right and youve got to twist your body and cant
the gun to get on him.
With this in mind, I went with Trijicons
photographs by krissie mason
reex MRO (Miniature Rie Optic), which was

designed specically for fast target acquisition from non-standard shooting positions.
Trijicon promises ve years of battery life
if you leave the sight on continuously. If you
happen to remember to turn it o, the lithium
battery might last the duration of your turkeyhunting career. Its made of aluminum, so its
light (4.1ounces) and compact. It has eight
brightness settings (two are night-vision settings), and is waterproof down to 30 meters.
Is this overkill for a turkey-hunting sight? Hell
yes. ($579; trijicon.com)
THE INSTALL: I had a local gunsmith drill and
tap the 870s receiver for a Picatinny rail. I got
the gun back a week later, and it cost me $40.
4. FINISH
MOSSY OAK GUN SKIN

I put a wrap over the gun to hide the dents
and scratches made by the previous owner
and to help weatherproof it. Mossy Oaks Gun
Skin is cast vinyl, waterproof, and guaranteed
not to fade for at least seven years. But most
important, it looks cool. I just had to go with
the original Mossy Oak Bottomlands pattern.
So long, laminated hardwood. ($30; mossy
oakgraphics.com)
THE INSTALL: Wrapping the gun isnt that bad,
but it takes time and patience. Youll need an
X-Acto knife and a blow-dryer. The kit comes
with individual pieces for the barrel, forend,

receiver, and stock. Stick a wrap on its designated gun part, being careful to avoid wrinkles
and bubbles. Trim away excess material with
your knife. Then, use the blow-dryer to heat the
wrap and pull it tight. As you heat the vinyl, it
becomes more exible and works into groves
and around bends. Press out any wrinkles or air
pockets (there will be some) with your ngers
while applying heat.
5. PERFORMANCE
The nal touch was adding a Primos Jelly

Head .660 choke ($71; primos.com). I shot a variety of loads at 10 to 60 yards and I got the best
patterns out of Winchesters Longbeard XR
(3-inch, No. 6s). At 40 yards, my best target was
153 pellets in a 10-inch circle. At 50 yards, I got
97 pellets in the ring, and at 60 yards I recorded
88 as my best pattern.
With this sort of performance, I can ethically
kill gobblers out to 50 yards, which is as far as
Id ever want to shoot at a turkey anyway. The
gun ts me nicely and its looks will turn some
heads at turkey camp. Shooting through the reex sight is at-out fun. The stock reduces felt
recoil, so shooting before the season and getting dialed in wont be so much of a pain. Its still
a used 870 Expressthe modications havent
added elegancebut thats even more reason
to like it. Gobblers beware.
SHOOTING
GUN TEST
KIMBER M84 HUNTER
A SLENDER MAUSER-STYLE BOLT GUN AT AN AFFORDABLE PRICE BY JOHN B. SNOW
very major rie company makes a bolt-action that seeks to dedisengaging it from the triggers sear, while also preventing the trigger
liver high performance to shooters who are either on a budget or
from moving.
aicted with Yankee-like stinginess. The Kimber M84 Hunter is
As with all three-position safeties, the middle setting allows the acone of the more recent additions to this trend.
tion to be opened and a shell to be unloaded with the rie still on safe.
The Hunter isnt vying to be the cheapest rie on the rack at your local
But the M84s safety does more than that. Remove the bolt from the
superstore. Thats probably a wise move, as the company has worked hard
action with the safety in the middle positionwhich is done by deto cultivate a certain cachet among its customers and those who aspire to
pressing the small release tab on the left side of the receiverand the
own a rearm engraved with the Kimber logos script lettering.
ring pin/bolt shroud assembly can be unscrewed from the bolt body.
The rie retails around $799, which keeps it out of the bargain-basement This allows for quick and easy servicing in the eld.
category while remaining attainable to a large percentage of the shooting
The trigger on my sample came from the factory set to 3 pounds 9
populace.
ounces, but it is user-adjustable if you feel up to removing the action
The most costly component of the Hunter is the M84 acfrom the stock. It had no perceptible takeup and broke
tion. This is the sleek Mauser-style two-lug action that has
cleanly.
STATS
become synonymous with Kimbers ries and is the reason
The ejector is a spring-loaded blade that rides up
Caliber: 6.5 Creedmoor
for much of their popularity.
through a slot in the bolt face and kicks brass free with
Capacity: 3+1
a force dependent on how hard the shooter works the
Classic Design
bolt.
Weight: 5 lb. 7 oz.
As any proper Mauser action should, the M84 has a fullTrigger Pull: 3 lb. 9 oz.
length claw extractor that grabs hold of the rim of the
Magazine Issues
Accuracy: 1.687 in.
cartridge brass as it is stripped from the magazine and
The rie is fed by a detachable box magazine that has
doesnt let go until the shell is pulled free from the chamber. Smallest Group: .829 in.
a at bottom and sits ush within the stock. A release
The extractor is designed so that it will slip over the rim of
tab is located at the forward end of the magazine and
Barrel Length: 22 in.
a cartridge being single-fed into the action as well, allowing
doesnt protrude from the stock, meaning theres little
Overall Length: 41 in.
for easy feeding at the bench or after the ries magazine
chance the magazine could be inadvertently knocked
Price: $899
has run dry.
loose by catching on a stray branch or an improvised
The action features a well-designed three-position
rest in the eld. The stock has a generously sized notch
Contact: kimberamerica.com
safety that physically moves the ring pin toward the rear,
where the release tab sits to accommodate a gloved
PERFORMANCE
Handling
Reliability
Accuracy
DESIGN
Meets Purpose
Versatility
Craftsmanship
8
Ergonomics
Durability
Aesthetics
VALUE
TOTAL
78
photographs by bill buckley
The matte stainless nish keeps

shine down and oers good protection from the elements.
nger, making it easy to remove the magazine.

I had three magazines at my disposal for this test: one that came
with the rie and two extras supplied by Kimber. The one that came
in the rie didnt work very well. It was dicult to load to capacity (3
rounds) in 6.5 Creedmoor, which is what my rie was chambered in.
This caused the rie bolt to drag on the top cartridge and made cycling the gun a chore. The second magazine worked a bit better, but it
was still a bit sticky. The third magazine worked just ne.
I doubt this is a systemic issue with the Hunter, but as always, caveat emptor is a good principal to follow.
During the shooting drills that are part of Outdoor Lifes testing
protocol, which include running the rie rapidly with a full magazine
from various practical eld positions, I used only the third magazine.
Loads Tested
The accuracy was typical for a lightweight rie of this type. I shot
four dierent factory loads through the Huntertwo from Nosler
(140-grain BTHP Match and 140-grain Ballistic Tip), and two from
Hornady (120-grain A-Max and 120-grain GMX). My 5-shot groups averaged 1.687 inches, with the best group being a .829-inch cluster with
the GMX, which is an outstanding hunting bullet Ive used in the past in
6.5 CM on game up to, and including, giant eland in Africa. The rie did
show some ashes of brilliance at the bench, however. Several times I
ended up with three shots touching, but then the rie would throw the
next couple of bullets wide.
NOTABLE FEATURES
One of the thoughtful ergonomic touches on the

rifle is this red dot that appears when the rifles
safety is flicked into the forward firing position.
It is placed so that it is easy for the shooter to see in his
peripheral vision.
Light and Nimble

Unscoped, the rie weighs 5 pounds 7 ounces, which makes it very
handy to carry in the eld, especially when paired with a light scope,
like the Leupold VX3i 4.514x40mm I mounted on it.
The rie is stocked with Classic American dimensions, meaning a
at comb and straight forend that tapers in parallel with the barrel.
Both the forend and grip have pebbled texturing on either side that
works well, but it would be better if it were a bit more aggressive.
The matte silver nish on the metal contrasts nicely with the tan
stock. Overall, it is a good-looking gun that is handy, reasonably accurate, and, other than the issue with the magazine, performed well.
The forend has an internal honeycomb pattern

of cells that impart stiffness to the stock. The
stock also has two aluminum pillars to support
the guard screws to improve the stock-to-action fit and
improve accuracy.

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THE SCRODE-HOLE MYSTERY

BY JOE ARTERBURN
ccasionally, I grieve for the sheath knife I

lost belly-crawling through snow while
I was sneaking up on ducks. It had a
thick stag handle, a brass nger guard,
and a stout clip-point blade that came out of the
Christmas wrapping shiny and sharp. I carried it
everywhere, even while duck hunting.
Thats where I lost it, commandocrawling through 4 inches of fresh snow to

avoid being seen by greenheads down on
the lake. At one point, I looked down and
noticed the leather sheath was empty, the
snap-closed strap dangling uselessly open.
Ill nd it, I thought, resuming my crawl.
I didnt nd it. Its whereabouts remained
a mystery, even after I kicked through the
snow as I retraced my entire route. The
ducks in my bag were insucient solace.
I felt a familiar pang upon losing a
Havalon knife in antelope camp two years
ago. This mystery began as antelope
started stacking up, and skinning and meat
processing were going full steam. I handed
my knife to someone needing a sharp edge.
No run-of-the-mill Havalon, this one. I had
purchased it on Kodiak Island while on a
deer hunt. Its ivory plastic handle etched
with a grizzly bear scene was a reminder of
the hunt and Kodiak bears, which are never
far from your thoughts there.
Antelope camp ended, but my Kodiak
Havalon was nowhere to be seen. I asked

my companions. Last time I saw it was
the standard response. I gured it would
show up when I unpacked.
It didnt. I looked and relooked in every
tote, every box, every bag.
Think. Think. Think. Deduce. Deduce.
Deduce.
It had been used on the trim table where
we had the grinder and vacuum sealer. Wait
a minute. During cleanup, we scrubbed the
disassembled grinder in soapy water in the
dish tub. Knives and everything else went
through there too. If my Havalon was in the
tub lled with soapy water, maybe no one
shed around the bottom before dumping
the icky water in the scrode hole.
The scrode hole. Not scrod, scrode.
Long o. You know, the hole you dig away
from camp for dishwater, food scraps,
and such. The scrode. Dont bother
looking in a dictionary. It has not made
the popular lexicon. Yet. The words origin,
I believe, came from wilderness canoe
trips in the Boundary Waters. We always

dug a scrode hole well back from the
waters edge, as required, into which we
dumped biodegradable soapsuds and the
miscellany we called scrode.
If my Havalon was in the dish tub, it
would be buried 2 feet under the Wyoming
prairie. Woe is me.
Or am I woe? A year later, antelope
camp was in the same spot on Jim
Schiermiesters ranch. I explained my
theory to Newt Borowski, digger of the
original scrode hole. A lot changes in a
year on the Wyoming prairie, but we found
a faint depression, about 18 or 20 inches
around, in what we agreed would be about
the right place. Newt digs substantial
scrode holes; deep, symmetrical, with
straight walls, the better to hold dishwater
and assure when we are gone it is deep
enough to foil sharp-nosed varmints.
We dug quickly, reasoning the knife
would be at the bottom, if there at all. Then
slower, carefully. Newt started to take a
turn, then looked at the pile of excavated
dirt, reached down, and plucked out the
just-protruding Havalon.
Rusty, dirt- and scrode-covered, and
needing a new bladewhich is easy to
replace on a Havalonit cleaned right up.
That night I told my campmates: You
know last year when I called you all lowdown, snake-in-the-grass, knife-thievin
crooks? Well, sorry about that.
The scrode hole taketh, but also,
curiously, returneth.
Vol. 224, No. 2. OUTDOOR LIFE magazine (ISSN 0030-7076, USPS 577-230) is published monthly, except combined December/January, February/March, and June/July issues, by Bonnier Corporation, 2 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10016. Copyright 2016 by Bonnier Corporation. All rights reserved.
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