F I E L D A N D S T R E A M . C O M

COMPOUND BOWS

FOR 2015+

P L U S

4 9 E S S E N T I A L S U R V I V A L T O O L S

WHITETAILSFOOD-PLOT SECRETS

FOR BIG EARLY BUCKS

SUPPRESSORSSILENCE THE CRITICS

AND SAVE YOUR EARS

ROAD TRIPTHE HOTTEST TROUT

SPOTS NO ONE FISHES

VENISONTHE WILD CHEF’S GUIDE

TO DEER SAUSAGE

“The bear had my jaw in his mouth. I stabbed and stabbed him as hard and fast

as I could.”

HOW THIS KNIFE

SAVED A HUNTER’S LIFE

p. 48

S U M M E R F I S H I N G S P E C I A L ­ L I L Y - P A D L U N K E R S ­ M O U S E F L I E S ­ C H I C K E N - L I V E R T I P S ­ M A H I M A N I A

TRUE STORIES OF OUTDOORSMEN VS. THE WILD

F I G H T T O

��MAULED BY A BEAR

��LOST FOR A WEEK

��ATTACKED BY A SHARK

THE SOUL OF

THE TOTAL

OUTDOORSMAN

JULY 2015

G E A R T E S T

SUMMERTIME LAKE FUN

Come summertime, water beckons. Anglers, boaters and beachcombers flock to local lakes, whether to wet a line (or a toe) or to escape the stress

of the city and take in the tranquility of still waters. Across the U.S., these bodies of water – both large and small – and the activities they offer are

as diverse as the country itself. From beach parties to bass magnets, we’ve picked seven of the best summer lake escapes America has to offer.

Everything’s bigger in Texas

and – at 114,000 acres –

“Big Sam” is the biggest of all.

Well-known as a tremendous

bass fishery, the largest lake in

the Lone Star State is a must-

fish destination for any angler

serious about landing lunker

largemouths.

Starting at Shingle Creek and

passing through Lake Toho,

it’s possible to paddle from

Orlando to the Everglades along

an interconnected system of

lakes and canals. Or bring along

a bird book and a fishing rod

for a leisurely float on one of

many shorter segments of this

ecologically diverse waterway.

LAKE SAM RAYBURN

TEXAS

KISSIMMEE CHAIN OF LAKES

FLORIDA

FINGER LAKES

NEW YORK

LAKE LANIER

GEORGIA

A popular destination for friends

and families to gather at this

region is punctuated by eleven

long, thin lakes. All that water

offers plenty of shoreline real

estate with cottages for rent. After

checking in, hit a farmer’s market

to stock the pantry with locally

sourced meat and produce for

backyard BBQ with a view.

The South’s premier fishery

attracts anglers from nearby

Atlanta and beyond. It provides

plenty of structure to pitch a jig or

wiggle a worm. Spotted bass rule

here, but schools of stripers and

largemouths can also be found.

At sundown, visit one of Lanier’s

many marinas to swap fish stories

with your fishing friends.

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LAKE ESCAPES

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LAKE TAHOE

CALIFORNIA/NEVADA

LAKE HAVASU

ARIZONA

LAKE OF THE OZARKS

MISSOURI

With a beautiful alpine setting

and crystal-clear waters, Lake

Tahoe is guaranteed to offer a

thrill. Calm days are the rule

here, creating acres of flat water

that are the main draw for wake-

boaters, tubers and all shapes

and sizes of behind-the-boat

towables. Charter a tow boat at

Tahoe Keys Marina or splash

your own at one of the many

docks in the area, then power

out onto the lake and hold on for

an adrenaline-charged ride.

Affordable houseboat rentals

and 300 days of sunshine are

the draw at this sprawling lake.

Well, that and lots of fun-seeking

people looking to tie up for a

pontoon party in one of Havasu’s

hundreds of secluded bays where

high canyon walls create a natural

amphitheater for your party

playlist. Don’t forget to pack your

swimsuit and plenty of sunscreen!

Though extremely popular, this

sprawling waterway has plenty of

hidden coves that make it easy to

ditch the crowd. Pitch your tent

at a remote campsite, hidden in

the oak-covered hills and hollows.

Gather a group of like-minded

friends around the campfire,

where a bottle of Evan Williams

Bourbon serves as the perfect

addition to a batch of s’mores.

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The one-shot-one-kill accuracy of Savage varmint rifles is a bit like cookies

or potato chips: excellent, but you can never be satisfied with just one.

ONESHOTONEKILL

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FEATURES

48. FIGHT TO SURVIVE

A bloody bout with a bear, a bite from a monster shark, and a wrong turn in rough country—read about how three sportsmen survived some truly wild nightmares. by bill

heavey, t. edward nickens, and ben romans

59. COOL OFF, FISH ON!

An outboard and a pinned throttle can get you to smallmouths. But if that’s not your speed, these wet-wading tactics will score big bronze on a chilled-out summer stream.by joe cermele

62. MOUSE TRAPS

Looking to fool the biggest trout in your home river this summer? Forget about drift-ing tiny bugs. Our pros from the East and West will turn you into a mousing machine.by joe cermele and kirk deeter

Say Cheese

A trophy Alaska rainbow with a

mouthful of mouse fly.

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14 69

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Anthony Licata

DESIGN DIRECTOR Sean Johnston

MANAGING EDITOR Jean McKenna

SENIOR DEPUTY EDITOR Colin Kearns

DEPUTY EDITORS Dave Hurteau, Slaton L. White

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EDITORS-AT-LARGE Kirk Deeter, Bill Heavey, T. Edward Nickens

FIELD EDITORS Scott Bestul (Whitetails), Phil Bourjaily (Shotguns),

Joe Cermele (Fishing), Bob Marshall (Conservation), Keith McCafferty

(Outdoor Skills), David E. Petzal (Rifles)

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Gerald Almy, Duncan Barnes, Philip Caputo,

David DiBenedetto, Joe Doggett, David Draper, Sid Evans, Charles Gaines,

Gary Garth, Hal Herring, Mark Hicks, Steven Hill, M.D. Johnson,

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(Conservation Editor Emeritus), Jerome B. Robinson, Bob Saile,

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CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS & ILLUSTRATORS Tim Boelaars,

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For Customer Service and Subscription Questions, such as renewals,

address changes, e-mail preferences, billing and account status, go to field and

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FIELD & STREAM, P.O. Box 6364, Harlan, IA 51593-1864.

This product is from sustainably managed forests and controlled sources.

R E G U L A R S

8F I R S T S H O T

A rocky slide into the river is

the fastest route to the fish.

10C H E E R S & J E E R S

Talking tough, perfect pike,

and squidding from shore.

12T H E L AT E S T

New blogs, and our best

fishing stories in hardcover.

86A S P O R T S M A N ’ S L I F E

A whole new way to look at

winning. By Bill Heavey

O N T H E C O V E R

T H E B R U I N B L A D E

Photograph by

David Brandon Geeting

C A M P F I R E

14T H E S E A S O N

Summer is the time for lily

pads, frogs, and lunker bass.

By Will Ryan

18 A S K P E T Z A L

How to defend the country;

the author’s first rifle.

By David E. Petzal

20 R I F L E S

Silence the suppressor

haters and save your ears.

By Jeff Johnston

24T H E W I L D C H E F

These venison-sausage

recipes are out of this world.

By Jonathan Miles

28S H O T G U N S

A new study proves steel is

as deadly as lead on doves.

By Phil Bourjaily

30E S C A P E S

We’re gonna let you in on

the best trout secret in the

country. By Colin Kearns

32 T H E T O TA L O U T D O O R S M A N

Sometimes it’s fun to just

shut up and reel.

By T. Edward Nickens

N O T E B O O K

34 I N S TA N T G U I D E

Quit trolling and go pot hop-

ping for monster mahi.

36B A I T S H O P

Fool trophy stripers with

gobs of organ meat.

38TA C T I C S

Beat nasty weather on your

next sight-fishing trip.

40T I P S

Become a better bow shot

by adding a third dimension.

42E X P E R T S

Plan a food plot big bucks

can’t resist.

44S K I L L S

Catch risers with ease by

casting an extra-long leader.

F I E L D T E S T

69 B U Y E R ’ S G U I D E

What’s the best new bow of

2015? Find out in our annual

Flagship Shootout.

74 R E A D E R T E S T

Hardworking headlamps.

› PHOTOGRAPHER: BRIAN GROSSENBACHER

+ LOCATION: BLACKFOOT RIVER, MONTANA

8 | F | J U LY 2 0 1 5

� The salmonfly hatch was in full

force as angler Jimmy Lampros

and photographer Brian Grossen-

bacher floated the North Fork of

the Blackfoot River in June 2013.

“Fish were rising, but the current

was too fast to cast,” Grossen-

bacher says. “We pulled the raft in

as soon as we could. But to get to

the spot we wanted to fish, there

SLIDE SHOW-OFFwas no good way to walk back up-

river. The farther we hiked, the

steeper it got, until we had quite a

slope between us and the water.

So Jimmy, who played baseball in

high school, slid about 30 feet

down the bank like he was sliding

into third base, then kind of

bounced and landed with a splash.

It was a brilliant entry into the

river. We made our way to where

we’d seen the fish rising behind

the fallen rock, and Jimmy caught

a nice 17-inch brown trout.”

“It was a bit more of an adrena-

line rush than you usually get just

standing in the river,” Lampros

says. “And those waders lasted

for another year without any

issues.” —DONNA L. NG

FIRST SHOT

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A TOUGH ACT TO FOLLOW

Re “So You Think You’re Tough?” (May 2015): I noticed a tracker in Cameroon had a bloody bandage around his hand and was told he took a poacher’s bullet through his palm. I suggested he see a doctor and was told that the injury had happened over a year earlier.

Another time, in the Central African Republic, a tracker sliced the sole of his foot to the bone with a panga machete. I taped it together with my duct tape, then he walked eight hours through rugged country with a full load of meat balanced on his head. He offered to carry me, too. Did I mention he was barefoot?

Happy Myles,

via fieldandstream.com

On a group hike in Wyoming, we had a middle-aged, experienced

hiker start to suffer some kind of illness. She kept wanting to con-tinue so as not to ruin things for the group, but as the day went on she got worse, and I had to call it.

I thought I was tough for shoul-dering two packs (hers and mine) and keeping pace with the group while also being calm and upbeat.

I thought that right up until two park rangers arrived on an ATV. One jumped off and put the hiker on the ATV, then strapped her pack onto his. He then ran like a deer and kept pace with the four-wheeler down the mountain with both packs on.

That guy was tough.Jake R., Freeland, Mich.

Everyone thinks he’s a tough guy, until he actually meets one.

Richard Hansen,

Minneapolis, Minn.

TOOTHY AND TOOTHSOME

I used to cruise the Yukon tossing a Silver Minnow for pike (“Crash Course”) because of its one big hook. But when I would find a bunch of fish, I’d switch to sur-face lures. Seeing several pike chase a topwater lure at once from different directions is a rush that every fisherman should experience someday. It’s not the way to catch the most fish, or even the biggest pike, but it is the most awesome thrill in fishing for me.

Doug Richards, Parish, N.Y.

Funny how I never get tired of seeing shore-lunch photos. It seems like every piece on fishing in Canada includes at least one. I think pike is one of the tastiest fish, topped only by wild brook trout and walleye.

Matt Marcey, Cortland, N.Y.

CHEAP TRICKS

Heavey’s tip for finding friends with bass boats has a fatal flaw (A Sportsman’s Life). If a guy is smart enough to own a nice bass boat and go to church, he is too smart to loan a poser anything with a gas engine.

But his emphasis on medioc-rity is slam-dunk dead on. It’s an easy way to get lots of fishing time while you wait for your un-employment check to come.

Keith Borgelt, Kamiah, Idaho

CATCHING CALAMARI

Here in Maine we do just as C.J. Chivers does (“Creatures in the Dark”) to catch squid, only we perch ourselves at the end of the lobster wharf. No boat required. I prefer to watch the nieces and

CHEERS & JEERST H E C A S E F O R P I K E O N TO PWAT E R S , B O AT- B O R R OW I N G B O OT L I C K E R S , A N D T H E S O U N D O F S I L E N C E R S

Reading tales

like Petzal’s “So

You Think

You’re Tough?”

brings my own

toughness into

question. I

would rate it

(roughly)

somewhere

between a stick

of butter left on

the counter and

a Hershey bar

on the dash of a

car in June.

Brian Woodford,

Correctionville,

Iowa

R E A D E R T I P

fieldandstream.com/tips

Seal a ScopeGlad Press’n Seal makes an excellent water- and

dust- resistant rifle scope lens cover.

Cut a square a little bigger than the lens,

press it on, and twist a

corner together for

easy removal. Michael Burdge,

Mount Union, Pa.

WIN THIS!

If your tip is chosen, we’ll send you a new

Buck 102 Woodsman knife and sheath.

YOUR

HUNTING AND

FISHING

COMMUNITY

HOW TO CONTACT US: SUBSCRIPTIONS Go to field and stream. com/ subscribe • CHEERS & JEERS FIELD & STREAM, 2 Park Ave., New York, NY 10016; Fax 212-779-5114; E-mail letters@ fieldandstream. com • EDITORIAL SUBMISSIONS Send manuscripts and photo s to letters@ fieldandstream. com or Submissions Editor at the address above (with a self- addressed, stamped envelope). The publisher assumes no responsibility for unsolicited material. Send new product information to Field Test Editor at the address above. • CUSTOMER SERVICE, ADDRESS CHANGES Visit fieldand stream.com/cs; call 800-289-0639; or write to FIELD & STREAM, P.O. Box 6364, Harlan, IA 51593 • REPRINTS & PERMISSIONS E-mail reprints@bonniercorp.com

nephews and the other kids from town catch them, as squid offer the perfect amount of fight and pace to keep the “littles” intrigued.

Pounded with a meat tender-izer and deep-fried is my favor-ite way to eat squid. We’re a few weeks out on catching them up here, so reading this story lifted my spirits.

Matthew Briggs,

Friendship, Maine

BREAKING THE SILENCE

I have read and heard many out-door writers and gun experts say the proper term for a noise- reduction device at the end of a firearm is suppressor, not silencer (Ask Petzal). Where does sup-pressor come from? If I remem-ber my history correctly, Hiram Maxim invented the device and

called it a silencer, even refer-ring to it as such in his sales ads. If he invented it and called it a silencer, shouldn’t that be the proper name?

Larry D. Hawkins,

South Elgin, Ill.

DAVID E. PETZAL RESPONDS:

Hiram Maxim did invent it, and did call it a silencer. However, the term suppressor is more ac-curate because the devices don’t eliminate sound; they merely re-duce it. I’ve shot a suppressed .22 LR handgun that made no more noise than a soft snap of the fin-gers, but there was noise none-theless. [For more on suppressors, see p. 20.]

After reading David E. Petzal’s response—“Nothing punches through the thickets”—to the

guy hunting with the .375 H&H, I was reminded of an old article entitled “Brush Busting Calibers” by a Maine outdoor writer. I forget all of the calibers he said were proven to blast through brush, though the .444 Marlin comes to mind.

I wrote him a letter (this was before the days of e-mail) and said that it was wrong to give hunters the idea that their guns had that ability. Just because you can stick your thumb down the bore doesn’t mean that your round will go through an acre of alders.

I suggested that perhaps a better subject to write about would be taking only quality shots. He wrote me back and said, “Studies have shown that the .416 Rigby had proven effec-tive in going through brush.”

Ah…what? We’re in Maine, dude.

Scott Henry, Jefferson, Maine

STEAL HEAD, PART 2

Bill Heavey wishes you had not printed Mr. Fawcett’s letter (Cheers & Jeers). I wish Bill had condemned Mikey’s behavior. While it could have been legal, was it ethical?

I received a notice with my magazine to renew my subscrip-tion. It seems to me I could in-stead go to Walmart and pick up the next issue and read it there, then just put it back on the shelf.

Heavey may be a good writer, but he missed an opportunity to encourage ethics among us. He may think he just described it, but his silence sends an approval of Mikey’s behavior.

David Abbott, Idalou, Texas

JULY2 0 1 5

Photograph by CLIFF GARDINER & JOHN KELLER

WE’VE ROLLED OUT TWO NEW BLOGS—ON GEAR AND ALL THINGS HUNTING

MORE TO FOLLOW

F I E L D A N D S T R E A M . C O M

£�FIELD TESTIt’s simple. We test new gear in the field, and then tell you what we really think, from quick-hit, sneak-peek re-views to big, bold tests in which ev-ery rifle, rod, reel, or bow—good or bad—is ranked and rated. On a bud-get? We’ll shop for and compare the best bargain items on shelves now. We’ll even get readers in on the test-ing. Maybe you.

£�TAGGED OUTWill Brantley is a badass hunter with a taste for Southern literature. What more do you want in a new F&S blog-ger? Follow our hunting editor as he gets after everything from elk to frogs, offers cutting-edge advice for hardcore sportsmen, and hosts guest writers and experts from around the country. All that, and he’ll probably mouth off some, too.

verybody has a fish story. (It was this big!) But only F&S can bring you The World’s Best Fishing Stories, edited by senior deputy editor Colin Kearns. For 120 years, we’ve sought only the finest angling tales, and this new hardcover anthology comprises the best of those published in the last decade.

“What matters in a fishing story,” writes Kearns, “is the quest—on which you meet rich characters, explore new wild

places, and encounter challenges you never expected.” This collection features more than 20 such adventures by some of the country’s top writers. Take a 50-day float trip with Jim

Harrison. Share Thomas McGuane’s tarpon addiction. Chase salmon with Philip Caputo, and hit the water with Heavey, Nick-ens, McCafferty, Deeter, Cermele, and other F&S favorites.

When you can’t get out yourself this summer, or you just feel like kicking back, wade into The World’s Best Fishing Stories. You don’t even have to leave the armchair for this adventure.

E

F & S L I B R A R Y

TOP TALESTwenty-plus armchair odysseys from our best fishing writers

Remington has determined that in some Remington Model

887™ shotguns manufactured between December 1, 2013

and November 24, 2014 the fi ring pin may bind in the forward

position within the bolt, which can result in an unintentional

discharge when chambering a live round. This may occur when

the safety mechanism is on. Any unintentional discharge has

the potential to cause injury or death. Therefore, Remington is

voluntarily recalling ALL potentially affected products to inspect

and repair.

HAZARD: If your shotgun was manufactured in the

aforementioned time period, you should stop using your

shotgun immediately due to the risk of unintentional discharge.

To determine if your Model 887™ shotgun is affected by this

recall, visit 887recall.remington.com/.

HOW TO DETERMINE IF YOUR SHOTGUN IS

SUBJECT TO THE RECALL

Identify the serial number (located on the bottom of the receiver,

forward of the loading port.) and provide it to Remington’s recall

support team, either by entering it at 887recall.remington.com

or calling 1-800-243-9700 (Prompt #3 then Prompt #2)

Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. EDT

REMEDY / ACTION TO BE TAKEN

STOP USING YOUR SHOTGUN. Any unintended discharge has

the potential to cause injury or death. Immediately cease use of

recalled shotguns and return them to Remington free of charge.

Remington will send you boxes and written instructions, and

arrange for pick-up of your shotgun(s). Remington will cover all

related shipping, inspection, and repair charges. Please do not

return your shotgun on your own. Remington will arrange for

pick-up of your Model 887™.

Remington is committed to ensuring the inspection, repair, and

return of any affected shotgun.

DO NOT attempt to diagnose or repair recalled shotguns.

TO PARTICIPATE IN THIS RECALL PROGRAM

Visit 887recall.remington.com or call 1-800-243-9700

(Prompt #3 then Prompt #2) Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to

5 p.m. EDT. You will be asked to provide your name, address,

telephone number, and shotgun(s) serial number.

SAFETY FIRST: Always follow the Ten Commandments

of Firearm safety whenever you handle any fi rearm. Visit

Remington.com for more information.

Remington is deeply sorry for this inconvenience, but we believe

in safety fi rst. It is imperative that Model 887 shotguns subject

to this recall are not used until they have been inspected and

repaired by Remington.

The Remington team is committed to the quality and safety of

its products.

Remington is voluntarily recalling Remington Model 887™ shotguns manufactured from December 1, 2013 through November 24, 2014.

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MAKE SURE PEOPLE DON’T END UP HUNTING FOR YOU.inReach Explorer — the world’s only satellite communicator with built-in navigation.

FIELD OF DREAMS

A carpet of lily pads means pitching frog lures and the promise of huge bass lurking By Will Ryan

• THE SEASON

• ASK PETZAL

• RIFLES

• HEROES OF CONSERVATION

• THE WILD CHEF

• SHOTGUNS

• ESCAPES

• THE TOTAL OUTDOORSMAN

NEWS AND

STORIES

FROM THE

EXPERTS

Pad Your Stats

Anglers toss frogs

on Tennessee’s

Reelfoot Lake.

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HERE’S NO finer sound than the poink of a plastic frog landing on a lily pad.

The bass finning beneath must feel the same way, given their reactions, though I can’t imagine a real frog landing with such a meaty flop. This is what I was discussing with my friend Tony as we watched my Spro Bronzeye Frog come to rest on a pad. I reeled up a little and skipped the bait onto a new perch. Five feet away, a pad shivered.

“Better get ready,” Tony warned from the stern.

I nudged the frog off the pad and into a pocket of open water, as if to suggest a real frog too nervous to sit still. When the bass blew up, I coolly drove the hook into pure air. My frog banged into the bow of our Gheenoe.

This is why we love lily pads. So much of fishing happens out of view, with the sound on mute. But not in the pads, which hold both fat moments of anticipation and make-or-break mo-ments of timing and skill—like setting the hook after you feel the fish. I had struck too soon and pleaded nerves. “Besides, it’s bad luck to catch one on the first cast of the trip,” I told Tony. I’d merely taken one for the team.

Plus, we weren’t lacking for other spots to try. Countless patches of green awaited on the surface of the boggy lake in New York’s Adirondacks. Growing up in a flyfishing family, I took lots of rides to mountain trout outings—but gazing through the backseat window, I dreamed of catch-ing bass in pad-speckled lakes like this one as they whizzed by.

GREEN STRATEGIES

As regulars on the lake, Tony and I have come up with a sort of trapline of favorite stops. We pass up the biggest fields for pads that stand out as the only emergent weeds in an area or, conversely, those that form part of a complete mix of weeds, stumps, brush, and bogs. Pads that cover a sharp cut in the bank or frame an inlet always get a shot. When we do work big patches, we target jutting fingers, small recesses and holes, and especially slips of open

Weed Eater

A heavy large-

mouth nabbed

from the

greenery.

TG

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Lily pads offer a great opportunity to catch bass on a long

rod—and to try one of the oldest bass fishing methods ever

recorded. When Seminole Indians skittered bucktail bobs on

12-foot poles, 18th-century bass blew up through the weeds,

and you can follow suit today with a weedless Dahlberg Diver

Hair Frog and a straight 20-pound fluorocarbon leader. Cast

and skitter, or simply keep the line length equal to the rod and

sweep the fly across the pads and openings. —W.R.

F LY A F R O G

bust out the frogs. We like rubber-skirt legs, and prefer weedless, hollow bodies for their good acoustics. Black, white, natural, and bright green all work well. Occa-sionally, we’ll switch to rats for the fun of imitating a new critter—to scurry in-stead of to hop.

As long as the bass are game, we stick mainly with the frogs, hopping them from pad to pad and swim-ming them through small openings. If that doesn’t work, a speed retrieve can

pull bass up, especially in sparse pads. Old-timers used to skitter pork rinds or a slab of fish belly. A Johnson Silver Minnow trailing a strip of pork or rib-bony twistertail makes a good 21st-century adaptation. In either case, you want the spoon on plane and the flut-tering tail to tickle the water as it skims over the pads.

SUMMER CLASSIC

On this particular day, Tony and I skipped the outer-edge bite and pad-dled straight into the thick of the pads. After all, this was what we really came for. It’s July. It’s bass. It’s frog time. Every patch of pads seemed to have a hungry bass or two watching for a webbed misstep. Tony made a nice beyond-the-opening cast onto a patch of green. Poink. He paused his frog on the last pad before the black water.

“The nervous frog,” I said. “Classic.”Tony turned to respond, pulling the

frog, which fell into the pool and got slurped in by a fist-size mouth. He set the hook, mostly in self-defense, and wrestled 5 pounds of dark-olive Adiron-dack bass out of the pads. I grabbed my camera. Mountains filled the back-ground as he unhooked the bright green frog from the bass’s maw.

Click. A picture of summer. FS

water between weeds and shore. Bass love these shallow lanes, which are prime frog hunting spots.

But there’s more to fishing pads than frogs. Early in the morning, when largemouths are running down panfish and baitfish off the weeds’ deeper edges, we cast surface plugs into open water. As sunlight streams in over the mountains, the bass pull back, parking themselves just under the shade. We scale down and pitch Tiny Torpedoes as close to the pads as possible. The small propellers twirl with the slowest retrieve, keeping the bait in the zone.

When the surface bite fades, we switch to plastics—lightly weighted tubes and wacky-rigged Senkos, both of which work best on the drop. We stay on the deeper edges to extend fall-ing presentations. Since pads block light, the area beneath them is often clear, providing great ambushing lanes, and the shade gives bass a big advantage over prey; it’s as if they are hiding in a darkened room and looking into a lighted one. You feel as if every settling plastic bait has eyes on it.

As the sun climbs overhead, the bass retreat farther into the weeds, and we follow, trading spinning rods and 10-pound fluorocarbon for baitcasters and 30-pound braid. That’s when we

He set the

hook, mostly

in self-defense,

and wrestled

5 pounds of

dark-olive

Adirondack

bass out of the

pads.

18 | F | J U LY 2 0 1 5 I l l u s t r a t i o n b y M A R K M AT C H O

Should every shooter keep at least one rifle in a military caliber for use in defense of country? —WILLIAM TEIFKE, BIG RAPIDS, MICH.

ered. Today, the velocity is 2350 fps, but it’s still a mild kicker and enjoy-ing something of a renaissance.

Q:Do you think the long-range craze is causing some hunt-

ers to shoot farther than they should in the field?

—MAX JABER, NASHVILLE, TENN.

A: There’s no doubt in my military mind that a lot of people are

blazing away at ranges for which they are unqualified. Buying the equip-ment doesn’t give you the skills; years of practice does, and I know very few shooters who are willing to put in years of practice.

Q:What was your first rifle? Do you still have it?

—REBECCA HEALEY, SANTA FE, N.M.

A: I got my first rifle at age 14 in 1956. It was a Winchester Model

77 .22, the one with the detachable magazine. Much as I loved it, it was a bad choice because being a semiauto, it encouraged me to pour ammo down-range instead of being careful, and it spit unburned powder in my right eye. I believe I sold it in 1960 or so.

Q:What do you think of all the new species-specific ammo?

—DALE BRAUER, ROCHESTER, MINN.

A: On the one hand, ammo makers have not done a particularly

good job until recently of making clear which bullets are for which spe-cies, so perhaps this labeling is a step forward. But to say that something with a critter’s name on it is better than a good, well-chosen generic bullet is just nonsense. FS

A: Keeping a rifle of military caliber in your home to defend the

country is pretty useless unless you have some military training to go with it. It takes a period of intensive schooling to produce a competent combat soldier, and if you lack this, you will be killed quickly. Israel and Switzerland require military rifles to be kept in the home, but by reservists who have done three years, and 21 weeks, respectively, in uniform.

Q:What vintage scope would you recommend for an older

rifle? —JEFF SHOULTS, POTOSI, MO.

A: I would not recommend any of them and suggest that you drop

the idea. By “vintage scope,” I assume you mean something 50 years old or so, and sights from that time did not have great glass. They also fogged when a cloud passed over the sun or a deer cut a wet fart in the next feedlot.

With the exception of Unertls, which are for targets and not game, old scopes were a horror compared with what we have today. Instead, get a Leupold FX-II 4X or 6X fixed-power scope, which offers modern optics in a traditional form that will look right at home on your older rifle.

Q:I’m interested in a CZ rifle chambered for 9.3x62. I’ve

heard that this round can take down any big game. What do you think?

—EDMUND COLEMAN, VIA E-MAIL

A: The 9.3x62 is one of the great all-around African cartridges,

sort of a poor man’s .375 H&H. It was first sold in 1905 and featured a heavy (285-grain) bullet at low veloc-ity (2150 fps). Despite the modest ballistics, the round was very effec-tive on everything, and its recoil was very manageable for what it deliv-

Q

A

GOT A QUESTION FOR OUR RIFLES EDITOR? Send it to askpetzal@fieldandstream.com. We cannot guarantee polite answers to all questions.

David E. Petzal

answers your

questions about guns, shooting, hunting, and life

A S K P E T Z A L

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IF YOU INVENTED a prod-uct that made jackhammers quieter, everyone would say,

“Wonderful!” If you created a medical device that saved people’s ears from high-decibel hearing loss, you might win a Nobel. So why is it that the masses and most lawmakers look askance when such technology is applied to firearms?

It’s time for that to change.Hiram Percy Maxim invented the fire-

arm silencer in 1902 in lockstep with an-other of his inventions, the automobile muffler (the value of which nobody ques-tions). His Maxim Silencer didn’t render a supersonic round totally silent, but it went a long way toward it and protected ears from muzzle blasts. In 1934, how-ever, silencers became heavily regulated by the National Firearms Act. While a $3.25 silencer remained legal for quali-fied applicants, a required $200 transfer stamp ($3,500 in today’s dollars) put

one out of reach for most Depression-era Americans. So si-lencers became ob-jects of legend, por-trayed as tools of Hollywood assassins who snuffed their marks and walked casually from crime scenes.

Most real villains, meanwhile, can’t be bothered with sup-pressors, according to FBI violent-crime data, which reveal their effect as statisti-cally negligible. Here are a few more facts: Most modern silenc-ers reduce a firearm’s report to under the 135-dB safe threshold established by the

U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Ad-ministration. Silencers are now legal to own in 39 states and legal for hunting in 35. The federal stamp remains $200. Si-

lencers reduce recoil by as much as half, and my own testing shows they often en-hance accuracy.

What the wider world needs in order to embrace suppressors for hunting is to see lots of upstanding citizens, like us, using them responsibly. Buying one is still more of a hassle than it should be (see sidebar, p. 22), but it’s worth it. Here are five solid models most of you can own in a matter of months—every one of which is dirt cheap compared with the cost of hearing aids.

1 DEAD AIR ARMAMENT 7.62 SANDMAN-S

Although meant for any .30-caliber rifle, the Sandman-S can be used with smaller calibers, too, right down to your .223 var-mint rig. It measures 6.8 inches long, weighs 17.3 ounces, and reduces muzzle blast by nearly 30 dB. I shot one recently on a Bergara .308 tactical rifle and turned in one of my best groups ever, at .240 inch—which reflects my typical experi-

KILL THE NOISE!It’s time to silence the naysayers when it comes to suppressors—and save your hearing in the bargain By Jeff Johnston

R I F L E S

Silent Approach

Andrew Cashner

takes a shot, and

saves his hearing.

ence of shooting better with a suppressor than without. $1,049; dead air silencers.com

2 SILENCERCO SALVO 12

The first commercially available sup-pressor for shotguns, the Salvo 12 features a guide-rod system that ushers the wad out of the barrel. The 34.5-ounce unit’s trapezoidal shape, combined with a bore in the top half, provides a clear line of sight, and its modular design lets the shooter tailor the amount of suppression and overall length, from just a few inches to 12. The Salvo comes with an adapter that screws into your shotgun’s choke-tube threads; you can then put a choke tube into the suppressor. I’ve shot it, and now I wish all my duck hunting buddies had one. $1,400; silencerco.com

3 SIG SAUER SRD338TI-QD

If you’ve ever been on a rifle range where some magnum maniac is attempt-ing to sight in his .338 Lapua—or if you are the magnum maniac—you’ll appreci-ate this hunk of metal. It weighs only 18.9 ounces thanks to its titanium construc-tion, and yet it can handle the extreme pressures of ultra-mags like the Lapua—and is more than a match for your .300 WSM. An adapter screws onto a threaded rifle barrel and allows attachment or re-moval via a simple twist. $995; sigsauer silencers.com

M U Z Z L E M U F F L E R S

4 SureFire

1 Dead Air Armament

5 Yankee Hill Machine

3 Sig Sauer

2 SilencerCo

£

protrek.casio.com

PRW3500Y-4

PRW3500T-7

PRW3500-1

T R I P L E S E N S O R T E C H N O L O GY-

3 R D G E N E R AT I O N

A lt i m e t e r

1 Meter Increments at 1 Second Intervals

B a r o m e t e r

Pressure Difference x 0.3% and Barometric Pressure Alarm

C o m pa s s

60 Seconds Continuous Measurement Duration

ENGINE

V3

©2015 CASIO AMERICA, INC.

22 | F | J U LY 2 0 1 5

4 SUREFIRE RYDER 22-A

SureFire—yes, the flashlight company—also makes top-end silencers. After all, both are machined aluminum or steel tubes, the latter containing baffles that allow gases from a rifle barrel to expand more gradually. The Ryder 22-A is a 3.1-ounce, 51⁄2-inch model that screws onto any .22 rimfire with a threaded barrel and makes it sound like an air gun. It’s perfect for plinking or pests. Anodized and modular in construction, it’s easy to take apart for cleaning. And it’s comparatively afford-able. $429; surefire.com

5 YANKEE HILL MACHINE SIDEWINDER

I’ve used several of this company’s sup-pressors and been very impressed with their quality, accuracy, and sound reduction. New for 2015, the Sidewinder line for 9mm (10 ounces) and .40- or .45-caliber (10.75 ounces) pistols has a mono-core baffle system that can be removed for cleaning. Another very cool and unique feature lets you move the bullet’s point of impact via 12 index points. This silencer is also one of the best deals going. $699; yhm.net FS

1Go to americansuppressorassociation.com to find out if silencers are legal in

your state.

2Identify the silencer you want to buy, either at your local dealer or on

silencershop.com.

3Register the prospective silencer by filling out form 4 and form 5330.20 in

duplicate (available online or from your dealer). You can do this as an individual, as a corporation, or by forming a trust (which you can buy ready-made for $130 from silencerco.com). If registering as an individual, you must get fingerprinted by your local sheriff and include a photograph of yourself.

4Have your dealer complete his portion of both forms and mail them, along with

your check for $200, to the BATF. You may need to pay additional dealer fees, but these are usually small.

5In three to nine months, after the BATF approves your registration and the fees

are collected, you can purchase the silencer from your dealer.

Note: Additional silencer purchases require

additional registration and transfer fees.

Consult a local attorney or silencershop.

com for more info. —J.J.

BUY A SUPPRESSOR IN FIVE STEPS

TIP OF THE MONTH

THE MULEY HUNTER MOBILIZER

SCOTT HAMPEL, HENDERSON, COLO.Inspired by the conservation mission of the new Muley Fanatic

Foundation, Hampel, 50, formed four chapters—two in his home state

and two in Wyoming—and got them staffed and running. In addition,

he leads the effort for two major MFF banquets and auctions, which

last year raised $100,000 in proceeds. Hampel is now in the process of

forming more local chapters. “It’s critical to give back,” says Hampel.

THE INVASIVE ERADICATOR

JAMES CHOUN, FORT COLLINS, COLO.Eleven years ago, Choun began removing Russian olive and tamarisk

trees from public-land waterways. The invasives use much more water

than native cottonwoods and alders and have dried out springs and

entire ecosystems, harming fish and wildlife populations. The college

professor soon began enlisting students to assist, and 1,200 of them

have helped remove “many thousands” of the trees. “We brought the

invasives in,” says Choun, 64. “It’s up to us to take them out.”

THE MOUNTAIN-GOAT MAN

PETER MUENNICH, BOZEMAN, MONT.In 2013, Muennich walked into a Montana game biologist’s office to ask about volunteer opportuni-

ties to help mountain goats—and was told that no one had ever asked before. That visit was the

start of what eventually became the Rocky Mountain Goat Alliance, a 400-member nonprofit

volunteer organization that now helps conduct censuses and study viability of goat populations in

five states. Muennich’s work paved the way toward opening a hunting season for a little-known

population of goats on the Montana-Idaho border. “It just took off so quickly,” says Muennich, 26.

HEROES OF CONSERVATIONHelping mountain goats, saving mule deer, and repelling invasives By Mike Toth

C O N S E R V AT I O N

Peak Interest

Muennich at work

for mountain goats.

Nominate yourself or a friend as a Hero of Conservation. Projects featured here receive a $500 grant.fieldandstream.com/heroes

TELL US YOUR STORY!

MATTER YOUR RIDE.

Some discounts, coverages, payment plans and features are not available in all states or all GEICO companies. Motorcycle coverage is underwritten by GEICO Indemnity Company. Boat and PWC coverages are written through Seaworthy Insurance Company, a Berkshire Hathaway

affi liate, and through other non-affi liated insurance companies, and are secured through the GEICO Insurance Agency. GEICO is a registered service mark of Government Employees Insurance Company, Washington, D.C. 20076; a Berkshire Hathaway Inc. subsidiary. GEICO Gecko

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GET A FREE INSURANCE QUOTE TODAY.

24 | F | J U LY 2 0 1 5

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P h o t o g r a p h b y P L A M E N P E T KOV

If you’ve got a grinder and a smoker, you’ve probably tried your hand at making some classic venison sausages, like brats or breakfast links. Here are three more to try when you are feeling adventurous. This trio hails from far-flung locales—South Africa, Portugal, and Algeria — but their appeal is universal. A few tips: Make sure the meat and the fat, especially, are thoroughly cold before grinding. Let them chill in the freezer for 30 minutes, along with the metal grinder parts, and you’ll get a better texture. (The fat grinds best when almost frozen.) None of these sausages have to be stuffed into casings. Venison shoulder is the go-to cut, but that’s a preference, not an absolute. When it comes to making sausage, the only limitation should be the size of your appetite.

BOEREWORS

MERGUEZ

LINGUICA

THE WILD WORLD OF DEER SAUSAGEThree delicious classics from around the globe get stuffed with venison By Jonathan Miles

T H E W I L D C H E F

£

AVAILABLE IN: 12 gauge 2-3/4” • 12 gauge 3” • 12 gauge 3-1/2” • 20 gauge 3” WWW.HEVISHOT.COM

BOEREWORS

A South African farmer’s sausage, boerewors

has a distinctive scorched-coriander flavor. This

is excellent with a dab of chutney on the side.

INGREDIENTS

• 2 lb. venison

• 1⁄2 lb. bacon

• 1⁄2 lb. pork fat

• 3 Tbsp. whole coriander seeds

• 1 tsp. ground allspice

• 1⁄2 tsp. ground cloves

• 1⁄2 tsp. ground nutmeg

• 1 Tbsp. freshly ground black pepper

• 4 tsp. kosher salt

• 1⁄2 tsp. sugar

• 1⁄4 cup malt vinegar

• Hog casings

1Toast the coriander: Place the corian-

der seeds in a small skillet over medium

heat. Keep shaking the pan until the seeds

are browning and beginning to pop; a bit of

scorch is O.K., but don’t burn them. Let the

seeds cool, then place them in a zip-seal bag,

squeezing it to remove the air. Use a rolling

pin (or anything heavy) to crush the seeds

into a coarse grind.

2Cut the venison, bacon, and fat into small

strips or chunks. Add the remaining ingre-

dients and combine until the meat is evenly

coated. Refrigerate overnight, covered, or at

least for a few hours.

3Chill the sausage mixture thoroughly be-

fore grinding, for about a half hour in the

freezer. Also freeze the grinder parts and the

bowl you’ll be grinding into. Grind the mix-

ture through a 1⁄4-inch die into the chilled

bowl.

4Knead the mixture with very clean hands

to incorporate all the flavorings and to

bind the meat and fat—about 2 minutes

should suffice, or until your hands are too

cold to continue. Refrigerate the mixture un-

til ready to stuff.

5Stuff the mixture into the rinsed casings,

forming links as desired. Let the sausages

dry on a rack in the refrigerator for several

hours or overnight. At this point they can be

cooked or frozen. To cook, grill, broil, or pan-

fry the sausages. Makes about 3 lb.

LINGUICA

Linguica is one of the culinary treasures of

Portugal. It’s a coarse, rustic sausage with a vi-

brant Mediterranean flavor that comes from

a punch of garlic and a big red dose of paprika.

It’s especially tasty mixed into a plate of gar-

licky sauteéd greens.

INGREDIENTS

• 2 lb. venison

• 3⁄4 lb. pork fat

• 4 garlic cloves, minced

• 4 Tbsp. paprika

• 1 Tbsp. dried oregano

• 1 tsp. ground coriander

• 1⁄2 tsp. brown sugar

• 1 tsp. freshly ground black pepper

• 1⁄2 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes

• 4 tsp. kosher salt

• 2 Tbsp. sherry vinegar

• Hog casings

1Cut the meat into small strips or chunks.

Add the remaining ingredients, except the

fat, and combine so the meat is thoroughly

coated with the spices. Refrigerate overnight,

covered.

2Chill the meat in the freezer along with

the fat and the grinder parts, for about 30

minutes. Grind the meat mixture through a

3⁄8- or 1⁄2-inch die. Refrigerate the meat while

you grind the fat through a 1⁄4-inch die. Com-

bine these and knead with your very clean

hands for about 2 minutes, or until blended.

3Stuff the mixture into rinsed casings,

forming links as desired. Allow the sau-

sages to dry on a rack in the refrigerator for

several hours or overnight.

4Hot-smoke the sausages until a meat ther-

mometer poked into the middle reads 155

degrees. Makes about 21⁄2 lb.

MERGUEZ

Merguez is a fiery red lamb sausage from North

Africa. Our version is a cheat, in that it uses

store-bought Italian sausage (and swaps in

venison for the lamb), but the recipe is adapted

from one by the eminent chef Jacques Pepin—

so it’s a pedigreed cheat. Lack of work, in this

case, does not equal lack of flavor.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 lb. venison

• 1 lb. hot Italian sausage

• 2 tsp. ground cumin

• 1 tsp. paprika

• 1⁄8 tsp. cayenne pepper

• 11⁄2 tsp. kosher salt

• 1 Tbsp. minced garlic

• 2 Tbsp. cilantro, chopped

• Sheep or hog casings

• Harissa, for serving (optional)

1Cut the venison into small strips or chunks.

Chill the venison, the grinder parts, and

the mixing bowl for about 30 minutes in the

freezer. Then grind the venison through a

1⁄4-inch die and refrigerate.

2Remove the Italian sausage from the casings.

Discard the casings. Combine the venison

and the Italian sausage filling with the cumin,

paprika, cayenne, salt, garlic, and cilantro.

3Knead the mixture with your very clean

hands to incorporate the spices and fully

blend the meats. Refrigerate until ready to stuff.

4Stuff into rinsed casings, forming links as de-

sired. Allow the sausages to dry on a rack in

the refrigerator for several hours or overnight.

5These sausages are best cooked over a hot

grill. As with all venison sausages, take care

not to overcook. Serve with the harissa on the

side. Makes about 2 lb.

28 | F | J U LY 2 0 1 5

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STEEL SHOT kills doves as well as lead does. Like it or not, that’s the bottom-line

finding of a Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) report. Five years in the making, the study re-corded the hits and misses of 53 hunt-ers who fired 5,094 shots with size 6 and 7 steel shot and 71 ⁄2 lead shot, kill-ing a total of 1,146 doves, 1,100 of which were necropsied. The 13-page report, published in the Wildlife Soci-ety Bulletin in Nov. 2014, reveals com-pelling data not just about nontoxic-shot performance but also about choke selection, marksmanship, and wound-ing rates. Every dove hunter should take a hard look at these numbers.

The report is bound to be received with skepticism and animosity. Ameri-can hunters continue to hate nontoxic shot beyond reason. Of the 12,000-plus hunters who responded to the

recent USFWS National Dove Hunter Survey, 32.6 percent insist they would quit dove hunting if nontoxic shot was required; 65.7 percent oppose switch-ing to nontoxic shot for doves; 52.2 percent believe that nontoxic-shot mandates are an antihunting plot; and 53.7 percent believe nontoxic shot doesn’t perform as well as lead. On this last point, the TPWD report clearly shows otherwise.

Designed by well-known ballistics authority Tom Roster, the study began in 2008 with volunteer hunters using their own 12-gauge shotguns. Each shooter was accompanied in the field by a trained observer who recorded the choke used, the range and result of each shot, and the color-coding on each shell. In the double-blind test, neither hunter nor observer knew which pellets the shells contained. Here are four key takeaways.

STEEL YOURSELFA new study shoots down hunters’ pre-conceptions about nontoxic shot for doves By Phil Bourjaily

S H O T G U N S

Aim Lower

Dove hunters miss

68 percent of shots

beyond 30 yards.

1 STEEL STOPS DOVES Lead loads in the test featured 11⁄8 ounces of size 71 ⁄2

Lawrence Magnum lead shot, traveling at 1200 fps. Steel loads moved 1 ounce of either size 6 or 7 shot at 1300 fps. The 100-fps velocity difference was in-tended to duplicate popular loads and to make the felt recoil of all loads identi-cal, so hunters couldn’t tell which they were firing.

At the end of two full seasons of shooting, the data showed no statistical difference between lead and steel am-munition in terms of doves hit, missed, crippled, and killed at all ranges. Hunt-ers actually hit about 5 percent more doves with steel, and when asked after each hunt, they were unable to distin-guish between any of the loads.

Observers recorded whether hit birds were killed cleanly, fell mobile but retrievable, or went unretrieved. Lead and steel (both sizes) scored identical rates of “bagged-immobile” (about 83 percent) and “bagged-mobile” (16 to 17 percent), meaning steel killed just as cleanly as lead. Incidentally, this jibes with my own field experience. The mean range of the average hit with all ammunition types was about 29 yards.

2 MOST HUNTERS CAN’T HIT PAST 30

YA R D S The volunteer hunters, chosen among outfitter clients in the first year and from randomly drawn dove hunters in the second, proved better shots than most. Their average of one bird bagged per 4.4 shells fired compares favorably with the national

Hunters

actually hit

about 5

percent more

doves with

steel, and

when asked

after each hunt,

they were

unable to

distinguish

between loads.

Top Shot This load

of size 7 steel mirrors

the study’s No. 1 dove

stopper.

average of seven to eight shots per dove. Still, these experienced hunters struggled at longer ranges. Inside 30 yards, hunters in the study missed 57 percent of the birds they shot at. At ranges greater than 30, they missed 68 percent, regardless of am-munition. Wounding rates were not sig-nificantly higher; hunters just missed more birds at longer ranges.

I’d guess that if true expert shooters tested lead against steel at 40 yards, using Full chokes, lead might win out due to its superior downrange energy. But since even better-than-average shots can’t hit much outside 30 yards, long-range effec-tiveness is a moot point for the vast major-ity of dove hunters.

3 IMPROVED CYLINDER IS THE DEADLIEST

CHOKE FOR DOVES Observers recorded the choke used on all 1,100 of the necrop-sied birds. The most popular was Modi-fied, accounting for 48.1 percent of all shots fired. Improved Cylinder was next, at 30.5 percent. Full choke was last at 21.4 percent. Whereas hunters using Modified and Full chokes killed 21 and 16 percent of doves they shot at, respectively, the Im-

proved Cylinder shooters had the greatest success, with a 26 percent kill rate.

4 WE NEED TO TAKE CLOSER SHOTS Inside 30 yards, hunters bagged 28.4 percent

of birds shot at and wounded 13.9 percent. Outside of the 30 yards, they wounded almost as many as they killed: 15.1 and 16.6 percent, respectively.

That is a sobering statistic, although it’s important to note that retrievers were not allowed in the study to prevent extra punc-tures in the necropsied doves. There must have been a percentage of doves downed that weren’t retrieved but could have been.

Still, the study shows plainly that shooting at birds over 30 yards is as likely to wound as kill with any load, and that the overall wounding rate is quite high.

Since wounding rates were the same with lead and steel, the problem lies with us. That, rather than unfounded excuses about the ineffectiveness of steel shot, should be our focus now. What this study tells us as much as anything is that no matter what we load our guns with, we will go on killing, missing, and wounding doves at the same rate until we change our chokes and do better at shot selection. Extra prac-tice at the range wouldn’t hurt, either. FS

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ATROUT TRIP to South Dakota seems like a roll of the dice. Out-doorsmen travel there to hunt

pheasants or to ice-fish for walleyes—not to flyfish for trout, not when Wyoming and Montana are just across the border. Then again, sometimes it pays to gamble…especially when you have a good lead.

“Deadwood is the best secret in trout fishing,” one South Dakota guide told me. “No one comes here to fish.”

“The trout here are big and fat and fight hard,” another guide told me. “And they’re not too picky because they hardly see any pressure. No one knows about this place.”

I had my doubts about how good South Dakota could be, but after hearing this I figured I had nothing to lose.

THE WILD WEST OF TROUT

Considering the saloons, casinos, and reg-ularly scheduled reenactments of cowboys blasting six-shooters in the streets, I’d be surprised if many visitors notice the creeks that run through and around Deadwood, S.D. But those waters, and the trout they sustain, were what brought our small group of outdoor writers to this old Western town. For three days, we’d fish a variety of rivers, creeks, and lakes in the area. And if time allowed, we’d sit down at a poker table for a hand or two.

We covered a lot of water on day one, fishing three different spots. In the morn-ing, we hit Whitewood Creek, which was one of the most perfect-looking trout streams I’ve ever waded. The water ran

FLYFISHING’S BEST-KEPT SECRETOne of the greatest places in the U.S. to catch big trout in beautiful streams with no crowds (for now, at least) may surprise you By Colin Kearns

E S C A P E S

clear, there were countless fishy- looking riffles and pools, and the current had that just-right speed for nymphing. As I ap-proached the bank, I’d already convinced myself that I was going to catch a trophy. Instead, my nerves got the better of me, and my first cast ended in a knotted mess.

Eventually I calmed down, and soon landed an 8-inch brown—my first South Dakota trout. The fish didn’t have the strength to test my 5-weight, but it was wild and made me smile as it burst away on the release. I continued upstream, drifting every nymph in my fly box, but I would only hook two more fish: one that I fouled in a deep pool; and a big brown that I tricked with a Prince nymph. The fish broke off just seconds into the fight, but not before it flashed past and gave me a teasing glimpse of its size.

After lunch, we fished Spearfish Creek and Upper Hanna Creek. Both waters were narrow and winding, and de-manded technical casting. I landed sev-eral small rainbows and browns on a hopper- dropper rig, and lost one fish that would’ve pushed 15 inches, but I didn’t enjoy either creek as much as I should have. The truth is, I couldn’t stop think-ing about Whitewood Creek—not be-cause I was dwelling on the fish I’d lost, but because as soon as I stepped in its waters I never wanted to leave. I can’t say the same of many trout streams.

My first day of trout fishing in South Dakota might not have ended with a big fish in the net, but already I found myself plotting a return trip.

RAPID SUCCESSION

On day two, while the rest of our group headed to Pactola Reservoir to chase lake trout, I went to nearby Rapid Creek with Wes Remmer, a former communications specialist with Cabela’s. He and I weren’t through with trout on the fly.

Our guide, Dave Gamet, warned us that these fish would not be easy to catch, and I soon understood why. The water was moonshine-clear, and under zero cloud cover and a bright sun, the trout would be quick to spook. Gamet rigged my rod with a G-String Worm and split shot beneath a strike indicator. “We’re

Net Results Clockwise from top left: The

author floats with a fat rainbow; South

Dakota trout patterns; a trophy brown on

Rapid Creek; another successful landing.

going to fish the hell out of this spot,” he told me. Even if the fish did move away, he said, they almost always returned. Unless we were absolutely sure the trout weren’t biting, we weren’t going to budge. I don’t know if it was Gamet’s expertise or if I’d just been off yester-day, but on Rapid Creek my luck changed.

First, I landed an 18-inch brown. The wild fish was stronger than any I’d fought in a long time, and Gamet instructed me to keep flop-ping my rod from side to side. “As if you’re making pancakes,” he said. “The fish will get tired and eventually give up.” Gamet was right, and when he scooped the fish into the net, our shouts carried 200-plus yards down-stream to Remmer. Ten minutes later, my line came tight to a 14-inch brown. Shortly after that, I had another nice brown on the line before it spit my fly’s semibarbless hook. A dozen casts later, I hooked a rainbow.

“A big rainbow,” Gamet yelled.I chased the fish for 30 yards before I got

in the water to finish the fight. This fish was bigger than the brown I’d landed. Our cheers and celebration were bigger, too.

Around noon, we moved upstream to a spot below a spillway. I cast my fly on the edge of the roiling, foaming chop and let it drift down.

It wasn’t the most exciting way to fish, but I knew water like this often holds big trout. I caught and landed a 13-inch brown on my second cast. After I released it, Gamet sug-gested that we wade to the other side of the spillway. On my first cast, I watched the bobber dunk but missed the strike.

I cast again in the same spot. Nothing. One more cast…“Fish on!” said Gamet.Instead of making a quick run as I’d ex-

pected, the fish just loafed there, as if plot-ting its next move. That’s when it jumped less than 10 feet away from Gamet and me.

“Oh,” Gamet shouted, “we’ve got a toad!”I followed the fish downstream. Remmer

had loaned me a Cabela’s 4-weight American Dream, and all day the fly rod had lived up to its name. But for this fight I wouldn’t have minded the 5-weight version. The water was choppy, and the bottom was studded with big rocks, making it difficult to wade. If the fish had decided to bolt, I would’ve been screwed. But I kept up with the trout, and the rod held on strong. Gamet eased his way downstream from me, and I glided the fish into his net.

The brown measured 22 inches and was as fat as a football. I looked at the fish in the net

and struggled for words. “That’s the biggest brown trout I’ve ever caught,” I said.

Gamet beamed. “And you caught it…in South Dakota!”

FLOAT PLAN

After my morning on Rapid Creek—one of the best days of fishing in my life—I didn’t care what I caught on day three. I was playing with house money.

We’d been given access to fish a pond in a gated neighborhood. We brought float tubes and packed lunches and spent the afternoon kick-paddling from cove to cove catching stocked rainbows, cutthroats, and brookies on hoppers. Having that much fun almost seemed unfair. Almost.

Later that night, after dinner, Remmer, local guide Craig Oyler, and I ordered drinks, then sat down at a poker table. I went on a winning streak, and even had the chip lead for a while. I started to entertain the idea of win-ning it all. If only I’d quit while I was ahead. Over the next three merciless hands, I watched my stack of chips disappear.

My run of luck in South Dakota had run out. Somehow, though, it still felt as if I came out ahead in the end. FS

WHEN IN DEADWOOD, HERE’S WHERE TO…

TRIP PLANNER

LET LOOSE: Saloon No. 10 for gambling,

drinking, and Wild West reenactments.

SLEEP: Deadwood Mountain Grand for

a comfortable bed—and a casino down-

stairs just in case you’re restless. —C.K.

HAVE DINNER: Deadwood Social Club

for the pan-seared local walleye or a gigan-

tic (and delicious) osso buco shank.

GRAB LUNCH: Lewie’s Tavern for a killer

cheeseburger and onion rings.

32 | F | J U LY 2 0 1 5 I l l u s t r a t i o n b y PAT K I N S E L L A

CHRIS SIMMONS IS HARD AT IT, putting the screws to his own big fish, when the bridge line pops out of the release clip after a second fish strikes. Simmons is in the fighting chair, which means my fish is going to be a stand-

up fight. Alan “Big Country” Scibal, the Sensation’s mate, two-hands the rod from the rocket launcher and meets me at the transom’s starboard corner. He passes the rod to me just as my pal Dave Chappell works the fighting belt around my waist. “Coming around you, buddy,” Chappell hollers, groping for the buckles as the boat rocks in the Atlantic’s 5-foot swells. “Hang on!” All the while the reel whines as 80-pound mono-filament rips off the spool and disappears over the transom, running through the 52-foot boat’s frothy wake and on toward the Gulf Stream. Already I can sense the rising tide of complaint from my arms, shoulders, hands, and back.

We’re 42 miles offshore from Sensation’s berth on the Morehead City, N.C., waterfront, and I’m in unfamiliar territory. I fish bluegill creeks and trout streams, and for bluefish from the beach, but I’ve ventured to bluewater only twice in my life. The gear is familiar; I know rods and reels and lines and plugs, even though everything is oversize. The hard baits I could only describe as being like Rat-L-Traps the size of a squirrel. But the world beyond the boat rails is alien and exotic. I couldn’t point north if I had to.

That’s the attraction of throwing yourself at an entirely different kind of sporting pursuit. You can’t know it all, and big-game fishing is a mystery to me. I don’t know how to wire a ballyhoo or rig a squid teaser, but sometimes it’s a kick to be the newbie. This trip to the Gulf Stream is a funhouse-mirror romp where, for once, I don’t have to know a thing and I’m not expected to figure out every detail. Maybe that’s why I’m enjoying this so much.

T H E TOTA L O U T D O O R S M A N

OUT OF THE BLUE Sometimes it’s nice to try something new—like fighting big-game fish By T. Edward Nickens

WAHOO’S YOUR DADDY?

We’d pulled away from the waterfront well before sunrise and battened down for the two-hour slog toward the lightening sky. Here the coastline bulges deep into the open Atlantic, putting the Gulf Stream within easy access of anglers willing to pay the diesel tab. The first lines went into the water a bit before 8 A.M., and by 11 o’clock we’d logged five different saltwater supermodels—mahi, false albacore, blackfin tuna, barracuda, and a small wahoo. I’m hoping our streak will hold for a new species—sailfish, perhaps, or even white marlin—but my fish smokes hun-dreds of yards of line before taking a breather, and starts shaking its head like the world’s largest striped bass. Scibal thinks it’s another wahoo, and a big one.

Built like a lance, tiger-striped, and armed with a barracuda’s front grill, wahoo can swim 50 mph and are known for making a searing initial run. I can’t say I ever get control of this fish as much as it shifts gears on its own, spins a 180 some-where out there, and charges the boat. I crank the handle furiously as Scibal begs me to recover line. As soon as I tighten up, the wahoo takes off again. The fish runs twice more before I finally get it into gaffing range, my back and forearms pleading for mercy. Scibal sinks in the gaff point and pulls the fish to the deck, its flanks heaving and streaked with blood.

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My catch is longer than I am tall, and weighs 67 pounds of perhaps the best-eating fish in the sea.

The bite stays hot. We catch fish for a solid hour, landing four more wahoo as we take turns in the fighting chair. Then the wind shifts, knocking the white slop from the top of the sea’s swells, and it feels like the day is about to bust wide open.

Which shows how much I know.Out of nowhere, a half-hour lull casts a

gloom across the boat. Scibal shortens lines and changes baits, but nothing gets the fish to bite.

“You haven’t tried your wahoo call yet,” I joke to Scibal, then immediately regret the wisecrack.

I climb into the boat tower, where Capt. Dale Britt watches a chartplotter. Our track across the open Atlantic is a mess of dark lines on deep bottom con-tours. Britt points out coral reefs and bait balls marked with green rectangles. It all looks good to me, but Britt’s face is lined with a grimace.

“The wind has shifted from west- southwest to northwest,” he says, and goes quiet for a few moments. “Old Capt.

‘Woo Woo’ Harker—he ran the Carolina Princess for years—once told me that a man could starve to death with a turkey on the table in a northwest wind.”

I know it in my bones, if not my brain: Just like that, the bite is done. The sea is calm, the sun shines, and for another hour we don’t raise a single fish. I know it’s not my job to figure out the next steps, not today, but still I want to pepper Britt with questions. Why would a shift in surface winds turn off a fish that’s happy at 100 fathoms? Did we put the school down? Where did the fish go?

Instead, I hold my tongue. I’ve been in Britt’s deck shoes plenty, when it looks like a quarter-full fish box is as good as it’s going to get. I climb down the ladder, back to my duty station watching the rods. Even if the bite is all over, I’ll still walk away with enough mahi for a dozen meals and enough wahoo for a block party. And I was paying close attention when Scibal wired those ballyhoo for baits. I have a center console dry-stacked a block down the docks from the Sensation, and I can’t help but wonder: On a really good day, maybe I could figure this out. FS

W I R E D T O T H E F I S H

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35

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01

5

36 | F | J U LY 2 0 1 5

B A I T S H O P

STRIPERS ARE AGGRES-SIVE, BUT THEY WON’T PASS UP AN EASY MEAL OF CHICKEN LIVERS IF YOU KNOW WHEN AND WHERE TO CAST THEM > By Mark Modoski

Everyone knows that stripers (both

hybrids and pure-strains) are notorious for blasting a live shad or hard-chugged popper. But they also have a lazy side, and playing to it can put up more bass than the freshest livie. Don’t think trophy stripers will slurp a chicken liver? If you’ve got the guts, you’ll be shocked at the results.

GUTS FOR GLORYTAKE A BREAK

Although the magic scent of

fresh chicken livers will draw

stripers from afar, anchoring up

in a known bass honey hole is the

way to go. Breaks off main-lake

points are good bets, especially

if you mark baitfish. Pure-strains

and hybrids chasing bait will

climb on a dead-sticked liver that

requires less energy to eat. Focus

on the low-light hours at dawn,

at dusk, and after nightfall.

TURN UP THE JUICE

Once you’re on anchor, spill all

the juice from the liver contain-

ers into the water. This makes

handling the guts easier—and

can ignite a feeding frenzy. If you

want to go the extra mile, fill an

old soup can or two with livers

and freeze them. On the water,

dump the frozen liver log into a

small chum pot, and hang the pot

overboard with a rope to keep

the juices flowing and the fish

sniffing for more gobs of chicken

goodness.

DEPTH CHARGED

I use slip bobbers to set some

lines away from the boat, but the

vast majority of the hits will come

on a “down rod” directly under-

neath. For this setup, use a simple

slip-sinker rig with a piece of liver

threaded onto a size 5/0 hook,

but instead of dropping it to the

bottom, set it straight below at

whatever depth you’re marking

fish. A spinning reel with a bait-

runner feature is perfect, but if

you don’t have one, keep the drag

set lightly, because the run after

the grab won’t be slow.

You want the freshest

livers possible. Always

check the expiration

date on the container

and make sure they’ve

never been frozen. After

you’re stocked, don’t

freeze the livers unless

you plan on stuffing

them in the chum pot,

as they’ll become too

brittle once thawed. On

hot days, store the baits

in a cooler to prevent

softening. It doesn’t

take much liver to get a

striper’s attention, so

trim each into three or

four smaller pieces. If

you have trouble keep-

ing them on the hook,

wrap them in small

pieces of panty hose to

form little pouches, and

tie the tops with sewing

thread. —M.M.

PLAYING CHICKEN

P h o t o g r a p h b y J I M G O L D E N

38 | F | J U LY 2 0 1 5

BR

IA

N G

RO

SS

EN

BA

CH

ER

; N

AS

(I

CO

NS

)

“A storm

coming means

there’s a drop in

pressure. This

usually triggers

a hatch.”

SIGHT UNSEEN BAD WEATHER CONDITIONS MAKING IT TOUGH TO SPOT FISH? TRY THESE PRO TRICKS > By Ben Duchesney

Nothing is sweeter than sight fishing on a calm

summer day in crystal-clear water. It’s even better when the fish are feeding a short cast away. But when a storm rolls in, the wind picks up, or a cold front pushes your targets out of the skinny stuff, sight casting can turn sour. How-ever, it can be done if you’re willing to plan carefully, put in your time, and lean on the tips from these expert sight- fishing guides from across the U.S.

TA C T I C S

Touch of Gray

Reading rise forms

can help you deter-

mine trout size on a

dreary day.

SUDDEN STORM

Pro: Asher Koles

Home Water: Provo River, Utah

Target: Trout rising to

a hatch

Even if spotting big fish in clear wa-

ter has been the game all day, Koles

doesn’t panic when a storm looms. “A

storm coming means there’s a drop in

pressure,” he says. “This usually trig-

gers a hatch. The cloud cover also

diffuses the water’s surface, making

the fish feel safer and making it more

difficult for them to spot an angler.”

Of course, it’s harder for you to

fully see the fish, too, so the key

now is to read the rise forms, Koles

advises. Splashy rises typically mean

small fish. Soft rises or swirls are usu-

ally the bigger ones. In low light, it can

be easier to pick out rise forms up- or

downstream than directly across.

COLD FRONT

Pro: Kevin Morlock

Home Water: Lake Michigan

Target: Carp moving to

deeper waters

“When there’s a cold snap, carp move

off the flats fast to look for warmer

waters,” Morlock says. “If that hap-

pens, I go where they were yesterday

first and look for any lingering fish. If

there’s no life whatsoever, it’s time to

start working the flats edges.”

The problem with fishing the edges,

however, is that they’re deeper. Add

in some cloud cover and mud from

rooting fish, and getting a good line of

sight on your targets becomes tricky.

“Look for little mud tornadoes,”

Morlock says. “The tighter the spiral,

the more recently it was made. Some-

times that’s all you have to go on to

lead a fish when conditions are poor.”

STRONG WINDS

Pro: Justin Price

Home Water: Mosquito Lagoon, Fla.

Target: Redfish feeding in

the shallows

“When the wind kicks up, do your

best to get out of wide open water,”

Price says. “Find the lee side of an is-

land and work the shoreline. The wa-

ter under the mangroves won’t have

as much wind ripple, and it’s easier to

spot fish in the shade here.”

If you simply can’t escape open

flats, put your boat in the skinniest wa-

ter you can find. According to Price,

the shallower you get, the slower the

boat will blow in the wind. As you ride

the gusts, look for fish in downwind

holes or channels where baitfish may

get blown to waiting reds. Weighted

lures and flies will get into the strike

zone faster when it’s windy.

WILEYX.COM

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shatterproof safety standards and many meet the military’s VO ballistic standard. That’s max eye protection on the water

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P h o t o g r a p h b y DAV I D B R A N D O N G E E T I N G

FOLLOW THE RULES

Most 3D shoots are set up similar to a golf

course, with 20 to 40 targets ranging from

groundhogs to bull elk placed at vary-

ing distances along a walking trail. In most

events, a shooter can get a score of 5 for

a hit anywhere in the foam; 8 for the large

vital ring; 10 for the small vital ring; or 11 to

12 (depending on the competition) for the

tiny ring within the 10-zone.

BE CLASSY

Shooters are grouped according to equip-

ment and skill level. Traditional archers, for

example, are allowed to get closer to tar-

gets. Shooters with slider sights and 3-foot

stabilizers compete in a different class

from those using hunting rigs and fixed

three-pin sights.

TAKE A GUESS

Some events are known-distance shoots, in

which the targets are set at given distances

and rangefinders are allowed. But most are

“unknown,” and the shooter must judge

the yardage without a rangefinder. These

make the best practice for hunters. Yes, you

probably use a rangefinder in the field, but

your next buck may not give you time to use

it. Sanctioned shoots typically set targets at

a maximum of 50 yards, but plenty of club

shoots stretch that out to 100 or more.

You don’t have to compete on the pro circuit to enjoy 3D ar-chery any more than a golfer must be a member of the PGA

Tour to enjoy a round on the back nine. An unsanctioned shoot hosted by your local archery club with nothing more than a $10 en-try fee and bragging rights on the line is great practice and a lot of fun. Here’s what you need to know.

FOAM BEFORE FURSUMMERTIME 3D SHOOTS ARE THE BEST PRACTICE YOU CAN GET UNTIL BOW SEASON BEGINS > By Will Brantley

T I P S

FIND THE GAP

If your three-pin sight is set for 30 to 50 yards, what’s the

holdover for 70 yards? First, hold your 50-yard pin on the

target. Then look at the two pins above it. The gaps from the

30- to the 50-pin should total 20 yards of holdover. So, find

a reference for your 30-pin, like a leaf in line with the vitals,

raise your 50-pin to meet it, and take the shot. Bull’s-eye.

MAXIMIZEYOUR

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42 | F | J U LY 2 0 1 5 I l l u s t r a t i o n s b y S T E V E S A N F O R D

E X P E R T S

PLOT PROS HERE’S HOW THREE

SUCCESSFUL OUT-

FIT TERS GROW

KILLER FORAGE

THAT DEER CAN’T

RESIST > By Will Brantley

If an outfitter’s food plots don’t

produce, it can mean tough hunting for cli-ents and lost business. We surveyed a panel of these pros to learn their best plot secrets. The two major takeaways? Food-plot advice isn’t one-size-fits-all. And food-plot seed doesn’t need a picture of a deer on the bag to work.

CARL DORON Snipe Creek Lodge

(snipecreeklodge.com)

Location: Southwest Kentucky

Acres Managed: About 20,000

“I use a blend of chicory and ladino

clover. The tonnage that chicory

provides allows a small plot to feed

more deer than a pure clover plot of

the same size. Most of my plots are

less than an acre, and I start them in

early spring or fall, tripling the recom-

mended seeding rate so that it outcom-

petes the weeds. I also fertilize them a

couple of times during summer.”

Secret Weapon: “I overseed new fall

plots with annual ryegrass. Deer love

it when it’s young and tender, and it

germinates fast.”

TED MARUM Tri-State Outfitting

(tri-stateoutfitting.com)

Location: Northern Missouri,

Iowa, and Wisconsin

Acres Managed: About 6,000

“In August, I plant a blend of oats, bar-

ley, wheat, and daikon radishes in plots

ranging from 11⁄2 to 3 acres. Each plant

becomes palatable at a different phase

of the season. Deer start out eating

the oats, then transition to the barley

and wheat, and finally hit the radishes

when they’re cigar-size, usually around

the first of October.”

Secret Weapon: “I top-dress some

of my plots with canola. When it

grows to about a foot tall in late fall,

deer can’t leave it alone.”

ROBERT PITMAN III White Oak Plantation

(recently retired)

Location: Alabama Black Belt

Acres Formerly Managed:

About 20,000

“In our wet soil, not much grows ex-

cept ryegrass, but the deer love it.

We planted in September, then top-

dressed the plots in December, just

prior to the January rut, with ammo-

nium nitrate. That gave them a big jump

just before the hunt. Small plots (1⁄2 or

1⁄4 acre) give deer the quickest access

to dense cover, and deer seem to hit

them best during shooting light.”

Secret Weapon: “Native browse

beats any food plot. If you fertilize your

honeysuckle, deer will annihilate it.”

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EXTENDED WARRANTYWHY AN EXTRA 3 FEET OF LEADER IS MORE VALUABLE THAN A LONG CAST > By Kirk Deeter

Many flyfishermen believe that the stealthiest way to

approach rising trout is to stand way back and bomb away. Wrong. Long casts hinder accuracy, whereas an extra-long leader lets you fish close. It keeps the fly line farther behind the fish and also drags less, improving the presen-tation. The longer the leader-and-tippet combo, however, the harder it is to turn over. Use these tips to lay it out smoothly.

S K I L L S

1 LEAD ON

To build a 15-footer, I use

a 6-inch butt section of

20-pound Maxima running

line as a base to help turn

it over. Next, I’ll connect

9 feet of 2X mono tippet,

even when I want to ulti-

mately taper down to 4X. After that comes 3

feet of 3X mono tippet, followed by 21⁄2 feet

of 4X. Just remember, never jump tippet di-

ameter sizes as you taper down.

2 A LITTLE TUG

When you make the cast, you want the line

to extend fully, about a foot above the wa-

ter, and then fall gently. To get that last bit

of extension, use your line hand to tug down

an inch or two on the fly line after you fin-

ish your final forward casting stroke. Be sure

to stop the rod tip high; you won’t succeed

with a sloppy, droopy forward stroke.

3 SET THE CLOCK

If you normally think “10 and 2” on the

imagi nary clockface as you cast, switch to

“9 and 1.” When you’ve got a 15-foot leader

dangling from the end of your floating line,

a higher position on the back cast and a

lower one on the forward cast gives you a

little extra drive to help that leader turn all

the way over, especially on a breezy day.

Chip Shot

Long leaders let

you cast close to

risers without

spooking the fish.

If you nor-

mally fish

with a 9-foot

tapered

leader when

casting to ris-

ing trout, ex-

tend it with

tippet ma-

terial to 12

feet—15 is

even better.

48 | F | J U LY 2 0 1 5

FIGHT TO

SURVIVEAttacked by a bear, chomped by a shark, lost in the woods for a week—in the last year,

these three outdoorsmen suffered some of the worst nightmares imaginable in the wild. But thanks to smarts, a little luck, and a lot of guts, they all survived

Plus: How to assemble your own survival kit for any adventure

B y B i l l H e a v e y , T . E d w a r d N i c k e n s , a n d B e n R o m a n s

I l l u s t r a t i o n b y S t e v e n P. H u g h e s

50 | F | J U LY 2 0 1 5

in my right hand and I stabbed him in the face. When he released my jaw, I tried to sit up in the muck in order to get some leverage to shove my left arm as far as I could down the bear’s throat.

I stabbed and stabbed and stabbed as hard and as fast as I could. All of a sud-den, the bear was gone.

My headlamp had fallen behind my head and landed so it lit up the top of my boots and these three little sap-lings to my left. I lay there on my back for maybe five minutes. Stay quiet, I thought to myself. Don’t say nothing. I kept repeating that. I didn’t know it at the time, but Trevor had first run up to

F I G H T T O S U R V I V E

I l l u s t r a t i o n b y S T E V E N P. H U G H E S

MAULEDShortly before midnight on Sept. 27, 2014, Brandon Johnson, 44,

was helping friends blood-trail a 525-pound black bear when

it charged

ASTICK SNAPPED, and I said to my friend Trevor, “I think I hear it.” I took three steps to the left, and then…all I remem-ber is lying on a plush mat-tress, staring at the stars, just kind of floating. That was the shock, I guess, but when I

snapped out of it, the bear’s face was a foot away from mine, and I had both of my hands around his muzzle as it came down in slow motion and latched on to the left side of my face. He knocked me down in the mud and had my jaw in his mouth. I was thinking, I don’t want him to rip my face off. I had a knife

F & S

I HAD A KNIFE IN

MY RIGHT HAND

AND I STABBED

THE BEAR IN

THE FACE. I

STABBED AND

STABBED AND

STABBED AS

HARD AND AS

FAST AS I COULD.

me thinking the bear was about finished off, but when he heard the mauling, he climbed a tree and yelled for our buddy Craig, who had a gun. But Craig was a long ways off, and Trevor had nothing to use as a weapon. Meanwhile, I just tried to be quiet. Then I saw the light beam around one of the little trees break with a shadow. The bear was back.

This time he came straight for my crotch. It was as if the bear knew that was the kill spot—all those blood veins. I locked my knees as he started biting at me, and that must have really pissed him off, because he came charging up to my chest again. He slammed my left arm away and opened his mouth so wide the black pupils rolled up into his head. I remember just his teeth and these white spots where his eyes were supposed to be, and I thought, This is it.

He was angrier this time. He was biting and biting and biting. Suddenly I heard a stick snap. I thought it might be Trevor, but it was a bone in my left arm. Then there was a second snap—another crushed bone.

All the while, I kept stabbing and stabbing. It’s a blessing that I even had the knife. It was Trevor’s—some $8 flea-market thing—and he gave it to me before we separated on the trail, about a minute before the bear attacked.

After the bear broke through my left arm, he had my left hand in his mouth, and when he spun around, he twisted my wrist and hand all the way around and snapped my thumb and ripped all

the ligaments to shreds.The bear backed away and left me in

the dark. I don’t know how long I was there, but I could feel everything leave my body: all the hope and the fight just draining out like water from a tub. At first I was worried the bear would come back, but then I grew terrified of dying out there, so I started yelling. I just wanted to hear a human voice.

I heard noises behind me, then to my left. I saw the shadow in the light again, against those little trees, and the bear ran straight in and climbed on my chest. I had just enough time to use my right hand to drape my broken left arm over my face, before the bear opened his mouth—like 10 inches wide, unbe-lievable. At that moment, I knew: This is my chance. With all the strength I had left, I shoved the knife in as far and as hard down his throat as I could—so hard that I broke two fingers.

I pulled my hand back out and kept

BEAR DOWN Johnson, with his fiancée,

Tracey, manages a smile at the hospital.

Friends found the bear the day after.

stabbing, but then started coughing and had trouble breathing. I was choking on blood. I was blind, too, because more blood covered my eyes. With so much blood loss, I knew I wasn’t going to survive. I wiped my right eye with my sleeve so I could see better, and that’s when I saw a 3⁄4-inch faucet of blood pumping out of the bear’s face. It wasn’t my blood. It was his. That’s when it hit me: I am going to kill this thing.

It seemed like the bear knew that the knife was what was causing him so much trouble. He grabbed my right arm in his mouth and chomped down twice, breaking my arm. I could barely move by then. All I could do with the knife was wave it back and forth in a small arc in front of the bear. I just wanted to appear threatening. But when the bear saw it, he swatted my broken arms apart, smacked me in the chest, grabbed on to my right calf, turned me around, and slammed me into the ground like a chew toy.

After that, at last, he left for good.Trevor said I wasn’t breathing when

he and Craig found me. They used ATV tie-down straps for tourniquets, and ratchet straps to secure my arms to my body. I walked out 700 yards, leaning on them. God just helped me stand up. It took us two hours to cross a beaver slough and get back to the stand site be-fore I saw the flashlights of the EMTs. They got me on a four-wheeler, which got me to an ambulance, and then to the chopper. My first surgery was over seven hours long. When I woke up, I yelled: “Did they find the bear?”

That’s all I wanted to know. Did they find the bear? —AS TOLD TO T.E.N.

—

E P I L O G U E

Johnson has had six operations to ad-dress his injured arms and hands, with more to come. Nine months after the attack, he had not yet been able to re-turn to his work as a general contrac-tor, but he’s already been back to the bear woods to work on his treestand sites. And he plans to hunt this sea-son. “You have to face your demons,” he says. Speaking of which: Yes, his friends found the bear. Bleeding pro-fusely, it moved off about 45 yards, then turned around and laid its head on crossed paws.

F I E L DA N D S T R E A M . C O M | 51

F & S

THE BEAR KNEW

THE KNIFE WAS

CAUSING HIM

TROUBLE. HE

GRABBED MY

RIGHT ARM IN

HIS MOUTH AND

CHOMPED DOWN

TWICE, BREAK-

ING MY ARM. £

52 | F | J U LY 2 0 1 5 P h o t o g r a p h b y J I M G O L D E N

DON’T LEAVE HOME WITHOUT…

Using these supplies, you can assemble a survival kit to

get you through pretty much anything

F I G H T T O S U R V I V E

T H E O V E R N I G H T E R

This kit is lightweight and won’t take up much pack space. It includes only the essentials.

Contents: Prescription medicine (2); water bottle (5); space blanket (7); safety whistle (9); signaling mirror (10); parachute cord (11); first-aid kit (13); Swiss Army knife (16); cellphone (18); waterproof matches (20); compass (24); LED flashlight with extra batteries (29); lighter (30); LifeStraw (37); beef jerky (41).

T H E W E E K E N D E R

While this arrangement builds on the gear in the Overnighter, it also includes items that can make a few days in the wild more comfortable.

Contents: Freeze-dried food (1); prescription medicine (2); two-way radio (3); water bottle (5); Spot locator (6); space blanket (7); safety whistle (9); parachute cord (11); first-aid kit (13); dental floss, for lashing (14); duct tape (15); cell-phone (18); waterproof matches (20); GPS (21); condom, for holding water or waterproofing electronics (22); compass (24); multitool (25); Jetboil cooking system (27); LED flashlight with extra batteries (29); lighter (30); hatchet (31); tampon, for starting fires or filtering water (32); survival knife (36); family photo (38); poncho (40); toilet paper (45).

T H E L O N G H A U L

When weight or pack space isn’t a concern, the supplies in this kit should have you covered for an extended period of time.

Contents: Freeze-dried food (1); prescrip-tion medicine (2); flares (4); water bottle (5); space blanket (7); tarp (8); parachute cord (11); trail mix (12); first-aid kit (13); duct tape (15); safety pins (17); cellphone (18); candy bars, for a morale boost (19); waterproof matches (20); GPS (21); emergency fishing kit (23); compass (24); Wyoming saw (26); sewing kit (28); LED flashlight with extra batteries (29); lighter (30); pack hammock (33); solar-charging mat (34); cam straps (35); survival knife (36); family photo (38); Aqua tablets (39); poncho (40); snakebite kit (42); satellite phone (43); wet wipes (44); toilet paper (45); flint (46); insect-bite ointment (47); snare wire (48); vinyl tape and a Sharpie, for leaving a breadcrumb trail (49). —B.R.

F & S

1

24

34

12

2 4

3

14

13

35

26

36

44

25

F I E L DA N D S T R E A M . C O M | 53

F & S

5

15

16

27 28

17

18

19

20 22

21

31

23

3332

42

41

40

30

29

48

47

49

43

6 7

8

9 11

10

45

46

39

37

38

54 | F | J U LY 2 0 1 5

I’m getting low on ammo. That’s enough for today. I was calm and contemplated every move I made. I stayed positive—even though as the day wore on I knew Maggie and I were going to spend an-other cold night in the woods.

DAY THREE: FRIDAY

I heard helicopters in the morning. I tried moving toward them, but the sound echoed everywhere—until it eventually faded. Still, just knowing they were searching for me was a huge boost. Maybe tomorrow, I hoped.

That night, I couldn’t stop thinking

about my family. This ordeal had to be harder on them than it was on me. I knew I was alive. I knew I could find a way out. But from their perspective, I had simply disappeared. I fought tears as I forced myself to rein in those thoughts. I couldn’t afford to imagine worst-case scenarios.

DAY FOUR: SATURDAY

The choppers were back. Their un-mistakable drumming gave me another boost. I climbed a ridge and saw one about 3 miles away. I torched a small, dead pine for a signal, but the chopper

I l l u s t r a t i o n b y M A X T E M E S C U

LOST

DAY ONE: WEDNESDAY

My son Kyle and I were hunt-ing the Yolla Bolly–Middle Eel Wilderness. Our plan was to split up in the morning, then meet at base camp for lunch. But things didn’t go that way.

I saw a nice buck and started stalking him, but every time I prepared for a shot, he moved. I played cat-and-mouse with that deer for hours. He took me through a canyon and over a ridge I’d never seen before. I remember think-ing, I’m in unfamiliar territory. When I finally broke off the deer, I couldn’t lo-cate the canyons and ridges I’d crossed earlier. To make matters worse, a storm had moved in and fog masked the land-scape. I had no map, no GPS, no cell-phone. I did have a lighter, a few pieces of jerky, binoculars, and my rifle and 17 cartridges. I considered shooting three shots to signal for help, but I didn’t want my son looking for me in the dark.

I built a small fire and dug a bed un-der some fallen trees. My deaf McNab shepherd, Maggie, who I bring on hunts, curled up next to me. We were both cold and wet, but we made the best of it. I figured it would just be for one night.

DAY TWO: THURSDAY

The next morning it was still raining and foggy. I climbed to a high point and fired three shots to signal for help. I waited a moment, and fired three more. Nobody responded. I continued hik-ing, believing I’d eventually find a road or something. On top of another high point, I fired three more shots. When I didn’t hear any signal back, I thought,

Last October, Dave Stornetta, 59, was hunting in California

when he found himself in unfamiliar wilderness.

He was missing for six nights

F I G H T T O S U R V I V E

THAT NIGHT, I

COULDN’T STOP

THINKING ABOUT

MY FAMILY. I

KNEW I WAS

ALIVE. BUT

FROM THEIR

PERSPECTIVE,

I HAD SIMPLY

DISAPPEARED.

disappeared. I moved in its general di-rection, but the next time I heard it, it was far away.

I rested for a long while. Surprisingly, I wasn’t hungry. I considered shooting an animal for meat but talked myself out of it. I couldn’t eat it all, and the smell would attract bears—of which there were plenty. But knowing I needed nutrition, I ate some white grubs I’d found. They weren’t bad.

That night, the wind ripped through the woods. I tried sleeping among some burned-out timber, but the gusts were snapping rotten trees all around me.

splinters on my face. It was terrifying.

DAY FIVE: SUNDAY

ing was the only thing that kept me

warm. The only shelter was on the side of a mountain, under a small rock out-cropping. That night I dreamed that I phoned my son and said, “Tell those choppers to look toward the north!”

DAY SIX: MONDAY

I stood in this one spot waiting for the choppers, believing last night’s dream was real. Nearly an hour passed before I came to my senses.

It took all my energy to climb 10 steps

HELP IS HERE Stornetta, center, stands

with the rescue crew before they leave.

F I E L DA N D S T R E A M . C O M | 55

AI

R S

HA

ST

A R

OT

OR

& W

IN

G I

NC

.

I SHOUTED AND

WAVED MY

ARMS. I WAS

SURE THE CHOP-

PER HADN’T

SEEN ME, BUT IT

TIPPED ON ITS

SIDE, SPUN ON A

DIME, AND CAME

BACK FOR US.

56 | F | J U LY 2 0 1 5

worse than I thought. I reached up to my head and felt my ear hanging by a thread. I put my fingers in the wound—the side of my cheek just below my right ear—and it was deeper than I imag-ined. Blood spilled out of my ripped wet suit and ran all over the boat. I was wearing a thick one because I’d thought we might hit some cold water. Looking back, that suit probably saved me from a worse bite.

They called 911 and we headed in. I was sitting on the side rail and hold-ing on to the console. We were running hard, but it still took 45 minutes with that chop. Every time we hit another wave, more blood came gushing out. It was like we were chumming on the way back. My friend kept asking how I was doing. “O.K.,” I said. “But let’s get back as quickly as possible.”

There were all these rescue vehicles at the pier. The EMTs put me on a gur-ney and cut off the top of my wet suit. I was starting to get dizzy from blood loss. They put me on IVs, then got me on a helicopter to the St. Mary’s Hospi-tal trauma center in West Palm Beach.

I was wheeled into the operating room and met the anesthesiologist. I woke up 200 stitches later. They re-attached my ear, and closed up my cheek, the gashes down my neck, and some more on my shoulder and back. These wounds were all from one bite, so it was a big shark. The doc said I was lucky. There are all kinds of arteries and glands in that part of the body that somehow didn’t get hit.

I still have a healthy respect for the ocean, but I’m used to seeing sharks. This was just a bizarre accident in dirty water—more a case of mistaken identity than anything else. Normally a shark is not going to go after a human being. I’ve been spearfishing for more than 50 years, and I’m not going to stop after this. I still like to get in the water and get the adrenaline flowing. Spearfishing is like hunting in the fish’s element. It’s a charge. —AS TOLD TO B.H.

—

E P I L O G U E

Five weeks after the attack, Neumann said he was “doing good, healing up.” He visited his grandkids in California and was itching to get back in the water. “I need the exercise.” FS

I l l u s t r a t i o n b y D A V I D H O L L E N B A C H

ON GOOD FRIDAY this April, a friend, Julian Cruz, his girlfriend, and I headed out from Jupiter Inlet in his 20-foot Contender. We were out 21 ⁄2 or 3 miles on an artificial reef. I’d already shot a 51-pound cobia, but there were 3- or 4-foot swells, which made

the visibility underwater poor. After I got the fish, we moved to another reef.

You usually work it one guy up and one guy down. Julian went first, came up with a fish, and said, “There are co-bia down there.” So I dove down to 40 or 45 feet, and the next thing I know, something slams into my head and right shoulder. And I mean hard—like a hit-and-run. Knocked my mask off. I turned and saw him swimming away—a 500- or 600-pound bull shark, maybe 10 feet long. I probably dove right on top of him, and he was showing me who was boss in his kingdom down there. He bit through the wet suit, and part of me, then realized neither one was a fish and just went on his way. He was prob-ably a little confused himself.

I didn’t know exactly how bad it was, but I rushed back to the surface. Then I saw my friends’ faces and knew it was

F & S

BLOODY HELL

Neumann

needed

hundreds of

stitches on his

bite wounds.

before I needed rest, so Maggie and I made our last stand near an open creek bed. I spelled S.O.S. with some rocks, ignited a logjam for a signal fire, and hung my clothes in the trees to dry. I drank water from the creek, ate lizards I captured and roasted, and sat around camp naked in the warm sun for the day. I fired several shots from my rifle—partly as a call for help, partly for celebration. It was my 59th birthday.

DAY SEVEN: TUESDAY

Another helicopter. I hiked toward the sound, but after two hours, my tank hit empty. I fired my last round and lay down. When I woke up, I heard the chopper over a ridge to my south. Halfway up the slope, I heard the drumming just through the trees—and there it was, hover-ing over the canyon beneath me. The pilot must have seen the smoke from the logjam fire.

By the time I got back to the creek, the chopper was turning to leave. I shouted and waved my arms wildly. I was sure they hadn’t seen me. But then the chopper tipped on its side, spun on a dime, and came back for us. I crouched and hugged Maggie tight.

We were in the air only a few min-utes before we landed. I looked out, and there were at least 100 people on the landing site, including friends I hadn’t seen in years. As I stepped out of the helicopter, they sang happy birthday. —AS TOLD TO B.R.

—

E P I L O G U E

Stornetta later learned that because of his age and smoking habit, and with no evidence of his where-abouts, authorities treated the search as a body-recovery effort; not a search-and-rescue mission. Stor-netta’s wife, Kelly, hired two private pilots who found him on their first day in the air. He didn’t require any medical attention, though he did experience some sweaty, restless nights at home in the weeks after his ordeal. Stornetta plans to return to the wilderness next fall for his first archery hunt but says he’ll bring along a GPS this time.

F I G H T T O S U R V I V E

CO

UR

TE

SY

OF

RI

CK

NE

UM

AN

N

I FELT MY EAR

HANGING BY A

THREAD. THE

WOUND WAS

DEEPER THAN I

THOUGHT. BLOOD

SPILLED OUT OF

MY WET SUIT

AND RAN ALL

OVER THE BOAT.

BITTENIn April, Rick Neumann, 70, was spearfishing for cobia

with friends in Florida when a 10-foot

bull shark attacked

F I E L DA N D S T R E A M . C O M | 57

Discovering your Maine Thing begins here. and still go home with something.Out here, you could catch absolutely nothing

­�The heaviest smallmouth I’ve ever caught—a 7-pounder—sucked a tube off the bottom of Lake Erie in 42 feet of water. I will never forget that fish, nor the effort my guide expended to put me on the bite in an onslaught of 5-foot waves. But at the end

of the day, after getting soaked and pounded, I knew more than ever that my heart lies on the quiet summer streams where a handful of lures, a few hours of wet wading, and the ability to read water can produce bass just as memorable. ¶ You may never catch a 7-pounder by wading in old sneakers, but a 3-pounder is still a trophy in this setting. If

you’re looking to cool down with one of the most fun games of summer, these locations, baits, and approaches will help you mine big bronze from small streams.

C O O L O F F ,

F I S H O N !w h e n y o u ’ r e a f t e r s u m m e r

s m a l l m o u t h s , s o m e t i m e s a b e a t - u p p a i r o f s n e a k e r s

w i l l g e t y o u t o t h e m f a s t e r t h a n 2 5 0 h o r s e s

B y J o e C e r m e l e

MA

TT

SH

AW

60 | F | J U LY 2 0 1 5 I l l u s t r a t i o n s b y A N D R E M A L O K

1The Hard Turn

Strike Times: Early morning

and midday

­�Wherever a stream takes a hard

bend, it offers one of the surest

places to find smallmouths at the

top of the system’s weight class.

Water rushing around a turn digs a

deep, cool, well-aerated hole that

attracts the biggest summer bass.

They typically hold in the soft spot

just in from the fast outer current.

But don’t assume bass will always

be there during the hottest months.

Smallmouths tend to roam into the

shallows to feed and then retreat

to turn holes in between. So hit the

turns at first light before bass ven-

ture out, and come back in the heat

of the day to give them another shot.

—

2The Tailout

Strike Times: Early morning

and evening

­�Wide, shallow pools below a fast-

water turn or riffle aren’t exactly

the money at noon on a bluebird

day, but during low light, they can

cough up some of the most explo-

sive strikes of summer. Bass hold-

ing in tailouts are usually there for

one reason—mealtime. In the early

morning and late evening, bass slide

out of upstream holes and post in

feeding lanes, much like trout do.

From there, they’ll peel off to grab

a hatching insect, or take a shot at a

jittery bait school clustered against

the bank. Quite often, you’ll know

there are fish in a tailout because

they’ll give themselves away with

splashes, wakes, dimples, or full-on,

blitz-style attacks. Once in position,

always watch for a bit before casting.

3The Tree-Lined Flat

Strike Times: All day

­�You know that long, flat

stretch of “junk water” you walk by

on the way to juicier holes? Well,

don’t be so fast to rule it out. If it’s

knee-deep or better and features

some overhanging tree limbs, you

need to fish it. During the day, aim

your casts at the shadows under

sweeping branches. You’ll swear

there’s nothing hiding in that bit

of stagnant shade—until a chunky

bronzeback sucks up your bait. In

these spots, it only takes a single

T H E S W E E T S P O T S

S U M M E R S M A L L M O U T H S

GO-TO LURE

Strike King Bitsy Tube� $4 per pack

� strikeking.com

Q You may be tempted to tie

on a 4-inch tube, thinking big

bait, big fish. But in my experi-

ence, small tubes that match

the size of the average stream

mudbug work better. In the

morning, rig a 23⁄4- inch Bitsy

Tube on a jighead and gently

hop it through the seam

where fast and slow current

meet. At noon, plunk it into

the slowest part of the hole,

giving it an occasional twitch.

GO-TO LURE

Heddon Tiny Torpedo��$6

��lurenet.com

Q Tailout smallies are in at-

tack mode, so forget subtlety

and give them something

loud that can’t slip by unno-

ticed. The body of the Tiny

Torpedo has a baitfish silhou-

ette, but it’s the little prop

zipping across the current

that prompts the slam. Cast

upstream to the far bank, and

then pick up the pace of the

retrieve as the lure moves

into the fastest current.

1 . The Hard Turn

2 . The Tailout

F I E L DA N D S T R E A M . C O M | 61

rock or shovel-size depression to

house a big loner. Scope this stretch

out again at low light, when fish that

were hidden earlier move into the

open to feed more aggressively.

—

4The Broken-Water Run

Strike Times: All day

­�Anything that breaks the

current and creates an eddy be-

hind—boulders, downed trees,

tires—is apt to hold fish. You know

that. But what you may not know is

that a smallmouth’s location within

such an eddy can change through-

out the day. Early in the morning, I

draw the most strikes by working my

lure slowly and tight to the bottom

in the softest water right up against

whatever obstruction is breaking

the current. As the sun climbs, I’ll get

bit at mid-depth, along the edges

where the fast and slow currents

meet. In the evening, the fish drop

back to the eddy’s tail, where they’ll

crash a lure on or just below the sur-

face. Don’t get in the habit of as-

suming a strike will come on the first

pass; pick every eddy apart. FS

If your best smallie river is a little too big to fish on foot, or if you’re

just looking to cover more water, the Flycraft Stealth ($2,995;

flycraftusa.com) might be your solution. This rig combines elements

of a canoe, raft, and drift boat to create what I believe is the ulti-

mate small-stream attack vessel. It’s rugged and stable, yet you can

break it down quickly and stash it in the trunk of a Mini Cooper. No

ramp? No problem. If you’ve got a machete and two guys capable of

lifting 98 pounds, you can drop in anywhere. —J.C.

S M A L L C R A F T

GO-TO LURE

Z-Man Finesse TRD��$4 per pack

��zmanfishing.com

Q Measuring 23⁄4 inches, this

short soft-plastic stickbait

shines in slow stretches

where a quiet presentation

can mean everything. A TRD

wacky-rigged on light line hits

the surface with little fanfare,

and its small size makes it a

morsel as opposed to an in-

truder in a wary bass’s hidey

hole. These baits also skip

very well for getting way back

under the lowest branches.

GO-TO LURE

Yo-Zuri Pins Minnow��$9.50

��yo-zuri.com

Q�In broken water, where

depth and current speed

vary, I lean on a hard bait that

can run shallow or deep. The

23⁄4-inch Pins has long been a

favorite because it reaches

depth quickly and requires

only a subtle twitch to start

dancing. This is important

when you’re targeting short

pockets, because you can

otherwise work the lure out

of the zone too fast.3 . The Tree-Lined Flat

4 . The Broken-Water Run

62 | F | J U LY 2 0 1 5

F I E L DA N D S T R E A M . C O M | 63

Mouse flies may

not trigger the

most strikes, but

you’ll remember

every single one.

I F Y O U T H I N K A L L T R O U T A R E M E E K A N D T I M I D , Y O U H A V E N ’ T B E E N

T H R O W I N G E N O U G H M O U S E F L I E S . H E R E ’ S H O W S O M E O F T H E B E S T

R O D E N T S T R I P P E R S A C R O S S T H E U . S . D R A W E X P L O S I O N S , N O T S I P S

B Y J O E C E R M E L E A N D K I R K D E E T E R

F L Y T A C T I C S

PR

EV

IO

US

SP

RE

AD

: T

IM

RO

MA

NO

;

TH

IS

PA

GE

, F

RO

M T

OP

: T

IM

RO

MA

NO

; B

AR

RY

& C

AT

HY

BE

CK

F L Y T A C T I C S

64 | F | J U LY 2 0 1 5

atching or hearing a trout hammer a mouse pattern on the surface is not only one of the most explosive thrills in flyfishing, but it will also change your perception of sal mo nids. Gentle sips? Soft takes? Not here. When browns and rainbows reach a certain size, they cannot survive by eating tiny insects exclusively. Trophy trout require gobs of protein to maintain weight, so they turn to baitfish and scads of unfortunate mice that fall into the flow. Any river in the country that holds trout is worth mousing. In the East, this game

largely revolves around fishing in the dark when elusive giants get on the feed. In the West, however, guides have learned that there is a time and place for mice while the sun is still shining. I live in Colorado, and that’s my camp. Joe Cermele, on the other hand, is a Northeast native, who is tuned into the dark side. We’ve talked to some of the best mousers in the country. Pick your poison—or mix their tactics to make your own mousy cocktail—and call up a bruiser on your home waters this summer. —K.D.

WEST: CRUSHED WITH BOREDOM

Mousing brown

trout is a dead-

of-night game in

much of the country, but

Schmidt (western rivers

flyfishing.com) attacks the

world-famous Green River

with rodents in the middle

of the day, and with great

success.

“I like to fish mouse

patterns when I’m bored

and nothing else is really

happening,” Schmidt

says. “I’d rather watch a

trout track the mouse,

even if it doesn’t end up

eating it, than watch a strike

indicator.”

The Green is a perfect

environment to fish mice,

with numerous rocky

ledges and outcroppings

that jut into the river. Mice

frequent these ledges, and

often fall in, so the trout

have grown accustomed to

seeing and eating them.

Schmidt leans on a

technique developed in

Argentina that prompts

big browns out of deeper

pools in the daylight. The

angler casts downstream

and toward the bank into a

run or pool, then makes a

slight downstream mend

with the fly line to create

intentional drag, which

pulls the mouse across the

surface at a rate that mim-

ics a real swimming mouse.

Sometimes, gently lift-

ing the rod tip as the swing

concludes will give the fly

a little extra tantalizing

action. But be careful not

to overdo it. If you’re seeing

trackers but not eaters,

try dead-drifting a mouse

pattern about 2 or 3 feet off

the bank as the boat slides

downstream. —K.D.

T H E G U I D E

Steve Schmidt

H O M E W A T E R

Green River, Utah

C H O I C E M O U S E

The Mouseketeer

MEAT HEAD

With the right presentation, large

Western browns can be coaxed up

on a mouse in broad daylight.

CL

IFF

GA

RD

INE

R &

JO

HN

KE

LL

ER

(F

LIE

S)

; B

RIA

N O

’KE

EF

E (

TR

OU

T)

; B

AR

RY

& C

AT

HY

BE

CK

(A

NG

LE

RS

);

RO

BO

T M

OU

SE

CR

EA

TE

D B

Y M

AT

T D

UN

N,

TIE

D B

Y S

TE

VE

MA

RT

INE

Z

F I E L DA N D S T R E A M . C O M | 65

The Pere

Marquette is

known for hold-

ing some of the country’s

biggest brown trout—and

some of the wariest. For

Morlock (indigo guide

service.com), it’s not a

matter of knowing that

these fish love to chomp

mammals; it’s a matter of

knowing when.

“If you had a whole lot

of time to spend, no doubt

you could raise some fish

during daylight. But for

the most part, our browns

want everything darker

than dark,” he says. “You’ll

always start waking big

stuff across the surface

at twilight, but nothing

seems to go bump in the

night until you need a

flashlight to retie.”

Morlock abides by a

20-cast rule for mousing.

If nothing comes up in

that many swings, it’s time

to move on to the next

hole. He has hooked big

fish in every kind of water

but has the most success

pulling heavy fish from the

nastiest, gnarliest logjams

he can find. That’s because

the more impenetrable

the cover, the more it’s

likely to house the kind of

brown that will only move

around well after dark.

To make sure this fish

gets hooked when it does

decide to crush a mouse,

Morlock opts for a pattern

with a stinger hook in the

tail to thwart short strikes,

which are a common oc-

currence on mouse flies.

“The most important

thing is to wait to feel the

weight of the fish before

setting,” says Morlock.

“It’s all about feel, but

people swing as soon as

they hear the hit.” —J.C.

NIGHT SHIFT

Anglers string up heavy rods for a

long session of dark ops.

T H E G U I D E

Kevin Morlock

H O M E W A T E R

Pere Marquette

River, Michigan

C H O I C E M O U S E

Dunn’s Robot

Mouse

WEST: CHOP AND SLASHAlaska’s native

leopard rain-

bows are among

the most opportunistic

mouse-eaters in the world.

That’s particularly true in

the early season, after the

salmon smolt run out of

the rivers, and before the

adults return to spawn and

die, leaving the river loaded

with eggs and flesh.

The most prolific mouse

day I’ve ever experienced

happened on a fast-moving

tributary of Alaska’s Brooks

River in Katmai National

Park with Palmerton. In

one afternoon, we landed

18 rainbow trout (the

smallest measuring 18

inches, and the largest 26),

all on mouse patterns, and

all from the same type of

water: washboard riffles,

about 3 feet deep.

“The key is focusing on

the riffles,” explains Palm-

erton. “Rainbows thrive in

riffle currents, and when

the water is moving a few

feet per second, they’re

making decisions about

what to eat very rapidly.

When you plop that mouse

in the waves, they often

can’t control themselves.”

This is typically best

accomplished with a

downstream presentation,

banging a cast against the

opposite bank. It’s O.K.,

in fact, if the fly hits the

far bank, or even falls off

of it, as a natural mouse

would. The cast should be

at about a 45-degree angle

downstream.

Once the fly hits the

water, gather all slack from

the fly line and lower the

rod tip toward the surface.

The fly will twitch and track

through the chop. You’ll

see the silver flashes as the

rainbows first lock in, then

slash at the mouse. When

a fish eventually eats it,

there is no mystery, just an

explosion.

“The No. 1 mistake

people make in that

situa tion is to lift the rod

tip when they see the fish.

They end up yanking the

fly away,” says Palmerton.

“This is all about patience,

and letting the fish do the

work. Sometimes, particu-

larly in fast riffle water, the

trout will give you a second

or third shot.” —K.D.

T H E G U I D E

Tyler Palmerton

H O M E W A T E R

Brooks River,

Alaska

C H O I C E M O U S E

Mercer’s

Lemming

SLIP A MICKEY

Fast water is ideal for mousing rain-

bows, because the current speed

forces them to commit quickly.

EAST: BLACKING OUT

TIM

RO

MA

NO

(F

LY

); J

OE

CE

RM

EL

E (

TR

OU

T)

66 | F | J U LY 2 0 1 5

F L Y T A C T I C S

hinking about mousing but reluctant to pull the trigger? Head over to fieldandstream.com/upperdmice to watch the mousing episode of Hook Shots filmed on the Upper Dela ware River. It’ll give you a sense of what a real rodent quest is all about. We teamed up with local fly pro Joe Demalderis to look for trophies and floated two full nights, from sundown to sunup, and one full day. The results may surprise you and take some of the intimidation out of a night hunt. —J.C.

M O U S E C A PA D E S

A veteran guide

on one of the

most revered

trout rivers in the East,

Demalderis (cross current

guide service.com) under-

stands that the bulk of his

clients are looking for big

trout on dry flies during

one of the Delaware’s

prolific hatches. But he

also knows that there are

times when you should

skip matching the hatch

and roll out the rodents.

“You’re never going to

come to the Delaware and

expect to catch fish throw-

ing mice all day,” Demal-

deris says. “But I always

have some for late in the

day. Guys sit around and

wait for those late spinner

falls, but sometimes they

just don’t happen. That

doesn’t mean the fish

aren’t waiting, too, and

looking to feed. You tie a

mouse on, you can make

something happen.”

Instead of a bulky spun-

hair mouse that a fish may

not get its mouth around,

Demalderis opts for a

smaller foam pattern with

a slender profile that cre-

ates just the right amount

of wake and makes an easy

one-gulp target.

“A mouse is weak in

the water. It doesn’t have

the strength to fight the

current,” he says. “A fast

strip makes the fly look

unnatural. Just cast down

and across and pull very

slowly as the fly quarters

the current. You’ll know

when you get hit.”

Having spent many

full nights floating the

Delaware, Demalderis also

recommends getting your

beauty sleep. All-nighters

rarely pay off, he says;

just extend your day into

the first few hours of

darkness. That’s when the

fish are likely to be most

aggressive. —J.C. FS

GET ROCKED

Cermele throws up

metal fingers for this

moused Delaware

River brown.

E A S T: F O R C E F E E D I N G

T H E G U I D E

Joe Demalderis

H O M E W A T E R

Delaware River,

New York &

Pennsylvania

C H O I C E M O U S E

Master Splinter

BLEND IN

BETTER.

MOSSY OAK ®

FASTFIT ®MOSSY OAK ®

ORIGINAL®

®

m e c h a n i x

PR

IS

CI

LL

A J

EO

NG

(P

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)

Twin Winners

The Xpedition

Xcentric (left)

and Prime Ion

tied for our

test’s top spot.

BUYER’S GUIDE

READER TEST

2015 FLAGSHIP SHOOTOUTUp-and- comers battle the old guard in our closest compound-bow test to date By Scott Bestul

GEAR

REVIEWS

YOU CAN

TRUST

F I E L DA N D S T R E A M . C O M | 69P h o t o g r a p h b y DAV I D B R A N D O N G E E T I N G

CL

IF

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JO

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(5

)

A BATTLE OF GREAT BOWS�

B U Y E R ’ S G U I D E

+�

SCOTT BESTUL,

F&S FIELD EDITOR

—

+�

WILL BRANTLEY,

F&S HUNTING EDITOR

—

+�

DANNY HINTON,

OWNER OF HINTON

ARCHERY

—

+

DAVE HURTEAU,

F&S DEPUTY EDITOR

T E S T P A N E L

After only a few hours of shooting, we knew that this would be a brawl. In April, the F&S bow-test team

gathered as usual in Murray, Ky., for a three-day shoot-

flagship models, including all the best-known brands and a growing number of upstarts. It was the tightest battle in the test’s history and resulted in the first-ever tie for best

T H E T E S T

We fitted each bow with a Trophy Ridge Whisker Biscuit rest and React sight.

Next, we set the draw weight at exactly 60 pounds and the length at 28 inches.

At Hinton Archery, we measured noise with a decibel meter and speed by

shooting a 356-grain arrow through a chronograph, taking the average of three

shots in both cases. Finally, we hit the range for two days of shooting to evalu-

ate draw cycle; shock and vibration; balance and handling; fit and finish; and

accuracy and forgiveness. We scored each category from 1 to 10 and doubled

the key ones—speed, draw cycle, and accuracy and forgiveness—for a total

possible score of 100 points. —S.B.

PRIME ION $999; G5PRIME.COM

SPECS 31" axle-to-axle • 71⁄4" brace height • 3.9 lb. • 80% let-off • 279 fps

TOTAL SCORE 89.125

We’ve been saying that Prime was on the cusp of greatness, and now the

company has arrived. The Ion’s Ghost grip is a huge improvement over

prior chunky ones, and Prime redesigned its 700 aluminum riser and PCXL

cam for a better blend of speed and forgiveness.

HITS One of the quietest bows in the test, the Ion has a back wall that can

stop a bus, and a draw cycle we all enjoyed. We shot it very well, too.

MISSES The Ion finished in the middle of the pack for speed, and those

clunky-looking quad cams hurt the fit-and-finish scores a little.

THE SKINNY Bows that are a joy to shoot usually get killed in the speed

test. Not the Ion. This handy, forgiving bow simply did nothing wrong.

70 | F | J U LY 2 0 1 5

+ + + + + + + +

+ + + + + + + +

+ + + + + + + +SPECS 32" axle-to-axle

• 7" brace height •

4.2 lb. • 80% let-off •

275.1 fps

TOTAL SCORE 88.25

Bowtech’s new Power-

Shift Technology lets

you switch between

Comfort (think

smooth), Performance

(fast), and Classic

(in-between) settings

via a small shifter. We

tested the Prodigy in

Comfort mode, per

Bowtech’s wishes.

HITS It got high marks

in every category but

speed. PowerShift was

the most innovative

feature in the test.

MISSES In the Com-

fort setting, it ranked

toward the bottom of

the pack for speed. I

didn’t love the balance

and still long for the

pre-RPM grip.

THE SKINNY There’s

a lot of buzz about

whether PowerShift

is gimmicky. What

shouldn’t get lost in

the debate is the fact

that Bowtech has built

another killer bow.

SPECS 35" axle-to-axle

• 6 1⁄2" brace height •

4.2 lb. • 80% let-off •

287.9 fps

TOTAL SCORE 86

PSE bows are always

fast and forgiving (see

“Trends,” p. 72). The

Decree HD, with its

long axle-to-axle length

and new HD Cam,

was made to combine

those attributes with a

gentler draw cycle.

HITS It’s plenty fast,

and we all shot it lights-

out. Notably, this is the

best draw cycle of any

PSE we’ve ever tested.

MISSES Last place in

shock and vibration

cost this bow a shot at

the win. The fit and fin-

ish is just O.K.

THE SKINNY Some

guys hate even a little

hand shock or vibra-

tion. For others, like

me, it’s no big deal. If

you fall in the latter

camp and had seen the

gnats-ass groups we

shot with it—especially

Brantley—you’d run

out and buy a Decree

HD right now.

SPECS 34" axle-to-axle

• 61⁄2" brace height •

4 lb. • 80% let-off •

270.9 fps

TOTAL SCORE 85.5

The Bionix two-track

cam system delivers a

silky draw, a hard stop,

and a generous valley.

The fluted riser and

lightweight titanium

limb bolts make for a

handy bow.

HITS The Blade is

hands down the

smoothest-drawing

bow of the test; we

had to double-check

to make sure we were

pulling 60 pounds. It’s

very quiet, too, with

great balance and

handling.

MISSES It died at the

chronograph, finishing

third from last.

THE SKINNY If, like

many hunters, you

don’t give a rip about

speed and want a quiet,

pleasant-shooting kill-

ing tool, look no further.

We all liked last year’s

New Breed but couldn’t

even remember it after

shooting the Blade.

BOWTECH PRODIGY

$1,099;

BOWTECHARCHERY.COM

PSE DECREE HD

$950;

PSE-ARCHERY.COM

NEW BREED BLADE

$979;

NEWBREEDARCHERY.COM

3

SPECS 321⁄4" axle-to-axle • 6"

brace height • 3.9 lb. • 80% let-off

• 300.4 fps

TOTAL SCORE 89.125

It’s like the Rookie of the Year also

winning the MVP award—or at

least tying for it. The Xcentric really

impressed us, especially since it’s

from a company just over a year

old. The XS Hybrid Cam delivers

serious speed, and the ATR cable

guard helps smooth what might

otherwise be a tough draw cycle.

HITS The test’s second-fastest

bow was also one of the quietest

and most forgiving. The draw cycle

lacks the harsh rollover common to

speed bows.

MISSES Though smooth, the draw

is demanding and stacks late, which

some shooters don’t care for.

THE SKINNY If you’ve got to have

that extra bit of speed, this is your

winner. Two testers picked it as

their overall favorite.

XPEDITION XCENTRIC

$950; XPEDITIONARCHERY.COM

F I E L DA N D S T R E A M . C O M | 71

SPECS 321⁄4" axle-to-

axle • 6" brace height

• 4.1 lb. • 80% let-off •

290.3 fps

TOTAL SCORE 85.25

This young company

wowed us last year

when its Evolution came

in third. The Fusion 6 is

largely the same bow

with new PerFx draw-

length-specific cams

that yield a little more

speed.

HITS Fourth in our

speed test, the Fusion

sported an impressively

pleasant draw cycle—including a quite generous

valley—for such a speedy bow.

MISSES Our test Fusion had a lot of vibration, and

everyone hated the clown-colored camo (though

there are other options).

THE SKINNY As with the PSE, if vibration isn’t a big

deal to you, the Fusion does a great job of combining

speed with a nice draw cycle.

SPECS 33" axle-to-axle •

75% let-off • 302.8 fps

TOTAL SCORE 82.5

A new Offset Riser is

designed to add stiffness

unique ZT Cable Guard

puts the roller nearer the

riser to reduce torque.

The Turbo’s cam-and-a-

half system is the fastest

Hoyt has ever built.

HITS It finished first in

speed and is fairly quiet,

too. This is also one very

cool-looking bow.

MISSES Harsh rollover toward the end of the draw

really hurt the Turbo’s score. Speed usually comes

at a price; in this case, it was a last-place finish in the

draw-cycle category.

THE SKINNY A fairly large contingent of speed

freaks can pull back any bow handed to them—

without the slightest effort. If you’re among them,

you’ll love the Nitrum Turbo.

SPECS 34 1⁄2" axle-to-

axle • 61⁄2" brace height

• 4 lb. • 75% let-off •

287 fps

TOTAL SCORE 80.25

With a redesigned H15

cam, offset and adjust-

able string suppressors,

and rubber riser inserts

to control vibration and

noise, the Arena has lots

of new features.

HITS We all liked the

draw cycle, the speed

was pretty impressive,

and the Arena posted

solid scores in noise and

vibration.

MISSES Another bow that would have placed high

in a weaker field, the Arena lost its edge in fit and fin-

ish and in forgiveness.

THE SKINNY To give you an idea of how tough the

competition was this year, we all thought the Arena

was a top-five bow after the first day. Only small de-

tails—and slightly larger groups—knocked it back.

72 | F | J U LY 2 0 1 5

DA

VI

D B

RA

ND

ON

GE

ET

IN

G (

DE

TA

IL

S)

; C

LI

FF

GA

RD

IN

ER

& J

OH

N K

EL

LE

R (

3)

OBSESSION FUSION 6

$999;

OBSESSIONBOWS.COM

HOYT NITRUM TURBO

$999;

HOYT.COM

BEAR ARENA 34

$900;

BEARARCHERY.COM

6 7 8

A B

C

Long Shot

The Ringer

New Kid

A/Fast Forgiveness��PSE’s flagship bow has finished first in our

accuracy-and-forgiveness category three years

running. PSE being PSE, these have all been

speed bows, not one with an IBO under 340.

Besides being impressive on its face, this result

defies the belief that fast bows are less forgiving.

Our four shooters—each with his own shooting

style and individual form errors—have all shot

the PSE lights-out, year after year.

B/End of the Short-Bow Era��From 2009 to 2014, the average axle-to-axle

length of our test bows was 31.75 inches; this

year it’s 33.25. The average number of bows over

32 inches in previous tests was two; this year

we had eight. There’s nothing necessarily wrong

with a short bow—one of this year’s winners

proves it. But lots of hunters (not just 3D guys)

want longer, and now we’ve got it.

C/The New Face of Bowhunting��A few familiar brands have long dominated this

test. Rarely did we see a newer bow company

break the top five. Suddenly, they practically own

it. From 2009 to 2013, the number of top-five

upstarts was one. In the last two years, there

have been six. Blind loyalty to a familiar brand—

so common with bowhunters—is now outdated.

TRENDS�

©2014 REMINGTON ARMS COMPANY, LLC.

Made in the USA by American workers

74 | F | J U LY 2 0 1 5

R E A D E R T E S T

HEAD-TO-HEAD LAMPSOur team of experienced outdoorsmen tests four hands-free lights for brightness, utility, durability, and overall performance By Slaton L. White

P h o t o g r a p h s b y C L I F F G A R D I N E R & J O H N K E L L E R

How are you going to hang a treestand or bait a hook, grass a layout blind or tie on a fly, in the

dark with a flashlight in one hand? You’re not. Every outdoorsman needs a good headlamp—one that burns

bright, stays put when you’re active, and can handle hard use. To that end, four F&S readers tested the mod-els below for an entire year to find out which lamps out-shone the rest.

MATT BLY, 35

Test Area: Minnesota

Days in the Outdoors per Year: 90

PETER DELOE, 47

Test Area: New York

Days in the Outdoors per Year: 30

DANIEL KENNEDY, 35

Test Area: Utah & Wyoming

Days in the Outdoors per Year: 45

BRAD SAWYER, 41

Test Area: Idaho & Nevada

Days in the Outdoors per Year: 50

T E S T P A N E L

RATINGS +�DIM BULB +�+�FLICKERING FLAME +�+�+�MOONLIGHT +�+�+�+�HIGH BEAMS +�+�+�+�+�SUPERNOVA

BLACK DIAMOND REVOLT

$60; BLACKDIAMONDEQUIPMENT.COM

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

THE LOWDOWN Testers vaulted

the ReVolt into first place because, as

DeLoe put it: “This baby is world-class

equipment!” Everyone loved its

unique ability to run on batteries that

can be recharged via USB cable, or

three AAAs. “The lamp is extremely

bright,” said Sawyer. “It has eight dif-

ferent settings, including a strobe and

a red light. The adjustable lens allows

for better light coverage.” Both he

and DeLoe pointed out that the extra

time needed with the instructions to

learn the different modes is worth it.

Kennedy also liked these options but

said the “one-button control” could

be confusing.

HITS “Big on features and on value.”

—Sawyer

MISSES “The strap loosens too

easily.” —Kennedy

THE LOWDOWN “Solid performer”

is how the panel summed up the XP2.

“This one can take a beating,” Sawyer

said. “Though not extremely bright,

it’s easy to use.” DeLoe and Kennedy

described the output as “plenty

bright.” DeLoe deemed it “better

than most handheld flashlights,”

praising the battery life, too.

Editor’s Note: This lamp has been

upgraded. The newest version, called

the XP ($55), puts out a maximum

of 160 lumens compared with just

80 and features Constant Lighting

technology, which is designed to keep

the brightness from decreasing as

the batteries lose power.

HITS “Easy to turn on and off.”

—Sawyer

MISSES “Could use a wider head-

band.” —DeLoe

PETZL TIKKA XP2

$55; PETZL.COM

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

PRINCETON TEC VIZZ

$50; PRINCETONTEC.COM

★ ★ ★ ★

THE LOWDOWN Although testers

felt there was much to like about

the Vizz, there were some concerns.

“Hands down, the lamp’s greatest

attribute is that it is completely

waterproof. I also like that it can be

adjusted up and down to provide

good coverage,” Sawyer said. “But

battery life is extremely short.”

Kennedy’s main issue was with

the lamp’s five-position tilt assembly:

“The lamp wouldn’t stay put in the

upper positions when I moved.” If

he needed to run or scramble in the

dark, he said, he would not have been

able to see the trail without physically

holding the light in position.

HITS “Battery compartment is easy

to access.” —Sawyer

MISSES “On-off button is difficult to

use.” —Kennedy

THE LOWDOWN This model

doesn’t have a lot of bells and

whistles, but every tester appreciated

the low price. “The lamp was easy

to turn on and off, and the batteries

were a snap to install and remove,”

said Sawyer, although he questioned

the long-term durability of the tilt-

adjustment hinge and battery clasp.

Kennedy said, “For a simple light,

it works. Not the brightest, but bright

enough.” Like Sawyer, DeLoe was

concerned about durability. “Though

the battery door opens easily, I don’t

think it will stand up to hard use.”

He also noted that the tilt setting

wouldn’t stay put and required con-

stant readjustment to keep the light

pointing straight ahead.

HITS “Lower price point.” —Sawyer

MISSES “Poor battery life.” —Bly

ENERGIZER 4LED HEADLIGHT

$30; ENERGIZER.COM

★ ★ ★ ★

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How Does Harbor Freight Sell GREAT QUALITY Tools

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19"

40"

$499

SAVE $140

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90 AMP FLUX WIRE WELDER

REG. PRICE $149.99

$9999

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WE CARRY A FULL LINE OF WELDING WIRE

LOT 6184968887 shown

LOT 61259 /90764 shown

32 PIECE SCREWDRIVER SET

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$25999 REG. PRICE $399 .99

1195 LB. CAPACITY4 FT. x 8 FT.

HEAVY DUTY FOLDABLE UTILITY TRAILER

LOT 62648 62170/62666

90154 shown

• DOT certifi ed

4-1/4" grinding wheel included.

$2799

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LOT 61613 68221 shown

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LOT 6926269094/61916

2745 shown

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61585/62387

6" DIGITAL CALIPER

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LOT 68049/6232662670/61282 /6068861253 shown

20"

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RAPID PUMP® 3 TON LOW PROFILE HEAVY DUTY STEEL FLOOR JACK

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LOT 61485 67421 shown

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61454/61693

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LOT 6173390714 shown

49

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LOT 68528/69729/69676 shown

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95578/69645

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61840 /6129768146

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61776 /6196961970/98194

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LOT 68121/69727 shown

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67455 shown

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LOT 94141 shown

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LOT 68332/6162462463/61229 shown

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PACK OF 50 LOT 46163 shown

61837/6187869649

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LOT 92655 shown

69688/60771

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$3999 REG. PRICE $69 .99

LOT 6277494555 shown

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LOT 6928661960/61777 shown

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GENERAL

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HUNTING

86 | F | J U LY 2 0 1 5 I l l u s t r a t i o n b y JAC K U N R U H

OMEBODY AT the Camp Fire Club of America invited my friend Steve Burnett to its 2015 Spring Encampment, an annual outdoor-skills competi-

tion at the club’s 233-acre preserve, and he invited me. Steve had been a member of the club but dropped out some years back. I figure he jumped before he was pushed. This is be-cause the club, founded in 1897, was supposed to be a place where “neither wealth, power, nor social standing counted; only proven manhood in the outdoors.” If that’s the stan-dard, Steve, who is six kinds of strange and one of my best friends, is not your man. David E. Petzal told me that Steve once stabbed himself in the leg on a caribou hunt just to get attention. That may not be accurate. Then again, neither is Steve. On a hunt on Anticosti Island in Quebec, I saw him

HOW TO BE A WINNER

I’ve found the upside to incompetence By Bill Heavey

S

miss a deer broadside at 30 yards with a .270. Our French-speaking guide turned his gaze heavenward and asked God to transform his client into a “fongus.” There are times when I think God was listening.

Anyway, I quickly realized that Steve was concerned about his lack of woods skills and had asked me along as his wingman in failure. I was happy to oblige. He and I would be part of a five-man team competing in shooting firearms (.22 rifle, hunting rifle, pistol, shotgun), as well as making a bow and cordage to string it, building a fire, telling a story, and concocting dinner from whatever foodstuffs the judges doled out.

Even with me as company, Steve was anxious. An intervention by someone skilled in the art of failure was in order. “You dumbass,” I said kindly, “have you learned nothing from our outings? Skills are won-derful things to have, but they aren’t the point. Having fun is the point. Stop playing with your zipper. Instead of trying to be first, we should shoot for last.”

Steve brightened at this. “That’s twisted. I’m in. Last place or bust.” We shook on it. When the teams were announced and Steve was named captain of ours, we informed the other three guys of our goal. We weren’t going to intentionally screw up. We just weren’t going to get all wound up if we didn’t do well. One guy, Linc, seemed to be on board. Jeff and John were less keen. But once they saw Steve hacking away with his ax on our bow and me attempting to make cordage (which wouldn’t have harnessed a pair of gerbils), they started leaning our way.

Highlights from the competition:• Our bow snapped a limb when we tried to string it. Jeff, who is

not on intimate terms with failure, found this unacceptable. Using the better part of a roll of duct tape, he reinforced it until the bow was ca-pable of propelling a bamboo arrow 10 yards if you aimed 15 feet above your target.

• One of the events was shooting a .22 rifle with open sights at a steel plate 75 yards away. Doing my level best, I missed it 10 times in a row. This was humbling. I might have done better with my eyes shut. As I walked back to the group, Steve showed why he should never be put in charge of anything. “There he goes, gentlemen,” he crowed. “The poster boy for the PETA hunting team!” I smiled and—just as I passed my good friend—gave him a sharp knuckle-rap in a sensitive area. He yelped, doubled over, and became very quiet. The elder running the event smiled for the first time in the competition. “Well, you went oh-for-10 in the shooting, but I’d say you nailed the bonus round.”

• Just minutes later, Steve had his own moment of glory, going oh-for-24 in the Grouse Walk, a shotgun event in which you walk among obstacles, never knowing when two clays would zing out of the trap house. Each of us went through it a dozen times. I surprised myself by hitting one of each pair, at least when I remembered to disengage the safety. Steve got tenser and more frustrated with each miss. He cared too much about hitting that bird and it undid him.

• Steve did well in the cooking and storytelling parts. He didn’t ac-tually cook anything, but he carved a pigeon out of a potato and some kind of a caribou or something out of a carrot. “Garnishes,” he said. “Presentation is key.” During the storytelling around the fire, he put on a grass skirt and beer-cup boobs to play an Indian maiden. He stayed in costume for a good part of the night. Cross-dressing seemed to be therapeutic for him.

After it was all over on Sunday, the results were announced. To our shock, we came in half a point ahead of the lowest-scoring team. Steve looked like a kid who’d just had his Popsicle fall in the dirt. “We set our sights on failing and somehow even screwed that up,” he said.

I shook my head. “You still don’t understand the Zen of failure, do you? We have succeeded beyond all imagining. We set a goal of com-ing in last and failed. We failed to fail. Tell me, Grasshopper, what more complete failure can a man attain?”

I could almost hear the rusty gears of his brain processing this. “Whoa,” he said, his eyes widening. “That is some seriously twisted $#*+. But you’re right. We failed to fail!” He looked like a new man. FS

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