A reader recently sent in this question: How many subspecies of whitetail deer are there in the United States? I’ve heard everything from a dozen to more than 80.
Like it or not, Hollywood has a big impact on how hunting, fishing and shooting are perceived. Sometimes it's even helpful…
A few months ago I was poking around an archery range in Queens when a junior high school kid started bombing me with beginner question about bows. Finally, I got curious and asked him, in more eloquent words, why he was there and how he got interested in archery.
Turns out, he had seen a few episodes of the History Chanel's reality shooting show, Top Shot, and wanted to give archery a try.
Now archery is getting an even bigger bump thanks to box office juggernaut The Hunger Games.
From 600 yards away, I could see the spotted feral pigs moving purposefully and predictably toward a creek bottom choked with thick kochia. For most animals, this 5-acre flat of clothes-grabbing brier is a dead zone too thick to negotiate, and the invasive rangeland weed provides scant nutritive value. For the countless feral pigs on this northwest Texas ranch, the kochia flat is home, sweet home.
Inside the weed patch is a labyrinth of tunnels and nests that the pigs use for bedding and brooding young. Once they’re in, there’s not much chance of getting them out—unless you think like they do.
Nascar's reigning Sprint Cup champion enjoys slowing down from time to time to hunt on his Indiana farm.
Question: How’d you get interested in the outdoors?
Answer: When I raced in the Indy Racing League [mid-1990s], my roommate was one of the crew members of the team, and he was a fisherman. We’d take our tackle and our gear on the road, and whenever we’d pass a pond or a lake, we’d try to get out and take some time to fish.
Question: What are your earliest memories of hunting?
Answer: I grew up in a town, so I never really knew anybody that had a lot of land, never really knew anybody outside of town. So I didn’t grow up hunting or fishing.
I actually didn’t get into hunting until I met John Morris [owner] of Bass Pro Shops through our racing sponsorships. When I was older and racing, I bought a big plot of land and invited him over one day. He looked at the land and said that I had a great spot, great for deer. So he helped me with the land there, and helped me really start managing it. That's actually how I got into hunting.
For years, wildlife biologists south of Kentucky and west of Arkansas have talked about managing populations of feral hogs. Now the discussion has turned to eradication. And strategy sessions are tinged with a pessimistic sense of desperation.
In May of last year I was packing up my dorm room for the last time, getting ready to graduate college, and wondering how my summer internship would go—and where I was going to find work afterwards. I probably would have called sitting in a treestand, shivering my butt off and training a shotgun at a deer with a camera in my face a very unlikely possibility.
I grew up in suburban Connecticut with no idea what hunting was really like. All I had to go off was Disney and television stereotypes. If you are unaware of the power Disney movies can have to mold young minds, let me inform you—it can be disastrous. I was raised on these movies, like so many other girls. They not only made me believe I would, one day, get a fairy-tale ending , but even worse, that hunters killed animals and that made them all evil.
For Christmas I got a scope with a bullet-drop compensating reticle, but if I understand the directions, I have to shoot on the highest power to get the crosshairs to work. I like to keep the magnification at 6X. Will the secondary crosshairs work at that power?
The Parks and Recreation funnyman and co-star of last fall's Moneyball is a major Hollywood player, but he's not shy about his love of all things outdoors.
Question: How/where did you first get into hunting?
Answer: Hunting is in my blood. My dad and uncles hunted. I didn’t hunt much as a teenager though I longed to. Since I played football and every weekend in the fall consisted of games or practice I was forced to listen to my friend’s hunting stories seething with jealousy.
I became passionate about big game hunting when I moved to Utah to shoot the television series Everwood in 2003. I lived there for four years, had the time and money to really get into it and became absolutely obsessed.
The hottest waterfowl hunt in America this month is for snow geese following the snow line as it recedes northward week by week. When you hit it right, it's a numbers game: No limits. No shotgun plugs. No prohibition on electronic calls.
But snow--and snows--could just as easily be in the Texas Panhandle as on Nebraska's North Platte River, so how do you know where to go? Easy. You visit one of the handful of websites that track the northbound migration.
You don't need an "Al Gore For President" sticker on the bumper of your Honda Prius to notice that it has been unseasonably warm this winter. And this long stretch of warm weather has thrown a monkey wrench in waterfowl seasons across the country.
Most ducks and geese only migrate as far as they have to. Once they find open water, food and safety, they stop heading south. Warm weather typically means more open water and a shorter or delayed trip.
