Outdoor Life — The Source for Hunting and Fishing Adventure

Like a million or more other middle-aged American men, when I was a five-year-old kid growing up in the 1950s, one of my most prized possessions was a coonskin cap, the kind worn by TV icon and "King of the Wild Frontier," Davy Crockett.

Back then, growing up in rural in southern Illinois, I was restricted to stalking big game and bad guys with cap pistols in my backyard, while singing the refrain from the popular show starring Fess Parker.

Born on a mountaintop in Tennessee; Greenest state in the Land of the Free; Raised in the woods so's he knew every tree; Killed him a bear when he was only three. Davy, Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier!

So went the legend of the frontiersman, soldier and statesman who died at the Battle of the Alamo in 1835.

Now the legend of Crockett lives on, at least the bear-hunting part, thanks to kindergartener Tre Merritt, a true blood-descendant of Crockett. With the help of his grandfather this past weekend in Arkansas, the youngster "killed him a bear" --and he was only 5!

And it weighed 445 pounds.

Take that,... [ Read Full Post ]

In its final proposal to reduce a problematic elk population in Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park announced this morning, the park service stopped short of opening a hunt to the general public, as was hoped by many hunters’ groups and some supportive legislators.

Under the U.S. Park Service plan, park personnel, authorized agents, private contractors and “qualified volunteers” selected and managed by park service officials may take 100 to 200 elk per year.

The proposal is a significantly reduced version of an earlier draft plan that called for culling up to 700 elk a year to bring the burgeoning elk numbers down more rapidly.

In addition to the culling plan, the Rocky Mountain News reports that park workers will install additional fencing around willow and aspen stands and use “aversion” techniques, such as rubber bullets or loud noises, to keep elk away from certain areas.

Despite the exclusion of hunters from the plan per se, hunting advocacy group Safari Club International announced in a press release today that the NPS decision to allow “qualified volunteers” as agents to help park personnel cull excessive elk herds is “a tremendous step... [ Read Full Post ]

"As far a you are concerned, it makes no difference how many people have been attacked by bears; perhaps in one locality there may have been no record of any such attack. Yet keep in mind that you may establish the record."
-Archibald Rutledge
Dangerous Beasts
Hunter's Choice, 1946 [ Read Full Post ]

For the past seven years, the holiday display depicting an armed Santa Claus stalking his most famous reindeer has become something of a Christmas tradition in a small Bossier Parish, Louisiana community.

The man behind the festive decorations says it’s all in good fun, despite some of the criticism he receives every December.

Instead of the twinkling lights and inflatable snowmen found on neighboring lawns in the small town of Princeton, Matthew Caillouet has opted for a something with more of a sporting theme.

“It came up just kind of as a joke, trying to do something Christmassy without the lights, just do something random. Totally different,” Caillouet says.

A life-sized wooden Santa figure appears to be aiming a rifle in the direction of the red-nosed Rudolph—leading viewers to assume that the unsuspecting ungulate is about to become venison.

“You either love it or you hate it. I’ve had people say they were going to tear it down. Others say they’ll fight to keep it up,” Caillouet told a local television station.

Caillouet admitted that even his own family was divided over the display, saying they thought the shooting... [ Read Full Post ]

Been in a gun shop lately? How was the customer service?

I ask because customer service is a fast-disappearing aspect of the American retail experience. Here’s an example: a friend interested in a new deer rifle walks into a store where he encounters two salesmen engaged in conversation with a customer. As my buddy politely waits his turn, he realizes the “customer” is a friend of the countermen, and the “transaction” in front of him is merely an extended bull session. He leaves without receiving any acknowledgement whatsoever from the staff.

“How does a store like that stay in business?” he asked me.

I dunno.

My pet peeve—besides not being greeted by the staff—is to walk into a poorly lit retail operation and realize the shelves haven’t been dusted since the end of the Bronze Age.

I’m not alone in this assessment.

Miles Hall, owner of H&H Gun Range & Shooting Sports Outlet in Oklahoma City, says, “Frankly, a lot of gun stores are dark, depressing and intimidating.”

Hall, who is an enterprising fellow, realized that to attract the next generation of shooters his store needed to appeal to the younger shooter’s sense of style. So he looked at how the stores at his local... [ Read Full Post ]

For the indecisive gun owner life is about to get more complicated. The number of cartridges in the short fat magnum category continues to grow like mushrooms in a cave. Witness the latest cartridges to sprout from the partnership between Sturm Ruger and Hornady ammunition.

On the heels of last year’s .375 Ruger, a standard-length cartridge that delivers .375 H&H performance, we now have the .30 and .338 RCMS—short for Ruger Compact Magnums—built on the .375 Ruger case.

Both cartridges have intriguing characteristics, but the .338 RCM is particularly interesting. It is going to go head-to-head with the .338 Federal, which was unveiled at the 2006 SHOT Show, and which has carved out a niche among its devotees as a versatile all-around big game cartridge. One criticism of the .338 Fed., however, is the relatively light weight of the bullets offered. The heaviest current load is a 210-gr. Nosler Partition, a wonderful bullet to be sure, but not in the class of the 225- and 250-grain bullets many fans of the .338 Win. Mag. swear by. [ Read Full Post ]

An interesting bit of information crossed my desk yesterday from, of all publications, the New York Times. The Times isn’t exactly the bastion of conservative journalism, so I was pleasantly surprised when I saw their report on the ever-growing problem we’re facing with exploding whitetail populations.

It comes as no surprise to those of us who live in the burbs and regularly hear stories about collisions with deer that the Times quotes the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, which reports: “there are about 1.5 million deer-vehicle collisions each year.” The result? People who might have been anti-hunting are beginning to change their attitude because the collateral damage deer are doing to their cars (not to mention their yards) is hitting them right in the pocketbook. (My neighbor hit a beautiful 5x5 last year at night—right in the heart of the rut. Total damage to their Cherokee was over $5,000.)

Use of firearms for hunting is strictly prohibited where I live, but a strong case can be made for a controlled bow hunt. Now, if I can just convince the city council…

-Todd Smith [ Read Full Post ]