Outdoor Life — The Source for Hunting and Fishing Adventure

Well, thanks to a bureaucratic snafu in our paper work for bringing guns into Mexico, the OL crew bound for Chihauhau to hunt Gould's got held up—ALL DAY— in Houston! Good news is, it gave me more time to get some work done.

Check out this brief, yet brutal, mauling of a Primos B-Mobile gobbler decoy in Texas. It is cut short by Morgan and Kathy Farris. Thanks to Primos for sharing the video.

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Do hunters and anglers really know who spends their license dollars? Not according to a recent survey conducted by the country’s foremost public opinion firm specializing in hunting, fishing and outdoor issues.

A majority of the 2,125 respondents to a recent Internet-based poll incorrectly believed that some or all of their hunting and fishing license dollars go to the state treasury to be spent on things like roads and education.

The poll--though decidedly unscientific in nature--was conducted by Florida-based Southwick Associates on its AnglerSurvey.com and HunterSurvey.com Web sites. At the very least, it’s somewhat disconcerting to think that most hunters and anglers aren’t aware that laws specifically prohibit the use of license revenue for anything other than game and fish management.

Only 39 percent of responding anglers and 47 percent of hunters knew that 100 percent of all license dollars go to the state fish and wildlife agency. A total of 68 percent of anglers and hunters thought a portion of their license dollars goes into the state's general fund.

Southwick Associates’ Rob Southwick notes that states must dedicate 100 percent of license revenues to fish and wildlife management or risk losing their share of federal fish and wildlife restoration excise tax revenues. In... [ Read Full Post ]

Former OL editor Gerry Bethge is one proud dad here as he poses with his daughter Amy, 14, and her first turkey, a New York jake that came in strutting like a big boy.

Dad explained that the two had struck out during the state's youth season last year, one of Amy's first attempts at taking a tom, but their luck changed the other week. They arrived in camp just in time to roost a couple of birds for the next morning.

Neither could hardly sleep they were so excited and Gerry said when Amy got up at 4:30, he'd never seen his teen get dressed so fast she was so ready to get out there. Once set up off a field in open woods, it appeared they had eight turkeys going at it once the gobbling started.

While the birds enjoyed gobbling at each other, they pretty much blew off Gerry's calls! But a hen didn't, and playing to her, the elder Bethge pulled the hens--with longbeards in tow--his and Amy's direction. Unfortunately, the group drifted off, but some quick hits on a... [ Read Full Post ]

I woke up on the third and final day of my Oklahoma hunt with a tough choice to make: Go after the same longbeard that had whipped me the past two days or go after the three, "fresher" turkeys I had seen on another property the day before. While the writer in me loved the idea of finishing the game with what had become my nemesis, the hunter in me just wanted to fill a tag with a nice gobbler, any gobbler, to tell the truth.

But Rusty, the outfitter, was the only one who could take hunters on the property where I had seen the three; and he couldn't be there until later in the morning. My decision was made for me. I would have to finish the game or go home licking my wounded hunter's pride. (It wouldn't be the first time by any stretch!)

Daylight found me sitting at the same tree I had left in darkness the evening before. I was 20 yards of the back corner of a property line marked by a barbed-wire fence. A large, creek-bottomed... [ Read Full Post ]

In the dark of camp that night after our first day hunting, I hungrily devour a plate of barbecue from a folding chair and discuss plans for the next morning with John, my guide, and Rusty, the outfitter, who also owns a Daylight Donuts in a nearby town.

I’m angling for some donuts with which to start tomorrow off, oh, and a good spot.

“Do you want to go back in there and try to get that bird again? You said you know where he’s roosted, right?” Rusty asks.

Darn right I did. As the two Johns I was hunting with earlier listened to him from the same edge of woods where he flew up, I sat farther down the timberline and watched the silhouetted tom tremble with gobbles against the fading sky. Another tom was roosted not 40 yards away, as were some hens, but we figured the birds would drop to the ground in the morning and probably follow the same routine.

“Let’s do it. We stand as good a chance as anybody going in there and getting them. And they’re gobbling at... [ Read Full Post ]

Last year, Carrylite's Pretty Boy decoy was the talk of the season. Check out this video from Matt Wettish showing a nervous strutter as it comes face-to-face with the fake gobbler. Not to disappoint, but this bird walks away. But it is still interesting to watch how a tom reacts when another turkey totally fails to respond to his presence. [ Read Full Post ]

You want fishing excitement? Sure, you get the quick adrenaline rush when a bigmouth hits and jumps the first time, but heck, a big catfish can give you some scary moments dodging its barbs while you wrestle the thing. For real over-the-top moments though, you need to go to the ocean.

A couple seasons back it was the year of the barracuda. I don’t know how many reports I got about hooked or non-hooked ‘cuda catapulting from the water and hitting people with pretty severe results. And recently there was a summer of shark attacks. This year started off with a bizarre report from outdoors writer Bill Sargent. Here’s what happened:

Josh Landin, his brother Jeremy and friend Dr. Rob Platner were fishing aboard a 16-foot skiff outside Florida’s Sebastian Inlet. The bite was hot. The anglers were into a school of bluefish that were literally creaming their topwater plugs. There were pompano and even some sharks in the fray snapping at the lures.

Josh was cranking in another blue when suddenly the fish seemed to morph into something else, another... [ Read Full Post ]