An hour before a November dawn, I’m at a dirt pull-off in New York’s Catskill Mountains. Around me are more than 280,000 acres of public forest. These are big woods, and getting bigger. By legislative decree, the oak, maples, and ash here can never be cut. They’ve been growing for a century now. Some hunters whose legs have become too old to climb these steep forested hills tell me there were once a lot of deer here. There were grouse and rabbits, too. And hunters came from a hundred miles away to chase them. These days, both the game and the hunters are mostly gone.

As I shoulder my rifle, a pickup stops. A man, his face dimly lit by dashboard lights, says, “Have you seen a deer yet?” “No.” “Why do we keep coming back?”

“Hope,” I say. [ Read Full Post ]

American hunters have been brainwashed into thinking they want the brightest riflescope they can buy.

They don’t.

Light-gathering ability is mainly a function of objective-lens size, which means the brightest riflescopes would be too large and unwieldy to be much help in the places most of us hunt. Picture a 65mm or an 80mm spotting scope strapped to your rifle. Bright as hell, but hugely impractical. [ Read Full Post ]

This video is about go viral, so you might as well see it here first. The YouTube clip was reportedly shot in Pennsylvania, but there's not much more information about it. [ Read Full Post ]