Hunting and Fishing News Blog Articles

There’s still plenty of good duck hunting to be had in the South. (jake latendresse/)

Walk into the blue & white restaurant in Tunica, Mississippi, during duck season and you’ll hear hunters grumbling about mallards not showing up. It’s a running debate in greasy-spoon diners and duck camps all across the Southeast. Theories run rampant, from shifts in migration patterns to Northern states short-stopping ducks with heated ponds and flooded corn.

But if you look at the data, ducks haven’t actually stopped migrating to the South—U.S. Fish and Wildlife midwinter surveys prove that. From 2011 to 2020, Arkansas' yearly average of midwinter ducks was 1,057,717, Tennessee’s was 714,078, and Mississippi’s was 812,914. All those totals are above long-term averages, which have been recorded since 1955. Only Louisiana and Alabama fell below their long-term averages, down by about 263,000 and 15,600 ducks, respectively. Duck harvest rates overall remain strong, but greenhead kills are sliding. From 2011 to 2015, mallard harvests were below their long-term averages in all five of these states. That’s a major problem for Southern hunters, who hold the greenhead as the king of all ducks.

“What’s impacting hunter success is the behavior and distribution of ducks,” says Luke Naylor, an Arkansas Game and Fish waterfowl manager and a public-­land duck hunter. “When we fly our waterfowl surveys, we see groups of mallards in places where there are no signs of hunters. No four-wheeler tracks or evidence of a pit blind.”

Hunters who have been sitting in the same blind or leaning against the same tree for 30 years are likely seeing fewer ducks as mallards adapt to hunting pressure. So they believe Southern hunting is crashing. But if you hunt the South extensively, you’ll find that folks who properly manage for habitat and hunting pressure are still having success. That primarily takes place on private land, where the ability to control those two variables is far easier than it is on public ground. On state and federal lands, the pressure is often constant, and creating the best habitat can be tough when managers are counting on unreliable government funding.

“I help out on some private clubs in Arkansas, and they kill ducks because they do it right. They manage properties to have more good days than bad,” says Jim Ronquest, a longtime Southern duck hunter. “The ducks still want to come to Bayou Meto ­[Arkansas' famed public timber], but the pressure has educated them over the years. They still use it—they just keep away from hunters.”

CWD management won’t eliminate stud bucks like this one from the landscape. (Lance Krueger/)

My 90-year-old father, who still kills deer with incredible consistency each year during Minnesota’s archery season, faced a conundrum last fall. For several years, we had hunted under Antler Point Restrictions, which require us to shoot bucks with at least four points on one side. During the APR era, Pops had passed on several bucks he’d have happily killed. But last season, the state lifted the APR in our unit in order to combat the spread of chronic wasting disease. Now Dad could hang his tag on any buck he liked. So what would he do?

Minnesota’s decision to drop APRs was inspired by research from Wisconsin’s endemic CWD zones, where studies showed that more than 40 percent of mature bucks carried the disease—almost twice the prevalence rate of antlerless deer. And since yearling bucks disperse into new territories, killing young bucks seemed like a good idea.

In a public meeting I attended just before the archery opener, the area wildlife manager told us, “We just don’t think it’s responsible to manage for mature bucks, given what the research has shown.”

It’s impossible to ignore Wisconsin’s 40 percent stat, but I wondered: Exactly how many deer is that? Turns out, I’m not the only one asking the question. “That 40 percent number represents a handful of animals,” says Kip Adams, QDMA’s director of conservation. “The actual number of CWD-positive deer on the landscape is what most people are forgetting with the Wisconsin research. In that study area, there are twice as many does as bucks. If you want to control CWD on a broad management level, you have to have a significant doe harvest. If I’m hunting Wisconsin’s endemic area and I watch five does and a pair of [young] bucks walk into a cornfield, I’m shooting a doe every time.”

Research in Minnesota found that yearling does (44 percent) disperse almost as frequently as yearling bucks (45 percent), and nearly as far (6 miles for does, 7 miles for bucks). But the real kicker is this: Wisconsin research found that, because of the tightly knit nature of doe family groups, a doe is 10 times more likely to have CWD if there’s another positive doe living in its home range.

Fresh 6 GT loads, topped with 110-grain A-Tips and 109-grain Berger Hybrids. (Bill Buckley/)

I feel bad for new cartridges. By and large, they are greeted with the same warmth that a guy in tennis whites gets when entering a biker bar. You can practically hear the record player needle skid across the vinyl whenever another whiz-bang round is announced.

While this reflexive hostility can be a bit excessive—just post “I love the 6.5 Creedmoor” on social media to ignite a virtual bonfire of rage—I understand the skepticism.

Filter out the hot emotion, and you’re left with a valid question: What actual purpose does a new round serve?

In the case of the GAP 6mm GT, the goal is to strike a balance between the precision rifle cartridges that bracket it and address their shortcomings.

On the one side is the larger 6mm Creedmoor; on the other are the 6mm Benchrest variants and their kin that have become the darlings of the moment among PRS and NRL shooters. These include the 6 BR, 6 BRX, 6 BRA, 6 BRDX, 6 XC, 6 Dasher, and a couple of others I’m probably forgetting about.

The NSSF is ensuring shooters of all levels have the proper training to be safe and accurate with their firearms. (NSSF/)

We are in the midst of a gun boom.

In the time it takes you to read this sentence, another two new firearms will be purchased somewhere in America by an owner who has never before purchased a gun. Very few of these new gun owners have adequate training.

How big is the information gap? Statistics compiled by the FBI’s National Instant Background Check system show that over 5 million first-time gun owners bought a firearm so far in 2020. These new shooters join the 100 million Americans who own guns. The pace of firearm sales this year is expected to shatter previous records, with some 35 million guns adding to the approximately 400 million firearms already being used for hunting, personal defense, collection, and recreational shooting.

Guns are tools, as those of us veteran firearms owners have heard since we joined the community of shooters. We probably heard this truism first from a certified firearms instructor, or maybe a parent or trusted family friend. Some of you heard it in a hunter education course. For almost all of us, that “guns-as-tools” phrase was reinforced by time at the range or in the field, actively handling guns, learning how they work and their safe operation.

That hands-on instruction made us safer, smarter, and more effective shooters. But, like any tool, misuse or operator confusion can be dangerous. So how can a beginning gun owner learn all these things, especially while restrictions designed to minimize COVID-19 transmission prohibit in-person gatherings and hands-on learning?

Paslie Werth’s 40-point Kansas whitetail. (Kurt Werth/)

Paslie Werth’s hunting career is off to an exceptional start. The 14-year-old from western Kansas has been deer hunting only four years. In each season she has shot a whitetail. Last year on the Kansas rifle opener, she tagged the buck of a lifetime—a 178-inch 12-point—with a 150-yard shot from a .243 Win. off her family’s farm in Kiowa County. This season’s buck slightly trumped that dinky deer…by more than 100 inches.

“There’s this one cedar tree in our CRP field, and around 8 o’clock he stood up,” Werth said. “My dad was packing up and making a little bit of noise, so I had to shush him.”

Kurt Werth was about to scold his daughter for telling him to “be quiet,” but then he caught sight of the buck, a massive 40-point, 282 6/8-inch (gross green score) buck. The entire family had been tracking the growth of this particular deer for several years. Pasile’s older sister Jaeden had passed on the buck three seasons ago, and Kurt did the same last year. He estimated that the buck was in the 230s when he decided to let it walk, so all the Werth’s had aspirations of hopefully shooting the deer this season. When the buck stood up for Paslie, it happened so fast she didn’t have time to get nervous. She shot the deer inside 30 yards with a .270. He didn’t go more than 50 yards.

“I knew he still had room to grow, but I didn’t know he would get this big,” Kurt Werth said. “Luckily our neighbors believe in letting deer reach their full potential, but they also knew this buck was around, so I knew we would have to get after him early. Luckily for Paslie she is the only one in our family who can still hunt the youth season, so she got him.”

For some perspective, the biggest nontypical shot with a firearm in Kansas was a 280 4/8-inch buck taken in 1987 by Joseph Waters. Mark Watson came close to breaking that record in 2018 with a buck that measured 280 inches. The current nontypical archery record in Kansas stands at 264 1/8 inches, but that will likely be eclipsed by Brian Butcher’s giant 67-point buck that measured an unbelievable 321 3/8 inches (unofficial net on the B&C scale) in October of 2019. If that score holds it would be the fourth largest nontypical ever, but it won’t be officially measured until 2022.

It’s so ubiquitous that your local grocery store now stocks it, and so trendy that complete diet plans are being built around it. But bone broth is more than a traditional food source or recent health fad. It’s also a great way to add more nutrients to your diet in a survival situation. Here’s what you need to know about this ancient superfood and how it can sustain you in the wild.

What is Bone Broth?

While it should technically be called “stock,” bone broth is a nutrient-laden liquid with deep historical roots. A broth is typically made from water and one or more food ingredients. For example, vegetable broth can be made by simmering available plant foods in water without any animal food ingredients. The broth could also be meat based, but the true transition to stock occurs when bones are added (with or without any accompanying meat or vegetables). Like a proper barbecue, these ingredients are cooked low and slow for maximum flavor development and nutrient extraction. In typical usage, broth is lighter and cooked for a shorter period of time. Stock is richer and cooked longer than broth.

How Far Back Does it Go?

I’m confident that this simple “soup with bones” can date back to our most remote culinary traditions in the distant past. Our ancestors first developed large cooking vessels from soft carved stone. A little later, clay pots and other ceramic containers replaced the clunky stone pots and bowls. With the ability to cook food until tender, I’m sure that cooking soup in these pots became the next logical innovation. In the Stone Age and even in recent history, cooking fires were more than just a heat source in our dwellings. These fires gave our forebears a cooking hearth too. Medieval cooks and homemakers were often noted as burning their fires constantly, with a never-ending pot of soup at the ready. When a bowl of broth was taken from the cauldron, a bowl of water and a few more stock ingredients were added to replace that which was taken.

One question I often get asked by hunters is: “What truck should I buy?” I guess since I’m a former car journalist turned outdoor writer, I have some unique perspectives to offer on this topic. The trouble is, nothing you can buy off a showroom floor is even remotely optimized for hunting—that’s something you need to do yourself. Sure, you can buy a stock vehicle and take it in the wild. But in order to get the most out of your truck you should make these aftermarket upgrades.

Start with a Pickup

You know you need a vehicle designed to carry hunting gear, and to do that over rough terrain. So, you already know you need a pickup truck. But which one? Rather than simply apply the label “best” to a single model, let me explain how to figure out which truck will work best for you.

A truck’s job is to perform work. That work being hauling you, your buddies, your dogs, and your stuff. The best way to quantify a truck’s ability to perform that work is with payload. That’s the maximum amount of weight a vehicle is designed to carry, including you, anything you want to bolt to it, and anything or anyone you want to carry. You’ll find a truck’s payload listed on its specs sheet.

Payload should be treated like a budget. And too often, it’s treated like a surprisingly poor one. Some popular pickups like the Toyota Tacoma, or Ford F-150 Raptor only give you 1,100 pounds or so to work with. Add a driver, a few friends, camping gear, enough beer for everyone, and you can spend your entire weight budget before you get a single animal onboard. And exceeding your payload will cause problems. Transmissions will overheat, suspension components may break, warranties will be invalidated, and rollovers can happen. You don’t want any of that stuff to occur, because it will take a major toll on your wallet.

A first look at Springfield Armory's new Model 2020 Waypoint. (Bill Buckley/)

Here’s a bit of good news in an otherwise apocalyptic 2020—Springfield Armory has expanded into a new product category with the introduction of a bolt-action rifle. The official name is the Springfield Armory Model 2020 Waypoint and I’ve been among the fortunate few who’ve been able to get an early look at it.

Normally, when a gun company ventures into a new arena, people tend to get pretty excited. But I’ll confess I have the opposite reaction. I’ve seen so many of these efforts marred by one mistake or another that these announcements usually leave me with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach whenever a company strays out of its comfort zone. To pull one example out of the air, look at what happened when Smith & Wesson trotted out a line of shotguns, or the unfortunate and ill-fated i-Bolt.

To SA’s credit, however, they got this introduction right with a smartly configured rifle that lives up to the significant performance standard they are touting.

The Waypoint is a hunting rifle with a lot of elements pulled in from the tactical world. With just a glance at its profile it’s easy to see the that the stock, action, and barrel all draw heavily upon firearms designed for the military, law enforcement, and competition.

The Waypoint comes in four different configurations and is available in four different chamberings. It can be had in 6.5 PRC, .308 Win., 6.5mm Creedmoor, and 6mm Creedmoor, and comes with either a steel or carbon-fiber barrel, and a stock with an adjustable cheek piece or one that is fixed.

Jess Pryles seasons up elk backstrap. (Joshua Garza/)

Jess Pryles is still learning how to deer hunt, but she’s an expert once a whitetail hits the Texas dirt. Originally from Australia, where she never was exposed to hunting, Pryles now lives in Austin, one of the meat capitals of America. She always loved eating beef steaks, but didn’t know much about cooking one properly. So Pryles decided to teach herself how to prepare all kinds of cuts. These days she runs a flourishing meat seasoning business called Hardcore Carnivore.

Pryles took up deer hunting after moving to Texas. She had toured slaughter houses to see how cattle were processed and decided that if she was going to eat wild game that she needed to see how that worked as well. So she went hunting a ranch at the invitation of a local family. Pryles has a very exact process for taking meat from the field to the grill. It ensures that the venison is cared for properly and tastes incredible (I can attest to that after eating an elk backstrap she prepared after a traditional Texas dove hunt). Here’s her method.

Field Care

Pryles used to bleed out all of her deer kills, but says she doesn’t do that anymore because it doesn’t enhance the taste of the meat. It was once thought that bleeding improved meat taste by cooling the carcass, but after she attended several meat science classes at Iowa State University, Pryles realized that draining the blood had little to do with temperature loss, and that gutting is a more significant way to start the cooling process. She says gutting an animal quickly is the best way for any hunter looking to improve meat taste. She guts all her deer first before skinning them out. Some deer hunters never take the guts out of their kills (just straight to skinning), but in the Texas heat it’s a necessity so the meat does not become too gamey or spoil. And since meat cools from the inside out, removing the guts is vital.

Butchering Deer

Brown bears in an intact watershed on Chichagof Island in the Tongass National Forest. This watershed could be targeted for clearcut logging if the Forest Service repeals the Roadless Rule. (Bjorn Dihlel/)

Last week, the Forest Service announced in its Final Environmental Impact Statement that it planned to axe the Roadless Rule in Southeast Alaska’s Tongass National Forest. The agency’s decision comes after President Trump, with the encouragement of Alaska’s governor and Congressional delegation, asked USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue to exempt the Tongass from the Rule in August of 2019. The reason, Trump made clear, is to lift logging restrictions in the 25,560 square mile national forest — America’s largest.

What is the Roadless Rule?


The Roadless Rule was established in 2001 and prohibits old-growth logging and the building of new logging roads in 58.5 million acres of national forest across the country. That’s about 2 percent of the continental U.S., and, according to the Forest Service’s website, “provides many social and ecological benefits.” In the Tongass, the heavily subsidized logging industry collapsed due to lack of profitability before 2001. But by then, a significant portion, some sources estimate around half, of the Tongass' productive old-growth forest had been clear-cut. The Rule protects about 9 million acres in the Tongass, including the the majority of the region’s remaining productive old growth which amounts to a small percent of the total acreage safeguarded. According to the Forest Service, repealing the Rule would open up 168,000 acres of old-growth forests that were previously protected. This consists of most of the biggest and oldest trees, and some of the most ecologically important, left in the Tongass. There’s a strong possibility that after repealing the Rule, the Forest Service’s next step will be to revise its 2016 Tongass forest plan to open up even more old growth to clearcutting and new roads.

The main argument for repealing the Roadless Rule is the idea that it’s stifling economic development. Senator Lisa Murkowski exemplified this belief in an op-ed for the Washington Post.

“Many Alaskans believe the roadless rule should never have been applied to our state because of the uncertainty and barriers it imposes. It works against common-sense projects such as renewable hydropower—raising costs, extending approval timelines and causing some projects to be nixed altogether,” Murkowski wrote.

Bassmaster Elite Series Angler Stetson Blaylock fishes Amistad Reservoir. (Joshua Garza/Academy Sports + Outdoors/)

Not surprisingly, pro angler Stetson Blaylock pulled an almost five-pound largemouth out of the grass beds of Amistad Reservoir, a south Texas fishery that sits on the U.S.-Mexico border, while the rest of us missed bites and snagged lures in the hydrilla. Blaylock fishes the Bassmaster Elite Series after having spent 10 years on the FLW Tour. And unlike many of his peers, he utilizes a lot of inexpensive tackle novices like you and I fish with. Some of his go-to rods and reels from Academy Sports + Outdoors cost under $100, which is pretty remarkable in an age when there is so much emphasis placed on fishing gear with a high price tag and name-brand cachet.

But even though Blaylock fishes with every-man gear, he is a far cry from us weekend warriors who love to spend a Saturday afternoon on the pontoon, swilling beers, and hooking the occasional bass from the waters just below the fish feeder. And if you’re like me, you probably think the heat of late summer and early fall are god awful times to try and catch bass. Well, for greenhorns, it can be. Most big bass are not crashing baits right now. But with a little more time on the water—and these tips from Blaylock—you can start landing more quality fish

Outdoor Life: We almost always see pro anglers throwing baitcasters over spinning reels. Is there a decided advantage in using one or the other?

Stetson Blaylock: Both have an important place in my boat. Spinning rods give you more control when you are using lighter line and baits. You can be more accurate with casts and have more control of smaller fish when they are on your line. One thing a baitcaster does, is the stiffer rod gives you better control in heavy cover, and you can be more precise with it when you are throwing heavier line and baits. Any time I need to finesse a fish into the boat, I downsize my line weight and go to the spinning rod. But one is not necessarily better than the other. I just use them to fish different types of structure.

OL: I grew up hearing that fish go deep in the heat of summer, but at Amistad we started off fishing grassbeds with topwater lures. Why?

A black lab retriever peeks its head from a waterfowl hunting blind. (Lee Thomas Kjos/)

We decided to name our bird dog after an elevator company. This was before we even had a dog, when my girlfriend (now my wife) and I were living in New York City.

“Otis,” she said, reading the company name above the floor numbers. “That would be a nice name for a dog.”

“Someday we’ll leave this damn city,” I said. “We’ll get a little black Lab puppy, and we’ll name him Otis.”

Talking about an imagined future was our way of fast-forwarding through the present. I had been diagnosed with cancer the week before, and my immediate future was full of nothing but medical tests, operations, and grim uncertainty.

Much of that fantasy life revolved around the hunting dog we would name Otis. Steph imagined a cute furball she could love and who would love her back. The pup would rely on her for every basic need—a not-so-subtle surrogate for the baby she wanted but wasn’t ready for. I imagined a tireless hunting partner I could take on any adventure, no matter how unlikely the odds of success—­an obvious substitute for the close hunting buddy I never found in the city.

Five riflescopes arranged on a grey background. (Bill Buckley/)

Maybe you’ve heard about a new class of riflescope, optics that use electronics and wireless technology to help with the main job a scope is ­designed to do: consistently place bullets in a very small area across great distances.

These are variously called “smart scopes,” ­"e-scopes," or “electro-optics,” but what they have in common is their use of technology to derive an aiming solution, generally presented as an illuminated dot on the crosshair or as a digital display inside the scope. Some use built-in laser rangefinders. Others use wireless Bluetooth antennas to receive ballistics ­information transmitted from a mobile-phone app. And still others communicate wirelessly with “smart” rangefinders.

This species of electronic optic showed up on the market nearly a decade ago, led by Burris' revolutionary rangefinding Eliminator and the TrackingPoint system developed by partners of Remington Arms that was panned at the time as unethical for hunting because of its reliance on technology. But now the number and variety of digital scopes in the commercial market is accelerating. Advances in integrated circuitry, microprocessing, and wireless technology have prompted more companies to develop smart scopes, and many brands that don’t have e-scopes in their product lines now have plans to release them.

It only makes sense that electronics, which have pervaded so many other aspects of our lives, would eventually show up in our optics and on our rifles.

We evaluated many of the electro-optics currently available, assessing them on their own merits and against each other, but also against representatives of more traditional riflescopes used for both hunting and precision long-distance target shooting. You can check out the whole field of new scopes in our Optics Test 2020.

Think about how much time you have to dedicate to training before buying a pup. (Tony J. Peterson/)

Too often we choose hunting dogs based on preconceived notions of what we have seen a particular breed accomplish in the marsh or uplands. Rarely do we question our own individual training ability and commitment to the long game of developing our gun dogs into better hunters. That’s a shame, because while it’s important to match up a breed to the role it will have in the field, ignoring temperament, personality, and biddability in dog selection is a recipe for disaster. This holds true for all hunting dogs, but is absolutely crucial for any new dog owner, or anyone hell-bent on taking the contrarian route in dog ownership.

Be Realistic

Human nature dictates that a certain percentage of us will not do what’s most popular. This seems to be particularly true for gun dog owners. Many of us get obsessed with buying a certain dog and forget, or don’t consider, the skill it takes to train a pup into a finished retriever, pointer or flusher. The fact is, you need to consider how knowledgeable you are before getting too caught up in the breed you want to buy. Novice trainers need easy-handling dogs, like Labs or German shorthair pointers. These two breeds are historically less temperamental than most and want to please their owners. Some breeds enjoy “going into business for themselves” as the great trainer and writer Jim Spencer used to say. And those dogs should be avoided by newbies.

I get you might not want the same dog that all of your buddies have, but there are countless reasons why a Lab is a great choice for amateur trainers, namely, they are easy to work with. This is also the case with well-bred golden retrievers, even though they’ve fallen out of favor with many hunters after decades of poor breeding practices and widespread adoption through the general, non-hunting public. Good ones can be had, but they take work to find. The plus side is they, along with Labs, and German shorthairs are damn easy to train (as long as they have formidable bloodlines) because they want to work with you.

Off-Breed Duck Dogs

Finding the best grouse gun is a never-ending pursuit. (A.J. DeRosa/)

A low electronic hum created an ambient sound that complemented a smell that was a mix of what I could only guess was steel, gun oil, and concrete well aged in this fluorescent-lit room hidden in the back of a parking lot. The industrial metal door thumped shut like we were barricading ourselves from a zombie apocalypse. A Purdey over-under leaned against a dusty workbench to my immediate right, the surfaces filled with what seemed like a disastrous maze of tools, parts, and who knows what else, that with the slightest touch could send piles cascading to the ground like an avalanche just waiting for a tipping point. Stephen Hutton of Britannia Sporting Arms, AKA “Doc,” spoke with a thick English accent in slow, deliberate precision to Gregg Elliot, a gun writer, and double gun connoisseur.

Without delay, we soon huddled over one of Gregg’s original Fox A Grades, disassembled next to the newer Savage Fox A Grade. As I snapped pictures, Doc spoke. “Would you like me to take it down further?”

It was no shock what we would find. Despite their similar names, these guns are not the same. The modern version is a rendition of the Connecticut RBL made more in commemoration of the original A Grade in name and looks but not mechanics. Gregg took careful time to show me the inner tooled workings of the original shotgun. You could see the markings of chisels and faint memories of a fine American craftsman long gone.

On the surface, when a grouse hunter walks out of the woods, side-by-side in hand, grouse dog in tow, bell jingling around a modern GPS collar, it does not look much different than 100 years ago. Yet innovation is at every corner in the modern age. New technical fabrics, more durable and practical boots, even the advancement of electronics have infiltrated this timeless pursuit. It is an exciting time to be a hunter. Yet a paradox exists in the double guns we carry. The introduction of the Anson and Deeley action by Westley Richards in England, or more commonly referred to as the boxlock, was invented in 1875 and as Elliot wrote in the article The Insult That Conquered the World, “If you’ve ever fired a side-by-side or over-under, there’s a 99.9 percent chance your hands have touched one of Westley Richards’s patents.”

This was not the first time I found myself looking over Elliot’s shoulder learning the ins and outs of the double gun. We had traveled to Italy together the year before where we spent a few days touring the Beretta factory. This is where the paradox began to reveal itself to me. As we looked at a 3-D printer and a perfect digital rendition of the inside of an actual gun barrel right before our eyes, I realized there was no bounds to how precise a double gun could be.

Wayne and Candice after a successful turkey hunt. (Courtesy Wayne Hubbard/)

Editor’s Note: If there’s one thing that’s certain after this summer, it’s that Americans need to come together. To do that, we first must listen to those of us who have been ignored for too long. At Outdoor Life, that means Black and other minority hunters and anglers who don’t often see themselves represented in the hunting and fishing community. We’re running a collection of essays to tell their stories and share their perspectives.

Wayne Hubbard never questioned that minorities had a place in the outdoors. Growing up in Oklahoma, he and his family lived close to the land. They fished, hunted, gardened, and collected wild greens—and they put nature’s bounty on the dinner table.

Maybe that’s why he was so surprised when he heard the common refrain: “Blacks don’t hunt or fish.”

“It’s like we were invisible,” said Hubbard, an avid outdoorsman who now lives in Kansas City. “We were out there enjoying the outdoors, but a lot of people looked the other way. It was like they didn’t see us.”

From that point on, Hubbard dedicated himself to preaching inclusion in the outdoors. One of the first African-Americans he convinced was the woman who later became his wife, Candice Price.

You will learn more, and become a better rifle shot, from handloading your own ammo. (Ron Spomer/)

At some point every shooter toys with the notion of handloading his or her own ammunition. Saves money! More accuracy! Faster than factory rounds! Better bullets! Well, there are some real truths about “rolling your own ammo” you might not be aware of.

Handloading rifle ammunition is a bit like building your own arrows or tying your own flies. Yes, you can save money if you disregard the time investment it takes. And you can make a better custom product. But the biggest benefit may be the satisfaction and pride in doing it yourself. Taking a good buck, bull, or bear is quite an accomplishment. Taking it with a cartridge you carefully crafted — priceless.

Much the same can be said about target shooting. If you just want to pull triggers and send chunks of metal downrange, those bargain basement Brand X cheapie loads will suffice. But if you want to shoot purposefully and precisely, you’ll punch tighter groups with carefully-constructed cartridges tailored to your rifle.

So do I recommend handloading? You bet I do! But only for folks who like to work with their hands and have the free time to do it. Handloading is for individuals who can maintain records and order, are careful, and patient. Handloading is neither difficult nor dangerous, but it’s not for the sloppy, lackadaisical, or flippant. You have to take this job seriously. Do that and the rewards are satisfying.

Does it Cost Less?

The author takes aim at a Shiras moose moments before the shot. (Bill Buckley/)

I was standing in a long line that snaked through a maze formed by Tensa­barrier stanchions, those portable stands with retractable webbing used by the TSA, concert stadiums, motor vehicle departments, and other venues that want to funnel large groups of people in an orderly fashion.

I glanced at the sheet of paper in my hand, a form with dozens of check boxes with my personal information filled in at the top. It was the size of a menu at a 24-hour Greek diner.

Everyone in the crowd around me, mostly men and most wearing something decorated with camo, held identical applications. I didn’t need to be a mind reader to know their thoughts: Maybe this year.

We were in a broad, carpeted hallway in the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City, where the Western Hunting & Conservation Expo takes place every February, usually right around Valentine’s Day.

On the form, 200 Utah tags were in play, everything from humble public-land turkey permits to once-in-a-lifetime opportunities like bison and desert sheep. For the modest fee of $5 per tag, you could try your luck for as many of them as you qualified for. (Some are specifically for nonresidents only.)

The 12-gauge pump shotgun is touted as the ultimate home defender. It’s far from a one-trick-pony and about as general-purpose of a firearm as you can buy. A shotgun can take the place of a rack of assorted rifles as long as you’re shooting at shorter distances, and can be used for hunting, garden pest control, guarding the family campsite, and, of course, defending your home.

The pump shotgun is relatively easy to use and requires little skill to be an effective shot. As far as maintenance is concerned, the pump is the workhorse of long guns, and might be the most passed over firearm by homeowners. Many think a handgun or even AR-15 are better options, but neither is as forgiving in terms of accuracy and stopping a threat. Shotguns cast a wider shot pattern, and can take down an intruder even in the most inexperienced hands.

Once properly set up, the 12-gauge shotgun is probably the best all-around choice for the average homeowner seeking a defensive firearm. With an extended magazine tube, or detachable box magazine loaded with 00 buckshot, the shotgun brings overwhelmingly effective firepower to a close-quarter fight.

Losing the Tactical Advantage

One disclaimer I’d like to make right out of the gate: It has been said, and often repeated, that the simple sound of racking a shell into the chamber of a shotgun is enough to repel the most determined intruders. This mindset is incredibly naïve. When armed, and responding to a potential threat, your firearm should be loaded, with the safety on and positioned at your choice of ready position. It’s a mistake to think racking a shell into the chamber as an act of intimidation will scare an intruder off like you see in Hollywood movies. You have actually just lost the tactical advantage and told a potential adversary 1) you’re armed, 2) what you’re armed with, 3) your location, 4) your magazine capacity is limited, and 5) you’re untrained.

The dual powder tubes throw fast, accurate charges. (Bill Buckley/)

Everyone wants to be a precision rifle shooter until it’s time to do precision rifle stuff, like throwing ridiculously accurate powder charges. Dispensing powder for precision shooting can be a drag because you need the charges to be accurate, preferably to within a kernel or two of powder, but you also want them fast because it’s a high-volume proposition. Those things don’t normally go hand in hand. Between old-school volumetric powder throwers and expensive electronic setups, dispensing powder quickly and accurately can seem like it’s part voodoo ritual and part Jet Propulsion Laboratory project. RCBS developed the Matchmaster digital powder scale and dispenser to provide the necessary level of accuracy and speed for precision rifle shooters in a relatively affordable, user-friendly package.

Normally, to get the needed precision and volume output, a reloader has to obtain and integrate various components such as precision scales, mechanical powder throwers, and computer-controlled tricklers. This is time consuming and requires a lot of tinkering. It also turns out to be fairly expensive, and what you end up with looks like an escapee from a robotics fair. The Matchmaster, on the other hand, is a combination scale/dispenser with a footprint no larger than a couple of normal-sized reloading die boxes and is just 10.5 inches tall.

The heart of the unit is the load cell, which is accurate to .02 grain of powder, which is basically a kernel of most stick propellants. The system is capable of dispensing charges in “match” mode accurate to +/- .04 grain rather than the typical +/- .1 grain of most commercial dispensers. That difference helps shooters get closer to the holy grail of single-digit SD and sub-20 ES velocity measurements.

Getting these precise charges quickly is really the main issue because most of us would rather spend time shooting than watching powder dispense. To this end, the Matchmaster has a patent-pending dual tube system. The large tube quickly dispenses the majority of the charge before stopping at a predetermined point. The small tube, which runs the whole time, fine-tunes the charge, finally trickling the last few kernels into the pan to land at the correct weight.

One of the best features on the Matchmaster is the app that lets you control it through your phone. It is particularly helpful for setting up custom powder profiles that let you throw your charges faster ­without sacrificing precision.