Sportsman's News April 2016 Digital Edition

April 2016 Volume 12 Issue 4

SportsmansNews.com

Monster Lake Trout And Lots Of ‘EmBy Mike Deming

When you get a referral from your dad, it is something that

you can hang your hat on. My Pops made numerous trips to Tazin Lake Lodge through the late 90s and early 2 0 0 0 s w h e n the lodge was owned and oper-ated by another group. He always had lots of pictures of huge lake trout and northern pike after each trip and nothing but the finest things to say about the destination. Bohm Townsend, who is a good friend and the of-ficial booking agency for Tazin Lake Lodge under this new ownership, brought this opportunity to us here at Sportsman’s News. Bohm has traveled to more resort fishing destinations in Canada than anyone I know and with his endorsement and dad’s experience, we knew the lake had a lot of potential.

continued on page 2Trevor Montgomery holds up Jeff Cryers’ 50.5” whopper lake trout. This was the largest Laker caught during our week of fishing.

GET JACKED?

GET IT BACK . . .PAGE 6-7

April 2016 | SPORTSMAN’S NEWS DIGITAL EDITION2

Tazin Lake is located in the far northwest corner of Saskatchewan, Canada, which means getting there is half the fun. The lodge is only ac-cessible via float plane and the best jumping off point is Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada. This area is thriving with oil and gas exploration, so all the comforts of home are available when you stay at the Chateau Nova hotel only a few blocks from the runway. Our week long trip to this far north destination would start off on the runway and we would then land on floats right in front of the lodge on Tazin Lake. The hour and a half float plane ride takes you over some very unique terrain and lots of lodges on some other well-known waters. I wondered why we would fly over so much other good water to go this far north, but over the next week, I would find out why.

I had invited Dave Holm (Aka Pops) and his new wife, Quenna Al-lery, to accompany me on this trip.

I figured it would be a great time to hear about the way it used to be, compared to the new ownership with the new lodging. Bohm Townsend was also along to make sure we expe-rienced everything the lodge had to offer. When we arrived at the lodge, it was obvious that the new ownership was serious about making this a great destination with great accommoda-tions. Numerous new cabins were nearing completion and several more were already ready and set up for our arrival. Everything this far north is either flown in during the summer or hauled in during the winters on the ice roads. So usually, the expecta-tions of higher quality this extremely far north usually has to go down. But, nobody notified the partners of Tazin Lake Lodge of this standard rule of thumb. When we departed the float plane, we were greeted by three quarters of the partners. Both Doug Forsberg and Trevor Montgomery are owners of the lodge and on site at all times. Peter Abrametz is one of the other owners and not always on site, but was there to greet us on our

arrival to this fantastic destination. The fourth owner is Randy Hoback and with his commitments back in parliament, he wasn’t able to attend.

We were shown to our cabins to unpack and notified that lunch would be ready for us shortly, which would give us plenty of time for a full half day of fishing. Lunch was more than just a routine sandwich and bag of chips. The lodge had hired an executive chef of the highest caliber to cater to customer’s needs and desires for their short fishing season. Lunch was a prelude to much more to come in the cuisine department - gourmet soup, which would have been at home on any table in the finest restau-rants in New York or San Francisco

and some fresh fish was a good start. Pops was chomping at the bit to

finish his lunch and get out to some of his old haunts like Rosie’s Hole and try his hand at some huge lakers and pike. We paired up with a couple of people in each boat, but hung fairly close together. Right at ice off, these huge lake trout that Tazin is known for, come to the shallower water to spawn as well as fatten up. These guys knew exactly where these areas are on this lake. It didn’t take long before people were sounding off on being hooked up on big fish after big fish. Fish that I would normally consider as real lunkers were being

continued on page 5

LAKE TROUTcontinued from cover

Although Tazin Lake Lodge is known for its’ huge lake trout, the northern pike fishing is unlike anything I have ever seen.

Quenna Allery had the hot hand on the majority of the trip land-ing multiple larger Lakers like this guy as well as a whopper 48.5” Northern Pike for the week.

April 2016 | SPORTSMAN’S NEWS DIGITAL EDITION 3

WHAT’S INSIDE 3 Words From The Publisher

6 SPOT Trace

8 Crooked Creek Outfitters

10 Platinum Approved Outfitters

16 Airguns For All Ages

24 Pro Member Update

28 PacWest Outdoors: Shed Hunting

30 Pro’s Tip: Choosing An Outfitter

32 Fishful Thinker: Hardbaits

34 Hunt Hard Elk Member Hunt

36 Honda Inverters

38 Video Product Reviews

44 Business Directory

48 Wild Game Recipe: Wild Boar Stew

50 Barebow! Sagas: The Stalking Bull

53 Adventures On A Budget: Spring Bear

55 Writing Contest: The Three of Me

56 Browning Safes

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Gary LewisChad LaChance

Steve MayerDennis Dunn

Mickey Bellman

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Words From The Publisher

By Michael Deming

According to the Farmer’s Almanac, we are well into spring by the time this

publication hits the shelves. This is truly one of the very best times of the year in my humble opinion. Usually old man winter has un-leashed his grip on the majority of the country and the longer days provide much more time to enjoy the great outdoors. The bass are starting to spawn and yielding some pretty good fishing. The big rainbows are on the same program and the runoff usually hasn’t blown out the rivers yet. The deer have already shed their antlers and the bull elk are well on their way to being totally dropped by now. If you are a big game hunter, about a third of the states have had their drawing results posted and the rest have deadlines around the corner. So, this is the time of year when an-ticipation is the highest and when all things are possible.

This anticipation and the looking forward to something on a regular basis is one of the big reasons people are signing up to become a Sports-man’s News Pro Member. You no longer have that one day a year to

see if you win the tag of a lifetime. We have purchased over $300,000 worth of trips, guns and gear from the very best Platinum Approved Outfitters, which we have worked with for years. A complete list of the next twelve month’s giveaways are in the center page spread of this is-sue. Every ten days, we do a public drawing for all of the members who are active participants. We video this procedure and make it totally transparent to the participants. We are just now starting our second year of this great program and we have some of the most unbelievable trips to give away.

The Desert Bighorn ram hunt in Sonora Mexico is one of the high-lighted hunts we are giving away this year. We dedicated $50,000 to this one hunt alone. Whomever wins this trip is truly going to expe-rience a trip of a lifetime. If hunting isn’t your thing, but you like to fish, we have some great fishing trips as well and most of them are for two people. So, you can take your spouse or any one of your new found friends and there will be plenty when they find out what you have won! If you’ve never thought about doing a trip of this caliber or even thought that it was possible,

this could be your chance. The odds are great and we will continue to keep them that way.

As our mem-bership grows, so will the num-ber and quality of trips available to win. Each draw-ing is focused around a major prize, but we give away numerous bonus prizes each and every draw-ing as well. Great packs from ALPS OutdoorZ and butcher kits from one of our pri-mary sponsors, Outdoor Edge. My objective this

year is to make sure every one of our members gets over $300 worth of products and discounts to make your membership worth every penny, even if you don’t win one of the grand prizes. Please check our website at promembersweepstakes.com for complete details on being a Pro Member and what is up for grabs. Five tickets in every drawing as well as the anticipation every ten days about possibly winning is making the Pro Membership some-thing very talked about.

Best of luck to all of you who participate and regardless, enjoy this great spring weather and all the outdoors has to offer. If you are fortunate enough to draw one of those coveted big game tags in the west, feel free to call us and get a recommendation on who is the best outfitter to work with. We have vetted a bunch over the last twelve years and know who is the best and a pretty good list of who not to work with.


SPORTSMAN’S WAREHOUSE7035 So. High Tech Drive

Midvale, UT 84047

PRESIDENT/PUBLISHERMike Deming

President/Publisher435-669-4624

[email protected]

SENIOR EDITORKent Danjanovich

[email protected]

NATIONAL ADVERTISING MANAGEREric Christensen435-879-1212

[email protected]

MANAGING EDITORDan Kidder

[email protected]

EDITORIAL ASSISTANTLisa Deming

[email protected]

PRODUCTION MANAGERJames Dansie

[email protected]

Subscribers should contact Managing Editor for changes of address.

Sportsman’s News is published monthly. The entire content of this newspaper is Copyright 2015 © All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be repro-duced in any form without

written consent of the Managing Editor.

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hauled in one after another. Quenna landed the first blow on the real trophy status of Tazin Lake, with a 43.5” giant. Since we were filming for an episode of SNTV, I was up close and personal with the camera and could see the strain this big laker was putting on her and her tackle. After a solid twenty-five minutes of fighting, she finally got the big old warrior in the net. It was all she could do to stand up for photos with this big fish. She shook hands and patted the fish as it swam back into the depths to fight another day. Except for some shore lunch meals, all the fish are released to fight another day and all the big ones are let go every time.

Quenna was apprehensive about coming to a lodge where it was going to be all men, but she quickly over-came that apprehension with each big fish she landed. By the time we had finished the first half day of fish-ing, our group had landed three fish over forty inches and over a hundred fish total. I was totally blown away at the quantity and the quality of fish. Pops said, “The fishing is about the same, but the food and lodging sure is better.” It’s hard to believe we were going to have a full week of this.

The chef had appetizers out and ready when we arrived back at the lodge to go along with our drinks of choice. Each course of the meal got a bit better and it was once again hard to believe this was happening this far north. By the time the sun finally set, it was well past bedtime, but we

savored the days fishing experience as the daytime gave away to the grey light of the north.

A gourmet breakfast and coffee were ready early, which would give us more than a full day on the water. This would be the plan for the entire week - send you off the dock by 8 or 8:30 with a full belly and a positive attitude. With the lake being about 12 miles across and 25 miles long, it’s hard to decide which direction to go, but our guides always had a great idea based on the weather, as well as water temperatures. Some days we would go to areas where we would stand on the bow of the boats and cast to suspended fish and other days we would troll the depths with various forms of flatfish lures. Al-though the casting to the suspended fish doesn’t always yield the largest fish, it was one of my favorite styles of fishing. Everyone was hooked up on multiple fish all the time and they ranged from 5-15 pounds. At one stop, we landed over 150 fish in a matter of a couple of hours, which makes for a full day of fishing. It’s pretty hard to get bored when the fishing is that good. The trolling and the deep water jigging was what yielded the largest fish. The largest fish for the week, which fell to these deep water tactics, was a 50.5” mon-ster fish that looked prehistoric with its huge head.

Although pike wasn’t our primary target of this trip, it is something that is very common and big ones are abundant. Quenna landed a 48.5” whopper while trolling in some shallow water and some of the other

guys casted to some bombers in the shallows. Even though I was run-ning the camera most of the time, I managed to pull my fly rod out for a few casts and yielded some 43 and 45 inch pike.

On the very last day of the trip, my captain asked if I would be willing to roll out for some fly fishing without working. I knew we had about four hours before the plane would ar-rive and when he said Rosie’s hole was the target destination, I was all in. This place was home to many stories that Pops had told me about. When we cruised into the channel that held this shallow water bay, I started to get excited. The bottom of the bay was a light clay color with relatively clear water. I could see 4 to 5 feet long logs lay-ing on the bot-tom of the bay everywhere, which would make perfect cover for huge pike. I was mesmerized when the first of those logs moved as we rolled over the top of it. Those weren’t logs, but huge pike which had come here to sun and breed! These huge females were everywhere. I pulled my ten weight out of the bag and stripped the big-gest streamer I could find.

Nothing would give my fly a sec-ond look until we started the motor and spooked a couple of fish. Once they would get off the bottom and cruise, I could cast in front of them and after a few quick strips, it was game on. Forty-four, forty-six, forty-eight, forty-two, were the first four fish in the boat. Truly some of the best fly fishing I have ever experi-enced. My tenth fish was one that I felt was several inches past the fifty mark and a goal I’ve always wanted to achieve. I saw the take and as I set the hook, I heard the snap in my rod. I had broken it just above the handle. I grabbed for the front half of the rod and dropped the reel and handle to the floor. I was now fighting a fifty-plus inch monster with seven feet of rod and gaining ground. The fight lasted for over thirty minutes. As I swung the ‘ol girls nose towards the net one last time, it was obvious that

she was ready to give up. She was ex-hausted and so was I. I had my entire fly line and a good portion of backing on the floor of the boat, as my reel was useless with the broken set up. She swirled as we tried to put her oversized body in the net. She wasn’t ready to surrender the fight once she had her nose free, but I had made the fatal mistake of stepping on my line when I felt the fight was over. I had been so cautious until now and I paid for my mistake with a loud snap of my leader ripping from the fly line. The old girl settled on the bottom in twenty feet of water and I’m sure

she smiled at me with my red and white fly shining on her lip.

I was totally exhausted and my guide was extremely apolo-getic for missing the net job, but I just didn’t care by now. I had landed nine huge

pike ranging from 41” to 48” and lost one that was definitely over 50 in a few short hours. I had just had the morning of my life and made memo-ries that will be told about Tazin Lake Lodge for years to come. I’ll be back at ice off again in 2016 for another memorable trip.

Tazin Lake Lodge is one of two lodges on this huge lake. It’s the only full time lodge and is truly a trophy fisherman’s destination. Many big waters have a tendency of being susceptible to bad weather. That isn’t the case for Tazin as it has many protected bays and lots of islands to protect it from inclimate weather. So, you should never lose a day of fishing because you can’t get out on the water. The guides utilize first class tackle and fishing equipment, so you don’t need to bring anything except a good attitude and the ability to have some fun. The food at this lodge is second to none and their attention to detail and commitment to customer service is what we look for in a Platinum Ap-proved Outfitter and we are happy to have them as part of our endorsed outfitter family. You can’t go wrong booking a trip with Tazin Lake Lodge. Book your next adventure at www.tazinlake.com or call Bohm Townsend at 775-741-4539.

LAKE TROUTcontinued from page 2

The Official Booking Agent for Tazin Lake Lodge is Bohm Townsend shown here with one of his many whopper Lakers for the week.

Every meal is like a visit to a five-star resort and the scenery provided isn’t bad either.


Imagine that you and your buddies are walking back to the campsite after a great day

of fishing and hunting. You’re a little dirty, a little tired and a lot hungry. All you want to do is sit around the campfire, relax, eat some grub and swap stories with your friends.

Instead, when you return to camp, you notice not only is your toy hauler missing but everything you stored inside is gone too including your ATV, rifles, ammo, the brand new fish-ing rod you got last week and your dad’s decoys. While you were hauling in the lake trout, your gear was being hauled off. It wasn’t pretty. YOU JUST GOT JACKED!

Sure, you know theft happens all the time, just not to you or anyone you know. You quickly learn that filing police reports, replacement costs and dealing with insurance companies is going to be a painful process. But, if you knew what Jonathan “Ren” Eversole knew about a tracking device called the SPOT TRACE, this story would have a much happier ending.

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Shades of golden oranges and reds paint the trees on the Kenai Peninsula, the air turns

brisk and the rivers and lakes are ready to give up their secret - the best fishing of the whole year. Shoulder to shoulder combat fish-ing has ended. The rivers and lakes, teaming with fat trophy sized rain-bows, are ready for some serious fly fishing. We chose the last week of September to take advantage of the variety of species available; rainbows, Dolly Varden, grayling, steelhead, silver/Coho salmon, king/Chinook salmon in the Inlet and halibut.

We returned to Crooked Creek Retreat and Outfitters where we had fished the prime season. Dorothy Baker, the owner/outfitter, runs a tight operation and everything comes off as planned. She welcomed us again to her beautiful log lodge. Booking a trip with Dorothy guar-antees a fishing trip with quality

The Best Kept Secret in Alaskafishing, lodging and meals. Plus, her experienced guides always makes us realize what a top notch opera-tion this is.

On our first morning as we are finishing breakfast, our guides come in to go over our plans for the day. They have loaded up all the gear and pulled the vehicle up to the lodge. We are off to try our luck just south of the lodge on the Anchor River. Our target of the day, in crystal clear water, are those great steelhead, silvers and rainbows. What makes this the best time of year is the lack of crowds and the fish are plentiful.

We walk into the Anchor and move upstream to one of our guide’s favorite steelhead holes. We have no sooner wetted our lines and the guide is yelling out, “bite, bite” as my rod bends almost double and I thumb the line to slow him down. He is giving me a run, changing direction. I see him coming as I

work him into the shal-lows and we get a quick photo and release this beautiful guy. All in all the weather was brisk, but it warmed up as the late September sun came out. We hooked at least fifteen and landed a good eight. We even hooked into some fat silvers and loved every minute maneuvering them in, but decided to do our normal catch and release.

Having spent the better part of the day, we head back to the lodge to jump into a hot shower and then down to appetizers and com-panionship followed by a great halibut dinner.

The fall colors on the Kenai are a great backdrop for your trip and goes well with the limited people visiting this time of year.

continued on page 14


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The guides were there to go over our plans for the next day, where we would be going to the middle Kenai after trophy rainbows and some fat silvers. There will undoubtedly be some Dolly Varden thrown in. We will be wet fly fishing in the milky glacial water that is the Kenai.

Our guide gives us a special ad-venture taking us across Skilak Lake to drop down into the middle Kenai. All we hear are the oars as our guide, Jason, brings us up on a gravel bar. We are virtually alone on the river as we start our day catching one giant rainbow after another, mixed with those athletic silvers jumping and twisting as they gave us a fight. My fishing partner even hooked into a straggler humpy. The rainbows ran large - we didn’t get anything above 30 inches, but were very happy with that. Maybe next time we will land a trophy 32 incher.

Jason grabs some canvas chairs out of the boat and we build a little fire and settle down for lunch and talk about what we want to do for the afternoon. It is divided - some of us want to go after rainbows in Johnson Lake where the water is clear and eagles dive over the boat to grab our rainbows, while others just want to hang out at the lodge and go after some trout and steelhead in Crooked Creek, right in front of the lodge.

On our third day, we are hiking up

to a lake to go after some grayling, a beautiful fish called the sail fish of Alaska. It was a short 2 ½ mile hike. It was a toss-up whether we would enjoy the vista looking down on Skilak Lake and valley or those feisty, beautiful grayling at the end of our lines.

That is another part of the secret - the variety of species you can fish this time of year. Some of us still had a halibut trip planned and others wanted to try their hand at trolling for kings in the Cook Inlet. I was anxious to float the Kasilof and try my hand at the late season run of steelhead and silvers. Starting in September and then well into Octo-ber, the fish are fatter after feeding all summer, the variety greater and the crowds are gone. There wasn’t time to get to the many other lakes and streams on this trip, which means another visit is in order.

Dorothy told us she just doesn’t understand how this has been kept a secret for so long. Locals and guides consider this time of year the best time of the season. Crooked Creek Retreat and Outfitters is one of the few Alaska fishing lodges still open in September and October and Dorothy is in residence all year. As if the best fishing isn’t a good enough reason to head to the Kenai this time of year, the significant reduction in regular price makes this a great value. Give her a call at 907-260-9014 to book your own all-inclusive late season fishing trip or check out the web site, www.crookedcreekretreat.com.

CROOKED CREEKcontinued from page 8

Although catch and release is the norm for the trout species this time of year, a visitor can still usually take a box of salmon or halibut home for the grill.

WYOMING FISHING

Logon to our website for a full list of endorsed outfitters with photos, descriptions, and

details about each.

SportsmansNews.com

UTAH HUNTING

Jed and Jenni WaymentPO Box 244, Henefer, Utah 84033

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We have 24 years of outfittingand guide experience.

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N I N E P O P U L A R M O D E L S , O N E V E R S A T I L E L I N E

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By Kent Danjanovich

As we grow older, we lose pleasure in the things that used to make us happy

when we were kids. And I don’t know about you, but one of those pleasures for me was shooting my BB/Pellet gun. Most days, no mat-ter if it were spring, summer, winter or fall, you would find me plinking cans or sneaking up on unsuspecting birds or rodents on our farm. Ahh – it seems like only yesterday!

Today’s technology makes it easy for younger generations to spend more time staring at electronic devic-es than getting out and enjoying the things that we used to. The other day, my grandson was playing a video game on his iPad. It was a blue-bird Saturday morning that reminded me of many in my youth. So, I quickly made a U-turn and walked to my gun safe and pulled out a couple of

Airguns For All Agesair rifles and a tin of pellets. What happened next? We shot nonstop for an hour. It was cheap. It was fun. It was informative.

The next week when he and his brother were over to the house, the first thing they asked me was if we could shoot the pellet guns again. I already had the targets set up!

BB and pellet rifles give the shoot-er ample amounts of inexpensive practice. The more you shoot, the better you get, so they can even help you become a better shooter with your ‘Big Boy’ weapons as well.

The following is just a sample of the great options available in the airgun category at your local Sports-man’s Warehouse. Whether you are looking for a beginner’s airgun or the newest, most powerful one on the market, the spectrum is wide and the choices broad. Just remember the most important things of all – Be Safe and Have Fun!

CrosmanFor 90 years, Crosman Corpora-

tion has been a world leader in the design and manufacture of air powered rifles and pistols. The com-pany’s contributions to the shooting sports include advancements in technology and affordability that have reawakened sportsmen to the world of airguns. Today, Crosman and Benjamin air rifles are used not only in the backyard, but in national and world competitions, youth edu-cation courses across the country and fields, prairies, swamps and mountainsides by serious hunters.

50th Anniversary of the 760One of the most popular airguns

since its inception, the Crosman Pumpmaster 760 offers a simple solution for the beginning shooter. At less than 3 lbs., it’s a great starter air rifle. The stock and forearm are made of a durable synthetic that takes lots of use and still looks good. An economical rifle, the Pumpmas-ter takes up to 10 pumps to send BBs 625 fps and pellets 600 fps. The checkering on the grip and the indentations on the pump handle make it that much easier to get a grip and stay on target.

Ideal for shooting very small ro-dents (at close range), plinking and target shooting. It’s so light that you can shoot all day! The Pumpmaster is suitable for younger shooters and smaller adults. Pellets are loaded into a 5-shot clip, while BBs have an 18-shot magazine, which is fed from the 200-shot reservoir. It comes with standard sights, but you can get even more accuracy by mount-ing a scope or red dot on the 11mm dovetail.

The 760 Pumpmaster is what all the other multi-pump pneumatics

want to be. A proven Crosman favor-ite for five decades, this dependable rifle offers an experience all its own. Over 10 million have been sold. It is still one of the best airguns on the market that doubles as a BB repeater or a single shot pellet gun. 2016 marks the 50th Anniversary of the Pumpmaster, as it has been “Taking It Outside” for plinking and target shooting fun for five decades.

Benjamin MaximasBenjamin Airguns, the premier

hunting brand of Crosman Cor-poration, continues to lead the way in low cost, high performance pre-charged pneumatics with the introduction of the Maximus™ air rifle. The single shot bolt action rifle is set in a black synthetic all-weather stock and will be available in .177 and .22 calibers.

The Maximus has a maximum fill pressure of 2000 PSI and can deliver up to 30 shots. The action is machined to accept dovetail optic mounts and the barrel is threaded, opening the door to additional ac-cessories and customization.

“With velocities up to 1000 FPS in .177 caliber and 900 FPS in .22, the Maximus will help hunters limit out on small game without having to empty their wallets,” says Sonia Nau, Product Manager.

The Maximus features an on-board pressure gauge for monitor-ing fill pressure and a single stage trigger. Maximus puts a proven hunting platform within reach while delivering impressive per-formance. With an ergonomic syn-thetic stock and smooth bolt action, the Maximus is a great introduction to the world of pre-charged pneu-matics and should hit the shelves by late spring.

Benjamin Maximus

Crosman 760


Pioneer AirbowNow, even though this article is

about airguns, this new offering from Benjamin definitely needs some press. The Pioneer Airbow is an all-new category of big game weapon featuring full length ar-rows and full weight broadheads, all driven by air. Based on Benja-min’s proven American-made PCP platform, the Pioneer can be cocked with two fingers (and decocked just as easily), fires 8-shots in the same amount of time it takes to fire three from a crossbow, all at a blaz-ing 450 FPS. The Pioneer enhances everything enthusiasts enjoy about archery hunting, while making the sport safer and more accessible.

The Pioneer Airbow is driven by

3000 PSI of compressed air. An in-tegrated pressure regulator delivers 8-shots at a consistent 450 FPS and the convenient fill nipple makes refilling quick and easy. Benjamin offers a High Pressure Hand Pump and 4500 PSI Charging System as filling solutions.

The superb shot placement capa-bility of the Pioneer comes from the unique method of propelling the arrow. Arrows are pulled from the front rather than pushed from the rear as with crossbows, resulting in remarkably tighter shot group-ings. No Archer’s Paradox, canting or other disturbances result in 2” groups at 50 yards.

I had a chance to shoot this new offering at the SHOT Show in Janu-

ary and it is truly a great addition to the hunting world. You should start seeing it hit the shelves this summer.

Stoeger Stoeger Airguns are modern,

high-tech air rifles with the look and feel of quality, European sport-ing arms. Developed by Italian engineers and designers, Stoeger air rifles combine rugged, efficient design with quality manufacturing. They even carry a 2-year warranty on all of their airguns for the origi-nal purchaser.

X10 The X10 is a European-style air

rifle that offers state-of-the-art per-formance and power. Its reliable, spring-piston break-action with ergonomic cocking grip for easy charging give you the power to pro-pel .177 alloy pellets at a potent 1200 feet per second. The straight-comb-style synthetic stock of the X10 is a hunter’s favorite. It is fitted with a rubber butt-pad for a solid shoulder mount and improved control. The X10 is also available with a light-weight, all-weather black synthetic straight-comb stock.

The rifled, blued steel barrel of the Stoeger X10 guarantees accu-racy and years of service. It comes with standard fiber-optic front and adjustable rear sights. The fiber-optic inserts—single red front and two-dot, green rear—make target acquisition easy in varied light and weather conditions. All X10 receiv-ers feature an integral dovetail scope-rail. For added security and control, the X10 features an auto-matic, ambidextrous safety mount-

ed on the rear of the receiver. The trigger can be screw-adjusted for second-stage length. The handy X10 is ideal for plinking and all kinds of target shooting and takes the field with sufficient power for pest con-trol and small-game hunting.

X20 Suppressor S2The latest innovation from

Stoeger is the X20 Suppressor S2. It features a newly designed silencer and housing. The ergonomic si-lencer housing provides a firm grip and solid feel for cocking this break-barrel airgun. It incorporates new S2 technology with a CNC machined steel breach for more performance.

DUAL STAGE with AFC (Air-Flow Control) internal designed channels and regulation ring with baffels offer more fluidity to reduce the muzzle noise. The S2 also includes a Stoeger Airguns 3-9x40 AO scope with magnum one bloc mount. It also incorporates a new synthetic stock design with an ambidextrous cheek piece and large checkered front stock palm and a rubber recoil pad. Available in calibers 4, 5mm/.177 and 5, 5 mm/.22.

UmarexUmarex USA, Inc. began with

the Umarex Group’s acquisition of RUAG Ammotec USA (Dynamit Nobel), North American marketers of the famous RWS brand of pre-mium adult airguns. Later named Umarex USA and combined with the world class products from German based Umarex, the par-ent company of Walther Firearms, Umarex USA has quickly become one of the premier providers of airguns and airgun accessories to

Pioneer Airbow

Stoeger X10

Stoeger X20 Suppressor


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North America. This was my first experience with the Umarex line and I was very impressed with all three of our test models.

NXG APXThe Next Generation APX from

Umarex USA is the genesis of mod-ern youth air rifles. It redefines the standard of airguns designed for younger and small-framed shooters with a multitude of modern-day features that includes an automatic safety - a feature never before seen on a pneumatic rifle of this type. Each time the airgun is fired, the safety resets itself, a great feature, especially for beginning shooters.

The dual ammunition APX fea-tures a progressive stock design that’s ergonomic, modern and im-pact resistant. Its grip is designed

with a narrow curve that’s com-fortable for shooters with smaller hands, creating better control and a safer shooting environment. Its multi-pump action and easy-load pellet ramp is easy to use for right or left-handed shooters and it deploys alloy projectiles up to a velocity of 800 feet per second at maximum air charge.

The adjustable rear sight and fiber optic front sight, protected by its sleek muzzle brake, allows you to quickly zero in on your intended target when shooting either pellets or steel BBs. Mounting a scope to the APX is easy with its integrated tactical-style scope mounting rail system - another first in youth air rifles, that provides a positive lock down to keep a scope on zero. All of these features combine to make

shooting the Umarex Next Genera-tion APX a target-busting experience for shooters of many ages.

TORQThe Umarex TORQ .177 caliber

air rifle is a marriage of advanced airgun technology and ergonomic designs that come together to pro-vide a great shooting experience. The industry leading SilencAir 5 chamber noise reduction system, 2-stage adjustable trigger, rubber-ized forearm, auto safety and am-bidextrous thumbhole stock make this air rifle an enjoyable gun to shoot. A dark earth brown (DEB) all-weather synthetic stock looks great with the included 4x32 scope on the metal Picatinny scope rail. If you are shooting nearby targets, you can rely on the improved accuracy of

a rifled barrel and fiber optic sights (rear sight adjustable). The mounted rear site is easy to adjust for both windage and elevation. Maybe the best buy of our reviews – well-made and affordable.

RugerTargis

The Ruger Targis is a high velocity, high impact 177 pellet air rifle. When you combine .177 pellet speeds up to 1200 FPS (alloy) and the SilencAir Noise Dampening System, you can see that this is a well-designed air rifle for small game hunting and target shooting. Another aspect of the Ruger Targis that makes it popular is that it’s easier to cock the break barrel than many magnum air rifles, making it user friendly Umarex NXG APX

Umarex TORQ


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for all ages. Its SilencAir system is a non-removable suppressor with five chambers that greatly reduce muzzle noise. The Targis comes equipped with a highly visible fiber optic front sight, a Picatinny rail and fixed adjustable rear sight, as well as a 3-9x32 scope, all-weather stock and adjustable 2-stage trigger. In fact, the trigger on the Targis is as good as any I have experienced in an airgun. This is truly a great feel-ing airgun and was a pleasure to shoot. Ruger branded products are manufactured by UMAREX under license from Sturm, Ruger & Co, Inc.

DaisyJust ask someone to name an

airgun company and chances are excellent that the first name that comes to mind will be Daisy. For over 125 years, more Americans have taken their first shot with a Daisy BB gun than any other brand, especially our little ones entering the sport.

BuckSpring and summer are just

around the corner, promising op-portunities to get out in the back-yard for some serious plinking and

for vacation outings. What a great opportunity to hand down the shooting sports tradition by teach-ing a young person in your family important marksmanship skills, gun safety rules and responsibil-ity. Sportsman’s Warehouse offers several Daisy youth airguns and there’s one that’s just right for your son or daughter.

Smaller profile shooters are quick to master mounting the gun, trigger squeeze and sight picture when shooting Daisy’s Buck lever-action, 400-shot BB gun. With a solid wood stock, the Buck features a blade and ramp front sight and fixed open rear sight. Train a young shooter with a Daisy Buck and open the door to a lifetime of enjoyment of shooting and hunting.

Powerline 901When it comes to target shoot-

ing, backyard competition and small game hunting, you can’t beat Daisy’s PowerLine Model 901. The stock’s sleek black composite design features ergonomic pistol grip and forearm. This 50-shot BB repeater is also a single shot pellet rifle. Every time you pull back the bolt and push it forward, you’ll load another BB. Or you can single-load any style of .177 caliber pellets. A fiber optic front sight helps you quickly and accurately acquire your target. Pump the forearm three times for target practice or up to ten times for maximum velocity of 800 feet per second. The receiver is grooved to accept optics. The dual-ammo Daisy PowerLine 901, with rifled steel bar-rel, is a very popular, versatile air rifle you’ll enjoy for years.


Ruger Targis

Daisy Buck

Daisy Powerline 901

April 2016 | SPORTSMAN’S NEWS DIGITAL EDITION 23圀圀圀⸀匀倀伀刀吀匀䴀䄀一匀圀䄀刀䔀䠀伀唀匀䔀⸀䌀

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GamoFor over 120 years Gamo has been

in the air gun industry, designing and producing high quality and high powered air rifles, air pistols and airgun ammunition for small game hunting and pest control.

Today, Gamo is the largest manu-facturer of airgun pellets in the world and one of the most recog-nized air gun manufacturers in Europe. Competing successfully worldwide, Gamo air guns can be found in more than fifty countries and used daily by hunters and out-door enthusiasts.

Whisper Fusion ProThe Whisper Fusion Pro offers

all-weather durability combined with maximum performance. Light weight synthetic stock, match grade fluted barrel and 1400 fps (.177 cali-ber) with PBA make the Whisper Fusion Pro perfect for small game hunting, targets, and pest control.

Fluted Polymer Jacketed Steel Bar-rel with WHISPER FUSION Double Integrated Noise Dampening Tech-nology and 3-9x40 with adjustable objective scope come standard

The Whisper “The Quiet Gun” is one of the most innovative Gamo high powered air rifles designed for quieter shooting with special ND 52 Technology. The techni-cally advanced ND 52 technology is an integral non-removable noise dampener that reduces the noise up to 52% from standard spring air rifles.

With its patented double inte-grated noise dampening technology making the shot nearly undetect-able to pesky varmints, the Whisper Fusion also offers exclusive Smooth Action Trigger (SAT™) and Shock Wave Absorber (SWA™) features,

making it a must-have for any se-rious varmint hunter. Available in both .177 and .22 models.

Big Cat 1250The Gamo Big Cat 1250 is one of

the most popular airguns on the market today. The Gamo Big Cat 1250 is another of Gamo’s 1000 feet per second line of airguns. It does 1000 fps with lead pellets and closer to 1250 with PBA pellets. This gives it quite a punch. A thousand feet per second equals about 15 lbs of impact power at short range.

The stock is made of high-tec

polymer. It is tough and durable and can handle any climate. It is ambidextrous and has a raised cheek piece on both right and left sides, so all you south paws can also go plinking without prob-lems. It has a checkered stock at the grip and in the front, so this air rifle won’t slip from your grip. The rifled steel barrel is encased by light weight polymer, making it durable and almost maintenance free. The receiver is prepared for a standard .22 scope mount, so if you want to attach a scope, that is no problem. It has a protruding pin preventing the rifle scope from sliding backwards once mounted.

Overall, the Big Cat 1250 is a great airgun at a great price. Check out this and other great Gamo models at your local Sportsman’s Warehouse.

AIRGUNScontinued from page 22

Gamo Big Cat 1250

Gamo Whisper Fusion Pro


Designed with the latest U.S. Military standards in mind, the Ruger American Pistol™ is built

to perform in the harshest conditions. A true American innovation, this pistol was developed

through a rigorous “Voice of the Customer” process – where numerous law enforcement and

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testing in the determination of the form, function and features of this firearm. The resultant

new pistol is a revolutionary platform for Ruger, one that utilizes the combination of a recoil-

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Anything Else Would Be Un-American.™

Short Takeup Trigger with Positive Reset

Recoil-Reducing Barrel Cam, Low Mass Slide, Low Center of Gravity and Low Bore Axis

Performance Tested for Sustained +P Ammunition Use

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Safe, Easy Takedown with No Tools or Trigger Pull Required

Ambidextrous Slide Stop and Magazine Release Allow Actuation with Either Hand

Genuine Novak® LoMount Carry Three-Dot Sights

© 2016 Sturm, Ruger & Co., Inc. 121615

RUGER.COM/AMERICANPISTOL

DESIGNED WITH THE TOUGHEST STANDARDS IN MINDBUILT TO PERFORM IN THE HARSHEST CONDITIONS


A guide to picking up bones on winter range and converting them to greenbacks.

By Gary Lewis

Mike Crawford took down his binos and pointed.

“Gary, there’s a big one. I think it’s a six-point elk shed.”

Using hand signals, Mike walked me in from 600 yards away.

After a few errant zigs and zags, I picked it up. It was a mule deer shed, not an elk antler.

Since Mike wanted elk antlers and I wanted deer drops, I took it home to put it on the mantle, a reminder of a good day on the mountain.

Picking up a fresh antler is like picking up a gold nugget. Well, maybe not quite, but there’s no deny-

Shed Antlers For Fun And Profiting each piece is a treasure.

To the shed hunter, antlers are brown gold. Some are sold, some given away, some kept as trophies. The price per pound fluctuates; often deer is worth more. Fresh, all-brown antlers can bring between $7 for elk all the way up to $20 per pound for whitetail.

Who buys antlers?Antlers are used for dog chews,

chandeliers, knife handles, beads, buttons and art. Heavy elk antlers are often used in furniture, as supports for coffee tables and to form the backs or legs of chairs. Common pieces are crated up and sent overseas to serve the medicinal markets in China and Japan.

Jason Preston is an antler buyer who makes his home in Oregon and buys antlers from around the west. His company (www.wildchewz.com) converts Grade-A elk headgear to chews for dogs. Lately, he has been paying about $8 per pound.

“The Asian market takes quite a bit,” Preston said. “They are used in homeopathic medicines and the Asians believe antlers have powers in them that do the same thing Viagra does.”

A taxidermy studio is a good place to sell unique pieces.

Tim McLagan, of Bend, Oregon, is an award-winning taxidermist and a sometime buyer of antlers. He is looking for specific configu-rations that fit into the chandeliers and lamps he builds. Big elk antlers

often end up in floor lamps. For chandeliers, he likes deer.

“I like to have four lefts or four rights of the same diameter, all the same size, if I’m building a chandelier. For a table lamp, it doesn’t matter, I can make a lamp from any two antlers.”

In general, the most sought af-ter sheds are big

and brown, but collectors and buyers watch for other qualities. Antlers are graded according to age and exposure.

A-grade antlers are fresh, brown all the way around with no cracks. B-grades are hard white, good and solid with maybe some hairline sun-bake cracks. C-grade sheds are chalky, cracked, chipped, broken and/or chewed.

That six-month old deer antler - brown on one side, white on the other - I found would have fetched close to $20. That, combined with the spike elk antler I found that day would have paid for my fuel. Some-times we do better.

When and where to find antlersIn the Pacific Northwest, deer

begin to shed their antlers in Febru-ary. By the end of March, most mule deer and blacktail have dropped their headgear. Elk shed a few weeks later. A big bull can keep last year’s crown all the way into April.

Brian Davis, a shed enthusiast who makes his home in Redmond, Oregon, likes to hit the ground in February and hunt “horns” into early June.

“I’ve found them on rock crop-ping’s, sandy soft areas, under trees, in buck brush, in canyons,” Davis said. “Deer and elk take different routes in the late winter and early spring because the feed is in different places than it was in the fall.”

One of best ways to find dropped

antlers is to sit and glass from a long way off. Wear the binos on a shoulder rig rather than carrying them in a backpack. Sit down and glass far hill-sides and look for white tips of bone above the tops of the grass.

Sightings of deer or elk of-fer clues to the places where

sheds may be found, but it’s im-portant to give the animals a wide berth. Get too close to a bachelor group of bucks or bulls and it is possible to stress them at the criti-cal period of the season when they should be recovering from winter.

Look for antlers, not animals. Prospect the places they have been, not where they are headed.

Antler dogsAnother way to find sheds is to

employ an antler dog. Some breed-ers and trainers focus on developing the traits that turn a four-legger’s nose into an antler detector. Kevin and Diane Schmid, owners of North Idaho Antler Dogs (www.northi-dahoantlerdogs), based in Pierce, Idaho, work mostly with labs. Steve Waller, of Tall Timber Pudelpoint-ers, in Oakland, Oregon, works with both labs and pudelpointers.

“They need to have a strong de-sire to retrieve, probably stronger than normal. In a lot of cases, that antler has been laying there for a year. Which means the dog may not be quite as excited about finding a dried piece of deer headgear as he might get about jumping a chukar or covey of quail,” Waller said.

“The key thing is they need to be force-fetch trained so that once they get the antler in their mouth, they’ll deliver it.”

Using a dog to locate sheds can save a lot of time. And on good wintering grounds, a dog can bring a lot of extra bone to hand.

Certain breeds of dogs can be trained, like this pudelpointer, to sniff out and retrieve sheds.

Mule deer tend to drop their antlers in February and March. Antler hunters can pick up the ‘sheds’ on the winter range.

Photo by Gary Lewis

Photo by Gary Lewis


Antler scoringMule deer sheds are measured ac-

cording to the number of points, tine length and circumference. The eye-guard is called the G1 and the back point is referred to as the G2. The tine that forks from the G2 is the G3. On a typical four-point frame, the G4 is the point that grows from the main beam. Overall scores are measured in inches. A big one will stretch the tape to 70 inches or more.

Elk antlers are measured in a similar fashion. On a typical six-point frame, the points come off the main beam. The brow tine is called the G1, the G2 is the next one and so forth. A trophy elk shed runs 150 inches and weighs four to eight pounds.

Prices fluctuate. Sometimes white ones are more valuable than brown. Some artists prefer smaller ‘craft’ antlers.

How many antlers are there?How many antlers hit the ground

each year? In the state of Texas, they say, there are about 4-million white-tail deer. Maybe 400,000 of those are

antlered, which equates to 800,000 sheds each year.

Alabama has an estimated 1.8-mil-lion deer. That means there are prob-ably 180,000 antlered bucks (and a few females) to drop 360,000 sheds on the ground.

Let’s say there are 215,000 mule deer where I live, in Oregon. Of those, maybe 32,000 are bucks. That equates to 64,000 fresh antler sheds this year. Add to that the number of blacktail and whitetail bucks, Rocky Mountain and Roosevelt bulls and a few moose (yes, there are moose in Oregon). That is a lot of bone on the ground.

For some people, it’s about a trophy antler or one from a special buck. For others, it’s important to get a matched set. That’s me.

My first find was a matched 4x4 chalky mule deer set. If I’d sold them, I might have made two dollars, but those antlers meant something to me. I kept them and turned them into a hat rack. In fact, I’ve kept far more antlers than I’ve sold.

A few years ago, in the desert, I took a trail through a grove of

mountain mahogany and spotted ivory-tipped tines that protruded through the duff. I picked up the left side of a six-point elk’s castoff crown. I strapped it on, continued south along the ridge and stopped.

What happens when a bull drops an antler? All of a sudden he is unbal-anced and wants to shake the other one off. I turned around and stalked back. In two more minutes I had a matching pair of six-point sheds to pack off the ridge. Now they are part of a living room lamp crafted from elk antlers taken in Colorado and picked up in Oregon.

We don’t find them ev-ery time, but we pick them up often enough to keep going. Those spring and summer days are rare and fine when any moment we could snatch up a monarch’s cast-off crown.

To order a signed copy of Gary Lewis’s Hunting Oregon, send $24.95 (includes S&H) to GLO, PO Box 1364, Bend, OR 97709 or visit www.GaryLewisOut-doors.com

Photo by Gary Lewis

Brian Davis with a full load of elk antlers found on one day in the backcountry. One average elk antler weighs about 6-pounds and can bring about $40 from an antler buyer.


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Pro’s TipsBy Michael Deming

Whether you have waited years to draw that pre-mium limited entry tag

or have just now decided to do a guided trip, you are left with a daunting task of figuring out who to hunt with. If you have never booked a guided trip and don’t have a good circle of influ-ence of who does, it won’t take you long to realize that there are a lot of outfitters out there will-ing to take your money. Some good and a whole bunch that are bad. Some that are downright criminals and should be behind bars. The real question is, “How do you know who is good” and “How do I decide which one is right for me”?

Most people today will start with a web search on the specific area or species they have a tag for or want to pursue. This will

Picking the Right Outfitterusually identify a significant list of possible candidates to book with. You might even find some positive remarks on the web, but more than likely, you will find the negative remarks. Do you drop someone off of your list because there was a customer which wasn’t happy with the service they were provided? My personal experience says, “No”. However, you do want to find out the story behind the complaint if you figure out this is the outfitter you are seriously considering. If there are complaints everywhere, look elsewhere for sure. A few big buck or bull photos on the outfitters website is usually all it takes for most viable customers to start really looking at some-one. Who doesn’t want to har-vest one of the biggest animals of their life? After all, you have waited a lifetime for this tag or saved for years and you want

the biggest thing available. The problem with this philosophy is that if you don’t harvest an ani-mal which is worthy of the cover of a magazine, you aren’t likely to be happy when it is all over. You might just be that person posting your complaint on the internet for that next possible hunter to see. This all plays into the pitfalls of picking the right outfitter.

If you want to pick the right outfitter and truly have the time of your life, you have to know the right questions to ask. Some questions should be the same for all people, but the majority of questions you should be asking the outfitter should be specific to just you and your situation. Be-fore you can ask those questions, you need to know what you want and what will make for a great trip, regardless of the outcome. Remember, you are hunting and when you book a trip, you aren’t purchasing an animal. You are booking a trip with a profes-sional hunter, who knows the land, knows the habits of the animals on this land, has the gear to make you comfortable and has done their homework to give you the best opportunity possible. When you go into a hunt and you know this, you will enjoy the experience. I’ve been guided and I’ve been the guide and nobody

wants you to be more successful than the guide himself. His or her reputation is on the line to get you what you want.

Before you start shopping for an outfitter, know what you want out of the experience, even if you aren’t successful. Be honest with yourself and who you are prior to shopping for that outfit-ter and you will make shopping for the right outfitter so much easier. If you enjoy coming back to the lodge at the end of the day, taking a hot shower and enjoying the camaraderie of the other hunters, then forget about that hard-core backcountry hunt regardless of how hard someone tries to sell you. This doesn’t mean that you can’t harvest a world class animal, but it does limit the number of places you hunt. If food and lodging mean nothing to you and you have saved every penny for twenty years to kill a giant mule deer, then know that about yourself too. Do you like to see a lot of game on your trips or are you okay with seeing only one animal during the hunt, especially if he is the one? Knowing yourself as a person and what you want out of the trip is the key to getting the most out of your trip.

Once you know about yourself, then you can start shopping for outfitters. When you do, you

Giant trophy mule deer of this caliber come from outfitters that have done their research who consistently deliver high quality with a high success rate.


always want to make sure that an outfitter is licensed to do busi-ness. Sounds simple, but every year numerous people send de-posits to people who don’t pass this first test. That money is gone for good and you are still respon-sible to the state for hunting with a licensed outfitter. Talking to the states’ licensing board is a good way to see what sort of stand-ing an outfitter has, as well as any complaints they may have against them. Someone with numerous complaints year after year should be avoided. Most people want to know the success rate of an outfitter. I won’t dis-count that this is a question I like to know as well. However, it has little emphasis on my booking a trip, unless I know the clients. Without knowing the past clients physical abilities, as well as their ability to shoot, doesn’t give me solid facts about how good this outfitter or his guides produce. If they run in the 90% or better, chances are they are booking the

right clients for their situation and have pretty good guides.

Most outfitters are happy to provide you with a reference list of past customers. They aren’t likely to put someone on that list that didn’t have a good time. So, it will be a bit biased. People on that list which have visited the operation multiple times and go back regardless of success are a good resource. These reference lists are a good place for me to ask the questions which validate if this is the right outfitter for my own personal trip of a lifetime. Are the things that are truly important to you about the ex-perience what they experienced while they were there? Does it match what the outfitter told you about the operation? When you get that, you are likely on the right track to have a great experience.

To summarize, make sure you are honest with yourself about the type of experience you want, regardless of success. Be honest

with the outfitter about what you want and tell him or her about your physical capabilities, as well as your shooting abilities. Make sure you are hunting in

an area which grows the caliber of animals you want to harvest. When it all comes together, you are on your way to that trip of a lifetime.

Whether you hunt on private land or public land the process of vetting an outfitter is the same. Knowing your physical capabilities is essential to having an outfitter plug you into the right location.


Chad LaChance

The classic crankbait. What could be simpler than chuck-ing out a plug and windin’

it back in? Occasionally it will be intercepted by a sportfish of nearly any species and since it’s armed with treble hooks that fish will likely be hooked even if the angler is half asleep. That is the attitude many anglers harbor about crankbaits - I learned that over years of guiding professionally. Who can blame them because a lot of the time it actually does go that way; huck, wind and viola - fish on.

Well, as with many things that seem so outwardly simple in fishing, cranking is a complex

Hardbait Happinessgame and amazingly successful when performed at a high level. Let’s look at cranking scenarios closer, but first let me specify some crankbait lingo and limitations.

Lipped crankbaits dive on the retrieve, float up when paused and are the most common. Lipless crankbaits typically sink and are full of rattles. They play by differ-ent rules all together. Since lipped crankbaiting is a horizontal game where the lure must be retrieved to dive, there is a practical maximum depth of about 20 feet. If your fish are 30 feet down, you probably need a different tool. Realistically, my crankbaiting stops around the 17-20 foot mark - so will yours unless you invest in specialized lures and rods. And while lipless cranks can be fished at any depth, the deeper the water, the more vertically they must be fished, typi-cally in a yo-yo fashion like jigging a spoon. Efficiency goes away as the retrieve gets more vertical, so the hard depth floor is still around 30 feet. Also, crankbaits can be snaggy, but the key to minimizing this is speed - the faster you wind, the less you’ll snag because the lure will run more nose-down as the diving lip will protect the trebles and the lure will deflect harder off

anything it does hit. Ironically, you want it to hit things - lots of things - because that deflection is a great strike generator. Since crankbaits are among the more expensive lures an angler can buy, I strongly suggest procuring a Frabill Tele-scoping Lure Retriever. It will save you tons of money in the long run.

Now let’s examine specific sce-narios, starting shallow and mov-ing deeper. One of my favorite cranking scenarios is working visible cover or flats in 0- to 6-feet of water. I most commonly do this with a “squarebill crankbait” or lipless crankbait. A squarebill crank’s diving lip has distinct corners as the name implies; they make the lure far more weedless than other cranks around hard cover like stumps and rock. I like a Berkley Pitbull squarebill for their wobbling action and great colors. Casts are short with an emphasis on accuracy around cover and I make every attempt to hit pieces of wood, dock pilings, rocks, etc with the bait to provoke that reac-tive strike.

Working large shallow flats is ac-complished with the same Pitbull squarebill or a Berkley Warpig


Crankbaits come in a variety of shapes and colors, but they all catch fish when good technique is applied.


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By James Dansie

Jeff Lester is the owner of Hunt Hard and is one of the best in the business at killing huge elk in

Hunt Hard OutfittersNew Mexico. He has been a personal friend to Sportsman’s News for years and we were excited that we could procure this once in a lifetime hunt for the Pro-Membership Sweep-

stakes. Mike Barrick of Cedar City, Utah was the lucky winner.

We were excited to get out to the field and start spotting elk our first morning. The sun was just starting to peak out, illuminating the red rock of the New Mexico landscape surrounding us. It was an incred-ible backdrop to look for elk and it didn’t take long before we started seeing bulls. We were spotting a lot of decent elk, but nothing that would constitute burning your tag on the first day. After about an hour of heavy glassing, our guide, “Niel-son” locked onto a huge seven by seven. I knew it was huge because Nielson is a man of few words and he was going crazy describing how big this bull was.

Since we were hunting with a muzzle loader, we needed to close a considerable gap to be in range. The terrain was tough. It had drops and steep climbs, little canyons that came out of no-where and even a

spot where we had to do a little rock climbing. But the sight of this big bull gave us a huge adrenaline rush and we didn’t care how hard it was.

As we got closer, we started mov-ing slower. At two hundred yards, it was time to set up. Mike got on his sticks and started getting control of his breathing. The bull walked out in the opening and I knew this was it - he’s going down. All of the sudden about forty yards in front of us, a shot went off and the bull goes down. Stunned by the sudden turn of events, we looked at each other and wondered what had just hap-pened. It doesn’t happen often, but sometimes with public lands, you can get on an animal that someone else is already hunting.

We woke up the next morning and did our best to put previous events out of our minds. It was a new day which brought new determination It takes a lot of work glassing the rugged New Mexico landscape in

order to find a giant bull elk. continued on page 46


By Dan KidderManaging Editor

Lovers of the outdoors still like the occasional crea-ture comforts at camp and

to keep your appliances and electronics running off the grid, Sportsman’s Warehouse carries a full line of Honda Inverters.

No brand has the reputation for reliability and performance l ike Honda. From large and mighty to small and portable, Honda has all your power gen-eration needs covered. With fea-tures like super quiet engines, to low maintenance, easy starting and long run times and fuel ef-ficiency, Honda’s inverters will perform.

Standard generators use fuel to run a motor attached to an alternator to produce electrical alternating current, l ike that used in a house. Because they directly generate current, if the motor speed fluctuates, so will the current and this can lead to unreliable output. An inverter generator outputs this same type of unstable AC current, but then converts it to DC and then uses a built-in inverter to turn it back into a more stable form of AC current, to remove power fluctuations. This conditioned electrical output is better for your appliances and electronic devices. Each of the Honda In-verters also has the ability to connect to a like model to double the output. Honda uses state-of-the-art inverter technology to provide stable power output for all of your power needs. We took a few of the models carried at Sportsman’s Warehouse for a spin to see what they could do.

Honda Family of Inverters

EU1000i InverterThe EU10001 Inverter is Hon-

da’s small yet powerful portable workhorse. With just a .6-gallon fuel tank, the EU1000i will run for up to 9-hours on a single tank of gas, depending upon the load. Using the Eco Throttle, the 50 cu-bic centimeter engine revs up or down, depending on the power output to help conserve fuel. Rated at 900 watts and 7.5 amps of power, it has a max output of 1000 watts of 120 volt power. The 1000i includes two 125v standard 15 amp household outlets, as well as a direct connect 12 volt DC output for charging batteries. This little beauty is ultra-quiet, running full out at about 59 decibels (the level of a standard conversation) so you can stand right next to it and not ever have to raise your voice to be heard. When the Eco Throttle kicks in and the load output decreases, you can practically whisper next to it and be heard. It is lightweight, around 30 pounds with fuel and oil and small enough to set on the back floorboards of a car. It is just 17.7 inches long by 15 inches tall and 9.4 inches wide.

EU2000i InverterThe most versatile, everyday

inverter in the Honda lineup

is the EU2000i. Featuring the same ultra-quiet technology as its little brother, the 2000i pro-vides enough power output to run a small refrigerator and still has enough left over to hook up your electric coffee pot. The inverter technology makes the power output stable enough to run computers, flat screen TVs and other sensitive electronic de-vices. It has a 1600 watt 13.3 amp rated output with 2000 watts of 16.7 amp max output. The 2000i provides two, 20 amp 125 volt outlets, as well as a 12 volt DC outlet. It’s1-gallon gas tank will run between 3.4 hours at max output to 8.1 hours at ¼ load. It is still a manageable weight for one person at only 48 pounds with a full tank. It is 20.2 long by 16.7 inches tall by 11.4 inches wide, so it easily fits in the trunk of even a compact car. The EU2000i is also available in a camo version.

EU2000i CompanionThe EU2000i Companion fea-

tures everything found in the regular EU 2000i, but features a single 125 volt, 20-amp output, as well as a 30-amp RV connection

output. It is designed to be run in parallel with your standard EU2000i Inverter to double your output to 4000 watts of 30-amp power. It can be run alone or in parallel. It weighs the same as the standard 2000i and is the same dimensions.

EU3000iSFor those larger devices, like

RV air conditioners, washing machines, furnaces and micro-waves, the 3000iS provides two, 125-volt 20-amp outputs , as well as a 30-amp RV connection locking plug outlet and a 12-volt DC battery charging port. The 3000iS is rated to run at 2800 watts of 23.3-amp output with a max of 3000 watts at 25-amps of 120 volt power. It has advanced features like electric

start with a backup recoil oper-ated pull cord and a run time of up to 20 hours on its 3.4-gal-lon tank. It will run for around 7-hours at full load. This unit is larger and can be handled for short distances by a single per-son, but if you need to carry it any distance, you will want two people to carry it with its inte-grated carry handles. A disper-sion exhaust vent spreads out the exhaust from its 196 cubic centimeter engine, so it isn’t all concentrated in a single spot, so it is great for use in tight spaces. You still want adequate ventila-tion to prevent accumulation of carbon monoxide. It weighs 140 pounds with a full tank and oil reservoir and 25.9 inches long by 22 inches high by 17.6 inches wide and fits easily in the trunk of a full-sized sedan or in the bed of your pickup.


EU7000iThe big daddy of the Honda

inverter line is the EU7000iS. For outdoor events, sound sys-tems, LED projectors, RVs and home power back up, the electric start, fuel injected 7000iS will handle just about anything you

can throw at it. It features four, 20 –amp GFCI outlets, a s i n g l e 1 2 5 v o l t 3 0 a m p l o c k i n g r i n g R V c o n n e c -tion and a 30-amp 125/250 v o l t l o c k i n g r i n g o u t l e t for welders or large applianc-es like electric dryers. It has a power mode switch to select which power output you de-sire . I t has a

push-button electric start with a key to prevent unauthorized use and an LCD display to show how many hours of use, watts of output, engine RPM and the volt-age of the internal starter battery. The 389 cubic centimeter engine is fuel injected for even better

fuel efficiency and a longer run time and is super quiet, running between 52 and 60 decibels. The 7000iS has a 5.1 gallon fuel tank and will run between 6.5 hours at full load and 18 hours at ¼ load on a single tank. A collapsible handle lets you easily maneuver the inverter on its built-in wheels and then stows away for easier storage or transport. It is a heavy beast for a single person, weigh-ing about 285 pounds with a full tank, but two people can lift it with minimal effort. Rolling it on its wheels is easy for a single person. It is 33.4 inches long by 28.4 inches high by 27.6 inches wide, but takes up minimal space in the bed of a pickup truck.

All of the Honda inverters feature output indicators, low oil warning lights and overload indicators. When the oil gets low, the engine will automatically shut off to keep it from seizing. It will also shut off after 4-seconds to prevent an overload. They all

have internal circuit breakers on each outlet to prevent overload-ing a single outlet. The 3000iS and the 7000iS both have electric start and key locks, as well as external fuel gauges.

For the money, the features and sound level of the Honda inverters are well worth the high price tag you will find from regular generators. Coupled with the better power conditioning of the inverter technology over standard generators, the Hondas perform better and more effi-ciently. They are smaller in size, more powerful and give better performance than many other power generators on the market. Whether you go with a EU1000i or the EU7000iS, you will be glad you went with a product from Honda, a company with a reputa-tion for reliability and excellent customer service.

Check out the full line of Honda Inverters at your local Sports-man’s Warehouse store for all of your power generation needs.

Honda Inverters

Model EU 1000i EU 2000i EU 2000i Companion EU 3000iS EU 7000iS

Engine Displacement 49.4 cc 98.5cc 98.5cc 196cc 389cc

AC Output120V 1000W max.

(8.3A) 900W rated (7.5A)

120V 2000W max. (16.7A) 1600W rated (13.3A)

120V 2000W max. (16.7A) 1600W rated (13.3A)

120V 3000W max.(25A) 2800W rated (23.3A)

120/240V 7000W max. (58.3/29.1A) 5 5 0 0 W r a t e d (45.8/22.9A)

Receptacles 15A 125V Duplex 20A 125V Duplex 30A 125V Locking

Plug, 20A 125 V re-ceptacle

20A 125V Duplex, 30A 125V Locking Plug

20A 125V GFCI Duplex (2), 30A 125V Locking Plug, 30A 125/250V Locking Plug

Electric Start X X

Fuel Capacity Run Time0.6 gal./ 3.8 hrs. @

rated load, 8.3 hrs. @ 1/4 load

.95 gal / 3.4hr @ rated load 8.1 hrs @ 1/4 load

.95 gal. / 3.4hr @ rated load 8.1 hrs @ 1/4 load

3.4 gal. / 7.1 hrs. @ rated load, 20 hrs. @ 1/4 load

5.1 gal./ 6.5 hrs.@ rated load, 18.0 hrs. @ 1/4 load

Dimensions 17.7" x 9.4" x 15.0" 20.2" x 11.4" x 16.7" 20.2" x 11.4" x 16.7" 25.9" x 17.6" x 22.0" 33.4" x 27.6" x 28.4"

Dry Weight 28.7 lb 45.6 lb. 45.6 lb. 131 lbs. 261 lbs.

Noise Level59 dB(A) @ rated

load 53dB(A) @ 1/4 load

59 dB(A) @ rated load 53dB(A) @ 1/4 load

59 dB @ rated load 53dB @ 1/4 load

58 dB(A) @ rated load, 49 dB(A) @ 1/4 load

60 dB(A) @ rated load, 52 dB(A) @ 1/4 load

Warranty 3 Years 3 Years 3 Years 3 Years 3 Years


2015 New Video Product Reviews

Scan this QR Code with your smart phone to view the Sportsman's News YouTube Channel. Video Available after April 10th.

Owning a rifle which shoots Sub-MOA (1” groups at 100 yards) was once reserved

for those custom rifle owners who had deep pockets or the guys who reloaded religiously and had the time to find that sweet spot. Occa-sionally, a person would get lucky and get a factory gun that would shoot lights out and when they did, they would never get rid of it.

Thanks to Nosler and the Model 48 Liberty rifle, everyday shooters without the deep pockets, can now own a rifle that shoots consistent MOA groups with factory ammo and have a guarantee behind it.

Nosler has been a household name for well over half a century due to their great bullets. They have been building rifles to test these bullets in for quite some time now as well. In 2005, they started de-livering custom rifles to consumers of the highest quality. This has yielded numerous awards and ac-colades from the outdoor industry and now in 2016

Nosler Model 48 Liberty Riflethey are producing production rifles with the same high quality standards.

Production rifles are done in small batches to bring costs down, yet will still deliver high quality. The Model 48 Liberty comes in numer-ous calibers from the 22-250 all the way out to the 35 Whelen. But their most well-known cartridges that are setting the world on fire are the .26 Nosler, .28 Nosler, and .30 Nosler, which are all powerhouse cartridges capable of taking down anything North America has to hunt. Each rifle comes with a Model 48 custom action, which is contoured to ac-commodate any standard 2-piece scope base that would otherwise fit a Remington 700 rifle. It has a custom

hand tuned trigger set at 3- to 4-pounds, side mounted rocker safety and every action is proof tested to ensure it can handle over-pressure if it ever happens.

Barrels are premium, hand-lapped match grade with a target crown. Stocks are an aramid fiber re-

inforced composite stock that are both lightweight and extremely durable. An aluminum core pro-vides a consistent foundation for the action. It has a glass aluminum pillar bedding. Each rifle is finished with a Cerakote all-weather finish that will last for years. One of the most important aspects of each

rifle is that is has an MOA accuracy guarantee with prescribed Nosler Ammunition.

We have put this rifle to the test here at Sportsman’s News and it has delivered way more than promised. We have been able to achieve 1/4 MOA groups with Nosler Factory Ammunition.

By Eric Christensen

Travelling to your favorite camp-ing location is something most of us look forward to after a

long week of earning a living. Noth-ing will ruin the trip more than a tent that doesn’t hold up during the night. Most inexpensive tents only last a few trips up the mountain each year. Springbar tents are a perfect marriage of a wall tent and easy to set up camp tent. The Highline series are made of Hardyduck 100% cotton duck canvas. Hardyduck is made of strong woven canvas. The material has a very smooth surface to resist snagging and tearing, yet will hold strong in windy weather. The canvas will actually start wearing-in after each trip instead of wearing-out like most other outdoor tents.

The Highline 8 will house a queen size inflatable mattress and lots of

extra gear inside. Unless you’re a prospect for the NBA, most of us will be able to walk around the tent easily with a ceiling height of 6’8”. The perimeter of the tent uses strong rope with “hooked” stake loops to quickly secure the tent to the ground. The vinyl flooring helps protect the tent from water and sharp objects. The vinyl flooring will also wear longer through many seasons of foot traffic. The Highline series features a covered entry, which will help keep the weather off of you when stepping out of the tent.

These Springbar style tents are easily constructed with just a few steel poles that can be done effortlessly by one person. Some of my favorite memories are sleeping in wall tents as my

dad experienced when he was a kid. The wind and weather seem to be held at bay when inside the canvas. The weight and design can take a beating from the rain and snow, all the while brushing it off and getting ready for more. The Springbar tents are not designed to put on your back and haul them miles from the truck, but rather a secure

and solid tent that offers plenty of space to sleep up to eight adults comfortable.

If you’re looking for a tent that can keep the cool weather out, durable mate-rial that will last many sea-sons and keep you comfort-ably safe while out enjoying

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Scan this QR Code with your smart phone to view the Sportsman's News YouTube Channel. Video Available after April 3rd.


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One major complaint of women who want to carry a concealed firearm is that

their body shape and clothing choices make it difficult or impos-sible to safely carry a firearm.

For these women, Signature Products Group has created a line of handbags for Browning that feature everything a woman would want in a handbag, but with the ad-dition of a locking handgun holster pocket. Two of the current models that you can find at Sportsman’s Warehouse are the Arial and the Ivy handbags. Additional models will be arriving in the fall.

Arial HandbagThe Arial is a medium-sized

handbag for the busy woman who has to carry a lot of items with her. With two roomy main compart-ments, magnetic clasps, Realtree Max-1 camo lining, and an abun-dance of pockets, pouches, and cardholders, the Arial is a practi-cal and stylish handbag for every day use. The center locking zipper

Browning Concealed Carry Handbagspocket features a hook and loop panel with a holster for a small frame semi-automatic or revolver. The holster can be accessed from the top or from either side, and can be repositioned inside the pocket to allow for easier access.

Four D-rings on the corners and two adjustable straps with snap attachments, let the bag be car-ried like a backpack, or as a long strapped shoulder bag or for cross-body carry. Removable handles let the bag be carried as a standard clutch.

The exterior of the bag is an easy to clean stylish faux leather in a gunmetal grey color with subtle Browning branding and three larg-er pockets for quick access to those frequently used items.

Ivy HandbagThe Ivy is a smaller

handbag for the active woman on the move. The exterior is the same gun-metal gray as the Arial, but with Sugar Coral

Realtree AP HD camo accents and more prominent Browning brand-ing. It features a main compartment with a zipper pock-et and a cardholder pouch. The second-ary concealed carry compartment has a hook and loop panel for position-ing the small frame pistol holster so it is easy to access. The zipper locks to prevent unauthor-ized access to your handgun.

The Ivy comes with a removable clutch strap as well as a longer adjust-able strap for shoulder or cross-body carry.

Olivia WalletsSportsman’s Warehouse

also carries the Olivia wal-

let in matching gunmetal gray and Sugar Coral Realtree AP HD or in brown with Mossy Oak Country camo accents. Both feature a main zippered compartment with double billfold pockets and card slots. The main zippered compartment has an accordion organizer for coupons or other loose items.


The engineering that hunters have come to love in the VX- 1 through VX-6 scopes from

Leupold has now been brought to the modern sporting rifle.

Integrating the Quantum Opti-cal System technology that sets Leupold scopes apart from the competition, the Mark AR MOD1 is one of the most technologically advanced scopes for an AR style rifle on the market.

Every great scope starts with the glass, and the Mark AR MOD1 is no exception. Utilizing the highest quality optical glass with enhanced geometry, the Mark AR MOD1 provides crystal clear viewing and magnification, coupled with amaz-ing clarity and light gathering. The Mark AR uses lead free, en-vironmentally friendly glass, with Leupold’s proprietary MultiCoat 4

Leupold Mark AR MOD1 1.5-4x20MM Riflescopeand Diamond Coat lens coatings, which are precisely positioned in optimum relationship to each other to produce up to 92% total light transmission and provides abra-sion resistance to the glass. Bottom line, you will have razor crisp im-ages in all kinds of environments.

To keep the inside of the scope bone dry, Leupold uses a propri-etary Nitrogen purging process to prevent thermal shock that can occur when rapid temperature changes occur maximiz-ing light transmission. What this means is superb optical clarity that has to be seen to be believed.

For our review, we test-ed the 1.5-4x20 MM. It has fast action P5 adjustment turrets with 125 MOA or 35.6 mils of adjustment to

rapidly allow modifications to be made, and zero can be reset and locked in with an Allen wrench, without removing covers.

The small footprint means that the optic will take up only minimal

valuable real estate on top of your gun, and the one-inch tube reduces weight and size without sacrific-ing light transmission.

Our model includes the FireDot-G Special Purpose Reticle. The SPR lets you utilize the hash marks for range estima-

tion. The green FireDot lets you rapidly engage targets and shuts off the light in standby mode until it is raised to the eye, to preserve battery life. This model is an ideal match for competition at varying ranges or close quarters combat applications.

A 29-foot field of view at 100 yards on 4-power, means plenty of situ-ational awareness down range. This makes the Leupold Mark AR MOD1 1.5-4x20 millimeter an ideal tactical scope as well as a fantastic competi-tion or hunting companion for your modern sporting rifle.





Sig Sauer has put a lot of work into all of their Elec-tro-Optics and they are

quickly becoming one of our go to companies when it comes to outdoor optics.

The Whiskey series of scopes are another great offering from Sig Sauer and we were able to test out the Whiskey3.

The Whiskey3 is available in five different models; 2-7X32 MM, 3-9X40 MM, 3-9X50 MM, 4-12X40 MM, and 4-12X50 MM. Having so many different models means that they have what you need for any type of shooting setup. To further make you as accurate as possible, the Whis-key3 feature one free Sig Ballistic Turret. Sig will expertly match the ballistics of your shooting setup and send you a custom laser-etched elevation dial. They accomplish this by inputing bullet specifications, ballistic coefficients, muzzle velocity,

Sig Sauer Whiskey3 Rifle Scopeelevation, and other environ-mental factors. The SBT system finds the correct bullet drop com-pensation and gives you pin-point accuracy at even longer ranges.

The lenses on the Whiskey3 feature Sig Sauer ’s Spectracoat technology, giving you a highly efficient, ultra-wide broadband, anti-reflection lens coating that will reduce surface reflections to extremely low levels across the entire visible spec-trum. This provides you superior light transmis-sion. They also feature Lens Armor which is an abrasion-resistant lens coating giving you added durability, while keeping your l enses sharp, bright, and clear.

The focus and zoom dials are very smooth making it that much easier to get on target both quick-ly and accurately. The zoom dial also features an elevated rubber grip which makes it easier and faster to toggle from low power zoom to higher powers. The

Whiskey3 has an indus-trial design which pro-vides rugged reliability and protection from the elements. It is also ex-tremely l ight , which means that you can feel good about taking it on any type of hunt, even ones that require a lot of hiking. Like all of Sig

Sauer ’s electro-optics, the Whis-key3 is covered by their Infinite Guarantee. The Infinite Guaran-tee is an unlimited lifetime guar-antee that is fully transferable, doesn’t require a warranty card or receipt, has no time limit, and is absolutely free. The guarantee will give you the peace of mind that you are investing in a prod-uct that will be with you forever, no matter what. So, if you are looking for a new custom scope for any of your shooting setups, we highly recommend you check out the Whiskey series form Sig Sauer. You’ll find them at your local Sportsman’s Warehouse optics counter.

The Victory V8 line of rifle-scopes provides a whop-ping 8X magni f i ca t ion

range and it is also built with a 36mm tube. Combine this with world-class Schott HT glass and fluoride lenses and you get a whopping 92 percent light trans-mission out of a long range rifle scope.

The Victory line of products by Carl Zeiss is their top of the line optics and leaves nothing to chance. This unique scope comes in four different models to handle every hunting or shooting situ-ation imaginable. The 1-8X30 is ideal for dangerous game. The 1.8-14X50 is a more all-around scope. The 2.8-20X56 is more suited for the western hunter who might be taking shots out past 500 yards. The 4.8-35X60 is the ulti-mate long range shooters scope.

Carl Zeiss Victory V8 RiflescopesThere are two different reticles to choose from with each of these models. The reticle 60 provides extremely fine crosshairs with a brightly illuminated dot. The reticle 43 is on the military stan-dard with mil-dots and with an illuminated dot in the center as well. An adjustment knob allows you to control the intensity of the red dot, as well as completely turn this feature off.

These scopes are designed with the longer range shooter in mind. The 36mm center tube allows you 100 clicks of adjust-ment at 1/3 MOA. The larger tube could be an issue for finding rings and mounts for this new setup. However, Zeiss has gone the extra mile once again. Included in every box is a set of

two-piece, top of the line Talley rings and a certificate to get a Talley base which will mount this scope on your specific rifle. Select models include the new bullet drop compensator ASV, which is a 9-engraved ring system that allows each user to match

the appropriate ring to their specified long range ballistics. This is going to get you on track with nearly any caliber out to 500-600 yards. For those of you looking to turn this into a true long range setup, you will be happy

to know that with your purchase of this scope, you will get a cer-tificate for a free custom engraved turret ring to match your exact setup from Kenton Industries.

This entire setup offers superb low light performance and a setup that will deliver exceptional long range accuracy. All external lenses are protected by LotuTec, which is a Zeiss proprietary coating which makes for easy cleaning and gives clear visibility in any weather situations. It is backed by a limited lifetime transferable warranty and a 5-year no fault policy.


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lipless crankbait. If the flat is too deep for the Pitbull to dig in the bottom (meaning more than about six feet), I’ll switch to a Wildthang lipped crank - it has a “hunting”, rambling action and runs a little deeper. If there is not much cover or a weedy bottom which will hang the lipped bait, I’ll work the Warpig, most commonly with a bit of yo-yo to the retrieve. This bait is very loud and fast, perfect for combing vast flats and draw-ing strikes.

Another great scenario for cranking is deeper offshore struc-ture, especially isolated humps and rock piles. Here I’ll reach for the Berkley Digger because of its steep dive angle and abil-ity to stay down for most of the retrieve. It is imperative to cast past the target pile so that the Digger has time to dive and make contact with said pile. That is how you generate the most strikes. I’ll work all the way around a hump if possible, mixing up my casting angles. Channel swings and drop-offs are also prime targets and I prefer they be no deeper than about 15 feet if possible, making lure contact with the structure more consistent.

Rip-rap or rock dams is the last distinct pattern I’d like to men-tion. They can be worked with any

of the above-mentioned crankbaits, along with a Flickershad or Bad Shad (more subtle) depending on the depth range you want to work and water clarity. I like to cast at 45 degree angles to the dam until I establish a productive depth, then put my boat in that depth and cast parallel, thereby keeping the plug running in the productive range.

All my cranking is done on fi-berglass rods by St Croix; the Mojo Bass cranking rods. The moderate action they feature is perfect for cushioning strikes, since the bait is typically moving forward, get-ting solid hook-ups is tougher on faster action graphite rods. I use the 6’10” “Target Cranker” for its accuracy around tight cover, while the 7’4” “Crankster” handles most other cranking. Deep cranking is handled with the 7’8” “Big Crank-ster” because it casts the larger baits farther (allowing more time at depth) and has more power in general. I top the latter two with Abu Garcia’s Revo “Winch” for its low 5.4:1 gear ratio and long handle which produces tons of cranking power, while the Target Cranker has a Revo SX in 6.4:1 ratio for faster retrieves. All are spooled with Trilene 100% Fluorocarbon, typically 10-15lb.

See, maybe cranking really is simple. Follow these patterns and presentation details and I promise more bass and walleyes will visit your boat!

FISHFUL THINKERcontinued from page 32


With double the adjustment range of your typical one-inch tube riflescope, the 30mm tube PROSTAFF 7 puts a new level of long-range capability on your “can-do” list. PROSTAFF 7’s precise instant zero-reset tur-ret system, versatile 4-time zoom range and legendary Nikon optics won’t back down from any challenge in the field—whether long distance, poor light or impossible weather.

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to get back out hunting. We headed out the same direction on day two, but found a different hill to look at different bulls. Nielson knew of a giant 380’s class bull in this area. After two hours of glassing, Nielson found him and our excitement was again at an all-time high.

The terrain was a little more rug-ged in this area and the bull was even higher up in the hills, so we quickly packed everything and started hiking. After a couple of hours, we were close enough to judge him with our binoculars, but still needed to close a large gap to be within shooting range. We slowed our pace, being careful to not make much noise as we didn’t want to lose this opportunity.

We had closed half the distance and all of the sudden the bull takes off. Confused, we glassed the area above us, wondering what could have made him run off. After a couple of minutes we found the

reason - there was a small group of hunters only a couple of hundred yards away from where the bull was and they had to have been the rea-son he took off. We couldn’t believe that for a second time, we had run into other hunters.

It was still early in the afternoon and we had an idea of where he might have run off too, so instead of hiking down and going somewhere else, we decided to start hiking so we could be high enough to glass the higher elevation hills. We felt disap-pointed at the prospect of spending all that time and effort hiking just to get back to camp with nothing.

Just before we thought it was over for the day, Nielson spotted a bull walking in and out of some trees. He wasn’t sure if it was the one we were after, but knew that we needed a better look and with the sun drop-ping, we needed to move fast. We quickly closed the gap and Mike got set up. Finally, he walked out in a clearing. This bull wasn’t the one we were looking for, but was still a solid bull and Mike wanted

to take the shot. He took his time and slowly squeezed off a perfect shot. The round impacted right in the vitals and the bull was dead on impact.

After a few high-fives, we quick-ly got our stuff together. It was a cross canyon shot, so it was going to be a lot of work to get to him. After some work getting there, we quickly took some trophy pictures and then started working on getting Mike’s elk broken down. It was a solid bull and even with ev-erything that went wrong, Mike was still happy with what he accom-plished during the hunt.

If you are look-ing for a great elk

hunting opportunity in some of the best country imaginable, make sure you give Jeff Lester of Hunt Hard Outfitters a call at 928-245-2668 and visit them on the web at hunthard.com.

HUNT HARDcontinued from page 34

After hunting hard and walking miles through rugged terrain, Mike Barrick was able to con-nect on this solid bull.


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Presents Wild Game Recipes of Steve Mayer "The Wine Guy"

Wild Boar Stew

This is a hearty stew based on a traditional Tuscan rec-ipe. It entails using a slow

cooker and a long cook time, but you can use a heavy pot for the over-night simmer if you don’t have one. Eileen and I recently made this recipe on a larger scale for about 60 hungry people at a winery in California. They kept returning for seconds, thirds, and in some cases fourth servings! I barely had enough left for the plating photo.

The wild boar, or feral pig as they are sometimes called, is an amazingly adaptive creature. Their population in the United States has swelled to estimates of as high as 6 million. They are found in at least 39 states and have been labeled as an invasive species that has been causing a great deal of crop and property damage. If that isn’t enough to bring a call to arms, the fact that they are wonderful table-fare should get you lacing up the

boots in search of some freezer meat. They are exciting to hunt, and usually can be hunted year-round. The front shoulder is very flavorful and lends itself well to this slow cooked delicacy.

IngredientsBrine• 3 cups water• ¼ cup kosher salt• ¼ cup brown sugarRecipe• 2 pounds wild boar meat• Kosher salt & cracked black pepper• Flour• Bacon grease (or olive oil)• 750 ml bottle of dry red wine • 1 cup chicken stock• 1 tablespoon Italian Seasoning• 3 bay leaves• Butter• 2 cups chopped onion• 1 cup chopped celery• 1 cup chopped carrot• 5 cloves garlic, chopped• 1 28 ounce can of chopped tomatoes• 1 2 ounce tin of anchovies• 1 cup sliced mushrooms

Preparation MethodUse the front leg of the boar

for this recipe. (If you want to use store bought meat try a picnic roast.) It is important to brine the meat as it really improves the flavor. In a large bowl mix the water, salt, and brown sugar. St ir well unti l the sa l t and sugar d isso lve completely. Put the meat and brine into a large zip-lock bag and refrigerate overnight.

Remove the meat from the brine and pat dry with paper towels. Trim the meat and cut into 1” cubes. Salt and pep-per the meat to your l iking. On a large plate, spread a cup of flour and season with salt & pepper. Dredge the meat in the flour until generously coated. Heat the bacon grease ( s o m e h o w re a l l y a p p ro p r i -ate) in a large frying pan over medium-high heat. Brown the meat on all sides, cooking in

smal l batch-e s , a n d a d d the browned meat to your s low cooker. W h e n y o u a re f i n i s h e d browning the meat, splash a bit of the red wine in your f r y i n g p a n and scrape up t h e r e m a i n -ing browned-f l o u r t h a t h a s s t u c k t o t h e p a n , a n d a d d t o the pot. Add t h e c h i c k e n s t o c k , I t a l -i a n s e a s o n -ing, and bay

leaves to the meat. Add enough wine to the cooker to cover the meat by about an inch. Set your cooker to low and let it cook for 8 hours.

Transfer the meat into a large pot to assemble the rest of this glorious stew. Heat some butter in a frying pan and sauté the onions, celery, and carrots over medium heat until the onions are translucent (3-5 minutes). Add the garlic towards the end of this sauté for a minute or so. Transfer the sautéed vegetables to your cook pot and add the can of tomatoes. Simmer the s t e w, s t i r r i n g o c c a s i o n a l l y, over low heat for two to three hours. Add more wine if neces-sary; and pour yourself a glass. Comment to anyone present that you are slaving away in the kitchen and deserve it. The aromas will back your story. Chop the anchovies into small pieces and add them along with the mushrooms to your stew. The anchovies add a unique flavor component to this dish so get over it and add them! Stir well and simmer another hour or so until finished. Taste to see i f more seasoning i s desired, and fish out the bay leaves.

T h e s t e w i s t r a d i t i o n a l l y served over polenta, and I must say that it is mighty tasty this way, but you could also serve it over egg noodles. It is also incredible by its lonesome, and really calls out for a crusty loaf of bread and another bottle of dry red wine. Try this one out with your next hog and you won’t have to ring the dinner bell to get them to the table. The wonder-full smell waft-ing from the kitchen will lure them in.

Digital Edition Only Special Content

April 2016 | SPORTSMAN’S NEWS DIGITAL EDITION 49Digital Edition Only Special Content

April 2016 | SPORTSMAN’S NEWS DIGITAL EDITION50Digital Edition Only Special Content

By Dennis Dunn

For an hour-and-a-half, at least, I had been stalking him. “Stalk-ing” in the most aggressive

manner possible! Every time I would grunt, thrash the brush, and run right at him — using all possible cover — he would move out ahead of me, stay-ing just beyond bow-range. True, on two occasions in the early stages of the encounter, he had approached to within some 30 or 35 yards, but he had hung up in places where I could see only the tops of his antlers; then, after a while, he would silently steal away, forcing me to put the rush on him again. Even though I had managed to keep the wind in my favor, the pattern repeated itself over and over — until I finally gave up and headed back toward the truck.

I guess that’s what caused the tables to turn. Evidently, the handsome Shiras bull moose didn’t appreciate being suddenly ignored, because now I was the one being stalked. Or maybe this fellow just wanted to put the fear of God in me, so to speak, so that I wouldn’t ever come back to harass him and his cows again. I now knew, for sure, that one of us was going to die, and I felt reasonably confident it wasn’t going to be Yours Truly.

The above scenario never would have unfolded had it not been for a chance meeting in a San Antonio taxi-cab 19 months earlier. I had traveled to Texas for the 2005 Annual Convention of the Foundation for North American

The Stalking BullWild Sheep. So had Clint Menke of Huntsville, Utah. At the conclusion of the wonderful three-day affair, which raised over a million dollars for expanding and enhancing wild sheep habitat, Clint and I shared a cab to the airport, and he gave me his business card. It turned out that he manages the hunting program for the Rocking HR ranch, a 29,000-acre private property in the beautiful Wasatch Mountains of Utah. The place has abundant Mule Deer, Rocky Mountain Elk, and Shiras Moose, and it just happens to share a common border with the famous Deseret Ranch, which is owned by the Mormon Church. It also shares a common boundary with the private ranch where I had harvested my first Shiras bull nine years earlier.

Since I had promised myself that I would one day return to Utah for another moose hunt, it didn’t take me long, once I got home, to call Clint up and book a hunt for the fall of 2006. To be able to bring the meat home, should the hunt prove successful, I decided to drive rather than fly. Clint met me at the entrance to the ranch, mid-afternoon, on September 28. I knew the rut would be well under way, and I was really excited at the prospect of being part of that amazing ritual once again. In the course of the 14-hour drive, spread over two days, I had turned the steering wheel over to an educated knee every couple of hours, so as to free up both hands for practicing my bull-grunting and cow-calling techniques.

Our accommodations consisted of an old, well-renovated cabin up on the very top of the high mountain plateau that was the heart of the ranch property. Most of the game lived in the many canyons coming off the top of the plateau in every direction. As had been the case nine years earlier, the mountainsides were on fire with the riot of autumn colors. The wildly-commingled shades of nature’s paint-pot seemed even more outrageous than I had remembered. I’ll never forget one large maple tree in particular, which all by its lone-some sported individual branches of different colors. Some branches bore only leaves of a verdant green; some carried leaves only of a rich, golden yellow; others, only orange vermilion;

and still others, only scarlet red! All in a single, solitary tree!

For my first evening on the moun-tain, Clint took me to one rim of a huge canyon on the north side of the ranch. Using our binoculars and a spotting scope, and looking across to the east with the sun at our backs, we counted no fewer than 12 moose that emerged from cover to feed dur-ing the final hour of daylight. Many were cows and calves, but there were also several decent-sized bulls. We re-turned to the cabin after dark, encour-aged by the numbers we had seen.

It was then that I met Jesse Shupe, the 20-year-young guide whom Clint had decided to assign me for the week. Jesse had grown up nearby in an avid hunting family. He’d taken his first deer at age eight, and by the time he started guiding professionally at age 17, he had been a part of several dozen successful deer and elk hunts. As for moose, he admitted to having little experience with them, but he was clearly eager to gain more, and he seemed most excited about guid-ing a bowhunter. I was to be his first. He asked if I would teach him how to bull-grunt and cow-call, and I assured him I would.

The next two mornings and eve-nings were spent glassing across canyons, always with the sun at our backs, in an effort to locate a really good, mature bull. The idea was that, once we found a bull I definitely want-

ed to go after, we would plan the right strategy for the right stalk — depend-ing on his location, the terrain, and the time of day. If, for example, we were able to put our selected trophy bull to bed, so to speak, as the veil of dark-ness settled over the landscape, then our plan would be to hike down or over to his bedding area before dawn the next morning. Once we knew his general whereabouts, avoiding giv-ing him our “wind” as we moved in would become the greatest challenge. Indeed, our first two attempted stalks quickly turned into nonstarters be-cause of the fickle winds.

Well before sunup on October 1, the third morning of my hunt, Jesse and I spotted a nice bull across the canyon from us. He was tending two cows, but he shortly fed into an area where we no longer had a view of him. Thinking that we might be able to see him better from a position far-ther down the ridge we were on, we hopped back in the truck and started to proceed down the narrow, winding dirt road. When Jesse suddenly hit the brakes hard and killed the engine, I knew he had just seen something significant that was much closer.

“Look over there!” he said, point-ing. “There’s a real shooter bull bed-ded about 60 yards away. Look right through the middle of that little clump of aspens. You can just see part of the tops of his antlers above the brush.”

My first attempt to spot him with

A single paint-pot Maple tree


the naked eye yielded me nothing, but as soon as I got my binos involved, I was able to identify part of one palm. Then the bull turned his head slightly, and suddenly the whole frame of his wide rack popped into focus for me. “Whew!” I said. “That’s one heckuva nice bull!” As we quietly opened the doors of the truck and exited, I no-ticed right away that the breeze was not blowing in a good direction for us. “He’s likely to get our scent any minute,” I whispered.

Sure enough, before we could even start circling around to our left, the bull rose from his bed and began walking in a straight line to our right. He stopped for a while, turning his head in our direction, eyes unseeing. Next, he proceeded forward a few paces, lowered his head, and started plowing the ground in front of him with the brow tines of his antlers. That’s a good sign, I thought to my-self. He’s in a state of mind where we can probably fool him. Then, for no apparent reason, the bull broke into a trot and disappeared into heavier forest-cover.

By now, Jesse had practiced enough to get his bull-grunt down really well. I told him I thought it was time to put the rush on this bull, and asked him to try to stay about 50 yards behind me as I moved forward, and to break some brush noisily every so often. His further instructions were to make a series of two to four grunts, three to five seconds apart, every few min-utes along the way. I told Jesse that I also would be grunting occasion-ally because I wanted our quarry to think there were two bulls interested

in checking him out. One time only, about 10 minutes into the charade, I turned to face Jesse and let out a fairly soft but long and languorous cow-call. The idea was to spice up the mix and further short-circuit our bull’s cerebral processes.

Almost immediately after the cow-call, our joint effort began to produce results. I heard a very low, guttural grunt perhaps 60 yards in front of me. A branch snapped, some bushes started moving, and suddenly antler-tops were visible coming slowly in my direction. Aside from that one breaking limb, the bull was amazingly quiet. It was as if I were watching an old movie in slow motion without sound. At 35 yards or so, he stopped — all but invisible to me, offering no shot whatsoever. I now had an arrow on the string and was staying just as quiet and motionless as my quarry. Jesse continued his occasional grunt-ing, in hopes of bringing in the big bull right past me. Yet, for the moment at least, the bull had “hung up” and wouldn’t approach any closer. After a while, I sensed that our prey was no longer there, and my predatory instincts resurfaced. If I didn’t main-tain the initiative, our chances might well evaporate very quickly.

So, off I went again, running right after him, breaking every branch possible as I sped past. Every 20 to 30 yards, I stopped to look and listen. The sound of grunts or brush breaking up ahead would usually allow me to refine my “aim,” and keep me more or less on target. Soon I found myself angling down a rather steep slope that was somewhat more open than

the previous 200 yards. Here, I had to be much more cautious, because I didn’t want the bull to pick me up visually. That’s what normally brings the game to an unsuccessful conclu-sion. Either that, or your quarry gets your scent in his oversized nostrils. As I paused to study the new vista, I heard a grunt not far away; then, a few seconds later, another grunt in a completely different direction! There had to be two different bulls out there in front of me! The sounds seemed to be about 50 yards apart.

This was really starting to get exciting. For a brief second or two, I suddenly caught glimpses of both bulls on the move. The one we’d been working on for nearly an hour seemed to be retreating. The other one soon exposed himself completely as he busted out of the heavy timber into the aspens below me and started diagonally uphill in Jesse’s direction. I could still hear Jesse’s occasional grunting sequences, but he had fallen a bit farther behind now. This was a brand-new protagonist I hadn’t seen before, and his rack was big. In fact, probably the bigger of the two. How-ever, he also hung up and was willing to come in only so far. Although he was only around 50 yards directly below me, his black hulk of a body was wedged between a group of white aspen trunks that discouraged any consideration of a shot. When he finally turned to head back into heavier cover, he passed through my only shooting lane at a pace too fast for me to take the risk.

Since I hadn’t seen the first bull now for at least 15 minutes, I resolved to focus all my predatory powers (whatever they may have been) on this new bull. However, the same routine ensued with him that I had experienced with the earlier one. Grunt, rake, thrash, and charge — but somehow he always stayed just beyond my comfortable bow-range. Finally the terrain seemed to offer me a break, and I quickly opted for a different tactic.

The big fellow, and at least one cow, were standing in some open aspens just on the other side of a heavy hedgerow of conifers. Through the fringe edge of the evergreens, I could just make out with my binos some long, blackish legs. They were perhaps 70 yards up the slope above me. I saw that I could use the thick conifers as a solid screen and cover half the distance between the moose and me on very open, quiet ground. He may possibly have heard me sneaking toward him, but I’m certain he was convinced I was another bull coming to raid his harem. This time he stood his ground.

Once the evergreens blocked any further advance on my part, I came to full draw and then stepped side-ways out into the open. The bull and I made eye contact with no more than 40 yards separating us. Instead of just one cow, he had three circling him. He was standing there fully broadside, looking down at me. The only prob-lem was the dangling aspen limbs, di-rectly between us, which I suspected An autumn wonderland near Huntsville, UT.

Oct. 1st - The Wasatch Mountains in their prime!


would interfere with the arc of the arrow. Another step to the side did not solve the problem. A third and final, lateral step gave me the clear shooting lane I needed, but by then it was too late! As I tried to stabilize from that fi-nal bit of motion, the magnificent bull wheeled and began trotting straight away from me. I quickly let down, because under those circumstances, the so-called Texas heart-shot was not one I wanted to try.

Having been nailed visually and identified as the fraud I was, I figured the game was over for the morning. Slowly, I started back up toward the ridgetop in the direction of the road we had driven down a couple hours earlier, which leads me back to the strange drama I started to recount at the beginning of this story.

On my diagonal, uphill course, I eventually sensed I must be getting pretty close to the road. At what later proved to be just 60 or 70 yards away from it (though I couldn’t see it yet), I heard a couple of moose grunts not far behind me. They took me totally by surprise. I responded in kind with two or three soft ones of my own; then stood still to listen for about half a minute. Nothing further, so I con-tinued walking. At the very instant I stepped onto the roadbed, I heard another grunt directly behind me. As I whirled around to look, I saw the head and antlers of Bull #1 coming into view over a rise below me. He was at 50 yards and closing fast.

Instantly, I knelt down behind a bush, slapped an arrow on the string, and came to draw. He was obviously looking for me, and seemed pretty

intent on thrashing me — if he could only find me. At 35 yards, he skid-ded to a halt, with a small oak tree between me and his rib cage. His eyes continued searching. Knowing that I couldn’t remain at full draw indefinitely, I uttered one, last, very soft grunt. He bolted forward another 10 yards, took a jag to my left, and stopped a bit below me, broadside, at about 30 yards. Because of his erratic course, as well as the brush and ter-rain between us, I’d had to let down, dash a couple of strides off the road in his direction, and draw my arrow a second time. I doubted I would have much time to get the shot off. As he started to lift one front leg, I released the arrow. However, by the time it arrived, his body had moved forward one full stride, and the shaft disappeared through the upper-rear part of his body. Not at all what I had intended!

Immediately, I grunted loudly twice and managed to turn what was look-ing like the beginning of his escape into a sudden charge that brought him several running strides in my direction. I was at full draw again and moving sideways, trying to find a clear shooting lane. The bull had stopped again, quartering away from me, looking back one last time in an attempt to figure out the nature of the antagonist with whom he’d come to pick a fight. I truly doubt I would have ever gotten off a second shot had it not been for my complete camo-outfit, including gloves and headnet. This time he stayed still just long enough, and my arrow was true to the mark. It passed completely through, striking

him low in the chest, just behind the front leg, and exiting the far side of his brisket.

As the bull lost all his macho-cool and went charging off downhill like a runaway cement truck, I shouted at the top of my lungs, “He’s coming your way, Jesse!” Though I didn’t know it at the time, the stricken animal’s death-run carried him only 80 yards. Once I caught up with my young guide back at the truck, he explained that he’d heard me yell but hadn’t understood the words. The bull had, indeed, been headed his di-rection: so much so that Jesse thought the bull was actually charging him! He rather sheepishly explained that he had run 40 yards straight downhill as fast as he could, and then had dived under a fallen log. We soon located

the dead moose, which had been kind enough to expire just 15 yards from our road. Jesse quickly realized that even before he’d made his mad downhill dash, the bull had never been any closer to him than about 50 yards. We both had a good laugh over the whole crazy episode, and talked about how big sounds in a forest can sure fool a guy.

It had been quite a remarkable morning, and both of us were ab-solutely thrilled with the outcome. The trophy-class bull (with antlers 42 inches wide) was, indeed, the same one Jesse had spotted in his bed from the truck. When I began my stalk on him two hours earlier, I’d had no idea that — before the game was over — I was going to become the “stalkee,” rather than the “stalker”!

Author with his Shiras ‘stalker’ bull.

Guide Jesse Shupe with trophy bull.

Original artwork by Hayden Lambson, titled: “Not in the Mood!


By Tom Claycolm III

I love bear hunting and I have written I don’t know how many articles on the topic and taught

numerous seminars. Here in Idaho where I live, bear and turkey hunt-ing are the first hunts of the year after a long winter.

There are basically four ways to hunt bears:

1. Spotting/Stalking2. Baiting3. Hounds4. Buy a bear tag and stumble on

one while elk/deer hunting

Spotting/StalkingThis is an exciting way to hunt.

Climb up on top of a mountain at sundown, set up a spotting scope and glass the ridge in front of you. We do what I call zone spotting. I’ll glass across a mountainside and then drop down 50 yards and glass the other way, repeating this process all the way down to the bottom. Wait a few minutes and repeat again. Bears feed in and out of brush, so where there was nothing two min-utes ago, suddenly there’ll be a bear. The good deal about bears is that they’re usually dark in color, so they stick out. The only thing that you’ll confuse them with are burnt stumps, which you will grow to hate.

You’ll want to hunt at snowline. That doesn’t mean exactly at the snowline, but in general. As the snow melts, tender grass and flow-ers will sprout out and the bears will

Spring Bear Hunting be grazing like cattle. So if you see bears at one spot this week, a week later they may have moved up in elevation a bit following the melting snowline. Make sense?

They come out right at bear-thirty, so you’ll only have time for one stalk. So what do you do if you are glassing three bears at once? You’ll have to make a fast decision as to which one to go after! Is it a decent bear? Is it rubbed? That’s where good glass comes in. You don’t want to spend your last 30 minutes of the day stalking a bear, only to get up close and discover that it is rubbed bad. Also, is he grazing along fast? If so, by the time you get there, he may be gone.

Now you have to jump. It will be dark in 30 minutes, so you need to jet over to him. Which way is the wind blowing? You may have to cir-cle half-a-mile to play the wind. Use scent covers because the nose is the bears’ best defense. One good thing though, you don’t have to worry as bad about staying hidden as when you’re sneaking up on a deer or elk, since a bears’ eyesight isn’t as good. But despite what everyone says, they’re by no means blind either.

Make sure you mark a burned tree or rock so when you get over there, you can pinpoint them. It’s easy to get turned around and things don’t look the same when you get to your intended spot. There’s a real good chance that you are going to get the job done and be skinning him in the dark, so carry good flashlights.

BaitingCheck your

s t a t e s ’ l a w s to ensure that what I recom-mend is legal w h e r e y o u hunt. To bait, you’ll want to put your bait into a metal barrel that is chained to a tree. Cut a 10-inch hole 2/3’s of the way up the barrel. This

allows bears to scoop out food, but not f ree feed. The long-er they stay at your barrel, the better. It also keeps ravens a n d w o l v e s from cleaning you out. You will not believe how much bait the ravens can carry off. And you sure don’t want wolves hanging around your bait.

I f you ask thirty differ-ent bear hunt-ers what is the best bait, you’ll get thirty different answers, but in all reality, you’ll probably end up using what is avail-able. Here’s why I say this. If you do it right and have up to six bears coming in every afternoon, they can clean you out fast. So you’ll be hauling in 50 gallons of bait every 3-4 days.

Smaller bait, such as chicken nuggets, are the best size. The bears won’t grab a big piece and go off in the woods to eat and they can’t fill up as fast, so they will have be more apt to sit there and eat for a while. Twenty-five years ago I used a lot of meat, but meat isn’t the best choice for baiting bears. In the spring, their stomachs are still queasy after fast-ing for five months and secondly, if you use big chunks of meat, they can grab one and run off in the woods and eat.

I like to hang scent bags and let the thermals carry the scent up and down the mountain. This will draw in more bears. You don’t just want one bear hitting your bait, you want 4-6. That way, they start competing with each other and come in earlier. Baiting is great because you can study your bear to see how big it is and if it has rubbed, plus you won’t shoot a sow with cubs.Stands

Tree stands are the ticket, but I

almost always hunt out of a ground blind. In the old days, I’d hunt out of a brush blind, but now I use a pop-up blind. This allows me to sit in a chair and if the rains come, you’ll be protected. Also, it will somewhat help to conceal your scent and movement.

GunsWhat rifle should you use? A 30-

06 and larger is fine, but make sure you use good, high performing ammo. Cheap ammo is definitely not the way to go, as it’s no fun tracking wounded bears through the woods. I use a lot of Hornady ammo. As far as optics, I use a 4.5-14 Leupold VX-III.

GuidesIf you live outside of the state you

intend to hunt in, you nearly have to hire a guide, unless using methods one or four. If you want to hunt with hounds, it is guaranteed that you hire a guide. Since he’ll be running the show, I won’t cover the “ins and outs” of hound hunting.

I love baiting, but if you live out of state, you’ll also have to hire a guide. To bait, you’ll have to set up your bar-rel and fill it every week. Then when the bears start coming in, you’ll have to fill it every 3-4 day. So, it’s a month long process to get ready for the hunt.

When glassing, it’s best to not be sky-lined and to be somewhat concealed if possible. A good spot-ting scope and tripod always come in handy.

The use of horses can be a big plus in getting you into the backcountry.

On A BudgetAdventure


Before hiring a guide, do your homework and investigate their operation. If he hunts in a popular spot, then it will usually be a lot tougher to get a good bear. You need to hunt semi-isolated areas, where the bears have time to grow for a few years (But with that said, I shot a 17 yr. old bear within six miles of town a few years ago).

Successful baiting is totally de-pendent on how hard you work.

Once bears start hitting the bait, you have to keep it charged or the bears will move on. So again, due to the logistics, if you’re an out-of-state bear hunter, you’re kind of locked in to hiring a guide. Just make sure you hire a good one.

MISCELLANEOUS TIPS• Cheap glass will give you a

headache, plus you’ll miss seeing 90% of your bears. I love all Leupold products.

• I recommend 10x42 binoculars and a Leupold Gold Ring 15-30x spotting scope.

• Most of their activity will be at sunrise and sunset.

• It goes without saying that glassing works best in areas of high concentrations, so ap-ply for draw units. We used to take a lot of kids hunting when I was helping Ed Sweet with his TV show, Kids Out-doors.

• Tink’s makes flavored incense sticks. I like their honey bacon flavored ones.

• Bears eat high fiber diets, so they will leave a lot of sign. If there’s no sign, move on.

• Take a couple of good flash-lights. I’ve walked on top of bears when leaving a blind at night and tracking a downed bear at dusk isn’t fun either.

• To track bears, I carry a .44 mag on my hip. It won’t get hung up in the brush like a rifle will in a panic situation. I just put a Crimson Trace on my pistol for this purpose.

• If you have sows hanging around your bait - great. Boars will show up the end of May, first of

• June for breeding. They’re the best bait there is.

DIY HUNTTo cut costs, try a DIY hunt. If

you set up a camp and do your own cooking, you can get by super cheap. My only expenses, after I have my blind, gun, optics and clothes, is a tank of gas and my tag. That’s how all of my hunts

are. Why would you drive an hour or two every morning and night to town to sleep in a motel? Plus, in Idaho daylight hits at about 5:30am and it doesn’t get dark until 10:15pm. That doesn’t leave time for much sleeping. So, you may want to hire a guide your first time to learn the ropes, but then DIY so you are in control of your destiny. I guess I just know how much work it takes to be success-ful and I’m not sure anyone else will work as hard as I do to ensure I have a good hunt. Well, there’s a lot more to cover, but we’ve run out of space. Happy hunting.

Don’t overlook unique spots. I shot this six footer not far from town.

If you ever doubt how strong a bear is, take a look at this bait barrel that has nearly been ripped off of its chain. The hole started off just big enough to stick the chain through!


By Mickey Bellman

Crunch. Step. Skitter. Crunch. In the silent Idaho atmos-phere, each step made me

cringe. The rocks covering the mountainside ranged from crunchy gravel to crunchy boulders. It was nigh impossible to stalk mule deer without making a sound, and the sound carried far across the canyons at the 8500-foot level.

Six days of stalking had not brought me within rifle-range of a buck. The few trophy muleys I saw were all over ¼-mile away. My 7 Mag could reach out that far but the distance exceeded my marksman-ship. And so, I stalked the crunchy mountainsides.

The weather was cooperating. Once inside our sleeping bags in the tent, the 20-degree night temperatures didn’t bother us a bit. The pre-dawn transition from warm sleeping bag to frozen boots was stimulating and the mid day temperatures were tolerable. No rain, no snow, high overcast with sunbreaks—good weather for No-vember wilderness.

We had hiked four miles from a back country airstrip to a campsite on Lonesome Creek. We had just a week to find four big mule deer before our air taxi would return. My hunting partners had already connected with two 4-points and a gnarly, old 5-point, but I was still buckless after six days.

I had flicked off one shot at a buck two days before while hiking though a snag patch. Without a good rest, it resulted in a clean miss and now I was down to my last few hours of hunting.

The Three of MeA herd of seven does was teas-

ing me as they meandered along a ridge over 500 yards away. Perhaps there was an amorous buck follow-ing them, so I began the long stalk. When I finally crested the ridge, I was disappointed to discover the does had disappeared. Only steep slopes, rocks, snags, ridges and gul-lies were to be seen. Just as I turned downhill, however, there was move-ment in a shallow draw.

Two does trotted across the slope while a 4X4 buck trailed behind. He was obviously infatuated with the does. I squatted down to a semi-shooting position while the buck paused to stare at me. When he grew tired of my antics, he started to trot through the snag patch. There was just one clearing ahead and I settled the crosshairs of my 2X7 Redfield on the spot.

My rifle shot was still echoing across the canyon as the buck began tumbling down the slope. Fifty feet later he came to a stop and there was not another twitch. My 175-grain slug had hit him below the left ant-ler. The bullet had smashed the skull so there would be no trophy mount this year. All I needed to do was get the 250-pound buck to camp—2000 feet of vertical and 5,000 feet of hori-zontal. At least the ground sloped in the right direction.

With the buck in tow, I started down the grassy slope. All was slipping along pretty good until I reached the rocky draw below. I was forced into the narrow chute and the real drag work began. Rocks of every size and shape carpeted the ground, and every rock wanted to hold the buck on the mountain.

The footing was t r e a c h e r o u s and loose rocks congratulated my shins while I struggled to drag the buck down slope to the trail far be-low.

And then a stroke of geni-us occurred. I would fire off a three-shot vol-

ley to summon my companions from camp! I aimed at a far-off rock, pulled the trigger three times and then resumed dragging my buck. Help would soon arrive.

Another hour of sweating, grunt-ing and dragging brought me closer to the trail, but my partners had not yet appeared. Ah, they must be close and I fired another volley to alert them.

The next hour also passed with no help, but the trail was in sight down the slope. I fired another round to let them know I had reached the trail just a half mile below camp. So far, there had been only the three of us—me, myself and I—dragging the buck down the mountainside.

At the trail I began peeling the hide from the deer, quartering, bagging and hanging the meat. It was a task my buddies had always supervised and helped with, but this time there was just me, myself and I. Still, no one appeared on the trail.

It was mid-afternoon when I shouldered the horns and set off for camp. I knew I would soon meet my friends coming to help. Instead, I stumbled into a deserted camp; they had packed camp gear out to the airstrip. I hastily scribbled a note of my whereabouts, gulped down some water and headed back to my buck.

A second time I re t u r n e d t o camp, this time with two quar-ters of meat, but the camp was still deserted. OK, one more time down the trail. My gel-l ike legs were protesting with every step. My shoulders ached and my hands had cramped up, but I had to get my buck to camp before nightfall.

Done! With that I collapsed on a bench near the campfire. It had been six hours since my cross-

hairs had centered on the buck far up on the mountain. While I recuperated sitting near the fire, dusk descended on the ridges and my three partners returned from the airstrip. They smiled broadly when they realized I had bagged, tagged and packed the deer to camp. There would be no need for them to climb the mountain and help retrieve my trophy.

Bob finally asked the question that was on everyone’s mind: so what was all that shooting about if you killed the buck with the first shot? They had heard my 3-shot volleys and assumed I was chasing a buck clear back to Boise. When I told them those were my come-help-me signal shots, they roared with laughter. That thought had never occurred to anyone!

Sitting on the bench in the warmth of the campfire, I had to chuckle, too. Me, myself and I had brought my muley buck into camp—just how much more help did I really need?

Sportsman’s NewsOutdoor WritingContest Winner

See pg. 4 for entry details.



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