SH43

Highcountry Hangouts: BIG Whitetails Exposed
SUCCESSFUL HUNTER
CATS & DOGS
Coursing Lions, A Winter Tradition
DESERT RECON
Weve Found The Next Coues Deer HOTSPOT
A PERFECT BLADE
Is Trophy Hunting Our RUINATION?
Knives On The Cutting Edge

Jan/Feb 2010
$4.99
No. 43
02
74808 01198
$4.99 U.S./ Canada
January-February 2010
Volume 8 / Number 1
18 Coursing Cats
Turns out, mountain lion hunting is all about dedication and dogs. by E. Donnall Thomas, Jr.
COURSING COURSING COURSING UR
By E. Donnall Thomas, Jr.
28 Chihuahua Whitetails
Mexicos Sierra Madres support some of the worlds finest Coues deer hunting. by Bob Robb
42 Right to the Point

Drop point, trailing point, clipping point: Do you have the right hunting knife? by John Haviland
CATS CATS
Turns out, mountain lion hunting is all about dedication and dogs.
I jumped into the truck to initiate damage control. At the bottom of the hill, I found our friends house cat swaying in the top of an aspen tree, Sadie 10 feet off the ground beneath it. I was duly impressed, although I sensed that our neighbors wouldnt share my enthusiasm. Fortunately, they werent at home. I spent the rest of the summer teaching Sadie basic commands, breaking her from the pursuit of deer, roading her into shape and trying to keep her confined to the kennel. Success on three fronts out of four seemed an acceptable accomplishment. Conceding the final point, I broke our long-standing no-hounds-inside rule and let her into the house with the Labs. Housebroken in a day, she became an official part of the family. Ive bow hunted lions behind my own hounds for 20 years, but two deaths in the kennel the previous winter left all my hopes for the upcoming season riding on the new arrival. Distracted by the pursuit of upland birds, waterfowl and whitetails, training sessions with Sadie grew less frequent as the December cougar season approached. Nonetheless, I felt a quiet confidence I hadnt known since my last really great hound died a decade before. An accurate assessment of a young dogs abilities or the product of wishful thinking? Only time would tell, and that time was fast approaching.
48 Gimme Shelter 34 Emeralds & Ice

2010 Mitch Kezar, Windigo Images
adie, a female Treeing Walker, broke precedent from the start. Her gender distinguished her from every other hound Ive owned. She was a year old when I acquired her. Since hunters hardly ever give good dogs away, all the various pointers, retrievers and hounds that have shared our home over the years came to us as puppies, little tabula rasas for me to make of what I could. But I knew Sadies first owner as an honest young man with a valid reason to part with his dog, and I liked her from the moment I met her. Old habits may die hard, but old hunters, in contrast to their proverbial canine counterparts, really can learn new tricks.
She came with a nose described as promising. She proved that point the day she arrived at our house, right after establishing her talent as a world-class escape artist. Our sturdy, Lab-proof kennel held her for less than an hour. Alerted to this development by the sound of a dog barking treed in the direction of our neighbors place,
18 SUCCESSFUL HUNTER Jan-Feb 2010
The First Chase

Deep in the heart of central Montanas Lewis and Clark National Forest, I watched the snow-filled tracks flow
successfulhunter.com
Come freeze-up, greenheads are the crown jewel for hard-water duck fanatics. by David Draper
By David Draper
Helpful tips for setting up a right proper hunting camp. by Ron Spomer
Emeralds
& ICE
Come freeze-up, greenheads are the crown jewel for hard-water duck fanatics.
24 Highcounrty Whitetails
Even in the roughest mountains, whitetail bucks may be easier to predict than you think. by Ken Nowicki
38 Roaring Stags
A veteran of Argentinas wingshooting tries his hand at crown-antlered red deer. by Nick Sisley
heard the sound before I saw who w was responsible for it. A few steps farther and I could make out the shadowy figure of one of my huntpar ing partners waist deep in the slough. His swinging arms were choreographed to the deep tha-chunk sound of ax meeting ice. Nearby, another shadow shoveled tablesized sheets of ice under the frozen surface. Sometimes it pays to be late.
Froze up, huh? I said. Yup, Jeff grunted without breaking stride. Solid right near to the fence. Nebraska had suffered a severe cold snap just after Thanksgiving, and our slough had turned into something more suited to Hockey Town than a duck factory. Ya shoulda called, I answered. I wouldnt have slept in.
Picking up a spud bar from behind the blind, I joined my friends on the ice and went to work doing what the Titanic couldnt. Truth was, it wasnt the snooze button that caused my tardiness. It was the snow-packed roads made slick from an overnight blizzard. I had hunted the Jewelry Store so named for its abundance of banded ducks the day before, a Friday, and put a mixed bag of mallards and wigeon on the bird strap in short order, as the birds piled into the shrinking hole in the ice. When Mark and Jeff showed up at dawn the next morning, I was basking in the glow of success and dreaming of a full weekend of waterfowling. But, I also had plans that night with no intention of choosing a cold camper over a lady friend, despite the concerns Mark and Jeff provided over the tailgate. Youre choosing her over us? Mark asked as I loaded Dublin into his crate. That trailers too small for three men and a dog. Were supposed to get buried, said Jeff, nodding at the first falling flakes. Youll never make it back up in the morning.
Gimme Shelter
Helpful tips for setting up a right proper hunting camp.
Dont worry, I assured them. Tomorrows going to be epic, and a few flakes arent going to make me miss it. If women are the downfall of men, waterfowling comes in a close second. The drive home should have been a hint to what the morning would bring. The road was still clear, but a strong north wind and flakes increasing in both size and frequency reduced visibility to near white-out conditions at times, particularly as I climbed the table out of the North Platte River Valley. As it turned out, I spent the night sharing my bed with a smelly Lab. But, it would have been a three-dog night in the cold camper parked near the river, and I was glad I was buried under a mountain of covers. The wind howling in the eaves, along with the dread of the impending drive, didnt afford me much sleep. By the time the alarm sounded, Id been awake for some time wondering if the risks were worth the rewards. The duck hunter won out over the responsible adult, and knowing it would be one of those day-of-days, I brewed a strong cup of black coffee and set off into the storm. Normally, I shared the early-morning highway with cattle trucks and other waterfowlers flocking to the valley, but today the road was barren. I told myself this meant I was braver than the rest, but in reality, it just meant I was more irresponsible. Still, I didnt have to didn t worry about anyone elses driving, although I did have to wonder who would pull me out should I spin into the ditch. There were stretches of highway where my tires held a tenuous grip to the snow-packed road, lengthening the already long drive by half again as much. Mark and Jeff had the hole nearly open when I arrived. If they were surprised to see me, they didnt show it. I realized they knew me as well as anyone well enough to know I was lying through my teeth when I assured them the roads were fine. And I knew them well enough to know they were lying when they said the camper provided a warm shelter from the storm. Steam rose from the open water that lay across the fence, water that stayed open year round, an anomaly we never could explain. I wondered aloud if it had held birds overnight, and Mark quickly assured me it had. Only about 1,000, he said. Sounded like a refef f uge over there when we walked in. They all lifted off at once. Well, its about time for them to start coming back, I suggested. Though there was no sun shining through the heavy snow, the black night had lightened up enough to signal the start of shooting time. We took our positions in the cramped wooden blind. The visibility was so poor, we knew the ducks wouldnt bother to circle, instead coming down the slough low and already committed to the hole. We left the lids open, laid our shotguns atop the blind and stood ready to greet the first ducks of the day.
Within minutes, the first small flock appeared, five shadows coming out of the white-out, wings already cupped. Mark stood at the west end of the blind and was first to whisper the words we were all waiting to hear. Mallards. Let em come, I reminded everyone, including myself, before giving the signal to shoot. Kill those ducks! After the barrage, three of the five mallards lay dead on the ice. Their emerald heads and crimson blood bright on a blank slate of white snow. The other two, both hens, passed twice overhead, confused in the storm, as Dublin battled the snow and ice to bring the three greenheads to hand. As he returned with the third bird, we doubled our count, dropping another three mallards out of the falling snow. With all the action, Dublin struggled with his marks, and soon we added four more birds to his workload. We took what we thought was a lull to help the dog retrieve the birds. Not 10 minutes into the day, and we already had two-thirds of the five-mallards-per-man limit. With the action this fast and furious, I wanted to make sure we had all the birds accounted for.
Jan-Feb 2010 SUCCESSFUL HUNTER 35
By Ron Spomer
oure entitled to camp and hunt on millions of acres of public lands across the country. If that doesnt make you feel rich as a king, you dont know your history. One reason our forefathers came here was because they were tired of getting whipped for killing the kings game. In America, wildlife would belong to the people. Closed seasons and bag limits had to be implemented to protect game from overharvest, but fair systems for allocating those resources have been set up. Each of us has similar opportunities for accessing public wildlife. Those who camp when we hunt get an extra dose.
48 SUCCESSFUL HUNTER Jan-Feb 2010 Jan-Feb 2010 SUCCESSFUL HUNTER 49
Cover: 2010 Mitch Kezar, Windigo Images / Table of Contents: 2010 Donald M. Jones
Issue 43 January-February 2010
Publisher/President Don Polacek Associate Publisher Mark Harris Editor in Chief Dave Scovill Editor Lee J. Hoots
editor@riflemag.com
Managing Editor Roberta Scovill Art Director Gerald Hudson Production Director Becky Pinkley Graphic Arts Chris Downs
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Berit Aagaard Jack Ballard John Haviland Gary Lewis Bob Robb Phil Shoemaker Ron Spomer E. Donnall Thomas Jr.
Brandon Ray
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CIRCULATION
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Successful Hunter (ISSN 1541-6259) is published bimonthly by Polacek Publishing Corporation dba Wolfe Publishing Company (Don Polacek, President), 2625 Stearman Rd., Suite A, Prescott, AZ 86301. Telephone (928) 445-7810. Periodical Postage paid at Prescott, Arizona, and additional mailing offices. Subscription rates: U.S. possessions single issue, $4.99; 6 issues, $19.97; 12 issues, $36. Foreign and Canada single issue, $4.99; 6 issues, $26; 12 issues, $48. Please allow 8-10 weeks for first issue. Advertising rates furnished on request. All rights reserved. POSTMASTER: Please send address corrections to Successful Hunter Magazine, 2625 Stearman Rd., Suite A, Prescott, AZ 86301. Canadian returns: PM #40612608. Bleuchip International, P.O. Box 25542, London, ON N6C 6B2.
14 6 Observations
Easy Caribou
by Lee J. Hoots
10 The Great Land

At Great Risk
by Phil Shoemaker
62 54 Trophy Board 56 Hunting Gear 62 One More Shot

Trophy Management Realities
by Ron Spomer
WOLFE PUBLISHING COMPANY

2625 Stearman Rd., Ste. A Prescott, AZ 86301 (928) 445-7810 Fax: (928) 778-5124 Tel:
Polacek Publishing Corporation Publisher of Successful Hunter is not responsible for mishaps of any nature that might occur from use of published loading data or from recommendations by any member of the staff. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written permission from the publisher. Publisher assumes all North American rights upon acceptance and payment for all manuscripts. Although all possible care is exercised, the publisher cannot accept responsibility for lost or mutilated manuscripts.
12 Rifle Rack
Do the Math
by Richard Mann
14 Wingshots
German Tradition
by John Haviland
Observations
by Lee J. Hoots
one camp to another when its deemed necessary (and sometimes at an additional cost to the hunter). But not one of them has yet to figure out a way to outsmart Mother Nature. Likewise, none of them can realistically be held to the standards folks have come to expect after watching successful hunts go down in 18 minutes on outdoor shows. Massive, noisy herds of caribou tromping right through your camp its possible, just not probable. You might have to work long and hard just to see one, but youll appreciate it more. My first Quebec-Labrador caribou hunt was a real eye-opener. It took three days to get into Quebecs caribou country from where I lived on the West Coast. (It takes only two days from anywhere else in the world except California.) Then, as now, the trip includes a requisite night or two in Montreal and possibly one overnight in the tundra towns of Schefferville or Kuujjuwaq before you can play wingman in a DeHavilland Beaver enroute to the middle of nowhere, where the caribou are supposed to be.
EASY CARIBOU
Pray For The Migration, Prepare For The Grind.
At the tail end of a caribou hunt in Quebec many years ago, Lee tagged out on this old bull, one of only two hed seen in six days.
nfluenced heavily by a few seconds of premium footage broadcast on outdoor television on Sunday mornings now and then, Id like to believe that shooting a big bull caribou in Canada is as simple as choosing the slowest, fattest yellow duck in the shooting gallery at a rundown carnival. In my dreams, bulls with massive antlers stroll by nonstop, one after another, each with successively larger antlers. In my reality, however, things have been quite different. I mean not to pooh-pooh caribou hunting or discourage anyone from doing it. To the contrary, Im quite fond of searching for the big bulls with their unique antlers, animals so perfectly adapted to their sometimes brutal yet always beautiful habitat. Caribou hunting is something that should be enjoyed by all. Its just that Ive experienced the realistic caribou hunting, and its not the kind outdoor television producers show us on cable networks. It can
be a real grind finding even one bull caribou in an environment that can range from open, broken tundra with many folds and pockets to subarctic woodlands that stunt ones forward progression and severely limit ones view. Sure, a hunter might get lucky and get dropped off in a camp smack in the middle of a push of thousands of bulls and cows, but odds are against that happening. The migration of caribou ebbs and flows, and you can easily end up in a camp that was better before you got there and will be better again after you leave. This, in spite of radio telemetry and GPS technology that allow Quebec wildlife authorities and outfitters to spy on undulating herds moving across the Far North. The very best outfitters with the very best concessions usually do a great job of making sure their clients are in the right place to get a reasonable crack at the migrants. Theyll sometimes even move hunters from
Plywood cabin-tents are a welcome sight each evening following long days afield in caribou country. successfulhunter.com
Newfoundland is a giant island swamp; its nearly impossible to travel far on foot. To reach backcountry caribou hangouts, youll need an amphibious all-terrain Argo.
If every day in the woods is a good day, then some are just better than others. So, after five days into that first caribou hunt without seeing so much as the shadow of a bull caribou, Id had just about enough of those good days. Looking back, it wasnt all bad. Three days earlier I had made a good shot on a fat cow, and its prime meat was hanging in the skinning shed near camp, cooled and ready to be packed. However, the key ingredient, a bull caribou, was missing. I was still holding on to the idea of downing something with antlers, something that would make me feel as though I had indeed been caribou hunting. Lets face it . . . no one goes caribou hunting to shoot a cow. Next to Pierre Davids deer from China, with twisted antlers that seem to have been put on backward, caribou have the most unique antler configuration in the deer world.
Some deer, like moose, have their paddles, and most other deer feature headgear consisting of a forwardcurving main beam with long tines that branch out and generally upward, sometimes splitting into additional forks. Conversely, the antlers of a mature caribou bull start low to the head and jut backward over its withers, then curve up and forward again toward its nose creating a massive C configuration. This beam most often ends in a handsome cluster of additional tines collectively called tops. A mature bull will often have at least one widened eyeguard or shovel that may reach clear to the end of its nose or beyond. Just up each beam is a bez tine, which looks like a large pasta spoon with long fingers at the front edge. A trophy bull has all these features in spades, including a pair of points or back-scratchers that grow from
the back of the antler beams rearward toward the rump. A massive Quebec-Labrador bull such as this would have been nice, but I was ready for whatever came my way. It wasnt until day six of that seven-day hunt that I even saw a bull. Two, actually. The first was a very fine bull that I let walk past so my hunting companion for the day could slide a broadhead-tipped arrow through its ribs at 22 yards. It was a spectacular encounter, and no one enjoyed it more than I did. Then it got better. Within minutes a second bull, an old white-caped patriarch, made his way along the same trail, the loud clicking of the animals unique ankle ligaments giving away its approach. I leveled the Model 70 and let him have it. He fell over instantly. A .300 Winchester Magnum at 30 yards will do that. He was a very nice old bull with a white coat from shoulders to nose. I knew before I shot that he didnt have all the fancy antler attributes. I didnt care. Since that first trip, I have found that the more I hunt caribou, the more I want to hunt caribou. Each trip has been unique and rewarding in its own way, and none of them have been easy. Perhaps that is exactly why I find caribou hunting so satisfying, because I havent lucked out and found myself smack in the middle of the migration.
While a huge migration is every caribou hunters dream, finding cows and bulls in small groups of 3 to 10 is more common.
2010 Michael H. Francis
This Northwest Territories bull was one of two taken with just a day and a half left to hunt. It was among a small band of bulls, the first the hunting party had seen.
A hunt for central barren ground caribou a few years ago in Northwest Territories is another good example. My hunting companion Tony Aeschliman and I plodded along behind our guide for miles across the soggy brown tundra, peppered all the while by intermittent rain squalls and a blasting wind. Tonys gear showed up a day late, and he spent the first day wearing borrowed clothing and boots that eventually got wet and gave him blisters. Three days into the hunt, the three of us had yet to even see one caribou, and other hunters in camp werent doing much better. By two-way radio, we learned that hunters in other nearby camps were equally frustrated. Determined, the next day we walked even farther, and eventually we came across a pod of caribou bulls. At Tonys urging, I took a pair, both with fine antlers. On the following day, I slept in and Tony went flycasting for lake trout and char the real reason he went caribou hunting anyway, I think. No matter where I go, caribou hunting doesnt get any easier. Two years ago friend Ron Coburn and I went most of a week without seeing more than a handful of woodland caribou that call the sopping wet
island of Newfoundland their home. In Newfoundland, caribou roam rather than migrate, bulls are stags and cows are does, and the common method of cross-country transportation is Argo. An Argo is a nearly unstoppable amphibious allterrain vehicle designed to punish all who ride within its limited fiberglass confines, yet it is absolutely required to move about the Newfoundland backcountry. There are miles of bogs and bottomless holes that caribou traverse with ease. However, it will suck the life from any hunter who dares attempt to walk across it. We hunted late in the season through snow and rain until, during the middle of the hunt, Ron was able to shoot a young stag, which pleased him just fine. Two mornings later, on the second to the last hunt day, following more Argo miles than a fit mans spine could endure, we spotted another young stag with a handful of does. A quick stalk put us into position for me to take a shot with my little stainless Savage rifle. The .30-06s bullet completely penetrated the stags shoulder, dropping it where it stood. In very recent years, Newfoundlands caribou herd has suffered a great decline, which may be attributable to a natural cyclical down-
swing or perhaps to predation from bears and an ever increasing coyote population. Either way, the future of Newfoundlands caribou is uncertain, and I felt very fortunate to have had the opportunity to hunt them with my good friend. Looking back on it all, Id have to say that battling the elements, wrestling with the clock and my own personal ambitions, the days Ive spent caribou hunting, the grind, as I like to call it, have all been worthwhile. There have been no easy bulls. In fact, Im not sure I want to experience every caribou hunters dream, hundreds upon hundreds of bulls and cows shuffling and clicking past within rifle range of the stoop of my cabin-tent. The migration in all its glory, as seen on outdoor television. Trying to single out the perfect caribou might just be too aggravating with so many to look at. The whole thing might be confusing. Anticlimactic. Oh . . . who am I kidding?
The Great Land
by Phil Shoemaker
and housing developments, shopping malls and box stores expand, the pressure on its few remaining wild areas is intensified. Natural resources are needed in increasingly large amounts. Recently, large deposits of gold, copper and molybdenum have been identified in the Bristol Bay region, and Americas relationship with wilderness is again being examined. There is no arguing the fact that our country could use raw materials, as well as jobs, and that is the tact the backers of the proposed Pebble Mine in southwest Alaska are exploiting. As proposed, the Pebble project would become one of the worlds largest combined open-pit and deep hole underground mines. The estimated life span of the mine would be 70 to 100 years with an estimated $800 billion worth of minerals extracted. The mine is expected to employ 1,500 workers, and no doubt spill over to many more with the needed transportation, road building, power generation, housing, etc. It all sounds fantastic until you examine the details. The Pebble Mine site is at the head of the Bristol Bay region of the state, on the upper end of the Iliamna watershed. Iliamna Lake is the largest in the state and spawning grounds for tens of millions of salmon and uncountable trout, char and grayling. The mine owners, Northern Dynasty and Anglo American, plan on using cyanide leaching techniques to extract the minerals. That is the same method as was used in Anaconda, Butte, Clark Fork and Miles City, Montana, mines. Mines that have become environmental disasters as their toxic chemicals leach into surrounding waterways. They have become taxpayer-funded, super-fund sites. The difference between these mines and Pebble Mine is that Pebble will be many times larger. Foreign mining giants Northern
AT GREAT RISK
An Alaskan Outfitters Take On A New Mine Proposal.
uring the past 23 years, my family has considered the wilderness of Bristol Bay in southwest Alaska our home. Our homestead, centrally located in Becharof National Wildlife Refuge, is surrounded by wilderness, thousands of square miles of it, complete with oversized moose, perpetually hungry grizzly bears and peripatetic wolves and caribou. Like Africa, Alaska is one of the worlds great game fields, and the Bristol Bay region is one of the finest areas in the state. I come from a family of hunters, and it was the game that first attracted us, but it is the wilderness and by that I mean an entire bio-
logically intact, healthy ecosystem with operating balances and counterbalances that has minimal human impact that keeps us here. We still guide a few hunters and fishermen but try our best to keep our impact to a minimum. Our home is small, tiny in fact, and other than our airplane, we use no motorized vehicles. Our minimal power requirements are easily met by using solar and wind power. Our reverence for wild places, however, is not shared by all. Historically, our nation, to say nothing of our state, has not been as kind to wilderness. Wild places were looked on as areas to be subdued and exploited. As our countrys population continues to boom,
2010 RenewableResourcesCoalition.org
Dynasty and Anglo American propose, and promise, to safely contain their toxic waste in perpetuity in three immense lakes behind dams, each larger than the Three Gorges dam in China! Historically and statistically that seems unlikely, as both Northern Dynasty and Anglo American have abysmal environmental records in Indonesia, Guyana, Romania, New Guinea and Peru. A close look at their prospectus even shows that, as non-U.S. companies, they claim they cannot be held liable for environmental damages. At risk is the entire Bristol Bay ecosystem, home to a quarter of the worlds sockeye salmon and the richest fishery in the world. Not only are we gambling with the cultural and traditional subsistence lifestyle of the local natives, an indefinitely sustainable, $100 million per year commercial fishery and a $60 million sport fishing industry, but also possibly the fate of all the worlds salmon. According to a recent Wild Salmon summit in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, the worlds most prominent experts from Japan, Russia, Korea, Canada and the U.S. claim that Bristol Bay salmon stocks are the key to preserving genetic diversity of wild salmon. Fish will not be the only species to suffer. Bristol Bay and the entire Alaska Peninsula are home to the densest population of brown bears in the world. Their density and phenomenal growth are due to the seasonable accessibility of salmon. Even the moose and caribou benefit from the influx of nitrogen and fertilization of the soil and vegetation surrounding the streams and tundra. Without salmon the entire regions ecosystem will collapse. In the past I have worked at gold mines, and I realize there will always be trade-offs and compromises. Some are worthwhile. I hate to sound like the average whining NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard), but the long-term environmental consequences of the Pebble Mine are beyond anything the world has ever seen. As we have discovered in Europe, Canada and both coasts of the U.S., salmon are highly susceptible to environmental disturbances.
Betting that three monstrous, toxicfilled lakes sitting on porous soils in a seismically active area will never leak is a fools bet. With carefully crafted legislation and oversight it might not happen in my lifetime, but statistically it is a certainty. When it does happen, it will be devastating and last longer than all the money made by local miners and the fortunes sent overseas to foreign corporations. Two thousand-year-old Roman mines in
Briton still leach toxins into their streams. Bristol Bay is the worlds finest and largest fishery, as well as home to one of the few remaining great game fields of the world. Like Tanzanias Serengeti plains and Ngorongoro Crater and Botswanas Okavango Delta, it is a natural jewel that deserves protection. There will always be jobs and money, but once the worlds natural treasures are exhausted, they are gone forever.
Rifle Rack
by Richard Mann
200-yard zero for the primary aiming point, the second mark below the primary aiming point subtends 18 inches at 400 yards. Firing a bullet with a ballistic coefficient of .432 (a .277-caliber, 140-grain Nosler Partition) at 2,960 fps, zeroed so the second reference mark on the Ballistic Plex reticle is dead on at 400 yards, will cause the bullet to impact 2.01 inches high at 100 yards when using the primary aiming point. It will impact 5.5 inches below the primary aiming point at 300 yards, and the first reference mark subtends 4.5 inches at that range. The third reference mark subtends 37.5 inches at 500 yards, almost identical to the bullets 38 inches of trajectory at that range. Altering your zero is your only option for tuning a first focal plane reticle to your loads trajectory. With second focal plane reticles, adjusting magnification can manipulate subtension so a particular aiming point exactly matches bullet trajectory. This requires some math, but if you made it through junior high and own a calculator, it shouldnt be a problem (see related sidebar). This is a viable approach if the trajectory of your load does not closely match the common trajectories the reticle was designed with. For example, lets assume your favorite .22 Hornet varmint load drops 77 inches at 400 yards, which is as far as youre comfortable shooting. At maximum magnification
DO THE MATH
Understanding Ballistic Compensating Reticles And Putting Them To Practical Use.
An accurate rifle like this Nosler Model 48 combined with the Sightron riflescope with Hunter Holdover Reticle and a reliable rangefinder make for a deadly long-range combination, provided you understand how each interacts.
he trick to effectively using ballistic reticles is developing a comprehensive understanding of reticle subtension, the distance a section of reticle equals at a given range. Reticle subtension, in riflescopes with the reticle positioned in the second focal plane, is dependent on magnification. For scopes with a reticle in the first focal plane, like the Cabelas Rangefinding scope, reticle size in relation to the target stays the same regardless of magnification. Scope manufacturers place reference marks additional aiming points on reticles to allow compensation for bullet drop at extended ranges. Most commonly, they plot trajectories of popular cartridges and establish subtension measurements at 100-yard increments at maximum magnification. These marks are a close match to the aggregate of those trajectories. This gets you near enough that slight
modifications to your zero or magnification will put your bullet on target at each distance. With most high-velocity rifle cartridges, sighting in 2 inches high at 100 yards will set the additional aiming points close at farther ranges. The most effective approach Ive found is to zero at the most distant range you are comfortable shooting, using the reference mark for that range. For example, with the Burris Ballistic Plex reticle, when using a
Subtension: A Factor of X
y referencing the manufacturers specifications for a given ballistic reticle, you can find the subtension of each aiming point. Subtension is usually represented by a measurement at 100 yards or at the range each mark is intended to be used for when the scope is set to maximum magnification. To find a magnification that will produce a desired subtension at a given range use this formula: current magnification/(desired subtension/current subtension) = new magnification setting Divide the desired subtention by the current subtention, then divide the current magnification by that quotient. This will tell you the new magnification that will provide the desired subtention.
(9x), the 600-yard reference mark on the Ballistic Plex reticle subtends 44 inches at 400 yards, way short of 77 inches. By using the formula in the sidebar, you will learn that a magnification of 5.14x will set the fourth reference mark to equal 77 inches at 400 yards. At 300 yards the bullet will drop 30 inches, which is very close to the 33 inches that same reference mark equals at 300 yards at 9x magnification. You can work all this out with trajectory tables, but a better way is to use ballistic software like Sierra Infinity VI, which contains information for almost every bullet in every caliber from almost every manufacturer. It also takes into account elevation and environmental conditions. Youll also need a chronograph to determine the actual velocity of your load, but most importantly, you will need to verify all this by actually shooting at the ranges corresponding to each mark.
Ive tested almost every ballistic reticle on the market out to 500 yards. Im confident if you take the time to properly zero and tune the reticle to your load, theyll all work very well. Some are more userfriendly, but if you do your part to ensure you use the subtension that matches your loads trajectory at a given range, selecting the best reticle is mostly personal preference. Alternately, you can have a custom reticle created to perfectly match the trajectory of your load or even create your own generic ballistic reticle. The Leupold Custom Shop does this, as well as a company called TK Lee (scopedot.com), which has been installing custom dot reticles since 1936. I sent TK Lee a Leupold FX II in 6x and had them install a single dot that subtends 16 inches below the crosswires
The Nikon BDC Coyote reticle is designed to allow you to estimate range by comparing the coyotes body to a circle. Find the match and use that circle to aim. Its a fast and simple approach to shooting at long range.
Range and Subtension

his chart shows the subtension of each dimension of a Burris Ballistic Plex reticle at various ranges when the scope is set on maximum magnification. Since subtension increases proportionally to range, you can create a table like this for any reticle for which you know the 100-yard subtensions.
Magnification and Subtension

his chart shows the effect magnification has on subtension. To find the subtension at magnifications lower than 9x, multiply the 9x subtension by the multiplier under the new magnification. You can determine the subtension at any magnification because subtension changes proportionally to magnification in scopes with the reticle in the second focal plane. Just divide the maximum magnification by the lower magnification and multiply that quotient by the subtension at the maximum magnification. For example, to find the subtension of Dimension C at 4x, the equation would look like this: 7.5(9/4) = 16.88.
at 400 yards to match the 400-yard drop of my favorite .243 Winchester load when its zeroed to impact 1.5 inches high at 100 yards. With these custom reticles the only limit to the subtensions is your imagination. Now the important question: Does anybody have any business shooting at animals at ranges where ballistic aiming assistance is necessary? With big game animals the answer is a firm, It depends. Its an ethics decision only the hunter pulling the trigger can make, given the totality of the circumstances at the time the shot is required. Theres more that goes into making a long-range shot than a ballistic reticle. Youll need a dependable laser rangefinder or a scope that will let you determine the range by using subtension. Youll also need accurate ammunition, a steady hand and a little bit of luck. It takes a 180-grain bullet from a .30-06 a little over a half-second to travel 500 yards. Add in the time it takes your brain to communicate with your finger and for your finger to react and pull the trigger, and you have at least a full second delay enough time for an animals kill zone to move out of the bullets path. And thats not even taking into consideration wind. You can do the math ahead of time to know which aiming point to use, but youll need to use your head again when the moment of truth arrives to make an ethical decision about pulling the trigger.
Wingshots
by John Haviland
GERMAN TRADITION
Five Centuries Of Craftsmanship Are Found In The Modern Merkel Shotgun.
he road to Suhl passes through rolling farm fields that rise to green hills of spruce, fir and birch. At the center of Suhl, the road climbs in narrow streets of cobblestone winding past white-walled houses with red tile roofs. Since 1490, craftsmen have walked to work on these streets to build the guns that made Suhl a center of commercial arms-making that rivaled Birmingham, Brescia, Liege and New Haven. You might recognize the names: Anschutz, Krieghoff, Merkel, Sauer, Walther and others now long forgotten. Several of these firms produced small arms during World War II and were bombed by the Allies. After the war, U.S. troops relocated
A
several companies, like Anschutz, to the American zone of occupation in West Germany. Merkel remained behind and, in a conglomerate under control of the German Democratic Republic, continued to make double shotguns, double-barrel combination guns and drillings. Up to 30,000 guns per year were made in Suhl, mostly for export to the West to earn hard currency for the communist country. From 1949 to 1989, Merkel was free from economic and industrial forces to improve manufacturing techniques and continued to make traditional guns mostly by hand. Merkel still produces these traditional, largely handcrafted Meisterstuck guns, like the 303E
over-under. But when the Iron Curtain fell, the company was forced to modernize its manufacturing process to add a new line of Merkel Engineered Manufacturing (MEM) guns fabricated on the most modern automated machines. The Merkel factory in Suhl is unusually quiet, considering nearly 200 people work there. Rows of old and seldom-used lathes and milling machines sit idle on the floor of the division that produces shotgun receivers at the Merkel factory in Suhl. The din of work is contained inside the cabinet housings of CNC and electrical discharge machines. Two hours are required for a CNC machine to cut a shotgun receiver forging to finished dimensions. CNC machines are also used to turn and inlet stocks. Shotgun barrels are hammer forged with four hammerheads, the interior polished and then the barrels heat stress relieved
(A) The Merkel 2000EL features a crossbolt at the top of the receiver and two underlugs for solid lockup. (B) Color casehardening includes carbon from burned leather. (C) Laser-cut checkering is fine and crisp.
for several hours. Handcrafting and CNC machining are used together to arrive at a finished barrel set. A Merkel employee wires together a barrel set and solid rib and then applies solder along the joints as the assembly is heated over flames. The paired barrels are then locked in a CNC milling machine, and the hooks of the barrel set are cut. In spite of the use of modern milling machinery, I was surprised at the amount of hand filing that went into the final fit on Merkel shotguns. Men stood at a row of work benches fitting barrel sets to receivers and adjusting other parts still in the white, filing a bit, checking for fit, then filing some more. The steel of the fitted guns is burnished and blued or color casehardened. Small parts and parts that will receive wear are nickel or nitrate coated. A fitter reassembles these finished components and in the process smoothes any distortions to the parts that may have occurred during hardening. The handwork continues on the stocks, made of one of 11 ascending grades of Turkish walnut. The stocks and forearms are shaped and inletted on CNC machines, but final finishing is completed by hand. Stockmakers wet the wood to raise its fibers, sand them off and repeat the process until the woods open pores are no longer visible. Final inletting of the metal into and against wood is a scrape-and-fit process.
After a workout on sporting clays, and a minor trigger adjustment, John was very satisfied with the fit of the Merkel 12 gauge he traveled to Suhl, Germany, to enjoy.
Finish is applied to the sanded buttstocks and forearms by submerging them in a vat of linseed oil and soaking them for hours on end. There is only one person who does hand-cut checkering on Merkel shotguns, and shes been doing it
for 45 years. Most checkering, however, is cut with a laser. An examination of this laser-cut checkering with a magnifying glass showed fully formed diamonds right out to the tips of the panels. A pattern with fish-scale checkering even had a few etches on each scale. That would be impossible to execute by hand. The engravers door is where industry stops and art begins. With rotating vises that face large windows offering soft natural light, Merkels 15 engravers cut and carve deep relief game scenes and ornamental Arabesque tendrils into receiver steel. Karola Knoth has been an engraver for 22 years. She glanced at a game scene drawing on a paper in front of her, then back down to the receiver she was engraving and dipped her chisel tip in oil. The lines of the drawing went from her mind to her eyes, through the muscles in her hands to the hammer and out the tip of the chisel. The receiver, clamped in her vise, rotated as she made a curling cut. Knoth said barrels are the most difficult to engrave because their long length doesnt allow rotating them while engraving.
New Merkel shotguns are mostly built by machinery, though final fit and finish require much hand work. Karola Knoth has been a Merkel engraver for 22 years.
Shots Fired
What makes a shotgun fit? Hunters have been squabbling about that since lead pellets were stuffed in a muzzle. A Merkel 2000EL overunder 12 gauge I shot fit me rather well when I shot five rounds of trap with it. The comb of its stock was thick enough to cradle my check, and its 1.5 inches of drop at the comb and 2.75 inches of drop at the heel allowed me to keep my head erect. I also patterned the gun with three loads. (See results in accompanying table.) The gun shot flat with my head screwed down tightly on the comb. With a looser hold in the field, the gun hit somewhat high, which is just right for rising pheasants and grouse. The Merkel has a relatively high frame with its two underlugs reaching deep into the receiver. That supposedly places the barrels high in the hands. But the high turn to the guns thin grip offsets that somewhat. Plus, the thin and shallow
three-piece forearm brings the barrels down into the palm of the forward hand, which aligns both hands on the same plane. When the Merkel opens and closes, the only sound is the cocking of the firing pins inside the receiver. The cross bolt at the top of the receiver and the underlugs lock the barrels in the receiver so tightly a hiss seems to come from the gun, as if trapped air is trying to escape. The scallop receiver ledges reinforce both sides of the frame. However, I did notice these bulges blocked some of the lateral view when shooting. At 7 pounds, 6 ounces, the Merkel is on the light side for a steel-frame 12 gauge with 28-inch barrels and a solid top rib. The majority of that weight is controlled by the hands, while the balance leans forward to the barrels to assist and keeps the swing smooth. The only adjustment I needed on the Merkel was the trigger. It was a smidgen too far forward for the pad of my index finger to reach. That was easily cured by loosening a screw in the trigger, moving the trigger center back .25 inch and retightening the screw. Then I knew the Merkel fit. With Merkel continuing the craft of gunmaking, the road of quality workmanship and craftsmanship still leads to Suhl.
By E. Donnall Thomas, Jr.
Turns out, mountain lion hunting is all about dedication and dogs.
I jumped into the truck to initiate damage control. At the bottom of the hill, I found our friends house cat swaying in the top of an aspen tree, Sadie 10 feet off the ground beneath it. I was duly impressed, although I sensed that our neighbors wouldnt share my enthusiasm. Fortunately, they werent at home. I spent the rest of the summer teaching Sadie basic commands, breaking her from the pursuit of deer, roading her into shape and trying to keep her confined to the kennel. Success on three fronts out of four seemed an acceptable accomplishment. Conceding the final point, I broke our long-standing no-hounds-inside rule and let her into the house with the Labs. Housebroken in a day, she became an official part of the family. Ive bow hunted lions behind my own hounds for 20 years, but two deaths in the kennel the previous winter left all my hopes for the upcoming season riding on the new arrival. Distracted by the pursuit of upland birds, waterfowl and whitetails, training sessions with Sadie grew less frequent as the December cougar season approached. Nonetheless, I felt a quiet confidence I hadnt known since my last really great hound died a decade before. An accurate assessment of a young dogs abilities or the product of wishful thinking? Only time would tell, and that time was fast approaching.
adie, a female Treeing Walker, broke precedent from the start. Her gender distinguished her from every other hound Ive owned. She was a year old when I acquired her. Since hunters hardly ever give good dogs away, all the various pointers, retrievers and hounds that have shared our home over the years came to us as puppies, little tabula rasas for me to make of what I could. But I knew Sadies first owner as an honest young man with a valid reason to part with his dog, and I liked her from the moment I met her. Old habits may die hard, but old hunters, in contrast to their proverbial canine counterparts, really can learn new tricks.
She came with a nose described as promising. She proved that point the day she arrived at our house, right after establishing her talent as a world-class escape artist. Our sturdy, Lab-proof kennel held her for less than an hour. Alerted to this development by the sound of a dog barking treed in the direction of our neighbors place,
The First Chase

Deep in the heart of central Montanas Lewis and Clark National Forest, I watched the snow-filled tracks flow
2010 Mitch Kezar, Windigo Images
by the headlights beams like dots and dashes in a message sent by Morse code. My companions that morning were John Rosey Roseland, his two young bluetick hounds and Boone, a friend from the Midwest who had never seen a mountain lion before. Boone had traveled a long way to chase cats with us, and I could only hope our largely untested kennel deserved his confidence. The recognition of a cougars paw print amidst the background chatter of deer, elk and coyote tracks always makes my right foot shift to the brake pedal before Ive consciously processed the data. Suddenly, we were skidding to a stop as if the tracks themselves might get away unless we acted at once. What do you see? Boone asked from the back seat. Your lion! I shot back, for to the houndsman, the track signifies almost as much as the animal itself. Lions, Rosey corrected, and as I backed down on the track, I saw that he was right. A pair of mature cats, one a female and the second likely a tom, had passed by recently enough to leave tracks unblemished by the falling snow. By the time wed parked and organized our gear, legal hunting light had arrived, and the dogs were off. Since we never use radio tracking collars or snow machines to facilitate (some might say cheapen) the chase,
Dons Sadie turned out to be quite a natural when it came to coursing lion and escaping from her kennel. Her muzzle is scarred from the fencing, not the cats she trees.
One of several Montana lions Don and his dogs have treed throughout the years. 20 SUCCESSFUL HUNTER Jan-Feb 2010
I like to keep my attention on the cat tracks to the exclusion of all else when Im following a cougar with my dogs. By the time wed picked our way through a nasty old clear-cut, I was alone on one cat track without any company. The two lions had separated down in the brush, leaving me to follow the larger of the two, while Rosey and Boone followed the dogs and the second cat. Since I wasnt even carrying my bow that day, I left the chase behind to follow out the larger track. An hour later, I heard dogs barking treed from the bottom of a nearby canyon and decided to rejoin the action. I eventually arrived to find all three dogs hard at work beneath a large female cougar as Boone assembled his takedown recurve. This, according to lion huntings critics, is when the fish-in-a-barrel similes should begin to fly. Please note that most of those critics have never been lion hunting, especially with bows and arrows. Although an experienced hunter and an excellent archer, Boone was clearly in the throes of lion fever. To compound his problems, the cat was coiled high in a fir tree with its chest partly obscured by branches. Rosey and I could see a narrow window for his arrow, though, and we knew Boone was a good enough shot to make it happen. Not, however, on that day. As his deflected arrow rattled harmlessly between its legs, the cat decided it had put up with enough from us. Using its long tail as a steering rudder, it executed a spectacular leap that carried it over our heads and down below a series of rocky ledges neither we nor the dogs could descend. Montanans politely refer to the events that followed as a goat-roping contest. The cat ran a complex series of figure-eights through the ledges. By the time we got the dogs down below the rocks, the track had headed back out on top. We were still trying to sort out the mess an hour later when I heard a lone dog running the track above us. Sadie had somehow worked out the puzzle, but when I caught up to her an hour later, the cat had left her stranded at the top of another cliff. We never saw the lion again.
The moral, as Yogi Berra once famously observed: It aint over til its over.
Another Day
By the time we ground to a halt atop the cliffs in another nasty stretch of mountainous terrain, wed been checking tracks for nearly five hours, and the snow was starting to evaporate right out from under us. Our companion that morning was Mark Schlomeyer, an enthusiastic young bow hunter who had also yet to see his first mountain lion. At the top of a long cut winding down through the cliffs, we split up to check two last possibilities on foot. A quarter-mile from the truck, I noticed magpies emerging from a dense stand of pines. When a pair of ravens flapped into the air behind them, I knew I had to investigate. Magpies, ravens and eagles are our mountains principal avian scavengers, and spotting any two of the three together usually indicates a successful hunt on the part of another predator. After marking the birds original location, I forged into the cover to find an unusual story written in the snow. A female mountain lion had killed a coyote and fed it to her three kittens. I have never seen evidence of a cougar killing a coyote before or since. Back at the truck, I couldnt wait to tell my hunting partners about my discovery, even though we had no intention of pursuing a female with young. But Rosey had better news yet; a large tom had crossed below the rim-
Predators only kill the sick and the weak? Somebody forgot to tell this prime mule deer buck. He wasnt sick or weak until the lion caught him.
By coincidence, Sadies first cat came less than a mile from the spot where Don and his friends treed and killed this tremendous tom a few years earlier. successfulhunter.com
rock a few hours earlier. Evaporating snow meant difficult scenting conditions for the dogs, and we all wished wed visited this location earlier, but it was time to play the cards wed been dealt. Twenty minutes later, Sadie and the blueticks were yapping in pursuit while we set off through the rocks behind them. With legs younger than ours by more than 30 years, Mark stayed on the cat track while Rosey and I took the most direct route we could find, pausing only to help an occasional wayward dog back on the track. Sadie, I was delighted to note, stayed right on the cats trail despite the difficulty of the terrain. After winding down the ridge crest for several miles, the track took a steep turn downhill in the direction of a county road another rough mile below. Since I knew that none of us would relish climbing all the way back uphill in the dark, I decided to circle back to the truck and pick up dogs and hunters on the road at the bottom. The best policy in such situations is simply to follow your own backtrack, but I neatly outthought myself. Angling sidehill to intercept the tail end of the twotrack wed taken to the top, I encountered a precipitous box canyon Id forgotten all about. My only choice was to climb around above it. On the back side of the mountain, I encountered a mile of thigh-deep drifts left behind by a recent wind storm. I could only regret my decision to leave my snowshoes back at the truck. The last mile of the climb tested all my reserves. Remembering my old sheep hunting days in Alaska as I climbed, I longed for the vigor of youth with no way to reprise it. By the time I finally reached the vehicle, Id nearly decided that I was too old to be chasing lions on foot through the mountains anymore.
caught up with her at the base of a rock wall she could not ascend. Despite an admirable performance by the dogs, the terrain had finally proven too much. My only regret was that my friends who consider lion hunting too easy couldnt have been there with us. My despondency didnt survive the first granola bar. As I began to pilot the truck back downhill toward my distant rendezvous with friends and dogs, my thoughts turned to Sadie. Missing her first lion would be like missing my kids first Little League home run. Nonetheless, I knew Id made the right decision. Rosey had undergone a knee replacement the year before, and tough as he still is, I wasnt sure hed make it all the way back up the mountain in the dark. I caught up with the chase on the county road, right where Id expected the lion to cross it. The dogs had finally jumped the cat in the sun-exposed cliffs, where it eluded the blueticks in the treacherous terrain. Sadie had stayed with the track all the way to the bottom and up the other side, where Mark finally
The Charming Third

By the time our legs and the dogs feet had recovered three days later, snow conditions had deteriorated so badly that no reasonable lion hunter would consider hunting. Never noted for a rational approach to such matters, Rosey and I decided to hunt anyway. Mark had to work, and none of our other potential shooters wanted to face long odds on bare ground and slush. For better or worse, the mornings cast of characters was limited to old men and young dogs. Lions often seem to move all at once, triggered by cues that I have never understood. This proved to be one such magical morning. With just enough corn snow left alongside the roads to hold a track, wed identified sign from a female with three kittens, a lone female, and a young tom by the time the sunrise started to color the sky above the cliffs. Then we turned up a long drainage where I took one of the biggest toms of my career several seasons past, although we hadnt seen a fresh track there all year. A mile up the road, we spent some time studying a good tom track before concluding it was just too old to run. Twenty minutes later, we turned down a female track. What on earth had gone on with the mountain lions the night before, and where was young Mark when we needed him? A side canyon finally presented an offer we couldnt refuse. Large tracks of varying age indicated that a tom likely had a kill nearby, and when smoking fresh tracks appeared at last, we had the dogs out of the box before the trucks engine stopped running. My legs still ached from our adventure earlier in the week, and I knew Roseys knee felt worse. While the terrain wasnt quite as unforgiv-
After much hard work, John Roseland was the benefactor of Sadies (at right) first treed tom, a very nice cat at that. 22 SUCCESSFUL HUNTER Jan-Feb 2010
ing as the cliffs wed faced earlier, I couldnt forget how closely Id just come to hitting the proverbial wall. Perhaps I had reached the right conclusion during that long death march up the mountain. But to admit the possibility is to concede to it, so I strapped on my pack with as much determination as I could muster. Then a chorus of sweet music rolled down the canyon and wrapped itself around my ears. The dogs were already barking treed, and Sadies distinctive voice offered pure encouragement. The climb uphill to the dogs felt like walking on air. Just as the track suggested, the cat proved to be a mature tom. As much as we both wished Mark was there, he wasnt. Despite all the cats wed treed in the interval, five years had passed since I had personally killed a cougar, and Rosey hadnt killed one in a decade. Since hes a skilled taxidermist, mounting the cat would entail little expense, and we both like to eat mountain lion. (No kidding, its delicious.) So he assembled his takedown longbow and maneuvered for the shot, and I dragged Sadies first lion back to the truck intact less than an hour after wed turned out in pursuit. As honest an outdoor undertaking as any I know when done properly, cougar hunting suffers inherent PR problems, as exploited by antihunters recently in several western states. The story of Sadies introduction to lions illustrates the point. In print or on film, most cat hunting accounts would have begun with her third chase and its noise, action, photo-ops and results. Trouble is, an hour like that represents a tiny fraction of the global experience. Absent a feel for the dogs, training, tracking, physical exertion and woodsmanship, cougar tales that cut straight to the kill miss the point entirely. But it doesnt have to be that way. So Sadie and I, along with a young bluetick, will keep meeting Rosey and his dogs at 4 oclock in the morning and throwing ourselves against the hills until the hills throw us back, as someday they will. Meanwhile, going hunting sure beats getting old.
2010 Donald M. Jones
Even in the roughest mountains, whitetail bucks may be easier to predict than you think.
By Ken Nowicki
y new home in the mountains was first settled in a gold rush, and the miners scoured the area for rich pickings prior to 1900. Then the claims ran out. After the gold miners left the Kootenays, loggers, coal miners and hard-rock miners moved in. The area is rugged, and even today it is home for a tough crowd of people who work hard and play hard, hunting and fishing in the endless backcountry. Regional maps are marked with old Indian trails and passes and branded with names like the Elk, Bull, Wigwam and the Kootenay Rivers. The mountains are still full of elk, sheep and goats, and a thriving outfitting industry caters to visitors from all over the world. As a resident, I set out to enjoy all the opportunities, but I was surprised to learn there were whitetails.
Mountain whitetail deer are very common in the Kootenays, opined my buddy Wayne Selby of Cranbrook, British Columbia. These deer in this area migrate up to 50 miles or more in the spring and fall. I like to pick Waynes brain for nuggets of information. He has lived in British Columbia for more than 25 years. Just like the classic elk or mule deer migration? I asked. Maybe more so, said Wayne. Whitetail are highly predictable for moving on a large scale. They travel from winter ranges far up into the summer pastures in the high peaks. It kind of changes your perspective on whitetails, I said. Ive read stories about deer living in some parts of North America within a few square miles for their entire lives. These mountain deer are quite different from any other place, and you have to learn how to hunt them, I was told. Wayne was born and raised in Minnesota and lived in Manitoba for a time before coming to the British Columbia mountains in the 1980s. He knows the Virginia whitetail and has hunted them far and wide. There are more whitetail than people imagine in these mountains. I get a nice buck pretty much every
Highcountry Whitetails
year, Selby told me when I moved to Cranbrook. I clued into where the deer live by looking for shed antlers. The places I was finding deer and elk drops were nowhere near the summer and fall areas the game live in. These mountain deer will drop antlers on the wintering ranges down on the hills and slopes facing the west wind and southern sun. In late spring they head upmountain and up-valley to escape the heat. One good technique for hunting them is to catch the migration out of the deep snow country on ancient trails. Wayne was good enough to show me the Pickering Hills, or Pics, as they are called. I was amazed to see hundreds of wintering deer and elk on a warm day in March when we went shed hunting. The Pics are classic wintering hills, and motorized transport is restricted to keep the animals from undue stress. It was a great challenge for me to move from Alberta and settle near Cranbrook. Alberta is renowned for whitetail hunting, but I sold out and moved to live in the rich game fields of British Columbia. I was lucky to find a local resident who would share his wisdom with me. I bought 100 acres of grass with deep, dark spruce and pine forest backing up onto a mountain and the view of the Steeples Range, a local rocky spire that looks to me like the dentures made for an old vampire. It is forbidding rock with turrets and avalanche slopes the best sheep and goat country. There is even a permanent glacier hanging like a canker sore on the north slope. When you move to a new area, it is fun to travel far and wide and explore the nooks and crannies. I spent the first couple of years driving the thousands of miles of major logging roads and stopping in various spots to glass the mountain cirques and alpine tarns. I was surprised to see so many whitetails. Wayne, youll never guess what I saw going across the Steeples, I crowed over the phone last October. Of course, he did know. Waynes been hearing all my reports since I moved in. I called him when the grizzly cubs showed up on the back step of our new house. I panted with excitement to fill him in on all the elk de-
Kens hunting buddy Wayne Selby glasses some of British Columbias finest whitetail country.
A good blanket of snow will get the whitetails migrating in any mountain state. Ken works a ridgeline looking for sign of traveling bucks. BC does will move right away, and the bucks will be close behind.
stroying our haystacks. He heard me complain about the bull moose ripping up the new fence, and he enthused with me about strategies I had for shooting the predator population, starting with gophers, coyotes and the wolves I could hear howling behind the barn. Youll see deer showing up as soon as they get a dump of snow in the high country, Wayne explained. The does travel out first, but the bucks follow right away. I dont think the movement is tied to the rut. It depends when the snow falls and that can be any time from September 15th or after. This was a buck. It was a great one, too. It kept traveling as long as I could see it in the scope, I enthused. Well, no telling how far he will go. You better try and predict where he will hang up, Wayne advised. Im going to try. I am going to climb up and sit on the trail he was using, I replied. And Im trying to tell you, Wayne raised his voice. That buck may not travel that trail again until spring, and hell be going the other direction. Dont forget that the best is yet to come. Most of those mountain deer will be moving down-valley in November. Wayne also told me that the southern corner of BC is still a road-hunting mecca. There are miles of logging roads and clear-cuts that local hunters cruise equipped to the teeth with brush-busting trucks, winches and muscle quads of every kind. You can actually do pretty well driving around on the roads. There are so many deer that they migrate in from everywhere. Still, the nicest style of hunting is to walk up the road closures or sneak into the valleys where there is no access, he said. Not many local hunters want to walk for deer. I would walk. I headed out before dawn and planned to go up to the highest ridge and circle down to check all the trails coming from the high country up the Bull
River. I figured that drainage might hold deer up to 40 miles away, and I knew they had to come down. Folks actually use snowcats to ski that country in the winter, and the snow depth would make it impossible for whitetail to survive. When the sun rose above the mountain, it was clear and I was slipping down the ridge checking the trails. The dust on the trail was rimed with frost, but I could see tracks on every one; and they were invariably heading west. I sat down for awhile in a spot with a view and soon spotted a couple of does traveling along a bench below. They did not look like they were on a mission, as caribou do when you see them traveling. These deer looked fat and sassy, like they mooched along taking a nip here and there. Soon I spotted more on a lower trail and finally a small buck. It was October, and he did not exhibit any signs of the impending rut. Still, it was enough to get my heart started, and I shifted a cheek and settled in to wait. Patience, you tell yourself at times like these. Wait and wait some more. In time you should get a chance. I waited and waited, and nothing came. The sun got high, and I baked like a lizard in the noon hour and early afternoon. It was a peaceful way to pass the time, and I enjoyed the view. Fall was in the air and you could smell it. The larch trees were turning gold, and a mantle of snow capped the high peaks like a fluoride treatment on smoke-stained teeth. I reflected on hunts past and realized I never understood whitetail migration until it was explained to me by Wayne. I thought about a good buck I once took in the mountains of Alberta. It fell in the shadow of Chief Mountain, and at the time I thought it was strange that the buck was traveling across a place where I had never spotted a good buck before. I think I know now. The buck had been living up in the high valleys for the summer, and I happened along later
Kens big Rocky Mountain whitetail fell during the fall migration through some of Canadas most rugged highcountry. successfulhunter.com
in the fall, after the snow pushed all the deer down onto winter range. I used to think only mule deer made long migrations. I know better now. There is an old saying that: We see what we know. I think we are blind to a lot of new things until we are told or figure out how to understand what we see. I know I have read hundreds of magazine articles on deer and a whole bunch of books on the subject. I know in my head what is normal or standard operating procedure for understanding the habits of the whitetail deer. I think many hunters filter the information they gather from their education in the outdoor press. That is why it really helps to have a guru or mentor who can change our thinking. Wayne Selby has been my teacher on mountain whitetail behavior. He helped me understand why these deer move so many miles over the course of the hunting season and why the old woodlot mentality just does not work in the Rocky Mountains. Since he taught me about migrating whitetails, I have learned that it is the norm in deep snow country and have observed it in northern Montana, Idaho, Alberta and British Columbia. One of my very best whitetail bucks fell last fall after a couple of days of watching from the shoulder of a high mountain. A buck headed down for ranch country on the adjacent ridge. I figured he would hit the first hayfields and hang up living in the dense cover like any good whitetail buck from any other part of the continent. I was betting the buck would take off his traveling shoes and hang around on the edge of cover waiting for does to come to him. The next morning I was sneaking along a game trail and spotted the trophy standing all alone in the shadow of the tall ponderosa pines, looking much like a lawn ornament or life-size bronze. He was a fine buck and the picture of health. It took me one shot, and I felt the full pleasure of a clean kill and for actually making a play that turned out right. I was convinced this buck was the same one I saw coming down the mountain. I checked his teeth, and they were black and worn indicating substantial age. I sat and wondered about all the places these Kootenay bucks visit over the year and marveled at the thought of him crossing the mighty roaring Bull River, which many years ago was used for floating the giant old-growth trees out of the woods and down to the sawmills. I checked the score on the buck and was pleased to tape 166 gross points. Not that score matters, but it marked the buck as one of stature in any location. Selby had told me that record-size bucks are rare in the region. I was anxious to tell him something more important, and I roared to his house with the buck in the truck and the news. Wayne, youll never guess what I did. I put all your good advice to work and got myself a terrific buck, I told him eagerly. Whitetail? I thought youd never guess, I said, and we both smiled.
Chihuahua Whitetails
Mexicos Sierra Madres support some of the worlds finest Coues deer hunting.
In this case, whopper can be somewhat misleading. The Boone & Crockett minimum score for a typical Coues buck is just 110 inches; 120 inches for a nontypical. Thats 42 percent smaller than the B&C minimum score of 190 inches for a typical Rocky Mountain mule deer and 48 percent smaller than the B&C minimum of 230 inches for a nontypical muley. Put another way, its 36 percent smaller than the typical B&C minimum whitetail score of 170 and 37 percent smaller than the B&C minimum score of 190 for a nontypical whitetail. I got hooked on Coues deer hunting long before I ever tried to shoot one. Like many of you, as a young boy I was an avid reader of the leading sporting magazines of the day and marveled at the adventures of guys like Jack OConnor and Warren Page. OConnor lived in Arizona and hunted the Coues whitetail of the Southwest extensively, a deer of which he became quite enamored. I lived in southern California and had my first opportunity to hunt Coues deer back in the mid-1980s in Arizonas Catalina Mountains with DuWane Adams, one of the regions best-known big game guides and the man who pioneered the use of a tripod-mounted 15x binocular to locate big Coues and muley bucks at extended ranges. On my first-ever hunt with DuWane, we hiked three hours in the dark up the thornbush-filled slopes of the Catalinas to a small, oak-filled bowl. That morning I shot my first buck, an 8-pointer that scored about 85 points. No giant by any means, but I could not have been more excited had I just asked the homecoming queen to the prom, and she said yes. Since that time I have hunted these secretive little whitetails a lot, both with rifle and bow, and find the challenge to be extreme. Simply stated, if you can hunt
By Bob Robb
n this age of bigger is better, I have a confession to make. . . When it comes to deer hunting, for me just the opposite is true. Oh sure, few things on Gods green earth get my heart beating faster than a huge set of mule deer antlers. A massive midwestern whitetail rack glistening in the early morning dawn as the buck approaches my stand, puffing steam like a locomotive with every breath, will get my knees knocking. Yet neither come as close to stopping my heart as glassing up a whopper Coues whitetail buck.
2010 Donald M. Jones
Outfitter Ernesto Beall helps his clients obtain paperwork needed to bring firearms in and out of Chihuahua, Mexico, as well as escort them across the border from Texas.
Coues deer, there isnt a deer on the continent that is safe from you. Coues deer hunting has evolved somewhat in the past two-plus decades. In the 1980s Arizona was the hotbed of activity, with some guys hunting New Mexico as well. Then in the late 1980s and into the 1990s, as Arizona Coues deer populations took something of a dive and annually drawing a tag became problematic, the focus shifted to the Mexican state of Sonora. For many years Sonora was cranking out big numbers of quality bucks, and deer populations and trophy quality on the better hunting ranches remained strong. Lately, though, Ive watched the Sonoran hunting begin to degrade both in terms of overall deer numbers and overall trophy quality. There are still lots of deer, and some dan-
dies remain; but the hunting is not what it was a decade ago, and the cost has begun to escalate big time. The past couple of seasons, I have shifted my Coues deer hunting focus eastward to the Mexican state of Chihuahua. What I have seen warms my heart. Here I am reminded of how Sonora was back in the mid-80s lots of deer and lots of top-quality bucks. The cost remains reasonable, access from the U.S. is not difficult, and the number of outfitters remains small enough that its easy to find a good one. In 2007 my friend Wade Derby of Crosshair Consulting (crosshairconsulting.com) turned me on to Ernesto Beall and Ojo Caliente Outfitters in Chihuahua, whom he has recently begun booking hunts for. I had heard about this outfit off and on for many years from friends who had decided to try their Coues deer luck in what proved to be an area that has, through the years, received minimal hunting pressure from Americans the eastern slope of the Sierra Madre Mountains. The Beall family owns their own ranches and does not lease hunting rights to anyone. Because they are all about quality, they have not killed more than 15 bucks off either of their two large hunting ranches in any one year since 2002. They employ local guides who have lived and hunted in the area all their lives, making them extremely good at spotting and evaluating deer. Ernesto and his family speak fluent English and help all their clients with the necessary permits and paperwork. They will meet clients at the El Paso, Texas, airport and personally escort them across the border, eliminating the hassle factor. Camps are incredibly comfortable
Above, hunters stay in a very comfortable cabin complete with beds and wood stove for heat. Left, clients take their meals in this cabin-like dining hall, the walls of which are covered with photographs of past hunter successes.
heated ranch bunkhouses with beds, a separate toilet/hot shower room, superb food and trucks that dont break down. All hunts are fair chase and conducted with a one-on-one hunter/ guide ratio. They use 4x4 vehicles or horses to access the hunting area, with all hunting conducted the old-fashioned way traversing the
30 SUCCESSFUL HUNTER Jan-Feb 2010 successfulhunter.com
mountains and canyons on foot. It is what one of my friends called the anti-high rack alternative to much of the deer hunting so common in other areas of Mexico. In the past several seasons, the success rate is holding right at 98 percent with most bucks taken scoring 90 Boone & Crockett points or better; every year a few fortunate hunters take bucks scoring much higher. In Chihuahua the Coues deer season runs December 1through January 28, with the rut generally occurring in the month of January. My 2007 hunt was one of those best described as the one that got away, though he didnt escape the way you might think. Ive been searching for a Coues buck that would break that 110 B&C level all my life, and on day four of my hunt I finally found one. At dawn Jos and I climbed an hour to the top of the mountain, then set up and glassed an oak-filled hillside he told me always held some deer. Right away we began spotting them, a handful of does and a couple of smaller bucks. Then Jos grabbed my arm and pointed. A
Left, Tom Haase took his first-ever Coues buck on this hunt, a dandy scoring a tick over 100 SCI points. Below, Wade Derby missed a larger buck before taking this fine 8-pointer.
quarter-mile away I could see him with my naked eye, the rising sun glinting off his shiny coat and antlers. He bedded in a small opening in the thick stuff, and once we got a spotting scope focused on him, I about had a coronary. We watched this buck for almost three hours and, once, tried to creep closer, but the nature of the terrain would not allow it. I figured he would score somewhere around 120 B&C points. This was the buck I had been searching 20 years for, so I built myself a nice little benchrest with some shooting sticks and a rest for my back elbow and waited for him to stand up. Though the shot was about 400 yards, it was nothing that worried me. I was carrying
Saddle horses are used at times to access more remote areas of the mountain, giving the hunter a taste of what it was like to hunt this country decades ago.
a custom .300 Winchester Magnum with which I had taken everything from big Alaska Dall sheep rams and grizzly bears to elk, mule deer and much more. I have so much faith in this rifle I nicknamed it Undertaker. When the buck stood, I shot. Three times I shot and missed every one. I was dumbfounded. It wasnt until I returned home and began cleaning my rifle that I discovered that the barrel had actually begun coming unscrewed from the action, something I had never had happen before nor anyone I asked, including gunsmiths, guides and seasoned shooters and hunters, had ever heard of either. Accuracy was destroyed! But that was days later. On this afternoon I sucked it up, Jos and I kept glassing, and we located several more deer and two very nice bucks before deciding to try and take the largest of a pair feeding below us as the sun began dropping below the horizon. It was the last afternoon of my hunt, and my three compansuccessfulhunter.com
Bobs buck, a very old 5x4 that scores right at 100 SCI points, was shot on the last afternoon of the hunt after he missed the biggest Coues buck hes seen in 20 years.
ions Tom Haase, Jim Millis and Wade Derby had already connected on outstanding bucks scoring in the mid-90 to low-100 range and two of them had previously missed chances at honest book-class bucks. We closed the gap to 150 yards, and I was able to shoot the buck despite my as-yet-unknown rifle problem. He was a good one, too, a heavy 5x4 that scores right at 100 gross B&C points. So, I am writing this in late summer 2008, and though I am getting ready for archery elk season, a small part of my mind keeps wandering back to that magnificent Coues buck. Wade and I have already made arrangements to hunt with Ernesto Beall again in January 2009. The Undertaker has been repaired and is back to being the tack-driver it has always been. I know what gear to bring and what to expect. Best
of all, I know this area of the Sierra Madres holds the kind of Coues deer bucks that will make your eyes water. I can still see the buck that Wade and I jumped from under a juniper bush the first afternoon of our hunt only because we were tired and did not execute the stalk as we should have. That buck was ungodly
big in both body and antler, and we had him dead to rights had we been smarter and more cautious. Even in a remote area such as this, a mature Coues buck is one of the most wary and alert big game animals on the continent. Make a mistake and more than likely you will lose the opportunity.
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Emeralds
& ICE
Come freeze-up, greenheads are the crown jewel for hard-water duck fanatics.
By David Draper
h heard the sound before I saw who w was responsible for it. A few steps f farther and I could make out the s shadowy figure of one of my hunting partners waist deep in the slough. His swinging arms were choreographed to the deep tha-chunk sound of ax meeting ice. Nearby, another shadow shoveled tablesized sheets of ice under the frozen surface. Sometimes it pays to be late.
Froze up, huh? I said. Yup, Jeff grunted without breaking stride. Solid right near to the fence. Nebraska had suffered a severe cold snap just after Thanksgiving, and our slough had turned into something more suited to Hockey Town than a duck factory. Ya shoulda called, I answered. I wouldnt have slept in.
Picking up a spud bar from behind the blind, I joined my friends on the ice and went to work doing what the Titanic couldnt. Truth was, it wasnt the snooze button that caused my tardiness. It was the snow-packed roads made slick from an overnight blizzard. I had hunted the Jewelry Store so named for its abundance of banded ducks the day before, a Friday, and put a mixed bag of mallards and wigeon on the bird strap in short order, as the birds piled into the shrinking hole in the ice. When Mark and Jeff showed up at dawn the next morning, I was basking in the glow of success and dreaming of a full weekend of waterfowling. But, I also had plans that night with no intention of choosing a cold camper over a lady friend, despite the concerns Mark and Jeff provided over the tailgate. Youre choosing her over us? Mark asked as I loaded Dublin into his crate. That trailers too small for three men and a dog. Were supposed to get buried, said Jeff, nodding at the first falling flakes. Youll never make it back up in the morning.
Dont worry, I assured them. Tomorrows going to be epic, and a few flakes arent going to make me miss it. If women are the downfall of men, waterfowling comes in a close second. The drive home should have been a hint to what the morning would bring. The road was still clear, but a strong north wind and flakes increasing in both size and frequency reduced visibility to near white-out conditions at times, particularly as I climbed the table out of the North Platte River Valley. As it turned out, I spent the night sharing my bed with a smelly Lab. But, it would have been a three-dog night in the cold camper parked near the river, and I was glad I was buried under a mountain of covers. The wind howling in the eaves, along with the dread of the impending drive, didnt afford me much sleep. By the time the alarm sounded, Id been awake for some time wondering if the risks were worth the rewards. The duck hunter won out over the responsible adult, and knowing it would be one of those day-of-days, I brewed a strong cup of black coffee and set off into the storm. Normally, I shared the early-morning highway with cattle trucks and other waterfowlers flocking to the valley, but today the road was barren. I told myself this meant I was braver than the rest, but in reality, it just meant I was more irresponsible. Still, I didnt have to worry about anyone elses driving, although I did have to wonder who would pull me out should I spin into the ditch. There were stretches of highway where my tires held a tenuous grip to the snow-packed road, lengthening the already long drive by half again as much. Mark and Jeff had the hole nearly open when I arrived. If they were surprised to see me, they didnt show it. I realized they knew me as well as anyone well enough to know I was lying through my teeth when I assured them the roads were fine. And I knew them well enough to know they were lying when they said the camper provided a warm shelter from the storm. Steam rose from the open water that lay across the fence, water that stayed open year round, an anomaly we never could explain. I wondered aloud if it had held birds overnight, and Mark quickly assured me it had. Only about 1,000, he said. Sounded like a refuge over there when we walked in. They all lifted off at once. Well, its about time for them to start coming back, I suggested. Though there was no sun shining through the heavy snow, the black night had lightened up enough to signal the start of shooting time. We took our positions in the cramped wooden blind. The visibility was so poor, we knew the ducks wouldnt bother to circle, instead coming down the slough low and already committed to the hole. We left the lids open, laid our shotguns atop the blind and stood ready to greet the first ducks of the day.
Within minutes, the first small flock appeared, five shadows coming out of the white-out, wings already cupped. Mark stood at the west end of the blind and was first to whisper the words we were all waiting to hear. Mallards. Let em come, I reminded everyone, including myself, before giving the signal to shoot. Kill those ducks! After the barrage, three of the five mallards lay dead on the ice. Their emerald heads and crimson blood bright on a blank slate of white snow. The other two, both hens, passed twice overhead, confused in the storm, as Dublin battled the snow and ice to bring the three greenheads to hand. As he returned with the third bird, we doubled our count, dropping another three mallards out of the falling snow. With all the action, Dublin struggled with his marks, and soon we added four more birds to his workload. We took what we thought was a lull to help the dog retrieve the birds. Not 10 minutes into the day, and we already had two-thirds of the five-mallards-per-man limit. With the action this fast and furious, I wanted to make sure we had all the birds accounted for.
Emeralds ICE
Dublin and I went to the east end of the slough to chase a wounded a bird, while Jeff and Mark picked birds out of the water. Hearing Jeff shout, I turned and saw a flock of wigeon literally swarming around him as he stood in the hole in the ice. I had never seen anything like it outside of an Alfred Hitchcock movie, and it took a brief moment to realize the birds werent attacking Jeff, but just trying to find refuge from the storm. Shoot! Mark shouted at Jeff. As the birds realized this particular port was occupied, they broke formation and headed down the slough directly over Mark, who brought one to the ground. I raised my gun to my shoulder and fired two quick shots at the flock of aerial acrobats before remembering to pick a bird. My third shot dumped a drake. Jeff never raised his gun. What happened, I asked as we regrouped back in the blind and sorted our tally, which came to three drake mallards for Jeff and Mark and four in my bag, along with wigeon for both Mark and me.
&
I thought we were just shooting mallards today, Jeff said. We each get a bonus bird, Mark reminded Jeff of Nebraskas limit of six ducks, of which only five can be mallards, leaving that sixth duck as a chance to add a bird of a different feather to the strap. As Jeff lamented his missed chance at a bonus bird with an impressive string of expletives, I calmly pointed over his shoulder at the slough. Why dont you shoot that one? I calmly asked. A lone wigeon had dropped into the hole with a loud splash, which Jeff hadnt heard over his cursing. I gave him a second to raise his gun before pounding on the side of the blind. Unconcerned, the wigeon swam in circles, figuring if his newfound plastic friends werent flying in this weather, neither should he. It took several more tries before the duck had enough and took to wing. I secretly hoped for a miss, just to add to the ribbing Jeff was getting today, but he easily dropped the bird to the ice with one shot. Dublin was no more back in the blind with Jeffs bird when a pair of mallards ghosted out of the snow and into a flak attack from Mark
and Jeff. Both birds fell hard on the ice, and Dublin was back out the door. As he picked a bird from the ice, I broke the news. So, who shot the hen? I asked. Jeffs creative language filled the air for the second time, as he chastised himself for ruining our chance at a perfect string of drakes. Truth was, it really didnt matter to me, as I was experiencing some of the best gunning the waterfowling world has to offer and one dead hen wasnt going to ruin anything. But, thats not what I told Jeff at the time. Luckily for Jeff, he was spared any more torment by a flock of ducks dropping into the dekes. I reminded everyone that we only needed three birds to finish, and to make sure they were drakes just to rattle Jeffs cage a little more. But, after the shooting, it was me who deserved the hard time, as two drake mallards lay dead on the ice in front of Mark and Jeff while the rest of the flock flew away unscathed. After the wigeon, I hadnt reloaded my shotgun when I got back to the blind. I didnt remember until I pulled up on a chip shot at a fat red-leg hovering in front of me as I yanked at the trigger and worked the pump on the old 870 to no avail. Mark and Jeff cased their guns and sat back, making no small effort to remind me they were done and waiting on me. Doing my best to shake off the pressure, I picked a drake from the next flock and promptly whiffed, which was met with much laughter from inside the blind. Connecting on a long, going-away shot, I racked the empty hull from my shotgun, pumped a fresh one into the chamber and let go a third shot into the air to signal the end to the perfect day of duck hunting. While its still hard to believe, it only took 28 minutes from the time the first duck hit the ice until that last celebratory shot was fired, marking it the best day of duck hunting Ill likely ever experience. Eighteen ducks in a matter of minutes was a fine reward for the risk of braving slick roads and battling frozen water. Anytime the three of us share a blind, we talk about that day-ofdays, the day of emeralds and ice.
Roaring
A veteran of Argentinas wingshooting tries his hand at crown-antlered red deer.
By Nick Sisley
ed stag, Cervus elaphus, wear impressive headgear. Their antlers sometimes rival our elks in size, though a red stag is a smaller animal. Originally hunted only in northern Europe, man has introduced the red deer to a number of places throughout the world, including New Zealand, where they quickly became overpopulated. There were so many red deer there in the 1960s that harvesting them became big business. For a time I worked for a travel agent specializing in hunting and fishing, and I recall one New Zealander describing the business of thinning the red deer from the island. They shot them with .223 semiautomatics from helicopters when a herd was stacked up close together, usually on an extremely steep mountain side.
As soon as the shooting was over, the shooters rappelled down a rope to the dead deer. I was told they could field dress one in 30 seconds. Time was critical because of the cost of helicopter fuel. With some specific half-hitch the deer were all attached to a rope hanging from the helicopter, and sometimes the shooters with them, and the chopper headed for the valley, where a Cessna 206 awaited. The 206s were stripped of everything inside, including seats, and the pilot sat on a dead deer. I heard stories of these planes taking flight full of red stag, blood draining from the planes tail. It was a way to make a living, and these blokes sold everything antlers, meat, internal organs and more. Of course, thousands of red deer have been taken in New Zealand by using fair chase methods, and many hunters are still traveling there to do that. But its a long commercial flight to New Zealand. Argentina is somewhat closer. From anywhere in the U.S., you can be in Argentina overnight and perhaps even hunting that first afternoon. One area emerging as a red deer hot spot is the province of Cordoba. Every wingshooter has heard about the fabulous number of doves in Cordoba and has either dreamed of going there with shotgun in hand or has already experienced it. But Ill bet theres not one wingshooter in 1,000 who is aware of that provinces
The view from Rincn de Luna: a trout-laden river winds through a trout laden mountainous lunar-like landscape roaring with red stag. Guests are housed in luxurious accommodations, an Argentine tradition.
red deer population. Until last March, I wasnt aware either, and Ive shot in the Cordoba area scores of times since 1979. For me, Cordoba will always ring of expansive fields of soy beans, wheat, corn and sunflowers. Some of the country is pretty flat, though there are plenty of rolling hills in some dove areas. However, youll find a totally different type of terrain in the southwestern corner of the province, the topography of which is the antithesis of the croplands where the dove is king. This part of Cordoba is big, rough country. In fact, the lodge I hunted from is dubbed Rincn de Luna, Spanish for corner of the moon.
NESTOR SPERANGA PICKED me up at Sierra Brava, the dove lodge where I had been shooting. It was a two-hour drive over pretty good roads that turned to gravel and eventually became rough enough that Nestor put the truck into low-four. We didnt change from that low range the rest of the way, and it took 90
more minutes to reach the lodge, paradise in the middle of nowhere. Nestor, who is still attending college, runs Rincn de Luna with his two brothers and his father, Vincente. Vincente bought the place in 1999, and it took him four years to build the low-range, four-wheel drive road that we followed into camp. Prior to that, they rode horses the whole way from the drop-off point. The ranch is huge, consisting of 3,000 hectares (approximately 7,400 acres). Red stags were introduced to Argentina around 1906, into a vast area known as Patagonia. The stags have continually expanded their range, and they had to move quite a distance to the northeast to reach the southwest corner of Cordoba. The seasons are reversed this far south of the equator. The breeding and hunting starts in March and goes through May. Like wapiti, red stags are very vocal, trying to lure their mates (hinds) and protecting the hinds from other males. While our elk bugle, a red stag roars. Stags roar often during the hunting season, and there is one heck of a lot of these deer.
2010 Andy Trowbridge/Royal Tine Images
Roaring Stags
Naturally, this makes the hunting particularly exciting. Twelve years ago, when I was rough shooting for red grouse in Scotland, I could walk. But a dozen years have taken some toll, so it was great to give up shanks mare when we left the lodge the first morning atop the back of wellbehaved horses. Nestor and I rode for two hours, far up into the hunting country away from the modern lodge. My legs felt pretty good as I dismounted, but now they were going to be put to the so-called test, as I was back to shanks mare. We hadnt walked far before we heard roaring coming from a copse of trees ahead. Generally, this is totally open territory, and these trees were the only ones within who knows how many miles. We made a careful stalk, much of it to the tune of those exciting roars.
Hunters nurse sore leg muscles at Rincn de Lunas basement bar.
The downside of this roaring is that there is almost always a group of hinds with the stag, and that means many more eyes and noses to see and smell danger. Further, at this time of the year, its the hinds that are looking for danger more than the stags. Nestor later told me the stag was a very good one, but the stag took his antlers over a crest and out of sight before I could do anything about it. As we were following up on that first stag, a stag with even more impressive headgear showed himself, beautifully skylined atop a mountain to our north. Nestor suggested we keep stalking the first stag, and in doing so we would also be getting closer to the skylined stag. Neither worked out, as we eventually had to move through country that was so open there was no way to proceed without being seen by our quarry. This was not a bad problem to have, because there was always more roaring to keep us interested. After a great deal of climbing around steep rocky slopes, Nestor had a good look at a stag that carried antlers that he said were, . . . more than
Nicks guide Nestor operates Rincn de Luna along with his father and two brothers. The open country requires careful glassing and occasionally long shooting.
shootable. It took us more than an hour to get into position for a shot, but when we peaked over the last little rise that would have put us well within range, we saw nothing. The wind was right. Theres no way that stag and his harem could have seen us, but they had all vanished. My legs were feeling the hunt now, but the only new territory for us to work was straight up the opposite side of the valley it had taken us so long to come down. So up we went, me slipping and sliding a bit every other step. It took us another hour to get near the top, and when we did, a very good looking stag peeked down on us from above. I had been practicing offhand shooting all winter, and I should have simply pulled up and shot. The distance was about 100 yards. But I snuck slowly to a rock about 60 feet away where I would have a solid rest. However, I did not see the hinds there were four of them with that stag and one of them sounded the vocal alarm and they took off. No shot. Now I was not only disappointed but really bushed, and the horses were so far off it was demoralizing knowing how far we had to climb
During the roar, mature stags gather harems of hinds that keep a watchful eye out for danger and can make stalking to within shooting range difficult, especially in open country. 00 SUCCESSFUL HUNTER Jan-Feb 2010 successfulhunter.com
Argentine Hunt Planner

erious wingshooters began shooting doves in the Cordoba area of Argentina 30 years ago. Fortunately, I was one of the first Americans to participate. I have returned scores of times since, sometimes two or three times a year. While the number and cost of shells fired at doves in this province could rival the gross national product of some small countries, the dove population is not faltering. There are more birds than ever. Over the years a great number of outfitters from the U.S. and Great Britain have begun offering Cordoba dove hunts. Just prior to my stag hunt with Rincn de Luna, I hunted with Sierra Brava Lodge. No American shooter will go wrong booking here. Not only are the accommodations and food excellent, the shooting is very close to the lodge. Check with the Jeri Booth at Detail Company Adventures (1-800-292-2213; detailcompany.com) on the best time to book when the doves are very close by which is almost year round. This combination of wingshooting and big game hunting has to be one of the best offered anywhere in the world.
Nick and guide Nestor with the free-range Argentinean stag.
and stumble to get back. Our rest was brief, but then Nestor led the way. Instead of going straight down the mountain, and then straight up the other side, he took a circuitous route that initially had us working more than 90 degrees away from the horses. However, we were still hunting, and more roaring stags showed themselves, although the open terrain meant we had no chance to get them in the scopes crosshairs.
I DONT REMEMBER how

long it took us to get near the top of the mountain we were working toward, but it was a leg-tiring affair. The altitude was high but nothing like an Afghanistan Marco Polo hunt. It was just steep topography, rocks galore and the underfooting
was anything but stable. But finally we neared the top. Nestor suggested, Sit here and rest for a bit. Ill peek over the other side . . . see if theres anything that piques my interest. I was glad for the rest, but it didnt take me long to pick up the binocs around my neck to carefully check out what was on my side of the mountain. At significant distance I found a single stag to the west and a small group to the south. The headgear on both looked good to me. I waited for Nestors return. Nothing to brag about over there, he offered upon arrival. I showed him the two I had been glassing. Lets try that group to the south, he advised after a short look at both. It could have been easy for this group to see us stalking them, so we had to be very careful stay bent over, crawl a bit, keep checking their position. At one point when I peeked at their position with my binocular, I saw two stags even closer. It took a bit of hissing to get Nestors attention, as he was a few yards in front of me. He was excited when he put his binocular on what I had found. Almost immediately he shook his head yes, took his backpack off and
placed it on a nearby rock. I had to work my way down to him mostly on my back. I dared not even get to my knees, for I would have been too easy for the quarry to see. The one on the right, Nestor whispered. My Burris binocular has a built-in rangefinder, so I already knew the range was just under 200 yards, and thats the range the rifle was sighted in for. The stag was facing me but quartering ever so slightly to his right. I aimed just inside the left shoulder and shot quickly. I kept the scope on the target and saw the stag turn maybe 180 degrees and within a second or two fall over. I didnt do a thing just kept the scope on the stag. Nestor was perhaps bewildered, looking through his binocular and perhaps wondering why I wasnt rejoicing. I think he said something to that effect. Im just keeping him covered in case he might get up, I told him. That stag did not get up, and he was a good one. What a great, great hunt this one turned out to be. I sort of marveled at that moment, thinking that I had come to Argentina to shoot doves. What a bonus the red stag had been.
Right to the Point

Drop point, trailing point, clipped point: Do you have the right hunting knife?
By John Haviland
ersonal preference and style certainly play a role in choosing a big game knife. Thats readily apparent, as knives are available in more variations and designs than any other tool. These variations aside, a big game knife should have some basic features that allow for ease of use while a hunter attends to big game on the ground.
Cutting is a hunting knifes sole duty. So a big game knife requires at least a single blade. Adding accoutrements to a blade, like a gut hook, wire cutter or serrations removes some of the blades efficiency. Sandwich additional blades with saws and more into a folding knife, and the knife handle becomes too thick and squared off to fit the hand. With a simple fixed blade knife Ive dressed and quartered or boned elk into packable pieces far from the trailhead. Several times I used a Buck Woodsman with a 4-inch trailing-point blade and a handle of equal length, a knife Buck promotes as perfect for fish and small game. One time I shot a cow at the bottom of a steep canyon and had to hump it over a tall ridge to get to the trailhead. There was no sense packing about 80 pounds of bones and ribs, so I decided to bone out the elk, which took me most of one day and half the next. The process started by dressing the elk. I lifted the belly skin and muscle away from the bulge of the stomach and made an incision with the knife. A finger on
2010 successfulhunter.com Mark Kayser/Windigo Images
Right to the Point

each side of the knife in the slit kept the skin lifted away from the intestines all the way up to the sternum, so the upswept blade tip wouldnt nick the innards. Reaming around the inside of the pelvis loosened the rectum. All cutting inside the chest cavity is done by feel, so to keep track of the blade, I placed my index finger on the spine behind the tip and my thumb on the side of the blade. That enabled me to make a precise cut through the trachea. Pulling on the trachea rolled out the lungs, heart and digestive system. Long cuts up the neck and inside the legs between the meat and fascia split the hide for skinning. The Bucks upward blade tip did cut the meat in a few spots. With the elk on its side, long sweeps with the slight belly of the blade peeled off the hide. The blade was long enough to reach through the meat of the hindquarters, and in no time my pack was filled. On my return trip, I turned the elk over and started on the second half with the little knife. Butchering that elk demonstrates that a knife with a 4-inch blade is plenty long enough for large big game. In fact, a longer blade often gets in the way as the wrist must be cramped to use the straight portion of the blade. However, when I helped butcher a bison last winter, the 8-inch upcurved edge of a butcher knife made a quick job of it, not for the increased reach of the long blade, but its lengthened stroke. However, butchering is usually not performed in the field. Blade shape also is important. The gut hook has become quite popular for this task. The tip of the hook is placed beneath the rear of the abdominal wall and pulled forward. The circular cutting surface is enclosed by the blunt end of the hook so it does not snag the guts. The hook is used the same way to split the hide up the brisket and neck and inside the legs. Lots of hunters think this blade design is the best thing since, well, sliced bread. I have an impossible time sharpening the hooks small, curved cutting surface, and if the edge is dull, I have to jerk on the knife handle, like starting a reluctant chain saw. On top of that, long hair is forever plugging up the hook. The gutting blade on a Victori-
When choosing a knife, consider the task at hand, then choose a blade design that best fulfills that need.
nox Hunter folding knife I use has more of a bow shape with a serrated edge. It doesnt clog with hair, but each tooth must be painstakingly sharpened individually. Im okay with a gut hook on a separate blade on a folding knife. But darned if a gut hook belongs on the spine of a knife, where its continually snagging on things inside the critter. Plus, with a hook protruding from the knife blade, its dangerous to place the offhand
Many hunters carry a large knife for dressing game and a small knife for detail work, such as caping a game head. 44 SUCCESSFUL HUNTER Jan-Feb 2010
A folding knife with a separate gut hook makes sense. successfulhunter.com
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Right to the Point

inside the chest cavity at the same time or ride the index finger on the spine of the blade for fine controlled work. A blade with the correctly shaped tip can do the same job as a gut hook and much more. A drop-point blade works best for me. The drop point gets its name because the point falls below the spine of the knife. Where that downward angle starts on the spine and how much the point drops can vary greatly. The sloping angle helps prevent the point from plunging into the guts or the meat while splitting the hide. The amount of drop in the point shouldnt be excessive, as your wrist will kink and strain fighting to keep the point under the skin. A point dropping from the spine of up to a couple of tenths of an inch is plenty. A drop point also allows a knife to have a thicker and more rugged tip than other tip designs, like clip and trailing points. There is no real benefit to this unless the top of the knife is used to pry. The drop point also has a belly, or upward curve, toward the front of the blade edge that is good for skinning. The tip is not so pointed, either, that it slits the hide. A rather blunt tip on a drop point, though, makes it only fair for close-in work like caping a head. The trailing-point knife design features a point that trails above the spine of the blade. The point tapers,
A bull elk is a handful once its down on the ground, but it doesnt take a large knife to dress it. John dressed and skinned this bull with a 4-inch drop point knife.
or is ground on the sides forward on the spine, to a thin tip. With the upswept tip the trailing point has a bowed belly for a long sweep of the blade during skinning. The deeper the blade, the more pronounced the belly. The slender tip works great for tight work inside a pelvis and caping a head. Many backpack hunters carry a short blade trail-
ing point for exact cutting of a cape from around the antlers or horns, eyes and lips. The blade must be kept short, though, so the index finger can ride on the spine to control the tip. A clip (or clipped) point is lower than the spine of the blade. The straight angle of the spine to the tip makes the clip point stronger than
The Cutting Edge
f you are all thumbs when it comes to sharpening a knife, there is help. The GATCO Edgemate Sharpening System contains hones from extra-coarse to fine and a clamp that holds the knife. The clamp fastens to the spine of the knife, and a rod on the hones extends through the arms of the clamp in different notches that keep the stones at a constant grinding angle on both sides of the edge. Six notches produce angles from a thin 11 degrees to 29 degrees for a thicker and more abrupt bevel. If you want an edge that stays sharp longer, grind a steeper edge; say a 25-degree
angle instead of the 19-degree angle recommended for most hunting knives. A sharpening hone is also included for serrated blades. Once a chosen angle is ground on the blade, it can be resharpened quickly with a fine hone at the same angle. The GATCO Super-Micro-X contains medium and fine rods of alumina ceramic for touching up a blade in the field. Keep the blade vertical to apply the correct angle. Ive used the GATCO Edgemate for several years. My friends can always tell when hunting season is near, because the hair on my forearms is shaved off.
The GATCO Edgemate allows you to use a consistent angle while sharpening both sides of a blade.
a trailing point. The slim point can be thinned in cross section even farther for cutting in tight places. A clip point works fair at best for unzipping a hide, but its pointed tip tends to cut slits in the hide while skinning. The skinner blade is a specialty blade. Its blunt, and often turned down, tip slips under the hide to open an animal without nicking the innards and rounded enough to keep from piercing the hide. With a deep, curved belly the forward curve does the cutting by reaching forward and pushing down with a long sweeping arc to separate the hide from the body. Because the skinner is usually kept full in the hand, one with more handle than blade is comfortable, and a thumb notch on top of the handle or rear of the blade adds stability. The fit of the hand to the knife is as important as blade design. Rarely is a knife gripped around the handle with all four fingers and thumb. Im forever grasping a knife handle between my thumb and index finger. That allows more rotation of the blade edge without crimping the wrist. A thin and slab-sided handle fits best for this. This handle design, with a belly in the middle that swells out and down, fits in the hollow of the closed palm and gives the ring
and pinky fingers a stronger grip on the handle. A thumb rest on the top of the handle or blade and forefinger groove on the front bottom of the handle aid in keeping the knife from slipping in the hand. A protruding guard further prevents the hand from slipping forward onto the blade. A folders handle is always longer than the blade, which is a good thing. However, very few folding
knives have handles with a thumb or finger rest to keep the hand in place or guards to keep the hand from slipping. A folder with an upward curve to the bottom of the frame helps at least somewhat to keep the knife in the hand when force is applied. With a knife of the proper size and shape in hand, a big game hunter is ready when game is on the ground.
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Gimme Shelter
Helpful tips for setting up a right proper hunting camp.
By Ron Spomer
oure entitled to camp and hunt on millions of acres of public lands across the country. If that doesnt make you feel rich as a king, you dont know your history. One reason our forefathers came here was because they were tired of getting whipped for killing the kings game. In America, wildlife would belong to the people. Closed seasons and bag limits had to be implemented to protect game from overharvest, but fair systems for allocating those resources have been set up. Each of us has similar opportunities for accessing public wildlife. Those who camp when we hunt get an extra dose.
Gimme Shelter
A tent camp can be a hunting asset or liability depending on how its managed. Done right, it puts you close to game, saving time and enriching the experience as you see, hear and smell the natural world. Done wrong it wastes hunting time and makes you suffer. Who wants to sleep wet and cold on hard ground? Who wants to wash dishes while kneeling in dirt? A productive camp takes planning and effective gear. Once put together, it will provide inexpensive lodging for decades and put you tooth-and-claw with your quarry. Finding public land on which to camp and hunt is as easy as doing an Internet search for national forests, national grasslands and Bureau of Land Management properties. Add the words camping and hunting, the state where youll hunt and youre on your way. Dont be discouraged by designated campgrounds only regulations. They pertain to a few high traffic sites in most cases. The bulk of forests and sage lands are laced with logging roads and spotted with clearcuts
In a canvas tent, one can splurge on sleeping arrangements. Note how jackets still serve as a pillow. A stocking cap will keep your head warm without having to duck into the bag where oxygen is scarce.
Aluminum cupboards, storage boxes and wood-burning stoves turn a wall tent into a warm, welcoming shelter at the end of any day afield. If you have the means to haul it in, why not?
open to primitive camping. There may be travel restrictions and fire regulations (areas closed to campfires during drought, for example), but rules are minimal. Camp clean and responsibly and this privilege should continue. Real aficionados backpack or horse-pack deep into wilderness before setting up tents, but most of us find a site along a public road. Select sites at the edge of good game habitat with minimal traffic out front. A main forest access road will get more traffic than a dead-end logging road, but traffic isnt all bad. Road hunters have told me where they saw elk or heard them bugle. This
A campfire is just one of the extras that adds ambiance to a hunting camp. You cant match this in a hotel room. Arrive in camp early and do enough wood gathering to last the entire trip, which will give you more time to hunt. 50 SUCCESSFUL HUNTER Jan-Feb 2010 successfulhunter.com
led to one of the biggest concentrations of bulls Ive ever seen. I got stuck once and was rescued by other hunters driving by. Almost everyone carries chains, tow ropes and winches. Link enough of them and you can get out of anything. The heart of camp is the tent. Ive twice stayed in tepees, but a wall tent is more readily available and transportable. Choose canvas unless youre convinced a miracle fiber will hold up better, resist fire better (chimney sparks) and not sprinkle you with condensation. Montana Canvas advocates a canvas ceiling for breathing and a lighter, tougher polyester Relite for sidewalls. Complete floors wear and tear sooner than the rest of the structure. Most campers haul in rolls of outdoor carpeting. Study websites like montanacanvas.com for detailed options. The simplest floor is clean straw or dried grass cut on site. If you hope to sleep, dry gear and cook in one tent, get at least a 12x14-foot tent for two guys. Three can squeeze in but not conveniently. Tall sidewalls add headspace. Figure about #70 for this size. Lighter tents are easier to store, haul and erect. Heavy canvas is warmer and more durable. White dirties easily but is bright and roomy. Green absorbs winter sun but is gloomy. Most campers stretch poly tarps over tents and well beyond, providing insulation and a waterproof roof storage area along sidewalls and even a porch roof. Erect this high enough and you can place a fire ring at its front edge. Take prevailing winds into account. Another space-saving option is to sleep in backpack
Lanterns may seem a luxury, but youll spend half of every day in the dark. Take two lanterns if you have the room more are better.
Water, like firewood, is in big demand in a hunting camp. Be sure you bring plenty of buckets and reservoirs for hauling and storing it.
tents, away from the clutter and stink of the heated tent where boots and wet socks are hung. All campers need good sleeping bags for this to work. Dont risk carbon monoxide poisoning from heaters in sleeping tents. Erecting a wall tent requires poles, guy lines and stakes. In some habitats you can cut poles on sight. A more convenient system is to build a frame of conduit or 2x4s. Hinge the ridgepole to shorten it. Most tent makers sell pipe frames. We try to cut wood stakes on site or tie off to large logs saves pulling steel stakes from frozen ground. Next consider how youll sleep. Cot or ground? Mummy bag or rectangular? Mummy bags and Therma-Rest-style mattresses are warmer and more comfortable than rectangular bags and cots. Cots are cold, confining and often noisy. If I use one, I still layer it with a Therm-a-Rest or at least a closed-cell foam pad. Air mattresses are cold. Rectangular bags harbor a lot of space you must heat, and their large openings let cold air pour in. To get a rectangular bag as warm as a mummy, you need twice as much insulation and must duck your head so far inside you suffocate. Alas, mummies are just too constrictive for some sleepers. Two options are a half-mummy and a Mont-Bell Super Stretch Down Hugger (montbell.com) sewn with stretchy thread. When you throw your arms or legs out, the baffles stretch to accommodate. If you backpack, these 3- to 4-pound bags beat an 8-pound rectangular four ways to Sunday. Cooking and washing are easier with decent tables, benches and stoves. You can cook over a wood stove or an outside fire, but it takes a long time. One perJan-Feb 2010 SUCCESSFUL HUNTER 51
Gimme Shelter
son is almost required to stay in camp to handle this. If youd rather hunt, buy a gas stove. The white gas, pump-up models are fine, if you dont mind filling the tank and pumping it in the cold. Propane versions are much easier. Bring a five-gallon tank into camp and rig it with lines running to your cook stove, heaters and lanterns. One to three burners should suffice. A pair of double burners make it easier for two chefs to work, and if one stove malfunctions, you still have the other. Many wood-burning stoves include a side-mount oven. Dutch ovens are a campfire option but extremely time consuming. Bring at least two, five-gallon buckets for fetching creek or lake water. In dry areas you might need to bring several enclosed jugs of potable water. Get one with a built-in spigot, and stack it atop a stump or strong table. Keep a few quart or gallon-sized juice jugs filled for easy pouring around the kitchen. Everyone should have a personal drinking bottle. Organize kitchen tools in trays on hooks. Assign each hunter his own mess kit. Salt and pepper, cooking oil, butter and paper towels should have decent storage slots. Cabelas sells a complete, fold-up camp kitchen that has everything, including the kitchen sink. It features table space on three levels, hanging hooks, pantry space below and even
A snug hunting camp makes all the difference when rain or snow hits. Extra tarps provide dry shelter for storing gear and firewood, cooking and just hanging out until the weather lifts or your clothing is dry enough to hunt again.
two overhead lantern hooks. Eight legs hold it up, so wobbling is minimized, and its probably cheaper than anything you could make. Coleman has its version of the foldup, all-in-one kitchen plus spacesaving roll top tables, a tailgate table and a nice folding kitchen table with a side shelf for a stove. To simplify dishwashing, set out three plastic pans: a soapy one for washing, a clear one for rinsing and another clear one with a dash of Clorox for disinfecting. Toss out the dirty wash water and make the rinse bucket the wash water for the next batch. Move the disinfecting bucket
fies liquids and speeds up decay. Zip the bag closed and dispose of properly back in town. One of the biggest downsides to a primitive camp is the B.O. after about three days. Few civilizing influences seem as essential as a shower. Consider one of the commercially available shower tents complete protection from the elements while you soap up and wash down. There are also gas-heated shower systems powered by batteries. Otherwise, just heat a bucket on the stove and stand beside it in your shower stall, soaking and scrubbing away the stink. Rinse carefully with a ladle or cup and you should be able to get clean with three gallons of water. It makes life in the warm cook tent more enjoyable for everyone.
into the position of first rinse, and youll only have to fetch fresh water for the new disinfecting pan. Each individual does his own dishes. Coolers are convenient for hauling food in and game out. Theyre also handy work tables and seats. Figure one for drinks and ice, another for fresh foods, a third for someones deer. A 42-quart cooler will hold the biggest boned deer. Two will contain a boned elk. To maximize field time, complete as much meal preparation as possible ahead of time. We prepare hearty soups and stews, freeze them in milk cartons and use those in
Stink, Stank, Stunk
f you dont know how to do your business in the woods neatly and safely yet, you havent gotten out enough. Dig a hole and each time you use it, toss a shovel of dirt in. Lime can also be used to keep odors down. Because answering natures call in wind, rain and cold isnt fun, build a small shelter around your latrine. A roof of plastic and at least three walls should suffice. Cabelas sells outhouse tents and the environmentally safe PETT toilet (thepett.com). This all-in-one unit shelters you from the storm and contains your by-products in a Waste Alleviation and Gelling bag that neutralizes odor, solidi-
Miracle Must-Haves
ne of the greatest mysteries in history is how campers survived without paper towels. Few things are as handy. Use them to sop up kitchen messes, clean and oil guns and blow your nose. Emergency fire starter. Emergency toilet paper. Judicious use of paper towels can virtually eliminate the need to wash pots and pans. This keeps dishwashing water cleaner, which means you dont have to haul buckets up from the creek as often, which means you hunt longer, which means you get your bear. Paper towels a bear hunters best friend. Youll need many tools to function: shovels, ax or hatchet, splitting maul, tree saw, chain saw (trees regularly fall over forest roads), come-along winch, tow chain or rope, repair rope, duct tape, hammer, pliers, wrenches, screwdrivers, wire, nails, screws. Be prepared to repair or jury rig anything. In some places, two spare tires and a spare truck battery are useful, and a dash-powered spotlight comes in real handy. In some habitats, tents are hard to find. We nearly lost our small backpack tent on the caribou flats of Alaska at dusk one year. If youre not an expert with map and compass, use a GPS or clip a long-lived, flashing LED light to your tent or a high tree nearby. These run for days and could beam you in late some night.
place of ice while driving to camp. Each day we set out the required number to thaw. In the evening, dinner is quickly heated. Lunches, including frozen sandwiches, are prepared at home and stored in individual bags. For breakfast we
make coffee and heat water for instant oatmeal. Some guys like cold cereal. No one wants to clean up after pancakes! We survive on oatmeal, apples and fruit quick and easy. We celebrate with waffles at IHOP on the drive home. Sitting with a back rest becomes a real joy after climbing mountains all day. Bring folding chairs to camp. Steel-frame-and-cloth chairs with arm rests and beer can holders are all the rage, but you cant sit at a table in one to eat, read or clean a rifle. Basic, aluminum and nylon-strap lawn chairs work better if you have the room to haul them. The wood-burning, sheet-metal stove is traditional in canvas tents. Nothing beats the romantic perfume of wood smoke drifting through the pines. Unfortunately, laying in fuel and stoking the stove robs hunting time. We arrive a day early to cut and stack the weeks wood supply. A small chain saw saves blood, sweat and tears. An alternative is a pellet stove. One more possibility is a propane heater or several. I have a portable unit powered by a screw-on bottle. We carry it into the sleeping tents to warm the morning air, set it by boots in the main tent in the evening, etc. A wood burner still heats the main tent and provides the perfect ambiance. Rough and tumble types get by with an open fire in front of a leanto tent. This is compact, inexpensive and romantic. Because the front is open, condensation isnt a problem. Sparks from the campfire will be a problem, so use wool or fireproof materials for everything. One last heating option: Heat rocks around a campfire, then pile them on the bare floor of the tent where theyll radiate heat for a surprisingly long time. Dont skimp on lanterns. Two in a tent are bare minimum. Four are better. Keep one portable for carrying to the latrine or to search for game or a lost hunter. White-gas, pump-up models are a lot of fuss, but theyll work under the coldest conditions. Butane can freeze up and fail in cold. Propane seems to suffice under all temperatures. Electronic ignition is convenient. Ive
never been impressed with batterypowered lanterns. I love headlamps. The batteries seem to last forever, yet the units put out plenty of usable light for finding gear, brushing teeth, using the john, etc. They point where youre looking, hands free. This may seem like a lot of equipment to buy, but its not excessive if two or more friends combine efforts. Much of the gear youll already have or can borrow, and you can always improvise. Get out there and enjoy hunting on your public lands where a tent camp will let you revel in the sights, sounds and aromas of the great outdoors: coyotes howling, snowflakes hissing on the hot stove pipe, wind sighing through pine boughs, the scent of crushed spruce needles, the thumping of deer bolting past the tents at midnight.
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Hunting Gear
Bushnell Trophy Cam
py cameras for scouting game are nothing new, but this downsized Bushnell model is both new and improved. The self-contained unit is about one-third smaller than traditional units. It shoots black and white at night and full color in daylight, both still images at 5 megapixels and video clips at 640x480 or 320x240, programmable for one to 60 seconds duration. Shooting intervals can be set between one second and 60 minutes. Images are stored on SC cards, which can be uploaded to the usual sources. Alternatively, the camera can be plugged directly into a PC via a USB cord or to a TV for playback or and this is most useful you can view captured images in the field on a full-color screen in the unit. Eight AA batteries power the unit. Four are suffi-
Field Proven
cient to run it for a short period. An external DC power source can also be used. This unit is incredibly versatile with a field of view of 40 degrees, a flash range of 15 meters and three sensor sensitivity levels high, medium and low for day and night
operation. The PIR sensor is motion activated out to 45 feet. A sealed plastic housing keeps things waterproof, but you might want to mount the unit in a box to protect the recessed lens from moisture and dust. bushnell.com Ron Spomer
Gerber Bell & Carlson Gator

ost of the hunting I do takes place in the western United States. I grew up hunting in the West, and I truly love the wide open spaces and scenic vistas, not to mention the wonderful variety of game found there. If there is one thing that truly sets western hunting apart from hunting anywhere
else in the country, its that getting to western game is almost always physically taxing. As such, you quickly learn to pay close attention to the weight of your gear. This includes knives. I prefer the strength that a fixedblade design offers, and I like a hand-filling handle as well. But I
Field Proven
learned long ago that many knives in this grouping are heavier than need be. In my quest to find a knife that is robust enough yet light enough, I started carrying Gerber products. Ive recently become fond of the Bell & Carlson Gator model, a knife thats been on the market for nearly three years. I prefer the drop-point model, but there is also a gut-hook model for hunters who prefer that option. Both knives feature a 4-inch blade and a 41/2-inch handle that is very comfortable in my grip. The handle features the same texturing that has made the Gator line popular and a color scheme patterned after the black webbing look that has helped make Bell & Carlson stocks popular. The blade material is CPM S30V stainless, which Gerber says holds an edge better than 440C stainless. Ive never thought my
sharpening skills were good enough to know much difference, but Ive yet to need to do much other than touch up the edge with a fine diamond hone while using it to gut and skin a deer and a wild hog. The knife weighs less than 5 ounces, which is about as light as a good fixed blade comes. Its sheath consists of a plastic insert covered with ballistic nylon. Its not fancy and perhaps short on personality, but it weighs almost nothing and protects the contents of my daypack, where I keep the knife stored
when not in use. The knife also comes with a braided lanyard attached to the butt of the handle, but Ive long since disregarded the one on my knife as an annoyance that collects more blood and goop than I want to clean. The Bell & Carlson Gator has thus far proven to be a well-designed tool backed by a lifetime warranty. Its defiantly a knife worth carrying, and I hope to put it to more use this fall. gerbergear.com Lee J. Hoots
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Energizer Night Strike

attery and LED technology have evolved to provide a staggering array of lighting options, like the Energizer Night Strike swivel light, a 100-lumen high intensity handheld unit. The primary light is activated by a rear switch that starts at high (100 lumens) and switches to medium and low. After three seconds in any mode, the light can be instantly turned off. The head swivels through 130 degrees to lock at 90 and 180. Set the unit on a table to light up a tent or prop it in a tree to illuminate a field dressing situation. Choose from red, blue, green or ultraviolet light, each on a dedicated, three-power switch to use alone or in combination. Red is useful in a low-light predator calling situation or finding your way to a stand in the dark. Blue light illumines a blood trail after dark. I also found the green light useful for map reading. In camp, the green light proved far superior to white for catching horses. UV? They say it works well to fluoresce fishing lures. The swivel light is waterproof, rubber-armored and has a wire belt clip. While moose hunting I used
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Put the Power of the Sun in your Pocket!

AA lithium batteries to power the test sample. When the temperature dropped to 0 and stayed cold for three days, the light never faltered. With multiple controls and adjustability, it takes a little getting used to it is not the right choice for security or home defense. But the feature-packed, high-end torch is a good fit in any hunters kit. energizer.com Gary Lewis
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Wild Gamekeeper Spray

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Fair chase hunts for elk, deer and antelope in Southwestern Montana.
Max & Debbie Lapham 45385 Hwy. 278 P.O. Box 795 Jackson, MT 59735 (406) 834-3134 www.laphamoutfitters.com Over 30 years of experience!
the surface of the meat to prevent the growth of bacteria that causes spoilage. As a bonus, flies and wasps did not land on the moose meat sprayed with Gamekeeper. Gamekeeper comes in a plastic bottle with a pump spray nozzle. The bottle is filled with clean water (creek or spring water is not recommended) and shaken to dissolve the granular mixture. Shake the mixture well to fully dissolve the granules or the granules can plug up the sprayer opening. Gamekeeper is effective for 24 hours once its mixed with water; 1.5 ounce refill packets each make 22 ounces of spray. With all the moose meat sprayed
Field Proven
and sacked in game bags, my partner and I began five hours of packing the meat to the road. Late that afternoon we arrived at the butcher shop with the meat in prime condition. hunterspec.com John Haviland
Predator Limited-Edition Take-Down Recurve

riginally developed by master bowyer Ron Pittsley, the Predator bow is engineered for optimal grip comfort, neutral hand torque and maximum limb dynamics to deliver an unparalleled combination of balance, speed and accuracy. To commemorate 20 years of producing one of the easiest shooting, hardest hitting and most accurate recurve bows ever made, Predator is offering a 20th Anniversary Limited-Edition model that builds on the bows field-proven performance legacy. The riser is comprised of an East Indian rosewood and maple checked strip fitted between a select-grade Macassar Ebony grip and complimenting African Shedua ends. A lustrous red elm accent along the
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back of the grip and window enhances the risers ergonomic design. Arrow-ripping speed is delivered via bamboo-and-carbon limb cores backed with hand-selected red elm under clear fiberglass. Each bow is protected with a durable satin finish and commemorated with hand-lettered 20th Anniversary script and a special sequential number. Accompanying each limited-edition Predator is a custom wooden presentation box with a slider top featuring a laser-engraved 20th Anniversary insignia. All bows come with assembly hardware plus two high-performance 12-strand TS+ Flemish Bikini strings with padded loops, a Selway Archery bow stringer, an embroidered Predator cap and a hardcover copy of Traditional Bowyers Encyclopedia, featuring a biography of Predator bows. Quantities are limited. huntersniche.com
Readers Survey
1. Where did you get this issue of Successful Hunter magazine? I am a subscriber. I bought it at a newsstand or bookstore. I borrowed it from a friend. 2. If Successful Hunter magazine included articles on the following, how regularly would you read them? Regularly Occasionally Never African/Dangerous Game Antelope/Pronghorn Archery Hunting Big Horn Sheep Bird Dogs Calling Game Destinations/Getting There Elk Guided Hunts Handgun Hunting How Tos for Hunting Mule Deer Muzzleloader Hunting Small Game Hunting Upland Birds Varmint Hunting Waterfowl Hunting Whitetail Deer Centerre Ries Compound Bows Cross Bows Custom Handguns Custom Ries Longbows Muzzleloading Ries Pump Shotguns Recurve Bows Rimre Handguns Rimre Ries Tactical Ries
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One More Shot

(Continued from page 62)
size. In that case, less trophy hunting led to smaller horns. Reduction in herd size and improvements in nutrition subsequently led to increased body and horn size. In fact, lower herd size and increased nutrition produced the largest ram horns ever recorded on Ram Mountain. There was also a five-year period in which cougar predation cut the herd in half. But the only part of this research journalists reference is the slight horn-size decrease following years of 4/5-curl ram harvest. Biased reporters get away with this sort of thing because they know their readers havent the time, inclination or training to thoroughly review scientific research. So lets remind everyone, particularly those who think sport hunters are creating genetically inferior populations of big game species, of a few obvious facts about hunted wildlife in North America, facts that are largely selfevident and dont require scientific methodologies: Regulated sport hunting has been underway in the U.S. and Canada since roughly the late 1800s, when sportsmen (those evil, greedy killers) lobbied state and federal governments to establish limited hunting seasons and bag limits. They did this because unregulated market hunting and settlement had depleted many, if not most, game populations to dangerously low levels. Whitetails were estimated as low as 300,000. Under annual, regulated sport hunting, theyve increased to between 15 and 30 million. Has all this bloodthirsty pursuit and killing of trophy bucks destroyed the gene pool? Milo Hansens world record typical taken in 1993 argues against that. So does the world record nontypical taken in Missouri in 1981. Whitetails arent the only big game species suffering such population and genetic deterioration under the evil assault of sport hunters. The new worlds record Alaska moose gave up the ghost in 1994, mountain goat in 1999, pronghorn in 2002 and elk in 2008! Genetic quality has declined so drastically
under this annual onslaught of trophy hunters that Boone & Crockett entries have averaged a 234 percent increase across the board since 30 years ago. Elk entries alone are up 193 percent. So the next time a concerned citizen chastises you for stripping the majesty from Nature, remind them of reality. Big game populations have increased, trophy quality has increased, and we trophy hunters are largely responsible for it all. Scientific wildlife management as practiced in the U.S. for nearly a century works.
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For centuries man has hunted the vast treeless habitat of the Central Canadian Barren Ground Caribou. You can now be a part of this ancient rite on the uninhabited frontier. We speak your language, take care of you, and know what you want! Arctic grizzly, muskox, wolf, wolverine, fishing and world-class caribou hunts. Booking for 2010 and 2011 hunts. Complete list of references available. Write:
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E-Mail: info@arcticsafaris.ca
One More Shot
by Ron Spomer
TROPHY MANAGEMENT REALITIES

ave you heard the latest antihunting propaganda? Were weakening the gene pool. We being sport hunters. More narrowly, trophy hunters. Bad form, old chap! Our fixation on big antlers and trophy this and that is creating weakened populations of puny, genetically inferior animals. Shame on us! Thats all hogwash, but thats never stopped the popular press from slopping it all over their pages as fact, never mind glaring evidence to the contrary. Before we get to the contrary evidence, lets address the accusations, which are being parroted so often that the general public is beginning to take them as gospel. And who can blame them? If you shoot all the biggest and best, youre left with the smallest and worst. This is the backside of Francis Galtons eugenics theory, the one Hitler employed to create his super race. Has a hell of a track record. No one will ever know the precise trajectory of this anti-trophy hunting gambit, but it may have been launched 20, even 40, years ago in population surveys of tuskless cow elephants in Africa. In an early 1970 survey, 11 percent of the cows in the survey area were without tusks. Another survey in the early 90s showed about 30 percent of the cows without tusks. Speculation was that heavy ivory poaching (shooting everything with tusks and leaving the toothless cows to breed) drove the increase in tuskless cows. While this seems a reasonable conclusion, there were no controlled studies showing cause and effect. In addition, migrations of female family groups in and out of the area changed the tuskless ratio significantly and repeatedly.
In counterpoint, a more careful study of elephants in Addo National Elephant Park in South Africa showed no relationship between hunting pressure and genetic tusklessness. With no hunting pressure at all for more than 50 years, the ratio of tuskless cows in the herd rose from 50 percent to 98 percent. Does this mean no human hunting pressure leads to an increase in tuskless cows? Genetics isnt as simple as many would believe. Nor are the research studies that journalists vaguely ref-
erence to support their anti-trophy hunting bias. One they like to hint at is the Ram Mountain bighorn sheep research in Alberta, underway since 1971. It suggested average ram horn size was decreasing due to hunter harvest of 4/5-curl rams. But, shortly after a full-curl regulation was instituted, average horn size got bigger. The genes for large horns were still there. Later a reduction in hunting and doubling in herd size lowered nutrition, leading to overall declines in body condition and horn
(Continued on page 61) successfulhunter.com
2010 Chris Armstrong
Two Great Ways To Keep Up To Date In 2010!

2010 Reflections
North American Wildlife
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Featuring 13 months of stunning wildlife photography by Stan Trzoniec.
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Highcountry Hangouts: BIG Whitetails Exposed

CATS & DOGS

Coursing Lions, A Winter Tradition

Knives On The Cutting Edge

$4.99 U.S./ Canada

42 Right to the Point

48 Gimme Shelter 34 Emeralds & Ice

The First Chase

Issue 43 January-February 2010

Circulation Manager Michele Elfenbein circ@riflemagazine.com Subscription Information: 1-800-899-7810 www.successfulhunter.com

10 The Great Land

62 54 Trophy Board 56 Hunting Gear 62 One More Shot

WOLFE PUBLISHING COMPANY

6 SUCCESSFUL HUNTER Jan-Feb 2010

2010 Michael H. Francis

Jan-Feb 2010 SUCCESSFUL HUNTER 9

The Great Land

10 SUCCESSFUL HUNTER Jan-Feb 2010

Jan-Feb 2010 SUCCESSFUL HUNTER 11

12 SUCCESSFUL HUNTER Jan-Feb 2010

Range and Subtension

Magnification and Subtension

14 SUCCESSFUL HUNTER Jan-Feb 2010

16 SUCCESSFUL HUNTER Jan-Feb 2010

By E. Donnall Thomas, Jr.

The First Chase

2010 Mitch Kezar, Windigo Images

The Charming Third

24 SUCCESSFUL HUNTER Jan-Feb 2010

2010 Donald M. Jones

2010 Donald M. Jones

Is Bigger Really Better?

A Huge Book on A Big Subject!

36 SUCCESSFUL HUNTER Jan-Feb 2010

2010 Andy Trowbridge/Royal Tine Images

Hunters nurse sore leg muscles at Rincn de Lunas basement bar.

Argentine Hunt Planner

Nick and guide Nestor with the free-range Argentinean stag.

I DONT REMEMBER how

Right to the Point

Right to the Point

A folding knife with a separate gut hook makes sense. successfulhunter.com

2010 Lee J. Hoots

Wolfe Publishing Company

Right to the Point

The Cutting Edge

46 SUCCESSFUL HUNTER Jan-Feb 2010

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Stink, Stank, Stunk

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SILVER MESA SAFARIS

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Jan-Feb 2010 SUCCESSFUL HUNTER 53

Jeremy Fruhwir th Palmer, AK Alaskan Moose

Scott Shaffer Phoenix, AZ Arizona Cow Elk

Justin Smith Paulden, AZ Arizona Coues Deer

John Toews Elm Creek, MB Manitoba Caribou

54 SUCCESSFUL HUNTER Jan-Feb 2010