For better than 20 years I had an old CVA .50-caliber Hawken replica an old friend gave me that I had never even shot. So I got it out this summer and got to shooting it with a friend who's big into blackpowder and rendezvous. I still had my deer "A" tag leftover from general rifle season, so I...
I really miss Idaho outdoor humorist Patrick F. McManus. I’ve got all his books and, after reading some of his old columns in Outdoor Life, my mother actually started to refer to me and my childhood friend Randy “Beaver” Klever as Pat and Crazy Eddie.
One of my favorite McManus stories...
1989: I celebrate my 21st birthday by buying in pawn shops outside of Fort Knox, KY a real Dirty Harry 6-inch blued Model 29 .44 Magnum revolver and a 1911A1-ish (Colt slide on a Spanish frame) .45 automatic. Oh sure, I might have had a couple of .22 revolvers before that, but they didn't count...
My new companion and camp gun in grizzly country. Maybe I didn't really need it, but I sure wanted it. A Shuff's Mini-G. An M1 Garand cut down to a 16-1/4 inch barrel length and, in this case, re-barreled to .35 Whelen. It was built from an old Federal Ordnance Tanker...no genuine M1 Garand was...
When shooting a rifle, the weakest links in the system supporting the weapon are the muscles and joints of the human body. As long as the rifleman’s off-hand elbow is supported, the shooting sling binds the rifle to the shooter so that it is supported entirely by bone and leather rather than...
Once upon a time, the late, great Colonel Jeff Cooper offered two simple but brilliant maxims for the hunter to follow to make a successful shot. “If you can get closer, get closer. If you can get steadier, get steadier.”
The first rule explains itself. As to getting steadier, there are a...
Just a quick write-up of my mountain goat hunt in #329. Thanks to all the Hunt-Talkers who were kind enough to exchange info and offer advice, to Theat in particular, who really knew the area and the goats. I actually met two more Hunt-Talkers on the ground, one while scouting and one while...
So we were finishing up re-siding our house today and despite all the acitivity and the noise from the saw, air compressor, and nail gun, two mulie bucks in velvet fed onto us and bedded down for a mid-day siesta not a hundred yards from the house.
Strictly as I scientific experiment, I went...
I saw this video elsewhere under the heading that Memorial Day is about more than just a 3-day weekend, beer, and potato salad. It's a little bit dated but I still enjoyed the sentiment and I always liked the Duke. Thanks to our veterans, especially those who gave all.
"Why Are You Marching, Son?"
I just wanted to say thank you to everyone for the congratulations and likes when I finally drew a Montana mountain goat tag after putting in for Special Tags out for about 26 years.
In the past (after that twinge of envy) I have always been genuinely happy for fellow Hunt-Talkers who managed...
I hunted a lot of open, rolling sagebrush country.
Just a quick write up of my experience hunting the late cow shoulder season in Meagher County two years ago since there was a thread asking about the shoulder hunts. In addition to some of the regular BMAs, fairly large amounts of private...
Ode to the Canteen Cup
Enough people showed interest in my story about recently spending an unanticipated night on the mountain while out hunting that I thought I would talk about the first time such a thing happened to me. Of the survival gear I carry in the mountains, this time it was the...
Ah, what we do for public land wapiti...In the old movie The Mountainmen, when Brian Keith’s character is asked if he’s ever been lost, he replies, “Naw. Fearsome confused for a month or two but I ain’t never been lost.” Same goes for me. I wasn’t lost per se, I just couldn’t make it back to the...
My wife Olivia is a naturalized US citizen but grew up in Switzerland, and my Mother-in-Law Gerda and her late husband Traugott were long-time hunters there. Unfortunately Traugott passed away shortly before I met my wife, but I got to know Gerda well. She still hunts in her home canton (state)...
Having failed for 26 years now to draw a Montana moose, goat or sheep tag, I’ve decided I need to start doing the unlimited bighorn hunts before I get too old to get around in the high country. I am very serious about doing the Montana Unlimited Bighorn Sheep hunt in District 300...