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by Kirk Deeter

You know what we don't see nearly enough of in fly fishing these days? Products that actually work better than advertised. We're promised everything from rods that will seemingly cast themselves to waders that wear like footie pajamas, and rarely does the performance really, truly live up to the billing.

SmithFly, an Ohio-based manufacturer of modular fishing gear, on the other hand, over-delivers. From waist packs and vests to boat bags, the best way to describe this stuff is to say it's born of a "tactical" influence: Super rugged and extremely functional. At first glance, they're perhaps not what the "fashionista" angler has in mind. [ Read Full Post ]

by David Draper

Fried Anchovies and Sea Bass vs. Fried Mussels



You, and all my friends, are going to be sick of hearing this, but did I mention that I recently spent a couple of weeks in Turkey? This trip is going to make up my main conversational fodder for the rest of the summer, with much of it focusing on what I ate — some of which was good and some of which was not the best decision. Of the former, the seafood stands out as highlights of the trip. I’ll say this, Turkish people know their fish, which isn’t a surprise considering that waterways like the Bosphorus Strait define their country. Here are a couple of dishes I encountered. [ Read Full Post ]

by David E. Petzal

Well, there I was sitting at the old Mac, trying to work instead of listening to bluegrass, when I got a press release announcing that Redfield now has a scope out called the “Revenge.” I thought this was a pretty odd name to give an optical sight, but then I remembered that last year, Winchester came out with an all-copper bullet called Power Core, which has no core, so I guess the rules about product names have been relaxed.

But then, just a moment ago, I received word of a new crossbow called the Barnett Vengeance. Vengeance on what? The last time a crossbow was used in an act of vengeance was on March 25, 1199 when Richard the Lionheart, King of England, was killed by crossbow bolt to the neck that was fired by a French boy who claimed that Richard had killed his father and brothers.

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by Chad Love

I've previously blogged about the importance of using live birds for training and how it's smart to use a mixture of both pigeons and pen-raised birds. While I try to mix it up between the two, I have to admit that pigeons are what I use the most. Why? In theory, off-season training with live gamebirds sounds great. In practice, however, there are some issues. [ Read Full Post ]

--Chad Love

Are you in possession of a suspected Bigfoot turd? Maybe a giant fingerprint? Perhaps a clump of fur or some other bit of physical or forensic evidence from the time when that group of suspected Sasquatches broke into your cousin Earl's single-wide while he was gone, drank all his Natty Lite, ate everything in the fridge, tore up the place and then left a big, steaming parting gift on his coffee table before disappearing back into the woods?
 
If you (or your cousin Earl) do happen to have evidence of The Hairy One's existence, then Oxford University wants to talk to you...
 
From this story on Wired.co.uk:
Supposed yeti remains are being put under the microscope in a collaboration between Oxford University and the Lausanne Museum of Zoology. The Oxford-Lausanne Collateral Hominid Project has been created to try and entice people and institutions with collections of cryptozoological material to submit it for analysis. Anyone with a sample of organic remains can submit details of where and when it was collected, among other data. 

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by David Draper

I've been traveling through Turkey for the past couple of weeks, both in Istanbul and along the Mediterranean coast. Most of my time was spent doing lots of “research” a.k.a. eating, and if there's one thing I took away from all this hard work it's that Turkey is a street-food country. Everywhere I traveled, there was someone on a street corner selling something to eat, whether it be roasted corn or chestnuts, simit (sort of like a sesame-encrusted bagel), rice-stuffed mussels, fresh melon, or, like most places in Europe, some type of grilled or roasted meat on a skewer.

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--Chad Love

Landing one of these babies is pretty much a catch-and-release-only proposition. I hear they're not good eating and extremely difficult to fillet. Not to mention the fact that they thrive in some pretty nasty water...
 
From this story on therepublic.com:
 Robot "fish" developed by European scientists to improve pollution monitoring moved from the lab to the sea in a test at the northern Spanish port of Gijon on Tuesday. The developers hope the new technology, which reduces the time it takes to detect a pollutant from weeks to seconds, will sell to port authorities, water companies, aquariums and anyone with an interest in monitoring water quality...The fish, which are 1.5 meters (5 feet) long and currently cost 20,000 pounds ($31,600) each, are designed to swim like real fish and are fitted with sensors to pick up pollutants leaking from ships or undersea pipelines. They swim independently, co-ordinate with each other, and transmit their readings back to a shore station up to a kilometer away. [ Read Full Post ]

by Phil Bourjaily

Here’s me, on the set of the Gun Nuts TV show, holding my pick for the ideal youth turkey gun: a 20 gauge 870 Express Jr. with a red dot sight.

It is short, light, doesn’t kick much with the right loads, and it’s easy to hit with. My younger son shot his one and only turkey with it, and I have since taken it from him and killed turkeys with it, too. While you don’t have to put a $500 Zeiss Z-point on a kid’s gun, I think some form of red dot sight (and a lot of target practice before the season) is the best way to be sure a kid doesn’t miss.

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by Joe Cermele

You think flying Asian carp are bad? They might break a jawbone, give you a nice sock in the gut, or leave you with a black eye. But they will not remove toes, fingers, or part of your face with razor-sharp teeth. Check out the video below. Baracuda rank high on my list of species I do not want flying at my head. You never see a nice, meaty, 10-pound flounder jump into the boat.

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by David E. Petzal

As a number of you pointed out in my post on the Forbes Rifle, light rifles kick more than heavy rifles of the same caliber. But weight is only part of the equation, and recoil is a highly subjective matter.

In the case of NULAs, you get kicked less than the figures would indicate because the stock is an extremely good design that gives you plenty to hang on to, and directs the recoil into your shoulder rather than into your head.

I myself am not a good judge of recoil because I shoot all the time, have been reduced to an insensible mass of protoplasm, and don’t care anymore. I’ve shot NULAs ranging from .22/250 up through .340 Weatherby, and the only ones whose kick I really noticed were a .338 Win Mag and the aforesaid .340. They were not more than I could handle, but they weren’t fun, and I realized after a while that I could do the same amount of damage to the critters with lesser cartridges.

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By Lance Schwartz

Klim Adrenaline GTX Boot
MSRP:  $199.99

Performance:
For the last several years, I’ve owned an original pair of Klim Adrenaline boots, the predecessor to the Adrenaline GTX. Those boots have seen many miles while protecting my heinous feet on trail rides all over the country, keeping them warm, dry, and comfy during my adventures. In my opinion, the new Adrenaline GTX is even better.

[ Read Full Post ]