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By CJ Lotz

When will people learn that if you decide to do something stupid, it might not be such a great idea to shoot video of said stupid act. Or at the very least, don't post it online. But then, that's what keeps YouTube running, right?

This video, recorded in a Cocoa Beach, Florida, neighborhood, shows three men harassing a manatee and its calf—with one of the men cannonballing onto the animals as they swim in a canal. [ Read Full Post ]

By Phil Bourjaily

Alliant Techsystems (ATK) has announced the purchase of Savage Sports for $315 million. Currently there are few details and the people I know at ATK Sporting aren't ready to talk much about the deal.

ATK is a $4.8 billion Fortune 500 company with aerospace, defense and sporting divisions. They make the solid rocket engines that put the space shuttle into orbit as well as Bushmaster chain guns and 120mm rounds for battle tanks. ATK bought Federal Premium Ammunition about ten years ago and has since added several companies—Weaver, Blackhawk!, RCBS, Speer Ammo—to ATK Sporting headquarted in Anoka, MN (also the home of Federal). [ Read Full Post ]

By David Draper

A Wild Chef reader and frequent Food Fight Friday contributor sent in a few photos that, let’s just say it, looked less than appetizing. However, while they might not have been the best photos, both dishes sounded delicious and—more importantly—illustrated the point that there’s a lot more to eat on most fish then just the fillets. [ Read Full Post ]

By Hal Herring

An algae bloom caused by nitrate pollution on Iowa's Big Creek Lake, located northwest of Des Moines, in summer of 2012.

The next time you find yourself jugfishing along the Mississippi River, or lying in your hammock on your old house boat in southern Louisiana where the freshwater hits the salt, pump up the old Coleman lantern and throw open your tattered old copy of D’Aulaires’ Greek Myths, and read the story of Cassandra. You do remember, don’t you? The beautiful prophet whose ears were licked clean by snakes, so that she could hear the future? No matter how accurate her predictions (including the destruction of Troy by way of the super-warriors hidden inside the gift of the Trojan horse) nobody ever listened to her. Ever. [ Read Full Post ]

By CJ Lotz

On May 11, a Miami man killed the longest Burmese python ever captured in Florida. The 18-foot 8-inch female python was sticking out of bushes near a road when Jason Leon spotted it and pulled his car over. Leon had experience owning snakes in the past, so he pulled the snake from the bushes.

As the python wrapped itself around Leon's leg, he stabbed it with a knife. After reporting the capture to Florida's Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Leon learned that the snake weighed 128 pounds. [ Read Full Post ]

By Phil Bourjaily

Season IV of “The Gun Nuts” begins filming this week. That is me on the set last season, shooting trap with a camera attached to my gun using electrician’s tape. This year we will have an all-new much improved gun camera (the ShotKam) and, I hope, some other improvements to the show, which is a lot of fun to do.

Once again I will be answering viewer/reader questions that is, if you have any.

Ask me your shotgun questions. This season I’ll be picking four or five and some fabulous but as yet un-named prize will go to the people whose questions I answer.

If the question can best be answered by me shooting something, that makes for much better TV than me talking, which can be boring. I have answered questions in the past about cross-dominance, what happens when you put a 20-gauge shell in a 12-gauge barrel, if there is such a thing as shot string and many other topics of earth-shaking importance. So, please ask away, and you may be the winner of some useful shooting-related widget that web editor Dave Maccar or I can scam from some willing manufacturer. [ Read Full Post ]

By CJ Lotz

Pennsylvania's popular Mentored Youth Hunting Program may be extending to allow adult participation soon with the recent passage of The Families Afield Bill through the state's legislature. The bill now waits for Governor Tom Corbett's signature.

Pennsylvania was the first state to pass Families Afield, and now a total of 34 states have created similar apprentice-hunting programs. [ Read Full Post ]

By Scott Bestul

We always get a great response—and killer entries—whenever we post a caption contest, and this round was no exception. The chance at a great (and free) shotgun sight from Cabela’s clearly brought out the best in you. So without further yammering, here are 10 captions that came oh-so-close, followed by the winner.

Here are the 10 finalists, in random order: [ Read Full Post ]

By David Draper

Cannellini, or white kidney, beans are staple in my kitchen and I always try to keep several cans in the pantry. Truthfully, we usually have several cans of beans, along with a few pounds of dried beans, on hand, but cannellinis are probably my favorite. They’re creamy and readily take on the flavor of whatever they’re cooked with. I toss them with tomatoes for a quick and easy side dish and incorporate them into several different main dishes, including this simple braise with some venison merguez the I made from last summer’s axis deer. [ Read Full Post ]

By Phil Bourjaily

Because no good idea goes un-copied, today we present the first installment of Gunfight Friday based on (and by “based on” I mean “shamelessly ripped off of”) the Wild Chef’s Food Fight Friday. The format will be eerily similar: You send us pictures of your gun (see below) and write a little about the gun and why you like it for a specific purpose. We’ll pair up two guns, and readers will decide which is their choice. Unlike Food Fight Friday, which sometimes pits, say, venison vs. fish, we’ll try to confine this to guns for similar purposes like, say, elk rifles for black timber or squirrel rifles.

I have wanted to get pictures of readers’ guns onto this blog for a long time, and this seems like a good way to do it. I hope you agree, participate, and enjoy it. Because we don’t have any reader pictures yet, Dave Hurteau and I are going to face off on the first installment, which pits my 20-gauge turkey gun against his. [ Read Full Post ]

By Dave Hurteau

On a recent turkey hunt at Dos Plumas Hunting Ranch in northwestern Nebraska, Tim Kent of Theory 13 Creative introduced F&S contributor Jace Bauserman and me to Flextone’s newest Thunder Series turkey calls. On the first evening, someone—I’m not saying who—took one out of the packaging, started calling, and sounded exactly like this poor, terrified cat.

“Oh well,” I figured, “just another bad-sounding, gimmicky turkey call.” Turns out, it was just the caller, not the call, and he recovered right quickly, because like the Thunder Gobble, introduced last spring, the new Thunder hen calls are extremely easy to learn how to blow, and once you get the hang of them, they sound pretty darn good—certainly good enough to fool a gobbler. [ Read Full Post ]

By David Draper

Turkey seasons in the southern states are winding down, but up north the snow has melted enough for hunters to have a chance at bagging a tom. That means plenty of readers are filling the freezer with tasty turkey meat—including West Virginian Craig Ellis, who has managed to not only tag a turkey of his own, but also got both of his kids on birds. A trifecta of toms is no small feat in West Virginia, and lately Ellis has been celebrating with fresh turkey for nearly every meal, including breakfast. [ Read Full Post ]