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By David E. Petzal and Philip Bourjaily

In October 2003, a failed actor named Timothy Treadwell and his girlfriend Amy Hugeuenard were killed and eaten by an Alaska brown bear, which was in turn killed by the people who went to clean up the mess. Treadwell, the self-styled “protector” of bears in a region of Katmai National Park, had lived with them for 13 years until finally the bears had enough of him.

In 2005, a German film director named Werner Herzog made a documentary on Treadwell’s life and death, and it ran on the Discovery Channel this past weekend. I’m reviewing it here because it’s a creepy and unforgettable 103 minutes. In his 13 summers with the bruins, Treadwell filmed them and himself, and much of the movie is of brown bears, and of Treadwell mouthing off to the camera about his relationship with them.

The brown bear footage is amazing, but Treadwell is the most dislikeable human being I have ever seen on film, and he was also stark raving crazy. Witness him fondling a moist, fresh bear turd and crooning with ecstasy, or weeping softly and muttering endearments to a bored red fox. Clearly, this is a guy who should have had a net thrown over... [ Read Full Post ]

By Dave Hurteau & Chad Love

On Tuesday, upset Virginians left flowers, teddy bears, and notes of mourning at a Richmond wildlife exhibit to memorialize two captive black bears that were euthanized after one bit a 4-year-old toddler who climbed over a wooden barrier and put his hand through a chain-link fence. Richmond Mayor L. Douglas Wilder called the deaths senseless, and an area talk show host said she had “never seen public response to a situation, topic or issue like this besides 9/11." Click here for the story [ Read Full Post ]

By David E. Petzal and Philip Bourjaily

Back in the 1960s when I was just a baby gunwriter, I had the great good luck to meet a gunsmith named John Dewey, who was not only one of the nicer people I’ve run into, but also a leading maker of benchrest and varmint rifles. Among the things I learned from John was the fact that benchrest shooters knew more about what makes guns tick than anyone else, and that if I wanted to learn about rifles, I should read a magazine called Precision Shooting.

John, sadly, passed on long ago, but Precision Shooting is alive and well and still very much worth reading. It’s mostly about target, benchrest, and varmint shooting, but there’s all sorts of other stuff. And the ads are as good as the articles.

On the downside, the editing, writing, and photography are strictly amateur. No one—but no one, not even lawyers—writes worse than engineers and mechanics, and unless you are mechanically aptituded, you are going to have a hard time with some of the copy.

On the other hand, Precision Shooting  is done for fun. Remember fun? PS  reminds me that this is a hobby, for God’s sake, and it’s OK to smile about things once in... [ Read Full Post ]

By Dave Hurteau & Chad Love

If you happened to catch The Late Show with David Letterman last night, you not only heard some top-notch turkey calling, but you also learned some of the results of the 2006 Wild Turkey Bourbon/National Wild Turkey Federation Turkey Grand National Calling Championship in Nashville, Tennessee. Check out the links below for a full account of the big event and a list of all the winners.
Grand National Friction Calling Contest
Grand National Senior Calling Championship
Grand National Owl Hooting Championship
Grand National Champion of Champions
Grand National Team Challenge Championship
Spit, Drum and Gobbling Contest
Grand National Gobbling Championship
Grand National Intermediate Calling Championship
Grand National Junior Calling Championship [ Read Full Post ]

By David E. Petzal and Philip Bourjaily

One of the great shocks in our online gun survey was the complete ascendancy of Remington rifles and shotguns over everything else—particularly Winchester guns. The reason for this was made clear at the 2006 SHOT Show, where Remington unveiled the Model 105 Cti shotgun, a truly new design with a titanium and graphite receiver. It had everyone gibbering to themselves, so great a gun it is.

Winchester, on the other hand, was offering a bargain-price Russian-made .22 bolt-action, the Wildcat. A good, sound rifle, and a great value, but an old gun in every sense of the word. (It even looks like the Moisin-Nagant military rifle, which dates to the First World War.)

Browning, Winchester’s Siamese twin, introduced the T-Bolt .22, a re-done (and not nearly as nice) version of a rifle that was discontinued in the 1960s. The new T-bolt is a perfectly good little rifle, properly priced, and there’s no reason to get angry at it.

But you have to wonder: Why can’t some gunmakers innovate more? The Europeans seem to be far ahead of us in this respect. Tradition is great, but when that’s all you have to sell you find yourself out of business. Just... [ Read Full Post ]

By Dave Hurteau & Chad Love

Looking for comfortable furniture that also speaks to who you are as a person? Well look no further. Fully loaded, the chair pictured in the link below holds 450 12-gauge shells whose brass tips “create a massaging texture.”
http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2006/02/shotgun_shell_chair.html [ Read Full Post ]

By Dave Hurteau & Chad Love

By now you’ve probably heard that Mike Iaconelli was disqualified from the 2006 Citgo Bassmaster Classic on Friday shortly after bringing two dead fish to the weigh in. Here are the details.

According to the story below, an ESPN video shows that upon finding the dead fish in his livewell, Ike lost his cool, destroyed a running light, and swore a blue streak in front of spectators.
"Once we saw the videotape, it didn't take long to make the decision," said a tournament official. Ike sees it differently, though, saying, "I totally feel like I'm targeted. I totally feel like I'm being sabotaged here.” Whatever the case, this is the second time Ioconelli has been disqualified from the Classic--an unofficial tournament record.
http://www.southeasttexaslive.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=16205752&BRD=2287&PAG=461&dept_id=512560&rfi=6 [ Read Full Post ]

By Dave Hurteau & Chad Love

Since the Bush Administration announced it’s latest plan to sell off federal lands (see http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/articles/2006/02/21/news/01burns.txt), a diverse group of academics, environmentalists, individual hunters and fishermen, and sportsmen’s groups are lining up to oppose it. It’s not just the loss of public land that bothers them, but also what many see as a frightening precedent of selling off our national heritage to pay for budget shortfalls.
http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060226/OPINION/602260308
http://sltrib.com/utah/ci_3548948 [ Read Full Post ]

By David E. Petzal and Philip Bourjaily

A note of warning to all you bloggers and bloggerettes: What follows  is a subject of such luminous, transcendent importance that you are going to see it in different form in the pages of Field & Stream at some future date. If this annoys you, complain to someone who cares. I don’t.

The most illuminating single comment at the 2006 SHOT Show (aside from “Wow, have you seen the booth babe two aisles up?”) was made by my friend and colleague Dick Metcalf, a man who operates at the very highest intellectual level. (He has a PhD from Yale, and taught at Cornell, for God’s sake. How he tolerates the gun biz is beyond me.) We were sitting next to each other at a press conference at the Leica booth, viewing the latest in multi-thousand-dollar teutonic optical marvels when he said:

“We’ve gotten to the point where you can buy an over-the-counter gun that’s beyond the ability of even a good shot to get everything out of it.”

Or words to that effect. And he’s right. There were probably a dozen exhibitors in that hall who make rifles that will shoot down to around a half an inch or better, starting with the lowest-priced... [ Read Full Post ]

By Dave Hurteau & Chad Love

About 30 miles off the mouth of the Mississippi River out of Venice, LA, Baton Rouge angler Lane Foil and his friends were catching yellowfin tuna and about to gaff a 130-pounder when an 11-foot, 6-inch mako shark launched from the water at point-blank range, grabbing the freshly caught tuna in its mouth. Foil quickly rigged a bonito, pitched it into the water, and caught the 765-pound shark, shattering the old Louisiana state record and setting a new mark for the Gulf.
http://www.southeasttexaslive.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=16181441&BRD=2287&PAG=461&dept_id=512560&rfi=6 [ Read Full Post ]

By David E. Petzal and Philip Bourjaily

About 10 years ago, Swarovski Optik brought forth upon this continent a new riflescope, equipped with a laser rangefinder, weighing almost as much as a rifle, and costing as much as a trip to Africa. But so appealing was the idea that the scopes actually sold. And those of us who were paying attention knew that it would be only a matter of time until someone developed a rangefinding scope that was light, simple to use, and affordable.

And now, by crackey, that time is here. At the 2006 SHOT Show, Bushnell announced its Yardage Pro 4X-12X riflescope, which will tell you not only how far off the animal is, but allow you to adjust the reticle for the yardage and hit the damned thing. The Yardage Pro is about the size of a 4X-12X by 42 riflescope, weighs only 25 ounces, and mounts pretty low on Weaver-type mounts. (Bushnell is working on getting it even lower.) It ranges from 30 yards to 800 yards, and comes equipped with 6 detachable elevation knobs, five calibrated to common trajectory profiles, and one left blank for you to fill in.

In use it works like this: Pick the knob that matches the trajectory of... [ Read Full Post ]