By Nate Matthews

Last month I had the pleasure of test driving a 2013 Toyota 4Runner Trail Edition for two weeks, first on a trout trip to the Catskill Mountains, then while scouting and competing in this year's Kayak Fishing Classic, a three-day saltwater tournament in New York City. This wasn't a technical test (for a good one of those, click here), but it was an opportunity to use the truck the way it was designed to be driven—to carry lots of gear in challenging conditions both on- and off-road.  [ Read Full Post ]

By Slaton L. White

My, how far we have come. Thirty years ago, the sport-utility market was dominated by rough-hewn utilitarian beasts known as Bronocs and Blazers.  These were big SUVS, built on the full-size truck platforms of their respective manufacturers—Ford and Chevrolet.  You often saw them parked at trailheads, the inevitable dings and scratches in the body panels considered by their owners to be the offroad equivalent of the Heidelberg dueling scar, a mark that denoted class and honor.

Jeep was in that mix as well, but as SUV mania spread into suburbia in the 1990s, it clearly understood it needed to serve two masters. The manufacturer deftly kept its crucial offroad credibility intact through the Wrangler, but to serve a newly emerging SUV owner who wanted more creature comforts, it renamed the Cherokee the Grand Cherokee and began moving that to a higher-demographic customer. The tactic worked, and all these years later both models remain strong sellers. [ Read Full Post ]

This May, I had the chance to hit the road in RAM's 2011 1500 Outdoorsman, a truck that's generating plenty of buzz in the hunting and fishing world. With so many after-market accessories available to rig your ride for sporting quests, it seemed only a matter of time before an automaker took the needs of the avid outdoors into consideration and made all the little extras stock. I covered more than 600 miles in this truck, trekking up to Buffalo, N.Y., in pursuit of smallmouth bass. Though the trip did not lend itself to off-road pursuits, spending that amount of time in a vehicle let's you really get a feel for it, and there are plenty of perks for the fisherman that cruises pavement as much as muddy trails.

Though the 1500 I drove had a powerful 5.7L HEMI V-8, take your foot off the gas on the highway and the engine cuts out 4 cyclinders. The amount of time I was running on 4 may have seemed trivial in the overall course of 600 miles, but it made a noticeable difference in fuel economy. By my calculations, I averaged 17 miles per gallon during this highway-heavy adventure. That's... [ Read Full Post ]

By John Merwin

The world around here this morning is “mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful,” as a very good poet once wrote. It is indeed spring, and we are in the throes of mud-season. The melt-and-thaw cycles of warmer days and overnight freezes turns our gravel roads--and my driveway--into a deep, coffee-colored goo.

Trout season opens soon. Maybe I’ll make it and maybe not. The problem will be getting there.

A flatbed car-hauling truck came up over the weekend to pick up my wife’s car, which wouldn’t start. The truck bottomed out in the mud. It took another big wrecker to extract it, which generally made a hell of a mess. The car remains; it, too, stuck in the mud and no longer accessible to a recovery truck. Eventually, things will dry out enough so I can yank the car out and get it fixed. But for now, my wife drives my 4X4 truck to work, and I’m stuck, too. It’s a sorry tale.

I think all fishermen deal with mud at one time or another, since we of course fish around lakes and streams that are by nature muddy... [ Read Full Post ]

By Chad Love

It's late February and I hear the click of my seasonal odometer rolling over once again. It's time to back the truck into the driveway, grab the shop-vac and start clearing away the accumulated detritus of the past hunting season. No more birds, no more deer and no more ducks until I start hearing the whispered promise of fall on the late August wind. Time to sweep out the dog box and replace shotgun shells and game bags with bumpers and launchers. Hunting season's over, but training season isn't and there's much to do before next year's first bird is brought to hand.

 
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