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 ]

By Phil Bourjaily

Of all the many things we can buy covered in camo that shouldn’t be camo-ed, flashlights rank near the top of the list, along with knives. Several years ago a big game guide showed me his knife. He had dipped the handle in some kind of rubberized bright orange paint. It was easy to hold onto, he said, and easy to find when he set it down somewhere.

Which brings us to the TerraLux Lightstar 80. I used one last season and found it to be in most ways a basic, serviceable light. It’s a fairly inexpensive ($30 list, sells for less) 80 lumen LED light that runs for five hours on a pair of AA batteries. It has a rubber ring around the end so you can hold it in your mouth comfortably, and the on-off switch can even be operated with tongue pressure.

[ Read Full Post ]

The Field 90 is the no-nonsense workhorse of the Tri-Tronics line. About a year and a half ago, Garmin bought out Tri-Tronics and at SHOT Show 2013 they unveiled a Garmin-branded e-collar, the Delta Sport. The transmitter and receiver is much like the Tri-Tronics Sport series, and it’s priced about the same at $250. It has the standard-issue continuous and momentary jolt, along with a tone/vibration feature. There’s 18-levels of correction and the controller has an innovative LCD readout. This is the first e-collar with a bark eliminator built right in. Garmin claims the BarkLimiter technology recognizes the difference between wanted and unwanted barks. I have no idea how that works, but I know a little yappy dog I can test it on. [ Read Full Post ]

by Michael R. Shea

Like marrying your high school sweetheart, the only shotgun I’ve ever loved was my Remington 870 Wingmaster. Heavy, with a 30-inch barrel, she swung smooth and just felt right. Then last year I shot the Franchi Affinity. Well, I wouldn’t say I divorced my 870, I just moved a younger, lighter, modern gal into the gun safe.

Essentially a dressed down M2, the Franchi’s Inertia system runs up the tube, which makes it nicely balanced, quick to point, and sleek. One of my gripes about most autoloaders is the big bulky feel, like swinging a gas-operated club, but the Affinity has none of that. Franchi will tell you she weighs a lusty 6.5 pounds, but mine is closer to 7 in Realtree MAX-4. She fits well, and held up to near daily abuse on the saltwater. Best of all, you can find one for $700 in synthetic black. For 2013 Franchi has released a Sporting version, with a nickel-plated action, and a few tweaks for the clays course. MSRP: about $1,000. [ Read Full Post ]

by David E. Petzal

Those of you who follow my rantings and ravings are aware of my creepy--bordering on unnatural--fondness for Diamond Blade knives. I think they’re about the best working knives you can buy, both because of their excellent design, and because they will stay sharper longer than anything else that cuts. This is not based on gutting one deer; it’s based on the 100 yards of ½-inch manila rope which I reduced to nothing, half an inch at a time, over the course of several years, slicing away with all sorts of knives to see which kept their bite longest. A number of them did extremely well, but none could match a Diamond Blade. [ Read Full Post ]

Made for use with your favorite hollow-body frog imitators, the Frog Brigade allows you to drag four topwater frogs across the pads or grassbeds at the same time.

Given the recent umbrella-rig craze in the bass fishing world, it was only a matter of time before someone adapted them to topwater fishing. Some of the guides were quick to call it a gimmick; others believed it would work well not just with frog lures but with soft-plastic swimbaits. Several questioned its durability, wondering how long it would hold up after a day of hammering big bass, and a few noted some engineering issues. “The legs need to be a little stiffer to keep more separation between baits,” Paul Keith observed.

My initial thought was that unlike an entire school of bait­fish, which a traditional umbrella rig accurately mimics, four frogs swimming together isn’t something that occurs often in nature. I found that seven out of 10 casts resulted in a tangled rig, and matched with Scum Frogs, the complete package wasn’t very aerodynamic, making it difficult to cast over a distance. This rig may find a home in the boxes of umbrella fanatics, though.
[ Read Full Post ]