The pellets you see here make up the content of a pre-production sample of Federal’s new Prairie Storm pheasant loads,  a lead version of their Black Cloud.  The normal looking shot is copper-plated 4s. They are mixed with “Flitestoppers,” which are also 4s but have rings around them that look like Saturn, or like WWI helmets. The white stuff is buffer, which helps the pellets keep their shape as they go down the barrel.

Both pellets and the buffer are loaded into ... [ Read Full Post ]

Recently I’ve heard a rash of stories about dogs ingesting foreign objects. Two weeks ago a good friend’s springer, Bailey, swallowed a cocklebur while on a pheasant hunting trip in South Dakota. The offending cocklebur lodged itself in the dog’s intestine and eventually had to be removed surgically. Thankfully, Bailey is recovering nicely. And over the weekend, a German shorthair owned by F&S Shooting Editor and Gun Nut blogger, Phil Bourjaily, ate an entire pack of sugarless gum, which can have dire consequences for a dog. Bourjaily spent a sleepless night watching his pup and was grateful for no adverse reactions except for minty dog breath.

But the story that surpasses all is that of a 110-pound Rottweiler named Luciano and his owner Deirdre Murphy Lofft. Seems when Lofft wasn’t looking Luciano sniffed out her engagement ring on the bedside table and decided to make a snack of it. After ransacking the house for a day the Lofft’s began to suspect Luciano and called the vet. They were told to watch the dog and its stools, which Deirdre did religiously. But after 48 hours of sifting through stools with rubber... [ Read Full Post ]

With all due respect to the many great Marlins of the past, this rifle bears an uncanny resemblance not to them but to the cult favorite Winchester Model 71. Both rifles are lever guns that deliver Serious Thump—in fact, the ballistics for their respective cartridges are almost identical. The main loading for the 71’s cartridge, the .348 WCF, is a 200-grain bullet at 2,530 fps. The sole loading for the .338 Marlin Express (developed and loaded by Hornady) is 200 grains at 2,500 fps.

The rifle I got to try out is ... [ Read Full Post ]

Yet another reason for a NJ bear hunt, from the New Jersey Herald:
When she heard a different kind of sound coming from the llama pens that night, Lynn Gannon knew something was wrong

"I grabbed the flashlight and went out. It was a kind of scream I had never heard before. Then I saw it. A bear was tearing at Lily[, one of the llamas]," she said. . . .

"The bear. . . ripped her open," Gannon said of the wounds, and the veterinarian euthanized the llama. . . .

As Gannon and her husband were standing over the animal . . . the bruin returned.

"He was right about here," Gannon said as she stood in the pasture Tuesday afternoon, reliving that night. "We yelled, waved our arms, but he didn't run off. He just kind of walked away, not afraid of us at all." [ Read Full Post ]

Recently, I wrote about buying my first e-collar. Afterward, many readers e-mailed to tell me that they were contemplating a similar purchase but were eager to hear how our first few weeks with the e-collar went. Here’s the report:

I purchased a Tritronics Sport Junior on the recommendation of a trainer. It’s a smaller unit (perfect for my dog), and is fairly idiot-proof (perfect for me). And after working with it for a few weeks I have to admit that often I wonder what took me so long to buy one. My first order of business (after testing the unit on myself) was to switch Pritch over from the Come command to Here.

Beyond the fact that Here carries better in the field and allows for a more forceful delivery, I had noticed Pritch beginning to ignore Come.

First, I determined the lowest level of stimulation, or nick, necessary to get Pritch’s attention. My unit has 7 levels, from ½ to 6. I started with ½, and Pritch was oblivious. Same result with level 1. At level 2 I noticed her lick her lips and give a slight shrug of... [ Read Full Post ]

From a Pennsylvania Game Commision press release:
Pennsylvania Game Commission Wildlife Conservation Officers today announced that, on Oct. 29, [Andrew Moore, 46, of Tannersville] pled guilty to 30 counts of illegal possession of various species ranging from blue jays to raccoons, from chipping sparrows to gray squirrels, from groundhogs to purple finches. . . .

As part of the plea agreement, charges against Moore for cruelty to animals were withdrawn. District Judge Thomas E. Olsen, of Tannersville, ordered Moore to pay $2,250 in fines, and $750 in reimbursement to the Pocono Wildlife Rehabilitation Center for expenses incurred treating the wildlife that survived.

Check out the full, strange story. [ Read Full Post ]

Last week, a giant whitetail was allegedly poached near the town of Cannon Falls, Minnesota. The buck’s antlers sported a highly symmetrical frame and is said to have green-scored 192 B&C, and netted 188”. The inside spread of 28-3/8” is mule-deer wide.



Lou Cornicelli, the Minnesota DNR big-game coordinator, had this comment about the monster buck ... [ Read Full Post ]

From the Teton Valley News
An 11-year-old boy killed a bear at point-blank range last Wednesday night after it wouldn’t leave his family’s porch. The boy was at home with his younger sisters and after seeing the bear on the front porch and not being able to get it to leave, the boy retrieved a gun and killed the animal.

Fish and Game Conservation Officer Doug Peterson said the black bear had been a problem in the area. . . .

The boy and his family are not in any trouble, and Peterson said he issued them a permit to keep the bear. [ Read Full Post ]

OK, waterfowl hunters, here's a question for you: if you had a chance to hand over one of your ducks to a world-class chef and have him turn it into a meal fit for the most discriminating of gourmands, what species of duck would you choose?
 
Believe it or not, this isn't a hypothetical question, at least for California duck hunters.
 
SACRAMENTO, Calif. – With fall duck hunting season about to take flight, Sacramento’s own Grange Restaurant & Bar is giving area hunters the chance to bring their (dearly departed) feathered friends into the restaurant and pay respects in delicious style as part of an exclusive four-course meal prepared by acclaimed Executive Chef Michael Tuohy. As the ducks make their fall pilgrimages across ... [ Read Full Post ]

A guest post from Executive Editor Mike Toth.

Most of us well know the inverse relationship between hunters collaborating on a squirrel and the squirrel itself. That is, the more the hunters collaborate, the less squirrel there is when the shooting is over. This rule was made abundantly clear earlier this week when Senior Editor Colin Kearns and I went after bushytails on a Wildlife Management Area in central New Jersey.

Jersey is a shotgun-only state (with exceptions for muzzleloader), and my favorite squirrel load is ... [ Read Full Post ]

From the Billings Gazette:
Lost in the Big Horn Mountains, presumed dead by family and friends and hallucinating because of too much wind and too little food, Travis McMahan, stumbling up a creek, found a dead fish.

“It looked all rotten,” he said. . . . “I cut its head off and skinned its back,” he said of the fish. “And there was good meat in there, so I ate it.”

Later that day, his father and 15 friends — making one last-ditch search effort before a snowstorm was forecast to hit — found him. His father, who had expected to find his son’s body, was the first person he saw. . . .

“He really didn’t say much,” Travis said of his father’s reaction to finding him. “He was just in tears.”

Be sure to check out the whole, harrowing story. [ Read Full Post ]

On my recent trip to Oregon, a bunch of us were sitting on a ridge waiting for a mule deer to do something stupid, and one of our number left to walk down an adjoining ridge. When he was 1,000 yards away or so the head honcho of the ranch said: “You know, I can see him as clearly as if he were wearing blaze orange. That camo of his doesn’t work.”

And it was true. The ridgerunner was wearing some kind of dark camo designed for sitting in a tree in a Southern swamp, and at a distance all the branches and leaves and Spanish moss and  cottonmouths in the pattern blended together into a dark and highly visible mass. I’ve seen this many times; very few camo patterns travel well.

There are three that do, and they work because ...

[ Read Full Post ]