By Michael R. Shea

Atlantic flyway duck hunters got what they wanted this holiday season: cold weather. On Christmas Eve temperatures started falling in the northeast, and they have stayed low through New Year. That, plus 4 to 24 inches of new snow in much of New England has ducks pushing south to mid-Atlantic and coastal regions in numbers like we haven’t seen yet this season. [ Read Full Post ]

By David E. Petzal

One of the cultural phenomena I observe in deer camps is the cornucopia* of sweets that seem to lie on every table that is not already cluttered by used socks, ammo boxes, or 25-year-old copies of Playboy. Grown men who would not dream of doing so under normal conditions gobble stuff that is guaranteed to give you diabetes before it even clears your descending colon.

In the camp that I most recently decorated with my presence, there was not only candy of all sorts, but boxes of Twinkies for the lowbrows and for the highbrows like myself, terrific coffee cake that would give you diabetes before it got past your duodenum. Of course I indulged. I’ve had to fight my weight since I was 11 years old, and for the rest of the year I stay away from the sugar, but in deer camp it’s different. [ Read Full Post ]

By Phil Bourjaily

It is not true that on the day after Christmas Santa gives his helpers a few days off to go goose hunting. You might think so by looking at this picture, though. However, that is no giant elf, it’s my friend Mike in his hunting whites and the trapping gloves he wears to pick up decoys. And he has one-upped Santa Claus this year by giving me one of the best belated Christmas presents ever: a timely phone call.

With Jed nursing a sore paw and me frustrated by geese, I didn't plan to do any hunting for a few days after Christmas. I slept in Friday, got up, made coffee and turned my phone on. It showed a missed call from Mike one minute before. I called and he said, “We shot our limits and there are still geese landing in the decoys. Can you get down here right now?” [ Read Full Post ]

By David Draper

Back in the late 1980s, I was wearing flannel before anyone even heard of Pearl Jam, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I’m at the forefront of food fashion as well, at least according to the Food Channel list of what food trends will be hot in 2013. In fact, I’m betting most Wild Chef readers are ahead of the trend that says smoking will be the next big thing in the restaurant scene. Firing up the smoker is just one of the many techniques we regularly rely on.
 
Over at Epicurious, it’s more of the same with their claim that the white-hot focus on all things below of the Mason-Dixon line will push even further south to Brazil, where churrascaria reigns. I will admit I was getting tired of food media hitting me with yet another recipe for the world’s best fried chicken and waffles, so reading about meat-centric Brazilian barbecue is definitely something to look forward to. [ Read Full Post ]

By Phil Bourjaily

Earlier this season I got to shoot a wild pheasant with a 16 gauge L.C. Smith shotgun made in 1936. That was a first for me. I have shot birds with Parkers and Foxes but never a Smith.
 
The gun in this picture traveled a long way from the factory in New York to the field in Iowa where I shot the bird with it. It belongs to Rehan Nana, who works in Pheasant Forever’s marketing department. Nana is Pakistani on his father’s side; his uncle Rohil, a hunter in Pakistan, owned the gun. The uncle sent the gun from Pakistan (who knows how it got there) to Nana’s father when he moved to Kansas City in the 1970s and began hunting pheasants and quail. [ Read Full Post ]

By Duane Dungannon

It was almost quiet on the Western front this week as many West Coast waterfowlers chose to deck the halls with boughs of holly rather than deck the hull and bow with camo. While many Pacific Flyway’s ducks and geese may have enjoyed a brief holiday from hunting, hunters may receive a gift in return if the short ceasefire makes birds a bit less wary. Last week many hunters lamented that hard-hunted ducks and geese had become skittish and difficult to decoy and call. [ Read Full Post ]