By David Draper

After a November that felt more like September in terms of temperatures, much of the country finally got a blast of cold weather this past weekend, along with heavy snow for some of the upper Midwest. Weather like that just begs for some hearty meals—the kinds that slowly cook all day long filling the house with the savory aroma of simmering meat. The list of perfect winter meals is nearly endless, but here are five to try with the wild game in your freezer.

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By David E. Petzal

So, there I was, sitting in a box blind in Maine 10 minutes before last shooting light, looking through my scope at a hillside with a whitetail on it, trying to decide whether the creature had horns or not. This was complicated by the fact that the whitetail was already in deep shadow, and that the hillside was backlighted by the setting sun, and by the fact that it (the deer, not the sun) had its buttocks toward me and its head down in an infernal tangle of branches, weeds, and other annoying plant life.

I was looking at the critter through a Zeiss Conquest rifle scope and, good as the scope is, I was unable to tell if it was time to pull the trigger. Finally, since the light was running out, I said the hell with it and picked up a Zeiss 10x42 Conquest HD binocular (a loaner; sent it back yesterday) and saw at a glance what I could not see through the scope—that the beast was a doe and that the day was over. [ Read Full Post ]

By David Draper

The higher ups at my former corporate job in the Human Resource department—in a misguided attempt to boost morale (that actually pretty much did just the opposite)—would call my coworkers and I into a big room each year and preach to us about our “hidden paycheck.” This was the term they used to talk about health insurance, retirement programs, and all the other benefits they provided outside our normal salary. One particular HR director (who, curiously, no longer works there) also included things like the horrible coffee and stale popcorn available in the break rooms as part of our hidden paycheck. Not surprisingly, those two words quickly became the standard meme in the building when referring to anything from toilet paper to Post-It Notes.

Well, here at my current job, I have hidden paychecks, too. In fact, we freelance writers have to live for the perks since we’re certainly not in this business for the money. As a guy who writes about food (among other things), I reap some pretty cool benefits (neither health insurance nor a retirement plan among them). There was that box of nut butter Justin’s sent me after they read my blog praising their products a few weeks back. 

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By David E. Petzal

Every November, I assemble with a collection of fellow coots, geezers, and codgers to hunt deer in northern Maine. There are not a lot of deer up there, and if you see a buck you’ve had a good week, and if you get one you’ve had a hell of a good week. In 10 years I’ve collected two, which is probably about average.

However, one of our party hunted for nine years and never got anything. One thing and another went wrong and at the end of every camp he went home empty-handed. This year, however, his luck changed. He got a buck that weighed 239 ½ pounds with its guts out, which probably put the animal at around 300 on the hoof. The neck was colossal; the antlers went around 140 B&C, which for up there, is very good. In short, it was one hell of a deer after all those years.

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By David E. Petzal

Thanks to Deadeye Dick for this idea, but before we get to scopes, here are two more handloading tips that I want to get down before I forget them.

Before I resize my cases, I clean the carbon off the necks with a metal polish called Simichrome. Then I wipe off the black ugh and throw them in the case tumbler with the fired primers still in place. This saves you having to poke pieces of ground-up corncob out of the flasholes.

If you want to do a really thorough job of degreasing, soak the re-sized shells in acetone for 15 minutes. You do this outdoors, or in the garage with the doors open. They dry off very quickly, and if you want to speed up the process even more, turn a fan on them.

OK, scopes. Because long-range shooting is now all the rage, some scope designers have made their reticles things of unholy complexity, packed with dots, lines, very small lines, squiggles and, in some cases, runes. This is due to the belief that a) the more complex it is, the better it is, and b) the people who design hunting optics have apparently done precious little hunting and intend to sell these things to people who are likewise unqualified. [ Read Full Post ]

By Chad Love

Bird hunters and parents know all about the dangers old, abandoned wells pose to curious dogs and children, but it's not just kids and dogs that need to watch out for wells. One wrong step or one bad decision and we could find ourselves trapped in a very bad place. That's what happened to one Florida rabbit hunter when he stepped on a plywood well cover and ended up in twelve feet of water.

From this story in the New York Daily News:
One wrong step turned a stroll through familiar territory into a nightmare. Christopher Johnson, 28, fell though plywood to the bottom of a deep well while rabbit hunting early Saturday morning. His screams went unheard for more than eight hours as he managed to keep his head above water in at least 12 feet of cold, dirty water. He thought he would never escape as his stamina slowly faded.
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