By David E. Petzal

In my post of April 29, Happy Myles pointed out that African PH Alexander Lake, whose books I recommended, may have been a little creative with his facts. This is quite possible. Peter Barrett, who was Field & Stream’s Executive Editor and an experienced Africa hand, said the same thing. “Lake drew a long bow,” was how Peter put it.

I think that Lake was a typical writer of his time, not an exception. Having read just about all the bound volumes of Outdoor Life, Field & Stream, and Sports Afield that F&S used to have in its library, going all the way back to the First World War, I think that outdoor writing is a lot more honest now.

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By Phil Bourjaily

Turkey season may be over or winding down in some places, but up here in the north our snow has finally melted—most of it—and we’re hunting.

In fact, it’s still too early in the season for me to think about shooting a jake like the bird above, which I shot two years ago. That was a last-day-of the-season-in-the-rain bird, and I was delighted when it showed up about noon. [ Read Full Post ]

By David Draper

If there’s any one ingredient (besides bacon) that will almost guarantee a Food Fight victory, it’s venison backstrap. So, who do you vote for when both entries include this reader-favorite cut? I guess this week’s fight between Wild Chef readers Neil Selbicky and SMC1986 will come down to the side dishes, but then they each excel on that front as well. What to do? What to do? I can’t decide so I’m leaving it up to you. [ Read Full Post ]

By CJ Lotz

Jeff Meldrum, an anthropologist at Idaho State University, is spending $200,000 to scan the Cascades with drones. The unmanned aircraft will use thermal imaging equipment to peer through thick forest in search of Sasquatch. [ Read Full Post ]

By Scott Bestul

This winter I was fortunate to tag along with a team of researchers as they captured bucks in northern Wisconsin. One focus of the research is to find mortality causes for bucks in two separate areas: the east-central counties of the state (mixed farmland and timber) and the “big woods” habitat of the northern counties.

We captured 10 deer that day. Four were fitted with telemetry collars, and will be tracked weekly until they die. The study is slated to end in 2015 but there is already some great information available. I talked to research biologist Jared Duquette about some of the most interesting data they’ve accumulated. [ Read Full Post ]

By David E. Petzal

It’s well known that human progress doesn’t move in a straight line. It goes off on tangents, strange, ill-thought-out detours that are invariably proved to be worthless. For example, we currently have the wind farm, where brigades of enormous propellers are erected at colossal expense to generate a feeble amount of electricity and require costly repairs before they have even begun to pay for themselves.

In rifles, a strange detour was the belief by custom gunbuilders in the late 1970s and early 1980s that the best way to bed an action in a synthetic stock was to glue the sumbitch in permanently. Synthetic stocks for hunting rifles were a novelty then, and it seemed to make sense: You got a perfect, unmoving, permanent bond between the stock and the action which would result in superior and unchanging accuracy. [ Read Full Post ]