humor

The World's Weirdest Archery Targets: Practice With Your Bow on a 13-Foot-Tall Alien

fieldandstream-editor — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 08:25:00 -0400

Classic Outdoor Cartoons from the Pages of Field & Stream

fieldandstream-editor — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 20:00:00 -0400

A Sportsman's Life: The Collected Columns of Bill Heavey

fieldandstream-editor — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 05:00:00 -0400

The Fat Man

fieldandstream-editor — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 04:10:00 -0500

Any time you throw together a bunch of guys who don't know one another in hunting camp, it takes a bit of scratching and sniffing before the top dog emerges. I have been in this situation often enough to know three things about the process:
1. I am not in the running.
2. The initial front-runner rarely holds the lead for long.
3. Watch out for the fat guy.

I was recently hunting caribou above the Arctic Circle in Alaska (a phrase, incidentally, that I now work into every conversation I have, including with whomever is on the other end of the intercom at the big red drive-up menu at Wendy's), when I found myself sharing a tent with Steve Freese, 56, a newly retired Douglas County, Nebraska, cop, who clocks in at 5-foot-8 and about 245. He has the widest-set eyes I've ever seen on a human and a head like a bowling ball.

The younger men figured that putting the two hunters most at risk for rapid-onset Alzheimer's in the same tent was a no-brainer, which suited us fine. Young guys invariably assume their lives are unique and fascinating, but older guys know that, superficial differences aside, we're really all as alike as eggs.

The superficial difference between Steve and me was that I spent 10 minutes each morning rooting around in my duffel for any socks and underwear that might have been miraculously freshened by 24 hours in a tightly packed bag, while Steve would simply fillet a vacuum-sealed plastic pouch and remove clean socks and long johns. He had made these packets up using a Cabela's food vacuum sealer. "Handiest damn thing you ever saw," he said. "Food is just the beginning."

As we all sat around the fire the first night, Steve sipped a Beam-and-Sam's-Club-cola. One of his last duties as a police captain, he said, had been as a trainer, whipping new recruits into shape before they could hurt themselves or, more important, older cops. "First thing, I'd ask them, Â¿Â¿Â¿How many of you guys have heard that there's no such thing as a stupid question?' And they'd be so eager, you know, just clawing over each other to get their hands up first. Â¿Â¿Â¿Well, that's a bunch of bull crap,' I'd tell them. Â¿Â¿Â¿Your best move for the next two years is to shut up and listen.'"

Later, we all weighed in with our hunting plans and ambitions. Steve opined that he was as likely to take a caribou close to camp as not; other factors being equal, he preferred less hauling to more. Sure enough, at about 2 P.M. the next day, he dropped a heavily racked bull just 350 yards from camp. Hearing the shot, I hustled over to help, arriving in about 20 minutes. By that time, Steve was cleaning his fingernails with his knife. At his feet lay four neatly butchered quarters, hide still on to protect the meat, and a small mountain of expertly cut tenderloins, backstraps, neck roasts, and rib meat. Nearby were the clean, white bones of his bull, innards intact. It was astounding knife work. "You didn't gut him," I said, making my daily entry in the Stating the Obvious Sweepstakes. "Just more work," he replied.

I made him a deal on the spot that I'd carry his meat if he'd help butcher mine. When they saw the carcass, most of the other guys followed suit. The fat man's stock had begun to rise. Steve also turned out to be the best cook in camp, pushing it higher still. It was as if he had known all along he would be the lead dog and couldn't be bothered to compete. Pretty soon, he had only to casually note that we were running low on water or that a pan needed cleaning before one of us, me included, would quietly hop to. One of the younger guys, handing him a Beam-and-Sam's-Club after Steve had made the venison fall off the guy's bull like it was overcooked stew meat, asked if the drink was mixed to his liking. Steve nodded deeply, then threw me a little wink as if to say, Rookies. You gotta love them.

Everybody ended up taking a bull, some as far as 2 miles away over the tundra. None was as biig as Steve's. Last I heard, at least two of the guys had bought vacuum sealers, along with a large supply of gallon bags. Steve says those are the perfect size for a change of socks and long johns.

I called Steve recently and got him in a duck blind along the Missouri River, where he was hunting, evidently in the company of a cop he had once ridden with. "Hang on a sec, Bill," he said. Gusts of wind buffeted the mouthpiece, then I heard that familiar voice calling: "Same rules as in the squad car, Kevin. If the weather turns bad and we've only got one raincoat, it's mine." It sounded as if the fat man was doing just fine.

Wall-Hanger Guides

fieldandstream-editor — Sun, 05 Feb 2006 04:05:00 -0500

Some of the trophies I remember best from hunting and fishing trips are not game or fish but the men who guided me. I can think of several whom I'd like to have stuffed and hung on the wall.

Right over the fireplace I'd hang Billbob, the Wyoming "cowboy" mule deer guide. He looked like the Marlboro man-tall, lanky, handlebar mustache, and a swagger. But in truth he was neither a cowboy nor an experienced guide; he was a hairdresser. He gave ladies permanents in his mother's little cowtown salon.

When he saw the lightweight tents we'd packed, Billbob kicked the dirt and declared, "We needa get us a ruggeder outfit than that." He roared off in his pickup, then reappeared an hour later with his lights off, towing a 30-foot trailer. After he rammed the trailer back into thick brush I noticed the placard by the door: PROPERTY OF WYOMING HIGHWAY DEPARTMENT.

Billbob spat and proclaimed, "I helped buy that trailer, and I'm claiming my share of it this week." Billbob slept dry in the trailer each night while the rest of us (East Coast sissies who eschewed stolen property) shivered in wet tents and worried that the sheriff would show up. We all got nice bucks on that trip, but we rarely talk about them. Billbob the hard-bitten, hairdressing cowboy and his "borrowed" highway department trailer was the best trophy of that trip.

Then there was Marcel, the luxury-minded Canadian moose hunting guide. He was so excited about the prospect of being featured in a magazine story that he got knee-walking drunk before we arrived, causing us to delay our departure for a day. Then, upon inspecting our canoes, he complained that there was no room for his gear. "When I go in the woods, I go comfortable," he declared, pointing to an immense pile of duffel which included the mattress, blankets, and pillows off his double bed at home, a sack of potatoes, and 24 loaves of bread. Marcel's insistence that he would not travel with less forced us to hire a motorboat for the guide and all his stuff. This subverted the very premise of our trip, which had been to paddle canoes deep into the wilderness where motorboats couldn't go.

We saw one moose-a distant bull that was coming to our calls when he was cut off and slain by hunters patrolling the lakeshore in a motorboat. Our only trophy from that trip is the recollection of Marcel reclining on his mattress amongst his pillows, eating bread and potatoes.

Right next to Marcel, I'd hang Jack, a Kansas duck hunting guide who could really talk mallard and knew where to find rafts of fat, corn-fed ducks. What he wasn't so good at was boat safety.

It was a long ride to reach his hunting spot, but Jack had a big boat that got us there in time for a good shoot. Trouble was, Jack sheared a pin as we were picking up the decoys, and he had neither a spare nor a paddle. Using a piece of the broken pin, Jack managed to jam the motor in gear, but it stuck in reverse.

"If I shift gears, that little piece of pin is going to fall out," Jack announced. "We've got to go home backwards."

With the motor stuck in reverse, Jack backed the boat slowly all the way up the lake, with each wave slopping over the transom into the cockpit, where we took turns bailing. When we got to the dock, a pair of smug hunters stood laughing at us.

"Don't say nothing," Jack hissed. "Just make sure they see the ducks." And then he loaded the boat on the trailer stern first, hoping to make the hunters think he knew something they didn't.

But my favorite trophy guide was Adamie, the Inuit guide who tried too hard to make us happy. "You want to fish in the river or the bay?" Adamie asked through an interpreter at the beginning of the trip.

"Wherever you catch the most fish," I said.

"We catch most in the bay," the interpreter translated.

So, all that day we fished along the shores of Hudson Bay but caught nothing. Not one single bite.

"Why are we catching noo fish?" I asked.

"Because the fish are in the river," Adamie answered.

"You said you catch most in the bay," I argued.

"We catch the most fish in the bay in winter," Adamie explained with a grin. "In summer the fish go up the river, but we can't catch as many there."

I was learning. I said, "Let's go where we'll catch the most fish today."

All smiles, Adamie took us many miles up river for the rest of the week. We caught loads of big Arctic char, huge lake trout, and 5-pound brook trout.

"You like this better than the bay?" Adamie inquired as he unhooked another 10-pound char.

"Much better," I said.

"Good," Adamie exclaimed. "I just want to make you guys happy."

My collection wouldn't be complete without another trophy guide from the North Country, Sam Fast Rabbit. Sam was a tough old Indian, but his lips were deeply cracked by the constant tundra wind and he had no lip balm, so each morning Sam wiped great gouts of his wife's scarlet lipstick across his mouth. When it rained, the lipstick dissolved and ran all over his chin. He was frightening to see. Sam was a colorful trophy, but where would I hang a mount that looked like that?

A Sportsman's Life: Undressed to Kill

fieldandstream-editor — Sun, 04 Dec 2005 04:05:00 -0500

No part of this magazine is more eagerly awaited than the sage advice from the likes of Jerome B. Robinson, Keith McCafferty, and T. Edward Nickens. These are guys who know from personal experience that:

A bull moose nose is the size of the average human head and, properly tanned, makes a good hat.
If you happen to survive the crash of your bush plane in Alaska and the pilot does not, it is perfectly acceptable to help yourself to one of his cigars.

I learned some valuable field lessons myself this year that I'd like to pass on. I'm not claiming they rise to the postgraduate level of woodsmanship. But if you're still awaiting a bunk in the gifted-and-talented section of hunting camp, listen up.

Sleep with your clothes on
On a deer hunt in the Adirondacks, Gerald Marcury and I agreed that I would head out before first light, hike to a distant saddle, and ambush any bucks he might push my way while still-hunting. As I sweat easily, I opted to hike in long johns and a wool shirt, then don additional layers as needed. This plan worked perfectly right up until I sat down on a cushion of pine boughs and realized that my Realtree pants were folded atop my Realtree sleeping bag back at camp. Four hours later, Gerald approached, deerless but smiling nonetheless. "Is that a Southern thing, no pants?" he asked.

Six months later, I met up with Gerald and a buddy to have a beer. I started to introduce myself to the friend, who shook my hand warmly and said, "Oh, you're famous. Everybody in the hunt club says, Â¿Â¿Â¿You should've seen the guy from FIELD & STREAM who forgot his pants.' We even have a saying now." He dropped his voice to a TV-announcer baritone. "Pants: Don't leave home without 'em." (Gerald, allow me to thank you publicly. I have never met a guy who sleeps in women's underwear who is half the hunter you are.)

Hunt with SpongeBob
As I let my daughter Emma off at kindergarten before going hunting one October morning, I pointed up and cried, "Oh, look at the hawk!" Then I palmed the SpongeBob SquarePants Sea Mail Play-a-Sound book she had been reading, which her teachers have forbidden in the classroom. I thought no more about it until I was on stand and realized I had inadvertently stashed the thing in my daypack. After not even seeing a deer all morning, and with nothing to lose, I pushed the button decorated with a giggling SpongeBob. Out came a sound like a doe bleat on helium. Intrigued, I hit it again. A doe emerged from the bushes 70 yards distant, where it stood alert and frozen for two minutes. I hit the button once more. Fifteen minutes later, I sent an arrow into that deer. I am unsure about SpongeBob's sexual orientation, but I will say this: The boy knows deer.

Impersonate a competent person
Anybody who hunts with me regularly knows that I am essentially useless. I am physically unimpressive, have the woods sense of a parking meter, and for years thought that a "staging area" was where deer rehearsed theatrical performances. I'm tolerated by other hunters because I know my place and because a natural bent toward arson makes me invaluable in starting and tending campfires.

To make up for my defects, I religiously read the tips in this magazine, then pass them off as my own at every opportunity. Recently, when a friend was lamenting the loss of his scope covers, I plucked an old inner tube from his truck bed, cut out a ring, and wrapped it over the optics, forming a watertight seal (Sportsman's Notebook, October 2005). "Where in the world did you learn that?" he asked, amazed. "Old cowboy trick," I shrugged, affecting the air of a man who had grown up in a sod house on the prairie with Pa riding the range and Ma fighting off Indians.

Shut the bathroom door
Much of my rifle practice occurs with a pellet gun in the basement when nobody else is home. After a session this fall, I was sure my earpplugs had migrated almost to my brain. Rushing upstairs to the bathroom mirror, I was probing deep in my auditory canal with a Leatherman Wave when at the door I saw the mother of a child with whom my daughter had evidently missed a play date. She had entered the house when no one answered. Her face was pretty much the mask of horror you would expect to see upon discovering a man committing suicide via earhole. Her hands were clamped protectively over the eyes of her child, whom she dragged bodily backward through the living room, her mouth moving soundlessly. I watched-but did not hear-the door slam as she fled. I knew it was only a matter of minutes before my wife got word and returned home to deal with the large order of trouble with anchovies and extra cheese I had whipped up. The only question was how to spend the brief interval of peace remaining. I returned to the basement and shot a few more targets. Looking back, it was the smartest thing I did all year.