Three years is the age I taught all mine to swim. One summer in the pool (or lake) more than twice a week usually gets it, except for the more cautious tot. Qualified instructors help (I was a water survival instructor in the Marines)... Patience and practice during the course of a summer will do it. And it is VERY important!

Colt AR-15.

A kid should be taken SCOUTING for a couple of seasons, in my humble opinion, before he ever goes hunting. Quality firearms training should be conducted, philosophy driving hunting should be expounded, and all the particulars. So by the time you've got all that done, I'd say the kid would be about 7 or 8 years old, minimum.

I am an adult convert who's been hunting for 12 years now. My Grandpa Pete (whom I never met) was an avid deer hunter, but his son (my own father) was a rabid anti-hunter whose encounters with hunters left him convinced they were vain and bloodthirsty. Much to my dad's chagrin, I just couldn't keep away from it, and felt drawn to hunting, basically a curious and irresistible urge. I took it up seriously when I was 20 years old. Of course, it didn't hurt that I grew up on 2,000 acres of South Texas chaparral with plenty of deer when I decided I did want to hunt!

It is at night. As soon as I am positive he is not a drunken relative, I kill said intruder. I am not a trigger happy sort, but if someone forces his way into my house, he's done himself wrong.

Teufelhunden is correct! NO BULLET WILL MAKE UP FOR A POOR SHOT. In other words, bullet placement counts most! That said, I do not recommend .22 anything for whitetail, and that is coming from the guy who killed two whitetail and one muj FO with the .223. Semper Fi.

Both were perfect for their respective eras. Question is, who's next? All we seem to have currently are namby pambies.

OK, first aid kit, not survival kit: 1. bacitracin or some sort of triple antibiotic. 2. roll of gauze. 3. needle and clean (preferably sterilized) cotton thread. 4. aspirin These are your pack light survival kit essentials.

Flounder gigging in shallow bays on the Texas coast. Get a nice slack tide in November and a bright lantern and gig away.

Wish you a fair wind and following seas.

It's all about your tinder, but it can be tricky. Practice covers a multitude of sins.

I love taking my boys offshore for snapper, kingfish, Spanish mackerel. They're excellent anglers and good sports. We don't seem to have much luck nearshore, though.

Man, I can't help but get nervous about exposed hammer weapons and kids, and that goes the same with auto-loaders, etc. Get your boy a bolt-action rifle in whatever caliber you think suits him. I mean, safety is in the hands of the shooter, but man, those hammers are tricky...

I have a custom knife made by Texas knifemaker Don Robinson. It is a drop-point skinning knife with a mesquite handle. Keeps an awful keen edge and it's full tang, with a four-inch blade. If you can afford it, a good custom knife from a true artisan is just awful hard to beat. Regardless, keep the tool sharp and it shouldn't let you down.

IF we're 165 miles from the nearest anything, we likely have a rendezvous point to meet the airplane, where we were dropped off probably. First things first. Polar bear is dead, immediate threat is eliminated. Check for breathing, stop the bleeding, protect the wound and treat for shock. If I don't attend to these, yer a goner. Then we worry about getting you out. As per this SPOT thing, I guess I have to google it... Any gadget that gets us picked up ASAP wins its way into my bag on a dangerous, remote hunt, to be sure!

Yessir, I shot my first buck with a Colt AR-15, .223 FMJ, before I really knew better. Got it right through the aorta, pulverized the heart. That said, I DO NOT USE, nor recommend .223 for whitetail for the average deer hunter.

An old 4X4 Dodge Ram with posi-trac axles, not independent suspension (real old Dodge). Virtually indestructable.

.270 or for big game such as you mention, 300 Win Mag.

30/06. I do not know what the .17 HMR is good for (prairie dogs, I guess), but the risk of wounding a coyote with one seems high, and coyote shooting is generally done from quite long range. I'd also agree that my first choice would be .223, or even .243.

We have a 2,000-acre spread in South Texas, across from South Padre Island and only about a mile off of the Laguna Madre bay. It's old-growth brush with some cattle on it, but a finer place I will never cherish more.

Okie dokie. Here's my answer, and I rattle up South Texas bucks like it's cool. I prefer a big, grand fight with the antlers to break the early morning silence. Two minutes of rattling to begin with. Three grunts, and wait for a minute, and then rattle about a minute with three to five minute silence periods. Don't forget: thrash against a little shrub, make lots of noise. Stomp the ground with the base of the horns. Tines facing out and away from each other, not in where you can horn your finger. Be patient. Stay in position 15 minutes, playing with the horns, trying to be a convincing buck fight. If you have to move after 15 or 20 minutes or half an hour, then move. Listen. When the buck comes in, chances are you'll hear him first -- he'll be thrashing at the bushes, angry and ready to fight. A buck like this will walk up right to your stand and you can shoot him at a range of like 25 yards. MOST FUN EVER when it finally happens like it's supposed to!

First of all, when you do find a place to hunt, scout it intensively as often as you can. Find the trails, the water holes, the fence crossings, the bedding areas, and read the hunting magazines. I didn't start hunting till I was 19 years old, and I'm an old pro now! Read "Shots on Whitetail," which is a classic book about deer hunting, even though it was published right after WWII. But get your property and scout, and when you're not scouting work on your archery skills. And stay motivated. Don't forget to read an awful lot about what to do once you actually have fresh killed venison in front of you! Good luck brother.

Man. Any of the beef MREs are OK. It'd be an MRE, but 7 months eating MREs in the field in Iraq (one per day, supplementing as much care package chow as possible) has done a lot of irreversible damage. Oddly enough, though, the beef MREs don't make me shudder. MREs to avoid (since y'all have a choice): Jamaican Pork Chop, Beef Frankfurters (Five Fingers of Death), Country Captain Chicken (WTF?), and any of the gawdawful "vegetarian" choices. Best MRE: POT ROAST (delicious, actually). Jalapeno cheese spread is the best -- warm it up with your main meal in the heater sleeve. Do not eat that bad boy cold!!!

First of all, sit-on-top kayaks are seriously fun to catch fish in, and infinitely worthwhile. I recommend Wilderness Systems 140 or 160. Get a second-hand kayak and get one as long as possible -- don't waste time with the little dinky ones that are hard to paddle. Get one at least 12 or 14 foot long, with a seat back built in. For 500 bucks, though, you ought to be able to find something. Fun fun.

I have hunted deer for 10 years now as an adult convert to the sport. I have killed two, but I have guided three successful buck hunts, having learned to rattle 'em in along the way. I only shoot the deer I really feel like shooting, having passed up countless bucks and does.

Texas is numero uno, according to Texas Parks & Wildlife Department. Most whitetail deer. If you've ever been here, and driven through the Hill Country when the rut is on, you'll quickly realize this is probably true.

Your best bet is going to be an agricultural spread, like a farm or ranch. Farmers and ranchers are entrepreneurial spirits, and close to the land, and you'd be surprised how few of them, especially old timers, actually hunt. Save up a few hundred bucks, and ask first, in person, and then if they act like they can't accommodate you, say you're willing to pay $400 for the season/year. That's my perspective, as a landowner.

Three-dimensional stuff that breaks up your outline is VERY important. Strings of shredded burlap, or even commercially produced stuff is good. Try to break up your human outline so you look like a natural mass of vegetation instead of a completely unnatural human-shaped shrub.

All I've ever seen is scrapes going completely cold after the rut.

Blue jeans and a khaki long-sleeved shirt.

SMAW 83 mm rocket. Mk19 40 mm, MA DEUCE .50 cal machine gun. For lead downrange I like the M240 Golf .308 belt fed machine gun. Hells yeah.

Well if your zincs are disappearing due to what sounds like pernicious electrolasis, then we can cancel out all those other factors. Sounds like a grounding problem to me. Get your wiring checked. For sure.

I'd have to say how I sighted in a rifle would also depend on the terrain in which I was hunting. Typically, in South Texas brush country, I sight in right at 100 yards, which is perfect for any shots in the brush. Typically, whitetail are shot somewhere from 100 yards in, so that's what I'd go with.

Knife, matches, .22 rifle. With these three tools, survival is a likelihood, and comfort cannot be too hard to scrounge up.

I have always enjoyed Field & Stream. These folks know how not to be pretentious and foolish and appeal to we the outdoors enthusiasts, men and women. I used to really enjoy Sports Afield before they went all wack back in the late 90s and the mag folded. Some stupid thing about having to evolve and doing more pieces about hiking and biking, and everyone revolted and the outfit just folded. Last I checked it was a rich man's African safari, Russian sheep kind of silly thing.

I swear I'm not on the payroll. Mytopo.com is the place you generate the laminated map, but a 20-dollar-per-year subscription to mapcard.com is so worthwhile it's not even funny.

This is a point of discussion that just goes overlooked all too often. All too true that the declawed masses will be preyed upon, police or no police does not matter. These are things you learn all too quickly growing up in a rural area. No point calling the sheriff, because sheriff's deputies are literally half an hour out. Serious injury or heart attack? Either die alone or drive to the hospital (trying to avoid being pulled over by said sheriff's deputies), because the ambulance just can't find the gate, etc. Suburban, declawed, happy-go-lucky citizens do need to realize police are not Batman and Superman (hence the popularity of superhero movies?). Good post, Clay.

I don't know. I can say for sure there is nothing worse than losing a deer only to find 24 hours later the coyotes found it. Terrible feeling. With that in my belt, I would not take the shot at the risk of losing another buck...

I do it myself. I do my own beef, too, and I'm an English teacher, not a butcher. You would be amazed how common sense a lot of it is, and if you get a good little electric meat grinder for about $100 and a handheld meat saw, you're on your way. I feel MUCH better about eating meat I put into the grind MYSELF, knowing I washed my hands properly. Age it correctly, do it yourself and you're a better sportsman for it.

Yeah, I try to think about how I would want my questions answered, and by who, so I don't answer unless I think it's a question I can answer with complete confidence from personal experience, and I don't really care about points. I also like the answers from when I ask a question. Man, I've gotten some good advice from people who know about stuff I don't know about, like re-loading ammo, etc. Points schmoints.

Depends on what record you're talking. International Game Fish Association records are prestigious enough, but there are also state records. When you're talking fly fishing, you're talking different tippet records, etc. Just need to check out the IGFA website or your state's fish & game website. Good luck.

Elk. Elk. Elk. Elk. Elk. And did I mention Elk? South Texas whitetail are endlessly fun, but man, elk look like a lot of fun.

Call me old fashioned, but I prefer to plan my hunts and keep the wind in my face and stay downwind of where the whitetails are. Mainly because of cost concerns and the fear of becoming overly obsessive, I leave all the odiferous anti-odor stuff in the box at the store. That being said, there are guys who've killed much bigger deer than I have that will swear by anti-odor products. But we'll see.

hunterkid94: ishawooa is correct. A .22 caliber bullet will kill, and don't think it once. I've seen a .22 mag take down a 600-lb. nilgai cow with a shot to the esophagus. Practically speaking, a Ruger 10/22 is good for small critters like rabbits, of course, but do not be mistaken about the lethality of a .22. Too many people treat it like .22s dismissively, like it's an air soft gun, but it's a killer.

Save up and offer a little money. I say this from the landowner's point of view. An old acquaintance, a friendly enough guy, wanted to bowhunt this past season. He approached it right: he said he would be willing to pay. I said, sure, you can hunt all you want for a calendar year for whatever is legal for 600 bucks. He thought that sounded dandy. Having bowhunters leasing the back 80 acres instead of rifle hunters is far preferable because my house is on that property. That's not to say that you shouldn't approach the helpful & free angle first. Just say, howdy, I was wondering if I could poke around these here words on your property with my bow, and see if I could get a deer. Don't offer to pay until the property owner gets that glazed or sympathetic look in his/her eye, and be persistent without badgering. But a few hundred bucks can get you a long way with we farmer-rancher types.

Imported, non-native Nilgai antelope in South Texas baby! Best hunting, ever. No rattling in these bad boys, nor baiting and waiting. They're just plumb hard to hunt, and delicious.

Waiter? Check please.

Everything I need to know I learned in the Marine Corps. It's a magazine.

These are all good answers. That being said, I do not recommend .223 for deer, and sure as hell not for hogs. Shot placement is certainly what it is all about, but the size of the wound contributes to how fast the animal, particularly deer, go down. A good .30-06 bores out a sizeable wound, whereas the .223, while often inflicting a mortal wound, will not bring about death soon enough even with a well-placed vitals shot.

Alex, the main ingredient is sulphuric acid/water mixture. Be careful handling sulphuric acid, but it is available at your local auto parts store for re-filling auto batteries. Basically, you scrape your hide clean, throw it in clean water and let it soak, then scrape the hair off if that is what you want to do. You use a scraping board or the edge of a post. Then soak it in your mixture of sulphuric acid and cool water, let it soak overnight, take it out and rinse it in cool water and borax. Then scrape on that sucker some more and repeat. When the hide is clean, then you take it out, rinse it again and let it dry. Then scrape it while it's dry and work neatsfoot oil into it and if you have a good, thick buck hide you can use it to make leggings and things out of. A GREAT source is from a little known publisher in San Antonio, and the author calls himself "Little Bear." And if you google "Little Bear's guide for Boys" or something like that, you'll get the exact steps. Good luck

I use a Ruger Mini-14, but I like my brother's SKS for 'yotes even better.

Speaking from (delicious) experience: steak out the king fresh, don't freeze it. Marinate steaks in Italian salad dressing for 6-12 hours. Fire up the grill, using real wood like mesquite or oak. Grill the steaks, and throw a pat of butter on each one before you take it off the grill, just after you've flipped it. This, my friend, is the way to prepare king mackerel for eatin'!

Keep it. Don't get into the habit of selling off your guns. Besides, everyone, adults and kids, need a .410 in their closet!

There is a common misperception with modern rifled firearms that the longer the barrel, the more accurate the round somehow. Many factors affect round accuracy, but barrel length beyond 18 inches is not one of them. In other words, the M4 .223 carbine, a shortened version of the M16 .223 service rifle in today's US military, is just as accurate as the M16. Difference is what Golfing Sportsman said as far as HANDLING goes. Carbines are a much easier handling weapon. But round is much more important when figuring carbines: the .30 carbine was a piece of junk compared to the .30-06 rifle in World War II and Korea.

Remington Model 700 in any caliber, but Winchester .30-30. Although I admit, if we're talking rifles here, I do not recall shooting any Winchester bolt actions...

.30-06 in a good bolt action such as the Remington 700, Tikka T3 or Browning A Bolt. A good 20-gauge shotgun, something like old dependable Mossberg 500 pump. And let us not neglect the Colt Government Model 1911 .45 handgun. Semper Fi.

Beekeeper is right! Look, it just occurred to me that anti-hunters are basically utopianists. Think about it. In an ideal world, nothing would have to perish to sustain anything else, but we do not live in an ideal world. We live in the natural world, where bobcats cruelly disembowel small birds. Remember Roald Dahl's story "The Sound Machine" about the scientist who invents a machine with which he can hear plants screaming as their limbs are pruned? If this were the case, should we all just starve to death? That would be less than ideal. But then, I do not know if anti-hunters are fully rational, thinking people. Their very nature tends to lean towards emotionally driven sophistry.

Actually, I think willkillsdeer needs more information, respectfully stated. Will, it sounds to me like you need to scout some more. All year, with a notebook, and you need to read your Field & Stream cover to cover, hitting all the how-to pieces for buck tactics. Know your area. Know the deer that are in your area before the season ever starts. Spend as much time in the area you hunt as possible. At any rate, persistence pays. It is usually a number of years before you get that first buck you can be proud of, and it sounds like you'll be coming due if you just persist.

Quail done up like fried chicken.

Gunnison National Forest: Tincup, Gunsite pass, all of those places are excellent. Rocky Mountain scenery is stunning.

I use my red-lens LED headlamp, but most mornings I don't even end up using it!!!

Remington 700 is my humble recommendation. Put it this way: Marine Corps snipers use a custom made .308, but the action is straight Remington 700.

I was just thinking about this issue this morning. I honestly think it's a left-wing goal, and it deals with quashing dissent. It almost seems to me that unpopular politicians whose political views are objectionable tend to be hardline anti-gun folks. Live free or die. I went to Iraq and when I came back I was more sensitive about my personal liberty than ever. Live free or die.

Hey Del, I don't know if I'm just plumb lucky or what, but the bucks come to my rattlin' antlers like magic. I've heard a lot about buck-doe ratio and things like that, and I am in the South Texas brush country, but man those horns, with a grunt, can't be beat. My cousin Steve has hunted North Carolina and he said if you just grunt a bunch that brings 'em in, also. But I'll get a Growler to go with my horns, because grunting and rattling go together like milk and cereal.

When he shoots immature bucks.

I am a high school English teacher. Get back to work, Nate! Ok, class, get out your notebooks...

Have not had this problem. Let them know you didn't get February's.

Wal-Mart's got just about everything, but they still ain't got no wild hogs. Bait one area a couple of days with something sweet, and corn, and then hit it on a full moon night. No spotlights. Stay downwind of 'em.

I've got the February 2009, but not the March. I expect the March ain't out yet. The February issue is THE SURVIVAL ISSUE, and has a search & rescue dude on the cover with two German shepherds.

Hoo man. I had a beagle and she was a very sweet dog. As long as we lived in town, she was perfect as could be, never barked or anything. But when we moved out into the country, that dog was treeing a raccoon EVERY NIGHT OF THE DAMN WORLD. They are excellent small game dogs, very sweet disposition. My dad said they have a propensity to get bit by rattlesnakes since they move fast with their noses on the ground, but mine never did.

Get you a small boat and go bass fishing in one of them oxbow lakes in South Texas and throw a spinner along the banks for bass.

Garmin E-Trex.

Use a .22 rifle in the evening, walking in the brush. Do it leisurely and bring back a couple of rabbits. Clean and eat promptly, and you've accomplished something timeless and infinitely enjoyable.

Go to the photos tab under hunting, above, and click on it. Then when you get there, go to readers' photos and click on submit your photo and you'll go from there. Good luck. Submit a bunch. The more the merrier.

I do not know how representative of the F&S demographic I am, so I really do not know. Right-wing, conservative Christian been married 15 years since I was 18 to the same gal with five kids and live out in the country and teach high school. I subscribe to F&S and let my sons read it, and I guess I never even gave those ads so much as a glimpse. Couldn't even tell you what those ads were selling -- videos? pills? Nothing I'm after, whatever the case...

We live in an imperfect world.

Packers, I'm going to go with albinism here. This duck is an albino, whatever species (definitely looks like a redhead). And yes, albinism occurs in waterfowl.

Texas has ample quail hunting opportunities on public land, although I have my own private stomping grounds I prefer. SEMPER FI!

Take the time to pluck the birds, and fry those birds country fried chicken style. DELICIOUS! That's one of the very best ways to do quail.

Beekeeper, Texas Hill Country (central) is all about the axis deer. Bandera is the nerve center of axis deer outfits. Best bet is not public hunting, which is drawn (Garner State Park, Colorado Bend SP, etc.), but probably to get on a nice, small, private place. I looked up a place that's a bed & breakfast near Bandera, found at banderaguesthouse.com, which seems typical of decent axis deer hunting. I've never hunted 'em, but have lots of buddies who are rather enthusiastic about them. They're making their way south, actually, and an axis doe was hit & killed on a road five miles from my ranch.

Sir, I have The Old Man and the Boy right in front of me, which is all I have read by Ruark up to now, and which I recommend of ANY AND ALL hunters. Instantly recognizable as a classic, despite its relative obscurity. His books are in fact hard to get hold of. My dept. chair at the high school where I teach gave it to me because I am an outdoors writer in addition to being an English teacher. Semper Fi. riograndeoutdoors.com.

This is going to sound crass, but here goes: I'd go to Iraq to hunt al-Qaeda terrorists in the date palm groves up and down the Euphrates west of Fallujah in patrols, sweeps and raids, and I'd write about it myself. My guide would have had to be Staff SGT "Alley Cat" Avendano. Been there, done that. Semper Fi.

Dryer lint is the bomb. Whatever works, man, whatever works!

Crickets and anything that nicely imitates a cricket should do well. I'd go with quality imitations before I'd tie on the real thing.