Ironically, the same era that gave us shoulder pads, big hair, and neon clothes also gave us straight grips, plain pads, and satin finishes.

This is an excerpt from a Field & Stream exclusive feature story by story Phil Bourjaily with photography by Dan Saelinger.

Additional images are from recent classified listings on GI.com. Drop a “RAD” if you want more. ...

720 45

Deer camp will never be the same.

Field & Stream contributing editor and Wild Chef David Draper has spent decades taking game from field to table. His popper playbook goes well beyond the basics: standard duck, cream cheese, and jalapeño with recipes built around everything from venison and elk to wild pork.
Consider these your next camp snacks.

Drop a “POP” & we’ll send you Draper’s full playbook. ...

377 130

Identical twins once took over the rainbow trout record book.

Adam Konrad broke a 37-year-old all-tackle record in 2007 with a 43-pound, 9.6-ounce rainbow caught on 6-pound test. His twin Sean eventually went bigger, two years later, landing Lake Diefenbaker’s infamous 48-pound “Frankentrout” and taking the record for himself.

The triploid rainbow descended from fish-farm escapees, prompting debate over its place in the record book. The IGFA certified it, and 17 years later, nobody has caught a heavier rainbow. That record still belongs to Sean on this Old School Sunday. ...

13322 143

An hour of fishing for a shot at $20,000.

Tyler Harmon was fishing the Ohio River last month when he hooked a once-in-a-lifetime catfish. Harmon caught the fish during a spur-of-the-moment trip with his dad and 4-year-old son near their hometown of Ravenswood, West Virginia. They were hoping to catch a small catfish for his son to reel in when one of their rods doubled over.

After a 20-minute fight, Harmon got the massive blue cat to the side of the boat and his dad netted it. The fish was officially certified the following day at 72.75 pounds, beating a West Virginia state record that had been set on the same stretch of river just months earlier.

And the record could come with another prize: Because Harmon caught the fish using a HellCat rod, he may qualify for a $20,000 payout from Catch the Fever campaign.

Best of all, the record fish was released alive back into the Ohio River. Drop a “Blue” comment & we’ll DM you the full story by @travishallmedia ...

1189 10

Back in late July, the Alaska Board of Game considered a full hunting and trapping closure for a two-mile-wide corridor that runs for 211 miles through the southern foothills of the Brooks Range.

Known as the Ambler Road, the proposed industrial mining route has been a major source of controversy in the state since 2015. The current proposal would completely prohibit hunting, trapping, fishing, and all public access for a full mile on both sides of the Ambler Road route, encompassing 420 square miles.

At the end of its two-day meeting last July, the Alaska Game Board decided to table the proposal, keeping hunting and trapping along the proposed Ambler Road route open for now. A decision on the proposed closure has been deferred to a future meeting of the Game Board set for January 2027 in Kotzebue.

F&S will continue to follow the Ambler Road project as more details emerge.

Full story by @travishallmedia ...

775 22

Remembering how we got here. Nearly a century after Fred Bear first picked up a bow, we have carbon arrows, laser rangefinders, trail cameras, mechanical broadheads, and compounds.

Bear began making archery equipment commercially in 1933, won the Michigan target archery championship three times during the 1930s, and ultimately helped bowhunters get a season of their own. Bear was in the business of building better bows.

Bear Archery grew from a small Michigan operation into one of the defining names in American archery. Bear helped advance fiberglass-laminated bow construction, and the company’s Kodiak family of recurves became some of the best-known hunting bows of the postwar era. Later came the Bear Takedown, with removable limbs and the sort of practical engineering that mattered to hunters who actually traveled with their bows.

He carried recurves after whitetails, elk, moose, sheep, bears, and other big game around the world. His hunting films put close-range archery hunting in front of Americans. Even a young Ted Nugent caught the bug.

Nugent encountered Bear through family bowhunting trips to Grayling, Michigan, and the two eventually became friends.

Nugent later recalled spending time with Bear shooting recurves and sharing deer camp at Bear’s Grouse Haven property in Michigan. Even after compounds became ascendant, Nugent remembered Bear sticking with his Kodiak recurve. Nugent eventually memorialized his mentor in the song “Fred Bear.”

Bear also became one of the founding figures of the Pope & Young Club in 1961, helping give North American bowhunting its own record-keeping institution. ...

8187 50

Some people paint fish. Patrick Tucker burns them into wood.

The Mobile, Alabama native has been doing it since 2014, working in pyrography to turn redfish, tarpon, marlin, flounder, and other fish into remarkably detailed works of art. He burns each one by hand onto live-edge slabs, river tables, and custom cutouts.

Tucker doesn’t catch these fish. He preserves them a different way.

@alabamaburning ...

2410 59

There are good shooters, and then there is Davide De Carolis.

The Italian hunter and exhibition shooter holds five world records, including breaking a clay target at 164 yards and assembling a shotgun before breaking a clay in 2.81 seconds.

De Carolis grew up hunting with his father and has spent years mastering the speed, timing, and precision of a shotgun. Five world records are a fairly convincing measure of how that practice turned out. ...

2313 31