Sommaire pour June - July 2016 de Field & Stream

IT’S A FUNNY THING about summer. No season ignites a stronger desire to seek spontaneous adventure, and yet there’s an undeniable pleasure in staying close to home—to spend every free minute on your local spring creek or farm pond. A few summers ago, I sought adventure. I traveled to Wyoming and met a fishing buddy who lived out there, and for the next week we trucked hundreds of miles on a mission to catch all four cutthroat species native to the state. We landed Snake River cutts in a hidden stream near the Tetons, then caught hundreds of Yellowstone cutthroats during a salmonfly hatch. (For a while, we had a crowd of park tourists watching us fish; Old Faithful must’ve had an off day.) Next, we checked off Bonneville cutts…

That afternoon, after I made it to the top of the mountain, I trekked down the south face and poked around for a while, looking for sheds. But then, rather than hike back the way I’d come, I decided to take a shortcut. I was getting good footholds at first, but as I kept on, walking got a lot harder, since the slope was so steep. At one point, I kicked a foot into the ice and thought I had a good hold, but when I put my weight on it, everything just crumbled beneath me. I couldn’t stop myself—I was sliding straight toward these vertical drops near the bottom of this gorge. I tried to grab a bush but couldn’t. After sliding a good ways, though, I finally dug…

WE HEARD waterfalls, one after another, but the mind tends to latch onto something it yearns to believe. A waterfall, Jack and I had been told, marked a faint fisherman’s trail out of the gorge, and we’d been searching for it now for the last few hours. We were no longer thinking of trout; our fly rods were broken down and tucked under our arms. We were trying to get out of the woods before dark, but each waterfall we heard turned out to be the wind coursing through the trees or the creek rushing by boulders. It was one false summit after another. And now worry began to gnaw at my gut, because I’d broken every rule when we left the truck. We had no map, compass, or flashlight.…

“Bonefish. Ten o’clock.” Filipe’s voice is quiet, assured. “I don’t see them,” I say. “Just relax your eyes.” I sweep the flat for shadows—bonefish often crystallize into perfectly observed fish only after you have blown the cast—but see only a few out-of-place reeds sticking above the surface. Almost as soon as I realize that these are feeding bonefish, their tails slicing and circling like hockey players, the tails drop from sight. No, there’s one, casting a shadow against the bottom. When my fly falls, the tail comes up as the head goes down. “He’s got it,” Filipe says. The bonefish races away. The line lifts a sheet of water and it’s gone, the guides making a high-pitched whining noise from the friction as the backing peels away, and time is…

VENISON TOMAHAWK CHOPS For this recipe, from award-winning chef Charlie Palmer, who’s also a serious hunter, utensils are optional. It’s much easier, and more fun, to eat these by hand. A tomahawk chop is simply a bone-in backstrap steak. If you don’t have any in your freezer, boneless steaks or chops will do fine. They just won’t look as awesome. INGREDIENTS 4 backstrap chops, rib bone attached Olive oil Kosher salt Freshly ground black pepper FOR THE GLAZE ¼ cup Dijon mustard 2 Tbsp. soy sauce 2 Tbsp. olive oil 2 tsp. garlic salt FOR THE CORN SALSA 6 ears sweet corn, husked 1 red onion, halved ½ cup olive oil Kosher salt Freshly ground black pepper 2 scallions, finely chopped 4 fresh mint leaves, finely chopped 3 Tbsp. fresh…

Every year, a handful of major fly retailers vet thousands of new submissions from hopeful tiers looking to go major league with their patterns, but only the most innovative wind up in the catalog. Even after the cut, we’re talking about hundreds of new offerings. But you won’t have to weed through them all. I asked the three biggest players— Orvis, Montana Fly Co., and Umpqua—to pony up the 20 new flies they were most excited about. I evaluated all 60 in a test tank, then on the river, to peg my 2016 favorites for trout, bass, inshore saltwater fish, and more. WHERE TO BUY Montana Fly Co. and Umpqua do not sell flies directly to consumers, so you’ll need to track down their patterns at your local brick-and-mortar fly…

1. In March, Travis Cardona, 23, arrowed a 74-pound black buffalo at Missouri’s Duck Creek CA “At a gas station on the drive up, I took a Snapchat of our boat with the caption, ‘I have a feeling.’ So it was surreal when it maxed out our scale.” 2. In February, AJ Klein, 36, netted an 11.10-pound largemouth in Delaware’s Wagamons Pond “It felt like fighting a boulder, but I was too concentrated on reeling it in to enjoy myself until after we got it in the boat. Then I was just in awe.” 3. Last fall, Greg Gasiciel, 43, landed a 9.33-pound smallmouth in Michigan’s Hubbard Lake “I was so cold from being on the water all day, but when the fish hit, it was like getting punched in…

Many bass anglers take one look at a life-size topwater rat lure and see a gimmick. But those who know better see a secret weapon. They understand that bass are genetically programmed to recognize small mammals as food—regardless of whether or not the bass they’re casting to has ever laid eyes on a live rat swimming overhead. Once you embrace that fact, the idea of throwing an 11-inch plastic rodent on the local pond suddenly doesn’t seem so silly. I talked to the top experts in the rat race to pick their brains on everything from rat-lure misconceptions to making these baits come to life on the water and sealing the deal when a bass attacks. Their creations and insights should cause you to scoff less and set the hook…

Author’s Note:Jack Unruh is irritated that certain medical afflictions kept him from illustrating this column, mostly because he thinks this drawing from 2008 flatters me. “I’ve seen you fillet fish, though,” he wrote in an e-mail. “I did get that part right.” I THOUGHT I’d left the Potomac behind when I moved away a couple of years ago. It turns out that the river does not practice catch-and-release. It’s barbed water. In my new digs, I had something in my own backyard that most guys would trade their wife’s 401(k) for—a nationally known trout stream. Gunpowder Falls supports trout year-round, thanks to the constant release of cold water from reservoirs upstream. One January day right after we moved in, the whole family was checking out the ice along the river’s…

HIGH PRAISE “The Reunion Hunt” (Apr. 2016) sums up why I read F&S. It’s one of the few magazines to still honor hunting’s complexities. MJC, via fieldandstream.com STRONG CONNECTION “The Reunion Hunt” by T. Edward Nickens hit home for me. I lost my dad when I was 17. We had hunted together since I was a kid, and after his death, I often cried in the woods while alone on my hunts. When I was 23, my cousin started showing an interest in the outdoors, so I encouraged him into it, and we’ve hunted together ever since. Also, I now have two boys of my own, and we go more often than we should. The story reminded me how lucky I am to have them all in my life. Pennaimaging,…

NIGHTFORCE TS-80 SPOTTING SCOPE $1,560 •nightforceoptics.com In 2014, Nightforce introduced its first spotting scope, the TS-82, a miracle of optical opulence that promptly won itself an F&S Best of the Best Award. The TS-82 is not cheap, however, so Nightforce has struck again with the TS-80, a 20X–60X angled-body spotter that is somewhat smaller, less powerful, and a lot less expensive. Although it’s compact, the magnesium-bodied TS-80 is not a lightweight (there’s lots of glass). And it has all the refinements you’d expect in a scope at this level. It is waterproof and shock-tested, of course, and boasts gorgeous optics and the best ergonomics in the business. —David E. Petzal MATHEWS HALON $1,099 •mathewsinc.com The company that earned its considerable reputation for single-cam, smooth-shooting bows has defied expectations with the…

Summertime, and the trailer hatch is on at every lake in the country. That makes the season the perfect time to try out the new breed of float tubes—and thumb your nose at boat-ramp lines. These are a far cry from the doughnut-shaped belly boats of a decade or two past. Modern tubes are styled after pontoon boats for a hydrodynamic profile that is much easier to maneuver with kick fins. The seats are thick and elevated for a higher, drier ride. And a growing market for floattube accessories is making it easier to fine-tune your belly boat to target still-water fish, from deep trout to surface-feeding panfish. Float tubes are a super antidote to these hot summer days—a great way to beat the heat and bring home dinner. Stow…

To really appreciate how many fishing rods hit the shelves this year, you’d just need to look at my garage after I called in 53— yup, 53!—new sticks for our 2016 fishing-rod face-off. With so many new and different models, fishing editor Joe Cermele and I first organized them into five categories, based on which species each is best suited to catch: bass, catfish, muskie, panfish or trout, and walleye. Then we spent a few long days on and off the water, testing their casting ability, sensitivity, and overall feel and quality. By the time we wrapped up our test, we’d winnowed the field down by half, to include only the top five rods in each category. In the process, the very best rods and some killer deals emerged. Here’s…