Outdoor Life Summer 2019

letters@outdoorlife.com WAYPOINT Fuel, check. Mullet, check. Snarky attitude and biting sarcasm, check and check. After we arrived at this airstrip in northwest Alaska via a larger plane, pilot Jet Selman shuttled our group of five one at a time to our caribou spike camp (p. 48). You don’t hire a bush-plane pilot for his interpersonal skills—you hire him to get you into the game-rich backcountry, and to return you safely to civilization. So, when we asked Selman where the bulls typically come from, I wasn’t surprised when he pointed to the low mountains in the east, then to the range in the north, then to the ridge in the west, and finally to the peaks in the south, and said, “They’ll probably come from the mountains.”…

When I attended my first Outdoor Life annual gun test eight years ago, my sole job was to clean the rifles. At the time, our test protocol was to clean a rifle after it fired four 5-shot groups. We had five shooters who were evaluating more than a dozen rifles, and the ammo was free. (It also happened to be February in Montana, when the average high pushed 10 degrees.) I cleaned a lot of damn guns that week. And I had the time of my life. Since then, I’ve been promoted to the shooting line. Our annual gun test is still a ton of work, and it’s still one of my favorite projects of the year. (You’ll see the fruits of that labor on p. 90, along with our equally exhaustive…

Reader Revival I was a subscriber from the mid-’70s to the mid-’80s and just resubscribed. Reading your recent issues has been like getting reacquainted with an old friend. I appreciated the spring issue—my second—and the winter Adventure Issue was also very enjoyable. Though the familiar editors from the past are gone, the new crew is just as good. Great writing and informative articles. Thanks for keeping the magazine as excellent as ever. Richard GreenPrinceton, WV Cheap Cuts Your article on cow elk hunts (“Have a Cow,” Hunting, Spring) was a long time coming. Last year, I enjoyed a guided private-land cow hunt in Wyoming for $1,000 plus the $288 tag. I’ve also done a self-guided cow hunt on private land in New Mexico for less. Cow meat is superior to antlers in my book,…

CASTING This Rapala Skitter Pop has landed more bass for me than any other lure. Years ago, I was fishing the Mississippi when a monster smallmouth broke it off. Ten minutes later, I caught that same fish with the old Skitter Pop wedged in its mouth. Should a lucky lure be retired? Hell, no. To repay this bait for years of good service, I’ll be throwing it all summer long. —Alex Robinson, executive editor CRANKING I’ve got a ZeeBaas ZX2 spinning reel that’s from the first run this company ever made. It’s number 1o5, and it’s been through hell and back with me. I’ve caught everything from river stripers to bluefin tuna to snakeheads to false albacore on that reel. The company has changed hands several times since I got the reel, and…

hunting@outdoorlife.com South Dakota has a pheasant problem. It’s not the strafing winds and drifting snow that contribute to overwinter bird mortality. And it’s not agri-business practices that destroy the best nesting and brood-rearing habitat with every pass of the chisel plow. The problem is the unsustainable popularity of South Dakota’s adopted icon, the Chinese ringneck. So many pheasant hunters swing a shotgun in the state—nearly 150,000 in 2016 alone—that South Dakota’s upland habitat has a hard time supplying the demand, especially with declines in the number of acres enrolled in habitat-creating initiatives like the federal Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). Last year, hunters bagged 829,000 South Dakota roosters out of an estimated population of 4.6 million birds. That’s a lot of wild pheasants, but last season’s population estimate is South Dakota’s lowest in 20…

During World War II, more than a half-million servicemen and -women passed through Aberdeen, South Dakota, aboard trains headed to training facilities and ship-out depots. Community leaders in the prairie town, wanting to sustain the traveling GIs, started handing out chopped-pheasant sandwiches. Within a few months, every soldier, sailor, and airman passing through Aberdeen was served a homemade lunch from what became known as the Pheasant Canteen, staffed by community volunteers who called themselves Aberdeen’s pheasant ladies. Special hunts were held around town to supply the birds required for the sandwiches, which also included carrots, celery, and pickle relish in a mayonnaise base. While the handout program lasted for only 30 months—the canteen closed in March 1946—the tradition is an indelible part of Aberdeen’s culture. Today, during opening weekend of South Dakota’s pheasant…