Petersen's Hunting December/January 2019-20

WHEN MY fingertips start to turn numb and my eyes water in the bracing wind, I take a deep breath in, slowly exhale, and repeat the mantra: “Cold is temporary.” No matter how far below freezing it is, I think, being cold is only a temporary condition. If it gets too unbearable, I can always call it a day and head for camp to warm up the extremities. I love winter weather. When the mercury falls south of freezing and an Arctic clipper pushes down on to the plains, I start figuring out ways to spend more time in the field. There was that one winter when I white-knuckled it for an hour through a raging blizzard to reach a slough that was frozen solid. I needed an axe to chop through the…

KUDOS TO DAVID DRAPER FOR “AGAIN, HALF AS LONG” IN THE OCTOBER ISSUE. IT IS A CONCISE AND WELL-WRITTEN BIT OF ADVICE. I RECALL PASSING A 350-YARD SHOT AT A MULE DEER BUCK AND EVENTUALLY KILLING HIM AT 40 YARDS. THE EXCITEMENT OF THAT HOUR STALK IS STILL PALPABLE. THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 350 AND 40 IS A LOT MORE THAN JUST YARDAGE. THANK YOU. JEFF ARNOLD Via Email Mr. Arnold, I appreciate the kind words regarding my recent “Editor’s Letter.” It really came to mind for me a few weeks ago when I had a grizzly bear in my scope at 200 yards. Instead of taking him then, I cut the distance to just 74 yards. Talk about a thrill. I hope more hunters heed my advice this fall. Thanks for being a…

Hilary is possibly the most unlikely hunter I could conjure up: a young suburban woman from Brooklyn, more comfortable with Instagram than with Remington. I honestly worried about which end of the shotgun she’d point toward the turkey. We found ourselves on the Clear Fork Ranch in Texas by a mix of accident and purpose. We worked together—she in the home office of another magazine, I as a field editor—and she had asked a couple times about my photos and stories of hunting. I blurted out, as a matter of habit and good manners, that she was welcome to come along on my next trip. Her response knocked me off balance. “OK,” she said. “I’d like to learn how to hunt.” That was the “accident.” The “purpose” was an invitation from my…

BULLET BASICS Federal’s Edge TLR utilizes construction rooted in the legendary Trophy Bonded Bear Claw to achieve best-in-class penetration coupled with massive expansion. The rear half is solid gilding metal (95 percent copper, 5 percent zinc), and the soft lead frontal core is bonded in place. A boattail, a hollow composite tip, and an ultra-sleek profile provide a very high ballistic coefficient. That hollow composite tip collapses inward on impact, enabling the Edge TLR to expand reliably and dramatically even at slow impact velocities—an outstanding choice for long-range hunting. The solid rear half with bonded-core front, means it never comes apart or fails to penetrate even when impacting at extreme velocities up close. TESTING GROUND I used the bullet to shoot a massive, old, 54-inch kudu bull in Namibia. As evening waned, it…

HISTORY A refinement of the long-necked .30-03 Springfield cartridge, the“Ought-Six”featured a shorter neck and a light, fast, 150-grain projectile. Introduced in 1906, it went on to become America’s favorite hunting cartridge. Its success was due to two things: the unprecedented ballistic performance it provided servicemen in the Great War and its profoundly versatile, authoritative performance on big game. Originally fielded in battle in the bolt-action Model 1903 Springfield, then in the legendary M1 Garand during WWII, the .30-06 earned a place in soldiers’ hearts. Upon returning home, they customized surplus battle rifles or commissioned custom bolt actions chambered in .30-06. The rest, as they say, was history. APPLICATION With lightweight .30-caliber projectiles in the 150-grain range, the .30-06 is superb for deer-size game. For elk and moose, pick a heavier, 165- to 200-grain controlled-expansion bullet,…

On detailed land-ownership maps of Colorado, state trust parcels show up as an inviting bird’s-egg blue. But on the ground, any indication that they’re accessible to the public is conspicuously absent. That’s because, for some 1.7 million of the state’s 2.2 million acres of state trust lands—even those otherwise accessible by a highway or other public thoroughfare—there is no open or free access to hunters, anglers, hikers, or mountain bikers. In this regard, Colorado is the outlier compared with its neighbors. In Montana, the purchase of a hunting license provides access to the state’s 3.6 million acres of accessible state trust lands. Another 1.5 million acres of school trust land in Montana are inaccessible to the public, according to the digital mapping company onX and the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership (TRCP),…