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We are heading into prime predator season.  In most parts of the country, this is usually the time when bobcat seasons run, and even though coyotes can be hunted almost anywhere year round, now is when the stars align for them, as well as Lynx rufus.  Other hunting seasons are dying down, so there is more opportunity out there to hunt predators (check your local hunting regulations for seasons and rules before going out). Winter is also generally the start of the breeding season for both “song dogs” and bobcats, the time when they will be more actively seeking mates, so will be more on the move.  And of course, winter is the time for taking pelts that will be as good as they get.

Last time, we looked at the effects of extreme cold weather on firearms’s functioning.  But there are also human and cartridge factors to be considered.  We can start with how the cold impacts us and what it does to our shooting.

Just as there are sunshine patriots and summer soldiers, there are fair-weather hunters; but game is not always killed under blue skies. We can find ourselves in late fall, sitting on stand in Saskatchewan, hunting whitetail bucks that can be the size of small horses, with the mercury in the thermometer dropping to levels approximating the average surface temperature on Mars. Are we confident that our rifle and cartridges will be ready? Or when that book deer steps out from the timber, are we going to pull the trigger and hear the absolutely loudest sound in nature–nothing, as in those bad dreams we all have? Or maybe we’re hunting king eider in the Aleutians, or even puddle ducks in North Dakota, and the temperature is below zero. If we are going to go to the trouble of risking frostbite to hunt, we ought to have taken care that we can rely on our firearms and ammunition. And there are aspects of the preparation we may need to do that can seem, on their face, contradictory.

The rut is not the red-tag sale of deer hunting–for two weeks only! It edges in, builds to a crescendo, cools down, rises again, perhaps a little less energetically, declines, maybe starts up once more, and then mostly dwindles away. Does who have not been successfully bred can experience estrus a number of times, and mature bucks may continue to track them until the hormonal levels, of both male and female, return to normal.

Hunting is as safe as it gets. Safer than golf, far safer than cheerleading! The chance of injury from hunting is a scant 0.05-percent, one in 2,000. For waterfowl hunters, though, the danger comes not so much from the activity as the environment. Duck and goose hunters are more likely to place themselves in the eyes of storms than other hunters. Rain, fog, sleet, snow, wind can all be par for the course for waterfowlers, and are even welcomed by them. Then, as the name suggests, there is water itself.

Nothing raises the temperature of caliber debates more than the question of which is the best for elk. For many hunters, elk cartridges are not a matter of ballistics so much as one of quasi-religious belief, with almost as many pews as there are opinions. Before talking about muzzle velocities, bullet weights, or terminal ballistics, let us look at what the elk is.

One word is blunt, the other has the pleasing ring of science to it. That first word is “rut,” that breeding period for white-tailed deer when bucks are chasing does. The other word, with scientific bona fides, is “photoperiodism,” when organisms react to the seasonal change in the amount of daylight. For white-tailed deer in the northern hemisphere, the shortening fall days bring the does into estrus and receptivity to being bred; and the males, having shed their antler velvet, feel their testosterone levels rise. Their aggressive behavior, in different forms, toward both other males and toward females, increases. The lowering of the light begins earlier in the northern part of the deer’s range and shifts southward as the season extends. And this makes the rut.

Henry David Thoreau wrote that the person“who goes alone can start today,” and the same may be said of the hunter: If you have to wait on your friends before heading into the pheasant field, you may be waiting a long time. When we are after deer or turkey and other game, we are used to being in the woods by ourselves, even if we are sharing a camp with friends. Pheasant hunting, though, seems to some to call for a platoon to drive the cornfields, too often taking on the aspect of a thin-orange-line version of those Highlanders at Balaklava. Despite that, there are times when it doesn’t take a village to raise a rooster.

With the modern shotgun deer slug, it is possible to be stepping forward while stepping back.

In 1873, in the days before game laws, seasons, or licenses, a military officer, Brevet Major-General G. A. Custer, wrote to the manufacturer of the “50 Government” rifle he had carried with him the previous summer on an expedition along the Yellowstone River, guarding the surveyors for the Northern Pacific Railroad.

Turn of the century–20th century–major-league outfielder, “Wee Willie” Keeler, advised fellow batters to “Keep your eye clear, and hit ’em where they ain’t.” Good strategy for baseball but not for duck hunters. Duck hunters need to hit ’em where they are.

If you were tasked with creating Heaven for an upland retriever or flushing dog, it would probably be a lot like a cut cornfield in pheasant country in the fall. A dog would get to be with other dogs and with people. It could quarter and crash and come upon somany wonderful smells; large piñata-colored birds would explode skyward from under its nose, and guns would go bang!Birds would fall, and the dog could run to them and pick up their warm feathered bodies and trot proudly back. The bird’s head and neck bobbing loosely, to that human who sets out the food dish for it morning and evening, and hear “Good dog!” when it drops a bird at that human’s feet and get some rough petting behind the ear. At night it would sleep deeply at the foot of the human’s bed, running after the birds in its dreams, the next morning bringing another hunt, just different enough from the one before to be paradise.

Considered by many to be the best hunting-shooting writer of the 20th century, Jack O’Connor had a pet peeve. (In truth crabby ol’ “Cactus Jack” had a menagerie of them; but this one’ll do for the time being.) In a late article of his he took rare exception to labeling, in print, the mule deer a “mulie,” a barbarism he equated with calling a sheep a “sheepie” or an elk an “elkie,” which would never be permitted to occur. All right. He wanted to give the big deer its due. What he may have overlooked, though, is that the word could also represent recognition of the affection writers, and hunters, hold for the species, expressed in the hypocoristic.

Some game birds are the fair-haired boys of wingshooters, while others are the red-headed stepchildren. Quail, in particular bobwhites–“Gentleman Bob”– ring-necked pheasants, and ducks, especially mallards and sprigs, are the gold standard of bird hunters, while others–such as ruffed grouse, woodcock, and rails–are an acquired taste. Yet these are birds with a fanatic following all their own; and if you have never hunted them, you are missing a tremendous experience.

When you bring your shotgun up and feel that perfect “cheek weld,” the next step is to develop your mounting routine so it is replicated every time. The idea isn’t simply to clone the motion, but to clone the proper motion.

There is no more visible big-game animal in the American West than the pronghorn antelope, maybe in all of North America. And that’s the way the antelope likes it.

There are dates that call for a red circle on the calendar–Thanksgiving, birthdays, the 4th of July. To that I would add the New Year’s Day of the hunting season, the dove opener, usually set for the 1st of September. Over 80-percent of US states have a dove-hunting season, including the Big Island in Hawai‘i, along with some Canadian provinces, not to mention Mexico, for the more adventursome. All of which is why the native dove is classified as a migratory species, though one that does not require a federal stamp.

The last time we talked about body mechanics and shooting, we concentrated on the eyes and which one, the right or the left, dominates our vision. Now we can take another body part that may seem far more mundane but is just as vital to proper shooting technique.

If you have ever shot in Great Britain, you have probably seen these words as part of a poem, printed on parchment and framed and hung on the wall of a shooting estate. Or it might have been on a tea towel, if you know what that is. Or maybe embroidered in cross stitching, like a longer version of “Home Sweet Home.” It comes from a poem most British shooters know by heart, having been committing it to memory for over a hundred years.

Let’s hope you stayed in touch with your favorite hunting rifle through the offseason. But if not, or only infrequently, now’s the time to get reacquainted.

Undoubtedly, some of what follows will sound rudimentary, but there are still things that should receive attention well before the leaves change and the deer are in hard antler. So please bear with it if you think you know all this to begin with. (But before you begin any work on your rifle, always make sure it is COMPLETELY unloaded.)

You’ve probably never heard of the gold-digging ants of Persia. I know I hadn’t. Twenty-five-hundred years ago, the historian Herodotus told of ants larger than foxes but smaller than dogs, that burrowed for gold; and most thought the ancient Greek had been eating too much lotus. Then about 20 years ago a French anthropologist-explorer found that true to its name the long-tailed, or golden, marmot, Marmota caudata, of northern Pakistan, when burrowing in ore-bearing layers of sand, came out with gold dust in its fur that could be collected.

In cataloging our shooting and hunting equipment, we understandably focus on firearms, optics, and ammunition. Yet the most critical gear we possess is our own bodies and minds.

Prairie dogs are a gift.

For hunters and shooters, the summer months are made bearable by the presence of the rodents. At one time they may have been the most populous mammal in North America–a single Texas black-tailed dog town was estimated at 25,000 square miles in size with a reported 400 million animals. Their overall numbers, though still in the tens of millions, are, of course, far lower today; but that one species alone, the black-tailed (and there are several different species), burrows in over almost 2 million acres from Canada to Mexico.

We shoot clay targets sometimes for the thing itself, sort of ars gratia amorum–“art for the sake of arms.” I believe that most of us, though, practice to become better shots in the field on game. And for that, what is the best discipline–trap, skeet, or sporting clays?

Hunting moose from horseback in B.C. some years ago, I had a brand-spanking saddle scabbard fresh from the maker, without a blemish or scuff on it. When I brought it out to the pole corral for the Indian guide to hang on the saddle, he gave it a once over.

“This,” he said, matter-of-factly, “no be new you get done.”

I know, I know, it is incorrect for a Native American, or a member of the First Nations in Canada, to sound like that; but those were his words. And he was making a sharp point. As it turned out, he proved entirely accurate. At the hunt’s end, that shiny new scabbard looked about like a railroad bindlestiff’s boot. And it pleased me no end. It had acquired “character.”

Hunting with handguns is hardly innovative.

Firearms date back in Europe to at least the 13th century. For the most part these were artillery pieces. Later, handguns, or “handgonnes,” were developed to be fired by one man from the shoulder. The pistol was a creation of the 16th century, made for use from horseback. “Horse” pistols were usually carried, for self-defense on the highway but also finding their way into hunting such as the chase for boar or stag, in a “brace” of holsters on a saddle. (Meriwether Lewis had a pair of horse pistols on the Corps of Discovery Expedition, which he used in a skirmish with the Blackfoot.) Toward the end of the 18th century, the English developed the ponderous “howdah” pistol. A howdah, from where the name came, was a wicker basket in which tiger hunters rode on the backs of elephants, using their large-caliber rifles to hunt. The howdah pistol, double barreled, sometimes four-barreled, was there on the chance the tiger made it through the cloud of blackpowder smoke and leapt onto the elephant and went for the hunter.

I’ve known my friend Gary for, oh–never mind. (How did we get this old?) As long as I’ve known him he’s been an expert skier, captain of the college ski team, and still attacks the pistes, as they say. While his game has been skis and slopes, mine has been guns and fields, hunting and shooting ones. Gary was never anti-gun, just uninterested in, or perhaps ignorant of, it. I don’t think he appreciated the athletic skill involved in it, in the way he saw a challenge on the slopes.

The chicken or the egg may never be answered. But trap came first, then skeet.

A couple of Massachusetts grouse hunters came up with a game they called “shooting around the clock” in 1920. For reasons that should have been obvious from the outset, laying out a round course had certain drawbacks, especially if you put up a permanent grandstand for the fans. Actually, the course was cut into a semi-circle when a poultry farm was built in the line of fire, and the gunners needed to direct themselves away from it out of simple courtesy if for no other reason. A contest was held and the name “skeet” was arrived at. And for nearly the last 100 years the debate has roiled about which is the more difficult discipline: skeet or trap.

The ethics of hunting big game at long ranges are going to be debated as long as hunters take to the field with high-powered rifles. To many, the essence of hunting is stalking within rock-tossing distance. (The old saying among African professional hunters, when it comes to dangerous animals is get as absolutely close as you can, then get 100 yards closer.) For others, “sussing” out a shot at a quarter mile or more–far enough that you can experience the lag time from trigger break to impact and even see the “bullet trace,” the observable wake the bullet creates in the air as it travels at supersonic speeds–speaks to the skill and practice regimen of the shooter, not to mention the level of precision technology in the rifle, optics, and components. And admittedly, when we think of the famous, or maybe infamous, hunters of the past, it is their feats of long-range shooting (true or not), rather than the up-close-and-personal, that come to mind.

Shotgun target shooting is divided into “disciplines.” There are trap, skeet, and sporting clays. Among these are the variations such as trap singles, doubles, and handicap–the first involving a single clay target thrown at the shooter’s “call,” usually the word “pull.” (The origin of that word is worth noting. Shooting live pigeons goes back more than two centuries to England, and the first live-pigeon shooting club in London in 1812. This was the “Old Hats Club.” Actual old hats were placed in front of the shooter with a pigeon beneath one. The hats would be tipped over, the bird would fly, and the shooter would fire. Later, one of the Parker brothers, makers of American shotguns, developed a wooden box, or “trap,” to hold the bird, with long lines running back to an operator behind the shooting line. The call of “pull” from the shooter was the literal instruction to pull the line and release the bird. Every time a shooter calls “pull” today and fires, he is echoing the sounds you would have heard on a trap field all the way back to the early 19th century.)

All cartridges are, with apologies to George Orwell, interesting; but some cartridges are more interesting. In my opinion. One of the more interesting classes of cartridges for me are the high-velocity centerfire 22s. That’s a bit of a misnomer with the 22s spanning diameters from .228-inches in the 22 Savage High-Power, down to .224 in the 220 Swift, 22 Hornet, 223 Remington, 22-250 Remington, and 222 Remington, with the father of the bullet, loaded today in the 22 Long Rifle (LR), a rimfire, .2255 in diameter. Setting aside the 22 LR, across the sweep of these calibers, there is likely an ideal one for the hunter-shooter who wants a step up from the 22 Winchester Rimfire Magnum, have the of capability of extreme range, mild recoil, and a lighter-weight rifle.

Tens of millions of Americans now carry concealed handguns legally, either with permits or in states which do not require permits to do so. Almost a quarter of all women own at least one gun, and surveys show that half of Americans who do not presently own a gun would consider doing so. For most women, and men who own guns, protection is a major incentive for doing so. Which handgun, though, is the one to purchase as a first or second pistol, for both women and men?

My beautiful daughter developed an interest in firearms and hunting at an early age, which was exciting given my passion for the outdoors and the shooting sports. As a firearms instructor myself, I wanted to provide her with the proper introduction to firearms.

A very valuable resource for anyone interested in learning more about safety and education surrounding firearms is the National Shooting Sports Foundation’s (NSSF) Project ChildSafe (projectchildsafe.org). The program is designed to promote firearms safety and education and offers many resources for parents, gun owners, law enforcement and educators. It also provides a free firearm safety kit for educators and law enforcement agencies. Since 1999, more than 15,000 law enforcement agencies have partnered with the program to distribute more than 37 million firearms safety kits to gun owners in all 50 states and five U.S. territories. No doubt that the program has raised awareness about the safe and responsible ownership of firearms and the importance of storing firearms safely and securely when they are not in use. This will of course help to prevent accidents, theft and misuse.

With turkey season done, or all but, it’s time to look back.

For what went right, we can give ourselves a hearty pat on the back for our ultimate expertise as gobbler hunters. Yeah, we sure knew what we’re doing. Unless, of course, we might have stumbled onto a bird or simply had one fall into our laps when we were about to doze off in the morning sun. With the robins singing, light sparkling off the bedewed spider webs, the comforting warmth under our hunting vests, the thought of hot flapjacks, sizzling bacon, steaming coffee back at the bunkhouse in an hour…I’m sorry, where was I?

Enthusiasms for different shotgun gauges are as evolutionary as enthusiasms for different vehicles, different electronics, different pizza toppings (when’s the last time you ordered pineapple on your family-size takeout?). Take gauges for wild turkey.

A few words, first, about gauge. The concept of “gauge” began not with shotguns but with the ironworking and wire-drawing crafts. Drawing metal into wire goes back probably to pre-history, but the word “gauge” did not appear until around 800 years ago. The French spoke of jaugewhich means a “result of measurement.” With wire, gauge was not a specific measurement but a comparative standard that often varied from manufacturer to manufacturer. It was not until the start of the 14th century that the first efforts at standardization were attempted, in England, by King Edward I, directed toward wine and grains. One almost universal feature of gauges, though, is that the product they are referring to grows thinner and/or smaller as the number increases.

It sometimes seems that the greater portion of the excitement in turkey hunting is front-loaded. It is often the first hunting after snowbound, dismal months of winter. So the expectation can be nearly corporeal–maybe not to the extent of tremors, but certainly down to the kind of physical enthusiasm that sends a hunter springing from his bunk at the first stroke of the alarm at 3:00 a.m. on opening morning, feeling, as the saying went in a more gracious era, full of beans.

The race, they say, is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong; but that’s the way to bet. It’s pretty much the same with shotgun pellets for wild turkeys.

Shot size for turkeys seems to fall naturally into the No. 4, No. 5, No. 6 range. I’m sure there are certain daredevils who would offer a brief for something like 7½s, claiming some mystical pattern density inherent in them, but come on! Going in the other direction, an old timer or two might call for a 10-gauge load of BBs or 2s, hoping to carpet bomb a gobbler. For a few years I actually lugged a 10-gauge side-by-side waterfowl gun with No. 4s around the woods. With 32-inch barrels, it tipped the scales at about 11 backbreaking pounds, swinging like a sledge hammer–once you could get it started, try stopping it. Having other hunters I met say “Wow!” at the sight of the beast eventually proved woefully inadequate recompense.

A couple weeks ago I had a tech-guy come out to install new cable at my house. Upon entering, he saw two deer mounted on my front room wall and asked where my husband had shot them. I just rolled my eyes and told him “in Northern Minnesota” to avoid any further conversation on the topic. I deal with misconceptions like this more often than I’d like, which is what inspired me to write this blog. Many females have similar experiences in what can be considered a male-dominated outdoor industry. That said, take note, because for several years now, women participants in hunting and sport shooting have been on rise.

What do we see and hear? Southern live oaks holding their leaves through the year; Spanish moss; green spreading out both far and wide; songs of red birds as we wait on stand before shooting light; mosquitoes starting to buzz; the first tree gobble. That is how we think of turkey hunting. With a rump and a riddle and a high tuc-ka-haw. The classic rite of spring.

As a hunter and sport shooter, I have always tried to learn as much as possible about long-range shooting. It has certainly become a more popular activity among sportsmen and women, and I’ve picked up a few tips along the way in becoming more proficient in pounding targets at greater distances.

By rights, it ought to be called only by its Shawnee name, waapiti, referring to the patch of pale hide on the animal’s rump. “Elk” was something that Englishmen, sent to Virginia to “discover, search, find out, and view such remote heathen and barbarous Lands,” concluded to name the “stately and splendid deer,” in the descriptive phrase of one Theodore Roosevelt, when they first encountered it. The wapiti was then indigenous to North America from littoral to littoral and from what is now Florida north to the subarctic of Canada; and colonists in doublets, with likely scant knowledge of the natural world, coming as they did from a small agrarian island on which there were no true elk and with Virginia lying well south of the historic range of the moose, imagined they were looking at the animal they had heard only rumors of: the palmated elk that inhabited the forests of Scandinavia.

If we could make shot in the vacuum and weightlessness of space, there would be no trick to fashioning it perfectly round. Natural forces want to press objects, ideally, into round, or spherical, shapes; and unimpeded, such forces work all the better. Thus, the shape of the earth, the moon, the sun. Here on earth, it’s not so easy.

While spring turkey seasons have already started in a few states, most turkey hunters will take after ol’ tom in April. That’s the case here in Minnesota as well. With a few weeks to go, it’s time for me to head to the range and pattern my turkey gun. I’ll be hunting with Browning’s BXD Extra Distance this year. New for 2018 is their 20-gauge offering in 3”, #5 shot. I’ll need to shoot quite a few rounds to find out if it patterns best with the Browning Extended Invector-DS choke. In addition to shooting from the bench with a lead sled, I’ll also take some shots from kneeling and sitting positions, which I will likely experience in the field.

Spring is here, and hunters’s thoughts are turning to black bear.

Having left the dens, the bear are on the move; but there are pros and cons to hunting them in the spring. (Check with your state’s game department about regulations for spring bear hunting.) They are, to begin with, in their leanest condition of the year, meaning less fat to render into the finest lard there is, perfect for flaky pastry and pie crusts. (Bear can carry trichinosis, so make sure meat and fat are properly cooked before eating.) Their hides can also be rubbed as they start to scratch off their heavy winter coats. As well, females may be accompanied by their cubs of the year; so hunters need to be doubly sure any bear is unaccompanied by young before they shoot.

When it comes to newcomers and big-game hunting, one of the most common questions is, what is an ideal, all-around rifle caliber.

Turkey hunting is, at its best, an up-close and personal experience. The ideal is to call a gobbler in to 20 to 35 yards and drop it with one shot in a fatal flapping of wings. That is picture perfect. But what about that long beard that stalls out at 40 yards or even farther? Should you risk a shot at longer distances in the hope of taking a trophy bird? If you prepare properly, you can go a great way in reducing the risk and seeing a turkey tumble at 45, 50, or even longer yardages. But again, preparation is the key.

When it comes to shooting a shotgun for the first time on the range, it can be a bit overwhelming if you haven’t been properly introduced to what size of a shotgun may be best. I have a few suggestions to keep in mind when picking up a shotgun for the first time.

A young Alaskan sheep guide once told me, on our first night under the Northern Lights in spike camp in the Chugach Mountains, that there were three things he never, ever discussed with his hunters: politics, religion, and ballistics. Which indicates how contentious, and complicated, that third topic may be, leading invariably to more questions than answers.

Even though I’m a hunter, I was a bit intimidated the first time I went sporting clays shooting. I’ve always seen people do it and they make it look so easy, but I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I’ll admit, I’m not the best at asking for advice or help. So, any chance I get, I like to give people advice on things that I had to learn either the hard way or on my own. With that in mind, if you’ve never shot “clays” before, here are a few tips that I feel helped me when I first started that may help you as well.

Once-famous names grow obscure, then often unknown.

Grancel Fitz was a well-regarded photographer in the New York advertising world of the 1930s and ’40s. He was also equally famous as a big-game hunter. He was one of the main authors of the trophy measuring system in use by the Boone and Crockett Club. And he was recognized as the first hunter to take all the, then, two-dozen different categories of big-game in the B&C book, including ones more or less out of reach these days, such as jaguar, polar bear, and walrus, most of which he took with a 30-’06. (North American Head Hunting is his 1957 book on his quest.) And you have probably never heard of him.

When I started looking around for my very first pistol, one of the most daunting decisions for me was, what caliber to choose. Whether you’re a new shooter or you’ve only owned long guns, picking that first handgun can be a challenge. I’ve been a firearms instructor for six years. The one thing I always recommend to anyone picking out a new pistol is to shoot several different models and calibers before committing to buying one. Some guns will feel better in your hand than others. Grips vary on all guns, and sights can be very different as well. Many shooting ranges will rent out guns, so you can try a few before making a purchase. My motto is, “Try it before you buy it.” In this blog, I will focus on what I feel are the two most popular handgun calibers and the benefits of each.

“High birds” seem an English obsession. But that may be due to the high cost of pheasants.

In England, pheasants are almost exclusively bred on shooting estates to provide sport for the owners and their guests, paying or otherwise. And “shoot” is the operative word. (“Hunting” in Britain refers to riding on horseback, following the hounds that are chasing the foxes–or used to be; chasing real foxes is now disallowed, and “hunts” take place along dragged scent trails. Of course it may also refer to something called “hunting the clean boot,” in which bloodhounds follow a human trail. What we know as deer hunting, the English know as “stalking”; and shooting is exclusively reserved for bird hunting, though it might also be called “wildfowling” when it’s for ducks and geese, or “falconry” or “hawking” when done with raptors. Got that?) If a shoot is a “driven” one, rather than a “rough” shoot, the price in England can be astronomical.

What happens to an artisanal skill when the artisans disappear, and no one is left to pass it on?

Trappers, who are such artisans, are far from gone. But they don’t have it easy. Despite damage brought about by wildlife, amounting to some $22 billion per year in the U.S., trappers, still hundreds of thousands strong, face powerful opposition. Without trapping, though, an important implement in the tool kit of conservation would go missing. There is another tool, though, besides leghold traps, that can be used to help control destructive animals.

Browning has a long-standing reputation in offering high-quality products for hunters and shooters alike, including Browning Ammunition.

As I continue to introduce people to the shooting sports, it’s common to have many questions surrounding the differences in firearms and ammunition. One of the most common in fact is the difference in ‘centerfire’ and ‘rimfire’ ammunition.

Back when my grown son was in grammar school he committed to memory every “The Far Side” cartoon by the genius Gary Larson. Because of that, there was seemingly no situation in which he could not interject, “That reminds me of a Gary Larson cartoon…,” followed by his description of the panel and the caption. Somehow, we all survived as a family. So I am reminded of a “Far Side” cartoon of two buck deer in conversation in the woods, one with a distinct bullseye on his chest.

Some families go bowling or to the movies for quality bonding time. But these days, it’s not uncommon for parents to head to the shooting range with their kids. While some families shy away from firerarms all together, others have found that a good experience at the shooting range can foster confidence and provide valuable lessons that can’t be learned anywhere else.

Hunters have been pursuing raised game since at least the time of the Pharaohs who kept hippos in ponds for sport. The Roman patricians did it on vast estates–latifundia–the gentry from too many countries to list, throughout most of history, did it on managed estates that may not have had game-proof fences but did have armed game keepers to keep out the peasantry; and even our game departments do it when they release bird-farm non-native pheasants and chukar for the public to hunt. Can, therefore, raised, enclosed game be hunted ethically? Of course it can. Just because it can, though, does not make it everyone’s cup of oolong.

Ammunition can be a very intimidating and overwhelming subject for anyone that doesn’t know much about hunting or the shooting sports. (I can’t cover all ammunition types and terminology, or this blog would turn into a book). I will start by going over some of the most common ammunition types that are used for training at the range and personal defense. 

Back before the missus and I got hitched–during, it seems, the McKinley Administration–I took her rabbit hunting.  Yes, it was a test, of sorts.  My friend Danny also brought a young lady he was dating; and while we hunted cottontails out of an alfalfa field, the two women walked along.  Until we actually killed a rabbit.  At that point, Danny’s friend marched back to car on the farm road and got inside, slamming the door.  My future wife continued on, even helping with the carrying of the game.  At the end of the day, as we skinned the rabbits, she was there, assisting as she could, not knowing how to skin, but wanting to learn.  We were married the next year.  Son is a college graduate.  Danny has remained single to this day.

When you gear-up and head out to go hunting, there’s no reason to grab just any ammunition. Why not make a smart decision and use the best? When you hunt use ammo that is designed to take down the species you’re after. Browning Ammunition offers a full line of ammunition specifically designed for your next outing afield.

This time of year, the waterfowl hunting that remains is moving steadily south, down the flyways to the deltas and gulfs. It’s also when hunting in flooded timber comes into its own and decoys move from essential to mandatory. Shooting at its best will be over the dekes, and at treetop height, whether in the trees or in open ponds or flooded fields. So, is there a case to be made for the 20 gauge versus–or if not versus, then being equal to–the 12 gauge this time of the season?

Director of research and development for the U.S. military’s Springfield Armory, which manufactured firearms from 1777 until 1968, Col. Townsend Whelen was the most notable firearms expert of his day, a man with far-reaching experience in hunting wilderness North America, and known for his quote that “Only accurate rifles are interesting.” What he did not add was that only precision ammunition is interesting, too.

Every era of the American nation’s existence has been marked by technological advancement, from Eli Whitney and the cotton gin in the 18th century to the engineers behind self-driving automobiles in the 21st.

Stay tuned for video content from the show to be posted here and in new posts.