Field & Stream

FIELD & STREAM NEWSLETTERS ALL F&S NEWSLETTERS Dove hunting kicks fall seasons off with a big bang. And while there is no better way to warm up for later bird seasons than with a hot dove shoot or two, dove hunting is well-worth pursuing in its own right. Dove hunting will test your shooting skills, and, if you’re a freelance hunter, your scouting and permission-getting skills as well. And, it’s fun. The weather is warm. Dove hunting isn’t physically demanding.

FIELD & STREAM NEWSLETTERS ALL F&S NEWSLETTERS There’s a waterfowl season open somewhere across the four major flyways at almost any point in the year. And for the short time when there aren’t any ducks or geese to hunt in North America, other continents offer plenty of barrel-burning opportunities. But high-volume shooting isn’t the only thing that makes an unforgettable waterfowl hunt.

FIELD & STREAM NEWSLETTERS ALL F&S NEWSLETTERS Willingness to decoy ranks high on the list of reasons to love teal. There are days of teal hunting when it seems like bluewings would come to a spread of rubber ducks in a bathtub. Even so, taking some time and care with your decoy spread can make a difference. Here are six tips to help you make the most of those few days in September when teal grace us with their presence on their long, early trip south. 1.

FIELD & STREAM NEWSLETTERS ALL F&S NEWSLETTERS The teal boiled over the far edge of the Arkansas ricefield, each flock a giant smudge on the horizon that formed and dissipated and reformed into the shapes of giant black commas and dark towering thunderheads rising above the distant trees. I needed three more birds for a limit. There might have been 600 in a single flock.

FIELD & STREAM NEWSLETTERS ALL F&S NEWSLETTERS If there’s a better way to enjoy fly fishing at its most wondrous than on a small stream, I’ve yet to experience it. There’s something about a thin blue line hidden deep in the woods that invites you to touch fly fishing’s very soul. I consider my beloved small streams to be not so much fishing spots as cathedrals. The water is cold and clean, the air unspoiled, and the resident char wild. Their lineage dates back to the previous ice age.

FIELD & STREAM NEWSLETTERS ALL F&S NEWSLETTERS Summer can be cruel to a devout trout fisherman. I found that out during the relentless drought of 2016. By July, flows on the Farmington River—my home water in Connecticut—were reduced to a pathetic 60 cubic feet per second. It looked more like a rock garden than a river, forcing its browns to huddle up in scattered cool-water refuges. I had no choice but to give them a rest. Still, it was summer and I wanted to fly fish.

FIELD & STREAM NEWSLETTERS ALL F&S NEWSLETTERS Ruffed grouse hunting grew up in 19th century New England, so naturally it can be a bit of a prude. So genteel in certain circles, so neatly wrapped in tradition and style, it must seem to some hunters—especially new ones—the domain of fuddy-duddies and dandies. Don’t believe it. (I, for one, am too ill-bred and badly dressed to be either.) The truth is, getting into grouse hunting is easy and anything but exclusive.

FIELD & STREAM NEWSLETTERS ALL F&S NEWSLETTERS It’s an article of faith among duck hunters that teal are fast. Even experienced hunters believe it. Robert Ruark, who knew one end of a gun from the other, once wrote: “I led one [teal] by a mile and he dropped like a rock. I led another by the same mile and he went on to Mexico.” Yet if you shoot a teal with a radar gun instead of a shotgun, you’ll find they top out at 30 mph, a lot slower than big ducks, which can do 50 with ease.

FIELD & STREAM NEWSLETTERS ALL F&S NEWSLETTERS I HAD HOPED to go to British Columbia this fall, to throw a fly for steelhead in the Morice River where it winds out of the Telkwa Range near Smithers. I settled for a blue-ribbon trout river in Montana, one that was just far enough from home to give me the sense of taking a trip. In size of fish it was a long step down. But in other ways the streams had much in common. Both ran through country as yet untarnished by the hand of man.

FIELD & STREAM NEWSLETTERS ALL F&S NEWSLETTERS A childhood encounter with a ringneck snake under a garden stone became the defining moment that launched a lifelong passion for exploring the natural world. That single glimpse of wildlife in an industrial landscape taught the power of curiosity and the rewards waiting beneath every turned stone in the outdoors. IN THE ALLEGHENY FOOTHILLS of my childhood, a boy had a choice between two doors.