Field & Stream

FIELD & STREAM NEWSLETTERS ALL F&S NEWSLETTERS As kids growing up in rural Oregon, my brother and I always had an important stop before we headed out for a day of fishing. We had to collect bait. For roughly 10 months of the year, that meant digging up nightcrawlers from the compost pit. But in late summer, it was different. We’d head up to Farmer Lee’s cow fields to catch grasshoppers. Truth be told, we probably had as much fun chasing hoppers as we did fishing.

FIELD & STREAM NEWSLETTERS ALL F&S NEWSLETTERS For trail camera enthusiasts, the Tactacam Reveal Ultra delivers professional-grade cellular imagery. Long-range hunters need the Vortex Razor HD 4000 rangefinder for precision shots out to 4,000 yards. Field processing requires the Benchmade Taggedout's fixed blade design. All-day comfort hunters should consider Sitka's new VentLite GTX waterproof boots.

We may earn revenue from the products available on this page and participate in affiliate programs. Learn more If your dad says he doesn’t want anything for Father’s Day this year—he’s lying. Dads are notorious for brushing off Father’s Day gifts and claiming they don’t need anything, when in reality, they love accumulating gear.

As spring inches closer, a lot of folks are pulling their fishing gear together and prepping for the coming turkey season. But some of us never stop thinking about whitetails and are already working out when to plant deer food plots this off season for even better hunting in the fall. Spring is the season for hope, after all, so what better time to start prepping soil and planting seeds with an eye toward transforming a few plots of dirt into the perfect whitetail buffet.

To see a spectacle of ineptitude, take a pair of proven turkey killers with different hunting styles and ask them to hit the woods together. Both will go home with unfilled tags, fully blaming the other for the day’s failure: Moron. I don’t see how he’s ever killed a turkey, carrying on like that. Turkey hunting is split into cliques. Though there are many ways to kill a turkey, ardent adherents of particular hunting styles are all convinced that there is only one correct way: their way.

We may earn revenue from the products available on this page and participate in affiliate programs. Learn more › I’ve been turkey hunting for just over 30 years. For the first half of that time, everyone hunted turkeys pretty much the same way, using hen calls and woodsmanship to get a gobbler to within range. But turkey hunting has changed dramatically over the past 15 years, as advances in gear, particularly decoys and blinds, have created some big changes in hunting tactics.

Why should you learn how to clean a catfish? Because it doesn’t matter what kind of catfish live in your local waters—they’re all delicious. From big flatheads and blues to medium channel cats, to tiny bullheads, catfish are the star of any fish fry. In most of the country, you can catch these whiskered brawlers year-round, and if you’re new to fishing they’re a great target for beginners. All you really need to connect is a hook, sinker, and a juicy worm, chunk of shad, or other catfish bait.

I get it. You wan’t to get after a gobbler. You want to hear a tom sound off on the roost or strike him on the ground and then go make a play. For a lot of tree-stand whitetail hunters, what’s so great about spring turkey season is the chance to finally stretch your legs and roam the woods some. If you’re a Western-based public-land hunter, like me, you probably think of hunting as an active sport almost by definition.

Last week, Idaho congressman Russ Fulcher sent an open letter to his state’s elected officials stating his desire to transfer Idaho’s federal lands to state management. The announcement has prompted immediate backlash from conservationists, who say that such a move could be detrimental to public land management and ultimately lead to sell offs. Like other Western states, Idaho has a high proportion of federally owned public lands, with 62 percent of the state’s land under federal jurisdiction.

In 1991, Shimano released the first-ever Bantam Curado baitcasting reel to the U.S. market. It was well received, and over the next 27 years, the Curado line underwent seven remodels, each with improved features. This year, Shimano released its newest Curado reel—the 150 M. This reel elbows its way into the crowded Curado family, which includes a couple of Curado DC sizes, a 70-size Curado MGL, and a Curado BFS reel.