I WAS WAITING FOR THE moment when the truck would finally break down, and I’d be stranded in a strange place far from home. After an all-night haul from New York, it seemed like that place would be a general-store parking lot in Odessa, Missouri. I got out of the cab, looked under the truck, and watched as transmission fluid hemorrhaged from the bell housing.
I was traveling across the country, on my way to New Mexico, working as a hunting guide, and when I got there I planned to pull my 1995 Ford F-150 off the highway and run it hard on every dirt road I could find. The truck was a single-cab work model, designed to plow snow and make dump runs, but I had been banging it around between the coasts like a pinball for the past year and a half. In the process, it had gained my respect more than any vehicle I had owned before. To me, it seemed only fitting that the truck should go out in glory on wild tracks.
Until this point, I had mostly kept the pickup together with duct tape and zip ties, but a transmission problem is more like a stroke than a broken bone. I wasn’t going anywhere, at least not tonight, so I climbed back in the cab and spent the night on the bench seat.
THE NEXT MORNING, I walked into the general store. The place was packed. I grabbed a doughnut and took a place in line, then asked out loud to anyone listening: “Who’s the best mechanic in town?”
There was some muttering before someone spoke up: “Junior. He’s the best.”
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der Volume 125, Issue 1 - 2020-Ausgabe von Field & Stream.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der Volume 125, Issue 1 - 2020-Ausgabe von Field & Stream.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
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LIVING THE DREAM
After the author arrives in Maine’s fabled North Woods with a moose tag in his pocket, an adventure he’s been wanting to take his entire hunting life, reality sets in, and he learns a valuable lesson: Be careful what you wish for
Get the Drift
How to make an accurate windage call under pressure
First Sit
An icebreaker outing in a pristine spot produces the rut hunt of a lifetime
A Local Haunt
The author finds a sense of place in an overlooked creek, close to home
A Hop and a Pump
Jump-shooting rabbits with classic upland guns is about as good a time as you can have in the outdoors
Welcome TO camp
Is there any place better than a good hunting camp? It has everything: great food, games and pranks, and of course, hunting. Shoot, we don’t even mind going to camp for grueling work days in the summer. Here, our contributors share their favorite stories, traditions, and lessons learned from camps they’ve shared. So come on in and join us. The door’s open.
THE DEERSLAYERS
Before you even claim a bunk, you need to eyeball the hardware your buddies have brought. In the process, you’ll see that the guns at deer camp are changing. What was walnut and blued steel may now be Kevlar and carbon fiber. The 10 rifles featured here aren’t your father’s deer guns. They’re today’s new camp classics
THE JOURNEY TO PIKE'S PEAK
Last summer, the author and three friends ventured off the grid to a remote fish camp in Canada. They hoped for great fishing, but what they experienced was truly something else
Stage Directions
When early-season whitetails vanish from open feeding areas, follow this woods-edge ambush plan
Rookie Season
A pup’s first year, from preseason training to fall’s big show