LIVING THE DREAM
Field & Stream|Volume 125 - Issue 4, 2020
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
T. Edward Nickens
LIVING THE DREAM
ALL OF MY HUNTING LIFE, MOOSE have haunted my dreams. Literally, since I was a child, I have had the same dream. The basic storyline never changes, but as I’ve matured as an outdoorsman, the details have become more specific and meaningful.

I’m in a Maine Guide canoe with a long-shafted beavertail paddle in hand. A lever rifle leans against the bow thwart. My guide and I cruise slowly around a sharp bend in the stream, careful to keep the bow from scraping on the river gravel. Brook trout dimple the water. Mosquitoes buzz. The guide grunts and bellows with a rolled birch-bark call, and the sound seems to skip over the water like a thrown stone, mellowing as it reaches the far shore. I scan the dense woods, picking apart the latticed boughs for the glint of an antler or the horizontal line of belly or back. In the dream, I am looking for pieces and parts of a moose and then, suddenly, the bull is right there, complete, at the water’s edge, silhouetted in front of a sheen of sunlit spruce.

And that’s how it ends. Every time. The dream never progresses beyond this point—no matter how many times I have had it, no matter how often I lie in bed trying to fall back to sleep so I can dream my way into slowly reaching for the gun, as the guide braces the boat for the rifle’s recoil. Over the years, I came to accept that a moose hunt might be a dream I would never have the chance to live. But if I did, I didn’t want to scout from a truck and hunt from a road. I wanted my dream— canoes, remote waters, paddling under the early- morning stars, stalking and calling, and nothing easy

Denne historien er fra Volume 125 - Issue 4, 2020-utgaven av Field & Stream.

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Denne historien er fra Volume 125 - Issue 4, 2020-utgaven av Field & Stream.

Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.

FLERE HISTORIER FRA FIELD & STREAMSe alt
Field & Stream

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

time-read
10+ mins  |
Volume 125 - Issue 4, 2020
Field & Stream

Get the Drift

How to make an accurate windage call under pressure

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4 mins  |
Volume 125 - Issue 4, 2020
First Sit
Field & Stream

First Sit

An icebreaker outing in a pristine spot produces the rut hunt of a lifetime

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4 mins  |
Volume 125 - Issue 4, 2020
Field & Stream

A Local Haunt

The author finds a sense of place in an overlooked creek, close to home

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4 mins  |
Volume 125 - Issue 4, 2020
A Hop and a Pump
Field & Stream

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

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4 mins  |
Volume 125 - Issue 4, 2020
Welcome TO camp
Field & Stream

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.

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10+ mins  |
Volume 125 - Issue 3, 2020
Field & Stream

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

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8 mins  |
Volume 125 - Issue 3, 2020
Field & Stream

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

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10 mins  |
Volume 125 - Issue 3, 2020
Stage Directions
Field & Stream

Stage Directions

When early-season whitetails vanish from open feeding areas, follow this woods-edge ambush plan

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5 mins  |
Volume 125 - Issue 3, 2020
Field & Stream

Rookie Season

A pup’s first year, from preseason training to fall’s big show

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5 mins  |
Volume 125 - Issue 3, 2020