FOR ONCE, I CAN SEE THE dog. I hadn’t yet gotten a good look at my pal Scott Wood’s almost- famous beagle, Bailey. I’ve heard about her for a couple of years now, how she lives high on steak and bacon—to steal a Jimmy Buffet line—and camps on the sofa for nine months a year. Then, at the strike of the rabbit opener, she transforms from a chubby city pumpkin into a bunny-hunting machine. And for the last hour, Bailey has been exactly that.
She has run two rabbits in great, looping arcs through thick woods. Now I spot her, 5 feet away, nosing gingerly through a wall of greenbrier. She is literally suspended in air, having clawed into a wad of briers so thick, it holds her aloft. I watch, mesmerized, as Bailey turns herself almost upside down inside the vines and stickers, swimming a beagly backstroke with not a single foot on the ground. She doesn’t utter a peep. She fights for every inch. When she gets perhaps two claws’ worth of purchase on terra firma, she extricates herself from the black hole of thorns, takes a single deep breath, and buries her nose in the dirt. And then she’s off again, bolting down the scent trail.
BAILEY’S PACK
Denne historien er fra December 2019 - January 2020-utgaven av Field & Stream.
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Denne historien er fra December 2019 - January 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.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
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