My hunting and fishing pals are as maddening as I am
MISERY LOVES COMPANY
MY OLDEST FRIENDS are self-centered whack jobs, shameless con artists, or six kinds of strange.
If we didn’t hunt and fish together, I sometimes wonder whether we’d be friends at all. Don’t get me wrong. I love these guys. It’s just that I can’t stand them much of the time. I was telling some guy at a party about how bent they all are when he said, “Well, they’re your friends. Don’t you have to wonder what that says about you?” Actually, I decided, I didn’t. I asked if he thought the Patriots would win the Super Bowl again this year.
The best thing about long-standing friendships is that you stop thinking about them. Neither of you need pretend to be other than what you are. You think aloud without worrying about hurting the other guy’s feelings because you’ve learned he has no feelings. He feels exactly the same about you. But you’ve each put up with the other for so long that the habit is hard to break.
This story is from the December 2017 - January 2018 edition of Field & Stream.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the December 2017 - January 2018 edition of Field & Stream.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
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
