Entries for August 2012

It's been a great month for "Inside the Box." Phil has delivered some awesome gear to my office. We unboxed a lantern from ThermaCELL, a range bag/gun-cleaning kit from Remington, the Flex Cam camera mount, and clearly the most popular with nearly 200 comments, the Leupold rangefinder. So, guess what we're giving away? Find out now, and see if you're the winner!

Starting tomorrow, you'll be given the opportunity to win one of the greatest prize packages ever presented by the North American Hunting Club. Stay tuned for all the important sign-up details.

On my way home from work yesterday evening, I came to a halt at a stoplight and began the ritualistic inspection of my facial hair in the rearview mirror of my truck. Completely distracted by my cosmetic antics, I caught enough movement from the corner of my eye in time to look out the passenger-side window and see some hoodlum pull up to the line, his head bobbin’ and weavin’ to what I assumed was some heavy rap crap blaring behind the glass of his rolled-up windows. He was driving a silver and rusted-orange Corolla that must’ve been born sometime during my high school years, and it was as ugly as the girls that chased me in high school, too.

I don't read a lot of books, but I will assert that I'm a damn good judge of a "great read" when it comes to anything related to the outdoors and hunting. That's because I spend an unhealthy number of hours belly up in front of a computer screen, consuming endless portions of outdoor media, most being of the written sort. When I opened an e-mail from someone at Random House—book-publishing giant—a few weeks ago, with an offer to receive a pre-release copy of Steven Rinella's latest work, I was all over it.

DPMS Panther Arms is a fierce cat in the firearms industry—a force to be reckoned with. The pulse of this black-gun beast echoes throughout the arteries of the world from its heart in central Minnesota. From there, AR-15s are produced by the truckload and shipped to thousands of freedom fighters and hungry hunters.

Hunting black bears is exciting from a treestand, but climb down and go face-to-face with big bruins and your blood will boil. That's what I did during my trip to Alberta this spring, and I brought my video camera along. Now you get to enjoy the heart-pounding action while a wary, big boar steps within spitting distance and I come to full draw.

This week on Winchester's Deadly Passion I head overseas for some intense action on the Dark Continent. You don't want to miss it.

A battle over renaming the California agency entrusted with managing fish and wildlife continues to boil in a state Senate committee, where it's being criticized by sportsmen and some lawmakers who contend it's equally anti-hunting and an enormous waste of taxpayers' money.

Boy howdy, we've hit the big time. We now have Jeff Foxworthy as a fellow blogger. I kinda feel like I'm now the opening act for Elvis. OK, maybe not Elvis, but you get the idea.

During the summer of 1992, I worked as a fishing guide with Bristol Bay Lodge in Alaska. Most of my time was spent at an outpost camp that consisted of a single 10x20-foot tent. Because my tent was set on a gravel bar peninsula of the Togiak River, I often had to deal with hungry brown bears. Thankfully, they weren’t interested in the meat and potatoes I stored in my tent (no trees to hang a food pack). Instead, they fished for live salmon or chewed on the dead ones that washed ashore.