Glass it’s all about the glass. That’s what everyone tells you about picking an excellent rifle scope. The problem is that to really appreciate what that means, you need to take it out into the field. 

Sure, you can see across the sporting goods store and see what a mounted elk or deer looks like, quartered by the reticle. You can even walk outside and check the scope in natural light out on the street. But, it’s the evaluating in the field that really tells of the quality of a scope you’ve put on your rifle. And, contrary to what you may think I find that that when checking glass, it’s not the long shots that indicate glass quality, but the close ones in the brush.

This is for two important reasons: clear definition of reticle against distraction, such as branches and vines; and light transmission in low-light conditions. What I was reminded on a pig hunt in Northern California awhile back is that the RR-600-1 3-9X42mm Rapid Reticle scope not only has an impressive lens system, but everything about the scopes is high quality and of excellent durability. Were this scope available twenty years ago, it would have easily been in the $2,500 to $3,500 range. That was before prices dropped because China got into the market with some very good components and opened opportunities for a number of scope manufacturers over the years.

What PFI has done is stay true to the “high quality at a reasonable price” philosophy that scope manufacturers on the Pacific side followed as compared to the heavily unionized competitors in Europe, who charge an arm and leg for optics that if it weren’t for their two-to-three-hundred-year-old brand doing the selling the price would be much, much lower. PFI stuck to standards of glass that negated China, and remained true to Japanese glass. No one in Asia, or most of the rest of the world for that matter, makes glass as good as the Japanese. Anyone who has ever had to work professionally with a camera can attest to that, whether your loyalties fit Nikon or Canon.  Like all good scopes, the PFI glass is multi-coated: contrary to the myths perpetrated by German and Austrian scope sales reps in the 1980s and early 1990s, that many gun writers bought into, it’s the lens and types of lens coatings that improve your ability to see in twilight, not whether you’ve got a humongous objective bell and a 30 mm tube. There are reasons for a 30 mm but they revolve more around adjustments than use once the scope is set…especially if you don’t need to make  turret adjustments, like come-ups, on a more traditional long-range scope.

The tube is black anodized 6061 T6 aluminum tubing, which is not only strong but light. But, as I say, what is it about PFI that makes their scopes unique and above so many? It’s the reticle.

The innovative and fast RR-600 Rapid Reticle

If you were introduced to long-range shooting in the military post-Vietnam, likely you went through some training in mildot. It was a number of calculations to determine angles and distances. It was not fast, even for the fastest. The Rapid Reticle on the other hand, is fast and accurate!

Their reticle design is based on the premise that a variety of cartridges deliver a bullet trajectory that can be grouped with others. For example, a 150gr. .30-06 is similar to a 150gr.  .308 Winchester, and a 150gr. .280 Remington.  Based on this premise, John Pride and Mickey Fowler, both winners of the Bianchi Cup, designed the Rapid Reticle to not only provide ranging, but also ballistic drop compensation. What they did that was innovative, getting away from the way it was normally done with mildot for range estimation and turret come-ups for compensating for bullet drop.

They took trajectories and grouped them. For the RR-600 it was a number of common hunting rounds. For the RR-800 and RR-900, it was a collection of trajectory compatible military rounds used in the military sniping community. From this data, they designed a reticle for each line of scopes that enables the shooter to simply adjust for drop by laying the range-corresponding stadia line on the target. Though the RR-600 doesn’t have range estimation, the RR-900 does. This was accomplished was by integrating the Rapid Ranging system.

The Rapid Ranging system is based on the average head being nine inches tall. By measuring a nine-inch target with the bracket system on the RR-CQLR-1, or the head-and-shoulder Rapid Ranging system on the RR-900-1, you can easily discern your target’s distance. Reports from the hunting field and the battlefield have been excellent: a number of endorsements which are on their site. It’s a scope that that can be used to get an SDM (squad designated marksman) qualified for long-range shooting in a fraction of the time that it would take get a sniper qualified on the standard milidot and turret system.

Not only a good looking and functioning scope system, it’s just plain simple.  And when there’s a lot of stress, as in combat, or even the jitters that might hit a hunter during that moment of truth, the better it is to not have to fiddle with a lot of things like calculations and making sure you gone through the process of doing your come-ups. It’s one thing to be on a hunt when you’re calm and in charge of time. It’s another when your team has been ambushed and you’re suddenly on counter-sniper detail: the Rapid Reticle and Rapid Ranging system earn their bars on this one.

Three-shot groups for 200 yards, 300 yards, and 400 yards at 100 yards for a .280 Remington

So simple, all you have to do with the RR-600 is sight it in at 200 yards, check for 400 yards, and you’re ready to go. I sighted in for 200 yards at 100 yards and then walked my rounds up the paper to see the variations per each stadia line. As a kid with his first 4-plex-reticled scope back in the late 1970s, the innovations in the market have been stupendous, but not in a long while has a manufacturer come out with something as fast, accurate and durable as the Pride Fowler Industries Rapid Reticle line of scopes.

Happily, you won’t have to make sure you’ve got change in your pocket, either! Don’t you just hate being at the range and realizing after searching your pocket that you’ll have to ask some next to you if they’ve got change, or you’ll have to use one of the screwdrivers that becaue of its shape will automatically scratch or mar the notch in the top of the turret in order to make elevation and windage adjustments to get zeroed? The designers at PFI made sure that all you have to do is unscrew and remove the turret covers and adjust by turning the adjustments with your fingers–now how sensible and forward-thinking is that? I’m still wondering who in the world was the ning-nong who came up with the penny or dime slots for getting your scope on target.

No more digging in your pockets for change!

Also, as everyone knows, wind can kill a good shot. The RR-600 stadia line lengths help compensate for left and right winds up to 10 miles per hour.

That’s not to say that when you’re out in the field you can extend the range of your “hail Marys”. What it does enable is the opportunity to make very accurate shots out at ranges well within the capabilities of your round, such as 200 to 500 yards. It’s something I’m looking forward to reporting further on this fall.

To get your own RR-600, order directly through their website: www.rapidreticle.com  

For your daily commute on your MP3 player – Download and Enjoy the interview of Pride Fowler Industries Vice President Richard Nguyen, on Cork’s Outdoors Radio:

Bill Skinner, a freelance cameraman for CNN, CBS and a number of other media organizations, had finished his latest contract shooting for the US State Department in Afghanistan. So, getting away to enjoy one of his passions, tactical-style firearms, was a nice respite. There were the Armalites, Colts, Springfield Amory, Browning offerings—I ran through a nice .308 offering from Armalite that I’ll look forward to trying in the field for wild boar in Texas. After a few well-placed shots into the metal targets at Springfield Armory’s range with what is a sweet-shooting version of the 1911, the Range Officer, we walked up the hill to Winchester’s display of the new Razorback XT, in .223 Remington and .308 Winchester.

Because of how the proliferation of AR-15 style rifles have inundated the market, and been effectively used in the battle against the overpopulation of ole Mr. Razorback in states like Texas, what better decision than to release a powder and projectile match as these rounds with a proper bullet to rip through hog hide and gristle and reach the vitals in a large pig?

The Armalite offering for wild boar?

The Razorback XT .223 round was released in a 64-grain bullet, while the .308 version is delivered in a 150-grain. Some might think that a .223 round is a little too light for feral pig hunting, but up to 200 yards, this round does it job. For someone who hunts most of his feral hogs in California, and often in the lead-free zone of Central California, the non-lead attributes of the Razorback XT is a God send! It is specially designed to not start deforming until after having pierced the hog’s armor. Now, all we have to do is get around the legal restrictions of the AR-10 and AR-15 design in California, which is laughable.

…Right after putting a number of Razorbacks down range, Skinner and I nwent over to the shotgun range to check out the latest release of Winchester’s wildly successful Blind Side.

An impressive, light load that patterns well!

This year they’re releasing a #5-shot load in 2-3/4-inch shell, along with a #2-shot load. From the way it patterns it looks like a great round to get those ducks in the 25 to 40-yard range…my favorite for shooting over decoys. Check out the latest episode of Cork’s Outdoors TV below:

If you remember the British cooking series, Two Fat Ladies, of PBS and BBC fame, you’ll immediately recognize Clarissa Dickson Wright as the taller of the two, not the proud chainsmoker who passed away from lung cancer in 1999.  Dickson Wright is the co-author of The Game Cookbook with Scottish farmer and outdoorsman, Johnny Scott.    

A gorgeously illustrated review copy sent to us by the publisher, The Game Cookbook takes standard table game and puts a variation on it that brings out the best qualities through innovative experimentation, with classic recipes and those that seem to have been magically created by neighbors on the other side of the authors’ hedge.    

Included are recipes that are very traditional in the UK and Europe. Others reach to the Middle East and South Asia, modified from recipes based in preparing more traditional farm-raised meats. Well-read and always willing to tell a story, Dickson Wright colors the recipes with asides of family histories and remembrances of foreign travel and meals had with friends.    

You’ll find that it’s very much a UK book with such references as “wapiti”, which those of us in the US and Canada recognize as elk: what they call elk in Europe and the UK, we call moose in North America.    

The artwork gracing the pages is a mix of old paintings, of hunting and fishing in North America and Europe, even movie stills (James Mason looks quite dashing with a side-by-side), and then photos of completed dishes just as beautiful as the sketches and historical art. Together they bring to the reader the old and new of game and fish cuisine, along with anecdotes that can prepare the neophyte hunter or angler for their first hunting or fishing experience.    

At the end of the book is a listing of hunting and fishing organizations in the UK and US, along with a collection of wildlife agencies in the United States. For those who might not be personally able to collect their own main component of a game or fish dish, a listing of game suppliers offering meat farm-raised animals (unlike in Europe, where wild game and fish are sold in many shops, the selling of true wild game in the US has been illegal for years) provides an option.    

One of the topics that I keyed in on, because it puts so much fear in the new game chef, is aging. In the US of late, as the tradition of hunting has skipped one, two or even three generations, the result of more Americans moving into urban areas in pursuit of employment, the art of aging has been forgotten. If you read some of the forums on the Internet, there’s such an intimidation toward aging and meat contamination that it can sometimes be humorous, sometimes sad…. What would people do if suddenly our refrigerators no longer worked and we were suddenly dumped into a kitchen life experience most families had up until the end of the early part of the last century?    

Aging was a heavily practiced technique for stretching the day’s take, improving flavor and tenderizing a tough old bird, or side of venison. It all has to do with air temperature and humidity: cool and moist tops the list, and extends the aging time. The author goes through the aging process for just about every meat type taken, from grouse, to pheasant to venison.    

There are also recipes for those that might not be specifically sought in the US and Canada, but are looked forward to in Europe and the UK, such as carp. There are recipes for grouse, pheasant, elk, moose, antelope, caribou, wild boar, partridge (chukar), quail, dove, American woodcock, snipe, hare (jackrabbit), cottontail, salmon trout, sea trout, zander (yellow perch), pike and of course goose.    

At the back just before the meat supplier’s list, is a collection of recipes for compotes, sauces and stocks bringing out the best flavors of the dish.    

When it came to testing a recipe, I decided it was time to use one of the many pheasants that Ziggy had pointed out for me last year—the dish quick to prepare and a rich, creamy mix of flavors!    

PHEASANT WITH NOODLES AND HORSERADISH CREAM

A bit sweet. A bit tangy. All delicious!

Ingredients:    

• 1/3 cup (3/4 stick) butter
• 4 pheasant breasts
• 4 shallots, chopped (if unavailable, use 4 tablespoons of chopped mild onions)
• 1 clove garlic
• 2 tbsp bottled horseradish, or 1 tbsp strong fresh horseradish, grated.
• Juice of ½ lemon
• 2/3 cup heavy cream
• 1 packet black or green Italian noodles or make your own chestnut noodles (enough for 4 people)
• small bunch of parsley, chopped
• salt and pepper to taste

Steps:    

1. Heat the butter in a heavy frying pan for which you have lid
2. Sauté the pheasant breasts until they are sealed
3. Remove them and sauté the shallots and the garlic until the shallots are pale gold
4. Remove and discard the garlic clove
5. Stir the horseradish into the shallots
6. Add a tbsp, or so, of water and the lemon juice
7. Return the breasts to the pan, add the cream, and cover
8. Cook gently for 15-20 minutes, until the breasts are cooked
9. If the sauce is too wet, remove the breasts and zap up the heat to reduce
10. If it’s too dry, add a little more cream or some dry white white wine
11. Cook the noodles according the package instructions and drain
12. Serve the noodles with the pheasant
13. Sprinkle the chopped parsley on top.

RELATED LINKS:    

• Hank Shaw’s Retro-Fabulous Pheasant
• Hank’s Roast Pheasant with Prickly Pear Glaze
• Ultimate Pheasant Hunting’s List of Pheasant Recipes

Tim Abell on assignment for GRATEFUL NATION in Namibia

With such a thick anti-hunting attitude delivered in so many films these days, except those written by hunters themselves, such as playwright and screenwriter David Mamet, it’s hard to think that Hollywood was once a hotbed of hunting, fishing and other forms of wildlife management. This was when Clark Gable took David Niven up to Grants Pass for steelhead and then later studio public relations photos of Carole Lombard and Clark Gable often captured them with a string of mallards and snow geese proudly held up to the photographer. In a black and white studio promotional photo, Ginger Rogers lay seductively, with a cane pole and in cutoffs and flannel shirt, like a tomboy on a lush lawn, a full stringer of rainbow trout by her side—probably taken at her 1,000-acre Rogers’s Rogue River Ranch purchased in 1940, that I had the opportunity to see last week on a trip for steelhead and salmon with my friends Paul Winterbottom and Jeff Manuel, in a drift boat loaned by mutual friend, Dave Dedrick. Even interviews of Fred Astaire, included a reporter being told that he was going up to his duck club east of Los Angeles to take care of a coyote problem.

As a writer, I’ve had the opportunity to meet and become friends with those contemporary actors and stars who still shine not only as actors but also as hunters. Some I’ve had a long hunting and fishing relationship with, like my wild boar hunting buddy Patrick Kilpatrick. Some I’ve even had the help and endorsement of, like the dear departed Charlton Heston, who was kind enough to write a plug for the inside cover of my memoir that went to #2 for three weeks in 2004 on Amazon.com. Over the last couple years, I’ve come to know and admire an actor by the name of Tim Abell, who so reminds me of that dashing adventurous actor reminiscent of a time when Hollywood’s elite lived such amazing lives off the set themselves (Errol Flynn, David Niven, Gary Cooper, Jimmy Stewart, Lee Marvin, Audie Murphy, Clark Gable and directors John Ford and William A. Wellman quickly come to mind) that sometimes their film roles seemed to not even come close.

To say that someone like Tim Abell is a military veteran, hunter and member of the Screen Actors Guild is very refreshing. Haven’t you also gotten fed up with actors who are terrified of guns, or prominently tout their anti-gun or anti-hunting status, but hire well-armed bodyguards, eat meat killed by someone else, and make their millions off movies in which they kill people by the truckloads on screen? An ex-Army Ranger, Abell, knows exactly what those real bullets do in real-life. A hunter and solid conservationist, he understands clearly where his sustenance comes from.

Cork Graham's Cold War memories: Salvadoran Navy SEALs -- Las Arañas, El Salvador; 1986

Born and raised on the East Coast, near Quantico, VA, Tim Abell learned to hunt with his Marine uncle and even took his first deer on the Marine Corps base. And after reading the book that has inspired so many young American men since the Vietnam War, Robin Moore’s Green Berets (made into a film by John Wayne in 1968), Abell enlisted in the US Army and became a Ranger. While in university, seeking a degree that would offer him the opportunity to try for a full commission, Abell found a love for the arts, specifically theater. And the rest is history as many are oft to say of those who make it in Hollywood.

While putting in his dues, and not finding many willing to speak openly about their affinity for hunting or firearms, Abell’s hunting went by the wayside as he went through the required networking parties and dinners, keeping mum about hunting and shooting. But when called out on the floor about beliefs that don’t fit perfectly with the rest of the Hollywood-types programmed by the anti-hunting industry (PETA/HSUS), or more accurately unwilling to speak up for fear of ramifications to their own employment (doesn’t this remind you of the fear during the McCarthy years?), Abell speaks his mind when asked…even when it might not get him invited again to the same house…

It takes guts to speak up in Hollywood these days, the pendulum swing of the McCarthy Red Communist hunts of the 1950s gone completely to the other extreme: it’s not those who supported the Soviet Union during the Cold War who are blacklisted now; but instead, those who support the 2nd Amendment of The Constitution, hunting as a solid component of wildlife conservation,  the United States’s right (like every nation) to defend itself, and those men and women serving in that military action…Is it truly being patriotic, or military-friendly, when it’s convenient, as so blatantly with the change in attitudes in Hollywood after the recent sweeping win at the Academy Awards of a military movie: Hunt Locker?…It’s easy to be patriotic when the masses are with you; it’s courageous when they aren’t.

…As one who enjoys studying cycles of history, I’m very intrigued by how long it’ll be before that pendulum swings once again away from that anti-hunting, anti-military mass thought, it had swung to in an unnatural extreme during the 1970s and 1980s and back to the pro-hunting, efficient wildlife conservation practices it espoused during the 1920s to 1960s.

Surprisingly, Abell found his way back to hunting while working on his first break as a ex-Marine sniper Benny Ray Riddle on Bruckheimer Productions’s Soldier of Fortune for NBC. As they were filming in Canada, co-star Brad Johnson invited Abell on a hunt into Northern Canada for caribou and black bear. For Abell, the adventure was like breathing fresh air after too long a time submerged. From then on he was part of the small, but proud to be publicly recognized as those in the film business who also hunt and believe in the 2nd Amendment of the United States Constitution: Tom Selleck, Charlton Heston, Patrick Kilpatrick, John Milius, Steve Kanaly, Gary Sinise, Adam Baldwin, DB Sweeney, to name a few.

To say Tim Abell became a hunting enthusiast is an understatement, as I’m sure anyone can relate to, who is passionate about hunting, been away from it then once again renewed that bond with such an important part of the human psyche as well, because of fund from taxed hunters, so supportive of all animals. To correct all that anti-hunting malarkey taken for fact, all of hunting taxes and fees go to the buying and supporting lands for ALL wildlife, while most, if not all, of the money collected by anti-hunting groups such as PETA and Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) goes to advertising…if these anti-hunting groups actually succeed in wiping out hunting in the world, it’ll be the wildlife that suffers the most!

GRATEFUL NATION

Tim Abell's succcess with a new .338 Federal on wild boar on GRATEFUL NATION

For many the idea of having combat veterans out in the field, hunting with a firearm, may seem out of place. As a combat veteran who attributes my own healing of four years in the Central America War, through the immediately following experience as a subsistence hunter, living with and learning from a Native community in Alaska, I am thrilled that people are beginning to get it…again.

Until the Vietnam War, hunting was an activity that a majority of combat veterans participated in upon their return home: it’s one of the reasons that the bolt-action and semi-auto rifles took over as the hunting rifles of choice in America after WWI, from the previously preferred lever-action-many of those returning young men were introduced to bolt-action rifles in the military (explains why presently so many black rifles have become hunting rifles with so many hunters introduced to firearms an assault rifle). The surge is what led to the megamillion dollar surge in business for hunting, fishing and camping products manufacturers from 1920 to 1970. As a combat veteran myself, I noticed how being in the woods with a rifle brought up memories of war that I was able to confront on my time as compared to a sudden sideswiping PTS (post-traumatic stress) flashback or nightmare.

Cork Graham healing war memories as a subsistence hunter in Alaska, circa 1990

Later, as a counselor specializing in helping veterans and other types of trauma survivors dealing with PTS and the symptoms of what I prefer to call the PTSR, I truly understood how going into the field, carrying that firearm, much as might have occurred only weeks and months before in battle, but now instead hunting game for the table, creates a new subconscious imprint, in the healing of the wilds, on an activity that if not dealt with, comes up weeks, month or even many years later in an uncontrollable event.

For some this uncontrollable event can be as benign as becoming completely overcome by a seemingly uncontrollable mega-wave of sadness and guilt, for others it can manifest as an uncontrollable rockslide of rage that ends in someone getting killed. For many though, especially those who’ve drunk the Kool-Aid disseminated by anti-hunting groups, the fact that hunting can actually help a trauma survivor confront and overcome the contemporary effects of conscious and subconscious memories and interpretations of the past trauma seems so contrary to what many think.

That Orion Multimedia, LLC. produced Federal Premium’s Grateful Nation was brave. That ESPN2 would broadcast a program that touches on the controversial subject of putting a firearm in the hands of a newly returned combat veteran (much less anything that brings the reality of a war nearing 10 years long into American public’s living room in addendum to daily news), and have them go through a form of healing and self-awareness spurred on by the host’s questions, on camera is amazing!

The premise of Grateful Nation is very simple and like we used to say when deep in a fierce fight: the quickest path to victory is a forward-moving straight line—keep it simple, stupid (KISS). Invited out on a hunt, the combat veteran is followed by the camera crew as Abell asks the right questions at the right time to open up a world that the majority of the viewing public have only learned of through the images and words, often distant from those combatants actually being reported on, to support a news producer’s theme.

Abell makes this much more personal, which actually might turn off many because of the graphic description. Personally, I’m very much for it. There has been a great avoidance in the world about dealing with the realities of the world, much of it starting with children led to believe their hamburgers and fish sticks come from a cellophane wrapping machine, instead of a steer getting a cattle prod to the brain, or a salmon a metal club to the top of its head and a quick evisceration.

There’s something very honest about knowing where your meat comes from, and knowing what your sons and daughters are getting themselves into when they go off to war. Do I think this stops war? No. Even with all the news stories, books, and broadcast over the last 50 years, there are more wars happening around the world now than there were during the Cold War. My hope is that the American public gains a better awareness of what a combat veteran has gone through and recognizes it, and lets them deal with it in a healthy and effective manner (and not only offer politically correct, and often, ineffective options) during their homecoming.

For those of us who remember vividly how unjustly military personnel, and especially Vietnam veterans (takes a lot of mass harassment for a veteran to not even be willing to mention military service on their job resume—the case for many returning Vietnam veterans, a historical fact forgotten by many), were treated in those 15 years after the fall of Saigon, Grateful Nation is a media and cultural waymark long overdue…something to ponder as we come upon Memorial Day, an annual event meant for remembrance of those we’ve lost in war, either those right next to us in combat, or far off in a distant land.

For your daily commute on your MP3 player – Download and Enjoy Tim Abell’s interview on Cork’s Outdoors Radio:

 Topics:

Track 1: Tim Abell talks about Grateful Nation and next production at Flying B Ranch.

Track 2: Tim Abell reminisces about first times hunting, enlistment in the US Army and achievement of Rangers, paying dues in Hollywood, and return to hunting.

Track 3: Tim Abell chats about pro-2nd Amendment/hunting Hollywood players, and upcoming film projects he’ll be participating in.

Craig Boddington, and his guide, Cano St. Antonin, with a fine red stag taken on the Huemul Peninsula.

Argentina conjures a variety of images for those who’ve never been there. There’re the gauchos, the Pampas, and tango. For the angler there are the monster-sized trout and salmon in rivers that seem untouched because of the stretch of land that fills the borders of the country as well as its meager population that centers around Buenos Aires. For the hunter, there are the photos and images of ducks and big-game that have graced magazines, and as of late, those through the onslaught of 24-hour outdoors satellite programming.

It wasn’t always like this. Yes, there were the trout, back in the 1970s when South American was truly only a blip on the salmonid fanatic’s radar; but when I first saw the images of red deer antlers grace the pages of hunting magazines in the late 70s and early 80s, they were nowhere near the size and impressiveness they are now.

Much of this has to do with how well they’ve managed the herds that were previously left to roam without any real predation-like bluegills in a pond, they quickly overpopulated and their rack size dwindled in response to the lack of food and nutrients.

Because of the new land and wildlife management practices implemented in Argentina during the last 20 years, Argentina is really giving New Zealand’s Utopian red stag hunting a run for the money. Culling the scrawny genetics, and managing for quality instead of quantity, has created a balance between feed and minerals: showing how good management practices benefit not just game animals but non-game peripherals, adding to the grand beauty of the land  and hospitality for which Argentina has always been known.

What better way to cook meat than in a traditional parrillada?

Big Game Argentina records the results of this improved bounty for the outdoors enthusiast wanting to travel Argentina and is the latest offering from Gen. Craig Boddington USMC (ret.). An outdoor writer, book author, show host I’ve admired and respected for years, a man who offered me words to live by back in 1994 as an newbie outdoor writer for The Times of San Mateo County, Boddington’s credentials speak for themselves with over 30 years in what is one of the harder and becoming more and more the hardest writing profession to create longevity.

In his book and DVD collection about hunting in Argentina, Big Game Argentina, Boddington and the photographer, Guillermo Zorraquin, deliver a plethora of what’s available in striking detail (what we in the business call “NGC”, National Geographic Color). From the province of Patagonia, north to Chaco and Santiago Del Estero, west to La Pampa and finally east to the province of Buenos Aires, Boddington and the publishers John John Reynal  and Juan Pablo Reynal took on an enviable, yet sobering project that took two years to complete.

In the offering, they delivered what I consider the most informative and beautifully illustrated book in years on Argentina and hunting red stag, white-lipped javelina (peccary), ducks, doves, water buffalo, puma, blackbuck, capybara, brocket deer, and feral sheep, goats and hogs.

Boddington's fine example of a white-lipped peccary

In a world in which text is not enough, and as a result traditional printed magazines are going the way of the dinosaurs, and multimedia is king (explaining why Cork’s Outdoors gets 11,000 hits a day) Big Game Argentina is nicely matched with a DVD that fills in the dialogue and action that can’t really be captured in text, and yet video doesn’t try to replace the informative quality of text delivered by Boddington’s honed skills as a writer.

A quick mention of the charcoal artwork by Esteban Diaz Mathé must be made: the work is superb and really adds to the quality of those images not captured in photographs, making the book anyone would be proud to have sitting on their coffee table for friends to enjoy.

Often, many of those traveling think that hunting Argentina only involves staying at estancias and hunting open Pampas. Big Game Argentina lays that stereotype to rest with text and photos covering with dramatic flare the many options of hunting Argentina: like French Alps-like mountains and New Zealand’s Fjordland-like lake and sea area to the south on horseback, or the low brush options further north, reminiscent of eastern Colorado, and the flat brush of Texas, to name a few.

A sampling of the dramatic views the hunting lands of Argentina offer

As for capturing the adventure and drama a place like Argentina on the DVD, one of the most striking scenes is one in which Boddington, while on stand, waiting for dogs to drive out a collared peccary, sees a brocket deer break from the brushline. Swinging on the brocket with a shotgun, he dramatically takes a nice deer that reminds me of the dik-dik of Africa. In another scene he makes an amazing shot on a capybara, also on a full run. Kudos to the videographer for his skill catching all the action over Boddington’s shoulder.

In contrast to the native species, and aside from the more famous red deer, there are the fallow deer, feral hogs and water buffalo. Raised in Southeast Asia, I was always amazed that the animal I always saw as a child pulling a plow across a rice field had become such a prized game animal in places such as a Australia and Argentina. While the ones from Australia have a much larger sweep and are originally from the wild strain. The ones in South America descend from the farmed water buffalo that were originally brought to what would become Italy by the Ancient Romans, for their milk and the best mozzarella resulting from that water buffalo milk.

Through centuries of genetic selection, much in the same way Herefords are these days chosen over the original Spanish Texas Longhorn as cattle type, the farmed water buffalo has a much smaller horn, with a much less ominous wide curve of its originally wild cousin in Southeast Asia and Australia, which ironically makes it look more African cape buffalo and trophy in its own right in the feral and very wild form covered in Big Game Argentina.

If you’re planning on hunting or even just traveling or Argentina, or prefer the armchair traveler’s voyage to South America, I’d highly recommend adding the book and DVD pairing of Big Game Argentina by Craig Boddington to your collection.

Books are available through www.craigboddington.com

Book and DVD are available through www.patagoniapublishing.com

For your daily commute on your MP3 player – Download and Enjoy Craig Boddington’s interview on Cork’s Outdoors Radio:

 Topics: Hunting Argentina, helpful advice for neophyte outdoor writers, hunting Africa and Boddington’s two shows broadcast on The Sportman’s Channel and Outdoor Channel, and finally what’s new with Boddington’s writing and adventures in the coming weeks and months.

Spice-rubbed wild boar ready to become Babi Guling!

No matter how you cut it, there is a reason that vegetarians suffer from a number of ailments, not the least of which is a deficiency in vitamin B12: humans have developed over thousands of years to be omnivores, not herbivores! Our diets developed over years of evolution to make sure that humans could survive in any environment, something necessary to a species that evolved as a nomadic group, a group who by necessity has had to survive on an opportunistic diet.

The only species more nomadic than humans are the world’s carnivores. Yet what are the most successful species? Always it’s the omnivores: humans, pigs and bears. These are the most successful populations of any large mammals.

But what’s an omnivore to do when disconnected societal vegetarian fads spring up during every generation, either because of religious or cultural fads inspired by powerful advertising? Get in informed…

Such is the important information I found in the masterpiece The River Cottage MEAT Book by UK food personality Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall…it was as though someone from PETA, but someone who actually did their research instead of just offering a knee-jerk emotional response to eating meat so far from reality it’s a crime, wrote a book on cooking healthy, following ecologically sound farming practices.

Meat is good, and good for you! But, as the author says, there’s good meat and there’s bad meat. Or, as Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1755 -1826), “Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are.”

If you get meat from a meat factory that holds its cattle in boxes that prevent movement and they’ve never even had the opportunity to graze in an open field and under a sky light by sunlight and moonlight, you’re going to get an animal full of body chemicals resulting from stress, not to mention the antibiotics and other manmade materials that bring into question their residual effects in our bodies.

Instead, imagine a cow, pig, or lamb enjoying life in a beautiful pasture, feeding well on all the natural grasses and herbs and brush that bring not only incredible flavor to the animal’s meat, but also bring up a healthy offering for the table that makes you feel so sated and happy when you’re done eating. That (aside from some innovative and interesting spins on more traditional British and international recipes) is what Fearnley-Whittingstall brings to the conversation about eating meat that has long been overdue.

We live in a society in the major cities of the US and UK that is so far removed from its roots in the country, that even adults are shocked to find themselves responding strictly emotionally to become strict vegetarians, and trying to legitimize their decision through questionable science.

If you’ve ever ridden on public transportation in Thailand and India, where meat consumption is very low, and seen natives fast asleep with their heads banging against the window as the bus rattles along, you might have noticed a few of the symptoms of long-term vegetarianism: sluggishness, anemia. And, if only eating vegetables is so good for you why do vegetarians so often need vitamin supplements and why do we no longer have more than one stomach, like so many real herbivores—ever wonder what your appendix used to be?

That’s right! It is used to help us digest foliage, as true vegetarians, when we used to move across the great savannahs of prehistoric Africa.

What happened?

We advanced and learned how to make tools. And by learning to make tools we made weapons for killing to eat meat as a main part of our meals instead of just an infrequent lucky addition.

Our brain size development from what we were as a prehistoric man to what we are now resulted from our more regular consumption of meat proteins. Now, I’m not saying that every meal should have a meat protein, but mixed with a full offering of colors and varieties of vegetables, fruits and nuts and I think you’ll notice a not only a more calming, but reaffirming experience, and definitely less-stressed, daily experience.

Personally, I’ve tried a vegetarian diet. As an effort toward spiritual, mental and physiological cleansing as a form of fasting from meat, seafood and birds, it’s very effective. But any longer than that, have you also noticed how weak and sluggish you feel after the initial cleansing has occurred? That’s your body telling you something!

Meat gives you strength. And when you eat a bit much of beef, it does seem to deliver a bit of an aggressive attitude to a person’s personality. This is an observation that goes to at least as far back as Dickens and Oliver Twist:

‘It’s not Madness, ma’am,’ replied Mr. Bumble, after a few moments of deep meditation. ‘It’s Meat.’

‘What?’ exclaimed Mrs. Sowerberry.

‘Meat, ma’am, meat,’ replied Bumble, with stern emphasis.

‘You’ve over-fed him, ma’am. You’ve raised a artificial soul and spirit in him, ma’am unbecoming a person of his condition: as the board, Mrs. Sowerberry, who are practical philosophers, will tell you. What have paupers to do with soul or spirit? It’s quite enough that we let ‘em have live bodies. If you had kept the boy on gruel, ma’am, this would never have happened.’

‘Dear, dear!’ ejaculated Mrs. Sowerberry, piously raising her eyes to the kitchen ceiling: ‘this comes of being liberal!’

Heaven forbid the peasants get fed meat!

I do notice that I too can get a little pointed in my comments and hot under the collar when I’ve eaten beef more than four or five days straight, and not had it as part of a well-balanced meal that includes some grains, vegetables and fruit. I must also add that I’ve never had any type of aggressive response with the other red meat: venison.

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall makes a great case that there’s nothing as satisfying as a well-prepared and cooked slab of meat that came from a farm animal living a good life on a farm, instead of a prison-like slaughter yard. And yet, he doesn’t shield the reader for the realities of eating-and why should he? Cellophane-wrapped meat that makes children think that our food comes neat and clean from a machine is why we’re having the drastic disconnect problem we’re in now!

The photos of slaughtering and butchering, which reminded me of police photos I’ve seen of crime scenes and scenes in the city morgue on CSI were a bit shocking…but perhaps because even with my field experiences killing and butchering wild game, even doing something as close farm animal slaughtering as killing a farm-raised goat with .22 and butchering it in a woods glen in Alaska, I’d never done my basic butchering in a slaughter house, i.e., the animal is still whole, in an antiseptic, white-walled room.

Kind of gave me the creeps, seeing that steer’s live eyes as a pneumatic piston gun is put to its head. Then, the next frame is the dead eye as he lies on his side…but, like the vegemite-sundaes like to say, if you can’t deal with the honesty of the death of the animal, can you really condone the eating of meat?

Yes, I accept the honesty of the fact that something died so that I can live. And there’s something contrary, to that which the vegemite-sundaes like to think of selectively: they don’t respect, or really are afraid to accept, that EVERYTHING lives because something dies. Is the only reason that vegetarians condone the killing of vegetables and fruits is that they can’t hear them scream—and who are they to think that all living things don’t feel their death and scream…that it’s only that humans don’t normally speak the language of carrots?

Many aboriginal societies revered and respected that fact that all living things, and in their thinking, inanimate objects are alive, and die and scream when their killing is brought about with little respect: that includes carrots that are just ripped out of the ground without first being asked to offer themselves to the upcoming meal.

Are vegemite-sundaes only vegetarians because they can’t deal with death being a fact of life in all its forms?

I leave that up for you to decide…all I know is that when I’ve dealt with strict vegetarians their avoidance of Nature’s facts are often deplorable: they come off as seeming to think that only the furry and cute creatures on this planet deserve to live, and everything else that can’t be heard to scream, or doesn’t run away when you try to eat it, is okay to eat, in other words, kill.

I don’t have time for vegemite-sundaes because everyone of them comes off as a hypocrite when you really get to know their beliefs and understandings about what the Earth so graciously provides—to them, it’s all about avoidance of that cycle of death that Nature has put all on living creatures….and it seems…nature is the very one to remind vegemite-sundaes that their diet isn’t what we’ve evolved towards over thousands of years of eating meat, with vegetarians setting themselves up for osteoporosis and B12 deficiency, making itself known through the following symptoms: confusion or change in mental status in severe or advanced cases, decreased sense of vibration, diarrhea, fatigue, loss of appetite, numbness and tingling of hands and feet, pallor, shortness of breath, sore mouth and tongue, weakness.

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall still seems to offer an olive branch to the PETA folks, though I think anyone who considers themselves a “true” vegetarian will never accept that branch other than to further their agenda, as organizations like PETA and HSUS continue to do right now, saying that they just want to improve conditions for animals, when all their directors just want more money (if you’ve ever dealt with an unscrupulous animal rights ‘non-profit’ you really know where the money and how being ‘non-profit’ doesn’t mean being poor) and to stop all hunting: they’d have all native tribes in cities living on canned vegetarian foods if they had their dithers…

…Yet again they perpetuate what the urbanization of humans has done all along: a total disconnect between humans and our origins…and no, a quick hike through the woods is really as disconnected as the average PETA true believer, stuck in an apartment with their only sense of wildlife a pet cat or their Chihuahua, heavily modified through thousands of years of breeding for Aztec and Mayan dining halls. Hikers in the woods are like sex voyeurs, titillated by what they see, but not willing, and often afraid, to get down and dirty with its realities.

We’ve gotten so far away from what enabled us to survive in a real world that I sometimes wonder if this very modern and violent cult following in PETA/HSUS-related vegetarianism isn’t just a human form of lemmings running off cliffs…

Don’t get me wrong, I respect and enjoy my greens, too—it’s just I have a problem with healthy habits that become fanatic movements trying to keep themselves aloft through unsound science and actions that actually go against their professed reasons: smaller hunter numbers have actually led to lower amounts of revenues that would have gone to the support of all animals through the Pittman-Robertson Act of 1937 (In contrast, if you want to know where PETA funds really go, READ HERE; they sure aren’t putting those millions of dollars into helping animal populations like hunters do…)

Whenever I come across an author that seems to be more on an even keel, and in the UK no less, the historic origins of the present PETA/HSUS madness, I jump up and down in joy that there might be hope. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is just such a man, who takes the reader through the different options for getting that organic success that leads to a healthy and great-tasting meal with meat as the centerpiece: whether a beef roast, roast chicken, or game collected in the field.

There are a number of game recipes that I’m looking forward to cooking, and will in the future with game he mentions, like pheasant, rabbit and hare. Taking to heart the axiom of using everything the animal offers, the Fearnley-Whittingstall also delivers a great chapter the use of offal gathered from a slaughtered animal. And I’d be remiss in not mention a great dissertation on the practice of aging meat: in his research he really pushed the limits of time! If you live in a warmer/drier climate like I do in California, remember that the variance in temperature, i.e. wamers, will shorten your aging times.

But, it was the roast pig that really got me excited!

…Instead of a traditional roasting spit, beautifully described in a photo story on page 390 and pages 392 to 394 in The River Cottage MEAT Book, I wanted to roast a true organic meat (If it’s been touched by human hands, or fed by humans hands, something that didn’t grow naturally, feeding on whatever it could find on its travels, without human direction or intention, how can you call it true organic?) a wild boar in a La Caja China that I had done a bang-up job with on a farm pig.

Not only that, I wanted to try a recipe I enjoyed as a child in Southeast Asia, on a trip to Indonesia, specifically Bali, called babi guling. Click on the photo of Babi Guling below to watch how we prepared him!

 RELATED LINKS

1. La Caja China

2. Blackhawk!

3. Winchester

4. Remington

5. Native Hunt

COMING UP

1. Surmounting the Cultural Conflict of Tactical Clothing and Equipment in the Outdoors

2. Wild Lifers vs. Game Farmers

Click on the Roast Babi Guling to watch how to make it!

 

 Back when I was a 20-year-old combat photographer, still fresh to my freedom from a Vietnamese reeducation prison, recruited and being trained to be another Captain America in the US’s war against Communist Totalitarianism (you know that 80-year event we had before this present Islamist Totalitarian threat …that one that those under 20 say, “Huh, we were really at war with the Russians? It wasn’t really a Cold War?”), T. Michael Riddle was the lead guitarist for a band called Valhalla, being mentored by his friend Ronnie Montrose.

Montrose was watching the news on the Contras versus Sandinista war, that I was having a front seat to at the time, and the music and chorus came to him. He brought them to Valhalla. Valhalla added lyrics and they released Freedom Fighter in 1985, on the album Valhalla. Now a master guide and outfitter, Michael Riddle asked me if I wanted to try the pig hunting on the 27,000 acres of prime hunting land he has sole access to in Central California under Native Hunt.

Cork’s Outdoors TV was due for another episode, so I answered, “You betcha!”

Leaving at night, and arriving at his headquarters near Fort Hunter Liggett in the early morning darkness, we were greeted by a few of Riddle’s guides and three clients, a father and two sons from Aptos. While waiting for morning light in the office, we heard a bunch of pigs grunting outside and Riddle pointed them out. All about 70 to 120 pounds. Just a bit big for what we had planned, but when hunting light came, they’d be more than available to the father and sons group who tagged out early.

This was on the free-roam area of the Native Hunt headquarters ranch mind you. Riddle also has a collection of pure-strain wild boar he imported from Poland a few years back. He keeps them on 900 high-fenced acres, along with bison and fallow deer.

Now before you get in a tiff, and say, “High fence? And you’re likened to Aldo Leopold by the London Times, the same Aldo Leopold who was a major proponent of democratic free roam hunting opportunities—what?!”

…As I said, I’ll be writing about this in a future column about how the human population of the new millennium is nowhere as small as that of early 1900s, and so our wildlife management and improvement of hunting opportunities need adjustment…but suffice it to say, high-fence when done right (as it is at Native Hunt), 900 acres is just as demanding and fair chase as hunting non-fenced game.

Remember this isn’t Ohio or New York, where what they call mountains we in the West call road bumps and hills. Native Hunt’s acres of penned exotics game is as the crow flies is 900 acres. When you take into consideration the steepness of the mountains, it’s near 3,000 to 5,000 acres of terrain Michael Riddle has in his fenced area. That’s pretty challenging with a rifle and especially with a bow.

But, Riddle and I were after a feral hog in the 50-60lb range to produce an episode of Cork’s Outdoors TV, teaching you how to roast a wild boar the way they do in Indonesia, something they call Babi Guling, which just means “pig revolving”, i.e. pig revolving on a spit, in Malay and Indonesian.

Until then, Riddle would be taking a client on another property who wanted to hunt a wild boar with his traditional longbow. When we arrived at the other property with the client, not too attentive to sound control while grabbing his bow, the client spooked a herd of wild boar feeding in an open field of young barley only 60 yards away, 10 minutes before shooting light. I tagged along for a while, listening to a multitude of wild turkeys and coyotes calling to each other…

Each time we thought we’d get back on the pigs, they were yet another ridge away. The client, who’d never shot at anything other than target with longbow, did get his wild boar later that afternoon: a testament to the guiding patience and skill of Riddle’s lead guide, Sam. A perfect 50-pound roasting size, the client and I joked about trading another opportunity at a larger wild boar. I half-heartedly joked with him about it as there were a lot of wild pigs on the properties (by that afternoon I’d see at least 50 I could have taken with my rifle), but all were 20 to 100 pound more than what we wanted—50 pounds was just going to fit into the Caja China Riddle has at the Native Hunt Lodge.

After a tour of the animals that makes the Jolon Ranch such a nice little exotics safari right out from the lodge, we went to sleep and woke in the morning to venture through the fog outside of the bounded area and were immediately onto pigs within 50 yards of the high bison fence. We heard the grunt of a couple pigs, and from the sounds of movement coming from the brush right next to us; there must have been about 10 pigs in the herd.

As we had only two days before having to return to the Bay Area, I was going to take the shot, whichever was available…Yes, we got lucky in a number of ways, but I’d be cheating you out of the adventure, if I told you everything that happened, recorded in the latest episode of Cork’s Outdoors TV, the boar stalking set to Valhalla’s Freedom Fighter.

Click on the latest pig hunting episode screenshot photo link at the bottom and stay tuned for the Roasting Babi Guling cooking episode coming up…!

Shemagh’s That?

Not only an opportunity to check out Native Hunt’s offerings that would make any international outfitter proud, the trip was also done with the intention of trying out some equipment I’ve never used before: the Nightforce™ 3.5-15x56mm NXS, non-lead ETip ammunition from Winchester, and Blackhawk!®’s Thermo-Fur Jacket and Shemagh.

Nightforce™ 3.5-15x56mm NXS

This is quickly turning into my favorite all around scope for long and close range. Were it that the reticle couldn’t be illuminated, I don’t think I’d be so excited about using the Nightforce Optics™ 3.5-15x56mm NXS with MilDot in scenarios other than which it was originally designed: military and law enforcement long-range tactical applications.

With high-quality glass and a large objective, the scope makes easy work of drawing down on a target in early twilight, and picking out targets in dense brush, lowlight conditions.

Because the posts of the reticle are outlines instead of the normal solid black ( I love this design for long-range shooting, because you can see what’s behind the post), it’s not as easy to discern the fine reticle lines from branches in tight brush. But, and this is a BIG but: when the reticle is illuminated with a simple pulling out of the parallax knob, the red-lit reticle really stands out from everything in a way that even a solid traditional 4-Plex type reticle can’t do.

In Hunting Babi Guling, you see how fast I’m shooting right after I notice a pig only 15 yards away, draw up, and get a clear picture of the boar in my sights, and take the shot, a milisecond after Valhalla says, “Roll the dice!”

Winchester ETip in 180 gr.  .300 Winchester Magnum

Ever since I shot my first California blacktail near Chester, California with a poly-tip pointed bullet out of my .280 Remington in the mid-1980s, when manufacturers first really started pushing the highly accurate, but just as unpredictable mushrooming qualities, I blew softball-sized chunks out of that small buck. Unlike some who think that a big hole means a quick kill, I prefer a bullet diameter-sized hole coming in, and silver dollar sized hole on the way out.

Anymore explosive energy of the bullet, and you’re finding too many bullet fragments sent through the meat that translate to bloodshot and unusable meat. With some bullets, the fragmentation can be horrendous.

As I’ve always stated, I’m not focused on trophy hunting. When it comes to making sure I’ve got full use of the meat from a dead animal, it starts with the shot: so that I’m not spending all day trying to correct by trimming away too much wasted meat. A good copper and lead bullet, with good mushrooming qualities and retaining 70 percent of the bullet weight is perfect for me.

Gladly surprised with this first time using an all-copper bullet and that also had a poly-tip (I’ve used the Barnes Bullets and found them to be more than adequate in accuracy and killing ability), I came upon the very dead-in-under-a-minute roasting boar. Instead of the mega-sized hole I remembered from my first poly-tip experience on the buck, there was a neat silver dollar hole in this pig’s chest.

Accuracy wasn’t a problem either, as I was still hitting the 12-inch gong at 175 yards that Riddle has mounted across the lake and halfway up the ridge at Native Hunt. I’m looking forward to putting these 180 gr. non-lead bullets [now required in Central California because of the Condor Area closure] through the paces at longer ranges on bigger pigs…and since I need to do a prosciutto preparation episode with a wild boar in the manner of Serrano ham, before it gets too hot in California, that should be pretty soon… 

Blackhawk!® Thermo-Fur Jacket

If you read my last column you saw me wearing this great jacket while holding a freshly culled cottontail rabbit. The Thermo-Fur Jacket that works more than efficiently as an insulative liner for a breathable shell-jacket, but can stand on it’s own in a medium breeze and no rain. When I was hunting the wild boar on the episode I was actually wearing it under the Cabela’s® GoreTex shell: it kept me toasty without overheating. I would have probably used it on it’s own, but I needed a jacket that would at once be quiet as the Cabela’s shell is (and so is the Thermo-Fur), and yet, I could be sure wouldn’t catch on hook-like brush as the Thermo-Fur would—didn’t want to shred something I just got.

Had I been hunting wild boar in the open barley fields, like in which those pigs we found on the longbower’s hunt, I would have easily just stayed with the Thermo-Fur: the jacket was that warm in the cold of morning, even with the hanging fog and moisture!

And it’s not just that jacket keep you warm, but that it really just keeps you comfortable. It’s weird to say, but it’s almost as though it has a variable magical thermometer control that doesn’t let you get to warm or cold…just comfy. Few man-made materials do this. This is why I more often enjoy wearing outerwear made from natural fibers than polyester, and have been a fan of Filson® and clothing for so many years for my hunting needs.

When it comes to Blackhawk!®, I’m learning as I use their equipment and clothing, that they seem to answer questions before they asked. A perfect example is the positioning and design of the pockets. Easily accessed and placed and oriented in an efficient manner, you’re not searching around for things when you need to keep your attention out in front of you, especially when you’re going into deep brush after potential danger—the zippers are also very quiet!

There was one thing that I was reminded about and that is the more you let moisture stick to your skin, no matter how insulative and wind-cutting your outergarment might, it’s all for naught if you the clothing against your skins doesn’t draw the moisture. I’d highly recommend using one of the many undergarments, T-shirts and crewnecks that Blackhawk!® has to do that job. I was wearing a cheap, red cotton longsleeve shirt and had it gotten colder, I’m sure I would have gone over the tipping point and been freezing: start right from inside to out!

In the Thermo-Fur Jacket, roominess of the pockets goes all the way from the waist up near the shoulder-that almost makes your jacket a light field pack pocketed chest harness! For those of you who might be in harms way, you can appreciate those large pockets for tossing your spent magazines to reload later. For the hunter that forgets a packs, you might also appreciate those large front pockets for carring a couple tenderloins, or even a couple backstraps, back to camp when you get that pack.

I’m looking forward to writing the column planned for when I receive the other two layers of the Blackhawk!® Warrior Wear Jacket System, that should be coming in soon. If you remember an article written by my colleague Wayne Van Zwoll more than ten years ago, showing distaste for the prevalence in tactical and military type clothing in the hunting fields and mountains over the last 20 years, you’re sure to find my upcoming column interesting…

Cork Graham warm and toasty in BLACKHAWK! shemagh

Blackhawk!® Shemagh

I’ve always been a jungle boy. Raised in the tropics and at home in the jungle like many in Europe and America might be in a pine forest or mountain meadow, deserts just freak me out! So, though I’ve used the very efficient dark green and loam patterned see-through sniper’s veil that has served well as a hood, face camouflage material, headband and scarf, I’ve never really had the opportunity use the Middle Eastern desert Shemagh that so many special forces units are using these days.

When I tried it on our hunt for babi guling, first as a scarf to keep my neck warm and prevent early morning coughing from the cold that might signal my location to a boar, and then later when the wind picked up as a hood and head covering, I was totally amazed. Made from the simplest of materials, cotton, it did more to keep my head warm than a full jacket hood and a ball cap.

My understanding is that the weave of the Shemagh is loose enough to enable pliability, but tight enough to act as a phenomenal windbreaker and help in retaining body moisture, too.

I’m sure to have one in my kit for hunting, whether that’s for comfort, or for camo. One side has a predominance of black squares which works great early and late in the day for calling in coyotes, and the other side with the predominance of olive drab looks like it’ll do well during waterfowl season to cover my face, while enabling me to look up and watch the descent and flight pattern as they work the dekes, without flaring them with a big white face.

You will have to learn how to tie a Shemagh properly for use as snug camo, but I’ll do a snippet video to show how easy it is: Indonesian or Arab style.

Related Links and Articles:

1. Nightforce Optics

2. Blackhawk!®

3. Winchester

4. Native Hunt

5. Not Bored Chasing the Boars

6. Wild Hogs!

COMING UP

1. The River Cottage Meat Book by Michael Fearnley-Whittingstall [Book Review]

2. Surmounting the Cultural Conflict of Tactical Clothing and Equipment in the Outdoors

Special Forces operator's bullet-holed 3.5x15x56mm scope

The ad was simple and straightforward: a photo of a 3.5x15x56mm scope with green 100 mph tape adhesive remnants along it. Right next to the zoom ring a bullet hole. The caption said that the US Army Special Forces operator who carried it in Iraq shot with it for another three days, only making the adjustment of covering the bullethole with the 100 mph tape—no change to the zero!

Always wanting to show the brightest qualities of the mildot reticle that I learned during my war days, I read up on this one designed by Nightforce Optics. Unlike the old ones we remember that really haven’t changed (other than one’s the Marine’s [football dots] and the other’s the Army’s [soccer ball dots]) these by Nightforce are an amazing innovation. They not only have the Army style mildots, but they’re shaped in the form of a bull’s-eye with a dot within the ring, the ring the same diameter as a normal mildot. A great improvement for those wanting to shoot at ranges where the target appears smaller than the mildot.

Innovative Nightforce MilDot, illuminated and non-illuminated.

Now, there has been a controversial movement to learn how to shoot game at long range. And some of you, because of my solid interest in further sound wildlife management practices, would think that I’d be against this. Actually, I’m very much for hunters who can shoot longrange…and this is the biggest qualifier: EFFECTIVELY!

I’ve seen a hunter cripple a wild pig at only nine feet and seen another hunter drop an elk in its tracks at 600 yards. Which one was the ethical and efficient hunter?

To understand it better, the one who crippled the pig had never picked up a rifle and thought it was just like shooting a shotgun, which he did with great frequency for ducks. Arrogant enough to think that having a scope on the rifle somehow imbued the firearm with magical powers of accuracy, far outreaching the abilities of his shotgun that was sighted with only a bead and ventilated-rib, but that dropped most of his ducks, he only went to the range the day of the hunt to make sure the rifle was sighted in.

Much more responsible, the one who shot the elk at a solid long range that most hunters would never attempt, was a well-practiced competitive shooter who successfully shot at ranges out to 1,200 yards every weekend in the desert.

My vote for the ethical, and conscientious, hunter goes to the one who took the 600-yard shot at the elk.

But, then we get into the ethics of shooting an elk at 600 yards. How come the hunter didn’t sneak up on the elk and shoot it at 100 yards, or well within bow range?

I used to think the same thing, especially after I returned to US from the shadow years of my life, from that secret little south of the border war we had against Raoul Castro and the KGB from 1977 to 1991: It’s not sporting…I’d rather take that pig or deer at a nice close 20 yards with my longbow.

One of Bill Casey's Boys: Cork Graham after recapture of a building from the FMLN, circa 1986

…That was until I started really looking at hunting not from sport as so many are wont to do these days. Instead, I looked at it from the point of view of a wildlife conservationist, who understands the importance of hunting as a tool of wildlife management in keeping a healthy animal population. It’s something I’m going to talk about in a later piece along the lines of that masterpiece of an essay by Aldo Leopold, titled Wild Lifers vs. Game Farmers: A Plea for Democracy in Sport [1919].

Suffice it to say, it’s the importance of taking that animal in the least amount of pain and greatest efficiency. A hunter who can take an animal accurately and cleanly at 600 yards, at peace and enjoying a grazing, is far more along those lines than a hunter who stumbles on a deer that breaks and the hunter, though he made his shot at 20 yards, hits it in the paunch and spends the rest of the day tracking that deer, all the while it’s hidden and slowly dying from that wound, possibly never to be recovered unless the hunter also has a good dog to help in that tracking.

So, yes, I’m very much into long range shooting, because I put the time in to be accurate and I make sure the equipment I use is the best I can get.

That means putting the time in and using a rifle that shoots at least an MOA. My Remington Model 700 BDL SS DM shot an MOA out of the box, and when I replaced the stock with an HS Precision Sporter, traded the trigger for a Timney, it shot 1/2 to 1/4 MOA. Crowning it with a Nightforce 3.5-15x56mm was the next best option toward improvement and customization for accuracy.

Over the years, I’ve reviewed the different ballistic drop compensating (BDC) reticles available on the market. They do have impressive qualities and for someone who’s not willing to put the time at the range, it might seem a viable option…at least at first. The new offerings sure beat the first BDC scope I purchased as a teenager back in the early 1980s, called the Redfield Illuminator with Accu-Range and Accu-Trac: its use in the field, along with buck fever driven by the largest blacktail buck I’d ever seen, ended up in a total miss.

The problem was that I was shooting at a buck that was well within my range (too many hunters think that a target is much further than it really is and that 200-300 yards requires some sort of adjustment for a high-power rifle sighted in for 200 yards—not!) and I thought it was much further; and, for a young teen to be fiddling around with the Accu-Trac BDC knobs was a little much.

Nightforce came out with a new “zero-stop” capability that enables you to quickly get back on zero. Created for those heated moments in combat, or hunting, or when shooting in dark conditions where you’re best served by getting back on zero through feel, it’s a great modification. It does change my intended zero for a .300 Win. mag. which was going to be 300 yards, but I’ve zeroed for 200 yards and if I need to shoot at something at 300 yards I only have to raise slightly, putting the cross just under the back for a deer.

Nightforce Optics "Zero-Stop" turret.

USMC Captain Jack C. Cuddy designed mildot in the 1970s. A mainstay of tactical riflescopes ever since, the mildot continues to perplex many shooters, both the calculation of range and drop compensation, whether using the mildots themselves to make an adjustment or the target knobs to make that adjustment in trajectory.

The calculations are actually quite simple and can be done much quicker with a Mildot Master, than a calculator. The Mildot Master will even enable you to do an adjustment for angle, as everyone who has ever missed on a downhill or uphill shot can see the importance for.

An innovation about the Nightforce 3.5x15x56mm scope is that the reticle can be illuminated with a pull on the parallax adjustment turret. It might not seem that important, but there’s a very big difference between shooting at a target 500 yards away and requiring that fine center reticle, and as I found myself last Saturday, up close in brush and putting that crosshair on a wild boar’s chest-especially with the Nightforce non-solid posts, outlines of the normal solid mildot post.

Though the glass is hard to beat for clarity and brightness, with the 30mm tube and large 56mm objective, finding that fine crosshair among those branches would have been a chore had they not been lit red by the illumination. With the illumination, I was on the pig in a second, which was all I had before it started getting up with its brethren, and drilled him.

What about those empty posts? I love them: they not only permit another point of measurement added onto the mildots themselves (you can use the lines that form the posts to bracket a target vertically and horizontally), but they also let you see what’s below the target: not that important with a target only 200 yards away, but definitely important if they’re 600 to 800 yards away. Eight hundred yards is the furthest I’d ever shoot at an animal-a 180 grain .300 caliber bullet can do only so much as it loses its speed, and therefore its force; and there’s a difference between why and how we shoot animals in hunting situations and people in war conditions.

As a final test of my Nightforce Optics 3.5x15x56mm NXS, and because a friend of mine has twice driven to Colorado to hunt elk and each time his scope was off zero when he got there, I purposely put my rifle in the back of the bed of my truck and on its side. If there’s vibration, it’s going to be in the back of a truck bed with a light load.

When my friend Michael Riddle and I arrived at Native Hunt, I checked the zero and it was right on. That’s what I like about Nightforce, they test not just for back and forth shock of a high-powered rifle being fired. They test for shock perpendicular to the length of the scope.

There’s a reason that sniper teams choose the Night Optics 3.5x15x56mm NXS over all others to mount on their scope-demolishing .50 caliber rifles.

Here’s a snippet from the upcoming episode of Cork’s Outdoors TV where we’re editing on how to mount a scope on a rifle and sight it in properly…And stayed tuned for the upcoming episode of COTV, where we use this scope in tight brush after wild boar!

COMING UP

1. Hunting Central California Cottontails with a .22 Pellet Gun
2. On the Track of the Wily Wild Boar Babi Guling