Had my annual physical recently, and glad to report that, knock on wood, I’m doing well. But doc did say, “You have slight high-frequency hearing loss in your left ear.” I have always been able to hear extremely well, able to pick up the crunch of deer hooves at long range and zero in on the direction and location of those sounds. Hearing has been my greatest attribute as a hunter, and to know I’ve lost even a bit of that is disturbing. Audiologists point out that exposure to noise greater than 140 dB can permanently damage hearing. Almost all guns create noise over that level. A .22 can produce noise around 140 dB, while larger calibers can produce sound [...]

Saw this on the Outdoor Wire and thought it made a good point. Put some of your tax savings that are coming in 2019 on a new handgun for home protection or a new rifle for deer hunting (treat yourself to a father’s day gift): Much has been printed and broadcast recently about soft firearms sales. According to the liberal mass media outlets and their hatred of firearms, the gun industry is on the brink of death. Nothing, however, could be further from the truth. You can do your part to help drive up firearm ownership numbers in the months ahead. Go shopping. Those who watch firearms sales follow the NICS background checks numbers. May 2018 set an all-time monthly [...]

My friend and fellow Virginia hunter Sam Fullerton just returned from a dream hunt and filed this field report: The hunt took place in a special draw area on the northern end of Afognak Island in the Kodiak chain. It took 3 years to draw the permit. I booked the hunt through Wade Darby at Crosshair Hunting Consulting. Wade booked me with Afognak Wilderness Lodge, which has an extremely remote camp that the Randall family has chiseled out of the Afognak wilderness over the last 50 years. It is an impressive camp considering every single thing was either made from the rocks or trees growing on the island, or brought in by float plane or boat. We left base camp [...]