“Find me a good flapping scalp story,” I’d say to the Outdoor Life editors at many of our staff meetings. I meant, of course, a good bear tale where a grizzly or Alaska brown bear got the upper hand and chewed off the hunter’s scalp. During my tenure at Outdoor Life, I learned very quickly that our readers had a true love affair with bears, especially rogue grizzlies.

Baffin Island in the Northwest Territories can be downright mean to hunters. It’s cold, windy, and wet. Campfires are a luxury on Baffin. There are no trees, and the only vegetation is lichen and moss. The shoreline is a maze of ankle-twisting rocks. But the caribou hunting more than made up for the aches and pains in my body when I hunted there years ago.

Unfortunately, the recent black bear attack in northern New Jersey and the first fatal bear attack in about 150 years is an example of what happens when people panic and run scared. Perhaps this deadly attack might not have happened if the young hiker had been more knowledgeable about the dangers of encountering a wild animal.

“This was not the way it was supposed to happen. I hit the Cape buffalo squarely in the chest with a .375 Holland & Holland, a cartridge the size of a banana. Nyati was supposed to go down. He didn’t even flinch! In fact, the bull trotted off with his buddies.

Hunting with your spouse is like day-to-day living as a married couple with the added challenge of surviving unpredictable Nature as well as one another — while trying to NOT screw up each other’s hunt.

Should sport hunting even be allowed? Let’s hope so because it’s restored and protected our wildlife and wild places against unfettered meat hunting for more than a century. Sport hunting means rules and regulations the limit killing while funding restoration and maintenance.

Is the 270 Win. big enough to take elk? And are the 7mm Remington Magnum and 300 Winchester Magnum significantly more effective? A look at ballistics and bull elk response to all three.

The 300 PRC doesn’t blow the 300 Winchester Magnum off the trajectory charts, but it’s concocted with secret dimensions that make it the extreme range accuracy winner.

The little know 338 Federal is a short-action, surprisingly powerful, flat-shooting cartridge suitable for deer, elk, moose, caribou, bear hunting.

The 223 Remington is the biggest selling cartridge in the USA. But what’s it good for? More than you might guess.

Don’t let the guns and ammo used by hunters fool you into thinking this is war or wildlife.