St. Paul, MN-

“I feel downright used-like a smelly old Swedish M90 insulated parka that’s been boxed up, forgotten, and chewed on by moths,” says Bumpass.

Bumpass, a nine-year employee at the discount outdoor cataloger, is dumbfounded over the termination; however Sportsman’s Guide owner-founder Gary Olsen provided The Abaguchie evidence of Bumpass’ work. Olsen lists a litany of what he calls “patently silly” product descriptions like this one for the “Genuine U.S. Military M65 Pants,” a popular Sportsman’s Guide offering:

Gallant 6-pocket britches ready to serve Gomer and YOU!  No fakes.  These are the real thing!

Additional Bumpass-created ad copy includes this on “Wolverine® Work Boots”:

Working hard, like you’re on a chain gang?  Or just hanging out looking like you’re busy?  Either way, these Wolverine® beauties are all set for foot pampering.  From jobsite to honey-do lists, these are your best pals, next to your tools.

And this description of the “Trifold Dog Ramp”:

Doggone handy! Rin Tin Tin and Lassie approved for all dogs, big or small. Other critters welcome, too. Seems I was barking up the right tree…

Bumpass countered stating that he originated the copy used in “most” treestand ad copy:

Order ONLINE today, and make a “stand” against high prices!

“Gary was constantly ribbing us copywriters and pushing us to come up with creative and classy descriptions of whatever junk he was trying to peddle,” says Bumpass. “But it was hard… really hard. There were times when [Olsen] mocked us and berated us, but we put up with it for the greater good of the consumer.”

At this time Bumpass would like to consider gainful employment with other catalog firms, such as LL Bean or The Orvis Company, but an iron clad non-compete contract prohibits him from doing so.

“I can’t let my talent go to waste,” says Bumpass. “But through my association with Sportsman’s Guide, I’ve been branded as a cheesy copy producer. Olsen has a stranglehold my livelihood.”

Olsen was not available for further comment.

The victim in the assault claimed his brother Harlton Nesbitt, 23, intentionally fired a wad of “hot and spicy” ground venison in his eye during a dispute that arose between the two over the excessive level of cayenne pepper the victim wanted to use in the recipe.

Even though the victim admitted to starting the dispute, Nesbitt was the one sent to the Cambria County Prison in lieu of $2,500 bail on a simple assault charge.

Sherriff Bob Kolar, the officer who filed arrest papers with District Judge Stephen J. Yesenosky, said the attack occurred just before 2:30 a.m. early Tuesday morning after the two brothers returned home from drinking at a local Ebensburg bar.

Sheriff Kolar said the two brothers tried to stop on the way home from the bar to buy some Slim Jims.  But it was late and the convenience store was closed.  Returning to the victim’s home and still hankering for a salty meat snack, Nesbitt suggested the two “break out the jerky gun,” a device like a heavy duty caulk gun that when filled with ground beef or venison is used by sportsmen to produce snack sticks and jerky that can be dried in a smoker or regular household oven.

“It’s actually an amazing gadget when used responsibly,” Sheriff Kolar said. 

The victim told police that he was “quite crocked” and insisted on adding an excessive amount of cayenne pepper to the 1.5 pounds of ground venison the brothers were preparing to insert into the gun.  The victim told Sheriff Kolar that his brother asked what he, the victim, was trying to prove.  Nesbitt later told Judge Yesenosky that-while he enjoys spicy foods when the spices being used add flavor to a meat-he does not like “hot food that is so hot it’s impossible to taste anything else.”

Nesbitt managed to get the gun away from his older, inebriated brother, said Sheriff Kolar.  He knocked the victim to the ground shouting, “You like spicy!  You like it hot!  Then how’s about some of this!”

With the snack stick nozzle attached to the jerky gun, Nesbitt pulled the trigger releasing a small “turd-like nugget” of spicy ground venison that ”plopped” into the victim’s open left eye, said Sheriff Kolar.

When police arrived, Nesbitt had already fled leaving the victim collapsed and moaning on the bathroom floor with a cold washcloth over the red and severely swollen eye, Kolar said.  The jerky gun, located on the floor in the kitchen, was confiscated and taken into evidence by police.              

Representatives for both the Outdoor Channel and Ghetto Child, aka Detrick Homey, declined comment on the pending deal.  But this much is known:The USFW service has reported a steady decline in hunter participation and recruitment over the last decade.  That has the hunting industry worried along with game managers across America whose operating budgets largely depend on revenue garnered from the sale of hunting and fishing licenses and taxes on outdoor related products.       

According to insiders close to the project, the new show will be titled, Hunting with Homey.  Even if reported talks with Detrick Homey fall through, sources close to the negotiations say the name of the show will not be changed as long as another “homey” can be found to take on hosting duties.    

He’s Black Y’all, And That’s A Fact Y’all

Hunting the World…Southern Style!  has gained wide acceptance among younger, outdoor television viewers thanks to the on-air antics of rapping, redneck hosts Hal Shaffer and Ken Cobb.  By adopting personas that capitalize on stereotypical black behavior and lingo, the rotund Shaffer and sidekick Cobb have found an audience of 18 to 29 year-olds while still appealing to older viewers thanks to regular appearances by professional wrestling, country music, and NASCAR celebrities.

But unlike Shaffer and Cobb who caricature men of color, Homey is a bonafide black man.  Sources say Outdoor Channel executives are hoping this element of “thuggish realism” will appeal to an even broader section of young hunters and inspire them to venture “out of da hood and into da woods.”

A mock-up of American Road Hunter debuted this Saturday at the 2008 SHOT Show.  Despite the fact that road hunting-the practice of shooting game from a vehicle-is illegal in all 50 states, NRA advertising/sales representatives working the floor of the Las Vegas Convention Center are telling potential advertisers that space is limited and that magazine is expected to hit newsstands this summer.  A letter from the NRA’s Executive Vice President and Chief Executive Officer, Wayne LaPierre, is included in the media kit. 

“Road hunting is against the law now,” writes LaPierre.  “But the NRA expects legal challenges to that in coming years.  We will also proudly support such action as the long-standing persecution and bias aimed at road hunters is nothing but a thinly veiled assault on the God-given rights of gun owners.”

Road hunting gun owners need a voice, according to LaPierre, and the NRA is uniquely positioned to help represent their interests with “a quality publication celebrating this fine sporting tradition.”     

“I started hunting on the road,” says Wayne Ferguson, a SHOT-attendee and gun shop owner from Virginia, who says he’s impressed with the idea.  “I’ll definitely be subscribing along with, probably, most my friends.”

Ferguson is a small game hunter who has fond memories of potting roadside rabbits, pheasants, and grouse with his grandfather back in the early 1970s. 

“Those were some good times,” says Ferguson.  “The best.”       

Unlike other hunters for whom the word “tradition” conjures memories of “long cigar-sucking slogs following a fine bird dog through the autumn covers seeking game,” Ferguson says his best memories are of road hunting with his grandfather, who tragically lost his leg and both buttocks while fighting the German army at the close of World War II.

“Pap used to wedge a phone book up under where his ass used to be,” says Ferguson.  “He used one of his crutches to work the gas pedal, which meant I had to pull double-duty holding the rifle and watching the ditches for any rabbit or pheasant holding tight along the road.

“I can still smell the gun powder and hear the ringing in my ears,” says Ferguson, adding that the only bad thing about road hunting from his perspective is that a .22 going off in the close confines of an automobile sounds like an elephant rifle to a boy who forgets to stick his fingers in his ears.

The American Road Hunter promises to help with problems like that.

According to the editorial calendar provided in the magazine’s media kit, how-to articles appear to form a large portion of the content as well as product reviews.               

There are tips and techniques (for example, why power windows in a vehicle are better than manual ones for single-handed elevation adjustment when shooting long range) and a regular section called “The Roadie” made up of reader’s stories of road hunting blunders and sometimes hilarious run-in with conservation officers from across the United States.  “Road Tools” is the name of a column devoted to reviewing everything from sub-sonic rifle cartridges and night-vision scopes to the newest in trucks and ATV’s.          

At time when studies are showing a clear and steady drop in hunter participation and recruitment, hunting organizations who frown on road hunting now might soon change their tune.

Hunting is in trouble and the NRA says the sport needs all the support it can get.

“It’s a sad fact that most hunters have been hoodwinked into believing that road hunting is unethical-an affront to true sporting ideals-despite there being little concrete data to back up the charge,” writes LaPierre.

In the advertising information, the NRA also makes a compelling argument that Americans are lazy and overweight and, therefore, far more inclined to try hunting if they can do it from the warm and relative comfort of a vehicle.      

“In the minds of many sportsmen, a motorized vehicle is nothing more than a mobile hunting blind,” says LaPierre.  “The bottom line is: road hunters are gun owners.  Period.  United we stand, divided we fall.” 

Galesburg, IL-

Since this bizarre case involves an altercation between two minors, the names of the boys could not be released to the press.  But one eyewitness gives the following account of what happened:

“The first boy was just practicing his fly casting in the parking lot when the second one came up on his bike and started heckling him,” says the witness to the Galesburg apartment complex incident who declined to be named because he is a neighbor of the boys and their families.

“He was riding circles around him and laughing-saying stuff like, ‘What do you think you’re doing?  You can’t catch fish on dry land.’”  

But, according to the source, when he looked out his apartment window again the boys appeared to be engaged “in what looked like an innocent lesson on fly casting.”

“They were just throwing the line with no hook on the end or anything.  It looked like the fishing kid was letting bike boy try out the rod.”

Things turned violent moments later when “the fishing kid” asked for a turn on the other boy’s bike.

“He yelled, ‘No way, freak.  Maybe you should have asked for a bike for Christmas instead of some stupid old fishing rod,” continues the source.  “Then he rode away fast.”

That’s when the first boy turned and began casting the rod furiously overhead. 

“I’ve dabbled in fly fishing in the past and clearly what the kid was doing in fly fishing parlance is called ‘a double-haul’,” says the witness, adding that the technique is a semi-advanced method of big-water casting typically used by master anglers when throwing big flies long distances and in high wind.

With a flick of the wrist, the boy shot the line forward ‘like a laser beam.” 

“He gauged the distance perfectly-I’d guess around 40 feet-snapping his wrist at the last second to bring the line over and down across the bike boy’s face.  I heard a-Crack!-like a bullwhip and the kid on the bike cried ‘Oooooo’, the bike wobbled, and he was down.”

The result of the fly rod altercation was a nasty, red welt across the victim’s face and visit from police for the perpetrator.        

“But I’ll tell you-I live here,” says the witness.  “That kid on the bike is an annoying little piece of suburban shit.  The only way it could have been better in my opinion is if he’d gotten hit with one of those barrel-eyed Clouser minnows…without the hook, of course.”

“It’s a sad and widely know fact that once men and women marry, the woman sets in motion a bizarre and torturous campaign to change everything about her new husband that made her fall in love with him in the first place,” says a spokesman for the Art of Marriage Foundation, a non-profit organization that promotes healthy marriages through marriage education.  “If the man is a hunter, that’s typically the first thing to go.”

The 2006 USFW survey is the 11^th in a series of surveys conducted since 1958.  It was compiled from data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau, which interviewed 85,000 households in April and May of 2006.  The 31,500 “sporting households” were selected and interviewed in detail about their participation and expenditures regarding hunting, fishing, and wildlife watching. 

When male participates where asked privately what factor most limited their involvement in hunting-related activities, census takers noted a remarkably high number of husbands citing a “nagging” or “overbearing bitch” wife.

Hence, the acronym NBW.

“The data reveal a high percentage of American husbands were essentially at the mercy of a NBW who essentially controlled every minute of their [the husband's] free time,” says a Chicago-based representative of the U.S. Census Bureau.  “NBWs were actually one of the primary causes of men cutting back or giving up on their hunting activities entirely.  This problem, and NBWs in particular, definitely deserve more attention…so to speak.”   

A woman’s propensity for squashing a man’s desire to hunt is insidious as it is irrational, say the legion of men who have experienced wifely nagging and complaining to the ultimate, mind-numbing extreme.

“I didn’t know what was happening,” says Gordon Stigfield, a self described ex-hunter and recently divorced Salisbury father of two.  “It started with little questions-Do you really have to go out again, dear?  Do you really need another shotgun?-But pretty soon the questions became declarations.  You’re not going hunting tonight!  You just went last week!  Three hundred dollars for a treestand!  We don’t have that kind of money!  Blah!  Blah!  Blah!

“It got so she would openly bitch anytime the word hunting was mentioned in our-I mean her-house,” continues Stigfield, adding that his ex-wife nearly succeeded in sapping away every ounce of joy he once felt from spending time outdoors.

“It got so the safest place for me was hiding out in the garage pretending to be doing something or putzing around out in the backyard.  But then she accused me of being a lazy, un-ambitious shell of the man I once was.”  

“My ex-wife would chew my ass out for leaving a hunting magazine on the coffee table,” echoes Fred Hubbell, a 32-year-old man who considered himself a lifelong deer hunter until his marriage three years ago.  “I still get the magazines and catalogs-they’re really my only connection to the outdoors anymore-but I have to keep them out of sight otherwise it just means trouble.”

According to Hubbell, his wife wants to start having children.

“I think if there was a kid around to distract her, she might actually stop hen-pecking the hell out of me,” he says. 

But not so fast, says the most recent USFW survey. 

“The data show that having children only complicates a bad situation,” says James Paulson, a USFW official speaking on the results of the findings.  “This final phase of the process allows the wife to essentially use the ‘needs of the children’ to justify her behavior and guilt-trip the man into never leaving the house.  We found men talked into to giving up hunting trips out of state, nagged into cutting back on their hunting-related expenses, even selling their hunting gear to buy toys and clothing all for the sake of the children.”

“I finally told my wife to get a fucking hobby,” says Stigfield, words that are rare among most hunting husbands who are browbeat, belittled, and, generally, made to feel worthless for passionately pursuing an activity the love. 

Stigfield admits that in “manning-up” and taking a stand he knew he was risking divorce.  But, according to USFW officials, he also might be onto something.

Women were told in the 50s that if they just got out of the house and got a job that they would be happy, agree U.S. Census Bureau and USFW officials.  Now women wear the pants in many American homes.  They hold some of the most powerful positions in government and business.  Yet, an increasing majority of women say they would rather be home having babies and taking care of the house.  Unfortunately, studies show this doesn’t make them happy either.

“Misery loves company, right?” says Stigfield.  “I figured out my wife’s pet project was ‘fixing’ me.  She saw me being happy when she wasn’t.  So she pretty much tried to drag me down with her.”

Stigfield’s story is familiar to many married men.  And that’s proving bad for the state of hunting in America.

Hunting is a multi-billion dollar industry at a time when the U.S. economy needs every spare penny.  The USFW is now reportedly looking deeper into the problem by dispatching experts and think-tank analysts to explore ways to help a majority of married women “get a life.”

When is a stone sheep not a stone sheep?

Unless you’ve been spending the hours since I last penned this column daydreaming about what it must be like to be me-What is he doing?  What wild adventure is he on now?-you probably heard reports that a second “traditional bowhunter” has succeeded in taking all 28 species of North American big game recognized by the Pope and Young Club.

I won’t go into the fact that Saxton Pope and Art Young wouldn’t even recognize the wheeled contraptions that record-keeping organization considers bows.  Nay, I shan’t even mention how the current leaders (tools)-wouldn’t recognized a real bow if Howard Hill himself rose up from his hollow grave and wrapped Grandpa around their collective necks like a bowtie.     

For months, I’ve resisted commenting on this travesty.  But when you’re in the business of being me-a business that largely revolves around spending buckets of cash to travel and bowhunt all in an effort to improve one’s name recognition and marketability among the great unwashed sheeple (you)-discovering that someone is attempting to take a shortcut to my level of bowhunting expertise, prowess, and all-round greatness is like the proverbial thorn in the paw of the lion (me). 

So when is a stone sheep not a stone sheep?  I’ll tell you.  (Wait for it.)   

When it’s a Fannin, my friends.  Ovis dalli fannini.

Not all stone sheep are created equal. 

In addition to being a stellar human, fine specimen of a man, hunter and writer par excellence, I am also an enthusiastic amateur student of science.  Modern geneticists studying stone sheep (Ovis dalli stonei) at a molecular level have recently suggested that Fannin sheep-which the record books have always treated as stone sheep-are simply a color variation of the common Dall sheep (Ovis dalli).

I have always suspected this and now the science is close to backing me up.  The Fannin sheep of the Yukon Territory is not a pure-blooded stone sheep at all.  It’s a lowly crossbreed, my friends.  A cheaper alternative for the penny-pinching hunter than going to British Columbia where true stone sheep dwell.     

A real stone sheep hunt costs anywhere from $24,000 to $28,000.  But if you’re looking to try and make a little history on the cheap-or complete your “Super Scam”-simply go to the Yukon and spend $15,000.

Does this mean scores of “Slams” based on Fannins taken as stone sheep are going to be thrown out of the record books?  Hardly.  Those tottering old fogies and overfed cooperate fat-asses that lord over record-keeping organizations are never going to give their richest members the shaft (so to speak).

What’s important here is that you know…and, of course, that they know that I know.  It’s about honesty folks.

People always ask me how they can be as great and as accomplished a bowhunter as me.  My advice:

If being a better bowhunter is your goal, then begin by looking out from under the wool you have pulled over your eyes and know that in this game your pitifully low financial ceiling is the biggest hurdle that stands in your way.  Setting your sights on collecting all of North America’s sheep species is an good way to become a better-than-average bowhunter.  But, as in all things, just make sure you get what you pay for.

WASHINGTON D.C. -

The number of bomb attacks in Iraq has dropped from 3,239 in March to 1,560 in November, the lowest level since September 2005.

According to sources, the primary mission of the rednecks–deployed back in February to patrol Iraq’s shared border with Iran–is to halt the smuggling of Iranian explosives and other weapons now flooding Baghdad and the hostile neighbors that surround the heavily fortified Green Zone.

If the rumors are true, the ultra-secret deployment seems to be working.

While no one at the Pentagon or the Joint Special Operations Command will go on record confirming or denying the existence of the United States Redneck Special Forces, a high-ranking source says that if such a force did exist that the 500-members who make up the clandestine unit are all pretty much all volunteers.

“They’re all pretty much volunteers,” says a high-ranking source.

Better still, say rumors, the United States military has spent very little time and effort training them.

“There are some in Washington who believe there’s an inexhaustible supply of rednecks in America,” says one recently retired army general from the Combat Application Group (an arm of the Department of Defense). “They’re relative competent in the outdoors and in handling firearms. While they are generally lazy, rednecks are typically easy to provoke and eager to fight if given the proper motivation.”

If reports are true, the rednecks were deployed with an unlimited supply of ammunition and told only that “terrorist season” opened the next day. According to reports, they were also told that there is no bag limit (on terrorists), that they (the terrorists) taste like chicken, and that those “towel-head bastards” don’t like beer, pickups, country music, or Jesus.

FARGO, ND -

“These days, our office gets concerned whenever we hear about somebody smoking something,” says a detective for the North Dakota State Police who requested anonymity while the inquiry continues. “Since this case potentially involves the misuse of natural resources, it was a joint operation with conservation officers from Fish and Game.”

According to notes taken by the detective close to the case, the hunter boasted to friends and, later, on the internet that he “didn’t have a clue” there was a big buck anywhere near the farm he was hunting on the afternoon of November 23rd.

“The man told us he was just sitting there along the edge of a cut cornfield ‘bored witless’ and thinking about calling it a day when the eight point whitetail appeared,” says the officer quoting his report. “Right away he recognized the animal as ‘a good one’ and ‘smoked that hog-daddy’ right on the spot.”

Since there are no laws currently on the books against smoking anything where wildlife is concerned, charges were not filed against the hunter. Nor can the individual’s name be released.

But even more disturbing, according to officials close to the case, is that the investigation revealed that smoking wildlife is more prevalent and wide spread than this seemingly isolated incident on a remote farm in central North Dakota.  Some are even calling it the latest in a series of disturbing new trends among both rifle and bowhunters.

On the website www.druryoutdoors.com, Joseph Gizdic, a bowhunter describing himself as “a Freshman Drury Team member” posted pictures and a detailed account of smoking a “velvet 150+ buck.” It reads in part:

He stepped out and we knew he was a shooter.  Another velvet 135″ 8-pt was with him. When he came in, the bigger buck stopped at 35 yds, and I smoked him with a Rage and the New Dream Season X-Force by PSE.

While the practice seems primarily focused on whitetail deer, on the internet and television hunters are now flagrantly admitting to smoking groundhogs and, even, wild turkeys.

“I’d been hunting that longbeard for two sleasons [sic] so when I finally had him in range I not only smoked his ass I did a little dance over him when I was done,” reads the post on a popular website devoted to turkey hunting.

“I was like whose [sic] the man! Who’s your daddy! He wasn’t quite dead and he’s a turkey so, you know, it wasn’t like he could talk. But I could see it in his eyes. That bastard knew I owned him.”

On other forums, such as www.bowcountry.com, hunters are actually offering opinions on weather the “hunter’s high” one experiences when smoking a trophy buck is better with rifle or bow.

I have attached a picture of a deer that I killed back on the 6th of November. He is a nice 18 inch wide 9 point. Not the biggest but not the smallest. Nice trophy for these parts. I was unable to take him with a bow so I shot him with my gun, I just could not let him go. Now the dilemma is since I smoked him another has come along to tend his doe’s. I vowed I would not take him with a gun and I won’t however would you kill this deer with a bow?

Right now, it’s unclear where all this is headed or what it all means. But conventional law enforcement officials and wildlife experts at North Dakota Fish and Game are worried and believe it might take federal involvement to fully understand what appears to be, at best, a questionable practice and, at worst, potentially illicit new trend.

HARTFORD, CT —

    “My wife has informed me that I spend way too much time thinking about myself and not enough time putting my family first.  I cannot continue to read this forum and participate in the banter when I know that I cannot go afield when I wish within reasonable limits,” says Lee Wilkins, a Florida man who announced he was “signing off for a while” this week as a frequent poster to the cyber community of longbow and recurve shooting enthusiasts. Logging over 50 posts to the message board since September and untold hours spent “lurking” on “The Wall,” Wilkins also estimates he spent exactly “115 cumulative hours away from home” on three different occasions.

    “Not in the field mind you,” he writes, “but away from my house for a total of 4.79 days on 3 occasions combined.  This apparently is way too f—ing [sic] time consuming.  This will either end with an unlikely resolution, me being reduced to a miserable sheep for the rest of my life or a divorce.  If it wasn’t [sic] for my two beautiful boys ages eight and four, I could tell you exactly where it would end.”

With the same enthusiasm posters from throughout the nation muster when answering questions ranging from how to track a wounded deer to what wood shaft/broadhead combination flies the best when shot from a particular bow, immediately, persons with handles such as “Pondscum” and “Wolf Among Dogs” rallied to offer advice to another longbow and recurve enthusiast whose marriage is on the skids. Dr. Phil could not have done better. Nearly 100 posts and an untold number of viewing before noon, Wilkins post was easily one of the most popular on Monday.

    “Have her hold your targets for you,” offered TaterSalad from Texas.

    “It won’t work,” warned Edward Carneal of Virginia, aka Foxbo.  “May as well settle it one way or the other now and get it over with.  I’ve been there.”

Some on “The Wall” were more hopeful, offering prayers while others urged Wilkins to spice up his unhappy home with a little Old Testament inspired “man law”.

    “Sounds like your wifes [sic] security blaknet [sic] is you,” said Sixby, a self-described “pastoral councelor” from Oregon.

    “Remember, You da man. [sic]  Not she da man, [sic] You da man. [sic] You cannot have authority in the home and over your life until you take possession of your manhood and take that authority and do it with love.” While some believe such message boards hurt hunters by needless exposing the general public to the mindless meanderings and disturbingly pervasive right-wing, Christian zealotry common among the ranks of the American hunter, seemingly off-topic posts on message boards like The Leatherwall remain the most popular.

    “Some sap whining about his horrible marriage is just the tip of the iceberg,” says one industry insider who declined to be named because the subject is sensitive. “Advertising dollars for websites like The Stickbow are based on the number of daily ‘hits’ to a particular website.  So if the owner of that site can regularly drum up website traffic by letting their members debate the words of Jesus, Rush Limbaugh, or bash controversial figures in the industry…all the better for them.”

To the question of relevance this and scores of other off-topic posts have to do with the subject of traditional archery, Pat Effeminate, a Connecticut bank securities and information officer for Lincoln Financial Group and founder of The Stickbow, was reportedly off on his seventh trophy whitetail hunt in Kansas (in as many years) and could not be reached for comment.