Listen to the Episode With a title like “Dammit Carl” you are probably wondering what this episode is about and who Carl is. I can speak to the “about” but you’ll have to listen to the episode to hear about the latter. It is well worth it. Steve Angell and I have been friends for a decade or more. Our friendship started during the early days of Twitter when the point of the platform was to make connections and have conversations. Now its all about self promotion, biased political views, and finding ways to get people cancelled. Look folks, we ruin nice things. That is what people do. We are r ..read more

Most good things are worth waiting for it, and I know this is one of them… When I wrote Life and Longbows, I was sure I would write another book. I had every intention of publishing that book in 2020 without really knowing what it would be. I still had bowhunting stories in the quiver and several more about my new passion for fly fishing, but I didn’t have a theme or a title. I had been reading books by John Gierach and Pat McManus, which brought me a great deal of joy. Their humorous reveal-all approach to the lighter side of hunting and fishing was what I was trying to capture with my own w ..read more

Satisfaction is a difficult thing to define when applied to certain activities. Hunting is definitely one of them. Whether you look for it in the pursuit of an animal or in the animal itself, your parameters will almost always be different than someone else’s. As an experience-seeking outdoorsmen, I get my satisfaction from the journey rather than the destination. It took several years of tag soup to arrive at this realization and I am aware others do not share the same palette. “What about rifle season?” They bark. “Don’t you at least shoot one for the freezer during rifle season?” No. I’m ..read more

In our latest episode of the Traditional Outdoors podcast, I mentioned wanting to do something I hadn’t done in a very long time – build and hunt with wood arrows. It’s difficult to pinpoint the exact origin of this change of heart. A wooden dowel (other than a few simple sets for my daughters) hasn’t crossed my workbench in years. After taking a doe with a crudely-crested cedar in 2012, I put my tools away, gave my Young’s feather burner to a friend, and entered the soulless land of synthetic materials. I used time, or a lack-there-of, to justify the move. My kids were young and staying busy ..read more

I’ve never been one to back down from a challenge. That combined with my tendency to immerse myself in an activity made me a perfect fit for traditional bowhunting. Crafting arrows, making quivers, twisting strings, and whittling self bows appealed to me early on and were key ingredients to a more intimate experience afield. Few of those skills stuck with me due to time or the realization that others were better suited for the tasks, but each helped me understand my passion for the stick and string on a much deeper level. Knowing the components helped me to better understand the whole. A wise ..read more

This beautiful call was crafted by my friend John Buchin out of my neighbors 25-year-old spalted maple tree. It has aged beautifully and sounds amazing when someone else uses it. The sport of turkey hunting seems to have an almost magical allure for those who try it. It’s a tough feeling to convey, but there’s no question that the calling is one of the prime attractions. I’ve often wondered if people would be fanatical about turkey hunting if it simply meant bushwacking for mute birds or taking them on the wing like oversized pheasants. – Ray Eye, Hunting Wild Turkeys with Ray Eye It is almos ..read more

LISTEN TO EPISODE #114 In Episode #114, Steve and I catch up after a short hiatus. We give everyone an update on why the break was required, Steve’s wife’s health and a thank you for all the support the Angell’s have received. Then we spend some time chatting about the 3D target season and shoots across the country and then about fly fishing, fly tying, and more. It had been some time since Steve and I sat down to record a podcast. My microphone was dusty but the batteries still had a bit of life left in them. I could think of no better metaphor for the show. These last few months of winter h ..read more

If there really is a definable 6th sense, it would be the natural connection and the ability of communication between man and animal. – Justin southwick The best way to hunt an animal…is by not hunting them at all. I’d forged this opinion through years of trying and dozens of unsuccessful encounters and won’t be changing a word of it anytime soon. I am convinced animals have a 6th sense and know when they are being hunted. Whether the explanation for this peculiar ability be scientific, divine in nature, or utter rubbish, I don’t care. I have witnessed the effects too many times to question i ..read more

LISTEN TO EPISODE #107 It’s been a horrible year. We can all agree on that. Anything that could happen, short of a planet-ending meteorite, has happened. And there is still time for the meteorite. Steve and I have had a rough go of it too. We left 2019 on a high note (or higher anyway) with big plans to raise the bar after hitting the 100 mark in 2020. Then the Coronavirus hit and everything changed and kept changing and none of it for the better. We have both had to adapt to major life changes, which have limited our time spent out-of-doors, on the show, and with close friends and family. Bu ..read more

There are moments during a hunt where I’ve been spellbound by the life around me. It is in these moments that society loses its grip and I become attuned to the natural state of things. These are tangible moments. I can smell the air change and hear the quiet ringing in my ears. And when I blink, a simpler world appears before me. This is when I am the most affected and effective. This is when I know I am hunting. Getting to this place hasn’t been easy. The modern world is noisy and complicated. Shutting it off and stepping away has been my greatest challenge. It’s been hard to focus on the t ..read more