Author: Scott Haugen

The bear’s teeth were popping and its breathing, heavy. Guttural grunts and thrashing brush were easy to hear as the enraged black bear was less than 100 yards away. I continued blowing on the handheld predator call, and finally the agitated bear emerged from the dark timber in Southeast Alaska. My buddy, Mike Jenkins, won the coin toss and was up first. As soon as the bear hit the rocky shoreline, zeroed-in on my calls, put it’s ears back and started coming, Mike pulled the trigger. Dropping the bear inside 70 yards was an adrenaline rush for Mike, as this…

The first time I tried turkey hunting with a crossbow, I watched a longbeard pirouette toward my decoy, settled the crosshairs, and watched the bolt disappear into his vitals. Tag on the leg, bird on the ground—and I was instantly hooked. For a lifetime shotgun and vertical bow turkey hunter, chasing spring toms with a crossbow was exactly the fresh challenge I’d been looking for. Turkey hunting with a crossbow blends the best of both worlds: it’s more forgiving than drawing a vertical bow on a sharp-eyed gobbler, yet still demands careful setups, smart decoy placement, rock-solid shot…

The sun had yet to rise on this November morning. With temperatures hovering in single digits and a 40-mile-per-hour wind in my face, I hoped the hunt would end fairly quickly, and figured it would. After all, how hard could it be hunting bison on a 10,000-acre ranch on horseback? Slinking closer to the edge of a cliff, I spotted the unmistakable stature of a bison. It was alone and in the bottom of a deep canyon. The big bull grazed 300 yards away in a spot that would take the better part of an hour to reach on foot.…