Gary Lewis Outdoorsman

 Forty-five minutes out of OKC there’s a 160-acre ranch with a 10,000-square-foot lodge. They’ve solved a problem for the local farming community, while at the same time offering guided hunts for wild boar. We met Matt Wetzel and Monica Paris and the rest of the crew at the Hunt Expo in Salt Lake City last week. Matt and Monica talk about the business model and hunting wild boar and looking forwar...

 In this 99th episode of Ballistic Chronicles we sit down with Brian Bachman of Arrowhead Wilderness Outfitters. We talk Minnesota black bears and hunting red stag in the roar in New Zealand. It’s that time of year when our hearts turn to New Zealand, anticipating The Roar at the end of March and those first couple of weeks of April. Brian talks about the opportunity to hunt with him on the South...

 Joshua Underwood grew up in a small town in the foothills of the Cascades where he learned to hunt and learned to shoot and absorbed business ideas from the old guys in his neighborhood. A two-year exposure to CAD/CAM theory set him on his course and he turned his love for high performance machines into a thriving business. Today we take a tour of the Radian Weapons factory in Redmond, Oregon, an...

 Today we talk wolves and wolf management with Jim Akenson – blending science, management and politics. Jim Akenson with his wife Holly Akenson is the author of 7003 Days: 21 Years in the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness. In 1982 Jim and Holly moved to a log cabin in the back country to manage the University of Idaho’s wilderness research station. Jim learned to track wolves and cougars,...

We sit down with Andy Maphet and sip the Fishing Central Oregon Reserve Roast and talk elk hunting in the Cascades with muzzleloading rifles. Elk hunting brings out the best and the worst in people and Andy is one of the wise ones. We’ll hear his story of losing a bull to some other hunters and how he kept the faith and kept hunting well and earned another chance with the old smokepole. 

Marc Larese really means it when he says he hunts coyotes wherever and whenever he can. When I checked in with him about doing this episode he was climbing back in the truck after calling in (and making good) a coyote. We hear about his deer season and how he improved as a coyote hunter this year and what are his favorite sounds for his neck of the woods.

It’s a DIY land booking platform, an advanced mobile mapping app that gives you access to private land hunting and fishing. They’re Colorado based with properties in Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Oregon.

We talk to Ray Crow of the Mule Deer Foundation. Ray is also director of operations for the Western Hunting & Conservation Expo and part owner of Arrowhead Wilderness Outfitters where I go to hunt black bear. We talk bear hunting in Minnesota and the Western Hunting & Conservation Expo in Salt Lake City and he tells the story of his hunt in southern Utah with a 257 Weatherby Magnum. 

Hunting deer in the late season, the sun is coming up, it’s a cold frosty morning in western Oregon. Outdoor writer Troy Rodakowski had a muzzleloader across his lap when he saw the cougar. It turned and began to stalk him. This is what happened next. You can catch Troy Rodakowski on Instagram at @troyoutdoors

We talk about the North American Model of Wildlife Management and conservation and the importance of journaling. If you’re a lifelong hunter or you plan to be, I encourage you to keep a journal. Leland Brown is the non-lead hunting education coordinator for the Oregon Zoo, based in Portland Oregon, educating hunters about non-lead options. In this interview we talk about a study he has initiated....

Pure Oregon. Get a little insight into how to hunt the black bear with Elke Littleleaf Kirk, a native fishing guide from the Warm Springs Reservation. This episode starts with Elke’s wife Alysia being stalked by a black bear. Then we hear about a bear hunt on the Reservation. We’re talking bear hunting and then we talk Bigfoot and hear a few of Elke’s personal encounters and what he has learned fr...

In this episode we talk to Levi Mallory, a whitetail fanatic from the Show Me State and he shows us how to rethink our deer hunting spots. I recorded this episode in a garage while cutting up a monster of a buck. This animal probably weighed 275 pounds-plus and the other deer scattered when it showed up. If you hunt whitetails or blacktails and want insight into habitat and small property manageme...

Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, there was always this speculation about Bigfoot, Sasquatch, Hairy Man and what it was, and if it was. And it seems like hunters and loggers are the ones that have the most encounters and are the most likely to NOT talk about it. Ron Morehead started researching in the early 1970s out of a hunting camp in the High Sierras. We talk to Ron about where the journey...

Just back from a four-day workshop and her first-ever deer hunt in Texas, Amy Patrick had one day to get home and then we headed to southern Oregon for a blacktail deer hunt. Patrick is policy director for the Oregon Hunters Association. After she made a well-placed shot with a borrowed 7mm-08, we sat down to talk about her work and her first deer hunt. Her story might inspire you to invest in you...

Just back from the desert and looking forward to several more deer hunts this season, we sit down with returning guest Brice Stanley to talk about mule deer hunting. How to be in the right place at the right time in The Magic Hour. 

You know you should be cleaning your rifle. But how often. And when? And where? And why? We have a quick conversation with Marcus Kahn of Modern Spartan Systems who provides some insight into range day and rifle cleaning. 

Last minute details. How to think as you’re packing for deer camp. What to bring. How to upgrade your camp experience. And if you did buy a new rifle, how are you going to sight-it in? Bore-sighting gets you half way there. We talk to my good friend and fellow outdoor writer Troy Rodakowski about his pre-hunt rituals. 

You can still find real Africa and like I’m always telling you, if you want to do it, if you’ve always dreamed of it, do it now. Justin Moore grew up hunting in eastern Oregon and has just returned from his second safari in Zimbabwe where he took a wildebeest and a cape buffalo. Justin Moore works in public relations and marketing and is as good with a camera as he is with a rifle. His work has ta...

In this sixteenth in our mini-series, How To Be A Bear Hunter, we talk to Dante Zuniga-West about hunting bears this fall when the blackberry crop is late. We discuss setting a stand for bear and visualizing its approach, as well as Dante’s favorite bear gun and loads. Dante came to hunting by way of prep school in Bel Air. He is the offspring of educators, an educator, he holds a master’s degree...

A lot of people think deer hunting when they set out to become hunters. But it didn’t used to be that way. A couple three generations ago people hunted small game like rabbits and squirrels and pheasants and grouse as they learned their skills in the woods and the desert. And now it is September and a new generation wants to know how they can get started hunting. Today we talk to Leland Brown abou...

In this episode of Ballistic Chronicles we talk hunting in Africa with my friend Brian R. Smith from Birmingham, Alabama. Brian opted to carry a 470 Nitro Express in a double rifle and he tells us why and the process of getting the rifle and sighting in. Then we talk about how a hunter can find the real Africa today and hunt in the old way and why and how you can make it happen now. Brian is a thi...

Hunting season is in the air. We sit down with Joel Strimling and try to ask and answer some questions from when we were new hunters. Can a person really be authentic about how they put food on the table? How do we get started as hunters if we don’t have a dad or an uncle that hunts? Who do we ask? Is there a better way to do this? Are there clubs to join? Good magazines to read? Can you really ju...

Brooks Hansen joins us today from Camp Chef HQ in Logan, Utah. Brooks and I have shared some great fishing in Idaho, Wyoming and Utah and we always talk mule deer hunting and camp cooking. Today we talk about what it takes to get started as a hunter today and best calibers for mule deer. We also share a recipe for wild boar pork loin on a pellet grill. 

Ever use a plywood beef cow decoy? Well sometimes it’s the one thing you need to get close to a herd of elk or antelope. In this episode we sit down with Paul Donheffner, a state board member for the most active group protecting hunters’ rights in Oregon – Oregon Hunters Association. I’m sipping Frontier Roast coffee and we’re talking about how a new hunter can get started in this sport, and a lit...

In this fifteenth in our mini-series, How To Be A Bear Hunter, we talk to my good friend John Nores. John was one of our very first guests on the podcast. We have hunted wild boar together and axis deer in Texas. And John is a car guy, he likes hot rods, fast trucks, good-shooting rifles and he is also a bass player. We talk about all these things and bear hunting and bullets and our new and old f...