It’s been a busy month around here. Summer always is, what with camping trips, and fishing expeditions, and making plans for white-water rafting out west. And it’s going to get busier as we get ready for hunting seasons.

“Hunting!” I hear you exclaim. “It’s barely high summer. Are you really talking about hunting already?”

You betcha. Although the dog days are upon us, it won’t be long before the guns of autumn start to bang.

Here in Kentucky the seasons actually start in mid-August. That’s when squirrel season opens in the Bluegrass. Two weeks later, on September first, comes the dove opener. Dove shooting, the traditional unofficial start of the hunting year, has a long tradition in Kentucky. More a social event then a hunt, it’s when folks who may not have seen each other for a year gather to swap a few lies, and maybe shoot a bird or six, and share a cool one once the guns are put up.

Where not talking merely a handful of shooters at these social hunts. As many as a hundred guns might be invited. Spaced out evenly, they surround the field, waiting for the gray bombshells to arrive. At some of them the host even provides a picnic lunch, and maybe a dinner party afterwards.

You never know who’s standing next to you at such a hunt. Might be a doctor or a lawyer, or a dot-com millionaire. But, then again, it might be an unemployed factory worker, or an auto mechanic, or the landowner’s handyman. Doesn’t matter who or what they are out in the world. In the dove fields they are all brothers. What they have in common is a love of guns, and shooting, and the smell of Hoppe’s #9.

The easiest way to get ready for wingshooting is to visit a claybird range. My preference is for Sporting Clays, because it comes as close to simulating hunting conditions as possible. But if there’s no sporting range near you, then give Trap or Skeet a try.

And don’t believe that old chestnut about good target shooters making bad hunters. It’s just not so. The more you shoot the better at it you become, and the fact is, the skills you develop at the target range carry over to the hunting fields.

I know many world-class target shooters, and have hunted with several of them. To a man (or woman, in some cases) they have cleaned my clock on live birds. So spend some quality time now with clay targets, and you’ll put more quail, pheasant, and grouse on the table come fall.

Before shooting anything, clay bird or live bird, you should learn how your gun shoots. Patterning a smoothbore is the way to do that. But a traditional patterning board is one of the most boring things in the gunning world. A hunter's patterning board, on the other hand, not only provides useful information but is simple to perform. And can be fun too.

All of this may sound like I’m ignoring riflemen in favor of shotgunners. Such is not the case. Indeed, savvy shooters don’t wait for big game seasons. Riflemen really come into their own during the summer. That’s when varminting, the ultimate rifleman’s sport comes on strong.

Woodchucks and crows are the main targets of choice in the east, while out west the prize goes to prairie dogs and Columbian ground squirrels.

If you haven’t succumbed to the lure of varmint shooting, I have to caution you: it can become addictive. Not just the shooting (although few things provide the same level of self-satisfaction as hitting a very small target at a very long range), but the tinkering with loads, and rifles, and accessories.

I used to make at annual trip to South Dakota for prairie dog shooting, for instance. A couple of buddies and I would spend months getting ready for that trip; hand-loading rounds for the half-dozen rifles we’d each bring along, and arranging permissions to hunt, and deciding whether we’d camp or motel it this year. During the golden age of varminting it was possible to enjoy a thousand round day on the little picket pins. I came into it long after that abundance. For us, 300 rounds was a good day. But we’d string three or four or five of those days back to back. Lot’s of good times, for sure. But it might be that our time could have been better spent elsewhere.

Meanwhile, fishing continues full force. Black bass remain the most popular fish sought in America. You’d think, therefore, that there’d be few bassing methods that weren’t fully understood. Alas, such is not the case. Example: crankbaits. It always amazes me the number of fishermen who do not understand crankbaits and how they should be fished. Far too many fishermen still think the way to fish a crankbait is to throw it as far as possible, then burn it back to the boat. Which, as you’ll read, is a sure-fire way of not catching fish.

Something more and more experienced crankers are doing, incidentally, is deep-sixing the treble hooks that all makers install---and which tend to tangle. Replacing them are double hooks, such as those used by Atlantic salmon anglers. If you go this route, be sure and arrange the hooks properly, with the front set facing forward and the rear ones looking in that direction. This arrangement minimizes tangles to the point they all but disappear. And the hooks to not snag each other while actually fishing such a bait. The same, unfortunately, cannot be said about trebles.

While it’s always nice to learn new techniques, fishing isn’t always a balls-to-the-wall endeavor. Sometimes you want to just take it easy. When that happens to me, I look for a lazy river where I can casually flick a fly or toss a spinner. If it turns out that I’m distracted by swallows darting in and out of bank-side burrows, or that watching a doe and her fawn becomes more important than catching a fish, well, that’s what fishing should be; a laid-back, relaxing way to spend a few hours.

As you look over this past month’s new stories you’ll notice a greater number of them dealing with camp cooking. There’s a reason for that, one we’re rather excited about. We have formed a partnership with the folks at Cheftalk.com, one of the best websites on the net dealing with cooking and culinary matters. In addition to linking to each other, the Outdoor Sports Advisor is now producing a series of articles about camp cooking specifically for Cheftalk. And we are participating in their new camp cooking forum discussions.

So, if you’re looking for camp cooking tips, techniques, and recipes in addition to the ones found here, be sure and follow the links from our pages to our friends at Cheftalk. Or just go over there and browse around.

Tight Lines and Open Patterns,