He didn’t crack shad by going louder, he got quieter.

“Painting shad is one of the hardest things I’ve worked on. It’s not about bold colors or sharp contrasts it’s all about really subtle transitions that are easy to miss but make a huge difference,” said Zorba.

Color shifting is the difference maker. 15 years at the bench and it finally clicked. It’s all about the blend…

“The tricky part is that shad don’t really have clean lines. Everything kind of blends into each other soft fades and slight color shifts. You’ll get hints of green, purple, blue depending on the light and angle and that’s incrdibly hard to replicate with pearl paints,” said Zorba.

Photo & Story by U/Mr_Zorba @zorba_baits ...

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A proper send-off for a legend.
Some men play the part. Others live it.
He was the latter. RIP Chuck Norris. ...

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Luke Combs pulled up to GQ’s 10 Things He Can’t Live Without and ran the full spread: coffee, Aloha bars, arrowheads, watches, hats, the black tee rotation, Xbox controller.

Around 9:36 of the video he reaches for his turkey calls.
Two tools: a slate (pot) call and a diaphragm. The mouth call is The Haunt by Rolling Thunder Game Calls—three reeds, ghost cut, built for kee-kee runs, whistles, yelps.

Between calls, Combs goes, “this is nerdy stuff here,” but if you’ve ever chewed on a diaphragm in an Uber, sounding like a busted kazoo until it finally clicks, you know exactly what you’re looking at here. ...

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“It’s similar to a catfish setup, but your bait isn’t on the hook. It uses a pack bait [or chum] setup on an extension of line just off the hook.” @jakomac3

Jakob Mackey was fishing his neighborhood lake in Sioux City, Iowa last August when an enormous grass carp jerked his rod off the shore and into the water. Mackey had been targeting big carp in Bacon Creek Lake all summer, but he never expected to hook one weighing north of 70 pounds, the angler tells F&S. Earlier this month, the International Game Fish Association (IGFA) certified Mackey’s grass carp as a new World Record for the 30-pound line class category. 

Mackey says he’s been obsessed with carp fishing ever since spotting a group of the behemoths in the shallows at Bacon Creek Lake back in 2024. “They were like 4-and-a-half to five-feet long, just sitting right in front of me, and I could see them clearly through my polarized lenses,” he recalls.

Through his research, Mackey discovered a specialized carp-fishing setup known as the Hair Rig. It was developed in the 1970s by anglers targeting highly pressured carp in the English countryside. “It’s not well known in the U.S.,” he says.


—————————👇 worth a read👇 —————————
If you made it this far, you are our people. Check out the full story by @travishallmedia // out now 🔗 in story. ...

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Most of Carl Akeley’s story has been told enough times to sound like legend but it came from him and it holds up. In 1896, on his first African assignment, he was out on an ostrich hunt when a leopard came out of nowhere and closed the distance before he could recover.

With no shots left, the leopard hit Akeley high and went for his throat, catching his arm instead. They went to the ground leaving him with nothing but his hands to fend off the attack. Akeley drove his arm deeper into the animal’s mouth to keep its teeth off his neck. Somewhere in that scramble he found leverage. He stayed with it until the fight went out of the animal. He walked away torn up but alive. The leopard didn’t.

That moment is what most people remember, but it wasn’t the whole story. Akeley went on to help change how wildlife was understood and preserved, building lifelike habitat displays at the American Museum of Natural History that treated animals as part of a living system, not just trophies. As a member of the Boone and Crockett Club, he was also part of the early push for fair chase and wildlife protection, helping lay the groundwork for conservation efforts that still shape how we manage wild places today. ...

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In a fire that destroyed a home, the shop, and nearly everything inside, one thing held for Larry O’Neal.

The heat was intense enough to melt the metal frame of the garage and collapse the structure onto the safe inside. When the family returned to the wreckage, it took nearly an hour of cutting and prying through the crushed steel just to get a look inside. What they saw stopped them cold.

The wood stocks of the rifles were still intact. One by one, they began pulling them out. Twenty-four heirloom firearms had been stored inside. Twenty-three made it out with only minor cosmetic damage. The only loss came from heat causing the stored ammunition to ignite.

The safe was a Field & Stream x Browning 49 Long Gun Electronic Safe, purchased just days earlier from @tractorsupply 👀

Events like this leave a family with a long road ahead, and everyone involved knows how difficult that can be. Teams from Browning and Tractor Supply Company have stepped in to help replace the safe and support the owner as he begins rebuilding. 🔗 More information about this specific safe is available in our story.

To Larry & his family who shared this with us—thank you for trusting us with your story. What was protected inside that safe represents far more than gear. It’s family history and memories. ...

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Turkey season again. The same old alarm clock before daylight. The same stretch of woods where somebody once whispered, “He’s coming.”

Every spring it starts over. A box call in your vest pocket that sounds a little better every year. Granddad telling the same story about the one that hung up at 40 yards.

Turkey season isn’t just hunting.
It’s a tradition that refuses to die.

A gobble that rattles through the hardwoods. And the quiet understanding that some of the best days of your life start exactly like this.

What’s your favorite story from the woods? Share it.
Archival Project // @fieldandstream & @yuenglingbeer
#OldSchool ...

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Worth the wait.
Some people mark spring by the calendar.
The rest of us mark it by the first gobble. 🦃

Tag us in your season opener photos & stories! ...

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