It A still-hunt is like a marriage. If you like your partner, every step seems to make sense. The notion of reward fades; the process is good enough of itself.
If your marriage doesn’t pass muster, you’ll find no help here. Still-hunting partners, though, are easy to change. I’ve run through a few. To be fair, some would say they’ve jettisoned the same union. On a hunt, as in marriage, partnership demands much of both parties.
The ideal trail companion
- breaks no twig
- has no body odor
- moves only when you do
- never whines about your pace, asks to share your lunch, borrows your knife, bores, annoys or disagrees with you.
When you find someone who measures up, either propose or chain this paragon to a post. I’m still on the prowl for such a partner. Meanwhile, I mostly hunt solo.
Alone in the woods, you’re responsible for what happens—and what doesn’t. You make your own luck, accepting that you can’t control everything while acknowledging that whatever the hunt becomes is your doing and yours alone. There is no hunt without you; no one else directs it.
Alone, you can still-hunt or plant yourself and wait. Sitting in one place, hoping an elk walks into your sights, is passive hunting. In my view, it’s like leaning on a guide or hunting partner to make decisions for you. If an animal appears and you kill it, what credit is that to you? Whatever the antler score, you can claim only that you’d scheduled time on stand.
Moving solo through cover that might yield a glimpse of game is the essence of hunting. It is what most animal predators do. It is field sport stripped of mechanical assists. It is drama you bring to cover of your choosing, drama independent of fixtures and vehicles and the preparations of other people, drama that leaves nothing tangible in its wake. It is what hunters do who have trouble attracting or keeping partners.
In snow you can track elk—or still-hunt along a track. There’s a difference. Tracking is following. Still-hunting along a track is moving to the side, an eye to the prints to guide your step but with your focus ahead. The tracks tell you the elk’s pace and where it has been. Still-hunting, you read more into that trail because you’re most concerned about where the elk will go and why, when you can expect to catch it and how you can approach it unannounced.
Without a track, you have the same concerns but must rely on your knowledge of elk, recollections of hunts past and an intuition born of time on the mountain to plan your direction, route and pace. Every step matters—your decision to squeeze under a deadfall or climb over it, to skirt a knob to the left or to the right. Your stops are crucial too: the time, place and duration of each pause. You can’t look everywhere, so you look in high-value places first, choosing carefully but quickly among the myriad pockets, shadows and lodgepole lattices. You examine branches that might be antlers, rocks that might be rumps, trees that might be legs.
While so engaged, you don’t need a partner. Still-hunting requires all your faculties all the time. Another person becomes a distraction, as well an additional source of noise, movement and scent that can put elk to flight. While a one-man camp seems empty, two hunters make a crowded trail.
But alone with a rifle, you’re not actually alone. There’s the rifle. It’s not only with you; you’re in constant, conscious touch—just as you were with that first date at the county fair farther back than you care to remember. Like first dates, new rifles don’t all wear well. Some are better partners than others. Because life is short, you might as well spend time with whomever and whatever pleases you most.
So I’m picky about rifles I take into the woods alone. There’s no formula. I adore Ruger Number Ones and early Savage 99s and fine custom bolt guns. I’ve killed elk with a variety of rifles in 30 different chamberings. Such behavior qualifies as philandering in some circles; surely it precludes any long-running relationship. But from these affairs I’ve learned what suits me best when the trail is long and lonely.
Last fall, I killed an elk with a rifle that’s a year older than I am. It’s a heavy rifle—7½ pounds empty with iron sights. But it’s not very powerful. A month later I shot a bull with a 6½-pound rifle. It’s a modern bolt gun with a lot more reach. The elk was far enough that I could not have killed it with the other, older rifle. Still, I’m pleased to have carried both. Each proved a fine companion in its own way.
Killing efficiency matters when you’re sifting rifles. But just as good looks don’t guarantee a good marriage, lethality is not alone the measure of a rifle. It must also balance well. Excellent balance can make a rifle seem lighter than it is and bring it to your cheek quickly. A properly balanced rifle has a nose for the target. It swings as if on rails and seems to steady itself. My friend Lex Webernick, who builds lightweight bolt guns under the banner of Rifles, Inc., is so particular about balance that he manufactures his own recoil pads to tune it. “An ounce or two isn’t noticeable as it affects overall weight,” he says. “But a small shift in the balance point can make a difference in how the rifle handles.”
He’s right. And many modern rifles are poorly balanced. Some actions wear 22-, 24- and 26-inch barrels, all in the same stock. At best, only one of these rifles can claim perfect balance. Many lightweight rifles have a muzzle-up feel because ounces have been drained from the barrel, with no other change. When weight borne by your forward hand shifts rearward, a rifle becomes hard to control. The trigger hand is best limited to pulling the stock into your shoulder and manipulating the trigger. It should not point the rifle.
One reason I’m drawn to rifles of the mid-20th century is that they combined modern metallurgy and high-performance chamberings with fine balance. They also exhibit a lithe form and simple, functional elegance scarce on late-model elk guns. Compare the sleek Model 760 Remington pump rifle of the 1950s with the current angular Model 7600. Heft an early Model 70 Winchester in .338 and one of the latest 70s to come from New Haven.
On the other hand, bolt rifles have recently taken a turn for the better. Ron Coburn, who not only runs Savage but hunts with its rifles, has quietly pared bulk from their stocks, vastly improving their feel and responsiveness in hand. Browning has refined its super-accurate A-Bolt to produce the better-shaped X-Bolt. Remington’s 700 Alaskan Ti is not only lightweight and weatherproof; it has a grace of line and shotgun-quick pointability that any still-hunter will appreciate. Ruger’s recent Model 77 Hawkeye strikes me as the most intelligently designed long-action production rifle in decades. Kimber’s Model 84M is still my pick of the short-action field. When you want the flattest-shooting, hardest-hitting bullets from a svelte, well-balanced rifle, there’s not much to rival Weatherby’s Ultra Lightweight in .270 Weatherby Magnum. I used one not long ago and liked it so well I’m keeping it. If you’re ready for a semi-custom rifle, you’ll find all the makings at H-S Precision and Rifles, Inc. A new Cooper .270 came through my shop the other day. The first group I fired, with factory-loaded Remington Core-Lokts, measured 3/8 inch! Among my favorite elk guns are Model Sevens in .308 and .300 SAUM from Remington’s Custom Shop. A Serengeti-stocked .257 from the Montana Rifleman not only shoots 3/4-inch groups, it is singularly handsome with a cleanly sculpted laminated stock that doesn’t look laminated.
As not everyone in camp gets along equally well with others around the fire, so your pick of a rifle for still-hunting needn’t mirror mine. Specifically, I favor barrels of medium contour, 22 to 26 inches long, depending on the cartridge. I like straight fluting on long bolt-gun barrels. Stainless or chrome-moly, barrel and action should have a satin finish. Controlled feed appeals to me, though push-feed mechanisms can be as smooth, and I’ve never had a bolt-face extractor fail. The best safety is Winchester’s three-position wing others have copied. Triggers adjusted to a clean 2½-pound break make sense—though I’ll accept heavier, creepier pulls on lever rifles and pumps. I prefer fixed magazines. Detachable boxes that protrude from the rifle’s belly can chatter and make long carries uncomfortable. The best detachables are polymer boxes that seat flush and feed the top round straight up. Tikka’s T3 and the new Browning X-Bolt employ these.
While standard stocks are by most measures too short for me, I’ve used them enough years to have adapted. In fact, a stock that should fit me now seems long. I like the rifle’s weight close in, my cheek well forward on the comb. I’ve yet to accept tight grips and angular forends, however. A long, slender, open grip speeds handling. So does a slim, pear-shaped forend. It must be long enough to accommodate a swivel stud a useful distance forward, as I often shoot with a sling. The reverse slant of the forend tip on Weatherby’s pretty walnut stocks, alas, pushes the stud too far back. While cheek-rests can be handsome and functional, a straight comb intelligently shaped doesn’t need one. If a stock is checkered, the diamonds must be cleanly cut. The grip cap and buttpad (I like Pachmayr’s Old English) must fit seamlessly. Inletting should be skin-tight. If the barrel is floated, the gap should just admit a sheet of typing paper. I’ll concede a preference for walnut; but the best hand-laid synthetic stocks are more stable and durable.
Rifle engineers would do well to think carefully before abandoning old designs for new. The most attractive bolt handles, for example, appeared on commercial Mausers and Model 70 Winchesters before the Second World War. Remington did a credible job with its M700 knob, but many rifles since have been fitted with abominable handles. Given that you close the bolt with your palm, checkering on the outside is non-functional and, unless done by hand at some cost, ugly. Neither do flat surfaces belong on bolt knobs.
By the way, Marlin must be commended for retaining the utilitarian but unarguably appealing lines of its lever rifles. The fit and finish of its classic 336 carbines and muscular 1895 Guide Guns leave you no reason to pine for 1950’s versions. Whatever style of rifle you prefer, if at the end of a long day the rifle in hand seems as good a pick as any you could imagine, it probably makes just as good a partner, too.