If you hunt white-tailed deer, or any other big game animal for that matter, at some point you will need a quality rifle scope. This article is intended to give you a few suggestions and tips to keep in mind when making your final selection.

First, find a quality scope that fits in your budget. And I suggest buying the best you can afford. Unless you are in the habitat of buying guns every year (then I want your job), you will probably only buy a handful of scopes throughout your hunting life. With that said, you will never go wrong buying the best YOU can afford.

First, an important aspect of rifle scopes is light gathering quality of the scope. To check this out, look at the large end of the scope. The diameter of the scope lense will be measured in millimeters (mm). The larger the objective lens the more light it will ultimately gather. If you are hunting early morning or late evening, and who isn’t, you need to gather as much light as possible. (more…)

Magellan has finally announced the Magellan eXplorist 500 LE, a new GPS receiver for hikers, kayakers, fisherman, and other outdoor enthusiasts. What is unique about the eXplorist 500 LE is that you can choose between triple-A batteries or a rechargeable Lithium Ion battery. The new Magellan 500 LE comes with a 14 channel parallel receiver which is WAAS enabled.

The eXplorist 500 LE is waterproof and weighs less than four ounces. Maps are displayed on a 2.3 inch color, backlit display. You can store additional maps on SD cards.

Packages are offered to bundle the Magellan eXplorist 500 LE with certain maps for different activities. The bundles offer 25% off the original map cost.

Hikers can use the 500 LE to calculate area, perimeter, as well as view vertical profiles of trails. Kayakers and fishermen are offered tools to view hunting and fishing times as well as a sun and moon calculator. The MapSend Lake maps display shorelines, water depth charts, vegetation, bottom composition, and locations of boat ramps.

Geocachers can use the Magellan eXplorist 500 LE for paperless caching by downloading geocache data directly to the 500 LE. Purists can also directly enter coordinates into the GPS.

In Western Maryland a project will continue this year which monitors the movement of bears and hunters during hunting season. The project is designed to see what reaction bears might have to the presence of hunters in the area. Hunters and bears have been equipped with GPS tracking devices so that researchers can track the movements of both…. Kinda like watching someone else play a video game as you can watch the movement of both sides.

“If a hunter’s in close proximity to a bear, how does the bear react? How are bears reacting overall when the hunters go into the woods? Do the bears change their movements? Do they not? That’s one of the things we’re trying to find out,” said biologist Steven Bittner.”