How to Make a Handmade Slingshot // By T. Edward Nickens While we're not suggesting hunting with it, here's how you make a slingshot using tubing and, yes, a forked branch. Madison Parker is a former U.S. Navy SEAL who now trains SEALs in wilderness skills—including how to make and wield the most wicked slingshots on the planet. How wicked? Parker's handmade slingshots fire big chunks of lead at 225 fps. Where legal, he's used them to take game from squirrels to wild turkeys and more. While we're certainly not suggesting you hunt with a slingshot, there's nothing wrong with drilling empty cans on a summer afternoon. Here's how to make one: The Frame “Dogwood, hickory, and oak are the best,” Parker says. “Don't look for the perfect Y-shaped fork. If you'll hold the slingshot in your left hand, you want a fork where the main branch crooks to the left at 30 degrees, and a fork that goes off to the right at a 45-degree angle. Cut the frame and let it dry for three weeks.” The Power Parker's slingshots utilize high-powered bands with heavy leather shot pouches, but a number of companies sell ready-made replacement bands with pouches attached for slingshots (slingshotworld.com). The trick is in Parker's connection: 1 1/2 inches from the top of each upright, drill a hole slightly smaller in diameter than the band. Bevel the end of the band with scissors and thread it through the hole. Snip off the bevel. Next, take a dried stick slightly larger in diameter than the inside diameter of the band, and carve two pointed, 1/2-inch-long stoppers. Plug each end of the tubing with a stopper. Photograph by Travis Rathbone

Friday Cocktail Hour: The Spicy Buck // By David Draper This cocktail promises a kick in the taste buds from both the jalapeño juice and a measure and a half of Dixie Black Pepper Vodka. The vodka is doubly infused—first with Szechuan black peppers, then serrano peppers so it has bite that is anything but subtle. If vodka and hot pickle juice isn’t your style, consider boosting your morning Bloody Mary with the stuff. Ingredients: 1 ½ oz. Dixie Black Pepper Vodka 4 oz. ginger beer ¼ tsp. pickled jalapeño juice Splash of soda Juice of ¼ lime Directions: Add the ingredients to a mixing glass and stir with ice. Strain into a rocks glass filled with ice, and garnish with pickled jalapeño slice. Read more: http://fieldandstre.am/SvDC8l

Was an awesome night

#SOUTHERNSLAM DAY 4: LET’S CALL THIS MEETING TO ORDER We got weathered in on what was supposed to be the first morning of a long kayak trip. We made the most of it with a planning session in Georgetown, South Carolina, at the Palmetto Kitchen’s all-you-can-stuff-into-your-piehole Lowcountry seafood buffet. Georgetown sits on Winyah Bay, revered for redfish, on the northern end of a half-million-acre sprawl of wild country. Woods, rivers, sounds, barrier islands. Due to the weather, we’d have to cram it all into the next day and a half. —T. Edward Nickens

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#SOUTHERNSLAM DAY 3: IT TAKES A VILLAGE I’d like to tell you that the gobbler here skulked and gobbled and made us work to draw him in through the dark woods. Not. We put on a full-court press—2 callers and Jack working a tail fan—and this old boy turned his back to his harem and charged us at a full waddling run. Total hunt time: maybe 8 minutes, including coffee in the truck. —T. Edward Nickens

#SOUTHERNSLAM DAY 3: THE RIVER RAT The guy on the right is Paul Owens. We’re dialing down on a small group of turkeys that are dawdling across a field maybe 300 yards away. The Little Pee Dee River is in that man’s blood like no one else. When he was 13 he moved into the Little Pee Dee swamps for 6 months. Slept in a tent. Came out on Fridays to sell catfish for two bucks a piece, and squirrels he’d downed with an Iver Johnson 12 gauge. Then back into the woods. He’s worked in the swamps ever since. For years now he’s worked for a local family, the Hollidays, that owns several thousand acres in the Pee Dee low ground. His job: looking out for some of the finest hunting and fishing around. His title: Outdoor executive. Says so on his shirt. “Luckiest man that ever draw’d breath,” Paul says. —T. Edward Nickens

#SOUTHERNSLAM DAY TWO: ROOM WITH A MARSH VIEW Jayroe’s remote cabin looks over a mosaic of marsh and water and forest that tells the story of the Lowcountry wilds. Once these tidal rivers were forested all the way to the coastal dunes, but the massive, sprawling rice plantations converted the woods to diked fields across hundreds of thousands of acres. At night we heard alligators grunting and ducks squealing in the swamp woods. We smoked cigars and listened to a million frogs. And with no running water and no electricity, we pounded mud-slimed pants and shoes against the trees, our only way of doing laundry. And got up with the sun, loaded the boats with man and beast, and did it all again. Up next: a fist-fight with swamp turkeys. —T. Edward Nickens

#SOUTHERNSLAM DAY TWO: CAGE MATCH IN THE MUD Jack’s in a sticky spot. The abandoned, centuries-old ricefields of the Pee Dee Lowcountry are quagmires beyond anything I’ve ever seen. But where the dogs go, there shall ye go also. Jaroe gave us the scoop on the best way to make it through the muckiest parts: When you’re inextricably stuck in the mud, get your hands in front of your face, fall face-down in the goop, bend your knees to lift your feet out of the muck, and sort of breast-stroke through the slime. I didn’t believe him at first, but when you are literally waist-deep in a couple hundred year’s worth of marsh slop, it’s that or drown at high tide. —T. Edward Nickens

My big buddy Chocolate Moose in the little Tennessee river

Turning in some Bass Hunting Fishing and loving every day

#SOUTHERNSLAM DAY 1: PIG RELIEF He’s laughing now, but Jack wasn’t laughing when he was waist-deep in muck and marsh goo, the dogs going crazy, the men yelling, the knife in his hand, the pig frantic and squealing. Riding the old slave-dug canals with the hog dogs chained to the boat, the bay dogs suddenly stiffened, muzzles in the air, then lunged against the leashes. We plowed into the marsh, set the hounds free, and half-ran half-swam through the mud behind them. Jack was the first hunter to the hog, a 170-pound sow the dogs caught and dragged across the canal. It was complete bedlam, until the knife found the heart. Even then, it took awhile for a smile and then a laugh to replace the disbelief on Jack’s face. Not a bad first hour to kick off a 6-day adventure. (See more at #SouthernSlam) —T. Edward Nickens

#SOUTHERNSLAM DAY 1: BRING IT ALL Meet my new friend from the South Carolina Lowcountry, Ricky Jaroe. He’s in the back of the boat, with his hand on the tiller. He’s the one with the hog dogs leashed to hull, with a few generations of history when it comes to chasing marsh pigs through the historic ricefields of the Lowcountry. The one with a remote cabin so far back in the swamps you can shoot ducks out the front door and gators out the back. The one who led my son, Jack, and I on the first leg of a Lowcountry trifecta that involved knives, dogs, turkey fans, shotguns, kayaks, surf rods, crab pots and 5 days of a gorgeous South Carolina spring to string it all together. It was a wild ride, to say the least. And, you can enjoy it all right here on the F&S Facebook page with new, stories, posts, and videos all week. Just follow our hashtag #SoutherSlam. —T. Edward Nickens

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Taken at West Point Ga. While getting pictures of Fox's den. Never seen the snake on opposite side of the tree. Accidentally got the pic. Found this on arrival back at campsite. Unidentified snake...can you ID from this picture?

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Open a Beer Bottle with a Knife // By Keith McCafferty With practice, you can open a beer bottle by slicing off the neck with a single blow from a cleaver, but here’s an easier and much safer method. 1. Hold the neck of the bottle tightly, with the top of your hand just under the bottom of the cap. 2. Place the back of your knife blade across the top of the third knuckle of your index finger, and wedge it under the edge of the cap. 3. Pry up. Illustration by Dan Marsiglio

Father's Day Gift Idea: Costa Rafael Sunglasses Starting at $169 Costa’s 580p lenses have been proven fish spotters for years, and matched with the new Rafael frames, they’re even deadlier. My favorite of Costa’s 2016 offerings, the Rafael features arms that are extra-wide at the temples. This not only makes them fit very comfortably and securely, but it also helps block out even more sunlight. Translation: you see more fish. I’ve worn them doing everything from spotting sipping trout to hunting pike in the shallows, and they’ve yet to fail me regardless of sky conditions. Available in a plethora of frame and lens options, a pair of Rafaels will definitely keep Dad stylish and on the bite. —JC See our full Father's Day guide here: http://fieldandstre.am/7sqLKs #FSFathersDay

Father's Day Gift Idea: Weber Original 22” Charcoal Grill $150 Nothing reinforces the notion that you were raised right like appreciating the classics over the newest whiz-bang contraption. And nothing is more classic than a Weber Kettle. The original 22-incher can tackle almost any outdoor cooking job—from searing deer steaks to slow-smoking an elk backstrap. More than 350 square inches of cooking space is enough to feed the entire family. The plated steel grill even hinges out of the way to add more coals without the threat of frying a finger. —DD See our full Father's Day guide here: http://fieldandstre.am/7sqLKs #FSFathersDay