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The MeatEater crew spends a lot time behind Vortex ‘nocs glassing for everything from turkeys to elk. And when it’s time to make an accurate, lethal shot we rely on our rangefinders to confirm the distance to our target. Obviously, it feels like a good idea to combine these two pieces of gear into one system in order to reduce the number of items that you need to manage in the field. So, this past spring, when I was given the opportunity to try...

Hardcore hunters who hike miles into the backcountry to escape other hunters and find unpressured animals put a premium on shaving weight and saving space. If you’re the kind of backpack hunter who shaves ounces by hacking off your toothbrush handle or wearing the same pair of underwear for a week, Benchmade’s new Altitude knife is what you’re looking for.
The ultralight Altitude is about as simple as it gets but it retains the details and...

Like most tools, hunting knives require maintenance. If you don’t take care of your blade, you’ll be one of those hunters who struggles through the process of field dressing and butchering and who turns out sloppily processed game meat.
On a recent Montana black bear hunt, Matt Elliott from Benchmade Knife Company walked the MeatEater crew through a handful of do’s and don’ts surrounding knife care in the field. Some of it might seem like common...

Hunting clothing has come a long ways in the last decade or so. With technical advances in synthetic and natural materials, hunters no longer have to suffer the drawbacks of wet cotton, heavy wool, or loud polyester clothing. It’s now possible to build a complete clothing system that will get you comfortably through most hunts in a wide range of environments, climates, and weather.
Before developing your own clothing system, you’ll need to...

If you could only pick one, what rifle caliber should you choose for big game hunting in North America?
This is a question we get over and over here at MeatEater, and the good news is that the average hunter can pretty much do it all with a single rifle. As fun as it might be, it’s really not necessary to get caught up in the minutiae of ballistics or the allure of wildcat or ultra-magnum calibers.
The vast majority of big game hunters on the...

The subject of non-toxic ammunition has been a contentious issue with many hunters ever since the initial ban on lead ammunition for waterfowl hunting and only grew more controversial when the state of California banned lead ammunition for all types of hunting, and we receive a lot of questions here at MeatEater on the subject.
Steve does shoot lead ammunition on some hunts, but he has used non-toxic options successfully on everything from ducks...