Hunting

Some animals are just plain tough, others not so much. In the latter category, you could probably put cottontails, ruffed grouse, and pronghorn. While there are exceptions to every rule, those species seem to give up the ghost without too much persuasion. Other animals like whitetails, elk, several...

I hate video games. My radicalization began years ago when I watched a friend of mine, who was eight months pregnant, physically struggle to make dinner and set the table while her husband sat on the couch in his living room playing a golf game. Just as the sight of a junky might lead you to hate...

Chip Davis didn’t set out to clinch a Super Slam when he started hunting as a teenager in the late 1980s. Killing a wild turkey in all 49 states where they exist seemed like a “pie in the sky kind of dream,” Davis told MeatEater. But by “chipping away, one state at a time,” the Mississippi native...

“The nation that destroys its soil destroys itself.” -President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Most everyone in America knows about the Dust Bowl era of the 1930s. The Dust Bowl resulted in billions of tons of topsoil blowing away due both to over-tilling practices and horrible drought. Luckily for us...

Wildlife managers across the country are wondering what’s next after a deadly strain of bird flu was discovered in wild turkey flocks for the first time ever. “Highly pathogenic avian influenza” (HPAI), caused by a virus known as H5N1, has been sweeping the continent since it first hit Canadian...

There are two sources of turkey hunting advice you should seek. The first is from the true experts—the people who have killed piles of birds in various situations, throughout different parts of the season, and with different weapons. They get bonus points if they’ve stacked up plenty of toms on...

The 9mm Luger isn’t a great hunting cartridge. Let’s get that out of the way up front. But it is cheap, easy to shoot, and readily available-all things we value whenever we’re evaluating a caliber. These attributes make it a great training round if you’re looking to start hunting with a handgun. It...

This scouting article is powered by onX, creators of the best digital mapping tool for hunters. The whitetail world is eaten up with e-scouting. It’s the foundational layer to all traveling hunts and something that can give you a serious edge at home too. When it comes to turkeys, digital sleuthing...

Every spring, somewhere around 40 million North American ducks head to the grasslands, wetlands, and forests of the northern United States and Canada. This population fluctuates wildly based on nesting conditions, predation, and human impacts to the landscape. Here are a few things you can do to...

The truth is, most hunters will capitalize on every advantage they can buy. If they say otherwise, they’re probably lying. This is definitely true when it comes to today’s world of ultra-realistic turkey decoys. When given the option, I’ll admit, realistic decoys are worth every penny. This is...

Two universal truths to outdoor excursions of all kinds are that they tend to take a little longer than we originally planned, and most of them should be intentionally experienced at night or well before the crack of dawn at least once. Obviously, hunters are used to both scenarios. Pre- and post...