It’s been our goal with the Back 40 project to inspire and educate hunters, especially those new to the pursuit. To ensure this mission continues, we donated the Back 40 to the National Deer Association—the creators of the nation’s most comprehensive new hunter recruitment program, Field to Fork.
To celebrate this new beginning, we’re giving away $4,900 in prizes, including a Weatherby Vanguard MeatEater Edition Rifle, First Lite...

During the survival adventure of a lifetime, I got to experience firsthand what it’s really like to live in the woods without outside help for as long as possible. Of the many things I learned in the Canadian sub-Arctic as a contestant on the History Channel show “Alone,” I found out that rabbit starvation is real. If you only eat rabbits for weeks on end, you will wither away and die. If you’re lucky enough to find a porcupine, you might live...

Turkey guns fall into one of two camps. First, there are jack-of-all-trades firearms that serve more than one master. In the fall, these guns might pull duty in the duck blind one day and the uplands the next. Once spring rolls around, full chokes replace modified chokes and some fiber-optic sights get slapped on the rib for good measure.
Then there are dedicated turkey guns. Though they might make fine home-defense weapons, these tactical-style...

“Scouting is the name of the game,” said experienced whitetail bowhunter Jesse Coots. “It’s kind of like training as a wrestler. If you skip your whole training season and go right to your first match, you’re going to get pummeled. Bowhunting is no different.”
Coots is not alone in this belief. Of the hundreds of expert deer hunters I’ve interviewed on the Wired to Hunt Podcast, their focus on scouting stands out above all else. Here’s a...

The first time Steve and I met, we sat on a patio discussing competitive shooting and hunting. The conversation was exciting as we connected the dots on how closely related the two really are. Competitive shooters and hunters tend to exist in separate worlds, but many of our methodologies can be helpful to one another. In an effort to bridge that gap, here are four things hunters can learn from competitive shooting.
Stress Management
The most...

If you’re not sure if you’re an optimist or pessimist, start researching hunting lottery preference points and draw odds in random Western states. You’ll figure out pretty quickly whether your glass is half full or half empty. You’ll also find that if you’re interested in high prestige, limited-supply critters, you could build decades’ worth of points and never draw a tag.
This is a reality for nonresident Western hunters. The outlook isn’t...