Hunting and Fishing News Blog Articles

Nic Kytlica zeros a Savage rifle during a longrange rifle shooting camp in Utah. (Joe Genzel/)

Precision rifle matches have taken off across the U.S. But if you’re a novice rifleshooter or a Midwestern deer hunter, who has never taken a shot beyond 150 yards, getting into the precision game can seem a daunting endeavor. And even if you are an experienced shooter off a bench or prone, that experience doesn’t necessarily translate to shooting well in a precision match when you’re on the clock.

This week I learned the basics from Nic Kytlica of Leupold, who has been shooting national precision rifle tournaments for the last three years. After spending a week with him in Utah, I was hitting targets out to 1,500 yards. Before our time on the range, I had never shot beyond 500 yards.

If you’re interested in precision rifle shooting (and you should be), here is what you need to know—and what you’re getting yourself into.

Outdoor Life: If I want to shoot a precision rifle match, where should I start?

Nic Kytlica: You can start shooting one-day club matches at a small, local range. They only cost about $50 or $60 and they aren’t as intense as a national match. Plus if you’re a novice, a lot of more seasoned shooters will be willing to help you at each stage. I think you will find that this community is very welcoming to new shooters. A newbie isn’t very likely to win a precision match, so there’s no worry from seasoned shooters about helping that guy learn.

Exploding whitetail herds in suburban Virginia have created a different kind of deer season. And for a pair of diehard local bowhunters, nothing—not urban sprawl or even a pandemic—can keep them out of the woods (Greg Kahn/)

Deer hunting year-round is a pipe dream in most places. No matter how hard you hunt or how many states you hit, you have to hang it up eventually. But in the manicured backyards of Virginia’s multimillion-dollar neighborhoods, it’s deer season every day.

Taylor Chamberlin discovered this almost by accident. After teaching himself to bowhunt in college, the Northern Virginia native moved back home to join the family real estate business and start his own family. Living in a rural area wasn’t an option. Eventually, he found a military base that allowed hunting, even though deer were scarce. On the long drives there and back, he’d spot whitetails browsing through neighborhoods, nibbling on expensive landscaping. “I remember thinking, Why am I driving past all these deer to find deer?” Chamberlin says.

When a friend introduced him to Billy ­Phillips, a local landscaper and experienced suburban hunter, Chamberlin pivoted, adapting quickly to the challenges of hunting the burbs. And there are challenges: Despite derision that suburban whitetails are “tame deer,” both bowhunters say it’s harder to kill one in a backyard than in farm country.

“So many factors are out of your control on an urban hunt. And you don’t know what was happening on that property earlier in the day. Was the homeowner on his deck, talking on the phone? Kids running through the yard?” says Chamberlin. “Deer are hypersensitive to human interactions. They know where humans go and where humans don’t. When you cross that bubble, deer respond immediately.”

On the properties where Chamberlin and Phillips have been hunting for years, they’ve noticed a dip in deer numbers. Which is exactly what they’re after. Hunting has helped stabilize Virginia’s high deer populations in the last decade, but certain urban and suburban ­areas are above carrying capacity. Hungry deer are turning to nonpreferred foods, and that’s when Phillips' landscaping clients ask if he can help with their pest problem.

Most duck hunters head to the patterning board after buying a new shotgun to see how their gun shoots and identify where the shotshell pellets are striking paper. You might think the results are indicative of where that payload will hit greenheads and honkers come fall. But pattering your autoloader at the range is only the beginning. It tells you what a gun will do if you point it at a target and pull the trigger, sure. But that’s not how we shoot waterfowl. Unless turkey season is around the corner, I don’t actually pattern my guns on paper targets anymore. I head to the skeet range with an assortment of choke tubes and duck loads. Then I start shooting, and I don’t stop until I find the best combination of choke and ammo for that gun. That gives me a better sense of how the gun is going to perform on birds.

Since you might not have the money (or time) to get your hands on several choke tubes and types of ammo, I talked to some of the most hardcore waterfowlers I know—none of whom have sponsor or brand affiliations—to find out their go-to gun, choke, and load combo. You might be surprised to learn that those high-end bismuth and tungsten shotshells didn’t make everyone’s list. In my experience, you don’t need a custom shotshell if your gun is properly choked for the ammo you’re shooting. But as legendary king eider guide Russ Owen always says, what works for me may not work for you.

So here are some different options to consider before your next waterfowl hunt.

1. Shelby Kirby

Destin, Florida

The historic public hunting grounds of western Wyoming. (Michael Parente/)

I glass the frigid canyon before me, looking for mule deer on a late October afternoon. I’m hoping to spot an old buck traveling from his high National Forest summer basin to wintering grounds somewhere out there. This is western Wyoming, and “out there” means the general direction pointed out by a local rancher who has spent 68 years watching these deer. The migrating herds would be headed for Bureau of Land Management lands to the south, where spring green-up (hopefully) arrives in time to ward off the ghosts of winter starvation each year.

It took 26 failed applications before my name was finally pulled from the state’s lottery and I was awarded this rare deer permit. But that’s a short amount of time compared to the 12,000 years these hardy deer have traversed this route.

Buck after buck files down from the basin as I wait. Most of them are young, and each has been taught by its mother to follow this route to the winter range, then retrace the 100-mile course every spring.

Migration is a big risk to these deer, and that risk is amplified by rapidly occurring man-made disruptions to their landscape. When winter habitat is impaired, the rewards for migrating—food and cover—shrink. But still, mule deer have made this gamble for millennia, and they have mostly won.

Eventually, I spot an old buck making his fifth migration. The crack of my rifle, stifled by the wind, marks it as his last. As I kneel beside the deer, my feelings of gratitude temporarily relieve the pain in my hands, frozen in the subzero windchill.

If 4x4 has any shortcomings, they will get exposed in Alaska’s rugged backcountry. (Tyler Freel/)

This is how your average ATV or UTV magazine review works: The writer gets an ATV/UTV, and runs it through a test course and scores it on certain criteria. Your average test course will usually have a few mud holes, a log, and a small rock pile to drive over. If the test is done thoroughly, you can get an idea as to how the machine stacks up. But for many publications, conducting a practical and honest review of an ATV or UTV is difficult, especially when considering its value to outdoorsmen and women. Because to really get to know one of these machines, you have to take it into the backcountry for days and weeks on end, and learn how it performs. For a truly informative evaluation, a machine needs to be run hard in rugged terrain—not driven a few times on course that was setup to mimic the kind of tasks you need a 4x4 to accomplish. It’s not uncommon for a machine to pass such a test with flying colors, only to have less-than-ideal issues crop up during everyday use.

This spring, just days before COVID-19 hit Alaska, I picked up a new Suzuki King Quad 750 AXI with the Rugged Package add-on. I had the chance to use it for the summer and fall hunting seasons here in interior Alaska. This was an ideal opportunity, because I would be able to see see if it could do everything I needed it to do, and how well it could do it. We often ask a lot of our machines here in Alaska. I find that just about anywhere I go, I’m right on the edge of breaking and destroying equipment. In fact, if my machine makes it through a trip unscathed, I consider it a major win.

I crashed the Suzuki through burnt timber stands, chest-high brush, thigh-deep mudholes, tundra, steep, rocky hillsides, tussocks, swamps, gravel and glacial creeks I drove it across dicey log bridges, in and out of the back of trucks, and the front of jet boats. In fact, there have been multiple occasions this year when the folks at Suzuki probably would have cringed had they known what I was doing with their ATV. I often wondered how I would explain to them what “normal wear and tear” means in Alaska.

That said, I truly need and expect an ATV to perform in rugged country, and if problems arise, I’m going to quickly find them. I won’t bore you with too much talk of specifications and features in this review; you can find that on any dealer pamphlet. For a practical end user, there are some pretty cool features on this machine. I’ll share what I liked and what I didn’t, and how well it works in practical applications. I received the 4x4 stock from factory, but did add a Warn VRX 25 winch and aftermarket tires, two accessories you can’t do without here in Alaska.

Suzuki’s Rugged Package Add-On

Growing healthy deer (and big racks) all starts with managing for quality dirt. (John Hafner /)

Years ago, i developed a mantra: “big antlers start in the dirt.” It was a way to encourage folks, especially the landowners who hired me to improve their wildlife habitat, to be better stewards of the soil as part of deer management. Healthy soil is the basis for almost everything positive in our lives, ­including the food we eat, the water we drink, and the air we breathe. And, yes, the deer we hunt.

When I talk about soil health, I’m really talking about the basic functions of dirt: storing water, creating and storing nutrients, and, most important, providing a home for the millions of microbes and critters that build soil and convert those nutrients into a form plants can use.

While these microbes might be hard for non-biologists to wrap their head around, other critters are more recognizable, like the earthworm. Worms increase nutrient availability, create better drainage, and develop a more stable soil structure, all of which help improve the soil’s ability to function. However, many current farming practices destroy the organisms that make soil healthy. As an example, consider the impact of tillage. Disking often kills tens of thousands of earthworms per acre, in addition to destroying the necessary soil structure they make. Tillage also introduces too much oxygen into the soil, creating an environment that harms beneficial bacteria and favors microbe species that reduce the soil’s productivity.

In nature, soil is rarely bare. It’s covered with living plants for as many days as the local climate and conditions allow. Taking these concepts to heart, I got to work on my farm in Missouri by felling invasive eastern red cedars and using prescribed fire to stimulate latent seeds to germinate. A few years later, I identified more than 170 species of native grasses and forbs.

That new native habitat is a drought-­resistant, nutritious source of cover and food for critters year-round. And I’m not the only one managing for soil health these days. Wildlife managers, farmers, and ranchers across the country are implementing thousands of projects to restore healthy soil by bringing back natural landscapes and cycles.

There’s a whole bunch of good whitetail content and advice out there these days about speed scouting, using tree saddles and ultralight treestand setups, and hunting big bucks aggressively. The general approach goes something like this: If you think you know where a good buck is bedding, get in there and hunt him. You’re going to end up spooking a few deer no matter what you do. So don’t worry too much about it. Just hunt the hottest sign you can find.

This contradicts a more traditional approach which goes something like this: If you spook a big buck near his bedding area, you’ll never see him again. So hunt the edges (fields and food sources near the area), and avoid busting him at all costs. Wait for the buck to slip up.

My hunting buddy Josh Dahlke of HuntStand Media and I found ourselves somewhere in the middle of these two philosophies during the first week of the Wisconsin bow season this year. We started by hunting extremely carefully. We hunted only in the afternoons to avoid blowing out deer in the dark on the way to a morning stand. We hunted field edges to avoid laying down scent in the woods. We were even ultra-careful when checking trail cameras, using our vehicles to get as close as possible and only pulling cards when we knew the wind wouldn’t blow our scent in to potential bedding areas.

And for all our caution, we were rewarded with…a lot of quiet sits. We each hunted for five afternoons (10 sits total) without ever seeing a mature buck. Eventually I killed a plump doe at 15 yards in an area where I knew she wouldn’t run into a main bedding area. I was enjoying the start of the season, but the hunt-the-edges strategy wasn’t exactly effective.

Josh decided to get more aggressive after about a week. We had set the majority of our stands and trail cameras around field edges, but we also had a handful of stands hung in the woods on main travel corridors. Josh picked one of those stand sites, which was located in a point of timber near a swamp where we thought big bucks were bedding. And sure enough, after only a few hours a few small bucks and a solid 8-point strolled by his stand. They were mulling around the timber before heading out to the field, which they would have hit at dark. Josh’s gamble paid off.

Get the best deals of the year on outdoor gear October 13 and 14, 2020. (Amazon/)

In just a few short years, Amazon’s Prime Day has become nearly as celebrated as other shopping holidays like Black Friday and Cyber Monday. It’s the one time of the year the giant online retailer discounts over 30,000 products and creates promotions you can’t find anywhere else. That’s what makes it such a great opportunity to stock up on all things outdoors.

But with so much volume to plow through, you’ll never see it all. That’s why we’ve taken the time to cherry-pick the deepest discounts on the greatest goodies for hunting, fishing, camping, and all things outdoors. Bookmark this page and check back often—we’ll continually provide updates as Amazon offers short-window, “lightning” deals, and spotlighting new markdowns as they become available.

NOTE: In most cases, you need to be logged in to your Amazon Prime account to view the promotion.

Hunting

If you’re a hunter, you likely plan, prepare, and you execute your adventures to the best of your ability. So, when a piece of gear fails you at the moment of truth, it’s more than disheartening. Make sure your tools for the hunt are up to snuff and consider replacing outdated goodies with something from the list below.

Reintroducing buffalo is one of the APR’s main goals. (Chaitanyo/Alamy/)

You and I could drink a lot of root beer as we debate the relative merits of conserving wildlife habitat on public versus private land in America. Efforts on public land have more enduring value, you say, because the places and wildlife that benefit from conservation initiatives are accessible to all Americans. Sure, I might counter, but the best soil, the most reliable water, and the most habitable landscapes in the country are privately owned. There’s a reason all that public land you love is public. Relatively speaking, it’s not especially productive. Directing habitat conservation efforts to private land will have deeper and longer-lasting effects.

But while we debate over our frosty mugs, other folks are figuring out that it’s not an either-or proposition. It’s possible to conserve both public and private habitat, sometimes within the same property.

That’s precisely what the American Prairie ­Reserve is accomplishing in the remote corner of northeast Montana, where I live. You may have heard of this group and their audacious plan to “re-wild” the shortgrass prairie, converting millions of acres of public rangeland into the nation’s largest wildlife preserve to support bison, prairie dogs, elk, and, eventually, even grizzly bears and wolves. The APR is on its way to achieving this by buying private ranches that have relatively small deeded acreages but that hold leases for much larger expanses of adjacent public lands. These are mostly Bureau of Land Management pastures that the ranchers lease for summer cattle grazing. The APR’s goal is to convert both the private ranchland and public BLM lands to bison range, and eventually to a huge wildlife preserve.

Over the past decade, the APR has accumulated nearly 100,000 acres of private land, and another 310,000 acres of associated federal and state land in northeast Montana. Its mission, according to the APR’s website, is to “acquire and manage approximately 500,000 private acres, which will serve to glue together the roughly 3 million acres of existing public land.” Those adjacent public lands are the elk-rich Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge, which is managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and BLM lands inside the Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument.

The APR’s initiative has abundant and vocal support and opposition, in more or less equal measure. Advocates (most of whom live elsewhere) claim it’s an ambitious and overdue attempt to heal a century of abuse on some of ­America’s most fragile but important habitat. Opponents (most of whom live in northeast Montana) claim that the APR is using money from “coastal elites” to displace local ranchers and the rural communities that have grown up around cattle grazing. Besides, they say, those millions of acres of public rangeland are functioning just fine.

The author was pleased with the downrange accuracy of Diamond’s Edge 320. (Jace Bauserman /)

I’ve shot piles of hunting bows, ranging from the fanciest, most expensive flagships to budget bows designed to perform without breaking the bank. I’ve tested bows for several companies and I’ve written independent bow reviews for various publications. So I can tell you, without hesitation, there are plenty of differences between flagship bows and budget bows. But here’s the real question: Are those differences dramatic enough to warrant the additional $500 to $600 you pay for flagship features? Let’s find out.

The Flagship: Bowtech Revolt

Bowtech never disappoints when it comes to fresh, purposeful technologies, and it’s new-for-2020 Revolt is a shining example. A compact 30-inch axle-to-axle killer, this rig boasts a branded IBO speed rating of 335 fps, a 7¼-inch brace height, and a bare-bow weight of 4.4 pounds.

Draw-length adjustable between 26 and 31 inches, the rig is fitted with Bowtech’s latest-and-greatest DeadLock Cams. The idea behind the cams is to make tuning quicker and easier than ever before. I was excited to test this, as I felt the manufacturer’s OverDrive Binary Cam System was already a win in the tuning arena. The DeadLock Cams actually feature Lock & Tune screws, which allow you to move the cams right or left along the axles without pressing the bow and twisting yokes. Other notable features of the rig include the DeadLock Pockets, DeadLock Cable Containment System and the Clutch Performance Grip. (More to come on these.)

Read Next: The 2020 Bow Test: Our Picks for the Best New Bows and Crossbows of the Year

Years ago, Netflix was the only game in town, conveniently delivering DVDs to our doorstep through the mail. Today, there are countless streaming services making more and better content available at the click of a button. The hunting and fishing communities have (finally) caught up to this digital ­revolution.

Beyond the traditional, and highly formulaic, hunting shows, viewers want authentic content that’s about the entire hunting experience, from the camaraderie to breaking down and cooking wild game. Steve Rinella (and the smart people running his company) capitalized on this shift in 2015 when his show MeatEater started streaming on Netflix. You can still find it on the Sportsman Channel, but why would you want to do that when you can stream it commercial-free?

Now, there’s a whole group of show creators and filmmakers ready to take the baton from Rinella, but these days, the best hunting and fishing video content flourishes in the formats of short films or YouTube channel series. If you haven’t already seen videos and stories from these next four content creators, you will very soon.

1. Ben Potter: The Short-Film Guru

You know all those cool hunting films that companies like Sitka and Yeti have released in the last few years? The epic slow-motion footage, aerial drone shots, and the cinematography that makes hunting look as exciting onscreen as it feels in real life? Well, many of them were made by content agency Cana Outdoors, which was founded by Ben Potter.

Sinew is the “rope” that holds animals together, and you can use it for a variety of tasks in the wild. (Tim MacWelch/)

Cordage is invaluable in a survival situation. A simple piece of rope can construct a shelter or trap a meal. While many natural resources can be transformed into cordage, few have the raw strength of sinew. Join us as we show you what this is, where you can get it, how to process it, and what you can do with it.

What is Sinew?

Like it or not, cordage is one of those survival resources that are always running thin. Yes, plant fibers can sometimes do the job, though many fibrous species aren’t very strong. Certain animal parts can also fill the need. Lacings cut from a deer hide and even strips of dried intestine can be used as string or twine in a pinch, but the highest strength in animal fibers will come from the creature’s very sinews and tendons. Few animal fibers are as strong as these and none can be turned into bowstrings and other cordage products with such high strength. So what is this magic fiber? The anatomical term sinew is a little vague since it includes both tendons (the fibrous tissue that connects muscle to bone) and ligaments (the tissue that connects bone to bone). You can think of it as the “rope” that holds animals together.

Where to Collect It

The easiest sinews to collect are lower leg tendons and the “silverskin” on the backstrap of big game animals (or harvested livestock). These strong whitish-grey tissues can be cut free with a sharp blade and set aside for further processing. Other connective tissues abound on animals, and they can be removed during the butchering process. See what you can find, process them, and test them for strength. You might be surprised by what you find.

Time is short in the fall. Here's how to be efficient with your deer season weekends. (Tony Hansen/)

I’ve never played poker. But I certainly have uttered that famous phrase: I’m all in.

That is, in a nutshell, the summation of my deer hunting season strategy. No wavering. No second-guessing. No do-overs. There’s simply no time for it.

Let me set the stage here and see if my situation doesn’t sound just a bit familiar to you. I’m not wealthy. I have to work all week and sometimes that work spills over into the weekend. Of course, that’s the work I’m paid to do and doesn’t account for the “other” work, the kind that keeps the house from falling down, the vehicles from crapping out, and the yard from going feral.

There are family events, church events, community events…all of which have a way of whittling away at that most precious of commodities: Time.

When I pull out a calendar and mark off the days I should have available to spend chasing whitetails in October and November, I come to a sobering conclusion—there’s not nearly as much time as I’d like. I’m relegated to weekend outings, perhaps a couple of long weekends and one (maybe two) week-long vacations. If the weather’s right, I can make some hay. Lose a day or two, however, and things get dicey quick.

In November 2015, the BLM started gathering wild horses from the Beaty Butte Management Area in Oregon, where the herd was estimated at 1,200 wild horses—six times the designated management level. (Larisa Bogardus / Bureau of Land Management, Oregon/)

Australia is in the midst of an extinction crisis. Through desperate efforts to save its wildlife, the public there has learned a valuable lesson: If you want to save native critters, you must cull invasives. In Australia and here in the U.S., that means feral cats and horses. Cats have been implicated in at least 28 Australian mammal extinctions, and the country’s feral horses and donkeys are degrading habitat, edging out everything from frogs to wallabies.

American pet lovers have yet to learn this lesson about science-based management. The emotional baggage associated with both cats and horses is having an outsize impact on how we’re trying—and failing—­to control their numbers.

Herding Cats

The ecological impact of feral cats is well established. An oft-cited 2013 study reports free-ranging cats kill up to 4 billion birds and 22 billion mammals in the U.S. each year. Cats are especially destructive in Hawaii, where native species evolved without land predators. Even so, wildlife managers have “never talked about” allowing feral-cat hunting, says Josh Atwood of Hawaii’s Invasive Species Council. The public would never go for it. Even nonlethal measures have been rejected. When HISC attempted to pass a ban on the feeding of feral cats on public land a few years ago, a small but vocal group blocked it.

“No matter how you approach it, there’s a really strong human emotional element to this,” Atwood says. He also notes that trap-neuter-return, the favorite tool of animal-rights advocates, just isn’t effective. It’s costly, it doesn’t reduce the population, and sterility doesn’t stop cats from killing native animals.

A woman wearing full camo carries a quartered antelope leg, while a baby rests in a baby carrier on her back. (Josh Peterson/)

My first impression of hunting was watching maggots crawl out of a small buck’s eyes as he lay in a friend’s backyard in central Wyoming. I couldn’t have been more than 3 or 4 years old. That night, as we ate venison tacos, I tucked most of the meat away in a napkin to throw out later. My family didn’t hunt, and it wasn’t something I understood.

Even after college, when my boyfriend told me over instant chat that he’d shot a deer, I called him a Bambi killer and slammed my laptop closed. He wasn’t bragging; he just wanted me to know. And I wasn’t a vegetarian. I understood, on some level, the hypocrisy. But I couldn’t understand why he wanted to kill something, or how someone I loved could find joy in taking a life. Butchering an animal for meat—slaughtering cows, pigs, lambs—was an act of necessity, not pleasure. I certainly didn’t see how it could be a “sport,” as hunting is so often called. We didn’t talk for days.

Fourteen years later, that memory flashed through my mind as I stood near a pronghorn I’d shot minutes before, my .243 resting nearby in the southeast Wyoming sagebrush. The thought was one of a thousand firing in my brain: relief at the clean shot, pure dis­belief that I’d actually done it, and sudden worry about what our 3-year-old daughter would think as she walked toward me, holding the hand of the man I’d once called a Bambi killer.

I have a tendency to overthink, well, everything. And deciding to hunt was in the upper echelon of topics I’d analyzed, reanalyzed, then dissected all over again. Few mothers choose to become serious hunters in the early stages of raising a family, but here I was. Our shared hunting pack, which I’d used as a shooting rest, was still 100 yards away. It was my turn to carry it that day as my husband, Josh, watched our daughter. Snowcapped mountains rimmed the horizon. A few clouds drifted in the wind.

I retrieved the pack, and my Buck knife inside it. As I knelt to ­begin slicing hide and removing organs—the same process every hunter ­before me has done for millennia—I considered my inevitable evolution from anti-­hunter to antelope hunter.

In the last several years, I have thoroughly tested plenty of accessories and modifications designed to increase the performance of carry pistols. There are a litany of aftermarket upgrades you can make to a carry gun, but only a few actually enhance the capability (and lethality) or your firearm. If you’re looking to become more accurate, or simply want more from your sidearm, here are some of the best post production modification to consider.

1. Ammunition

While not really an accessory, quality ammunition should top your list once you have selected a handgun. Plan to replace full metal jacket (FMJ) practice ammunition with a quality jacketed hollow-point (JHP) or fluted round as soon as practically possible. The components are made of premium quality, so the rounds will provide the appropriate level of expansion or fluid disbursement and controlled penetration depths.

Federal’s HST line is the duty load of choice by law enforcement officers throughout the world. It has a specifically-designed hollow point that won’t plug while passing through a variety of barriers, and the bullet jacket and core stay together to provide nearly 100 percent weight retention, even when shot through most intermediate barriers.

HST is incredibly accurate and produces the desired level of penetration for personal defense situations without over penetrating. The bullet nose profile, nickel-plated case, and high performance primer provide the ultimate in function and reliability in semi-automatic pistols and it is always my first choice in 9mm defensive loads.

Hunters need to welcome more young adults into the fold. (Kaleb White/)

The doe trotted past, too quickly for a shot, and disappointment swamped our blind. The new hunter beside me finally had a deer within range, and he thought he’d blown it. If I’d ever questioned Arc’s interest in hunting before, his intent was unmistakable now: He really wanted to kill a deer.

One minute later, a dozen does ran into our little plot, a buck on their heels. With minimal coaching, Arc folded his first deer with a single shot. By nightfall, three more hunters from our group had killed their first deer, and the landowner who hosted us had four fewer does on his property.

But the easy success of that Missouri hunt belies what’s actually a staggering problem all over the U.S. Our current recruitment efforts are well meaning, but we have a long way to go before we save hunting.

Big Problem, Slow Response

Hunter numbers have been declining from an all-time high in the early ’80s. And when the alarm bells started ringing more than a decade ago, our collective response time was abysmal. First, the hunting industry had to admit there was a problem. Next, we had to understand what we’d been doing wrong. Now that state agencies and conservation groups have finally identified which programs work, they’re trying to act on that intel. Meanwhile, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, we’ve lost 255,195 hunters nationwide between 2016 and 2020.

A sketch of the case-telescoped cartridge. (Glenn Orzepowski/)

As America’s hunters prepare for the woods and fields this autumn, the U.S. Army is gearing up for an even longer and more uncertain season. Military evaluators this fall are assessing what the Army calls its Next Generation Squad Weapon (NGSW), a replacement for the venerable M4 carbine and the M249 light machine gun.

If its predecessor as the everyday-carry weapon for America’s fighting force is a guide, then this new rifle could be used in combat missions for the next 40 years. The current M4A1, chambered in 5.56mm, has been the workhorse of GI grunts since the ­Vietnam War. The M249 light machine gun, also known as the Squad Automatic Weapon, or SAW, has been around nearly as long.

We actually know precious little about this new squad weapon, since military procurement is shrouded in classified secrecy. But here’s what we do know: It will be chambered in 6.8mm. The projectile it fires will be a copper slug tipped with steel to pierce the body armor of “peer adversaries” at long range. And it will be capable of belt-feeding and the high rates of fire required by the successor to the SAW, as well as slower rates of fire but more precisely placed shots from squad-deployed carbines. Also in the Army’s requirements: Despite shooting a heavier bullet, the gun, together with its ammo, must be 30 percent lighter than the current platform firing the 62-grain 5.56mm load. The Army’s new 6.8 is not to be confused with the 6.8 SPC, based on a .30 Remington case. The external dimensions of the new 6.8 are bigger, both in diameter and length, and require a new magazine configuration, according to sources.

We also know that three consortiums are in the running for the final bid. They are General Dynamics ­Ordnance, Tactical Systems, and the ammunition maker True Velocity; SIG Sauer and its partners; and the triad of ­Textron ­Systems, Heckler & Koch, and Olin Winchester.

We’re covering this arms race because if the history of military small-arms procurement teaches us anything, it’s that technology developed for the battlefield eventually shows up in the deer stand. The Springfield Rifle, the .30/06, the AR platform, the .223/5.56 round, nearly all of John Browning’s inventions, plus hundreds more innovations were developed for military use. How soon will we see the 6.8 cartridge and associated weapons platforms come to our sporting-goods stores?

Squirrels can be surprisingly challenging to hunt. It's time to get serious about bagging more bushytails. (Johnny Carrol Sain/)

The sounds of frenetic scratching on pine bark pulled my eyes skyward. Scanning the uppermost branches for any tell-tale movement, I expected to see the subtle shimmy of pine needles or a twitching bushy tail. But the canopy was still.

As I reached for binoculars, a flurry of lacy white flakes fluttered down from directly overhead — the inner duff of a pine cone shredded by famously industrious rodent incisors. The flakes came from a dense weave of pine needles but one with open branches on either side. All I had to do was wait.

Finally, a little gray body bounded toward the tree’s trunk and paused in the open. I had just enough time to click the safety off and level the shotgun’s bead on the squirrel’s head. The 20 gauge boomed and the squirrel thumped to the ground nearly at my feet. Agitated chatters erupted not 30 yards up the hill.

No hide and seek this time. Another gray squirrel perched on an oak limb, its tail flicking with every bark. I pivoted just a bit and squeezed the trigger. That made three for the morning to accompany four already in the freezer. Alongside the last of summer’s okra and homemade biscuits, I looked forward to a plateful of peasant fare fit for a king.

Squirrels are the everyman game animal. They are delectable on the plate, ubiquitous and relatively easy to hunt, yet challenging enough to keep it interesting. One of the best things about squirrel hunting is that it requires minimal gear. Even if you’re not a squirrel hunter, chances are you already own almost everything you need. Here’s what you need to know to become a dedicated squirrel hunter.

Abner Druckenmiller is an opportunistic predator hunter. (FoxPro/)

Ducks, geese, deer, turkeys...any critter you can call to, Abner Druckenmiller is obsessed with. But he’s particularly hooked on calling in coyotes and foxes. He works for Foxpro, one of the most creative game call and intensely-focused predator companies in the outdoors. It’s his business to know what does and does not work to lure wily furbearers into shooting range all over the country. He’s in his second decade of calling to predators in the dark.

But night ops take a little more skill—or at the very least, a different approach—than daytime hunts. For hunters, seeing their intended quarry is paramount. You won’t always have that luxury when chasing fox and coyotes under the moonlight. Spotting and shooting predators in the dark are difficult tasks, especially for newbies, though you shouldn’t let that deter you. Varmints are very susceptible to being killed at night because they are more active, so ostensibly there will be more opportunities if you target the right areas. The darkness gives you the advantage; it’s just a matter of setting up properly and knowing the habits of night-walking critters.

Here are some of Druckenmiller’s key tactics to putting more pelts on the fur sled.

Outdoor Life: What’s your gun and cartridge of choice for hunting coyotes and foxes at night?

Abner Druckenmiller: My setup and strategy don’t change a ton whether I’m hunting out West or here in Pennsylvania, during the day or at night. I pretty much use the same rifle and cartridge for red fox, grey fox, coyotes, raccoons, and bobcats, which is a Ruger .204 rifle with a 45-grain soft-tip Hornady bullet (that offering has been discontinued, but factory loads are available in 40-grain). If a coyote hangs up at 200 yards, I feel a lot more confident with that load than a .17 HMR. I mean you can kill a coyote at that yardage with a .17, but it takes careful shot placement.