The Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation (CSF) has announced the appointment of Evan Hafer, founder and chief executive officer of Black Rifle Coffee Company, to its board of directors. The CSF works directly with Congress, governors, and state ...
Hunting & Fishing
5 Reasons Why Hunting, Fishing, and Shooting Will Be Awesome in 2021
By pretty much every metric, 2020 was a dumpster fire. A global pandemic and civil unrest the likes of which haven’t been seen in a lifetime rocked the globe. Normal has gone out the window, and who knows when it will be back. But not everything is ...
Where the Brook Trout Run: Pond in the River
If I’m in Maine, it’s raining. This trip was no different, with an early spring drizzle dancing on the lake’s surface as we put in on the southern corner like we had so many times before. As the sun began its westward procession across the gray sky, ...
Check Out Evan Hafer’s Awesome Father-Son Elk Hunt
Earlier this year, Black Rifle Coffee Company founder and CEO Evan Hafer took his dad, Ed, on an epic elk hunt in northeast Utah. The pair haven’t hunted together in 30 years, and hilarity ensues when old school meets new school on the ...
Hunting Trip for Veterans Could Be a National Model for Better Health
This article was originally published on Dec. 6, 2020, on Coffee or Die Magazine. Steve Houghton’s rugged face shone orange in the firelight as he pulled in a deep breath of the frigid Montana backcountry air and shifted in his ...
Becoming the Squirrel: Hunters vs. Vegans on Social Media
Maybe hunters and vegetarians — and even vegans — aren’t all that different? Biologist, explorer, and filmmaker Donnie Vincent raised this question in a recent chat he had with Evan Hafer on the Free Range American podcast. “I don’t like the ...
2020 FRA Holiday Gift Guide: The Hunting Wish List
When we’re not making coffee or printing T-shirts, you can bet the crew here at Black Rifle Coffee Company and Free Range American are out hunting. How into hunting is this team? The HR department gives away hunts for filling out internal work ...
A Vegan Hunter and Her First Deer Kill
G is a vegan. Her kids and my kids became friends at Montessori. On our first few play dates, we talked a lot about meat, about hunting, about her experience training as a veterinarian in factory farms. We talked about killing, and sadness, and ...
When an Archery Pronghorn Hunt Goes Wrong
Sitting in the cab of Miles Fedinec’s pickup, beside a dirt road on a high sage flat in western Colorado, I can see through binoculars a pronghorn buck. He’s a half-mile away, standing in the 94-degree heat, and my arrow is pinned ...
2020 FRA Holiday Gift Guide: The Fishing Wish List
The holiday shopping season is in full swing, and for outdoors enthusiasts that means one thing: new gear. New gear to gift our buddies who fish and hunt. New gear to put in our own letters to Santa. This year, FRA decided to go big and asked three ...
The Art of Conservation: Yeti Presents ‘Wild Sheep’
“There is no half way. After his first exposure, a man is either a sheep hunter or he isn’t. He either falls under the spell of sheep hunting and sheep country or he won’t be caught dead on another sheep mountain.” — Jack O’Connor This book is for ...
The San Diego Bottom Scratchers: The Men Who Hunted Sharks Barehanded
All 19 members of the San Diego Bottom Scratchers are dead. At the bottom of the ocean, a few hundred yards northwest of Boomer Beach and the Point in La Jolla, is an underground cemetery of tombstones and rock cairns. Inscribed are the names of some ...
How the Hunter Recruitment Project Recruits New (Adult) Hunters
Have you wanted to get into hunting but didn’t have anyone to take you growing up? Did you hunt a few times in your early years with friends and family but became overwhelmed by the unending number of questions, such as What camouflage do I buy? Do I ...
Wildfires, Hunting, and Fishing: How the Fires Will Change Your Next Trip
I’m beyond angry. I’m pissed off, standing with two US Forest Service employees while my good friend and hunting partner Anthony Noriega, almost a mile away and 1,000 feet higher than us, inspects the ruins of a man-made fire high in the Idaho ...
How To Deal with Trespassers on Private Hunting Land
Realizing that someone has been trespassing on your hunting property is not a good feeling. This year after gaining permission to hunt a piece of land, I went to scout it in preparation for a friend coming to hunt. There were multiple trail cameras ...
Muskie Fishing: Fish of a Lifetime on Ontario’s Pipestone Lake
It was only a matter of time before someone hooked into a monster. That someone happened to be my uncle. While leisurely patrolling patches of weeds sprouting inside a shallow bay, he saw a fish — a BIG fish — swimming away from the boat. Without ...
Meet Morgan Mason, BHA’s New Armed Forces Initiative Coordinator
Morgan Mason has done a lot. The Kansas farmboy went overseas for the invasion of Iraq as an intelligence analyst with the US Army. After returning home, he bummed around the Rocky Mountains — and Baja, Mexico — hopping between various outdoor jobs. ...
Relax in the Shot: Tension Only Magnifies a Miss
It happens to every hunter and every target shooter: A particularly difficult target presents itself, and the stakes are high. Naturally, you make an effort to try harder, to bear down and concentrate — to not fuck it up. But those who know, know ...
How to Find a Last-Minute, Affordable Hunting Lease
We could be in for one crazy deer season. With more and more folks interested in hunting and putting meat in the freezer during the coronavirus crisis, there’s a good chance that there will be a lot of hunters in the woods this fall. That could mean ...
Ishi, Pope, and Young: The History of Modern Bowhunting
In 1912, Ishi crouched behind a bush and put his index and middle fingers to his lips. He made a sharp, high-pitched kissing sound — a rabbit distress call. To his left, Saxton T. Pope watched in amazement as a small group of rabbits came within ...
It’s Time to Cut the BS in Deer Hunting
Our deer-hunting culture is changing. A whole generation that has grown up with trail cameras, food plots, and hunting television shows is after much more than a giant buck this fall (though we’ll shoot one if we get the chance). If you listen to ...
Baghdad Angler’s Club: How a US Navy Sailor Brought the Fly Fishing to Iraq
When Joel Stewart arrived in Iraq in February 2005, he didn’t expect he would be able to fly fish in the middle of a combat zone. Fortunately, he came prepared and even started teaching others the sport. The Baghdad Angler’s Club was born. The US ...
Kicking Off Fall With a Tennessee Dove Shoot
Nothing marks the start of hunting season like a good old-fashioned dove shoot. Across the Southeast, Texas, and parts of the Midwest the ceremonial beginning of fall is often a gathering of friends and family — around a planted sunflower ...
Camp Pendleton Marines Engage in the Ancient Art of Bowhunting
CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. — Appreciation and understanding of various weapon systems are a part of Marine culture. Typically, the M16 or the M240 are the first to come to mind. However, there is a more traditional weapon system being utilized by Marine ...
The Frank: A Fly-in, Fly-Fishing Adventure in Idaho’s Largest Wilderness
There is a rattlesnake somewhere near my left boot. I can hear it, but I can’t see it. My dad is sitting on the ground 10 yards away with his back against a log, holding a sandwich in one hand and pointing frantically with the ...
More Than 80,000 Acres of Public Lands Inaccessible to Hunters, Anglers
More than 80,000 acres of federal, state, county, and municipal public lands in the Mid-Atlantic are inaccessible to hunters and fishermen, according to a new report from onX Maps and the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership (TRCP). The ...
Noodling: My First Time Hillbilly Hand-Fishing for Alabama Lake Monsters
noodling (verb) A slightly deranged person holds their breath, submerges themselves under water, shoves their entire arm into a muddy hole, and then uses their hand as bait in order to lure a giant catfish into biting them so ...
Texas Hunting Nonprofit Encourages Vets to Bond with Nature, Each Other
Suicide and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have become widespread issues within the U.S. veteran community. According to the 2019 National Veteran Suicide Prevention Annual Report, the most recent data available, an average of 16.8 veterans ...
The Everyman’s Approach to DIY Archery Elk Hunting
I’m a self-taught bow hunter with a passion for elk hunting. The first time I heard the bugle of a bull elk echo out of my computer speakers, I knew I had to go and experience it in person. So that’s exactly what I did. In 2017, my first season, I ...
The Fitness Regimen That Will Prepare You for Elk Hunting
There’s no doubt that hunting elk in the Rocky Mountain West is a physical activity. If you don’t live in a state like Colorado, where the average elevation is 6,800 feet above sea level, then you are already going into the season at a disadvantage. ...
