No animal embodies the spirit of the American West like the pronghorn. Though tawny in build, these fleet-footed plains dwellers are hearty critters, and thanks to sound management practices across the Western US, populations are thriving. Their ...
Hunting & Fishing
Florida Man Arrested With Dozens of Illegal Spiny Lobsters
This week, Giovanni Jesus Pirez joined a long list of meme-worthy Florida men arrested for colorful and sometimes bizarre activities. In Pirez's case, he got pinched with a boatful of illegal crustaceans, no valid fishing or boating credentials of ...
‘Rona Deer: USDA Study Finds COVID-19 in Whitetail Population
A disturbing number of whitetail deer are testing positive for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, according to a study done by the Department of Agriculture. So far, the CDC has not declared mask mandates for wildlife. Even though it ...
Elk Hunting on Public Land: How To Build a 3-Year Strategy for a New Area
Public-land elk hunting is hard. The average success rate is below 10%, yet more and more hunters head West to give it a shot every year. Some find success in year one, but most don’t. That's why I like to utilize a three-year strategy when ...
How to Trap Critters in Cages
Trapping in my home state of Colorado looks a bit different than it does in many other states. Body grips, leg holds, and snares were outlawed back in 1996, so trappers are confined to using exclusively cage traps. Having been born in the year they ...
Father-Son Duo Catch Huge, Pregnant Tiger Shark off Florida’s Gulf Coast
Michael Braun and his son, Nicholas, didn't expect to be wrangling a nearly half-ton tiger shark last weekend, but that's exactly what they did on a wild charter fishing trip. Their fish turned out to be one of the largest sharks ever caught off ...
Tampa Bay Red Tide Aftermath: What Comes Next?
An estimated 800 tons of dead fish and other marine life were collected from the Gulf Coast shoreline by the end of July in the wake of a devastating red tide that recently choked Tampa Bay. According to Capt. Brian Jill, a fishing guide in ...
Watch: Teen Lands New Michigan State-Record King Salmon
It took 43 years for the old record to fall, but the Michigan Department of Natural Resources has officially announced a new record king salmon for the state, and for Lake Michigan. The kicker is, the catch was hauled in by a teenage salmon-fishing ...
Elk Hunting Returns to Virginia for First Time Since the Mid-1800s
Local landowners, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation (RMEF) volunteers, and the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources have worked for decades to bring elk back to the Old Dominion State. That work has paid off. For the first time in at least 166 ...
Surf Fishing Starter Kit: North Carolina’s OBX and Beyond
From the isolated and undeveloped barrier island of Cape Lookout to crowded tourist destinations like Nags Head and Kitty Hawk, North Carolina has hundreds of miles of spectacular shoreline. In summer and early fall, hundreds of sportsmen and women ...
Potential Hammerhead Shark Nursery Discovered off the Coast of Miami
Tourists usually flock to Biscayne Bay for fishing charters, water scooters, and windsurfing, but the vacation destination seems to also be the perfect place for endangered great hammerhead sharks to do some reproducing. A nursery for these ...
Get Dialed In on OTC Tags While Waiting for That Dream Draw Tag
The bugling just didn’t stop. I’m not exactly sure how many bulls there were altogether, but there were a bunch, all competing for volume. Throughout the morning I saw two bulls and almost had as many shot opportunities. I chased bugles until noon ...
Grizzly Bear Lured by Improper Food Storage, Camper Fined $6,000
Close encounters between campers and grizzly bears rarely end well, especially when food and garbage are involved. On July 20, an Idaho woman, Belinda J. Arvidson, was fined almost $6,000 after it was determined she “failed to properly store food and ...
750-Pound Bull Moose Removed From Colorado Parking Garage
What happens when a moose decides a parking garage is its new hangout? Well, for this 750-pound bull, it meant getting a free ride to a new location about 130 miles away. Why? The young animal — estimated to be between 2 and 3 years old — was ...
5 of the Best Shark Fishing Spots in the Nation
Tarpon guides on the South Florida and Texas coasts can’t stand sharks. Same for mahi, striped bass, marlin, and tuna guides on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. In all fairness, when a 10-foot hammerhead or giant blue shark decides to crash your ...
The West Is Burning: How Wildfires Are Impacting Fish and Wildlife
Is the West ever NOT on fire?! As of Tuesday, 6,000 more wildfires have burned almost a million more acres since Jan. 1, 2021, than in the same time period last year. That adds up to 36,796 fires and 2,823,453 acres so far — and there are ...
New Jersey Effectively Shuts Down Bear Hunting for 2021
Anti-hunting activists have won their long battle to ban bear hunting in New Jersey, at least for this coming 2021 season. New Jersey, known more for turnpikes and urban sprawl, has the densest black bear population in the country, according ...
WATCH: Airborne Sturgeon to Tarpon — ‘Hold My Beer’
Move over, tarpon — Fraser River sturgeon are gunning for the big-air title. Images of giant, sunshine-silver, airborne tarpon in the Florida Keys, Cuba, and Costa Rica have fueled anglers' bucket-list dreams since before Hemingway went gray. The ...
WATCH: Grizzly Bear Versus Wolves
As far as who-would-win fights go, a scrap between a big-ass grizzly bear and a pack of wolves rates right up there at the top. Except we know the answer to this one. Bears and wolves generally don’t mess with each other unless food forces their ...
6% of Incorrect Americans Say They Could Beat a Grizzly Hand-to-Hand
I'll admit, after a beer or two, my perception of my own strength and toughness can get a bit inflated. But I can recall no time in my life when I’ve ever considered myself more than a would-be morsel to a 600-pound fur-covered battering ram with ...
Roadless Rule Reinstated in Tongass National Forest
More than 9 million acres of the Tongass National Forest in Southeast Alaska are safe once again from almost certain logging and mining greenlighted by the last administration. An exemption to the Roadless Rule that was approved by then President ...
California Heat Wave Threatens Chinook Salmon Survival
Boiling water and babies never mix, but that’s exactly what’s happening to juvenile chinook salmon in California’s Sacramento River. Extremely high temperatures are creating “abnormally hot underwater conditions” that could result in a “near-complete ...
1st Female Grizzly in 40 Years Collared in Washington
When it comes to playing hard to get, female grizzlies in Washington state are pros. In 40 years of tracking grizzly bears as part of recovery efforts in the Evergreen State, US Fish and Wildlife Service officials have captured and collared four ...
North Carolina Blue Catfish Breaks State Record by 5 Pounds
Rocky Baker's electronic fish scale is rated to 110 pounds. When the screen said "overloaded" before he was even able to hoist the behemoth blue catfish off the bottom of the boat, his response was pretty much the same as every other angler in a ...
Meth Trout: Fish Are Getting Hooked on Crank From Our Poop
Fish are getting addicted to meth and are starting to prefer waterways with a little ice in them. Yes, that’s a real thing that’s happening. The fun thing about drugs consumed by human beings — legally or otherwise — is that they’re never ...
Tampa Bay Fish Kill: 15 Tons of Dead Marine Life… and Counting
In what seems like the new annual normal, the Gulf Coast of Florida is seeing the start of debilitating red tide. Unfortunately, Tampa Bay, an area that normally doesn't get hit too hard by red tide, has become ground zero of an absolutely ...
Montana Grizzly That Pulled Woman From Tent and Killed Her is Dead
A 65-year-old California woman was pulled from her tent in the middle of the night and mauled to death by a grizzly in Ovando, Montana. Officials reported Friday morning that they have located and killed the bear. According to The Associated ...
No Boat, No Problem: A Beginner’s Guide to Pier Fishing Etiquette
You don’t need a johnboat, center console, and guide to catch saltwater slammers this summer. Much of America’s coastal waters are dotted with public fishing piers. From Florida to Maine, from San Diego to Seattle, and all along the Gulf of Mexico, ...
Starter Kit: How To Hunt Rattlesnakes
Over the years, I’ve found myself hunting almost year-round — turkeys in spring, bugling elk in September, whitetails and bears in fall, and predators in winter — but there’s always been a lull during summer. Then, I found rattlesnake ...
Search Continues for Suspect Who Decapitated Yellowstone Grizzly Bear
If you stumbled upon a dead grizzly, would you chop off its head and paws? Someone did just that, and state and federal authorities are trying to determine who. In June, a 25-year-old male Yellowstone grizzly bear dubbed No. 394 was found dead ...