A ton of preparation goes into the front-end of a hunt—between gear, species, maps, draw-odds, and calendars, executing a successful hunt is a puzzle that often takes years to perfect. There is so much excitement over harvesting a game animal, whether it be a dove or an elk and then you realize that you have a whole new set of challenges ahead.  From field dressing to transporting, from breaking-down into manageable parts, to cooking a meal. A game animal, particularly a big-game animal will provide many months worth of meat, and generally a bunch of cuts of meat that are unfamiliar to city-dwelling grocery store shoppers.  Not everything that comes off a cow, elk, deer, or wild pig is a...

My friend Ryan is gifted and inventive in the kitchen, and his fascination and love for food is about to go to a new depth—Ryan is planning his first Pronghorn hunt for Wyoming this Fall.  Kind of a fork leading him to the field thing... Having been on exactly one more Pronghorn hunt than Ryan has, I feel compelled to help get him as ready as possible for this experience. My 2016 Pronghorn Hunt with my Dad was one of my all-time favorite experiences, and a memory I will cherish a lifetime.  The amount you learn by experiencing something once is significant, although I know enough to know I'm no expert. For the sake of this article, we are going...

How many fewer paper and plastic cups would we all use if we carried a steel mug around with us everywhere? It’s like when you go backpacking and you drink your coffee and eat your ramen noodles out of the same mug... but in everyday life. Photo: @cam_oden

Let me be super clear: you should absolutely be using OnX Maps. There is an out-of-state unit that I'm researching for a hunt that I would love to try to do this Fall, and I don't know what I would do if it weren't for OnX.  If you're unaware, OnX maps is a hunting app that allows you to see land-ownership data, which is incredibly helpful to have on your smartphone when you're navigating public/private boundaries and looking for pockets to hunt that you otherwise would have driven right past. The slickest part of the whole system is you can download the map data, and go to "offline mode" so even when you have no cell service, your GPS still...

As advocates for the outdoors, we use the words conservation and preservation seemingly interchangeability, however there are distinct differences to each. Conservation is the sustainable use of a resource to ensure its longevity, and Preservation is to keep the resource the way it is now with minimal human interference or disruption. Conservation involves ensuring that natural resources are not consumed faster than they can be replaced.  Conservation of natural resources typically takes into consideration interests of human beings—such as the biological, economic, cultural and recreational values such resources have. Preservation, in contrast, attempts to maintain in the present condition areas of the Earth that are so far untouched by humans. As self-aware humans in 2019, we must accept that the impact of human expansion has long since passed...

For the last few years, I’ve trekked north into the foothills of Northern California specifically for Thanksgiving, and during that break I’ve spent the majority of at least one day sitting in blinds for my chance at a wild turkey. The rolling hills of Oak and Pine trees lend to particularly great turkey habitat. With plenty of acorns and pine nuts for food, local cover and water to create a thriving ecosystem for a healthy bird population.   This year, I was more determined than ever to give myself a serious opportunity to get a bird with the limited time I had. So, there I was sitting in a small oak tree to act as cover, waiting. Like any game bird,...