I slung my pack over my shoulder and hoisted it up, feeling the weight of six days worth of food in the balls of my feet. It was late afternoon and I already knew I had skimped on water. The penchant to under carry water in sections where you needed to over carry food was all too real, and dangerous. She (my pack) was heavy, but not heavy enough.  By this stage in my thru-hiking life, I usually assessed my water carries by weight, feeling, and gut instinct. But sheer luck alone wouldn’t get me across the desert, so I counted my bottles, in liters, and did some quick math in my head. Sure ..read more

Fishing season opened on April 6 on Massachusetts’ sprawling, 4,400-acre Wachusett Reservoir, and the state lake trout record was broken twice within the week. Most recently, new pending record holder John Stamas caught and released a 39-inch laker on April 9. The fish weighed in at roughly 20 pounds on a hand scale. Stamas and friend Michael Xu started fishing at dawn. By mid-day, all they had to show for their efforts was a small lake trout and a 3-pound smallmouth. “I’m really a smallmouth bass angler, and we get some good ones from Wachusett weighing nearly 5 pounds,” Stamas told Outdoor L ..read more

On April 7, 15-year-old Jaylynn Parker of New Richmond, Ohio pulled in a 101-pound, 56-inch blue catfish on a jugline from a creek behind a family friend’s house. The Outdoor Writers of Ohio, a non-governmental organization of outdoor media professionals that maintains the state’s fish record database, is currently deciding whether to name the fish as the formal state record.  Jaylynn Parker (left), Jeff Sams (center), and Chuck Parker (right) hoist the monster blue catfish. Photograph by Kristen Powell Parker / Facebook Parker was juglining with her dad, Chuck, and family friend Jeff Sam ..read more

This December, a handful of Louisiana hunters will have the opportunity to participate in a black bear hunt in their home state for the first time in decades. The last time Louisiana held a black bear hunt was in 1987. The upcoming 2024 black bear hunt was formally authorized on Tuesday at a Louisiana Fish and Wildlife Commission meeting, during which the LFWC adopted a Notice of Intent that defines the regulations around the hunt, including dates, areas, bag limits, and legal methods of take. The Notice also establishes a lottery system to allocate the 10 available black bear tags to resident ..read more

On Saturday, Rossville, Georgia angler Jeffrey Forester went kayak fishing on South Chickamauga Creek, a small stream in the northwestern corner of the state. On his second cast of the day, Forester hooked what he thought was a black bass. The fish turned out to be a big rock bass — big enough that he thought it was worthy of attention from the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. The DNR agreed, and on Thursday the agency certified Forester’s fish as Georgia’s first-ever state-record rock bass. “I decided to take the kayak out that day and when I got to the creek, I just knew it was going ..read more

On April 4, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill into law directing 96 percent of funds from a new agreement with the Seminole Tribe of Florida to multiple land, water, and wildlife protection initiatives. The 2021 Seminole Gaming Compact was a “historic agreement” between the state and the tribe that handed executive control of all online sports betting in the state to the Seminole Tribal Gaming Commission, a move that upset competitors in Florida’s gambling industry and even spurred legal action. In return, the tribe agreed to pay revenues back to the state to the tune of $20 billion, $2 ..read more

Josh Dahlke figured he’d never get a shot at a bighorn sheep. The Minnesota hunter was in his late 30s and had just started applying for points. In many states, his odds felt like winning the Powerball lottery.  But a few years ago he found himself in Colorado on a talus slope above 12,000 feet with his rifle aimed at the gray, wooly vitals of a Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep.  He pulled the trigger, the sheep dropped, and the work to pack out some of the most delicious meat he’d ever eaten began.  Dahlke’s sheep hunt wasn’t a result of beating the odds. He hadn’t mysteriously ear ..read more

It was 2011 the first time I tried to run in barefoot shoes. I was in my mid-20s, healthy and averaging about 20 miles a week. Born to Run was on my bookshelf (of course), and I had a brand-new pair of Vibram Fivefingers, ready for the city streets. I figured that first run, I’d keep it light, maybe go 2 miles and see how I felt.  It was awful. With each step I could feel my midfoot seizing up, a strange sharp pain that eventually cramped up my feet entirely. I made it about half a mile before I gave it up and gingerly walked home. My first experience pretty much mirrored the cultural zei ..read more

Although it hasn’t been certified by the Pennsylvania Fish & Boat Commission, the chunky yellow perch that Chuck Main caught on Monday could be a new state record. At the very least, it should tie the current state record, a 3-pound fish caught in 2021. Main, of Ellwood City, was fishing off Presque Isle on Lake Erie when the perch hit his jig, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Main quickly landed the fish and took his catch to Reddi Bait in Bridgewater to have it weighed on certified scales. Fisheries personnel with the PFBC were there to witness the official weight reading of 3.0 ..read more

A Tennessee man who pleaded guilty last week to poaching two elk and abandoning the carcasses had his hunting privileges revoked for the next five years, according to the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency. As part of his plea agreement, the poacher also forfeited two of his firearms and was ordered to pay $10,000 in restitution plus fines and court costs. In a press release shared to Facebook, TWRA officials said Preston William Douglas, 34, lied to investigators at first but eventually confessed to the poaching incident, which took place in November inside a state-run wildlife management ar ..read more