Montana’s Clark Fork River only flows through Idaho briefly before it spills into Lake Pend Oreille. That short stretch of river beckoned Daniel Whitesitt and his buddy Caleb Bravard on April 13, and the two fly fishermen hiked into a remote spot in Bonner County. Later that morning, Whitesitt caught and released a beautiful cutthroat trout that was certified as a new state record on Wednesday. “We’d only caught one trout that morning, so it was pretty slow,” Whitesitt tells Outdoor Life. “But about 9 a.m. I waded out to the head of a pool just below a riffle and made a long cast. I was [fishi ..read more

Florida resident Walter Rudder was driving home with his wife on Friday evening when he saw a large alligator dragging his friend, Rick Fingeret, across the street by his leg. So, Rudder did what any good neighbor would do: He stepped on the gas, drove onto the sidewalk, and ran over the gator with his car. The alligator then released its grip on Fingeret and ran back into a nearby pond. Fingeret, who suffered two large bites to his thigh, was transported by ambulance to Lee Memorial Hospital and treated for his injuries, according to an incident report from the Collier County Sheriff’s Office ..read more

If there’s anything redeeming about the February incident in which a wild wolf was run over by a snowmobiler, then muzzled and paraded around a Wyoming bar before it was killed, it’s as an opportunity for hunters to define ourselves against a rising narrative that equates the wolf abuser with restrained and purposeful hunting. That doesn’t mean virtue signaling like reminding our own community that we don’t condone the perpetrator, Cody Roberts, or tolerate people like him in our midst. That should go without saying. And it doesn’t necessarily mean calling for new regulations to elevate punish ..read more

We may earn revenue from the products available on this page and participate in affiliate programs. Learn More › With the launch of our new knife collection, readers will now have the chance to carry Outdoor Life around with them in the field. This collection has a little something for everyone, from folks looking for a hard-working pocket knife to those who love the idea of an heirloom knife with one of our old magazine cover illustrations printed on it. I’ve been using the Lockback to open boxes and even butcher turkeys. Here’s a look at it and the other knives in the collection.  Lockb ..read more

A tourist from Oklahoma is living out a traveling hunter’s nightmare in Turks and Caicos, where he was detained and jailed after customs officials found some forgotten ammunition in his luggage. The man could now face up to 12 years in prison due to a strict law that prohibits the possession of firearms, ammo, and other weapons in the British Overseas Territory, according to NBC News.   Ryan Watson, of Oklahoma City, had flown with his wife and two friends to the small Caribbean island on April 7. He had plans to celebrate his 40th birthday there. Those plans were quickly derailed when ai ..read more

We may earn revenue from the products available on this page and participate in affiliate programs. Learn More › The idea behind the Oracle Arms 2311 pistol is one that caught my attention immediately — a pistol that incorporates 2011-style features, but uses Sig P320-pattern magazines and is designed to be ambidextrous and modular. We get a 1911-style trigger that’s better than almost anything on a striker-fired gun, a customizable grip module that includes built-in support-thumb rests, and it takes common, relatively affordable Sig magazines.  This is a pistol that isn’t trying to be th ..read more

A lake sturgeon that was tagged in a Wisconsin river years ago has traveled so far down the Mississippi River that it’s taken biologists from two different states to track it. In a Facebook post on Monday, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources announced that the fish was captured at the Lock 26 Dam near Alton, Illinois. Biologists with the Missouri Department of Conservation caught the fish during a survey on the Mississippi, which forms the state line between Missouri and Illinois. The WDNR says the sturgeon’s downriver journey is one of the farthest ever recorded for that population ..read more

Earlier this month a magnet fisherman turned up new evidence related to a double homicide from 2015, in which an elderly couple, Bud and Jane Runion of Marietta, Georgia, were murdered. Over two days of dredging on April 14 and April 16, the magnet fisherman (whose identity remains unavailable to the public) pulled a .22-caliber rifle, drivers’ licenses, and credit cards from Horse Creek, a tributary of the Ocmulgee River in the town of McRae-Helena, according to a press release from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. As a result of the findings, investigators executed two search warrants at ..read more

On April 3 a rancher in Elbert County found an animal resembling a wolf in a coyote trap on private land, according to a recent article in The Fence Post. A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spokesperson confirmed in an email to Outdoor Life that “this animal is a gray wolf from the Great Lakes population.” The USFWS was notified of the discovery by Colorado Parks and Wildlife after the rancher reported it to a CPW wildlife officer. That officer coordinated with the federal agency to collect tissue samples and send them to a lab for DNA analysis. The lab results revealed that the animal in questi ..read more

On Saturday Miami County sheriff’s deputies, a Kansas game warden, and his black Labrador retriever K9 officer named Indy worked together to bust three men who had poached multiple turkeys off private property in Miami County with .22-caliber rifles from a vehicle. Around 6 p.m., a landowner in Miami County contacted the Miami County Sheriff’s Office and the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks to report a group of men poaching turkeys off his property from a vehicle parked on the road, KDWP responding game warden Mitch Falls tells Outdoor Life. MCSO responded to the scene to discover the v ..read more