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

A series of blasts shocked residents of a rural area north of Deer River, Minnesota, roughly six weeks ago. The source? State foresters with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources using dynamite to decimate two enclosed deer stands built illegally on trees in Bowstring State Forest. The explosions were strong enough to knock the drink off resident Jim Fena’s countertop, he tells Outdoor Life.  “I live less than a mile from there,” Fena says. “It was late morning or early afternoon, and I thought it was a jet breaking a sound barrier. I didn’t really know what it was. But the window ..read more

The hunting community is experiencing whiplash after several articles appeared on mainstream news sites this week announcing that two hunters have died after eating venison from deer with chronic wasting disease. Wildlife experts say there is no evidence to support these claims. Viral news website The Daily Mail published a story on Thursday titled “Two hunters ‘become first Americans to die from ZOMBIE DEER disease’ after eating infected venison.” The coverage is based on a research abstract published in Neurology on April 9 titled “Two Hunters from the Same Lodge Afflicted with Sporadic CJD ..read more

On Friday, the Indiana Department of Natural Resources announced that the state’s first positive chronic wasting disease test has shown up in a free-roaming deer that was harvested near the Michigan border. The hunter shot the infected buck in LaGrange County during the 2023 season. The buck tested positive for the disease twice in two separate tests, DNR deer program lead and biologist Joe Caudell tells Outdoor Life.  The first test happened at the Animal Disease Diagnostic Lab at Purdue University. After the test came back positive, researchers sent the sample to the National Veterinary ..read more

Some folks take shed hunting more seriously than actual hunting. Scroll through the following photos and you’ll begin to see why. And while most shed hunters will never pick up a set of record-class antlers, we can all still dream. And in the meantime, we can also check out some of the white gold other hunters once hoisted from a spring field or wood lot.  As a way to celebrate shed hunting season, I worked with Antlers by Klaus—a renowned antler reproduction company—to compile some of the biggest, freakiest, free-ranging whitetail sheds ever found. Thanks to photos of the reproductions ..read more

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police are seeking information about a mass antler theft that took place at a residence in B.C. earlier this month. The thief stole 14 deer mounts, along with a bear hide, a wolf hide, a sheep hide, a mountain goat hide, and multiple boxes of .22 ammo. Authorities with the RCMP first received a report about the break-in on Feb. 9. It took place at an abandoned property on 98 Street in Fort St. John, according to a press release from the agency. Officers arrived at the residence to find the rear door kicked in and all the deer mounts missing from the walls. A few of t ..read more

Pennsylvania resident Joshua Wingenroth was convicted of multiple wildlife violations in Lancaster County District Court on Thursday for using a drone to help recover a deer. It’s the first time anyone in the state has been cited and tried for using the technology to recover a game animal. Wingenroth, who owns Wingy Drone Services, tells Outdoor Life that he plans to appeal the decision at the state court level. The four charges against Wingenroth stemmed from a December sting operation by the Pennsylvania Game Commission in which an officer called Wingenroth pretending to be a hunter who had ..read more

Imagine you’ve got two deer properties. Each has a mock scrape on it, which looks like most scrapes — except for one small difference. Instead of carefully breaking branches to create a licking branch, you hung a rope above each scrape. It dangles freely at the same height and position as a normal licking branch. You’ve also placed cameras at each scrape and discovered that a bunch of does and bucks are visiting the first one. Photos from the second scrape are even better: There’s a good shooter buck regularly hitting the scrape. The problem is, it’s always at night. (This is common: Research ..read more

Charleen Parten was an adult-onset hunter before it was trendy.  Deer hunting was part of her retirement plan from a life of farming in southern Arkansas. The kids had graduated from school and were out of the family house, and Parten golfed, but she wanted to spend more time outside. So she started hunting with her husband, Lowell. If only the pair had known then what Parten would go on to accomplish: 20 years of certified “triple trophies,” or killing three deer in a single season with three different methods of take. As the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission recently reported, the agenc ..read more

Mike Yoder is a small business owner facing a big problem. He’s built a successful model around new technology that could change the way hunters recover their deer in the field. But while the demand for this tech grows, the service he provides has come under scrutiny from state agencies and some members of the hunting community. He’s now involved in legal battles spanning multiple states as a larger debate around the tech rages on.              Yoder runs Drone Deer Recovery, an Ohio-based company that specializes in recovering h ..read more