OutdoorHub
Coyotes Help Track Down Escaped Iowa Inmate
Deputies from the Rock Island County Sheriff's Office in Illinois were able capture escaped prisoner Daniel Ethan Rice last Wednesday, with some rather unique assistance. Police said the escapee would have continued to elude them if not for a pack of coyotes. According to The Muscatine Journal, the 21-year-old inmate of Muscatine County Jail in Iowa was taken to a nearby hospital for a medical emergency last Monday when he escaped....
The Definitive Guide to Harvesting Big Bucks on Small, Suburban Properties
More and more big bucks are showing up in suburban areas. If you find the right small property and get permission to hunt there, you might be surprised to see what walks by your stand.
I’ve seen some really nice deer in some really weird places. Often these places are in parks on the outskirts of cities, and even more often, big bucks live in bedroom communities where the habitat may not be ideal, but the hunting pressure is minimal or even nonexistent.
Take for example the experience of Josh Runksmeier, a friend of mine who was discussing deer with a coworker who told him...
Video: Antler-locked Bull Elk Rescued
David Cullen, a water district inspector in the Las Vegas Valley, recently uploaded this video of two antler-locked bull elk. Cullen and his team came across the animals near a barbed wire fence, which the bulls ripped down over the course of their fight. Becoming antler-locked is one of the risks bulls take when sparring during the rut, and many animals die slowly due to this predicament. There is no way to tell how long these bulls were locked together, but the Cullen's group arrived just in time to save the one elk that was still hanging on.
"I can't help but say this, once free, he...
New Technology Aims to Track Police Firearms
California-based Yardarm Technologies is promising to revolutionize how law enforcement officers handle their firearms, and it all has to do with a small device inserted into the grip of a handgun. The start-up company is currently developing a sensor that will allow police to track and monitor how their firearms are used in real-time. The sensor works by sending information to the "Yardarm Cloud," through which commanders will receive updates on any particular firearm's geo-location, when the firearm is unholstered, when it is being discharged, and even the direction of shots taken.
"The...
The 9 Worst Hollywood Gun Scenes Ever
Hollywood always gets everything right when it comes to guns. That’s why I get most of my gun-related information from watching TV and movies! Even after writing over 1,000 gun-related articles, I still have a lot more to learn from the firearms experts in Hollywood.
Just kidding! On the whole, Hollywood does a terrible job of representing proper gun function and use. I get it, though---movies are supposed to be entertainment, not gun documentaries. But that doesn't mean I can't pick on those folks. After all, while making gazillions glamorizing guns, they can't seem to want to take mine...
One of a Kind? Jeff Foster’s 2011 Albino Mule Deer Buck
Just how rare are albino mule deer? Not even biologists have a definitive answer, yet some speculate that only one in 500,000 mule deer are born albino. Albinism occurs in mule deer far less frequently than in whitetail, and few ever survive into adulthood. That is why when Jeff Foster harvested a young albino mule deer buck, he suspected that it could be the only one of its kind.
"In 2010 me and a couple friends of mine were in Kaycee, Wyoming and I spotted this albino mule deer," Foster told me. "I saw it three times and on the third time I showed it to my friends on the spotting scope...
October Brings Big Bucks to Michigan Bowhunters
October means a lot of things to Michigan outdoor enthusiasts. There are the glorious colors of the leaves as they turn from green to various shades of red, yellow, orange, and brown before falling to the forest floor. There are tremendous fishing opportunities as salmon make their final push. Streams, rivers, and lakes come alive with fish grasping for one last feast before the winds of autumn bring the freeze of winter. For the deer hunter, however, it is the first opportunity to chase the elusive whitetail. Michigan’s archery season is a great opportunity to harvest a deer and this year...
Field Rescue and Evacuation from the Canadian Rockies after a Close Call
Global Rescue member Steven Huskey was on a hunting trip to the Canadian Rockies when suddenly things went very, very wrong.
“During a steep, snowy descent through the Canadian Rockies in pursuit of an elusive bighorn sheep, I found myself sliding down the mountain toward a cliff. As I went over the edge, I instinctively grabbed for a sapling. It was like a made-for-TV-movie.”
With help from Global Rescue, Huskey lived to tell the tale of his ordeal.
“[As I fell,] the momentum of my weight and my pack dislocated my right...
Forest Service: Stop Taking Selfies with Bears
Taking a "selfie" with a mature bear may be a no-brainer for many people---especially those with strong self-preservation instincts---but it seems that the issue was puzzling enough to require clarification from the US Forest Service. The agency's Lake Tahoe Basin branch released a warning last week that advised visitors in the area, specifically in the Taylor Creek Visitor Center, to avoid getting too close to bears for photo-taking opportunities.
“Bears are unpredictable, wild animals and may attack if...
5 Hunting Video Games You Have to Check Out
Hunting is all about ditching the couch for outdoors. So trying to ape all the experiences that come with a hunting trip---the smell of the forest, the weight of the rifle in your hands, and even cleaning the muck off your boots---is a tall order for any video game developer. It's almost counter-intuitive, as one of the biggest draws in hunting is enjoying what America's natural resources have to offer and bonding with your fellow hunters in the field. Yet that didn't stop a host of game studios from offering their own take on a virtual hunt.
If you ever find yourself sitting at home and...
Video: Black Bear Cub Romps Through Rite Aid
This fuzzy critter gave shoppers in Ashland, Oregon a surprise when it decided to visit a local pharmacy. According to KOBI5, this one-month-old black bear cub was eventually captured by police after its romp through a Super 8 Motel and Rite Aid, where it was trapped by a shopping cart. Wildlife officials could not locate the mother and said that due to the cub's small size, it may be undernourished. The bear was later transported to an animal rehabilitation center in Washington.
http://youtu.be/C7ZBC1Evzog...
Video: Is This the Largest Whitetail Buck Shot on Camera?
On October 12, hunter Joe Franz harvested a massive whitetail buck with a muzzleloader on his property in Iowa. A mix of luck, skill, and incredible patience has awarded this hunter with the deer of a lifetime, but it was the foresight of the Trophy Pursuit team that put this incredible shot on camera. With a reported preliminary score of 258 and 7/8, this buck could very well be the largest ever taken while being filmed.
http://youtu.be/mg7Z4juaGo8
"We are very excited to announce that Trophy Pursuit has filmed the harvest of what we think could be the largest wild, 100% fair chase...
Time to Pitch In and Help Clean Up the Woods
In 2013 all federal spending for domestic land, water, ocean, fish, and wildlife programs constituted 1.02 percent of the federal budget, half the percentage of what it was two decades ago. These budget cuts left some wildlands management agencies with little funds. Consequently some efforts are being made to try transfer federal lands to states, or even private interests. The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and other conservation groups are opposed to this transfer. Part of...
‘Duck Dynasty’ Star Suffers Seizure while Deer Hunting
Jep Robertson, the younger brother of Duck Commander CEO Willie Robertson and a cast member on the popular A&E show Duck Dynasty, was hospitalized last week when he had a seizure in a treestand while hunting for deer. A representative for the family told US Weekly that Robertson is now recovering and that thankfully, friends and family were nearby when the incident occurred and were able to rush the hunter to a hospital.
"Earlier this...
Smith & Wesson M&P10 Rifle
These days, AR-15 aficionados have a lot of options to choose from. Shooters looking to purchase modern versions of the classic design can choose from budget guns priced at $500 (and sometimes below) all the way up to premium precision rifles with four-digit price tags---and hundreds of other builds in between.
More gun companies have also begun to offer variants of the AR-10, Eugene Stoner’s .308 caliber predecessor of the AR-15. Smith & Wesson’s foray into this realm is the Read more »
Is Your Slug Gun Ready for Deer Season?
Slug hunting for whitetail deer has experienced something of a renaissance in recent years. Building a slug rig used to simply consist of swapping in a short, open-choked barrel with rifle sights on your duck or pheasant gun. We relied on molded rifling on the slug itself to impart spin to the projectile and create some resemblance of accuracy. These were 100-yard hunting rigs at best---often more like 50 to 75 yard rigs. That big “pumpkin ball” carried enough energy to bring down a deer farther out, but consistent accuracy just wasn't there.
Then came rifled slug barrels, and the...
Study: Ancient “Megashark” May Have Kept Whales Small by Eating Them
Few fish are as steeped in myth and conjecture as the megalodon, a giant shark that lived roughly 28 million to a few million years ago. This fearsome-looking shark is the subject of numerous documentaries, rumored sightings, and even well-funded search expeditions. While the species may be extinct, its legend certainly lives on. A recently published study in the Journal PLOS ONE has added to that reputation by suggesting that these deadly predators were the reason why whales were much smaller...
Lost Canyon Cave & Nature Trail: An Astounding Adventure
Johnny Morris lives a life committed to making the outdoors accessible for all. A new feature in the Table Rock area that's been seven years in the making by Morris opened a few months ago: the Lost Canyon Cave & Nature Trail at Top of the Rock Ozarks Heritage Preserve in Ridgedale, Missouri. Lost Canyon demonstrates the famed outdoorsman’s commitment for all to enjoy great outdoor adventures.
Lost Canyon Cave & Nature Trail doesn't have much to do with hunting or fishing, two things the founder of Bass Pro Shops is known...
Video: Epic Time-lapse Wildebeest Migration
This amazing time-lapse footage was shot over five days in Northern Serengeti, Tanzania. The Serengeti wildebeest migration involves over 1 million of these animals and thanks to Will Burrard-Lucas we get to see the true enormity of it in time-lapse form.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gvpk8fpyVY...
St. George Arms Introduces New Lightweight, Bullpup .50 Semiauto
Most modern bullpups are chambered in 5.56x45mm, offering users controllable carbine-length firearms with rifle-length ballistics. We’re seeing something of a bullpup golden age right now with more military and semiautomatic variants of these compact rifles coming to market than ever before. The last few years have seen some truly remarkable achievements in design.
One of the rifles on display at last month’s Bullpup Convention in Kentucky that's evidence of this...