The MeatEater

This week on Rut Fresh, Jake is joined by Anthony Warren fresh off his biggest Kansas buck yet, Lane Housner of In the Presence breaking down what he’s been across the country, and Shane Albert of Illinois with a boots-on-the-ground report from farm country. Together they dive into current deer movement, what patterns are emerging, and the key intel you need to stay confident heading into the coming week.

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Thanks to our sponsor Land.com

Spencer Neuharth hosts MeatEater Trivia with Randall Williams, Austin "Chilly" Chleborad, Hanzi Deschermeier, Roman Schnobrich, and Alex Plachta.

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Hunting stories stay eternally ingrained in our minds. Photos help keep those memories alive past our lifetimes (and also make you stay a bit more honest about how big that buck really was). Whether it's from a trip long ago or a more recent hunt from this past season, it’s fun to look at an image and be transported right back into that moment.

You’ve seen us in the field plenty—now we want to see your hunting stories, as well as fishing, foraging, or cooking-over-a-fire tales. That’s why we’re running the second annual MeatEater Photo Contest, because we want to see how you enjoy the outdoors.

Upload your favorite photo in the comment section below for a chance to win a $50 or $500 gift card to First Lite. To enter the contest, all you have to do is drop a photo in the comment section below. You can also include a brief story if you’d like to add some background.

If you don’t already have one, you will need to make an account on the site to comment and upload photos. Also, please only upload one photo per day. The contest will run from Wednesday, November 19, to Wednesday, November 26. You can upload photos any time during that week to be considered for a prize.

We’ll be picking a random-draw Daily Winner who will receive a $50 First Lite gift card. The Crew Pick Winner and Overall Winner (People’s Choice) will each receive a $500 gift card. The Overall Winner will be determined by the photo that receives the most votes by the end of the week. To vote for your favorite images, just click the thumbs-up icon.

To view the official rules of the contest, click here.

Feature images are from the first six seasons of MeatEater. You can watch them right here on our YouTube channel. Big thanks to Stor-Mor Portable Buildings for sponsoring this year’s contest!

Grizzly bears emerged in North America nearly two-hundred thousand years ago and became the Lord Beast of the American West. Native people regarded them as formidable animal gods. Europeans and Americans thought of them as wildlands monsters that needed to be eliminated. Saved before they disappeared, today grizzly bears are surviving, spreading, and distinguish the Mountain West from all other regions in the Lower 48.

Thank you to our sponsor Velvet Buck.

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Check out more MeatEater's American History audio originals "The Long Hunters" and "Mountain Men"

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This week Reid and Dan host multi-platinum artist and female sensation Raelynn out in God's Country. All we can say is buckle up and get ready to one of our wildest episodes of GCP yet. Raelynn is a force to be reckoned with from her stories, to her songwriting, to her insane vocal talent. She talks about touring with Jason Aldean this past year, what it feels like rejoining her label Big Machine Music Group, and balancing it all as a mom in this industry. They discuss how long she would last as an Amish Mom and the episode ends with even Reid and Dan feeling like a redneck woman.

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This week, Tony explains the reality of the lock-down phase, and what most hunters need to do in order to fill their tags right now.

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The first known death from the tick-borne meat allergy Alpha-Gal Syndrome (AGS) has been reported this month in New Jersey. In September 2024, a 47-year-old airline pilot returned home after an afternoon barbecue, and despite feeling well enough to mow the lawn and read a newspaper, he began to suffer severe abdominal distress and was found dead by his son in the family’s bathroom later that evening.

The man had no history of other health conditions, and medical examiners could not determine the cause of death, listing it as “unexplained” on the man’s autopsy report. By chance, the man’s wife discussed the details of the tragedy with doctor and researcher Erin McFeely. Based on the facts of the case, McFeely suspected that an allergic reaction may have been the cause of death, and she contacted her colleague Thomas Platts-Mills, the University of Virginia allergist who discovered the link between AGS and Lone Star tick bites in 2002.

Platts-Mills called for analysis of a blood sample from the deceased pilot and discovered an extremely high level of the enzyme tryptase, evidence of severe anaphylactic shock. He told NBC News, “The level he had is basically only seen in fatal cases of anaphylaxis. His level was 2,000. The highest level I’ve seen in practice of a person who survived is 100.”

The same analysis also discovered the presence of antibodies to the alpha-gal carbohydrate, providing further evidence that the tick-borne illness was the cause of death, likely brought on by a hamburger the man had eaten at the barbecue that day. The man’s family confirmed that he had suffered from a similar adverse reaction to eating a steak two weeks before the fatal incident.

Probing further for the cause of the infection, researchers discovered that in the summer of 2023, the man had suffered welts on his ankles, which the family had attributed to chigger bites but were more likely to be bites from Lone Star tick larvae.

In the study published on the case in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, McFeely and Platts-Mills emphasized how few doctors know what AGS even is: according to the CDC, 42% had never heard of AGS, and another 35% didn’t have confidence that they could diagnose it or treat people suffering from the condition.

This creates a real danger of people being infected without knowing it. Referring to the New Jersey case, Platts-Mills said, quote, “The tragedy is that [doctors] didn’t think of that episode as anaphylaxis, and therefore didn’t connect it to the beef at the time.”

The implications for hunters are clear. First, we are more likely than anyone to be in areas with ticks and to be hands-on with their most common host, the white-tailed deer. We also have a lot to lose if we can’t eat red meat anymore.

That means you should be applying the tick repellent permethrin to all your hunting clothing and boots, and always have a loved one–or at least someone who’s okay seeing you in your birthday suit–conduct a tick check on you when you return from the field.

News like this should also prompt hunters in cities to seek out opportunities in suburban and semi-rural places where deer populations are overwhelming local residents. One source cited by the University of Virginia study called deer in New Jersey an “unsustainable statewide emergency.”

If you live in an apartment in New York City, DC, Atlanta, Houston, or any other part of the country without a ton of public land nearby, conquer your shyness and call up your aunt who lives in a nearby subdivision. Find out if she or her friends are tired of having their landscaping eaten to the ground. It might not be as sexy as chasing Dall sheep in Alaska, but there are a lot of animals right next door to you, people are having a tough time dealing with them, and you could establish some relationships that fill your freezer for years to come.

If you take a peek inside the average hunter’s gun safe, you’ll find many of the same popular cartridges: .30-06 Springfield, .308 Win., .270 Win., .243 Win., .30-30 Win., .300 Win. Mag., and a few others.

You don’t need me to sing the praises of those old-school cartridges. They’ve been hammering big game for decades, and the world doesn’t need another “10 Best” list that includes the 7mm Rem. Mag.

Instead, I want to point your attention to a few options off the beaten path. These cartridges aren’t obsolete like those you’ll find in the Forgotten Cartridges series. But even though they’ve been around for decades, they’re far less popular than the heavy hitters I mentioned at the top. That makes them an ideal choice for anyone who’s looking to spice up their gun cabinet without making the leap to the ultra-modern.

The 35 Remington was first introduced all the way back in 1906, which will make it a whopping 120 years old next year. It uses a rimless bottleneck case designed to accept a .358-caliber bullet weighing anywhere from 150 to 200 grains (though these days the 200-grain is the most popular). Hornady’s LEVERevolution loads can push a 200-grain bullet 2225 fps at the muzzle, which results in 2198 foot-pounds (ft.-lbs.) of energy. It’s most famous for being chambered in lever action rifles, and it’s an excellent big woods cartridge for deer and bear in areas where a long shot isn’t necessary.

It may be on the brink of obscurity now, but there was a time when its main rival was the still-popular .30-30 Winchester. Some preferred the larger diameter and greater energy of the 35 Remington while others preferred the faster velocity and flatter trajectory of the .30-30. But both were chambered in famous lever guns like the Marlin 336 and were used in similar capacities in the field. Why the 35 Remington faded and the .30-30 Win. remained in the spotlight is a topic for another day. But if you get a chance to get your hands on a 35 Remington rifle, you’ll still be able to find ammunition and you won’t be disappointed in how it performs.

35 Remington 200g FTX

Cost: $2-$3.40/round

Availability: 6 options at Scheels

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This 6.5mm cartridge was developed by Norway and Sweden all the way back in 1894, and it’s often used as evidence that the current 6.5mm craze is nothing new. It’s not a bad point. European hunters and sport shooters have been using the 6.5mm Swedish Mauser for over 100 years, and it remains popular to this day. North American hunters didn’t catch on until the influx of Swedish Mauser rifles after World War II. Frank Barnes reports in “Cartridges of the World” that the Canadians were the first to appreciate the benefits of the cartridge in the 1950s and 1960s, and Americans eventually came to the same conclusion in the 1970s and 1980s.

But the lack of American-made factory rifles kept it from really taking off, which is a shame. It boasts excellent accuracy, especially with 140-grain bullets, and like the 6.5 Creedmoor, is a fantastic deer cartridge. It can’t quite keep up with the Creedmoor from a velocity perspective, as it starts at 2,600 fps with a 140-grain bullet and dips under 2,000 fps around 400 yards. But that moderate velocity produces an equally moderate recoil, which makes the Swedish Mauser pleasant to shoot and promotes in-the-field accuracy.

6.5x55 Swedish Mauser 140g BTHP

Cost: $1-$4.35/round

Availability: 33 options at Midway USA

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As I pointed out in this comparison between old and new cartridges, the .260 Remington is nearly identical to the 6.5 Creedmoor out to about 600 yards. It launches a 140-grain bullet 2735 fps at the muzzle and maintains a speed of over 2,000 fps out to 500 yards. Like the Creedmoor, it drops about 50 inches at 500 yards and has drifted about 15 in a 10mph crosswind. What’s more, because it utilizes the ultra-popular 6.5mm diameter bullet, there are plenty of high-BC options for handloaders looking to squeeze a little more out of this less-common cartridge.

Its release in 1997 makes it a bit less “old-school” than many of the other options on this list, but at nearly 30 years old, it’s had enough trips around the sun that its back hurts for no reason. It was also loaded as a wildcat cartridge for many years prior to its official release, so I think it qualifies as at least middle-aged.

260 Remington 140g OTM

Cost: $2-$4.30/round

Availability: 10 options at Scheels

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The .280 Ackley Improved was the only Ackley Improved cartridge to make the jump from the wildcatter’s reloading bench to the ammunition factory. As such, I think it deserves a mention as one of the most interesting–and effective–7mm cartridges on the market. It does indeed outperform the .280 Remington: all things being equal, it increases muzzle velocity by about 100 feet-per-second (fps), clocking in at nearly 2,900 fps with a 162-grain bullet and over 3,000 fps with a 150-grain bullet. It’s good for everything in North America up to and including elk and moose, and it has a reputation for excellent accuracy.

Nosler released the first factory options in 2007, but the cartridge’s inventor, P.O. Ackley, invented the .280 AI decades prior.

.280 Ackley Improved 162g ELD-X

Cost: $2.75-$4/round

Availability: 9 options at Scheels

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Thirty-five caliber cartridges might be on their last legs (the .357 Mag. excepted, of course), but much like the 35 Remington, the 35 Whelen is still chugging along. The 35 Whelen is simply a 30-06 Springfield necked up to accept a 35-caliber bullet. It can fire a 200-grain pill 2,800 fps at the muzzle, which produces a whopping 3,481 ft-lbs. of energy. Its relatively low BC bullets lose more energy than more modern options, and it’s dipped below 1,200 ft-lbs. by 500 yards. But devastating velocity and energy at close-to-medium ranges give it enough juice to take all North American big game and most African game as well. Legendary cartridge designer and author Frank Barnes has called it “one of the best balanced and most flexible medium bores for North American big game,” and it hasn’t lost all of its sheen despite trends in modern cartridge development. It’s still readily available online, with seven options at Scheels and 14 at Midway USA.

Even better, Barnes reports that P.O. Ackley’s Improved version of the 35 Whelen increases the velocity of the original and fixes a poor headspacing problem. If you want to pull the trigger on the 35-caliber big game cartridge, getting a rifle chambered in .35 Whelen AI might be a good place to start.

35 Whelen 200g Fusion Soft Point

Cost: $2-$4.45/round

Availability: 7 options at Scheels

Buy Now

This list is by no means exhaustive, and I’m looking forward to hearing about other options in the comments. You might also scoff at the idea that the 35 Remington or 35 Whelen would be included in a list of obscure cartridges. But in 2025 and among hunters under 40, none of these five would win a popularity contest–and that’s a shame.

The good news is that it’s not too late to adopt these old-school options. You can find rifles chambered in all five, though you might need to resort to the used gun counter. It’s also easy to order factory-loaded cartridges, so you don’t need to fire up the reloading bench to fire rounds downrange. Most importantly, whether you like to hunt deer in the big woods or elk in the Rocky Mountains, you can find something on this list that will deliver excellent performance in the field.

It’s comforting to use the same rifle year after year. But variety is the spice of life (or so I’ve heard), so maybe this is the year you try something new–or, at least, new to you.

This week on the podcast, Cal covers the troubling rise of AI animals, an even more troubling case involving the killing of two pets dogs, a quick profile of the new leader of the Bureau of Land Management, and much more.

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Steven Rinella talks with Solomon David AKA "The Gar Guy," Spencer Neuharth, Brody Henderson, Phil Taylor, and Corinne Schneider. 

Topics: The GarLab; the whole "rough fish"/"trash fish" thing; defining non-game fish; a bow fishing conundrum; the gar wars; seven different species of gar, the record alligator gar; an ancient fish, gar native range; use of gar armor; and more. 

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